Chapter Text
01. a silent Spring
It’s just about Spring when they move to Karasuno in April. The weather mourns for them with endless rain: when you go from four people in a small house to two people in a big one, it feels like something was stolen. Tsukishima Kei doesn’t know how to tell his mother that. Instead, they play polite strangers, shuffling through moving boxes with a kind of robotic teamwork they can’t seem to shake. They tackle the kitchen first, shoving rattling utensils into drawers and checking the water that flows from the sink. It tastes kind of stale, like cold metal. He swallows it down anyways, smiling sparsely at his mother when she offers him the last tangerine they’d packed for the journey up.
“It’s okay. You have it.”
She nods and leaves it to roll around on the countertop.
They tackle the main room next: There’s no couch just yet, it’ll have to be bought later. Instead, he and his mother set up the rickety, stub-legged kotatsu in the middle of the room. She doesn’t open the blinds and he doesn’t ask to. Fuzzy evening light diffuses across the floor in gray swathes. It leaves the room pallid. He looks at his mother in grayscale, laughs at something she says, then moves on to the next box.
“Do you want the radio on, Kei?”
No, but she does.
“Sure.”
Akiteru would have wanted music too— his brother always opted for something peppy and vibrant to spur on whatever they were doing. Their mother isn’t as particular. She tunes the radio in to whatever channel they can pull this high up in the Karasuno hills. They start sweeping the linoleum tiles to Zard, her voice echoing and bouncing off the empty halls. His father would’ve liked this too. He’d always preferred the quiet, like Kei, but sometimes, back when he’d come back from work before the sun set, they’d all dance together to whatever was on the radio. Usually Zard. Always Zard.
“You have your own room now, Kei. Isn’t that nice? We can get you decorations from that market we saw in town.”
It had been a nuisance stripping the posters from his and Akiteru’s shared room’s walls when they had been packing. The rectangular gaps were patchy and unsatisfying. Some had ripped. He thinks he’d rather not. He’ll leave the walls bare.
“Ah, don’t forget this, Kei.” She tosses him something with a grin.
“Hm,” He catches the volleyball with two hands and tucks it against his side, muscle memory. It presses into his ribs. “I can bring the other bags upstairs.”
“Yes, please.” His mother smiles. She’d tied her short hair back at some point. Wisps of it escape the elastic and frame her round chin. “Start setting up your room. I’ll work on dinner.”
He nods and watches her disappear into the fluorescence of their new kitchen. The volleyball under his arm is worn and the material of it frays off in gray patches. Tsukishima sets it down by the boxes next to the kotatsu. He picks up, instead, the two futons for him and his mother, and starts the trek up their narrow staircase. Keeping his head bent, he feels for each step in the dark, turning blindly into the first room. His new room.
It smells like nothing. Like dust and empty. Like blank space. He should probably like that, but something about the walls and bare floors feels sterile. On the far wall, a rectangular window cuts a shape of that fuzzy, distilled light and splays it out on the wooden floor. Outside, a gray wall of clouds spells continued rain, but it’s quiet enough now that he can hear the sounds of his new neighborhood. A dog barks from somewhere. Someone rides their bike down the wet tarmac and the cycle tires crunch over gravel. Tsukishima drops one futon and rolls it over to the side. He doesn’t want to start unpacking his things. Instead, he leaves.
Walking to his parents’— no, his mother’s— new room, he grabs a broom left in the hall. Her room is smaller than his. He hadn’t realized. But, she had been insistent on the arrangements. Something about how she didn’t need a desk and he was almost double her height, a gross overexaggeration. If that’s how she wants it though, he won’t protest. All he can do is sweep out the thin film of dust in the room and lay her futon flat on the ground. He pulls up the window blinds to match his because she’ll like the view of the plush grass behind their house. He stares at it, the way the grass forms a flat mat from the light rain and the mist herds the fencing around their house. Looking further, he can just see the squat houses of his neighbors. Each structure is not quite the same, not quite dissimilar though, mostly cut from the same cloth but patched over diversely with different generations of families. It’s silent and still here in Karasuno. For Tsukishima, it should mean peace, but he can’t help but miss the noise of Sendai. The cars, the lights, the sirens. The smell of smoke. The people. The chatter.
