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Tsukishima groaned internally the second he caught sight of the rink. He did not like it when the public skating sessions were crowded. In all honesty, Tsukishima didn't like many things, so his distaste for idiots on the ice wasn't unusual, but stuff like this was definitely one of the worst things mankind had ever created.
He hated the little kids that dotted the rink, the rowdy hockey boy's who thought it was amusing to race across the ice at top speed, and the gaggles of teenage girls that clung to the sides of the rink like a lifeline, giggling and holding onto eachother in some poor attempted at remaining balanced. He hated it all.
What he hated the most however were looks he got when it became quickly apparent to everyone else on the ice that he could actually skate, making the fact he could do even the simplest tricks look impressive in their eye's. Tsukishima despised being perceived and if it was his choice the rink would be empty at all times so he could avoid human interaction entirely.
It's not that Tsukishima was shy or anything, people didn't make him anxious they just irritated him. He had a grand total of two friends (Bokuto and Kuroo), who had forced him intro friendship years ago, and he'd begrudgingly grown to like them. They both had partners (Akaashi and Kenma) who were a lot more tolerable than their other halves, probably because they shared his aversion to people, and were more than happy to sit in comftable silence with him while Bokuto and Kuroo went on one of their crazy rants.
Tsukishima's introverted nature, combined with his brother Akiteru's passion for ice hockey in his younger years, had been what motivated him to take up figure skating in the first place. He enjoyed the fact it wasn't a team sport, he could exercise without other people, without pressure, and without having to be fully committed twenty-four seven, three six five.
He didn't compete, skating competitions felt like a massive waste of time, as much as his coach insisted that he'd have fun if he entered one. Tsukishima neither cared enough or was talented enough to win anything, so he stuck to what he did best, skating alone with his headphones blasting music in his ears completely, unjudged and unbothered.
Which is why he hated when the rink was busy like it was today, because it was in moments like this where he felt very much judged and bothered. There were two boys, one who was short, ginger and sporting a giant grin on his face, laughing as skated wobblely next to the edge of the rink, grabbing onto the side to support himself when he fell. The other boy was taller and dark haired, he looked less pleased to be here as he clutched the both the gingers hand and the rinks edge like a lifeline.
These two boys were watching him intently, well, the short one was watching him, the taller boy was glaring at him, and his friend, and the ice. Tsukishima knew he had a resting bitch face but this man's expression was something else entirely. They were bickering loudly, the kind of arguments that were petty yet comfortable, words that you coulf tell had been exchanged many times before and held little malice behind them.
They were exactly the kind of people Tsukishima didn't get along with, well that wasn't strictly true, Bokuto and Kuroo were the same brand of loud and obnoxious but they were a very rare exception. The boys also seemed to be slowly approaching him, keyword being slowly as they kept tripping over themselves in what seemed to be a strange attempt to race eachother, even though they could hardly stand up on their own.
Tsukishima went on subtly avoiding them for a while, which wasn't hard because he could travel a lot faster than them, but it reached a point where it was becoming quite obvious that he was evading them on purpose. Most people would have stopped trying to catch up with someone who definitely wasn't in the mood to talk, but they seemed horribly persistent, especially the ginger, who was growing more detimemered by the second.
Tsukishima stopped, sighed, and turned around to face them, causing the boys to hault in their tracks. He had half a mind to say 'stop following me', but he decided on the slightly more polite approach, not that these to deserved it, "What do you want?" He said flatly, looking at them with his eyebrows raised in question.
The ginger boy didn't seem put off by his tone of voice at all and instead grinned up at him and began talking animatedly, "Hi! Woah you're so tall-" the other boy hit him in the arm, cutting him off before he went on a rant about height. Tsukishima watched the pair of them with a bored expression, it's not like it wasn't anything he'd heard before, but he hoped that wasn't all they had to say, that would be a serious waste of time.
"Sorry!" The ginger boy said with an apologetic smile, "I just wanted to say how cool your skating is! You jumped earlier and it was like gwah!!! I can jump too you know? Just not on the ice, I play volleyball! You'd probably be quite good at volleyball, you have the height for it... " Tsukishima used all of his strength to not skate away as soon the talking subsided slightly, he was already getting a headache from the boy's excited chatter.
"Anyway, I'm Shouya Hinata, and this is Kageyama!" He exclaimed, gesturing to the taller boy, dragging him forwards slightly, forcing him to glide futher towards Tsukishima on the ice.
Kageyama remained silent, looking between Hinata and Tsukishima with a strange expression, like he wasn't quite sure what to do.
"Say hello, you idiot!" Hinata hissed into to his ear, like this was a common occurance for them.
"Hi," Kageyama said emotionlessly, Tsukishima felt the weird urge to laugh at the almost constipated look on his face, he suspects he wasn't a huge fan of social interactions either.
"What's you're name?" Hinata encouraged as it became clear to him that Tsukishima wasn't going to voluntarily continue the conversation himself.
"Tsukishima," he replied before repeating, "What do you want?"
"Oh yes, sorry," Hinata continues bashfully, realising that he'd been rambling the whole time instead of getting to the point, "Teach us to skate!"
That hadn't been what Tsukishima was expecting in the slightest, usually when people spoke to him it was annoying requests to do jumps and tricks, which he always refused out of spite. He'd never had anyone demand him to teach them before. "What?" he inquired slowly.
"We want to skate to suprise our friend! He's a figure skater and his birthday is coming up, so it would be really cool to take him to the rink and actually be able to move around and have fun with him. Can you help us?" Hinata expanded, Kageyama nodding along, still holding on to both the edge of the rink and Hinata's hand.
"No," Tsukishima responded flatly. He didn't have the patience or will power to teach these idiots something literally anyone else slightly competent on the ice could teach them. But hey, at least it wasn't Oikawa bothering him this time (he was another skater that usually frequented the public skates and was the most dramatic person to ever walk the face of the earth).
"Why not!?" Hinata exclaimed, a ghost of a pout crossing his face.
"Because I'm not a coach and I do not know you?" Tsukishima replied exasperatedly, wishing this overexcitable stranger would leave him alone.
"We'll pay you!" Hinata added, a pleading edge creeping into his voice. It was tempting, but it's not like Tsukishima was in desperate need of money, he'd had ice skating lessons since he was a child, clearly he was at least somewhat well off.
"With what money, dumbass?" Kageyama grumbles, although their seemed to be a hint of genuine curiosity in his tone, confirming the fact they were both stupid in Tsukishima's mind.
"Shut up, Bakayama! I'm trying to make a business deal here," Hinata groaned, glaring at Kageyama and shoving him in the shoulder. Kageyama pushes him back, which causes Hinata to stumble slightly, resulting in Kageyama awkwardly catching Hinata around the waist causing a faint flush to rise on his cheeks.
"Yeah, trying and failing," Kageyama mumbles, pulling Hinata back to a proper standing position. Hinata glares at him but the blush on his face remains. "Let's talk to someone else who actually knows what there doing".
Tsukishima wasn't sure if this Kageyama guy was trying to rile him up, or if he was genuinely just tactless enough to speak his mind (a fault Tsukishima himself admittedly also had), but he didn't paticularly care either way. "I know what I'm doing, I just feel little to need to prove it to you," he states, lazily skating backwards and away from them on the rink.
"Kageyama!" Hinata reprimands and he shakily shakes forward after Tsukishima on the ice, "Stop annoying the person were trying to recruit as our friend!"
"You can't recruit friends idiot!" Kageyama shot back, "And you're the one who insisted we come and bother him".
Tsukishima sighs "Can I go now?"
"No! Please give us a chance," Hinata says, eye's wide and pleading. Tsukishima didn't know why he didn't skate away in that moment, maybe it was because he was sadistic or perhaps his brain had finally processed all those 'in a world where you can be anything, be kind' speeches his middle school had been so fond of giving.
"We don't have enough money for actual lessons and we really want to learn so we can suprise our friend Yamaguchi! It's his birthday soon, and it would be so cool to do this for him," Hinata continues hurriedly.
"You want to suprise your friend?" Tsukishima asks blankly. Sure, it's a nice thing to do, but he can't figure out why they're so anxious to do something for this mysterious Yamaguchi.
