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“Do,” Tadashi began, chin rested in the palm of his hand, “you want to watch a movie, Tsukki?”
“Not especially.”
Tadashi rebounded quickly: “how about going for a walk?” September was a nice month for a walk; the leaves were just beginning to fall, and Kei’s denim jacket would keep him plenty warm. They could stretch their legs, since they’d been lying on Kei’s bed for some time. A walk, Tadashi thought, sounded like a wonderful idea.
Kei remained unconvinced, just offered a shrug. “Tiresome,” he said. So, the walk was out, because Kei was a tired, which Tadashi definitely… didn’t blame him for. Practices under Ukai’s watchful eye had been strenuous lately, more so than usual. Tadashi was tired, too.
Incidentally, Tadashi stifled a yawn, rolled from his stomach to his back, and let his gaze rest upon Kei’s bedroom walls. He knew this room well, knew the curling edges of every poster, knew the laundry basket beside the door (Kei’s mom definitely left it there), knew the spot where Kei always kept his volleyball shoes. It was familiar, almost more so than his own bedroom at home. (He’d probably spent an equal amount of time in his own house and the Tsukishima house).
The ease he felt in his own house translated over easily to the Tsukishima house. He never felt out of place, never felt unfamiliar.
He wondered, for a fleeting moment, if Kei felt that here, too, felt at ease.
Kei was contemplative, to say the least. It’d be one of the first words Tadashi would use to describe his friend, if he were asked to. There were many other words that came to mind, but Kei seemed lost in thought a lot those days, like he was thinking about something Tadashi didn’t quite understand. So, contemplative it was.
It was nothing, though, because Kei was so constant, so unmoving. He compartmentalized his feelings, stored them neatly in the confines of his mind. He dealt with things well. He didn’t really let one emotion overcome him; he wasn’t anxious like Tadashi (or Yachi, for that matter), nor was he overly enthusiastic like Shouyou.
The comparisons never meant much, though. He was not Shouyou or Yachi, definitely wasn’t Tadashi. He was just… Kei. There was no other appropriate way for Tadashi to explain his best friend. Boxing things up, storing them neatly, that might have worked for Kei. But Kei himself couldn’t be shoved into those boxes. Not by Tadashi, anyway.
Kei was steadfast. That was another word Tadashi could apply to the blonde. And it wasn’t that he didn’t feel, but he felt differently than most did. So, when he was contemplative like this, when he didn’t seem to have interest in much, Tadashi, despite his natural inclination to do just this, didn’t worry too much.
“Is there anything you want to do, Tsukki?”
“I do have some homework,” Kei admitted, sighing. He didn’t seem enthralled, and Tadashi couldn’t blame him for that whatsoever. He tacked on: “it can wait.”
“We can work on it later!” Tadashi offered. While he had some math homework of his own to complete at some point, there were more pressing things; Kei, for instance.
Kei remained quiet and Tadashi followed suit, not because he didn’t know what to say but because he didn’t think Kei had any interest in a conversation, which was fine, too. They chatted intermittently about nothing in particular until Kei’s mom called them down for dinner.
Any thoughts about Kei not quite being himself were pushed to the back of Tadashi’s mind for the time being, and after he did leave the Tsukishima house that night, it was all but forgotten.
Tadashi felt a bit off on one particular Tuesday. The routine of meeting Kei in the mornings, of their walk to school and their walk back was normal to Tadashi, expected. So, when Kei didn’t meet him after class and neglected to show up to practice, Tadashi just didn’t feel right. (Tsukishima usually walked with him, but perhaps he was unwell or staying after school, Tadashi had reasoned).
So, when his friend picked up the phone on the fourth ring (Tadashi wasn’t counting. He wasn’t ), Tadashi was definitely relieved.
“Tsukki!” Tadashi didn’t even concern himself with trying to mask his excitement at talking to his friend, just let the conversation continue: “we missed you at practice today. Where were you?”
Tadashi could practically visualize Kei’s hand rubbing at the back of his neck as he spoke: “Eh, I had to go to the doctor’s this afternoon.”
