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“Tsukki…”
Yamaguchi was crying. He was bawling, actually, and he was probably getting snot all over Kei’s shirt, but Kei didn’t have it in him to push the sobbing boy off. Even if he did, Kei observed, he wouldn’t be able to. Yamaguchi had balled the purple material of Kei’s shirt in his fists, and Kei thought that he would probably need the strength of the entire volleyball team together to get his fists unclenched.
And anyway, Yamaguchi was crying—bawling, whatever. It was far from a pleasant experience, really, and Kei would have gone as far as to call it gross. Yamaguchi had leeway in a lot of things, like nicknames and teasing and personal space, but he did not get leeway on getting snot and tears on Kei’s clothes. (Well, Kei was still letting him right then, but in theory he wouldn’t have.) Frankly, if Yamaguchi had been someone else, Kei would have already pushed them away, given them a disgusted look, and left them in the dust. The problem with this was that Yamaguchi was not someone else, and so Kei endured.
Kei found crying to be absolutely unnecessary, dramatic, and exhausting. Yamaguchi was going to be fatigued after this spell passed, Kei was certain. His fingers would be sore and the skin around his eyes would be irritated; he’d probably even have a headache. All for—what, even? Yamaguchi hadn’t said. All he’d done was launch his snivelling self at Kei’s apparently inviting form and nuzzled his face into the front of Kei’s before clean shirt. (Yamaguchi was definitely the only person in existence to think Kei even looked a touch inviting.)
Yamaguchi had shown up at Kei’s house about an hour after Kei had gotten home from practice, and he had flung himself onto Kei without warning, so they were still standing in the open doorway. Kei wondered for a moment what would have happened if his mom opened the door instead of him, but pushed the thought away. There were more important things to be thought about at that moment, like how Kei was starting to feel the wetness from Yamaguchi’s face seep through his shirt.
“Yamaguchi,” Kei said when he’d finally spent enough time thinking about the snot that was getting on his shirt and his mom snapping at him for leaving the door open.
Yamaguchi pulled away slowly, looking up at Kei with wide, tear-brimmed eyes.
“Are you planning on telling me why this is happening?” Kei questioned, and his eyes flickered down to Yamaguchi’s quivering bottom lip. He kind of wanted to take it between his pointer finger and thumb, to stop the shaking.
Swallowing thickly, Yamaguchi loosened his grip on Kei’s shirt until he let go, stepping backwards once to put some space in between them. He then brought up one of his arms to wipe at his face with his sleeve. Kei gestured for Yamaguchi to come inside, so he could shut the door behind him.
Kei spared a glance down at the front of his shirt, grimacing slightly at the wet patches.
“Sorry, Tsukki,” Yamaguchi started, and it was… wrong. Usually when Yamaguchi said those words it was playful, almost teasing. This wasn’t quite right. “I just—My mom—I don’t—” He was speaking through hiccups, and it wasn’t really a valid form of communication in Kei’s eyes. He certainly couldn’t understand any of what the blubbering boy was trying to say.
“Yamaguchi,” Kei sighed, reaching out and placing a stiff hand on Yamaguchi’s shoulder. “Calm down.”
Yamaguchi looked up at his friend and blinked, almost in disbelief, before closing his eyes and taking a deep breath.
“My mom wants to—to move to Tokyo,” he stated as smoothly as he could manage, only opening his eyes after he’d finished talking.
“Oh,” Kei said as his stomach dropped. He forgave Yamaguchi for the snot and tears on his shirt.
A tense silence settled in the room. Yamaguchi sniffled, wiping again at his nose with his sleeve.
“When?” Kei spoke cautiously, taking his hand off of Yamaguchi’s shoulder.
“I’m—I’m not sure,” Yamaguchi started, looking down at his fingers as they fumbled together. “She applied for a job, but she doesn’t know if she got it yet. She just—just told me about it and I… came over.”
“Oh.” Kei didn’t know what to say.
“I’m sorry that I just came over like this,” Yamaguchi apologized, “It was the first place I thought to go.”
“It’s fine.” Kei let out a breath. “Are you staying?”
Yamaguchi hesitated, before asking, “Can I?”
“Yeah,” Kei responded immediately, and then cleared his throat.
The pair headed to Kei’s room without a word, and Kei softly shut the door behind them. Yamaguchi stood awkwardly in the middle of the room, and Kei leaned his back against the closed door.
“Are you for sure moving?” Kei found himself asking as he took particular interest in the hem of his shirt.
“No,” Yamaguchi responded as he sat himself on the very edge of Kei’s bed, his fingers curling around the blanket. “Only if she gets that job, I think.”
“Mm,” Kei grunted, moving to sit at his desk. He leaned over on the desk, setting his head in his arms.
“I don’t know how likely it is that she’ll get the job,” Yamaguchi admitted, “I don’t—I don’t even know why she applied. I thought she liked it here…”
“Yeah,” Kei replied, though his voice was probably muffled by his position.
“She said she should know by next week,” Yamaguchi continued, and Kei was glad that at least his hiccuping had stopped. “and if she does—get the job, we’ll have to move by next month.”
Kei’s breath caught in his chest. “Next month?” he asked, sitting up and turning around to look at Yamaguchi. Tears still leaked from his eyes, trailing down his cheeks and dripping from his jawline, spattering on the front of his shirt.
“That’s what she said.”
“Oh.”
Kei wasn’t good at this feelings thing, but his chest was starting to hurt and instead of being repulsed as he watched Yamaguchi cry, he felt some sort of heaviness settle on his shoulders.