"Yeah, well, it's not just that we want to suprise him... We were kind of bad friends to him last year, we forced him in to volleyball with us because we thought he'd really like it because we love it," Hinata and Kage share a guilty look, "But he was just going along to please us and he doesn't actually enjoy it at all. We want to make it up to him by learning what he likes! Skating! Then we'll be able to come to the rink with him and we won't have to do mine and Kageyamas hobbies all the time".
Tsukishima wasn't sure if this made them more pathetic or admirable in his mind. He settles on both before begrudgingly saying, for some godforsaken reason, "What do you want to know?"
Hinata's eye's light up and a flicker of suprise crosses across Kageyama's face before he says, "Nothing hard, just basic movement, so we can actually cross the rink with relative ease. As much as we're amazing at volleyball we are not good at this".
Tsukishima duly notes that this is the first time Kageyama has spoken directly to him, if you don't count the singular 'hi' he'd uttered at the beginning of the conversation. Despite the fact he'd barely said a word, which is something Tsukishima usually enjoyed in people, he'd already internally decided that he liked Kageyama considerably less than Hinata.
"I can tell," Tsukishima states dryly, eye's scanning over the pairs awkward stances, lingering on where Kageyama was steadying himself on Hinata arm.
"Hey-" Kageyama started, brow furrowing in annyonce.
Hinata shushes him dramaticly before turning to Tsukishima, eye's still wide and hopeful, "So you'll help us?"
No, is what Tsukishima wanted to say. He doesn't like people, he doesn't like strangers, he doesn't like speaking or wasting his time, and he especially doesn't li weirdos had spent the last few minutes of his life trying to conicve him they were worth teaching for free out of his own non existent good will.
No, is what Tsukishima wanted to say, "...Fine," is what he says.
He doesn't know why he agrees, Kuroo and Bokuto's impulsive nature must be rubbing off on him as apparently he's finally cracked and decided to add some spontaneity into his life.
"Really!? Thank you so much, Tsukki!" Hinata says happyily, as Kageyama bows his head in a silent thanks.
"Don't call me that," Tsukishima responds, nose wrinkling at the unwanted nickname.
"Sorry, sorry I'm just excited," Hinata chatters, turning to Kageyama and saying something quickly that Tsukishima can't quite catch that makes the boy roll his eye's.
Tsukishima, who for some reason has decided it's too late to go back on his words now, says, "I'm here everyday from five to seven pm except Thursday, and Sunday. Come when you want, if you're late but don't expect me to wait for you. If you can't skate by the end of this week I'm not helping you anymore".
Teaching would probably help define his own technique, so it's not like he was doing a selfless act or anything, he was improving himself that's all. He made eye contact with Hinata, who looked like he was waiting for Tsukishima to say more, so he cocked his head to the side slightly and said, "Deal?"
Kageyama and Hinata glance at eachother, and go through a weird sequence of expressions that make them look like they've mastered some strange art of silent communication, before they agree, in eerie unison, "Deal".
☆
Tsukishima woke up the next day regretting all the choices hes ever made in the entire course of his relatively short life, as he often did in the aftermath of any social interaction. When he'd, for some completely out of character reason, agreed to assist Hinata and Kageyama, the pair had hurriedly got his phone number before rushing off like approaching a stranger and begging for their help was a completely normal thing to do.
Their quick exit (which had something to do with being late for , meant Tsukishima had little time to process what had just happend, and even less time to go back on his words. Now he was laying in his bed, with his dinsouour blanket pooled around his shoulders, staring at three unread texts on his phone from numbers be didn't even want in the first place. What the hell had he done.
LEARNING TO SK8
Hinata: Hello Tsukishima!!! I thought making a group chat with us and Kageyama would make everything easier!!!
Hinata: And tysm for agreeing to help us!!! :D
Tsukishima scoffed at the groupchat name, and then scoffed again at Hinata's messages. God he texted like he talked, how could anyone possibly need that many exclamation marks?
Kageyama: Yes, thank you for you're help.
Tsukishima rolled his eye's at his phone, not because either message was paticularly irritating, but simply due to the fact they were reminders of what Tsukishima had signed himself up to do. It was then that he realised the time the texts had been sent, four fourty five in the morning, what the hell? He's lucky his phone was on mute, if the notifications had woken him up he would have dropped the nicetys completely and blocked them instantly.
Don't text me at 4am ever again
what the fuck
And it's your not you're
It wasn't untill much later in the day, when Tsukishima was walking home from school, headphones in his ears, and sun beating down on the back of his neck, that he received a reply. He didn't check his phone at first, ignoring the vibrating in his pocket as best he could, but it quickly became annoyingly repetitive, forcing Tsukishima to pull his phone out of his jeans and open the messages.
LEARNING TO SK8
Hinata: Sorry!!! We go on runs in the morning so I'm used to being up that earlier :]
Hinata: Kageyama I can see you looking at your phone, you should apologies too, dumbass
Kageyama: But you just did? And you texted first so it's your fault that we disturbed him.
Hinata: You're so rude
Hinata: Bakayama
Kageyama: Shut up, Dumbass
Hinata: Don't dumbass me, I'm not the one who hit that younger year in the face with a volleyball today
Kageyama: That was an accident!
Kageyama: And he deserved it anyway, he kept looking at Yachi creepily
Tsukishima didn't know whether to be irritated or amused by the pairs bickering. He settled on irritated, scowling at his phone before muting the groupchat and shoving it back in his pocket. He wonders if what he was experiencing currently was a midlife crisis, normally Tsukishima wouldn't do anything like this but now he was agreeing to meet to strangers in little over an hour and help them skate.
He supposes a midlife crisis implies he'd die a lot younger than he'd like to, considering the fact he was still in school, but if this was the event that marked the downfall of his existence, he guesses it could be worse.
Tsukishima wondered if Hinata and Kageyama had gone to the rink that day specifically to find someone willing to teach them, or if they had assumed they'd be better at skating than they'd turned out to be. Tsukishima thought the latter was more likely, people like them often presumed ice skating was easy. Spoiler alert, it wasn't.
Tsukishima quickly arrived at his front door, greeting his mother who was pottering about in the kitchen, before he went upstairs to change into something easier to skate in. He grabbed his ice skates from where they were displayed neatly on his wall, they were a customised pair he got for his birthday last year, they had a intricate design of dinsouour skeletons printed across them.
They were less childish than cartoon dinsouour would be, but nerdy enough that anyone into the cretaceous period would notice what they were. Tsukishima had always liked dinosaurs, ever since he was a child and they'd first covered them in school he'd been fascinated by the creatures, his personal favourite was the Sauropoda, and no, it wasn't just because he was tall.
He was studying paleontology at the moment, the work could be difficult at times but Tsukishima was smart enough to get though it just fine, and at least he wasn't taking chemistry like Kuroo was for some godforsaken reason.
He headed down the stairs, skates in one hand, phone it the other. He sent a half hearted text of 'I'm on my way' to the groupchat, thinking it was probably courteous to let them know, not that he paticularly cared. His mother, who was still in the kitchen, raised an eyebrow at him curiously, before asking, "Who are you texting?"
Tsukishima didn't know why she was asking, it's not like he didn't have any friends so him being on his phone shouldn't be that suprising. Tsukishima also had no idea how to answer her question, Hinata and Kageyama weren't his friends so he couldn't say that, and he was pretty sure you had to speak with someone more than once for them to count as an acquaintance.
"I met them yesterday," Tsukishima starts, deciding that simply explaining the situation would be easier than trying to summarise their relationship with one word, "They asked if I could help them learn how to skate and I said yes".
"Really?" His mother says, looking pleasantly suprised, "I'm very proud of you Kei, well done for putting yourself out there and making new friends".
Tsukishima resists the urge to roll his eye's, they weren't his friends and Hinata had put himself out their more than Tsukishima had done. Yet he smiled slightly at his mother anyway, not wanting to appear rude, she was one of the only people he actually liked after all.
He mumbles his thanks and presses a goodbye kiss to his mothers cheek, bending down a bit to reach her comfortably. She tells him to be back by seven-thirty, despite the fact he's never once been late home, and Tsukishima hums in agreement before walking out the door.
He arrived at the rink a little before five pm, so he has enough time to put on his skates and grab a drink from the vending machine before the skating session starts. To his suprise Hinata and Kageyama were already there, struggling to put on the skates the rink let's you hire onto their feet. The pair had struck him as the kind of people who were often late, bit apparently he'd been wrong on that paticularly assumption.
