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His left eye is twitching.
It has been twitching for the past week or so, but Tsukishima assumed he was just going insane and was imagining it.
After a couple of days, he stared at himself in the mirror above the bathroom sink one morning to see if it was visible or if he could catch it up close, but it seemed fine. His eye worked just as usual, nothing out of the ordinary. Except its mere presence is starting to drive him insane after a week of it.
“It might just be exhaustion, Tsukki,” Yamaguchi commented on it on the third morning Tsukishima complained about it, and the blonde huffed at his astute observation. It was probably right. Didn't convince Tsukishima to stop contemplating giving himself a black eye because of it though.
Tsukishima’s sleep schedule throughout college started off just fine, he’d sleep early and wake up even earlier for his early morning classes– then go back home, eat some lunch and or dinner, do his work, and repeat. As the courses got harder, and he began doing his internship, plus volleyball on the side, he was sometimes barely getting those hours in. And even if he was– they weren't at the regular times, which just helped confuse his internal clock.
TLDR; he’s tired all the time, and apparently the universe is now punishing his remaining sanity by making his left eye twitch as a result of his overworking habits.
He couldn't afford taking time to focus on that, though– with his shifts, his assignments, and volleyball practice, balancing everything became a tight rope circus performance. Yamaguchi gently pulls him out of his hyperfocused, work-based mood to lay down and nap, or have a hot chocolate in front of the TV. Tsukishima counts those as breaks, even when Yamaguchi insists those do not count as such.
There isn't any hope left in him for getting any extensions on his assignments, for his shifts to magically disappear, or for practice to be cancelled– all he really wants now is for his eye to stop twitching.
— — —
Tsukishima’s Tuesday opens up with an early nine AM class.
He is very aware of the argument that he woke up earlier for all of elementary, middle, and highschool, and that waking up at eight AM for your nine AM lecture and grumbling about it is very unnecessary. However, Him and Yamaguchi are both convinced that the university air just does that to you– regresses you beyond return, and destroys any semblance of humanity that you had before selling your soul for a major you liked and applying to study it for a couple years. So he stopped thinking about how immature it was a long time ago.
Waking up to his alarm while Yamaguchi sleeps next to him soundly hurts him in his core. On one hand, he envies his boyfriend for: one, not having early classes that day, and two, being able to sleep through just about anything.
On the other hand, a thing Tsukishima hates more than university itself is the act of leaving, ripping himself away from the warm bed he and Yamaguchi share in the morning and having to face the world when all he ever wants is to lay in bed with his lover and breathe peacefully. Truly an evil thing, university is.
He contemplates skipping class and indulging in that dream, then remembers the email he got about his attendance, and he’d rather die than get an F because of non-attendence. He’s better than that. Upon this reflection, he groans as he gets up and hauls himself to the bathroom to wash up and get ready for the day.
After brushing his teeth, cold water violates him as he splashes it on his face as a wake up technique, grabbing at the side towel blindly to dry everything off before putting his glasses back on. He forgoes a shower and decides he’ll take one after class, going straight to the closet and picking out whatever outfit that most screams ‘leave me alone, it's too early.’.
All of this while trying to be as quiet as possible so Yamaguchi isn't disturbed, sleeping serenely in their bed with a small drool puddle under his cheek.
Grabbing his bag from one of the dining room chairs that he left there last night, he checks it has the essentials– his laptop, notes, pencils. Before slinging it on his right shoulder and making his way to the kitchen cabinet to grab a quick granola bar as an imitation of breakfast.
As he heads towards the door he checks his pockets for his wallet, keys, and phone, before making an effort to put on his shoes and finally unlock the door to go to class.
Tsukishima’s left eye twitches then, and as he clicks the front door shut at the last click, he throws his head at it with a slight bang. He's so tired of this stupid eye.
This has to be some sort of punishment.
Maybe he should've stayed in bed.
— — —
After Tsukishima’s nine AM class, he meets up with Yamaguchi and Hitoka for a nice brunch.
“It's lunch at this point.” he argues when he sees them– no hi, hey, or hello to be found. Twelve PM is lunch in his opinion, but maybe to people who have the fortune of not having morning classes, it's their breakfast.
“Brunch is technically from ten AM to one PM, so you can stop with your smartass comments.” Hitoka pinches her face at him, and begins leading them into a cafe-slash-restaurant that's near the university food-court area.
Yamaguchi offers a giggle at their antics, “What happened to hello?”