“Are you sick?”
“No, not particularly.”
Kei gave nothing away, and when he asked Tadashi how his night went, the younger boy took the cue to shift the conversation back towards himself. Kei didn’t seem especially unhappy, didn’t seem to be feeling bad, so moving on from that was easy for both of them.
“So,” Tadashi had started, phone propped between his elbow and his shoulder, “I’m under a mountain of English homework here.” His notebook was spread in front of him, doodles of anything from planets to little cats (those were his favorite to draw), dotting the margins. Those, he had decided, were far more interesting than the notes he’d hurried to take in class.
And yet, the homework wasn’t going to go away, so he may as well get a start on it. He took his phone away from the crook of his shoulder and switched it to speaker mode, pen dangling between his middle and pointer finger.
Other than the ambient noise in the background, courtesy of Kei on the phone, it’d been silent in Tadashi’s room. That was until he groaned and closed his notebook, letting his head fall.
Just as he had done so, he made out a new voice on Kei’s end; his mother, because Akiteru wasn’t home and because Tadashi had heard her enough times to be able to discern her voice over the phone.
He couldn’t totally make out what she had said, something about his prescription, Tadashi thought. He half wondered if it’d be worth it to ask Kei what she meant by that, but logic told him that his friend would have said something if it was worth sharing.
So, Tadashi never asked, and a few moments later, Kei picked the phone back up, said that he really did need to get going, and promptly hung up. Tadashi ended that phone call significantly more confused than he’d been at the start, but nonetheless trusting of Kei.
Afterwards, Tadashi, for a reason unbeknownst to himself, just couldn’t bring his focus to his English homework (or his math, or any other homework). It was not his environment, because his quiet room was perfect for studying. Nor was it that he didn’t understand the material, because it was a review and he’s always been good at English. It wasn’t really… Anything he could have pinpointed, which almost made it worse.
So, he closed the notebook for the time being and headed down towards the kitchen, read the note from his mother (‘Tadashi—I’ll be late at work tonight. I left dinner covered in the fridge for you. Make sure to wash up when you’re done. Love you, mom’), and quickly prepared his dinner, crumbling up the note and stuffing it in his pocket.
He sat up at the table rather than eating on the couch or in his room, scrolled through his phone while he ate, and discarded the dishes in the sink. The dishes, he decided, would definitely be a problem for future Tadashi.
Tadashi and Kei had a tendency to linger after practice. That, or Tadashi lingered and Kei didn’t like to leave without him. Kei never outwardly said that, but Tadashi was still getting dressed, and Kei had no reason to stay, since he already had his own things together. He had stayed back, anyway.
Suga had been the last to leave, trailing just after the other third-years, leaving just the two boys in the locker room. Tadashi rushed along, eventually collected himself, and beckoned towards the door, smiling.
Tadashi lingered for a moment once they stepped out, something half poised on his lips. While his friend wasn’t an overly enthusiastic person by any means, he had seemed especially more subdued that day. Tadashi had narrowed down the causes for his friend’s dip in mood and energy to a few possible things:
One: Kei was coming down with something, whether that be a cold or a flu or something else, and he just wasn’t feeling totally himself.
Two: Kei stayed up late the night before, so he was tired that day. That was entirely possible, Tadashi reasoned, because Kei had been a night owl for as long as they’d been friends (though, he’d been increasingly more fatigued lately).
Three: He was just having an off day, and tomorrow would be fine. Tadashi didn’t think that one was a far stretch, either, because everyone had their off days. (He hoped that was the case.)
He decided to approach it subtly as they walked, paces quickly syncing.
“Are you feeling okay, Tsukki?”
Kei blinked for a moment, unsure (that was uncharted territory—Tadashi never saw Kei unsure of himself). Tadashi had hesitated to walk forward, breaking their matching strides, until Kei answered: “Oh? I’m fine.”
“Did you stay up late last night?”
“I didn’t,” Kei denied, giving nothing away.
“Maybe you’re getting sick,” Tadashi tried again, unconvinced.
