Chapter Text
Practice was winding down one evening and everybody seemed annoyed. Tsukishima didn’t know whether or not they were annoyed at him or in general but everyone seemed to be on edge. Even the coaches had had a shorter temper than usual. The team was finishing putting the equipment away when Hinata slipped and collided with Kageyama. Tsukishima snickered and made a snarky comment like he always did. However, instead of getting at least one laugh like he always did, it was silent. Hinata and Kageyama just glared at him and when he glanced to the side, Yamaguchi’s eyes were downcast.
“What? Was it not funny?” Tsukishima asked Yamaguchi. He only shrugged.
“You’re so mean Tsukishima!” Hinata exclaimed. Kageyama rolled his eyes.
“Oh, come on. How is that any worse than what I always say?”
“That’s the point. You always say it. You’re always such an asshole for no reason.” Nishinoya said.
“Yeah, you piss me off,” Tanaka added.
Ouch. All dogpiling on him at once. It wasn’t the first time, but today it stung more than usual.
“What’s you guys’s problem? What I said wasn’t even mean.”
“Kinda was…” Asahi said quietly.
“Yeah. You have an attitude problem, and everyone can see it but you.” Daichi chimed in.
“Now now, let’s not start an argument.” Takeda tried.
“But he needs to know how much of a dick he is!” Tanaka said, earning him a warning glare from Ukai.
“I don’t think the comment you made today was the issue, I think it’s just a combination of all the remarks you’ve made recently. Today was just the straw that broke the camel’s back is all.” Sugawara said, trying to de-escalate the situation.
“Why are you defending him, you told me that he pissed you off sometimes too!” Daichi exclaimed. Sugawara only glared slightly at him.
“You guys have never had this much of an issue with me before. I thought you all didn’t mind the comments, nobody has ever made this much of a problem out of this.” Tsukishima defended.
“Well…they can be annoying, and a bit much somedays,” Ennoshita said. Kinoshita and Narita nodded.
“Sometimes they’re funny, but other times you can come off as harsh and a bully,” Yamaguchi spoke up. Everyone turned to look at him.
“You think I’m a bully?”
“Well, I never said that. But…you know…our team is full of generally nice people, and all you do is sass, and back-talk anybody who tries to be nice to you. And you always say it’s just how you are, but Tsukki it isn’t cool!”
“And we’re all fed up with it. With you to be honest.” Kageyama said.
“You out of all people don’t get to talk about being fed up with how somebody acts, and you know it.” Tsukishima retorted. Kageyama’s eyes widened and his fists clenched.
“See! This is exactly what we’re talking about!” Hinata chimed in.
“Oh screw off, he just said that he was fed up with me. I can’t defend myself?”
“That’s not defending yourself, that’s just being a bully!”
“I wasn’t saying that I was fed up with him, I was just-”
“But it doesn’t matter what you were trying to do, it matters what you did do, and what you did was a low blow,” Daichi said.
“So then why have none of you ever mentioned anything?” He mumbled.
“Because you never fucking listen. You don’t care about anybody but yourself, that much is clear.” Tanaka said.
“Yeah! Nobody else or their feelings matter to you, all you think about is yourself and how you can hurt somebody.” Hinata added.
Tsukishima turned to the side to look at Yamaguchi, who was still looking downcast. “And I take it you’re sick of me too.”
“I-I never said that!” Yamaguchi exclaimed. “You’re my best friend! I just think that…you could stand to be a little nicer with the way you talk to people. It’d make you more tolerable to others, you know?”
Tsukishima had given up trying to fight it at this point. He didn’t have the energy to. He was just…so tired. Even his best friend had just admitted to being tired of him. The tight feeling in his chest that’d appeared earlier during the confrontation got even tighter. He scoffed.
“Well, since you’re all so tired of me and the way I act, how about I just stop talking? Better yet, how about I just quit the volleyball team?”
“Tsukishima-” Ukai and Takeda said at the same time, trying to keep him from being irrational.
“It’d be a lot more pleasant around that’s for sure,” Daichi said. Sugawara elbowed him.