“Nothing warrants such a greeting when I had the morning I did.” Tsukishima replies with a dead tone of voice, and equally as dead looking facial expression to bring his point home. Yamaguchi barks out a laugh. “You didn't go to war! You had class!”
Tsukishima locks eyes with him and pouts. “You try getting up from a warm bed with you in it to go to class,” he huffs, mocking the idea of classes as a whole in his bitterness. “Then talk to me about going to war.”
“You are so overdramatic.” Yamaguchi teases with a smirk, sliding his pinky to connect with Tsukishima’s own next to him.
“–and you both disgust me.” Hitoka mumbles from in front of them. Her comment makes Yamaguchi giggle, and Tsukishima grin. “You’re jealous?”
“Yachi-san, its pride month…you cant be saying anything about us.” Yamaguchi points out brilliantly, and then points at her literally with his other hand, and she gasps in shock. “I didn't even say anything! You're tag-teaming me!”
They both laugh, and the conversation ends when they make it to the Cafe. Yamaguchi makes an effort to slot their hands fully together and warms up Tsukishima’s own cold one as a result.
Tsukishima orders a strawberry milkshake with pancakes, and his morning gets exceptionally better.
Oh, Yamaguchi and Hitoka’s presence also make it more bearable. The pancakes come first though… his sweet tooth is insatiable.
— — —
Going through his last two classes without anyone worthy of his presence makes time go by slower, and his patience grow thinner. He’d say it went even worse when a classmate that he didn't know approached him after his last class ended and asked for his notes on last week's topic.
Having not known this person's name at all, not even in passing, he politely declined sharing them and smirked when he heard a brief ‘asshole’ be uttered from the guys’ mouth as he walked to the hall's doors to exit. Anything to prevent him staying there any longer than the three hours he had to be stuck there already.
It's really a disadvantage being as smart as he is– people assume he’s just jumping at all the opportunities to bend himself backwards for them when they don't even know him. Which just makes their disappointed faces after he declines them all the more sweeter, in his opinion.
Making his way out of the building and finally on his way back home properly, he notices the sun setting in the distance and pulls out his phone to take a picture. He sends it to Yamaguchi who, upon immediately replying with hearts of similar colours to the sky (Orange, yellow, purple, blue. Cute.), sends him a voice message asking what he’d want for dinner with a couple comments on the side. He can hear a couple pots and pans in the background, assuming Yamaguchi was already in the kitchen and getting things ready after asking him.
Tsukishima puts his phones’ speakers next to his ear and listens.
> ▶︎····||||၊၊||၊||။||၊||။||၊||။·· 0:36
> I miss you btw <3 <3 <3
< I’ll be home in a couple minutes. Make whatever you want for dinner.
> Okay!!
< I miss you too.
With that in mind, he makes his way a little faster to their apartment and wastes no time bringing the keys up and unlocking the door. He takes his shoes off, placing them neatly by the doorway. His bag is deposited on the couch right after. He makes sure the front door is locked, and without any greetings he moves to hug Yamaguchi from behind while the other mixes something in a pan on the stove.
Having heard Tsukishima come in, Yamaguchi just smiles brightly and nudges his elbow in the taller's stomach. “I’m working with fire, don't do that!”
“Wow, no ‘welcome home’ to your boyfriend? Who's been out the whole day working to earn an income for this household?”
“You’re sooo overdramatic today. Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Never been better.” Tsukishima mumbles then leans more into Yamaguchi’s personal space, giving him a kiss near his adams apple on the way down. They ended up sharing it until the other had to move to continue cooking.
“Go change and take a shower, you’re stinky. I’ll be done with dinner by the time you’re out.”
After promptly getting kicked out of the kitchen– “You’re not being kicked out, oh my god–” –he goes to grab a change of clothes before jumping in the shower and washing the day's grime away.
Tsukishima feels instantly better after changing and a shower, then his mood drops slightly when he notices his eye twitching again. “I swear to–” he looks at himself in the mirror located in their bedroom, observing his eye once more for anything. His eye twitches again, but nothing is visible and he deflates. It’s been over a week at this point, is it never going away?
Maybe he feels a little childish for obsessing over a twitching eye, his twitching eye, but it's been driving him insane. And he almost doubts that a good sleep would fix it, somehow.
He tries to ignore it like he did earlier, and walks into the kitchen to spot Yamaguchi plating their food. He gives Tsukishima a smile, and pushes the food on his own plate across the countertop to the blonde, which he takes and then makes his way over to his designated seat at their little dining table.