“Hm,” Kei hummed. “I don’t think so.”
Tadashi dropped it, then; he trusted Kei so wholeheartedly, and he trusted that Kei felt the same. If there was ever truly an issue, his friend would tell him, surely.
Just before they approached the lamp post where they would normally split to go towards their respective houses, Tadashi gave another gentle, prompting statement: “if there’s something bothering you—”
“There’s not,” Kei cut in.
Tadashi finished, “you can tell me. I can’t help you if I don’t know what you need, Tsukki.”
Kei maintained that nothing was unusual, though, and they went in opposite directions after Tadashi asked if Kei would like to come over tomorrow. (Kei said that yes, he’d see Tadashi tomorrow afternoon).
And that’s what they left on, Tadashi saying a quick “bye, Tsukki!” and going towards his own home, dimly lit in the distance.
For all the times that Kei had poked fun at Tadashi’s tendency towards tiredness, his general ability to fall asleep anywhere, regardless of whether or not those spots were intended as somewhere to rest, Tadashi didn’t have it in him to tease his friend for his exhausted state, presently.
It was not bone deep exhaustion, didn’t seem like Kei stayed up last night studying or working on homework, watching one of Akiteru’s movie recommendations (he watched those with Tadashi, anyway), but something different, a bit unknown.
Kei moved slowly, like his legs were molasses or like he was weighed down (Tadashi didn’t know what it was that had been weighing him down, and Kei certainly didn’t give him any clues). He slunk up to Tadashi’s bedroom, made himself at home in the corner of the unmade bed, and sighed.
“Comfortable,” Kei said, as if the bed felt any different than last time.
“It’s unmade.” Tadashi frowned. “I was going to clean, but mom called and wanted me to run down to get groceries, and then I had to unpack them, and—” he cut off, letting his gaze fall downward to his friend, “you were here, so.”
Kei let his fingertips rest just at the top of Tadashi’s knee, though when he rested them there, Tadashi flinched and said “cold, Tsukki!”
It was definitely no shock; Kei had a tendency towards coldness (though the thermostat in the Yamaguchi house was set to a slightly balmy 76 degrees). Tadashi, though, was warm, so he’d always been there to balance Kei out. In many ways, the two were opposite—Tadashi would argue, though, that they just complemented each other well.
Where Tadashi was warm and open towards others, Kei was quiet, withdrawn; where Tadashi excelled in English, Kei was excellent at math. Tadashi let his emotions control him. Kei wasn’t generally swayed by his emotions, not really. Even on a physical level; Tadashi’s dark and scruffy hair and Kei’s blonde curls, they were complimentary. They’re like yin and yang, mingling to create something extraordinary.
Looking at Kei, watching the even rise and fall of his chest, Tadashi didn’t have it in him to wake his friend. He could have easily shaken him by the shoulder, could have slipped his shoulder out from under where Kei’s head rested, curls brushing against Tadashi’s jaw, but he didn’t. Kei seemed to carry the weight of the world with him. Even in his sleep, he had this nature about him, brows furrowed, leaned into Tadashi like his life depended on it, or something. Tadashi didn’t bother him, then.
“Tsukki?” Tadashi drummed two fingers against his friend’s hipbone. “C’mon, wake up. I ordered dinner.”
Kei just blinked up at him, intertwined his long fingers, and stretched them above his head. “How long did I sleep?” he had asked, shaking his head.
Tadashi informed him that it was only 45 minutes, and they fell back into a silence that wasn’t comfortable, exactly, until the doorbell rang.
Over cheap delivery food, Tadashi decided that Kei definitely wasn’t telling him the truth. The events of the past few weeks, of Kei’s sudden tiredness, of the strange conversation with his mother that Tadashi heard over the phone, of his already introverted friend becoming even more so, and now, this.
Kei was graceful. This trait,Tadashi observed, was something that extended to many aspects of his life. He coordinated his blocks well when he was on the court—this was the reason that so many people were comfortable following his lead. He was long, slender limbs; he moved through the world with ease.
