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Tsukishima doesn’t think much of it when he gets back from the Tokyo training camp and can’t find his mp3 player right away. It’s late, he’s tired, and despite the fact that he’s an impeccable packer and should be concerned that something is not where he left it, he’s not. Yamaguchi had gone through his bag five minutes after they’d started the trip back to Miyaji because he was exhausted, everyone was too loud, and he knew that Tsukishima kept a stash of rather high quality ear plugs just for tuning out the louder members of their ragtag volleyball team.
So all in all, Tsukishima wasn’t concerned. They’d been given a few days off of practice to rest up and think through what they’d learned from the training camp and he was sure that he’d find it tucked away in the bottom of his bag.
The next morning came and Tsukishima was faced with an empty bag, a pile of dirty laundry to take to the bathroom, and a still missing mp3 player. Luckily he still had his headphones and his cellphone so he wasn’t entirely without his music, but… there were things on that mp3 player he’d rather no one know of.
There were… a lot of things on that mp3 player that Tsukishima would rather no one know of. The first that comes to mind is the playlist full of sugar-sweet pop songs that Yamaguchi loved and made sure to get stuck in Tsukishima’s head. The second that comes to mind is the playlist full of original songs that he was still working out the kinks in and really wanted no one to know existed.
The third…
Tsukishima groaned into his pillow. His life was over.
“Kei!” His mom called from the kitchen. “Come down already, dinner’s ready! I hope you’re hungry, this new recipe made more food than I thought it would.”
Correction. Now his life was over.
“Ooooooooo!” Hinata all but screamed as he raced into the clubroom. Tanaka and Nishinoya sat huddled in a corner and practice wasn’t due to start for a while so the two upperclassmen were the only ones in the room.
Kageyama shouted curses from behind him as the two stumbled into the clubroom, out of breath from their latest race. Kageyama was the first to notice the little silver box in his senpai’s hands and ambled over slowly to see what it was, Hinata hopping along behind him.
“What’s that?” The setter asked, eyeing it suspiciously. It looked familiar but he couldn’t tell from where.
Nishinoya looked over his shoulder at the two, brandishing what Kageyama now saw to be an mp3 player like he’d won a first prize trophy. “This,” he began, “my adorable kyouhai, is a rare relic of the Karasuno volleyball club. I dare say it is almost as elusive as the Holy Grail.”
“Nay,” Tanaka supplied solemnly. “We’ve discovered the lost city of Atlantis. Who knows what treasures await us there?”
The pair burst into proud laughter, leaving their underclassmen to cock their heads to the side like puppies, eyeing the mp3 player like it might sprout a human head. “I don’t get it.”
Nishinoya and Tanaka glanced at each other before breaking into matching grins. “This.” Nishinoya said, holding up the mp3 player like he was auditioning for a role in The Lion King. “Is not just any mp3 player.”
The pair allowed the silence to linger for a moment, building the suspense. It seemed like entire eons had passed, waiting for the grand reveal.
Tanaka had just opened his mouth to finally reveal the secret, when the clubroom door opened and Sugawara entered the room. “Oh.” He said, looking up from where he was taking off his shoes to see his four underclassman in an admittedly normal position. He blinked, a wrinkle between his brows, before he dropped the bomb.
“Is that Tsukishima’s mp3 player?”
A moment of silence passed before Nishinoya and Tanaka let out matching groans, bemoaning the ruin of their grand reveal.
Sugawara smiled sheepishly before coming closer, taking the device from the floor where it had been dropped when the two jumped at each other in their grief. “Where’d you get Tsukishima’s mp3 player?”
Tanaka sniffled, pulling away from the hug. “Take-chan found it on the bus the other day. He gave it to us when we got to the gym since he didn’t know who it belonged to. It looks like it’s Tsukishima’s but we’re not sure.”
Sugawara hummed. “You didn’t check it to see?”
Nishinoya coughed. “We couldn’t figure out how to open it.” He said, almost proudly.
Sugawara laughed at that while Hinata and Kageyama came around to flank his sides, peering over to look at the blank screen. Sugawara pressed a little button on the corner which made it light up, powering on.
Tanaka and Nishinoya squawked indignantly but also came around to peer over Sugawara’s shoulders to get a glimpse of the screen. Sugawara shifted through menus, apparently familiar with the software set up, finally coming to a list of what appeared to be playlists.
“Well, I think you might be right. I can’t think of anyone else on our team who’d have a playlist titled ‘Yamaguchi must never know I downloaded his shitty pop music’. Can you?”
The four boys shook their heads. “These titles are weird.” Hinata said.
“What’s weird about them?” Kageyama asked.
“They’re so long.” Hinata drawled in response. “Like this one ‘Sometimes I can’t tell if I downloaded these songs ironically or not’. What does that even mean?”
“How do you title your playlists, Shouyou?” Nishinoya asked, reaching forward to click on the playlist Hinata had pointed out, to find that it contained nothing but horribly sappy love songs. Well then.