Suddenly, a break in the lull-spell over the neighborhood. Someone gangly and tall clambers over the bamboo fencing of a far house, silhouette slowly pulled into color by the weak street lights. Tsukishima watches with dull amusement as they struggle with the short fencing, catching their jeans on the edge, thick sweater snagging next. With a faint shout, the boy falls from the fence and out of sight.
Oh well. He’ll be fine.
“Oh, thank you, Kei.”
Tsukishima turns to his mother, who had been strangely quiet on the steps. Her face, still gray in the light, is smiling and so he tries to match it. “I tried,” he says. His lips aren’t quite pulling up and his voice sounds flat. He distracts her with a gesture to the broom in his hand and the floor under them. It’s dust-free at least, and he’d fluffed her futon up. Akiteru might’ve been better at this.
“It’s good,” She says, “Did you set up your things? The rice is almost ready.”
“Almost,” he half-lies, “I can finish after.” His mother doesn’t pry. They head downstairs.
The fridge is empty, but they’d packed a few dried foods that had sat in the cupboards of their old home in Sendai. His mother made it work. She’d always been adamant about their meals being proper. Today might be the first time she lets that go, or maybe it was the start of a change. It doesn’t bother him much. He doesn’t plan on needing two lunches the way Akiteru did.
“Here you go,” She ladles soup over the fresh rice in his bowl. Mushrooms float at the surface. He pokes at them, eyes firmly affixed on his spoon and the table beneath them. It’s quiet now. Zard still plays from the radio on the floor. Boxes surround them like high walls, and the kitchen feels smaller. If Tsukishima closes his eyes, he could pretend Akiteru was to his right and they were waiting for their father to come home.
“Are you excited for school?” His mother asks. She blows on her spoon. When he looks up, she’s watching him with familiar brown eyes.
“Mhm,” He answers. He takes a bite so she won’t expect more.
“Akiteru told me they had a volleyball team at Karasuno Highschool,” She continues, “Apparently they were quite good when he was in highschool.” Her words get quieter. He can barely hear the last part of her sentence, but he gets the gist.
“Hm,” Tsukishima says. He swallows, then spoons a little more into his mouth.
“We’ll get your uniform tomorrow and a few more things. I think I saw a store called Shimada-mart? I’ll give you a list of things we need. I have to meet our neighbors so I won’t be able to come, is that okay?”
“Yes,” He drags the last mushroom to his mouth and swallows it down without chewing. It slides down his throat, slick, and he feels like it lodges somewhere deep in his chest. “That’s okay.”
“Okay,” She smiles. In the light of their kitchen, her eyes look tired with dark crescents beneath them. “Okay. Good. I’m excited, Kei.” Another beat of silence he can’t quite bring himself to break, “Papa said he might call us on Saturday. You can tell him all about Orientation and your first day.”
He stares at his bowl, still half-full with rice. She won’t like it, but he can’t bring himself to eat anymore. He’s so full his chest aches.
“Okay,” he says. “I have to finish unpacking my things. Thank you for dinner.”
His mother eyes his bowl, then looks at him again. She reads something in his face, something he can never quite see when he looks in the mirror. She opens her mouth to say something and he freezes in his chair, ready. Then, she decides otherwise.
“Okay, Kei. Goodnight.”
— — —
The week passes in a blink. Orientation in an unexciting blur. Tsukishima had planned his walking route and got there too early; a mistake because he’d then had to actively dodge the more extroverted of his classmates. Their faces pull up as vague shapes in his memory, the conversations utterly forgettable. He’d avoided the club tables entirely, gluing himself to a side wall and plastering a look of blatant disinterest on his face. It had worked for the most part. Only the basketball captain had been brave enough to come up to him, giving up after a particularly disappointing assessment of Tsukishima’s athletic ability.
Well, don’t worry if you’ve never played! You’re tall and we’ll get you into shape.