So, when he dropped his spoon for the third time, causing the broth to splash up and onto his napkin, Kei heaved a frustrated sigh, and Tadashi decided something was definitely wrong.
Tadashi deduced that beating around the bush would do no good. He just went ahead, didn’t allow himself time to think of how to point out his observation without putting his friend on the spot. Maybe it was best that way. He began: “your hands are shaking, Tsukki.”
“What?” Kei asked, one brow arched. It was like he didn’t notice, almost. Tadashi wondered if it was a conscious or subconscious thing, the not noticing, but he didn’t ask.
“They’re shaking,” Tadashi repeated, frowning. “You’ve dropped your spoon three times.”
“That’s—” Kei paused, inhaling a sharp breath. “I’m just overtired.” Instinctively, his pointer finger came up to push his glasses up the bridge of his nose; (that, Tadashi observed, is a nervous tic).
“Are you okay, Tsukki?”
Notably, Kei’s body stiffened at the question, and he sat further back in his chair, putting a marginal difference between himself and Tadashi.
“I’m okay, Yamaguchi,” he assured, though he didn’t meet his friend’s eye/
The corners of Tadashi’s mouth twisted into a slight frown, the younger boy’s chin rested in his hand. He couldn’t help but ask, “you’re sure things are alright?”
Kei frowned, too, then, shaking his head. “It’s nothing worth mentioning,” he had said with a shrug. That statement in and of itself had probably been intended to ease some of Tadashi’s worry, but the opposite effect seemed to have taken place.
“But there’s… Something?” He asked, quiet. “Even if that something isn’t worth talking about, Tsukki?”
“I guess there is.”
“Oh.” Tadashi had taken his bottom lip between his teeth. Ironically, he was the one who wouldn’t meet Tsukishima’s eyes, then. “Okay, if you’re sure.” That’s, if you’re sure you want to pretend it’s alright. If you’re sure you want me to pretend I won’t still worry. If you’re sure you don’t feel comfortable telling me the truth. If you don’t trust me enough to confide in me.
“I’m sure,” Kei had confirmed.
And so, all that if you’re sure you want to pretend seemed to be just where Kei’s current comfort level was resting. And, Tadashi had thought, he couldn’t force Kei to tell him what was eating at him, no matter how much he’d like to help.
So, Tadashi did his best to direct his mind elsewhere, away from Kei, and to a spot on the hardwood floor that he seemed to find particularly interesting. The strange tension in the air had rendered the usually chatty Yamaguchi silent.
He wasn’t sure if that was for the better or for worse.
Tadashi awoke with a groan, reached for his incessantly ringing phone, and rubbed at his eyes for a moment before picking up the phone call. For a moment, he didn’t speak; he had half wondered if it was his mom calling, had tried to recall if he locked her out by accident; she worked late at night, so that would be entirely possible.
Alternatively, since it had been a Saturday, it would also make sense for it to be one of his friends—namely Shouyou or Hitoka. Kei had been mentally scratched off the list of possible callers, because he’d canceled his plans to come to the Yamaguchi house for a sleepover—something about a flu.
“Mom?” he asked, voice thick from his previous state of sleep.
“Not quite, no.”
“ Tsukki ?”
“Yeah, hi,” his friend replied, unfussed.
Tadashi stifled a yawn into his elbow, holding the receiver a few inches from his face before he greeted, “hey, Tsukki.”
Judging by the lack of a response from the other end, Kei must have wanted Tadashi to lead the conversation, an exceptionally difficult task at—Tadashi paused, checking the time—12:47 in the morning.
Tadashi obliged the unspoken request, and began to speak. “Is there… A reason you called this late?” He tacked on a quick revision at the end, almost an afterthought “not—not that I’m not happy to hear from you, Tsukki! Just, I’m surprised at the time. And since you are sick, you really should be getting some rest, right? Didn’t your mom—”
“Yamaguchi,” Kei cut in. Tadashi could make out a muffled sign on his friend’s end.