He sat down on the beach next to them and began taking off his shoes, making sure he didn't put his socked feet on the patches of ground that were damp from melted ice earlier skaters had trailed in. The duo didn't notice him at first, too busy fussing over their skates, both adamant the other was putting them on incorrectly.
It was Kageyama who spotted him first, they made eye contact for an uncomfortably long second before he nudged Hinata who looked up in confusion before spotting Tsukishima and grinning at him widely, "Hi! Wow, part of me thought you weren't going to actually show up, thanks again for doing this!"
"Part of me wasn't going to show up," Tsukishima admits dryly, if he was going to spend the whole week with these two he wasn't about to prentend he was some lovely person. Tsukishima knew he was at least a little bit of an asshole most of the time, maybe that was a bad thing but Hinata and Kageyama would just have to deal with it if they wanted his help.
Hinata just laughed in light amusement, before grinning as he finally secured his skates probably on his feet, "I told you I was doing it right," he said to Kageyama, switching his focus to the Kageyama's skates and doing them up for him.
"I could have done it myself," Kageyama grumbles.
"And yet I did it for you, because I'm amazing," he retorted, sticking his tounge out at Kageyama immaturely.
"Amazingly stupid," Kageyama mutters under his breath, but Hinata doesn't hear him.
"Why did you decide to come if you didn't want to?" Kageyama asks looking confused, seemingly only just picking up on Tsukishima's earlier comment.
"Because apparently I enjoy making myself miserable," Tsukishima answers, "And teaching you will improve my own skating ability".
"It's a win win situation then," Hinata says joyfully, apparently chosing to ignore the fact Tsukishima said this would be miserable.
"Sure," He says sarcasticly, although it's clear neither boy picks up on his tone, "How long have you guys been waiting here?"
"Not that long, I live around the courner from here and Kageyama always comes round mine after school so we were both close by," Hinata explains. How two people who bickered all the time could spend so much of their day together he'd never know.
Hinata was now attempting to walk around in the skates, and much like most people who weren't used to wearing them he wobblied slightly when he moved. Kageyama remained seated, eyeing Tsukishima's skates with mild curiosity. Tsukishima raised an eyebrow and Kageyama cleared his throat awkwardly, "You're skates are so cool".
"I know," Tsukishima said, because he did know.
"Ugh, it's so annoying that we have to wear the ones the rink provides," Hinata chimes in, "Yours are much nicer. Do you think they sell orange skates? They could match my hair!"
"That would look stupid," Kageyama says bluntly.
"Hey! You said orange was you're favourite colour!" Hinata defends, looking offended.
Kageyama blushes, looking down at his feet and telling Hinata to shut up. Orange was his favourite colour, huh? God, could he be more oblivious, they had such huge crushes on eachother it was almost embarrassing. It was also painfully obvious, he felt a sudden pang of sympathy for their friend Yamaguchi who'd probably had to deal with their romantic tension for god knows how long.
Tsukishima didn't paticularly care that much about other people's love life's, but if he was going to be with Hinata and Kageyama for the next week at least he had something to entertain himself with. Pining could be equal parts amusing as it was irritating.
"Ice skates are expensive and you don't have any money, now come on, we haven't got all day," Tsukishima responds, before walking off in the direction of the rink, don't bothering to wait for them, instead simply listening to the sound of Kageyama struggling to his feet fade into the distance.
Tsukishima had already done a lap of the ice by the time Hinata and Kageyama caught up to him, he had no clue why the idiots took so long, they were probably too busy getting lost in eachother eye's or something. He watched them step onto the rink in the way most smutersu do when they are just starting, clutching the wall and looking mildly afraid. Luckily for them it was a quiter session today so they wouldn't have as many onlookers to there failings.
Tsukishima glided over to them, "let go of the wall," he says, gesturing to their hands lazily. Kageyama looked like he'd literally rather do anything else, and Hinata piped up.
"But if we let go of the wall we'll just fall over like we did when we were trying to skate yesterday," Hinata points out, cocking his head in confusion. Tsukishima rolls his eye's, part of him wishing he'd seen more of them being comically bad at skating the previous afternoon.
"Okay, the first thing you need to know is that you're going to fall," Tsukishima starts, looking pointedly at the pair of them before they could interrupt him, "Everybody falls, it's normal. What you need to learn is to not be afraid of falling, if you spend all your time on the ice being afraid of what could happen you'll never learn to skate, you need to relax, focus, and more importantly trust me. I am better at this than you and you need to listen to me if you want to do this".
Hinata and Kageyama share a look before nodding in unison, Tsukishima feels mildly impressed by his own words, maybe he should have considered a career in teaching (No, he could never do that, kids are a whole new branch of annoying). Unfortunately, Hinata seemed to also think that Tsukishima's instructions had been spoken in a 'teacher like' manner given what he said next.
"So smart, Tsukishima-Sensi!" Hinata's eye's shone as he spoke, he was very easily excited, and judging by the look on Kageyama's face, the boy gave out compliments like this often.
"Never call me that again," Tsukishima reprimanded, "Now let go".
Hinata removed his hands from the wall too quickly, his over enthusiasm causing him to fall back into Kageyama, who'd only just begrudgingly let go himself, and they both came crashing to the floor at Tsukishima's feet. Jesus christ, he'd seen five year olds skate better than this. He tugged the pair to their feet, feeling kind enough to not let them suffer on the ground, before he began carefully reconsidering his approach.
Tsukishima had never taught anyone to skate before, and he'd learnt the basics himself a very long time ago, so he wasn't exactly an expert at this. Suddenly, a brilliant idea spawned in his mind, a smug smile crossing he face as he spoke again, "Hold hands".
"Huh?" Hinata replies, looking confused.
"Holding the side of the rink won't do you any good, it also means you're in the way of all the children here trying to skate, if you bold hands you'll have extra support without it being too much of a hindrance to your learning," Tsukishima explained dryly.
A steady flush had begun creeping up Hinata's neck by this point, "Can't we just hold your hand! You actually know how to skate," Oh, he was too nervous to hold Kageyama's hand, how amusing.
"No, I won't be able to see what you're doing if I'm holding your hand, and more importantly I don't want to hold you hand," Tsukishima noted, hint of a smug smile ghosting his face, he's not a cruel person, he's simply giving them a little push in the right direction, that's all.
"Just hold my hand, dumbass!" Kageyama
exlaims, offering his hand to Hinata, looking annoyed at himself for being flustered. Why did Tsukishima only speak to idiots? First Bokuto and Kuroo, now these two, what had his life become.
Thankfully, the hand holding seemed to genuinely help them keep balanced, so now instead of clinging to the wall they were clinging to eachother. Kageyama looked like he was trying to act unaffected by the fact he was no longer supported by something structure sound and instead human being, but he was gripping Hinata's hand so hard his knuckles were turning white.
"Now, put your feet in this position," Tsukishima said, making a V-shape with his skates, angling his toes outward and his heels in, "Then you need to push one foot back so you can glide, switching your feet as you move, like this," Tsukishima gave them a small demonstration, going slower than he normal would so they could properly take it in.
Tsukishima circles them, as they begin attempting to following his instructions, they're technique was sloppy but they seemed to have the general gist of the action, "Make sure you don't push off too hard or you'll go faster than you're ready for at the moment".
"I want to go fast!" Hinata gushed excitedly, trying to move forwards and succeeding rather wobblely with a grin on his face.
"If we had a race right now I'd definitely beat you," Kageyama challenges. Tsukishima doesn't point out that if they raced right now it was likely they'd fall flat on their face.
"Would not!"
"Would too".
Hell, they were like a freaky cross between toddlers and a married couple, "Also if you think you're going to fall at any point, let go of the other person's hand, or you'll just drag eachother down".
It was at this point when Kageyama attempted to rush forwards, still holding Hinata's hand, promptly swaying backwards and dragging then both to the floor, very much not following the directions he just gave them.
"Or you know, keep holding hands," Tsukishima scoffed, laughing slightly to himself.
"My ass hurts," Kageyama mumbles, wincing slightly from his place on the floor.
"Don't be so crude, Bakayama, say butt," Hinata scolds, scrunching up his face in distaste.
"Why would i say butt, I'm not three?" Kageyama asks incredulously.
