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They decided to keep the engagement secret.
With Shouyo at the height of his career and gay marriage still not legal in Japan, neither of them—Kei especially—wanted to deal with the media frenzy that would come from announcing it publicly. They told their families, of course. And their respective best friends. The rest of Karasuno would know when the time was right, as certain people (Noya and Tanaka) couldn’t be trusted to keep their mouths or their social media pages shut. Although if the story got out, Kei suspected that Shouyo truly wouldn’t have minded the bombardment of interviews, or the outcry from fans. He was open with everything he did, and other people’s opinions seemed to bounced off of him like rubber bullets. He was keeping it secret for Kei’s sake.
He did that a lot—adjusted to meet Kei’s needs. And it wasn’t like it wasn’t ever mutual. Kei squirmed under the stares they were given but still held Shouyo’s hand in public because it was important to Shouyo to show affection, public opinion be damned. But the weeds that liked to pop up in the garden of his thoughts were persistent in their whisperings. He’d heard once somewhere that the way you did one thing was the way you did everything. By that logic, if they went through life the way that they played volleyball, Shouyo would always be striving for greatness while Kei settled for being slightly better than good. Even if he wasn’t bad by most standards, in comparison he would always fall short and it wouldn’t matter how much he wanted Shouyo if Shouyo could do better for himself. But Tsukishima Kei had never claimed not to be selfish and, by God, did he want Shouyo. Kei wanted the smiles that outshone the sun itself, the ridiculous sound effects Shouyo used when he couldn’t find words, being woken up at ass o’ clock in the morning when Shouyo accidentally jostled him getting out of bed to go for his morning run and the apology kisses that came with it. Kei wanted it all.
(The whispers said he didn’t deserve it.)
They didn’t wear the rings outside of their apartment. Of the two, Kei usually got home later and noticed that Shouyo would wear his ring as he flitted about the house taking care of chores or when they settled down to watch something before bed. As they cuddled on the couch (yes, Saltyshima Kei cuddled and anyone besides Shouyo who knew that was not allowed to live), Shouyo would put his hand in Kei’s and he would feel the texture of the metal band around Shouyo’s finger. He’d trace the pattern he knew by heart. He’d reached out to a custom jeweler with a design in mind. It was simple, just lines engraved into the metal in a sequence that mimicked a volleyball’s skin—in gold, because gold suited Shouyo. Kei would hold hands and rub his finger along the ridges of the ring and think about how much he wanted this forever.
(Logic would jab at the back of his brain, pointing out that everything in Shouyo’s actions said he wanted it forever too. The whispers would try to smother it.)
At work, he’d started hosting a planetarium show that he was passionate about, even if it meant he was coming home even later. He’d managed to sneak some dinosaur facts into the presentation under his supervisor’s nose, and people who came to a museum after normal hours in their free time were the kind of people he enjoyed teaching. It was his baby. He wished it didn’t mean less time at home, but something would always have to give. Shouyo told him they would make it work. He hadn’t seemed bothered, but Kei’s brain screamed that it was another concession Shouyo had to make for him. Another way he was already failing as a husband, putting more pressure on Shouyo to figure out dinner and do the wedding planning they barely had time for as it was.
Today maybe it didn’t matter as much. Shouyo had texted him that practice had run over, so he would be home later than normal too. As evidenced by his shoes in the genkan, he’d still gotten home before Kei.
“Shouyo?”
He wasn’t in the living room or the kitchen. The door to their bedroom was ajar, and Kei approached it slowly, knowing he had a tendency to startle people unintentionally. The sight before him made him stop altogether.
Shouyo was there, and it was immediately apparent why he hadn’t heard Kei calling his name, as he had airpods stuffed in his ears. Whatever music he was listening to must have been upbeat and guitar-heavy because he was pumping his fists and throwing his head back like he was at his own personal rock concert. None of that was what struck Kei dumb. It was the flash of gold in Shouyo’s palm and the smile that brought sunlight into the room when he opened his hand to look at it. Still oblivious to Kei’s presence, he slipped the ring onto his finger and leapt into the air pulling his knees up to his shoulders. It was a move Kei had seen a hundred times before right after Shouyo won a game or defeated Kageyama in a harebrained competition. It was a move that only ever meant one thing: victory.
On his way back down from his third jump, Shouyo turned enough to catch Kei’s eye. He flubbed the landing and stumbled back into the corner of their bed and nightstand. They stared at each other for a split second before Shouyo ripped the airpods out of his ears.
“So… when you tell this story to our friends, can we just say that I was really excited about the engagement and leave out the dancing around like a crazy person?”
A laugh burst out of Kei. A weight he didn’t know he was carrying fell off of his shoulders, and he had a feeling that from now on, he would be able to stamp out any pesky weeds that dared to spring up. He crossed the room until he was looming over his tiny fiancé and pressing him into the bed. Shouyo was looking up at him with a half-sheepish, half-hopeful expression.
“No.” Kei ignored his noise of protest and reached over him to grab his own ring—just like Shouyo’s but silver—and put it on before pulling Shouyo into his arms. His Shouyo. His future husband. The love of his life.
“I think I’ll keep this one to myself.”