“Sorry,” he had apologized. “I just was hoping you’d be well soon. You know, since we have school in two days and since you don’t particularly like lying around, really. I hope—”
“Yamaguchi,” his friend sighed once more, just a touch impatient. “I didn’t call because I wanted you to dote on me.”
“Right,” the younger boy agreed. “Er—were you going to tell me why you called, then?”
“I was going to get to that.”
“Okay, right.”
There were several moments of silence. Tadashi kept an eye on the steady rise and fall of his chest. He didn’t speak, just waited for Kei to get whatever feeling he needed to get in order to recount exactly what had been happening.
“Still there?” he had asked, three minutes later.
“Still here, Tsukki,” Tadashi confirmed. “Whenever you’re ready.”
Kei took in a deep sigh; for the second time in the past few weeks, he seemed unsure. That, as Tadashi had previously thought, was uncharted territory. (It’d become more common lately, though).
“I don’t have the flu, Yamaguchi.”
There it is. Just rip the band-aid off, approach the subject head on. Tadashi knew that Kei wouldn’t dance around the issue once he felt confident enough to share.
Still, Tadashi doesn’t exactly understand. “Did you go to the doctor then?” In the moment, worst case scenarios were all that inhabited Tadashi’s mind. Before they could run too rampant, though, his friend spoke again.
“No.”
“Oh.”
Silence fell again, enveloping the dark bedroom, blanketing the two boys, covering the miles between the two of them.
“I think you’ve noticed that things are… Different,” Kei said cooly. (Of course he had). “So, I thought I owed you an explanation, probably.”
That, Tadashi took a bit personally. He hadn’t wanted Kei to feel obligated to share his woes, whatever they may have been. He’d never meant to force Kei into sharing what was going on, though he supposed that wasn’t the case, not really. Kei wouldn’t tell him if he didn’t feel comfortable.
“Right,” Kei said.
“Right.”
“What have you noticed, Yamaguchi?”
It was a second subtle request for Tadashi to take the reins. He had obliged, beginning to speak. “You seem exhausted, Tsukki. Like, more so than the rest of us. And there was that time with your hands shaking, when you kept dropping your spoon. You seem to space out more than normal, lately. And I wasn’t sure if that was because of the tiredness or something else, or—”
“You’re observant.” It felt like a compliment, but Tadashi hadn’t really known just how to process it.
“I guess so.” (When you spend as long as they had together, you learned what was considered typical for each other. Of course Tadashi had noticed the change in his friend. It was only natural.
“They’re from medication,” Kei said dryly. “Side effects.”
Tadashi’s brows furrowed at that. “You said you didn’t have a flu.”
“I know.”
“So what kind of—”
“Antidepressants. Zoloft. And then when they decided that wasn’t working, Prozac.”
It sort of made sense, then, why Kei hesitated to tell Tadashi what was going on; not that he knew from experience, but antidepressants took time to get into your system, and even more time to prove their effectiveness (or, in the case of Kei’s first prescription, its ineffectiveness). Kei had never been the type to overshare, never the type to hastily share new information about himself, never the type to share until he knew for himself exactly what was going on.
“I didn’t—”
“I didn’t expect you to know, Yamaguchi.”
“Is there a reason you didn’t tell me?” Tadashi regretted that question almost instantly, though it wasn’t an unfair one, exactly.
“Because it’s stupid.” Kei’s voice broke on nothing, and try as he might, Tadashi didn’t know what to say in that moment.
Luckily, Kei continued talking, providing the younger boy with a few moments to gather up his thoughts.
“I didn’t—think I needed to tell you. There’s no reason to cause you unnecessary worry It’s stupid that I take it anyway, it’s pathetic.”
That was said so matter-of-factly that if Kei had been talking to anyone besides Tadashi, they’d probably have accepted it as fact. But Tadashi isn’t anyone, His best friend wasn’t ever one to make himself vulnerable, so when he did, the worst Tadashi could do is to brush him off.
“It’s not stupid,” he said, shaking his head.
“You don’t need them to get through the day,” Kei pointed out.