That rhetoric had been all too easy to tear apart with curt honesty. I’m not worth that effort , Tsukishima had spelled out for the captain. Something about his height made people overlook his weak frame, his shit eyesight and mediocrity. There was only so much the third-year could push, and the captain had given up after another thirty seconds. And so, Tsukishima had been allowed to wallow in his independence for the rest of the club introduction. As soon as the final bell rang, he’d set off for the market to get daikon like his mother had asked.
Some people had their umbrellas out, spectrally moving through the damp haze. Others took cover under shop awnings. Tsukishima stands under one himself now, still in his school uniform, umbrella hanging limply at his side as he stares at the daikon on display. It smells like earth, like wet stone and metal. Everything is slippery and slick under his fingers, like the daikon as he picks them up and drops them in the weigh scale. It’s silent though, strangely, without any raindrops fat enough to pitter on the stone. Silent. Cool. Damp.
“Karasuno, right?” The daikon-lady asks, pointing at his uniform. “You’re tall for a first year.”
Tsukishima nods a polite yes. He doesn’t mention that he’s taller than most third years. Most adults.
The market is almost empty, save the stall keepers. Further down the road, Shimada-mart’s door jingles madly as it’s flung open.
“Oi! Get back here!”
The shopkeeper breaks the market’s stupor.
“Stop! Wait!”
Tsukishima’s head snaps to the commotion. He squints, glasses flecked with mist.
Three figures in familiar uniforms sprint wildly down the road. The shopkeeper jogs after them. His plastic slippers squeal on the pavement, pitifully unready for a chase. Dimly, Tsukishima thinks that someone is probably expecting him to intervene. Akiteru would have.
Tsukishima turns back to the stall. “Just these daikon please,” he says.
“Oh, those boys again.” The daikon-lady clicks her tongue. She frowns, wrinkles pulling the expression across her whole face. “Shimada-kun should go to their parents. Or the police.”
The shopkeeper—Shimada—isn’t likely to do that. He’s too nice. Tsukishima had asked him for help earlier in the week: It took them thirty minutes to find notebooks (they were in the first aisle), and by that point Shimada had given him a discount for the inconvenience. Maybe the boys could consider that strategy next time. Although, Tsukishima supposed there was a marked lack of adrenaline associated with a pity-prompted discount.
“You’re a good kid, aren’t you, Tsukishima-kun?”
Tsukishima smiles politely. Daikon-lady lives three houses down from them with her husband. She’d liked their introduction gift: some kind of soft dish towel. It’s nice that she remembers their name. Or maybe newcomers stick out in a small town like Karasuno. Maybe it's just him that does.
“How is your mother doing?”
“Fine,” He wipes at the lens of his glasses gently. “We finished unpacking most of our things.”
It’s then that the boys split their formation and peel down three different streets. One streaks behind him in a blur. He’s not that fast, cautious with his footing on the rain-slick walkways. Humorlessly, Tsukishima wonders if that's what makes him a good thief.
“Poor Shimada-kun,” the daikon-lady sighs, “That’ll be four hundred yen, Tsukishima-kun.”
Tsukishima plucks the coins out of his wallet. They clink against the countertop and slide. He and the daikon-lady pause the transaction to watch Shimada Makoto skid to a halt down the middle road. The man huffs, hands on his knees, before taking his glasses off and wiping the lenses. Tsukishima looks away before Shimada can put them back on and see their stares. They owe him that respect: pretending not to see him.
“Thank you.”
“Thank you , Tsukishima-kun,” The daikon-lady smiles gummily.
Slipping the daikon into his grocery bag, Tsukishima pulls his umbrella back over his head and begins the walk home. Two streets down, the fog begins to crunch and condense. The soft spray begins to finally hit the ground. The silence is undercut by a strong, steady wash of noise— it’s raining now. Hard. Though, that doesn’t surprise him. Tsukishima hasn’t seen the sun in the sky since he’s left Sendai.
Puddles slosh around the edges of the sidewalk, forming deep rivers along the road. They pick up mud, drifting it along the sloping roads alongside stray tufts of grass. Tsukishima crosses the street, carefully avoiding those puddles, and makes it to his new neighborhood, marked by its mundane, suburban bamboo fencing. It’s quiet again, even with the rain. Maybe it’s meant to grow on him. Tsukishima’s umbrella wobbles a bit in the wind. The bag of daikon hits against his hip.
