Chapter Text
Kei’s first kiss is with Yamaguchi Tadashi.
The walk home is dark save for the lamp posts that stretch their backs against the walls of the street. Kei is thirteen, and he watches his feet as they drag across the concrete, scraping his soles bare. He doesn’t know whether to cry or scream, so he does neither.
“Tsukki?”
Kei keeps walking.
“Tsukki, we- we passed your house.”
Oh. Kei stops. He can see the dim light of his front porch from the corner of his left eye. Behind the door, he hears muffled sobs. Akiteru must have gotten home before him from the volleyball match.
Kei kneels on his right knee on the sidewalk, then drops. His backpack slips off his shoulder and slumps next to his feet. He stares blankly at the creases branched out on his palm.
A shadow hovers over him like an eclipse, and then Kei hears the scratching of gravel as Yamaguchi sits cross-legged in front of him. After a moment, Yamaguchi slides his fingers hesitantly over his. Kei can’t find the energy to pull away.
“I’m sorry about Akiteru-san. About the game.”
Kei doesn’t respond. A minute rolls by quietly.
“Tsukki, can I try something?”
Kei lifts his head slightly and looks up at his friend’s wavering eyes. The street behind him looks hazy. Akiteru’s cries hitch in the background, like a record player in a horror movie. He nods once, slowly.
“Okay. Here I go.”
Yamaguchi’s fingers tighten around Kei’s, bending his knuckles. He leans forward and presses their lips together, gently, close-mouthed. After a few seconds he leans back and pulls his hands away, fidgeting with his thumbs in his lap.
“Mom does that with Dad when he’s having a bad day,” Yamaguchi explains. “So I thought I’d try, maybe.”
Kei nods again. He didn’t really feel it, to be honest. Everything seems a little blurrier than before. He blinks to clear his vision, and a tear dangles off the rim of his glasses, falls down to the pad of his thumb.
Yamaguchi comes to his side and wraps his arms around Kei’s shoulders, cradles his head to lean against his chest, and they stay there till the lamp posts flicker off and leave them in the dark.
Kei’s second kiss is with a girl he doesn’t know. He’s in his third year of middle school, putting on a play with his class about some Western fairytale. He plays a prince (against his own will), and the girl plays the princess he’s in love with. Kei doesn’t remember her name.
All of their kisses during rehearsals have been on the cheek, but as the curtains fall and Kei awkwardly holds the princess in front of a full audience, she turns her head slightly and they kiss on the lips instead. It’s short and unexpected, but not really anything special; Kei doesn’t understand why the girl is so flustered when they pull away, shrieking a sorry before running off the stage.
As they put the set and equipment away, Yamaguchi comes bounding over, his eyes bright with wonder. “How was it?”
“How was what?”
“You know, the kiss? With Ami-chan?”
“Oh.” Kei wraps the microphone cable carefully with his hands, looping over, under, over, under. “It was a kiss.”
“Yeah, no duh. So what was it like?”
“I don’t know. ”
“You didn’t feel anything?”
Over, under. “No, not really.”
“Oh.” Yamaguchi’s eyebrows sag a little, then smile widely again. “If you ever kiss a girl and you feel something, you have to tell me, okay? I need to know what it’s like and if they’re the perfect person for you!”
Kei smiles a little at that and puts the cable into its case. “Shut up, Yamaguchi.”
“Sorry, Tsukki! I’m gonna go get my bag and then we can walk home, okay?”
They walk home together, Yamaguchi skipping and Kei humming silently to the tune playing from the headphones around his neck. He forgets about the prince, the princess, and the kiss.
“So I think I’m bisexual.”
Kei turns to look at his best friend, whose legs swing back and forth off of the bench in front of Shimada Mart. It’s January of their first year of high school, and Yamaguchi has started working a night shift before his serving practices with Shimada-san. Yamaguchi holds a half-licked melon bar in his hand, holds his head up toward the sky.
“Hm?”
“Bisexual. Like, attracted to multiple genders.”
“Oh.” Kei turns back and looks straight ahead. A stray black cat slinks by, weaving in and out of the tires of a parked car. “Cool.”
“You don’t think it’s weird?”
“No.”
Yamaguchi whistles and takes a bite from his melon bar. “Good. I’m glad.”
They watch as the cat makes its way toward a trash can that bleeds out napkins, apple cores, polymer remains of potato chip bags. It swipes at a blue milk carton and spills a white puddle onto the sidewalk.
“How do you know?”