“You know what? Why not? We have Yamaguchi and Narita, they’re nearly as tall as you and could probably play your position just as well as you do!” Tanaka told him. Hinata and Kageyama nodded. Tsukishima was taken aback. He thought his blocking would have been enough reason to want to keep him around, but it appeared that he didn’t even matter to his team in that respect either.
“Besides, not like you really care about volleyball either right? It’s ‘just a club’ isn’t it?” Hinata added.
“Finally no retort?” Tanaka asked sarcastically. Tsukishima didn’t look up to meet his eyes. Unlike usual, where he would find something to fire back with, roll his eyes, or click his tongue. “If we knew this was all it took to shut your smarmy ass up we would have done this a long time ag-”
“GUYS,” Ukai yelled, clapping his hands together loudly. Everybody’s eyes snapped up to look at their coaches.
“That’s enough. Go change and head home.” Takeda said, exasperated but firm. The team filed out to the changing room. Tsukishima trailed behind.
In the room, Tsukishima was trying to change as quickly as possible so he could leave. His team obviously didn’t want him around, so there was no point in staying to make small talk like he and Yamaguchi typically did. Not that anyone was talking; the room was filled with a tense silence. Tsukishima changed facing a corner, not bothering to take his shirt all the way off, the way he’d been doing the past few months. In his haste to leave, he dropped his headphones. Hinata swooped in and picked them up.
“Dude-” Tsukishima started. Hinata passed the headphones to Nishinoya, who passed them to Tanaka. The three tossed the headphones in a near triangle around the club room.
“Please, can I have them back? I just want to go home.” Tsukishima muttered.
“Guys…give him back his head-” Sugawara began. Just then, Tanaka fumbled the toss he’d got from Nishinoya. Instead of catching them, he’d accidentally swatted at them, sending the headphones into the ground hard. The whole room heard the crack in the hard plastic. Nobody moved. Tsukishima took a deep breath and closed his eyes. Could the day get any worse?
Yamaguchi walked over to the headphones and picked them up for his friend, making sure to grab all of the pieces. When he turned back, he noticed Tsukishima’s chin quivering. He looked down at his broken headphones for a few seconds before shoving them in his bag and walking out. Yamaguchi stood there for a second before grabbing his bag and following close behind him.
Sugawara glared at his underclassmen. Nishinoya was the first to notice, and he jumped.
“Suga-san, you can’t tell me you’re seriously mad at us.” He said.
“You guys broke his headphones.”
“It was an accident!” Hinata exclaimed.
“Yeah, and he’s always so mean!” Tanaka added.
“He’s never touched your belongings though has he?”
“Suga, what’s your issue?” Daichi asked.
“Oh, so you think he deserved it?” Sugawara accused.
“What?”
“Suga…maybe you should calm down,” Asahi suggested.
Sugawara rolled his eyes. “Whatever. I just have a bad feeling about this all.”
“What do you mean?”
“Like…the whole interaction was very…un-Tsukishima-like. I’ve never seen him that close to crying, even when he got slammed into the face with a volleyball and his glasses broke. It seemed like he’d…given up.”
“He’s never cared about volleyball.” Kageyama pointed out.
Sugawara sighed. “That’s not what I meant.”
~•~
“Tsukki!” Yamaguchi yelled, trying to catch up to his friend. Tsukishima was walking much faster, trying to get away.
“Yamaguchi, please. I’m not in the mood to talk tonight.”
“Are you okay?”
Tsukishima froze. “What do you mean?”
“I dunno, it’s just- your whole demeanor. Throughout the day, and recently too. You just seem off. And you look like you’re about to cry. Tsukki, I’m worried about you.”
Rich, coming from a guy who just joined in with the team in telling him how horrible he was. He scoffed. “I’m fine.”
“Are you sure?”
“Do you actually care? Last time I checked you thought I was a bully.”
“I never said that!”
“May as well have.”
“This is why I’m worried Tsukki, you never let things get to you this badly. Seriously, you can talk to me. I’m not mad and I’m not going to judge you. Please.”
He couldn’t. It was so stupid. The reason why he was so upset was stupid.
“Look, I’m sorry if I sounded the same way they did. I didn’t mean for it to. You know I find most of the things you say funny, and I’ll even join in on your teasing. But, I just think that sometimes, you go a little too far, that’s all. And I also know that you use it as a defense mechanism. Tsukki, can you just- stop walking and talk to me?!”