“Maybe so,” Tadashi agreed. “But that doesn’t make me… Better than you. Maybe you need a little help, but plenty of people do. And you’re still yourself, right?”
“I don’t have a choice in the matter,” Kei deadpanned.
“I’m glad for that,” Yamaguchi sighed. “Because you’re Kei and you’re my best friend, with or without the antidepressants. And maybe you think needing them is dumb, but it’s really dumb that you think that.”
Kei didn’t speak.
“You’re you, Tsukki. And that’s really, really, extraordinarily good. ”
The blush on Kei’s cheeks could practically be visualized in the confines of Tadashi’s mind, strengthened only when he mumbled “shut up, Yamaguchi.”
They both knew, though, that he didn’t mean it.
The following day, Tadashi had managed to convince Kei that he wasn’t obligated to turn up at practice if he wasn’t feeling well; to be fair, he wasn’t feeling well, so it wasn’t without reason. Maybe Ukai wouldn’t be pleased with the two when they showed up at practice the following day, but Tadashi had offered to take the blame for their absence (even if he knew Kei wouldn’t let him do that. It’s the principle of the thing, isn’t it.)
There was still an edge to Kei, still some things in his body language to suggest that maybe he wasn’t totally convinced that this was the right idea—it was hard for Kei to find validity in missing practice when he felt fine, physically, but Tadashi had insisted, and so the pair had continued the walk home after school.
“You look so warm,” Tadashi remarked, kicking the toe of his shoe into the ground.
“I’m not.” Kei presented his hand as evidence of his obvious lack of warmth, and Tadashi happily intertwined their fingers, as cold as they were.
“Yamaguchi,” Kei had said, eyebrows arched.
“Just to warm you up, Tsukki.”
So, they continued on, hands swinging slightly as they walked (or, rather, Tadashi’s arm swung and since their fingers were intertwined still, Kei’s followed suit).
“Any warmer now?”
“A bit,” the blonde confirmed, making no move to take his hand back. Tadashi didn’t, either. “You’re like a space heater, aren’t you,” he said flatly. If Tadashi had looked a moment later, he would have missed the smirk on Kei’s face. He found himself exceedingly glad he got to see it, then.
They walked along in comfortable silence, sky painted in soft yellows and blues, wispy clouds adorning the path in front of them, and the trill of several birds made themselves heard.
It was lovely, it was dreamlike, even if they weren’t quite a dream, even if they, themselves, were quite flawed individuals. Looking at them, nobody could guess the exhaustion the two were feeling from last night’s late phone call. Nobody could guess that the several glances Tadashi sent in Kei’s direction had anything behind them. Nobody could guess what Tadashi was thinking (that Kei looked awfully kissable, and that it would take a lot more than needing antidepressants to get Tadashi to love him any less).
As they approached the lamppost, Tadashi felt a slight tug at his hand, allowed himself to gaze back up at Kei.
“I—” Kei began, shifting his own gaze downwards, “appreciate you staying up and talking last night, Tadashi.”
Tadashi’s heart, he swore, caught just in his throat at the mention of his given name. Kei had called him ‘Yamaguchi’ an infinite number of times, each with a slightly different inflection (affectionate, sometimes a bit impatient, sometimes teasing, always made Tadashi smile), but ‘Tadashi’ was much more coveted, almost. It was special.
He couldn’t speak, couldn’t force the words resting somewhere inside of him to come up. Instead, then, Tadashi gingerly removed his own hand from Kei’s and let it rest just below the taller boy’s collarbone.
What words couldn’t quite get across in that moment, this could. Kei’s lips were stupidly soft, tasting of strawberry chapstick. His hand rested over Tadashi’s, and he shifted his body weight to be leaning slightly more against Tadashi, who, in turn, leaned against the lamp post.
Once they pulled away, Tadashi, by some miracle, found his words.
“I’ll see you tomorrow morning, Tsukki!” He quickly headed the opposite direction, curious the whole way home if the red flush on his cheeks was as obvious as it felt to him (Unsurprisingly, it was.)