“Hm?”
“That you’re attracted to multiple genders.”
“Oh. Well, I think I like Yachi-san right now,” Yamaguchi says, scratching the back of his head. Kei watches his cheeks tinge pink. “But I’ve liked other people before. Like Sugawara-san at the beginning of the year, and Ennoshita-san a little.” He pauses. “And Hinata too? Maybe?”
“ Hinata? ”
“Yeah, please don’t tell him.”
“Hinata.”
“Tsukki, he’s not that bad.”
“Sure.”
“You’re just childish.”
“We’re talking about Hinata and you’re calling me childish?”
Yamaguchi laughs at that and takes a final bite from the melted remains of his melon bar. He rests his elbow on his knee and plays with the wooden popsicle stick. “I’ve kind of known before high school, though. I used to think Furuya-sensei was the handsomest person in the world.”
“Our teacher? From middle school second year?”
“Yeah. And,” Yamaguchi’s eyelids shut tight, forming tiny wrinkles above his bed of freckles. “And I liked Akiteru-san a little in middle school.”
“No.”
“He’s really good-looking, and caring, and nice, and-”
“ Please stop talking.”
“What can I say? The Tsukishimas are just really attractive people.”
Kei wonders if the heat warming his cheeks is because he wore too many layers or because he’s slowly developing a fever. “Shut up. The next thing I know, you’re going to say that you find my dad attractive.”
“Ah, well, you see…”
Kei snatches the popsicle stick from Yamaguchi’s hand and thrusts it into the fallen trash can. The cat yowls and leaps into the milk puddle, and Yamaguchi laughs and laughs and laughs.
A month into their second year, Yamaguchi gets a girlfriend.
Her name is Asato Ami. Kei recognizes her as the princess he kissed in the middle school play. She has black wavy hair down to her shoulders and wispy bangs like a fence around her forehead. Her eyes waver between rich brown and deep blue depending on how the sunlight angles through the windowpane. She has freckles on her cheeks, and on her ears, and on her chin.
This is what Yamaguchi tells Hinata as they clean up the gym. Kei pulls down the volleyball net with Ennoshita-san and listens to their ecstatic voices from a few feet away.
“Have you guys been on a date yet?” Hinata asks excitedly, jumping up and down as he drags the mop in a circle in front of him.
“Just one. We got lunch on Saturday and talked for a long time. And then we went to a bookstore.” Yamaguchi leans on his mop and sighs contentedly. “It was nice, really nice.”
Hinata tilts his head back and whines. “Come on, Yamaguchi, you’re making me jealous.” His head whips back down and he leans in closer, hunched. “Have you guys kissed yet?”
Kei drops his end of the volleyball net. “Sorry.” He picks it up and holds it flat as Ennoshita-san folds it towards him in a zigzag path.
He steals a glance at Yamaguchi, whose face is now the color of maraschino cherries. “Yeah. A few times.” He cradles the mop between his elbows and drops his head into his hands. “In the bookstore. We were looking at picture books together.”
Choruses of Yamaguchi! echo off the walls as Hinata nearly tackles him into a hug, leaving both of their mops to clatter to the floor. Kei watches Tanaka-san and Noya-san run up out of nowhere to blindly join the pile of sweaty teens, watches Kinoshita-san laugh and Kageyama hobble over to them with his jaw semi-clenched.
When Kei turns back, Ennoshita-san is staring at him.
“Yes?”
“Are you okay?”
“Um. Why wouldn’t I be?”
Kei watches his captain raise his eyebrows, scanning Kei’s face for any hidden thoughts before returning to a neutral expression. He takes the folded net from Kei’s grasp and shrugs.
“If you need anything, or anyone to talk to, just let me know, okay?”
And then he’s gone, walking away before Kei can give an answer.
“You didn’t tell me you guys kissed,” Kei remarks to Yamaguchi as they walk out of Karasuno and head toward Shimada Mart.
Yamaguchi rubs at the small tuft of hair behind his neck. “Ah, did you hear that?” He chuckles nervously. “I didn’t tell you because, you know, because you and Ami-chan…and I didn’t know if you’d wanna hear about that.”
“I told you already, it’s fine.” Yamaguchi had asked Kei for approval before asking Asato out because of the kiss in middle school. Kei had thought he was being ridiculous. “It was for a school play. I don’t even remember it.”
“Okay, okay. I just wanted to make sure.”
