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Tsukishima woke up abruptly at the start of the shower running. He sat up, taking in the slightly rheumy, deodorant scented atmosphere of the room.
Right. The retreat.
Karasuno’s volleyball team had anointed this new tradition of having a summer retreat for new members and old members to bond, apparently to ease them and introduce them to the team. Tsukishima had an inkling that it was more so to allow Daichi, Suga, Asahi and Kiyoko fraternize with rest for a couple extra days before leaving high school forever.
It wasn’t an inkling, actually—it was probably fact. He got that immediately, and usually he would’ve brought this up snarkily to the rest of the team, but this time he didn’t. He’d somehow grown a little attached to the third years, and he had a feeling that the observation would dampen the news of a 4 day getaway in Yamadera.
He remembered how everyone reacted—Tanaka absolutely geeked at the prospect of seeing Kiyoko-san for longer, Noya pouncing at Asahi, and cheers and whoops from the first-years. He remembered instinctively looking at Yamaguchi first to tell him his grand observation of the third years wanting to stay with the volleyball team, but he could see the green-haired boy glowing his freckles shifting as his smile widened, and his brownish eyes glinting in the setting sun, and suddenly decided against it.
Yeah, so Tsukishima probably wouldn’t have gone if it wasn’t for him. And he again pondered over complaining about the whole thing to Yamaguchi a couple days before they left for Yamadera, but the scene of his eyes glinting in the sunlight and his warm smile enveloping his entire face flashed through his head again, and decided not to once again.
It was kind of pissing him off how often that smile had surrounded his head.
He glanced down at his watch—6:42 a.m—and wondered why he was thinking about it fucking again this early in the morning.
Sugawara-san then shuffled out of the shower, trying to be quiet, as he saw him.
“Tsukishima!,” he whispered. “Better get in those showers early before everyone else wakes up.”
Tsukishima was actually considering just going back to sleep—he could feel his eyebags dark and eyes puffy—but decided he’d rather take his time in the bathroom right now before Hinata or Noya could cause some foul-smelling odor in there.
He looked next to him at Yamaguchi, his mouth slightly ajar, with a drool puddle forming on top of the pillowcase. He snored lightly, overpowered by Tanaka’s growls coming from the other corner of the room.
Sugawara followed his gaze and chuckled quietly, “Or you could wait for Tadashi. He looks like a heavy sleeper, though.”
Tsukishima stepped out of his bunk, facing Yamaguchi and smiled slightly, mirroring Sugawara's laugh: “He is.”
He rubbed the pad of his thumb bluntly against Yamaguchi’s open mouth, getting rid of the remnants of his drool.
As he scooched his way through the bunks too close together, he saw Suga-san looking at him a little longer.
• • •
When Tsukishima stepped out of the bathroom, most everyone was awake. He’d known that from Hinata’s hurried banging at the bathroom door for the ginger’s “shitting necessities”, but he was surprised that everyone seemed so energetic at 7:15 in the morning.
Actually, no he wasn’t. It’s Noya, Tanaka, Hinata, Kageyama, and Sugawara… of course they were fucking energetic. He stared at the huge room filled with his persistent, annoyingly loud teammates and groaned inwardly. Why did he come to this thing?
Daichi interrupted his thoughts, making his way toward Tsukishima looking half asleep.
“Tsukishima, wake up Yamaguchi would you? We’re supposed to make it down to the docks by 7:45.”
Tsukishima nodded in agreement, his eyes drifting toward the sleeping Yamaguchi, who looked pleasant and completely peaceful amidst the cacophony of yells.
Right. That’s why he came to this thing.
He squeezed his way between the beds once again, pushing his own bed toward the wall next to where the rest of the awoken people’s beds where—supposedly to make the room open and not stuffy from Noya’s farts, as Daichi-san had put it.
He plops down on the cold linoleum, facing Yamaguchi’s bunk. His arms rest criss-crossed on the freckled boy’s mattress.
“Yamaguchi,” he says ever so softly. “You need to wake up.”
Tsukishima’s and Yamaguchi’s face are inches apart at this point, so he starts lightly prodding Yamaguchi’s cheek in an effort to get him to wake.
Before he tries to wake him again, Hinata starts yelling.
“Saltyshima, PLEASE tell Kageyama that this ISN’T his fucking towel!! It’s mine; it’s literally orange!”
“You idiot, it is mine!! You probably left yours at home, dumbass!!”
“It probably is the King’s. Your’s usually has a dumb cartoon decal on it.”
“Wait.” Hinata said, stopping his running around to pause right before Yama’s bed. “You’re right. I tossed it on Yamaguchi’s bunk last night.”
All three of them turn to face Yamaguchi. His gentle snores shroud the quiet room, with all the upperclassmen and Yachi just now gone to make breakfast.
Hinata tugs lightly at the offending towel wedged underneath Yamaguchi’s legs.
“Yamaguchi…,” he pleads, “I need my towel.”
“Mmph,” Yamaguchi mumbles, in lieu of a response. “Pi mo mignuts.”
Tsukishima laughs and restarts his prodding on each of Yamaguchi’s freckles, his fingernail lightly scraping as he plays a game of connect-the dots. The sun hits Yamaguchi’s face, and he stirs. The light contours his jawline, and the tan he procured since summer ended illuminates.
He’s jealous; while Yamaguchi’s skin transforms to a shiny bronze as the June sun rolls in, Tsukishima just burns.
