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Of course he likes music, who didn’t like music? Like most people, he has spent a lot of his early teens evolving his musical tastes and expanding his collection. Like many teens, Tsukishima walks around with headphones on a lot of the time.
Unlike most people and many teens, Tsukishima does this in self-defense.
He remembers very clearly when he first started hearing voices. He was eleven and for two days he thought he was going crazy.
The first day he spent arguing with himself, convinced he was hallucinating. He couldn’t possibly be hearing his teacher going over her grocery list during their silent reading time or his brother freaking out about his calculus test while blithely telling their mother that he was going to ace it, no problem.
The second day, the hallucinations persisted and he started testing it out. His mother was making breakfast while he and Akiteru sat sleepily at the table. Akiteru was filling her in on the details of his upcoming class trip and she was responding normally, making listening noises and occasionally asking questions but Tsukishima could hear a quiet but steady monologue.
I hope everything is ok with Hana-chan. I’m a terrible big sister, I should have known that she had another doctor’s appointment coming up. I didn’t even ask her how it went. I know she’s been worried but it’s hard for a first time mom. Oh god, what if something is wrong with the baby? I’ll have to call her as soon as the boys leave for school. It won’t be too early to call, will it? I was always up far too early with Akiteru. I guess we’ll see.
Tsukishima caught his mom’s eye. “How is Aunt Hanako doing?”
His mother stopped in her tracks, visibly startled. “She’s doing fine, Kei. I’m planning to give her a call later, I’ll tell her you asked about her.”
Huh, he thought to himself. I seem to be telepathic.
It got stronger as he got older but luckily he also got better at controlling it. He would visualize a wall with everyone else on the other side. His mother fretted that he spent too much time by himself but he liked to minimize the impact of others as much as possible. He couldn’t escape school of course but classes didn’t take up so much of his brainpower that he couldn’t shield himself from his classmates.
Volleyball was trickier. When he was concentrating hard on other things, like strategy or blocking spikes back into people’s smug faces, it was more difficult to keep himself completely shut off.
Mostly it was like a low level hum, background noise that was fairly easy to tune out but sometimes he got very distinct wisps of thought from his teammates.
Tsukishima knew way more about Sugawara-sempai’s private life than he wanted to. No, he had never considered that he could climb Azumane like a tree. Well, Suga could. He probably couldn’t - too tall to start with, not to mention the fact that Azumane would probably die of shock.
He knew that Tanaka was genuinely afraid of ghosts but would rather die than admit it. Tsukishima took perverse pleasure in collecting and recounting the most terrifying stories he heard for Tanaka’s benefit. In his defense, no one ever told him he had to use his powers for good.
Sometimes his abilities came in handy, he knew within five seconds of meeting Kuroo and Bokuto that they were completely crazy about each other. Sure, many people had inferred that but Tsukishima had an inside view of just how much tension had built up over the years. One of them was going to crack any day now. It made him pretty confident about his position in the betting pool.
Yamaguchi was the only person he had really talked to about it. Once it was distressingly clear that Yamaguchi was dead set on being his best friend he figured they had to discuss it. He took it remarkably in stride. ‘Wow, Tsukki! You really can do anything, huh! Yamaguchi thoughtfully did his best to keep his thoughts to himself when they hung out and what did seep through was comfortingly normal. With the occasional exception of course, Tsukishima wondered if he should encourage Yamaguchi’s unspoken desires for tattoos and a piercing or two.
Kageyama really was usually thinking about volleyball. And things related to volleyball. Like whether his math score would affect the next tournament, or Oikawa-proof strategies, or Hinata.
Tsukishima complained a lot about Hinata, he found his perkiness, positivity, and crazy amounts of energy genuinely annoying. Shortly after they met their new teammates Yamaguchi asked if Hinata’s mind was annoying too. The problem with Hinata was that when it came to his thoughts, he wasn’t annoying at all. He was the most straight forward person Tsukishima had ever met - he said what he was thinking. Basically all the time. Tsukishima couldn’t quite believe it at first. He actually had to stop and tune into Hinata specifically to be sure. But with Hinata, what you heard was pretty much it.
He headed into the club room and drops his bag in front of his locker, iPod thumbed off for now but headphones still firmly in place. Hinata and Kageyama were having a heated conversation while they changed. Hinata seemed to have the upper hand due to Kageyama’s distraction at Hinata’s increasing nakedness. Hinata hadn’t noticed.
Hinata turned to him with an earnest expression. “Tsukki, tell Dork-ayama that we’re going to crush Seijou next week and that the Grand King has nothing on us. Our new moves are unstoppable!”
Kageyama cast Tsukishima a sidelong look that clearly said ‘Help!’ and Tsukishima just chuckled. Hinata had no doubt in his mind, everything was just as he said. He shrugged, “Maybe you should listen to him.”
He could hear the echo of Kageyama’s shock and he suppressed the chuckle that bubbled up. Hinata was off and running, his chatter a soothing babble as Tsukishima put his headphones away and got ready to play.