He stops suddenly, then turns towards Kei and hugs him, arms around his neck, head buried in his shoulder. Kei stumbles a little from the unexpected force. He feels Yamaguchi’s laugh reverberate on the outskirts of his chest.
“Sorry, I just— Thank you.”
“For what?”
“I don’t know. I just feel thankful.” Yamaguchi tightens his embrace. “You’re my best friend, you know that?”
Kei allows himself a small grin, and he pats the top of Yamaguchi’s head. “You’re being sappy.”
“Shut up.” Yamaguchi pulls his head away and looks up at Kei. It’s too dark to see anything, but Kei can still make out the glint of euphoria in Yamaguchi’s eyes. “I’m just really happy. With her, with you.”
“I’m glad. You’re gonna be late for work.”
“Right! Sorry, sorry.” Yamaguchi unwraps himself from Kei’s lanky figure and skips on ahead, singing unintelligible words. Kei puts his hands in his pockets and follows behind.
Asato becomes as much a part of Kei’s daily routine as she does Yamaguchi’s. She watches practice games from the second floor of the gym on Mondays, comes to their classroom during lunch on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Yamaguchi walks her home on Thursdays and Fridays, and she tags along when they study together on Saturdays.
Kei doesn’t mind too much. Asato is pretty, kind, a lot more mature than Kei remembers her being. The younger version of her that flushed under Kei’s gaze seems to have shed its skin, abandoned in the cemetery of the previous years. She complements Yamaguchi, matching his sense of humor and graciously supporting his every endeavor.
The nights are quieter on the days that Yamaguchi walks Asato home, his footsteps not there to liven the ambience outside of Kei’s headphones. But it’s a sacrifice Kei’s willing to make; Yamaguchi looks happy, and that’s what matters.
Sometimes Kei wonders whether he should mind, though, like right now, when Yamaguchi and Asato sit across from him with their hands obviously intertwined under the café table. The two of them huddle over an English textbook; Yamaguchi occasionally steals glances at the wisps of hair just above her eyes, at her mouth that sounds out syllables foreign to her tongue. Kei feels extremely out of place. He looks down and fiddles with the string of his chamomile tea bag, wrapping it idly around his index till his skin is ridged at the fingertip.
“Tsukki, Tsukki,” Yamaguchi whines, tugging on Kei’s sleeve with his free hand. When Kei looks up, he points at the textbook. “Do you know what this means? English is so hard . Even Ami-chan can’t figure it out.”
Asato nods in response and accidentally swings her hair in Yamaguchi’s face, sending the two into a fit of giggles. Kei musters a smile and looks down at the page. Phrase No. 5: Let’s address the elephant in the room.
“Is there an elephant?” Asato asks between her laughs, cheeks reddening with each inhale. “What does that mean?”
“It means addressing an issue that everyone’s avoiding because it makes them uncomfortable. Our class went over it at the end today, Yamaguchi.”
Yamaguchi rubs at his right eye. “Aw, I must’ve missed it. So no elephant?”
“No elephant.”
Asato gulps down a glass of water and clears her throat. “What situation would you use it in?”
“Maybe if you were in a fight with someone but you were both avoiding discussing it.” Or maybe if you feel like you’re barging in on your best friend’s relationship by third-wheeling their study dates, Kei thinks. But am I the only one aware of this elephant?
“Mm, that makes sense. Thanks, Tsukishima-kun!” Asato looks up at him, her freckles scrunching into the shape of a grin. “I don’t know how you retain all of the information from your classes. I’m always dozing off in mine.”
“Tsukki’s really smart! He tutored our friends on the volleyball team last year when they were failing their exams.”
“Shut up, Yamaguchi.”
“Sorry! But it’s true,” he adds, whispering into Asato’s ear. Kei lifts his drink up to his mouth to cover the slight blush rising on his cheeks. He gathers parts of Yamaguchi’s next words — something about “need to pee” and “be right back.”
When he lowers his cup, Asato sits alone in front of him. She pokes at her half-eaten cake with a fork, biting her bottom lip as her eyes scan the textbook pages again. The café speakers hum out a jazz tune from above, but the silence is still palpable, stretching out lethargically between them on the table.
Kei nods toward the cake. “I like that one from this café. It’s my favorite.”
Asato looks up, her eyes perked. “Yes! Strawberry shortcake is superior. Do you want some of mine?”
“N-No, it’s okay. I can buy my own later.”