"You act three," Hinata shot back.
"You look three," Kageyama sniggers.
Tsukishima does another lap of the rink before their bickering subsides and they stagger back to their feet.
"This is much harder than volleyball," Kageyama grumbles, more to himself than anyone else.
"Did you think because you're good at Volleyball you'd be good at this?" Tsukishima asks, not seeing the correlation between the sports at all.
"He's not just good at Volleyball, he's amazing!" Hinata interject, looking mildly offending for some reason, "He's practically king of the court when we play! He's all like pwah and gwah, it's awesome!" Tsukishima didn't know what pwah or gwah meant, and he also didn't know why Hinata felt the need to bring up how great at Volleyball Kageyama was. Honestly, he was so whipped it hurt.
"King of the court, hm?" Tsukishima replied, cocking his head with a slightly mocking smile.
"Don't call me that," Kageyama complained.
"Guess that makes you the queen then, huh, Hinata?" Tsukishima comments slyly, causing Hinata to splutter incoherently.
"Yeah, he kind of is," Kageyama agrees absentmindedly. Tsukishima wants to slam his head into a wall, how the hell are these two not dating already?
"Why can't I be a king aswell?" Hinata protests, Kageyama simply looks him up and down in response, as if to say 'isn't it obvious'.
They kept on skating for a while after that mildly peculiar interaction, and Hinata and Kageyama were starting to get the hang of it now. They were still pretty bad, but suprisingly the pair were picking it up quicker than most would on their first day, especially since Tsukishima wasn't even a real teacher.
It was nearing seven pm when Tsukishima realised he was genuinely enjoying himself. Not as much as he would have if he were alone but despite the fact the idiots were, well, idiots, spending time with them had proved to be rather amusing, but perhaps that was just because Tsukishima liked watching people do worse than him.
Hinata thanked him profusely when they finished up, and Kageyama did another one of those awkward half bows that made Tsukishima think the boy wasn't use to showing others he was greatful. Tsukishima's gaze followed the pair as they returned the skates they'd borrowed from the rink, Hinata was busy rambling about everything he'd learnt, and Kageyama was looking at him with eye's too soft to be considered friendly.
When Tsukishima finally arrived home, limbs significantly less worn out that usual given the fact he'd basically been hovering around Hinata and Kageyama the whole session, he felt rather restless. His mother, who was done sorting out the kitchen now and was currently watching one of those weird true crime documentaries she liked, picked up on his antsy behaviour almost immediately.
"You alright, Sweetie? How was skating?" She asks kindly, pausing the television as she turned to face him.
"Cold," Tsukishima deadpanned, "And I'm fine".
His mother shook her head in light amusement, "And how about your new friends?"
"They're not my-" Tsukishima started, before cutting himself off with a sigh, "They were annoying," His mother raises a pointed eyebrow at him, calling his bluff, Tsukishima relients and continues speaking, "But I had a good time".
Good may be an overstatement, but the way his mother's eye's crinkled at the courners as she smiled softly made the little white lie worth it in the end. And who knows, maybe deep down it wasn't much of a lie at all.
☆
So the thing about teaching Hinata and Kageyama how to skate was that they were weird. Not just weird in the overexcitable and loud way Hinata was, or the socially awkward and mildly obnoxious way Kageyama was, no it was more than that. It was now Wednesday, and after spending two whole afternoons with the duo Tsukishima had come to the formal conclusion that they could read eachothers mind.
Not literally, of course, that would be stupid, but whatever they had going on was downright freaky at times. They reached out to steady eachother before they'd even showed signs of falling, they moved oddly in sync at randomest of momenta and their arguments flowed in a way only people who knew eachother intricately could manage.
If you hadn't already guessed, this meant that what Tsukishima had assumed to be a crush was actually something a lot more complicated than that. They were in love, like disgustingly and overtly in love. So in love on fact that it made even their petty bickering look like flirting sometimes just due to the sheer fondness they both held in their gazes.
It was unbearable to watch, Hinata's face was permanently stained a dull pink, and Kageyama's pupils seemed to be constantly dilated. Kurro once told him dilated pupils had something to do with oxytocin and dopamine releases, you know, dopamine, the happiness chemical? Meaning Kageyama was always extremely happy around Hinata. Gross.
Tsukishima wanted more than anything to call them out on it (if not just to see the look on those idiots faces) but he could not be bothered to deal with them freaking out directly infront of him, they did that enough as it is. Speaking of freaking out, Kageyama was tilting dangerously backwards, meaning Hinata was currently torn between fits of giggles, and rather panicked words.
"You need to learn forwards, not backwards," Tsukishima explains, "It's safer to fall on your front, and it helps with balance".
"Falling helps with balance?" Hinata questions as Kageyama adjusts his posture.
"No, you idiot, leaning forwards helps with balance-" Hinata follows his instructions and nearly face plants the ice, "Not that far forwards,' Tsukishima notes dryly.
"Dumbass," Kageyama mutters.
"Meanie," Hinata says, "It's not like you were doing any better".
"Yes I was," Kageyama glares at him.
"Yeah, you wish," Hinata shot back.
"You wish," Kageyama retaliates, beginning to skate more aggressively, like he was trying to prove himself to Hinata.
This was the other thing that was weird about teaching Kageyama and Hinata (although this was definitely more on the good side of weird than the love thing), they were very competitive. Not in the simple 'I want to beat you' kind of way, but in a 'I need to beat you' way, like it was hardwired into their brains that everything had to be a competition, and they had to be the one to win it.
It wasn't mean spirited however, if anything they were eachothers biggest supporter, they spurred eachother on better than Tsukishima could ever encourage them, which was lucky for him because it made them very efficient learners.
Maybe that was why they apparently worked so well together in Volleyball, they were fast to pick up things if given the right motivation, and Yamaguchi paired with their need to best eachother was supposedly just what they needed to excel (or at least achieve the bare minimum) in this.
Tsukishima took the time they spent winding eachother up to practice his axel's, they were one of the harder ice skating tricks, and he was relatively good at them, but practising never hurt anyone. Well, practising hurt Kageyama and Hinata but then again he's almost certain the pair would injure themselves somehow whatever they did, if they were doing it together.
"Hinata, get off of me," Came a groan from behind him, Tsukishima turned his head to see Hinata sprawled onto of the taller boy, hair sticking up in odd angles, face flushed red.
"I'm stuck, you idiot!" Hinata complained, trying and failing to pry himself off of Kageyama.
"Someone is going to run us over!" Kageyama hissed.
If Tsukishima had to take another second of this pining, he was going to be the one to run them over, and he wouldn't regret it in the slightest.
"I hope someone runs you over, Bakayama," Hinata says, putting his hands on the ice either side of Kageyama's head to steady himself.
"You practically already have!" Kageyama exlaims, just as Hinata tried o push himself to his feet, causing his hand to slip, and him to fall face first into Kageyama chest.
"Canoodle somewhere else, we're in public," Tsukishima mutters under his breath, unluckily Kageyama must have pretty good hearing because he shoots a glare at Tsukishima.
"Yeah Kageyama, stop canoodling with me," Hinata teased. His words suprised Tsukishima slightly, he'd never been this obvious in his flirting before.
"You're the one on top of me, dumbass," Kageyama points out, scowling.
"Not for the first time," Hinata mumbles absentmindedly.
Tsukishima eyebrows raise into his hairline as Kageyama turns pink but doesn't say anything in protest, instead just continuing to grumble about Hinata crushing him. Tsukishima begrudgingly helps them both to their feet, bewildered expression still etched across his face at Hinata's comment.
"Why did you have to encourage him?" Kageyama said to Tsukishima, irritation creasing his brow.
"I literally have no idea what you mean," Tsukishima replies blankly, because he genuinely hasn't got a clue what's going on.
"I already have to tell him to rein in his obnoxious flirting when we're in public, you're canoodling comment didn't help," Kageyama explains, eye's trained on Hinata who was now attempting (and failing) to skate backwards.
"...Does he flirt with you often in private then?" Tsukishima asks slowly, because no one, not even Kageyama, could possibly be this dense.
"Unfortunately," Kageyama sighs, him and Tsukishima gliding closer to Hinata as they spoke.
"I'd be a pretty sucky boyfriend if I didn't," Hinata said with a grin.