Then, Tsukishima sees him.
Squatting under the errant kerria bushes fencing his neighborhood is one of the boys. One of the thieves. Black Karasuno uniform pants. White collared-shirt. The boy is sprawled across the wet tarmac. The white shirt he’s wearing is slowly sticking to his tan skin. His shoes are scuffed and grass-stained. Maybe he thinks he’s immune to the rain. Even so, his cigarettes aren’t. The Seven Stars sit a woeful pulp in his muddied hands. Karmic retribution finds the shoplifter and his prize soggy and defeated just in front of Tsukishima's gate.
Tsukishima says nothing. He stands peaceably dry under his umbrella at the end of his street and observes. Maybe a smite of judgment will strike from the clouds and reduce the boy to piteous ashes.
Of course, that doesn’t happen. Instead, the boy notices him.
If it’s from a reflection or just an eerie sense, Tsukishima isn’t sure. Maybe he’d been staring too loud. The boy’s hair, dark, is plastered to his forehead, eyes wide. They shoot to Tsukishima in alarm, black as beetle-hides. Thick raindrops hang heavily from his short lashes and drip down the sides of his tanned face. Tsukishima waits for a tall tale. A threat or excuse maybe.
But Tsukishima isn’t met with saccharine storytelling. Not even a smirk. No, he’s met with the obstinate opening and closing of the boy’s mouth. Gaping, silently and stupidly, the drenched boy in front of him swallows excuses until he too is left just watching. Waiting, maybe, for Tsukishima to say something first.
Fine then. There’ll be silence. Tsukishima likes the way it makes people squirm.
Tsukishima raises an eyebrow. The boy lasts another thirty seconds.
“Are you going to get someone?”
The boy has a soft voice. Tsukishima sighs, “I should.” He walks a few steps closer.
“The p-police?”
The thief’s teeth chatter. The mud on him is slowly being washed away by the increasing downpour, leaving a trail of shivering, freckled skin in its wake. Tsukishima clicks his tongue and moves until he can loom above the boy. His umbrella can’t cover both of them fully, still he tries. It’s hard when the boy insists on sitting in the dirt like a frog.
They stay like that for a moment.
“You can’t smoke those when they’re wet.” Tsukishima says next, smartly. He looks down his glasses to the squashed Seven Stars. The boy is turned away from him now. There’s a stubborn cowlick atop his hair and it defies gravity.
“I’ll d-dry them out.”
Funny. Although, he’d probably meant it.
The boy keeps his wide gaze focused on Tsukishima’s face. He’s tall, Tsukishima notes somewhere in the back of his mind, though it's hard to tell when he squats with his knees held to his chest.
“Oi, Yamaguchi!”
Tsukishima pauses. He slides his gaze from the half-soaked thief— Yamaguchi —to the one approaching. The newcomer sizes Tsukishima up with a narrow gaze. His rain jacket is too small, sleeves too short, but it keeps him dry. Fried strands of bleached hair poke out from under his jacket hood. “You’re pretty fast huh, Yamaguchi?”
Yamaguchi flushes and responds something bashful to the ground.
“Hey,” Rain-jacket looks at Tsukishima and keeps his distance, “You just move here?” He’s tall. Almost as tall as him. “Hideki.” Hideki introduces himself with a nod.
“Tsukishima Kei.”
“Tsukishima? I saw you at Orientation,” Hideki juts his chin towards Yamaguchi, soggy on the ground. “You’ve met Tadashi.”
Tsukishima looks down to the muddy boy at his feet. Yamaguchi Tadashi peers back up at Tsukishima through heavy, wet bangs.
“Hi.” Yamaguchi says, quiet.
“You want a smoke, Tsukishima? Yamaguchi dropped his, but I have spares.” Hideki catches Tsukishima’s eye. He doesn’t quite smile. The boy’s eyes are a flat, uncolored gray that matches the puddles under his feet. Hideki motions to his pocket with an eerily familiar boredom.
“I’ll pass.”