This is awkward, Kei thinks as Asato says something about being okay with sharing. Should I just ask her about the elephant in the room while Yamaguchi is gone? Or would that make it even more awkward? He wishes it was socially acceptable to put on headphones in front of someone mid-conversation, to drown out the unease that tickles his ears.
“Tsukishima-kun?”
Shit . “Sorry, what did you say?”
“I said, you’re Tadashi-kun’s best friend, right?”
Yamaguchi’s given name startles him. He nods. “I think so.”
“What do you like about him?”
That isn’t what Kei was expecting, although he doesn’t really know what else he was expecting her to say. What does he like about Yamaguchi? A lot of things, probably, but it’s not like he’s thought much about it, written down all of his best qualities in a comprehensive list.
“Um, he’s really nice to everyone, he’s determined, he can be funny sometimes…” Do I keep going? Her eyes seem to nod at Kei’s inner thoughts, so he does. “He tries his best at everything he does and pushes me to do the same? He… He makes me a better person, I guess.”
His throat feels hollowed out, made vulnerable to the sharp edges of the words that he’ll later speak. Asato’s chin rests on her intertwined fingers, elbows propped up and slightly crumpling the textbook pages. Her eyes are kind, her lips even kinder as they curl upwards into a genuine smile.
“Me too, for all of those things. I’m glad he has you.”
Sincerity encases every syllable she speaks, and as his mind processes the words, Kei feels his heart skip. What was that?
“I-I’m glad he has you, too.”
Yamaguchi comes back a few seconds later, and Asato’s gaze on him breaks. Kei exhales involuntarily, reaching for his cup as he watches their hands entangle again, like the other’s palm is their natural habitat, a home. He twists the tea bag string around his finger, this time to the rhythm of his erratically-beating heart, till the paper tag rips off of the thread.
Kei doesn’t join their weekend study sessions after that. A few weeks pass, and he starts to skip their Tuesday and Wednesday lunch sessions, too. Excuses recycle themselves on his tongue, the same material in different words — he has a career plan meeting, or classroom duties, or his mom is calling him for some reason, be right back.
Yamaguchi has Asato, so it’s okay if he’s not there. At least that’s what he tells himself to feel less guilty about leaving, slipping out of the classroom as soon as the lunch bell rings.
He knows that he shouldn’t be avoiding them, and it’s not like he completely can , either — spending time with Yamaguchi is a part of his everyday routine, and consequently, so is spending time with Asato. But ever since their study session at the café, an uncomfortable ache has been weighing down on his chest. It’s impossible to pinpoint what it is, but Kei knows that seeing the two of them is a catalyst, the ache festering under their gaze. The escape during lunch is freeing even if it’s only temporary; he needs time to let the ache wither away, before it blossoms so fully that it devours him whole.
Today, though, Kei needs to study, so he sucks it up and stays in his chair. Asato balances herself on the edge of Yamaguchi’s desk, popping a piece of fried tofu into her mouth; Yamaguchi holds her hand and taps on her knuckles absently as he eats his own lunch. Kei squints at the math equation the teacher has left on the board: integrate the given fraction .
“Oh shit ,” Yamaguchi starts suddenly, standing up and sending his chair back with a screech. “I forgot I was meeting Takeda-sensei to ask about the book we’re reading in class.” He swoops up his uniform jacket from around his chair and leans in to kiss Asato on the cheek, whispering a soft sorry before rushing out of the room. Kei looks over his left shoulder at the exit; beside him, Asato laughs, her bangs waving like curtains on a windy evening.
“He’s so forgetful.”
“Mm. He was probably half-asleep when he scheduled that meeting with Takeda-sensei.” Kei taps his pencil against his paper. Integration by parts…
They lapse into silence. In his periphery, Asato slides into Yamaguchi’s empty seat, looks blankly at the front of the classroom. Kei wonders whether this would be a good time to ask her whether he’s disturbing their relationship, if he should stop spending time with them altogether for their sake. The ache taps on the walls of his heart.
Before he can decide, though, he hears her say, “Can I ask you something?”
“Mm.”
“Do you…” she stops, sighs, then starts again. “Am I intruding on your friendship with Tadashi-kun?”
He blinks. What. “I- Aren’t I the one intruding on your relationship with Yamaguchi?”
“What?! No, not at all! It’s nice spending time with you. But I just...Do you like...” She trails off, the words she doesn’t say grabbling at Kei’s throat like a phantom hand.
The ache gnaws at his ribcage now, as if trying to escape its cellar. Kei looks back down at his paper. “Didn’t Yamaguchi ask you out?”