He stares at Yamaguchi’s eyebrows: furrowed in response to the direct sunlight, head tossing a little bit before nuzzling in the crook of Tsukishima’s elbow. Tsukishima smiles again, his hand carding through the sleeping boy’s hair while his nails softly scrape Yamaguchi’s scalp.
“Um.”
Kageyama interrupts, Tsukishima stopping his sifting of Yamaguchi’s hair. He sighs.
“What.”
“You look like you're in love with him, Saltyshima!” Hinata giggles, finishing Kageyama’s thought. “I didn’t know you had feelings!”
Tsukishima rolls his eyes; the teasing was nothing in comparison to Kuroo and Bokuto’s horrendous acapella of Wedding March anytime Yamaguchi called, texted, or stepped foot into Gym 3 during Training Camp. Any kind of quips about him and Yamaguchi liking each other was thoroughly overdone, and he didn’t really care. He just hoped Yamaguchi wasn’t uncomfortable.
“You two look like you’re infatuated with volleyball and simultaneously each other every single day and you don’t hear me being annoying about it,” he starts.
“I am not in love with Kageyama!” Hinata yells entirely too loudly.
“Shut up,” Tsukishima hisses, “he’s gonna wake up.”
“That’s kind of the goal, Romeo,” snarks Kageyama, leaving the room with the towel retrieved from Hinata’s grasp. “I’m gonna shower. Daichi-san’s gonna get mad if we aren’t down by fifteen.”
Hinata grunts, “Fine. I’ll shower tonight then. Tsukishima, wake up sleeping beauty soon! I’m leaving.”
“Hi Tsukki,” Yamaguchi says, smiling sleepily at Tsukishima as the door shuts behind Hinata.
He glances back down, grinning at the boy wrapped in a cocoon of blankets.
He was beautiful.
“Hi.”
Yamaguchi sits up, slouching against the bunk frame.
“You have ten minutes to get ready. I’ll grab your toothbrush.”
“Wait,” Yamaguchi says, grabbing at Tsukishima’s sleeve as he motions to stand. “Grab me an Advil?”
“Yeah, ok. I have some in my bag.” He tufts through Yamaguchi’s bed head, combing through the loose knots. “You okay?”
“I think so? Muscle cramps probably. Sleeping more helped, but I’m kinda dead inside.”
Tsukishima grabs his bag and tosses him a white pillbox.
“Sorry for making you late, Tsukki,” Yamaguchi calls out, catching the box and making his way toward the washroom.
“I don’t mind.” Tsukishima responds, truthfully.
• • •
Yeah, so maybe Tsukishima was a little bit in love with Yamaguchi. A little. Everyone else joked about it, but had ultimately written Yamaguchi off as the only person who Tsukishima could stand. Which was true, but he was a lot more than that. They were stuck together at all times, probably 12 hours of the day—from when Tsukishima opened his front door to Yamaguchi waiting so they could walk to school, to him walking the shorter boy back to his house at around 9 that night. So half of his life, essentially, was spent with Yamaguchi stuck to his side.
The other half of his life was spent thinking about him. Ok, sure, he thinks, waiting for Yamaguchi to finish washing his face. It’s a little weird? But it was true.
He’d walk back from dropping Yamaguchi off at his house thinking about what he’d maybe want for breakfast the next day, grabbing two tuna onigiris from Shimada Mart for the next morning. He’d finish up the last bit of his homework smiling at the doodles Yamaguchi had scribbled onto his chemistry worksheet in green ballpoint pen. He’d brush his teeth while wiping at the remnants of the T + Y giggledly etched onto the mirror by you-know-who earlier that day while they were sent to tidy up the bathroom by Tsukishima’s mother. He’d change into his pajamas—shorts and a national geographic tee that was a little small, because it was, of course, Yamaguchi’s. Then he’d go to sleep, drifting off wistfully thinking that maybe Mr. Saitou would pair the both of them up for the project due the next week.
Yamaguchi stepped out of the bathroom as Tsukishima spaced out about Tuna onigiris and green smudged ballpoint ink.
“Let’s go Tsukki! Kageyama’s probably done showering too.”
“You’re up, Yamaguchi?” Kageyama emerges, his hair in a towel. “You were knocked out.”
“God, I know. I’m wiped out after practicing with Shimada-san yesterday.”
“I hope we practice with the Neighborhood Association again. It was good practice.”
“You just like winning,” Tsukishima says, smirking.
“And you just like not having to try that hard to block.”
The three of them walk out the door, toward where the rest of the team was. The smell of bacon and eggs waft up to where they are.
“Yeah, obviously, King. I’m not an atomic bomb of energy like you and moron number two.”
“At least you’re first place in moronity, Kageyama?,” Yamaguchi snickers.
“Oh piss off, you two,” the raven-haired boy quips, then jogs the rest of the way down to where Hinata was failing to flip a piece of bacon.
The air smells of wood and dew, the smokiness enveloping the rest of it. It’s still relatively cold out, Yamaguchi wrapped in Tsukishima’s hoodie, both of them gripping at their hand-warmers nested in their pockets as they walk down.
“It smells good.”
“It really does.”
“See?” Yamaguchi grins, head tilting up at the taller boy. “Aren’t you glad you came after all?”
“Sure, Yamaguchi. I wouldn’t have come if you hadn’t, though. Bacon made by shrimpy has little to do with it.”
They both join the rest of Karasuno, Nishinoya and Tanaka skipping stones onto the lake, Yachi and Kiyoko conversing lightly over scrambled eggs.
“I came for you too, Tsukki.”