“Umm,” Kei spoke up, wondering if changing the subject would help or make things worse but deciding to take the risk, “My brother lended me this movie he really thinks I should watch…” He looked pointedly at movie’s case that sat upright on his desk, leaned against a stack of books.
Yamaguchi sniffled once before asking, “What’s it about?”
Kei’s voice was small as he replied, “Dinosaurs.”
Yamaguchi’s laugh was tinny, and it felt like it bounced off the walls. “Of course it’s about dinosaurs, Tsukki.”
Letting out a huff, Kei picked up the movie and read the description on the back to Yamaguchi. Kei took a moment to internally scold Akiteru; the movie sounded corny and terrible. But the description made Yamaguchi laugh, and the faster his tears dried, the faster this awful pressure in Kei’s chest would subside.
So, the duo ended up lying on their stomachs on Kei’s bed, propped up by their arms, Kei’s laptop angled so they both could see it. Their shoulders brushed as Kei reached forward to press play, and as he brought his arm back, he left it so that their shoulders were lightly pressed together.
Every time Yamaguchi laughed about something stupid in the movie, his shoulder ruffled the sleeve of Kei’s shirt—which he’d changed, by the way, because even if he felt bad, he didn’t want to wear a shirt with snot on it—and Kei looked over at Yamaguchi, his face lit up by the white light from the computer. He looked a lot better when he wasn’t crying, Kei noted.
Eventually Yamaguchi complained about his back hurting, so he collapsed his arms and he lied flat on his stomach, his chin resting on his crossed arms. His elbow pressed into Kei’s arm for a moment before Kei pulled himself up, sitting criss-cross in front of the computer. His knee nudged Yamaguchi’s shoulder.
“Hey, Yamaguchi,” Kei spoke quietly, and Yamaguchi lifted his head to look up at his friend. Something violent happened on the screen, but neither of them were looking. “If you do move…” he paused, biting the inside of his lip as he contemplated whether or not to finish the statement. “I’ll miss you.”
Yamaguchi blinked, his eyes wide and his lips parted. After the initial shock passed, Yamaguchi sat up next to Kei, reaching his hand over to wrap his fingers lightly around one of Kei’s wrists. Kei shifted a bit so that he faced Yamaguchi, and he looked down at where Yamaguchi was holding his wrist before lifting his gaze back up.
“You’d better miss me,” Yamaguchi said with a sad smile. He turned Kei’s wrist in his hand, almost as if he were inspecting it.
It would’ve been an appropriate time for a “Shut up, Yamaguchi,” but Kei couldn’t bring himself to say it. Instead, he watched as Yamaguchi gently traced the veins in Kei’s wrist with his finger.
And Kei wasn’t really sure why, but he had the sudden urge to lean forward and press his lips to Yamaguchi’s. He didn’t; he tried to rationalize in his head that this was definitely some kind of hormonal thing, and that being sad that Yamaguchi might be moving hours away did not equate to wanting to kiss him. And yet, when Yamaguchi looked up at Kei, Kei had a hard time pulling his wrist from Yamaguchi’s grasp.
“Yeah. I’ll miss you,” Kei repeated, swallowing thickly and averting his gaze. “if you move.”
“Yes, if.”
“You’ll be fine,” Kei continued, “if you move. You’ll be okay.”
Yamaguchi bit his lip and casted his gaze downwards. “I’ll miss you a lot.”
“Yeah. But you’ll make new friends.” Kei’s chest twisted.
“Maybe. None of them will be Tsukki, though.”
Yamaguchi’s eyelashes brushed against his softly pink tinted cheeks and Kei really needed to stop noticing things like that.
“We’ll keep in touch,” Kei said, trying to get his mind off his absurd impulse.
“Of course we will. Even if you suck at texting,” Yamaguchi teased, lifting his gaze to make eye-contact with Kei once again. He was tearing up.
“Don’t cry,” Kei frowned.
“I can’t help it,” Yamaguchi laughed sadly, and a tear rolled down his cheek.
Kei couldn’t hold out any longer. Yamaguchi looked better when he wasn’t crying, as established earlier, and Kei wasn’t ready for that awful weight to return to his shoulders and chest. So, he leaned forward, lifting his hand to hold Yamaguchi’s chin and pressing their lips together.
Yamaguchi didn’t move. It didn’t even seem like he was breathing. Kei pulled away after a moment, retracting his hand and adjusting his glasses. He cleared his throat and didn’t dare to look Yamaguchi in the eyes.
“Tsukki…”
“Shut up.”
“Tsukki!”
Yamaguchi grabbed Kei by the shoulders, and balled the material of his shirt in his fists. And suddenly, urgently, they were kissing again. How strange, Kei thought, that he was just grossed out by Yamaguchi’s tears and snot but now they were practically trading saliva. Semantics.
Their teeth clanked together, Kei’s glasses got in the way, Yamaguchi’s lips were chapped, and his face was wet from tears—the kiss was kind of bad and kind of salty, actually. Kei pulled away.
“Stop crying,” he said, and Yamaguchi laughed.
Letting go of Kei’s shirt, Yamaguchi brought his hands to his face, wiping away the tears. “Sorry,” he said. “I’m a little overwhelmed.”
Kei blinked. “Understandable.”
A splattering sound emitted from the laptop speakers, the forgotten movie still playing despite the fact no one was paying any attention to it. Yamaguchi glanced at the screen for a moment before looking back to Kei, a small smile gracing his lips.
“You’re a bad kisser,” Yamaguchi teased, and Kei narrowed his eyes at his friend.
“Shut up.”
They were quiet for a moment, before Yamaguchi murmured, “I really hope I don’t have to leave.”
“Yeah,” Kei agreed.
He’d be sure to tell Akiteru later that the movie sucked.