“Emoticons.” Hinata answered, clicking on another playlist titled ‘Why Yamaguchi is no longer allowed to make me watch musicals’ and featuring the entire soundtrack from all three High School Musicals.
Kageyama snorted – at the playlist or Hinata he wasn’t actually sure.
“Tsukishima sure has a lot of playlists, though. It says here he has 2,711 songs on this thing.” Sugawara whistled. “That’s a lot.”
Tanaka and Nishinoya nodded in unison while Kageyama leaned forward slightly. “What’s in that playlist? ‘These goddamn crows, I swear’. What’s that all about?”
Sugawara hummed, clicking on the playlist. “You don’t think it’s about us, do you?”
Hinata leaned forwards and began reading off song titles. “Centuries, Titanium, Through the Fire and the Flames…” I think I’ve heard of these before.
“Oh!” Tanaka lurched forward, pointing at a song further down the list. “Bohemian Rhapsody! That’s the song we all sang in the showers at training camp. Damn, that was awesome.”
Sugawara glanced at him. “You mean the song that you all butchered in the showers.” He looked back at the song list, flipping through it. “Was Tsukishima in the showers during that?”
Kageyama nodded. “Yeah, he was in the stall next to mine complaining the whole time about how terrible you guys sounded.” He tilted his head. “Does that mean that this playlist is about us, after all?”
Sugawara opened his mouth to answer when the door burst open to reveal a somewhat disheveled Yamaguchi. “Please tell me I’m not late.” He rushed to say, bending over to hurriedly pull his shoes off. Shen he straightened, he looked around. “Um… Am I… early?”
Sugawara nodded, a smile blossoming on his face to replace his shock. “Yeah. Practice is still a while away. Where’s Tsukishima? You guys usually come to practice together.”
Yamaguchi took a deep breath and smiled shakily, moving to put his stuff away. “Tsukki got a really bad stomach ache from a new recipe his mom wanted to try. Tsukki’s mom isn’t really that good at new recipes. She gets the hang of them after a while and doesn’t try new things too often but her first tries are always awful.” Yamaguchi shivered at the thought. “Apparently Tsukki had to eat two whole extra servings because she accidentally made too much and is currently incapacitated.”
Yamaguchi blinked. “Which reminds me, have you guys seen Tsukki’s mp3 player? He said he couldn’t find… it.” Yamaguchi’s eyes landed on the mp3 player in Sugawara’s hands and his face relaxed a little bit. “Oh good, you found it. I was so worried it would be lost forever because I knocked it out of his bag when I was looking for earplugs.”
The four that had stood in silence looked at each other and then towards Yamaguchi. “You know, Yamaguchi.” Sugawara began gently. “There’s some really interesting stuff on this thing.”
“There’s a whole playlist full of High School Musical songs!” Hinata blurted out, too pent up to keep it in any longer. “Isn’t that ridiculous?!”
Yamaguchi blinked and then smiled slightly, bringing a hand up to rub at the back of his neck. “Yeah, I know. I made him watch all the movies with me once. Bad idea. Tsukki’s really good at auditory relations or whatever you call it. He had the songs stuck in his head for months.”
“Auditory relations?” Kageyama asked, tilting his head. “What’s that?”
Yamaguchi smiled, a slight flush rising to his cheeks. “It’s not really an official term or anything. Just the word I made up when Tsukki told me about it. A lot of his memories are linked to songs. Like situations or people that the songs remind him of or situations that he was in that he actually heard the song in. There’s probably a playlist in there about his brother and his family and whatnot. Did you find a weird playlist or something?”
Tanaka snickered. “You mean besides the mountains of bubblegum pop and sappy love songs?”
Nishinoya joined him in laughter while Sugawara rolled his eyes and showed Yamaguchi the playlist they’d been on when he came in. “This one. Do you think it’s about us?”
Yamaguchi blinked, glancing at the playlist title and the heaps of songs listed under it. He lifted his hand to his mouth to stifle his giggles. “Oh yeah, totally. Tsukki is surprisingly sappy in his own way, after all.”
Kageyama glared at one of the songs. “I don’t think I want to know which of those is about me.”
Yamaguchi chuckled at took a closer look. “Probably that one.” He said, pointing at a particular title that made Kageyama’s nose wrinkle in distaste. “It seems like something he’d choose.”
Kageyama shrugged and walked away, followed by Hinata and the other two trouble makers as all four began to change into their practice clothes. Sugawara handed the mp3 player to Yamaguchi and with promises not to reveal the contents of the mp3 player with anyone on threat of Sugawara’s patented Disappointed Mom face, practice continued as normal.
Everyone else arrived none the wiser and when it had ended Yamaguchi delivered the mp3 player to a still miserable Tsukishima without so much as a peep about who had found it or what had been found on it.
And if Sugawara had taken to humming Mary Poppins songs around Tsukishima well then, no one needed to know.