"You're a pretty sucky boyfriend anyway," Kageyama argues.
"Pretty lucky, more like," Hinata laughs, winking exaggeratedly at Kageyama.
"Shut the hell up, you're so cheesy, dumbass!" Kageyama complains, but it doesn't look like he really minds at all.
Tsukishima looks from Kageyama to Hinata then back to Kageyama again, a look of realisation slowly dawning of his face, "Wait you're dating?" He questions incredulously.
"Yes".
"Obviously".
Tsukishima opens his mouth, closes it again, then doubles over in laughter. He doesn't hear Hinata's shocked exclamation of 'he can laugh!?' or Kageyama's confused muttering, too thoroughly amused to process anything else. It takes him a minute to stop cackling and when he finally does Kageyama speaks up.
"What's so funny?" he inquires, looking offended.
"I thought you two just had massive crushes on, but you're actually dating!?" He starts, still very much amused for reasons Kageyama and Hinata were yet to register, "But you still act like flustered messes! You're like love sick twelve year olds, you can't seriously be a couple, you spend all that time together and you haven't got all that lovey dovey bullshit out of your system? I thought this was pining but you are genuinely just so grossly in love, this is priceless".
"We're not gross! And we fight all the time so how are we flustered messes!" Hinata denies, Kageyama nodding insistent beside him.
Tsukishima continues to laugh in their faces, pointedly not answering them, "You guy's are seriously losers, you know that right? How long have you been dating anyway?"
"A couple of years," Kageyama supplies helpfully.
"Years? So this isn't even the honeymoon stage? Do you guys just have something wrong with your blood flow that makes you blush a weirdly high amount?" Tsukishima scoffs sarcasticly in disbelief.
"There is nothing wrong with my blood! I have great blood!" Hinata announces, as if this was a flex of some kind.
"You don't think we're losers because you're homohobic right?" Kageyama inquires seriously.
"I'm literally gay," Tsukishima says dryly, lazily cocking his head to the side , "You guys being queer doesn't stop you being idiots".
"Didn't stop you being an idiot either, I can't believe you didn't know we were dating," Kageyama grumbles, Tsukishima rolls his eye's (his mind breifly flicking back to his mother, who used to tell him they'd get stuck like that if he kept rolling them).
"And that's our session over for today," Tsukishima notes dully in response to Kageyama's comment, he wasn't even joking this time, he was getting tierd, and his chest ached slightly from laughing so hard.
"Kageyama stop insulting out friend!" Hinata reprimands.
"Still not your friend!" Tsukishima calls over his shoulder as he skates away and towards the rink exit, trying and failing to hide the small smile crossing his face.
☆
After learning that Hinata and Kageyama
were actually dating and not helplessly pining after eachother, Tsukishima was happy he got to spend Thursday away from the pair, he didn't want to deal with an afternoon full of snide remarks, teasing him for not working it out sooner. Not because he wouldn't be able to come back with sufficient (equally snide) responses, but because he genuinely should have figured it out quicker, and that pissed him off.
But, unfortunately, Thursday came and went, bringing Friday with it, and suddenly it was Saturday, the last afternoon he'd spend coaching Hinata and Kageyama, and they were running late. Strange, Tsukishima thought to himself and he twirled around the rink, they hadn't been late once the whole week, and today was the weekend which should give them even more of a chance to arrive on time.
It wasn't untill around ten minutes later that Hinata, without the usual looming presence of Kageyama beside him, steeped foot onto the rink, skating towards him apologetically. He'd gotten a lot better since Monday, obviously he was no where near Tsukishima's level but he was now good enough to skate relatively well on his own, meaning he'd be able to spend time with Yamaguchi with his friend having to make sure he doesn't fall the whole time.
"Where's the king?" Tsukishima asks, hint of a cocky smile gracing his features.
"He's in the bathroom, sorry we're late, Natsu held us up!" Hinata explains with a fond look in his eye.
"Natsu?" Tsukishima questions blankly.
"She's my little sister! Hinata says, "Kageyama always comes round on Saturdays-" Tsukishima scoffs, he doupts there was a day Kageyama wasn't round, "-and since Natsu has been getting into makeup recently she was testing it on Kageyama. He didn't have time to wash it off before we left, hence why he's in the toilet".
Tsukishima let's out a short laugh, "He actually let her do that to him?"
Hinata grins, "Yeah! Kageyama may be a meanie but he's always sweet to Natsu, it's kinda cute actually, how good he is with her. I mean he's also extremely awkward, like he's never spoken to a child in his life, but you can tell he's trying and it's so adorable-"
Tsukishima tuned out Hinata's rambling, the second you got him talking about Kageyama or Volleyball he wouldn't stop for a while. Instead his eye's scanned the rink, gaze lingering on a girl around his age sporting a Victor Nikiforov jacket, he would scoff at her blatant fangirl behaviour if he didn't have a poster of the exact same skater on his bedroom wall.
"-And if we had kids he'd look after them so well, not that I want kids! Well, not yet! I'm way to young for that! But you know, maybe one day..." Hinata finished, looking flustered, and Tsukishima was glad he hadn't registered the majority of his rant, he didn't get paid enough to listen to Hinata talk about his love life to this extent. He didn't get paid at all actually. Why did he agree to do this again?
It was in that moment where Kageyama joined them on the ice, appearing out of the blue with faint traces of glitter on his face and a my little pony hair clip secured in his short hair. Suddenly Tsukishima remembered why he was doing this, it was funny as hell.
"I'm assuming you couldn't get the makeup completely off?" Tsukishima remarked snidely.
"Shut up," Kageyama responded, scrubbing at his face in vein.
"And what's with the hairclip?" Tsukishima continues, bemused.
"I promised Natsu I'd wear it," Kageyama mumbles in the tone of someone who was regretting their life choices.
"You could just take it off, it's not like she'd know," Tsukishima points out.
"But that would be lying and I promised," Kageyama says, cocking his head to the side in confusion.
"You're weirdly earnest for someone so full of themselves," Tsukishima notes, Kageyama's honestly made him feel uneasy for some reason, it was oddly endearing not that he'd ever admit that to anyone.
"I'm not full of myself!" Kageyama protests, instantly ridding anything slightly endearing from his entire being.
"Maybe not, but I like winding you up," Tsukishima laughs, poking fun at Kageyama was too easy.
"You're just as bad as Hinata," Kageyama replies with an exasperated sigh.
"What you saying about me?" Hinata chimes in, head popping up behind Kageyama as he rested his chin on the boy's shoulder.
"You're annoying," Kageyama says, shrugging Hinata off of him.
Hinata sticks tounge out at Kageyama and in second their chasing eachother around the ice, admittedly not very speedily, but much better that most people would be doing after only a weeks practice. Tsukishima watched them laugh and shout at eachother, pushing back the odd feeling of pride, disliking the fondness creeping into his chest at the sight of the pair skating well together.
Tsukishima didn't even have any tips for them today, not due to the fact they didn't have room for improvement, but simply because anything he was able to point out now wouldn't be fixable in the single afternoon they had left. Tsukishima had leant yesterday that Yamaguchi's birthday was actually this Sunday, and Hinata and Kageyama are adequate enough at the sport to suprise him properly.
He tracked them with his gaze, furrowing his eyebrows slightly as Kageyama ducked behind Hinata, almost like he was hiding from something. Tsukishima's eye's drifted to the ice in front of the of pair and realised it wasn't something Kageyama was hiding from, but someone. That someone being Toru Oikawa.
Toru Oikawa was hard to describe. He wasn't Tsukishima's friend, the boy was way too irritating for that, but he talked to him every now and again and Tsukishima had once tripped over one of his paticularly invasive fangirls, which had apparently earned him the boys respect. Not that he really cared about having Oikawa's respect, but he supposes it was nice to be acknowledged by another gifted skater.
Oikawa was freakishly good at skating, yet he was annoying, overly flirty and not the type of person Tsukishima like to acquaint himself with (yes, he knows he has a habit of eating his words when it comes to matters like this, but this time he was being serious).
Oikawa's boyfriend (who's name slipped Tsukishima's mind) on the other hand was tolerable, and even quick witted at times, although he was dating Oikawa so Tsukishima couldn't trust his intelligence too much. It was obvious that Kageyama appeared to know Oikawa given the fact he was actively avoiding him, well failing to avoid him because he was hiding behind Hinata, who was too short to be of help.