“Suit yourself. Be seeing you, Tsukishima.” Hideki doesn’t wait for an answer. He turns to leave, eyes lingering on his friend. “C’mon, Tadashi.”
It’s then that Yamaguchi Tadashi pushes to a stand. He wipes his hands down his pants ineffectively, awkwardly sideling out from Tsukishima’s umbrella with a shy nod. The rain finds him again. He drowns in the downpour. Tsukishima can see the outline of his white undershirt through his wet uniform button-down.
“Uh.” Yamaguchi starts. He balks when Tsukishima’s eyes dart to him. “Uh, be careful. It’s slippery.” Yamaguchi turns and jogs to catch up with his friend.
Tsukishima watches the two of them go. Hideki digs his elbow into Yamaguchi’s side as they walk. Yamaguchi ducks his head, staggering away, then bounding back with an easy gait. They’re laughing, Tsukishima thinks. Quietly, though. Tsukishima can’t hear it over the rain.
— — —
“You’re soaked.” A soft, blue towel drapes across Tsukishima’s face, clinging to the humidity of his skin. It’s probably a spare gift, the smell of it new and stale. Tsukishima stands still for a moment, letting his mother pat his head on her tiptoes. Then, he drags the towel around his neck. “Welcome home, Kei.”
“I’m home,” He echoes, “Thank you.”
“You’re going to catch a cold,” His mother sighs. She’s wearing mismatched slippers, one of them his and comically large. The apron his father had sewn for her is tied around her waist, her hair in a knot above her head again. The worried shape of her brows pulls Tsukishima’s mouth into a flat, impassive line. “How was Orientation? Did you meet the volleyball team?”
Behind her, the house sits in a certain disarray. The mess of the week accumulated into an abstract sort of chaos. Boxes still loom in the narrow halls and their sparse furniture looks naked and disjointed despite his mother’s best efforts. In his mother’s apron, Tsukishima spots stray utensils— a pair of long, cooking chopsticks and a spoon loll from her apron’s pocket.
“Fine. I went to the market after. They had daikon.” He swings the bag at his side and hopes she doesn’t repeat the question.
His mother beams, and it’s enough for Tsukishima to exhale. Relax.
“Oh, thank you, Kei.” She takes the bag from him, hand cradling up to the towel, patting away the remnant rain on his shoulder. “Did you make any friends?” A half-repeat of her earlier question.
“Hm.”
She’ll take his hum as an answer. It’s better than silence. Better than a lie.
“Let me cook this up,” His mother turns, busily weaving through the chaos back to the kitchen. “Go take a shower to warm up. We can talk about your day during dinner. Akiteru said he might be free for a quick call.”
“Actually,” Tsukishima stops her before she can disappear into the stark white light of the kitchen, “I have a lot of work to do already. Can I take dinner up to my room?”
A pause. His mother’s hand loosens almost imperceptibly on the bag of daikon. “Of course, Kei. School comes first.”
He smiles thinly, an apology of sorts. She accepts it with a smalls mile herself. Tsukishima doesn’t dwell, doesn’t linger. He hikes his bag further up onto his shoulder and makes his way upstairs to his room. His door lies ajar, and he pushes it open with a soft creaking sound.
His futon sits neatly in the corner by the window, flat to the ground. Next to his futon is a rickety wooden stool, graciously given to them by a neighbor, and it holds all his books in a prim stack. He drops his schoolbag next to it. The few models and memorabilia he hadn’t thrown out sit in a neat line at the base of the far wall. The wane light from the window makes them look cheap. Outside, the rain continues.
Tsukishima spends a minute staring at a patch of repaint on the wall before walking over to his futon. His knees are stiff when he goes to sit on it, the knots of his muscles unfolding, only slightly, when he lays back. His sheets still smell like Sendai. His pillow is a familiar slab of concrete under his heavy head. He can almost feel the uprooted nails of the hardwood beneath the futon. They dig into the rivets of his spine and leave him comfortingly agonized. Good. Tsukishima can’t rationalize Karasuno, but he can rationalize the ache in his back. He turns to his side and stares at the blank wall, counting the shadows of rain drops as they race down his window.
— — —
by Kay (@ka_a_cha)