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From an early age, Tsukishima had only yearned for one thing; to go unnoticed. He had never been a people person, anyone who had ever known him was aware of that. However, it was easier said than done to sink into the shadows, especially when you are a towering 6"2. If he couldn’t be discreet with his height, his weight would be where his success would show.
He had always told himself that it was a coincidence - just chance that the world began to feel heavier while he felt lighter. How stairs brought more broken breath. Bright light plunged him into disorientating black blurred visions every time he went to stand. Questions only brought unwanted answers, so the less the asked, the better he felt.
He didn't have a problem with food.
Growing up with this “strength”, vanishing at meal times became an art he specialised in. Breakfast became unnecessary. Lunch was optional. Dinner was a performance, tapping cutlery, scraping food around, shifting piece here and there, only for everything to end up piled in one section of his plate, leaving his meal looking well touched. When someone eventually questioned his abnormal behaviour, Tsukishima simply scoffed, dismissing them.
He didn’t have problems.
He had solutions.
High school only made it easier to lie. Volleyball specifically. The exhaustion wasn’t a waste, long hours of training made it feel deserved. His fatigue was only a reward for his efforts of restriction. Shaking hands became a side effect of “overtraining”, the nausea was “lack of sleep”.
Tsukishima saw no negatives to his “situation.”
His blocks started slipping anyway.
His jumps were labelled sloppy, his receives; weak. Despite how hard he tried, Kei was slowly, but surely, forcing himself into the spotlight he’d fought so hard to avoid.
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It was a Tuesday afternoon, practice had lasted longer than usual that day because of the upcoming game with Nekoma. It was one of those days where something was off, the world passing by in a blur, where you’re conscious but never entirely sure how or why you ended up in a certain room. He first noticed the change during team warm ups, the way the lights buzzed a little louder than usual. No meals were eaten that day, nor the day before; if he was going against Nekoma, he needed to look the part.
The team began drills, practicing spikes and receives at either ends of the court. Rising, Tsukishima naturally following Yamaguchi to the further area offering receives, the floor seeming a fraction further away than usual. He was never too good at spikes, the way his knees would give out just before he jumped unsettled him, he would NOT be a failure, stooping to the level of his brother.
By the time drills had ended, the numbers stopped lining up. Timing slipped. His jumps came a beat late. When his hands started shaking, he simply clenched them into fists until it stopped. He scowled harder. Snapped sharper. Irritation was easier than stopping long enough to realise something was wrong.
Focus.
Don’t be dramatic.
The warning signs came quietly. A ringing in his ears. Black dots swimming round the edges of his vision. His heart thudded too hard, then not hard enough. He barely registered Coach’s whistle or Yamaguchi’s faded voice calling his name; everything sounded a little too distant, muffled, like he was underwater.
Then the floor tilted.
Tsukishima tried to straighten up, to say something cutting and normal, but his knees buckled before the words reached his mouth.
He needed to focus.
Don’t…
Just focus.
He didn’t hear the shouts.
Didn’t feel the hands.
Didn’t feel much of anything at all.
The world narrowed to nothing, and for a fleeting, traitorous instant, the “nothing” felt easy. The last thing he felt was a strange sense of relief as gravity took over.
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When consciousness crept back, it was slow and cruel. He woke to beeping—steady, mechanical, far too close. The air smelled sterile, sharp enough to sting the walls of his lungs. The bright lights blinding, the way he squinted exasperated his headache. His throat burned, dry and sore, and when he tried to swallow, something resisted. Panic jolted through him as he shifted, only to feel a foreign pressure in his nose, down his throat, taped securely to his face.
A feeding tube.
His body sought to be immobile, paralysed, from shock or weakness was something he didn’t yet know. He tried to move his arm and managed only a trembling lift before it dropped back to the bed. His chest tightened, breath shallow and uneven, heart thudding too fast now, as if making up for lost time.
Voices drifted in and out. Doctors. Nurses. Words like malnourished, dangerously low, collapse. Each one landed with dull finality. No accusations, no drama, only the facts. Clinical. Unarguable. Kei wasn’t the type to stand idly by, he wanted to argue anyway. He wanted to say this wasn’t necessary, that he could fix it himself, that he’d not gone too far, this was all an overreaction. But the tube was there, cool and immovable, feeding him without permission, without effort, without control. His body accepted it greedily, traitorously, as if it had been waiting. Shame burned hotter than fear.
Turning to get as comfortable as he could in the icy sheets of the hospital bed, he was greeted with a lonely painting of himself, staring with empty eyes back at him. The plain black frame of the mirror provided contrast to his pasty skin, his glasses looking comedically large for his face. Cheek bones visible, lips pasty, yearning for any form of hydration.
Tsukishima closed his eyes, listening to the steady beep of the monitor, the quiet but sure proof that his body was still fighting even if he wasn’t sure he wanted it to. He didn’t feel grateful to be alive. He just felt trapped inside a body that had refused to let him disappear quietly.
No, the hunger certainly hadn’t been quiet.
It had finally been loud enough.
Enough to knock him down.