"Nice hair clip, Tobio-chan" Oikawa called out in his usual melodic tone, smug smile stretched across his face as he glided gracefully past Kageyama. Kageyama scowled, touching his hair accessory self consciously, looking like he was refraining from yelling that he was only wearing it for Natsu and not for himself.
Tsukishima raised an eyebrow at the first name basis, and crossed the ice to question Kageyama, "You know Oikawa?"
"He went to my old school," Kageyama grimaced before turning to him in confusion, "Wait, you know Oikawa-san?"
What was with these two and the honorifics? Tsukishima wonders how well they actually knew eachother. "Yeah, he's here a lot, annoying as hell but very good. He's always at the ice hockey games too, I go watch them sometimes because they remind me of my brother and Oikawa always sits near me for some reason".
"He used to be on the volleyball team, he was really good at that too," Kageyama says, looking across at Oikawa with bitter admiration in his eyes, "I wonder why he didn't persure it, he had the skill".
"Maybe he just liked skating more, like Yamaguchi," Hinata suggested, although his expression told Tsukishima that he couldn't imagine liking anything more than volleyball.
Tsukishima scoffs slightly, "More like he liked a certain skater more," he said, pointedly eyeing Oikawa's boyfriend who was currently rolling his eye's as Oikawa dramaticly flung his arms around the boy's neck.
"Ah," Hinata made a small sound of realisation, "I suppose that makes sense, I'd probably try out a new sport if Kageyama was doing it. I'd never quit Volleyball though, that would be insane".
Kageyama was squinting at Oikawa and his boyfriend with a weird expression, like he was coming to relasation of his own, "Is everyone I know gay?"
Tsukishima let's out a bark of laughter, taken off guard by Kageyama's words, Hinata simply nods, saying "It seems so," as he skated idely.
"How long have they been dating?" Kageyama inquires
"How am I supposed to know? As long as I've known them I suppose. Oikawa is always at that guy's ice hockey games, being obnoxiously supportive, and he always rejects his creepy fangirls, even though he definitely enjoys their attention," Tsukishima replies.
"He still has those?" Kageyama complains.
"Yep," Tsukishima says dryly.
"Gross," Kageyama mumbles, and for once, Tsukishima actually agrees with him.
Hinata then goes on a rant about how cool Oikawa had been when he used to play volleyball, which caused Kageyama's frown to deepen, meaning the next ten minutes of the session consisted of Hinata talking about how much better Kageyama was as some weird form of apology.
Seven o'clock rolled around slowly, and strangely enough Tsukishima didn't seem to mind. He had rather enjoyed today despite himself, and as he begrudgingly congratulated Hinata and Kageyama for actually leaning the basics when he hadn't genuinely expected them to, he didn't even cringe at Hinata's loud 'THANK YOU' he got in response. God, who had he become?
"I guess this is it then," Tsukishima states when they're finally off the ice, bending down and unlacing his skates next to the bench where Kageyama is sitting.
"What do you mean?" Hinata asked, his head popping up in front of Tsukishima, ginger hair sticking up in every direction.
"Well, the week is up so I don't suppose I'll see you again," Tsukishima notes dryly.
Hinata pulls a face, like Tsukishima's words personally offended him, "Oh no, Tsukki, you're stuck with us now, we're bonded for life," he said seriously.
"Gross," Tsukishima wrinkled his brow, "And don't call me Tsukki".
Tsukishima began tugging his normal shoes back onto his feet, feeling the irritating warmth in his chest he got whenever someone was genuinely nice to him. Tsukishima didn't have many friends, he liked people to think he enjoyed life that way, but no one actually likes being alone, so for all he complained, maybe part of Tsukishima was happy Hinata and Kageyama had disturbed him on a random Monday afternoon almost a week ago today.
"You're our friend now," sing songed Hinata with a grin, Tsukishima rolled his eye's and shot Kageyama an exasperated look, which was hopeless given the fact Kageyama's eye's were glued to Hinata, like they always were when he was talking.
Tsukishima slung his skating bag over of his shoulder and got up to go, "See you later, Tsukishima!" Hinata called after him.
"See you, idiot," Tsukishima said over his shoulder, and maybe, just this once, he meant it.
☆
After having one too many sappy thoughts the evening prior, Tsukishima spent his Sunday watching a documentary about the Triassic period to cleanse his mind. He really has no idea what's gotten into him recently, terrifyingly engough he'd done exactly what his mum had said he was doing: gone out and made friends.
Annoying, loud, obnoxious friends. Friends he's only known for a week. Friends who were currently blowing up his phone and making him regret ever letting them have access to his phone number.
LEARNT TO SK8
Hinata: TSUKISHIMA
Hinata: TSUKISHIMA
Hinata: TSUKISHIMA
What.
Hinata: 1. Do you like the knew group chat name? :]
Hinata: 2. THANK YOU SO MUCH OMG YAMAGUCHI WAS SO HAPPY, HE WAS SO SUPRISED AND HE KEPT SAYING THIS WAS THE BEST PRESENT EVER IT WAS THE BEST ASJSKSSKSJ
You're typing hurts my eye's, but you're welcome
Are you still with him now?
Hinata: Yes, we are getting dinner :D
Hinata: Yamaguchi is talking to Kageyama about what 'touching up his roots means' because Kags thought he was on about trees LOL
Yamaguchi has dyed hair?
For some reason Tsukishima hadn't expected that, not that he'd really put much thought into Yamaguchi's appearance, he had no reason to. Until now, he supposes, as his mind tries to peice together a blurry image of a green haired stranger, who liked to skate and was too nice for his own good.
Hinata: Yep! It's green, he's very cool
Kageyama: Put your phone down, dumbass
Hinata: I'm thanking Tsukishima!
Kageyama: I know. I can read.
Can you? Are you sure?
Kageyama: Shut up
The conversation lulled then, and Tsukishima assumed that they'd gone back to talking to Yamaguchi, they were out for his birthday after all. Yet, to his suprise it only took a couple of minutes for his phone to ping again.
Hinata: Yamaguchi wanted to me to say thank you for him! He said we should all skate together some time soon!
Tell him he owes me for putting up with you idiots
Actually stractch that YOU owe me
Hinata: Can I pay you back by asking you skate with us on Monday, Yamaguchi wants to meet you!!!
How would spending more time with you be paying me back in any way, shape, or form?
Hinata: So you're coming? :D
No.
Hinata: I can smell you're lies through the screen
You're so weird
What time are we meeting?
Hinata: :D
Hinata: 6pm! Don't be late!
☆
You know how some people talk about the butterfly effect? The theory that a small change, such as having a different cereal for breakfast, can lead to much bigger changes in your life later down the line? Tsukishima has started to think that maybe Hinata and Kageyama are like butterflies, because ever since they'd fluttered into his field of veiw his life had taken a full one eighty and now he was about to go out and make yet another new friend.
Come to think of it, Hinata and Kageyama were more like birds than butterflies: annoying, louder, bringing about changes faster than a mere insect could ever manage. However, he couldn't say that the influence they'd had on his life was a bad one, if anything it had been suprisingly good.
He supposed that only added to his bird theory, what was that saying about when you saw Magpies? One for sorrow, two for joy. Hinata and Kageyama came as pair, a duo, you never saw one without the other. Maybe they'd been Magpies in another life, obnoxiously shoving joy into the faces of people who'd didn't expect it, not even noticing the impact they had on others.
Tsukishima's mother had asked if he was going to meet his new friends again when he'd dissappeared out the front door, skates in hand. Tsukishima hadn't even denied the fact they were friends that time, instead he simply nodded, pretending not to notice his mothers smug smile. And people thought it was his dad he got his smug nature from, oh how they were wrong.
So here he was, on his way to skate on a Monday afternoon, the thought of finally meeting this Yamaguchi character playing on his mind. Tsukishima wouldn't say he was nervous, he didn't really get anxious when faced with a new social interaction, it was more the fact he'd much rather do without small talk and forced pleasantries.
He thinks that's why he's friends with so many people with big personalitys that get on his nerves, they're oblivious to awkwardness, he can snarkly insult them and it just bounces off like nothing, and they go on rants about their passions instead of trying to talk about the weather. If and when he needs peace and quiet he just seeks out Kenma and Aasksi (who he'd recently realised probably also counted as friends, upping his total friend count to six) and they'd sit quietly with him without trying to make conversation.