Tsukishima finally stopped and turned to face Yamaguchi. Tears were streaming down his face. Yamaguchi stopped in his tracks, mouth agape. In the years they’d known each other, Tsukishima had rarely ever cried.
“Tsukki…”
“Yamaguchi. I’m okay.”
“You expect me to believe that? You’re crying!”
“I’m upset about my headphones.”
“But earlier, what we said- I’m sorry-”
“It’s fine. You don’t have to apologize. And you also don’t have to worry about it anymore.”
“Tsukki-”
“I’m going home, I’m exhausted. Goodbye, Tadashi.” Tsukishima said before turning around to walk away.
“Okay…if you need to talk I’m here. See you tomorrow Tsukki.”
Tsukishima stopped briefly, before waving and smiling at Yamaguchi. He then continued walking away. Yamaguchi just stood there with a sinking feeling in his stomach.
~•~
At home, Tsukishima avoided his mom and brother, just trying to get to his room and shut the door before either of them saw the tears on his face. His brother would absolutely notice something was off if he saw him. Once inside his room, he shut the door, locked it, and laid down on his bed. Once there, the tears began to flow freely. He replayed the events of the day over and over again. The fight with the team, which couldn’t really be considered a fight since it was 11 v 1. He couldn’t tell if they actually hated him or just wanted him to shut up for once. His own best friend even practically agreed with everything they were saying.
He knew he could be snarky and rude sometimes, but he didn’t think it was that bad. Or at least, that it bothered them that much. Had he noticed, he would have dialed it back some because the goal was never to genuinely hurt anybody. He liked to rile people up; it was fun. Especially when he got a grand reaction out of them. But pushing them to the point of hating him wasn’t his goal. The fact they all regarded him so lowly, even saying that he was easily replaceable, hurt more than anything. His captains words were the loudest in his mind. The phrase ‘it’d be a lot more pleasant’ was strikingly similar to ‘it’d be better off without you.’
One of the things he was most upset about was his headphones. It wasn’t that bad in the grand scheme of things, but now he didn’t have music to drown out the thoughts in his head. Now he was cursed to sit there and let them scream at him over and over again. Scream the same abuses they had been, except now the voices were replaced by those of his teammates.
It wasn’t the first time he’d had thoughts like these, as evidenced by the numerous cuts littering his upper thighs and now, his upper arm. They’d never been quite as loud, quite as demanding as they were tonight. He needed to drown them out, and he knew how.
As Tsukishima reached for his blade he heard a knock on the door.
“Kei..? You alright?” Akiteru asked through the door.
“Y-yeah.” He replied, trying to keep his voice steady.
“You sure? You didn’t come to eat dinner.
“I’m not hungry.”
“You’ve said that the last three nights.”
“Akiteru.”
“Are you crying?”
“No.”
“Kei-”
“Leave me alone. Please.”
Akiteru sighed and Tsukishima heard his footsteps walking away from the door. He finished the action he had begun before his brother interrupted. However, the thoughts didn’t cease. They didn’t even lessen, still screaming in his head as loud as before. He was so tired. Tired of the incessant thoughts, the never feeling enough. Always one step behind or below, always inferior to someone else. He was so, so tired of it all.
~•~
It was Akiteru who found him. It was around two a.m. and he hadn’t been able to sleep. Deciding to go and see if his brother was awake and willing to talk one last time, he made his way out of his bedroom and saw that Tsukishima’s door was cracked open. Akiteru still decided to knock before opening it further, and that’s when he saw him. Tsukishima was lying on the floor unconscious with a pill bottle next to him. There were three envelopes stacked on his desk. Akiteru froze for a few seconds, blood running cold, before moving down to his younger brother's side. He grabbed the pill bottle.
Empty.
Akiteru turned back to his younger brother and shook him. Tsukishima barely stirred, his breathing shallow. He yelled for their mom to wake up and she got to his room, she screamed.
“Oh my god, Kei!” She shouted.
“Mom, call 1-1-9, I think he’s still alive!” Akiteru yelled back. He again tried shaking Tsukishima awake, and when that didn’t work he started attempting CPR.