Work Text:
Tsukishima doesn’t see the world like Hinata does.
Hinata has no worries. Light emits from his pores. Endless energy that runs like machinery. Running, longing, never pausing or stopping. He's lucky, living in a world of understated complexity.
On the other hand, Tsukishima coasts the surface — rarely letting himself be pulled under — knowing simple is never as easy as it looks. He sometimes wonders if Hinata ever sees that world at all. Or if he just looks past it.
Either way, Tsukishima is in shadow. That’s the difference between them.
Tsukishima sees the world for what it is. How could he not? It’s right in front of him — transparent like reality becomes the moment you truly look.
It’s neither good nor bad. It’s just there. Changing. Floating between him and Hinata.
Oddly enough, Tsukishima has never equated Hinata with his world — not the one he’s living in, at least. Like many others, Tsukishima's just in orbit around him. Pulled in, whether he wants to be or not. Gaze pulled his way, despite the urge to look away.
Even then, there are moments where his subconscious irks at the edges of his living mind, when he chooses to look.
When the moment calls for the moon at blue hour — that's when Tsukishima sees him.
The real him.
Not the light. Not the machinery. Not the unstoppable force. Not any of the things Tsukishima claims Hinata embodies because he considers him lucky enough to see his misfortunes as fortunes. That is, if he tries hard enough. And Hinata always tries hard enough.
Almost always.
Because when Tsukishima truly looks, he also sees the static. The stillness between the spaces. The silence inside the noise. The lingering before any leap. The creeping shadow that replaces the lines in Hinata's face with something uncanny. Something less like him. The face he thinks no one sees, but Tsukishima does.
The Hinata that doesn’t, instead of does.
They're rare. But they exist.
And those are the moments when Tsukishima feels close enough to touch the light. Reflect it. Reach him. Sometimes, even recognize the humanity of life as something intrinsic, rather than additional.
The moments that breeze past you in the wake of memories you don’t notice before they’ve passed by. The simple ones. But once you see, you can’t unsee. And simple moments are rarely as simple as they seem. Even for someone like Hinata.
So, no. Tsukishima doesn’t see the world like Hinata does, and maybe he never will. But he can identify with the parts Hinata hides away. He can see him.
And through a craving for correlation — not causation — maybe Hinata could see him, too.