“Well, yeah, but I don’t- I don’t want you to feel like I’m taking him from you.”
He writes his final answer, the lead of his pencil scratching against the clean white paper. “If he asked you out, that means he likes you. That has nothing to do with me.”
Suddenly her hand is over his. The pencil skids to an anticlimactic halt. He looks up at Asato’s eyes, which under the artificial light of their classroom seem almost too bright to be real, like a mirage in a desert. Her freckles glow, burning his skin with their unprecedented captivation.
Kei’s heart skips. He can’t move.
Asato tightens her grip on his knuckles for emphasis. “Are you sure it’s okay?”
The bell rings above their heads. Lunchbox zippers cut through the air along with the rustling of closing notebooks. Asato gingerly pulls her hand away but keeps her eyes on Kei. He taps his foot lightly against the metal leg of his desk.
“I like you, if that’s what you were going to ask me earlier,” he manages to say. He watches Asato waver. “And more importantly, Yamaguchi likes you. So don’t worry about me.”
At that, Asato’s face relaxes into a subtle smile. She nods, stands up, and tucks her lunchbox into her bag before slinging it over her shoulder. She waves goodbye and walks away; Kei watches the doorway long after she’s left through the exit.
Sometimes Kei has weird dreams.
He has dreams of sitting cross-legged on a volleyball court, saying thank you for the food to a lone plate of strawberry shortcake and floppy fries lying directly below the net. He has dreams of dinosaurs devouring asteroids, throwing them at the sun to melt, burn, dissipate into ash. He has dreams of cradling stars while curled up in the craters of the moon.
He has dreams of watching Yamaguchi and Asato inside a bookstore: how their hands link effortlessly, how their laughs mingle with the laundered scent of the air. Kei watches dream-Yamaguchi run his free hand through dream-Asato’s thick hair like ripples in a river, watches him lean towards her forehead and press his lips to her soft complexion. Kei watches as he tilts his head to nip at the freckles dotting her ear, holding his I love you’s gently against her helix. Have they said I love you yet? Kei watches them mold together, fold into each other like a forest swallowed up by the earth, till their spines are bound and their hearts bleed like the inky words in the pages strewn on the floor.
Kei wakes up from these dreams breathless, clenching the pit in his stomach as he wills away his guilt.
Yamaguchi invites Kei, Hinata, and Kageyama to his house on a Friday night when his parents are out of town. Kei would much rather spend the night alone, or just with Yamaguchi, since they haven’t done that in a while, just the two of them — but hanging out with the other two isn’t half as bad as it used to be, and he knows Yamaguchi appreciates the social interaction. It’s endearing how excited he is about spending time with them, skipping ahead of Kei and the bickering freak duo in the dully lit street.
The source of his excitement becomes apparent when they step through the entryway and Yamaguchi takes them to his kitchen, opens the fridge, and reveals a door full of beers.
“I bought Yakult and Calpico for us, too,” he says, his eyes sparkling. “Because beer tastes like shit.”
An hour later their cans lay crushed on Yamaguchi’s living room ottoman. The coconut mall theme song plays quietly from the television, creating dissonance with the quarter-tone wails coming from Hinata as his Yoshi falls off the path.
“Stay on the road ,” he groans, fumbling with his remote. “We’re in fourth place and Kageyama’s in first! ” The Kageyama in question, who sits on Hinata’s left on the floor, sports an evil smile as his Donkey Kong zooms past the finish line.
Beside Kei, Yamaguchi laughs and leans back into the couch, cheeks flushed red. “If only I had two more remotes. Then we could all play together and I could kick everyone’s asses at once.”
“I think you mean I would kick everyone’s asses.”
Yamaguchi huffs. “Sure, Tsukki. You’d be 12th place and win by getting Bullet Bill in the last round.”
“That still counts as winning.”
Hinata groans and Kageyama whoops, taking a celebratory sip from his second Calpico bottle. Without turning around, he passes his remote to Kei. Kei takes it, quickly switching to Toad, and waits for Hinata to finish choosing his vehicle.
Yamaguchi wordlessly rests his head on Kei’s left shoulder, not quite hovering but not fully leaning in either. His expression has deflated from his giddy high, changed to one of contemplation. Kei tries to remember whether his best friend was like this the few times they drank alone, in the confines of his bedroom back at home. No; Yamaguchi was light, joking, constantly stifling a laugh. Tonight he was all of these things for a millisecond, but now he succumbs to silence, as if his excitement from the day had merely been a facade.