They eat and chat about the day, Tsukishima once again complaining about everybody and everything under the sun, and even making fun of that one guy that asked for his notes. Recognizing and knowing why Tsukishima never shares his personal class notes with anyone, Yamaguchi doesn't criticize him for not sharing his notes, and instead laughs at the guys’ misery along with his boyfriend.
Yamaguchi was always privy to Tsukishima’s personal class notes, so it just makes his laugh sound sweeter to know he was an exception and always will be, even for things as small as this. He teases Tsukishima for this fact, and the blonde looks down at the food to try and hide his fluster. Tsukishima will never understand how people think Yamaguchi is any better than him when it comes to mean comments and teasing, but who was he to be a judge of character?
Once they're done with their food, they move their plates to the kitchen sink and Yamaguchi pulls on Tsukishima’s fingers to lead him to their bedroom. There, they pull each other onto the bed, and pull on the covers to get cozy. It wasn't nearly late enough for sleep, but there was never a legal time for cuddles. And maybe a nap or two…
Tsukishima buries his head into Yamaguchi’s chest, wrapping his long arms around the other’s torso as best as he can while Yamaguchi lays half on the headboard, half on the mattress. It's a comfortable position they’d both cuddle in frequently, whether it be this or with one in the others position.
He inhales deeply, reminding himself that tomorrow is a weekend and he can take today, and possibly tomorrow, off as much as he wants.
Yamaguchi brings a hand up to play with Tsukishima’s blonde, slightly long, curls soothingly and gently. Tsukishima hikes up his right leg to curl with Yamaguchi’s own left one under the covers. His eyes are half-lided as he looks at their nightstand when he moves his head to the side on Yamaguchi’s chest, and sighs peacefully.
“You’ve been working so hard,” Yamaguchi mumbles. It's almost a whisper when Tsukishima has to focus to hear it. “It’s the weekend. You can rest now.”
“Maybe my twitching eye will stop if I actually enjoy the weekend.”
Yamaguchi giggles from above him, and Tsukishima loves the fact he can feel it in his skull like this. “Probably. A good sleep schedule and better habits would do you some good, y'know. Don't want you dying on me before we graduate.”
“We should get married so you’d become a widow.”
“Why would I want that?!”
Tsukishima snorts at Yamaguchi’s reaction, and moves his head to look up at him through his eyelashes. “I’m fucking with you. If I die, you die with me.”
Yamaguchi smiles. “So romantic, Tsukki. Where did you learn that one?”
“That one manga you bullied me into reading during our first year.”
His boyfriend flushes at the reminder, and Tsukishima just smirks when Yamaguchi’s eyes dart to the corner where their bookshelf lives. “Okay, listen, my tastes were so different back then–”
“It’s okay, Tadashi, I just wasn't aware you were so into–”
“OKAY! Go to bed!” At the outburst, Tsukishima laughs as he gets pushed back down into his previous position on his boyfriend's chest. “Okay! Okay! Can you not choke me?”
Yamaguchi huffs with bright red cheeks, leaning back himself and closing his eyes.
Tsukishima would not be asleep for at least a couple hours after Yamaguchi passes out, but he still uses that time to admire how the other looks while in his peaceful little dreamland.
Counting Yamaguchi’s freckles is a hobby Tsukishima picked up a long, long time ago, and he still does it when he thinks the other isn't looking. He grew out his hair, and has been keeping it the same length since their third year in high school. Tsukishima loves when he puts it in a half-up half-down hairstyle, and sort of misses when Yamaguchi would put up his bangs for his serves back during volleyball practice in high school.
He looks so cute and focused, which is a thought Tsukishima always has when he thinks back to anything related to Yamaguchi Tadashi– Captain of the boys’ volleyball team!
The blonde falls asleep with his head resting slightly to the side a couple of hours later, but still looking up at the other sleeping body under him.
It’s the best sleep he gets all week.
— —
Tsukishima wakes up with Yamaguchi playing with his hair and cooing softly to wake him up.
“There you are. Goodmorning,” Yamaguchi gives him a smile upon seeing his eyes blinking back at him. He realizes he can't see anything, and figures Yamaguchi must've removed his glasses off his face at some point. “I wanted to make breakfast, but a six foot four inch wild beast decided to sleep on top of me, and now everything is numb.”
The blonde doesn't grace him with a solid reply, and instead wraps his arms tighter around Yamaguchi and groans. “A little more sleep,” he whines.
Yamaguchi huffs out a laugh and pats his hair, before leaning in and giving the side of his head a small kiss.
“Okay, you big baby.”
His eye twitches.
Yeah, definitely the best sleep he’s had all week.