But no, as he said, he wasn't nervous, he was simply intrigued. Which was saying a lot since he could list the amount of things that genuinely interested him on one hand (Dinasours, skating, space, strawberry flavoured foods, and now, apparently, Yamaguchi). It was mainly because Tsukishima was ussaly pretty good at peicing things together, working stuff out before beinf presented with the answer, yet despite the amount he'd heard about Yamaguchi, he still had no idea what to expect.
Someone shy, maybe? Given the fact he'd been too timid to tell his friends he no longer liked volleyball. Or perhaps someone more out there, given the green hair and how much Hinata ranted about how cool he was. Tsukishima couldn't get a solid grasp on this guy's character and it was beginning to agitate him more than he'd ever expected it to. It's not like he cared that much, but then again, Tsukishima has seemed to be saying that a lot lately without truly meaning it.
He pushed open the double doors to the skate rink, still lost in thought, headphones blasting music into his ears, before suddenly walking directly in someone stood still in the middle of the entrance way. Before Tsukishima could mutter an apology or even better tell the person to watch where their stopping, he caught sight of the boys face.
Cute. His brain unhelpfully supplied, which was high praise coming from Tsukishima, he didn't find many people paticularly cute. The boy was stuttering out a sorry, but Tsukishima wasn't afraid to admit that he wasn't listening to a word. This stranger had freckles, so many freckles, spread over his cheeks, trailing down his neck, spread out like stars, as if there were thousands of constellations kissing his skin.
It was then when he realised he'd been staring blankly at this stranger's face for a solid minute without saying a word, "Sorry," he muttered, preparing to push past him and get on with his day, hoping to forger this rather embarrassing moment as quick as possible.
"Wait!" The boy called after him, tentative smile on his face, "You're Tsukki, right?"
Tsukishima's turned back around to face him, suddenly clocking the green hair as the prices fell into place in his mind. This was Yamaguchi. Christ, he was fucked. Tsukishima didn't even correct him on his name, he didn't even pause to think that this meant Hinata might still annoyingly be referring to him as 'Tsukki' behind his back, instead he simply nodded stiffly, coming to a hault infront of Yamaguchi.
It was then that Yamaguchi full on grinned at him, and Tsukishima thought that he definitely had to be some sort of star because his smile was as blinding as the sun, "It's lovely to finally meet you! Thank you for everything you've done, it meant a lot to me".
Why was he so sincere? Tsukishima's sarcastic brain was not trained to deal with people who were sincere and pretty, "It's fine," he gritted out, so much for avoiding awkward encounters.
"Seriously, I get how they can be a lot, you must be a saint to have put up with them," Yamaguchi says, gesturing for Tsukishima to following him as they walked futher into the building.
"Trust me, I'm not," Tsukishima states dryly, which to his suprise elicts a laugh from Yamaguchi.
"Oh, really?" He says with raised eyebrows, expression similar to Tsukishima's when he's being skeptical about something, "Hinata and Kageyama are the probably the most idiotic people I know, and I'm their friend, I have no clue how you out up with them for a week".
Tsukishima laughs quietly. He honest to God laughs, and for the first time in a while it was with someone, not at someone, "You're funny," he says without thinking.
"I know," Yamaguchi replies cheekily, twinkling in his eye's, because of course even his eye's shine too.
You know how he said earlier that he was fucked? Yeah, he was fucked. Who decided this guy was allowed to have the same sense of humour as Tsukishima, how is that fair? He had half a mind to turn around and walk away, distance himself from this situation, and these feelings that had already began twisting in his stomach, but Yamaguchi had already began speaking again, and for some reason, Tsukishima was unable to look away.
"Why did you agree to help them, if you don't mind me asking? I know Hinata can be quite persuasive, but I get the feeling his normal tactics wouldn't work on you," Yamaguchi asks, cocking his head to the side curiously.
"To improve my own skill, it wasn't a selfless act, I assure you," Tsukishima replies.
"Hinata told me how good you were, not every gets one of his 'gwahs' as a description, I doupt you need skill," Yamaguchi comments.
Tsukishima scoffed, "If you're using Hinata as a good source I've already overestimated your intelligence".
Yamaguchi sniggers, covering his mouth to hide the smile creeping across it, "You're mean," he says, but there's no malice behind it".
"You're laughing," Tsukishima points out.
"Maybe I'm mean too," Yamaguchi says wryly.
"I find that hard to believe," Tsukishima states dryly.
"And I find it hard to believe you helped them to improve your skating abilities," Yamaguchi shoots back.
Tsukishima sighs, "I don't know why I helped them" he admits, "Part of me only said yes so they'd stop talking to me. Then I just went to help anyway, I'm not sure why, but I suppose it doesn't hurt to do at least one good deed in your life".
"I think you're wrong about yourself, Tsukki," Yamaguchi replied absentmindedly, more to himself than to him.
Tsukishima's brow furrowed in confusion, "What do you mean?"
"About not being a saint," Yamaguchi explained, thoughtful look on his face ,"I think you're less of an asshole than you let on".
Tsukishima felt taken aback once again, never in all his years had someone said he wasn't an asshole. In fact, Tsukishima was constantly told the exact opposite. He was an asshole, he knew he was an asshole, and he'd never actually tried to change his behavior in the slightest. He wasn't proud of it or anything, but he didn't hate it either, he was who he was and if you didn't like it you could kindly fuck off (He'd probably prefer that actually).
"Didn't you call me mean a second ago?" Tsukishima reminds him.
"You can be mean and also not an asshole," Yamaguchi tells him as they finally arrive at the rows of benches full of people putting on and renting out skates.
"That makes no sense," Tsukishima states, spotting Hinata and Kageyama and rasing his hand in a half wave to signal their arrival.
"Maybe you're just not smart enough to figure out wat I mean," Yamaguchi muses.
"Shut up, Yamaguchi," Tsukishima mumbles, although there's no heat behind his words.
"Sorry, Tsukki," Yamaguchi chirps, although like Tsukishima, he doesn't seem like he means his words.
"Tsukishima! Don't tell Yamaguchi to shut up!" Hinata reprimands loudly, scowling up at him and looking nowhere near as intimidating as he probably thinks he does.
"He called me stupid, I can say what I like," Tsukishima replies, secretly feeling oddly fond of how protective Hinata is of his friends.
Kageyama squints at Yamaguchi in bewilderedment, "You called him stupid and he's still smiling at you?" He would have refused to skate with us for ten straight minutes if I said that".
Tsukishima instantly drops his small smile, silently cursing himself out for letting his face betray his emotions like that, especially when Hinata speaks up in an excited tone, "Oh my God, he was smiling? That's rare, Yamaguchi, he must like you!"
"Stop talking about me like I'm a household pet," Tsukishima mutters, mildly offended that Hinata's talking about him like some grouchy cat that rarely warms up to people.
"You're too tall to be a household pet," Kageyama points out.
"Yeah, you'd be a giraffe," Hinata giggles, nudging Kageyama in the side as they snigger to themselves.
Tsukishima rolls his eyes, "I'm going to put my skates on, I don't know why I agreed to come here," Tsukishima turns, biting back a smile as he moves to walk to a near by bench.
Yamaguchi catches up with him once Tsukishima has already sat down and immediately starts up conversation as Tsukishima is pulling out his skates, "I like your skates, are those dinosaur bones?"
"Thanks," Tsukishima says, looking up to meet Yamaguchi's eyes, "They are, I had them custom made. Yours are pretty cool too," he compliments, eye's darting to the skates Yamaguchi are holding, which are covered in tiny drawings of stars.
"Thank you! I love space, especially stars," Yamaguchi beams, and Tsukishima's stomach makes a funny swooping motion that makes his face flush lightly. Of course he likes stars, with his stupid starry eyes, and his constellation like freckles. Jesus, why did Hinata and Kageyama have to have such a pretty friend.
After Tsukishima had finished securing his skates, he turns to Yamaguchi and asks, "Want to skate with me while those idiots try and trip eachother over?" To which Yamaguchi responded with an enthusiastic grin as they made their way over to the ice together.