He’s been quiet for the past few days, really. Not quiet like the calm before the storm, or like the liminal period of spring before the summer cicadas. Quiet like the formation of eraser shavings during an afternoon exam, like the stillness of the Karasuno club room when Kei wraps his fingers in the dark. Tension with no intention of release.
Kei quells his urge to tug at Yamaguchi’s taut strings. He won’t pry; Yamaguchi will come to him when he’s ready. For now, Kei lets him lean on him, use him as an anchor while lost at sea.
For now, he moves his arms minimally to swerve in front of Hinata, eliciting a strangled groan from the mop of orange hair on the floor. Kei smirks.
“Tsukishima you asshole!” Hinata whips his head around and waves his remote in the air, making his Yoshi go haywire. “I thought you were bad at this game!”
“Who said I was?”
“Yamaguchi!” Kei looks down to his left, where Yamaguchi, eyes half-closed, shakes his head.
Kageyama lets out a disgruntled sigh. “You’re so bad at this. Here.” He scoots slightly behind Hinata, snakes his right arm around Hinata’s shoulder and rests his hands on top of the smaller boy’s on the controller. Hinata stops waving his arms, goes silent.
“You have to do it like this,” Kageyama says nonchalantly, moving their thumbs leftward on the right stick.
“Oh. Okay.”
The Yoshi on the screen accelerates and passes Kei’s Toad.
“Son of a bitch.”
Kageyama links his chin onto Hinata’s left shoulder and lifts his middle finger up at Kei before returning his hand to the controller. Yamaguchi lets out a small laugh against Kei’s chest.
After another round of switching remotes the rotation is back to Hinata and Kageyama, who stay in the same position, Hinata visibly more relaxed in Kageyama’s arms as he screams at the television. Yamaguchi looks half-asleep, but Kei can tell he’s awake; he watches as his best friend’s thumbs fiddle together against his curled-up knees on the couch.
“You okay?” Kei whispers, unable to shy away his concern.
Yamaguchi nods against his shoulder in response. “I thought drinking would help a little with my mood, but I guess not.” A few seconds pass, and then, “I feel like we haven’t talked that much lately.”
Guilt stabs at his chest. Kei exhales softly. “I see you every day.”
“Yeah, I know, but still. It feels different.”
“Yeah. I know what you mean.”
“I miss you.”
“I’m literally right here.”
Yamaguchi snorts and shifts his head closer to Kei’s neck. “Thanks for the reminder.”
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Mm.”
The little cloud and turtle float across the screen to signal the start of the second lap for Kageyama; Hinata swears and wiggles in the taller boy’s grasp. Kei feels Yamaguchi’s right hand play with the ends of his hair next to his ear, then move down to the strands at the nape of his neck. He leans into the touch. Yamaguchi’s forehead tickles Kei’s jawline.
Maybe everything is okay. Maybe they can exist in this space together, with Mario Kart in their ears and semi-carbonated beer in their throats. Maybe this is how it’s always been, how it always can be, Yamaguchi being Kei’s anchor as much as Kei is his.
But then Yamaguchi’s fingers tug on his hair tightly, desperately, and Kei remembers Asato’s curls, how Yamaguchi threaded his fingers through them in his dream. How her freckles glowed against her complexion, how Yamaguchi kissed her, how he enveloped her in arms and skin and love — and how Kei couldn’t, couldn’t look away.
“Fuck,” Yamaguchi swears, sitting up straight and bringing his arms to his sides.
Kei blinks. Could he tell what I was thinking? “What?”
“I think I drank too much. My head hurts a little.”
“But you only had two cans?”
“Maybe I’m more of a lightweight than I thought,” Yamaguchi laughs weakly, avoiding Kei’s gaze. Last time they drank together, Yamaguchi nearly finished a fifth can; Kei dismisses the lie. “I think I’m gonna go lie down. You know where the extra mattresses are, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay. I- Sorry. Good night, Tsukki.”
Tiny good night ’s are exchanged as Yamaguchi tiptoes around the two boys on the floor and walks hastily to the corridor. Kei looks down at his hands, his neck prickling from the lost contact.
When the final lap finishes, with Kageyama coming in second and Hinata in seventh, the two of them turn around and look up.
“Is everything okay with Yamaguchi-kun?” Hinata asks.
“And you?” Kageyama adds belatedly.
Kei’s face burns red, and he knows it’s not from the alcohol.