Skating with Yamaguchi was a nice change of pace to the week he'd spent with Hinata and Kageyama. It was refreshing to be with someone who could actually keep up with him, and it turned out Yamaguchi could be rather competitive if you provoked him correctly and they ended up racing eachother across the rink a couple of times.
"Hinata said you like Victor Nikiforov," Yamaguchi said casually when their skating began to slow in pace, and they took up moving in lazy circles around eachother, "I'm more of a Yuuri and fan myself but I love them both".
"I do," Tsukishima replied, once again gaining that weird feeling in his chest as he realises how nice it is to talk to someone also knowledgeable about the skating world. He doesn't have any friends who ice skate, it's cool being able to speak about his favourite figure skaters eith someone who actually understands, "I got to see him live before he retired".
Yamaguchi gasps, "You're so lucky! Do you have any photos?" He asks excitedly.
"Yeah," Tsukishima answers with a small smile, feeling slightly smug baout this fact, "I got his autograph too," Tsukishima admits, which is something he doesn't tell people often because he finds his nerdiness embarrassing.
Yamaguchi looks impressed, which pleases Tsukishima for some reason, "I need to come round yours and see it sometime!" He exlaims before freezing and looking at his feet awkwardly, "Sorry, that was weird, I don't have to come round, I dont know why I said that".
Tsukishima spoke up quickly, "No, that would be nice,' he said softly, "I'd like to get to know the person I spent a week helping idiots for".
Tsukishima cracked a reassuring half smile, which seems to soothe Yamaguchi's nerves, "Yeah," he agrees, "That would be nice".
They skate together in comfortable silence after that, moving to join Kageyama and Hinata only when the open skate session comes close to an end. When Tsukishima bids Yamaguchi and the others goodbye, he feels strangely crestfallen, and hus gaze lingers a little too long on the back of Yamaguchi's head as he watches the man walk away.
Tsukishima hasn't felt the way he's feeling now in a long time. He was so fucked.
☆
LEARNT TO SK8
Hinata: What the hell did you do to Yamaguchi???
Tsukishima looks down at the notification on his phone in confusion. What did he do to him? What on earth could that possibly mean? Also the sight of Hinata not using capital letters and insane abriviations for once in his life was mildly concerning.
What???
Kageyama: We asked if he had fun today and he went all red and weird
Hinata: He didn't go weird, Bakayama, he was flustered!!! It was cute!
Kageyama: Whatever idiot, anyway, Yamaguchi wanted you to have his number Tsukishima so +81 XXX XXX XXX
Thank you.
Tsukishima stared down at his phone. Yamaguchi was flustered? Because of him? And he wanted Tsukishima's number? This couldn't be right, Tsukishima wasn't the kind of person cute, nice, people actually wanted to keep around. Or maybe he was. What was that thing Yamaguchi had said to him? 'I think you're wrong about yourself, Tsukki'. Well maybe he'd been right.
Tsukishima takes a deep breath, and moves his thumb to the 'add new contact' button on hid phone. He hesitates for a second before entering Yamaguchi's number and sending a text.
Yamaguchi
Hello, it's Tsukishima
Tsukishima?
Oh, Tsuki!
Hi :]
Tsukishima curses himself for the blush that creeps up on his cheeks at Yamaguchi's reply. He hurries to respond, with an eagerness that would be embarrassing if anyone but himself and Yamaguchi were there to judge him. The conversation is a little awkward as first, but they eventually work their way into a comfortable flow of chatter, that may or may not have Tsukishima laughing out loud a couple of times.
He feels like a lovesick teenager and he's only known this man for a day. Tsukishima feels stupid but even then he can't help the way his heart skips a beat when Yamaguchi asks to go skating again next week. Just them. He says yes of course, and if when he walks through the door of his house his mother tells him he looks happier than usual, Tsukishima doesn't even make a move to defend himself.
☆
It became a thing, skating with Yamaguchi every week, sometimes Hinata and Kageyama would join them, but often times it was just him and Yamaguchi. It was nice. Painstakingly nice. Tsukishima has never really understood how people can want to spend every second of everyday with another person, but with Yamaguchi simply existing in eachothers presence was so easy.
They don't just hang out at the rink anymore either, sometimes Yamaguchi will come over to his house and indulge him by watching his dinsouour documentarys that he's always felt to embarrassed to talk to anyone else about. One time he stayed over at Yamaguchi's and they stuck out in the middle of the night to go stargazing, they'd played in the grass and stared at the sky, just them and the stars for what felt like forever. It was perfect.
Yamaguchi was perfect.
For the first time in his life Tsukishima truly knew what it was like to have a best friend, and for the first time in his life Tsukishima felt the deep rooted longing in his chest for them to become more than that. That's what lead him to where he currently was today; a coffee shop down the street to Yamaguchi's house, patiently waiting for Yamaguchi to arrive.
It wasn't a date, as much as Tsukishima may wish it was, but it could possibly be the makings of a future one if everything goes to plan. You see, Tsukishima had recently brought tickets to Victor Nikiforov and Yuuri Katsuki retirement tour, something they were doing to honour the anniversary of them quitting professional skating careers, and to give their fans one last show. Tickets had be impossible to get but Tsukishima had somehow managed to secure two. He was going to ask Yamaguchi to come with him. As a date.
When Yamaguchi walks in, snow in his messy green hair, nose pink from the cold, and scalf wrapped so high around his neck his mouth was nearly completely covered, Tsukishima felt a smile tug fondly across his face. They greet eachother happily and fall into their usual, comfortable, conversation, but the thought of the tickets were playing on repeat at the back of his mind the whole time.
Call him a coward, but Tsukishima decides to wait untill the end of their hangout before proposing the idea to Yamaguchi (so he could bolt out of their if anything goes wrong) and when the time comes for them ti get up to go, Tsukishima clears his throat, rooting in his bag for the tickets as nausea twists in his stomach.
"Tsuki? You alright?" Yamaguchi pipes up, probably noting Tsukishima's stiffer than usual moments.
"Yeah, I'm fine," Tsukishima nods, trying not to appear to tense, "I just had something I wanted to ask you".
"Yeah?" Yamaguchi says curiously, tilting his head to the side in question, "Ask away, Tsuki," he beams, eye's lighting up in the way that makes Tsukishima want to melt in a puddle on the floor.
Tsukishima's hands feel clammy as he pulls out the tickets, feeling stupid that for some reason this was the most nervous he'd ever been in his life. Tsukishima opened his mouth, and immediately began to ramble, like he was being possessed by fucking Hinata or something, "I know you were talking about how you wanted to see Yuuri and Victor's last tour the other day, and I know they were something we talked talked about when we first started being friends-"
Tsukishima starts, taking a breath, as Yamaguchi nods along to show he's listening, "-So I decided to get us tickets and I thought it could be a date? Maybe? If you want to go with me, that is". Tsukishima blurts out way too quickly, cheeks flaming. Whoever said 'Love makes you stupid' was completely right, because Tsukishima had never felt more idiotic than he did right now, standing with two flimsy bits of paper in his hand, confessing his feelings to a boy he's only known for a few months.
That feeling of stupidity is instantly blown away by Yamaguchi's blinding smile however, "Yes!" the man grins, before pushing himself up onto his tip toes and placing a chaste kiss on the edge of Tsukishima's mouth, "Of course I want to go with you, Tsuki!"
Tsukishima freezes fir a second, cheeks warm, heart cartwheeling through the coffee shop at a hundred miles an hour, "Shut up, Yamaguchi," Tsukishima mumbles with absolutely no venom in his voice at all, averting his gaze from Yamaguchi's all knowing eyes.
"I really like you, Tsuki," Yamaguchi replies earnestly, ignoring Tsukishima's words because he knows he doesn't mean them. Because he knows Tsukishima.
"I really like you too, Yamaguchi," Tsukishima replies softly, letting himself smile wide and genuine, because genuine is something Yamaguchi makes Tsukishima want to me.
Yamaguchi grins up at Tsukishima before slipping his hand into his, "Walk me home?" Yamaguchi asks gently, like Tsukishima could ever say no to him.
"Of course," Tsukishima replies, squeezing Yamaguchi's hand as it rests in his own.
Tsukishima thinks to himself as they walk out the café that maybe public skating sessions weren't too bad after all. Not when they end up giving him something as special as this. Something as special as Yamaguchi.