Chapter Text
It’s been so long since I've truly had time just to relax. That’s obviously my fault for wanting so much to be better at volleyball, but how could I not? It’s everything for me now. Or was. Or will it be? But right now I'm stuck in my bed wishing I wasn’t. My legs are numb, and my arms are ugly and bruised. Surprisingly, my face was the only thing that wasn’t completely beat up. Just my luck? We weren’t in school but we were still practicing, and Hinata and Kageyama decided to run on a hill while racing and in trying to get them to slow dow,n I ended up shoving them back down the hill. Of course, it was secretly rocky and pretty high above ground.
When I fell, I supposedly was going down like a plinko ball. I couldn't tell you what I saw since I smacked my head on a fat branch 3 smashes down. After hitting my head, I saw white and woke up in the hospital. Hina and Kageyama have been giving Tsukki money to bring to me as some sort of thank you for not snitching on them. I thought about sending the money bac,k but I think it's funny they think I'm super angry. Tsukki comes over before school and after to drop off homework, collect the homework, and drop off the money. I've decided to save for some new headphones. But besides looking forward to ordering them, I haven’t been able to do a whole lot. I think I've entered a slump which is not all bad but it hurts to do almost anything but eat, pee, and sleep. My arms are still bruised, but it's been a week, so I'm mostly able to ignore it.
The highlight of my day has definitely been Tsuki and other friends coming to visit. We had a practice match planned for the day after my accident and I'm kind of bummed. Tsukki has more energy when we are around Nekoma and the other two kids. I can’t remember their names but I do know he becomes more competitive and lively. I'd never mention that he would probably get embarrassed. It doesn’t matter, though, since I won't hear about it until I’m back at practice. Tsukishima refuses to talk much about it , which leads me to think something embarrassing happened to him. Maybe I should stop pretending to be mad at Hinata and let him visit. It would probably be more fun than Tsukishima complaining about nobody laughing at his “perfectly curated insults”, even though I don't understand why he brags about those. Maybe I’m finally becoming annoyed by him or something.
I was lost in thought until Tsukishima walked through my door.
“Hey, uh, I forgot to let you know, but there's a test today. I'll drop it off tomorrow, but here's the study guide. Did you finish the homework?” He sat on the end of my bed, pulling out a folder from his bag.
“Alright, thank you, Tsuki!”We exchanged sheets, and he stood after stuffing the folder into his bag.
“O,k I have to go bye Tadashi.”
“Bye!”
He was already in the hallway when I decided I was indeed done with pretending to be mad.
“Tsuki!!”
“What?!”
“Tell Hinata I forgive him!”
He then walked out of the door, and I was pretty sure he heard me. But I texted him to make sure. But now I can concentrate on the study guide and maybe find something else to do while I am home.
The study guide was helpful, and I was able to spend 2 hours memorizing formulas and reading the chapters of our new book and I had fallen asleep after taking my pain medication. I woke up to the intense stare of Hinata and Kageyama watching me sleep with Tsukishima holding in a laugh near the door.
“What are you creeps doing?” I sat up and lifted my blanket towards my chest
“Tsukishima said you forgave us. Is that true?” Kageyama simply nodded, agreeing with Hinata.
“Um yeah?”
“What did you do with the money?” Kageyama asked.
I pointed at my piggie bank and then raised an eyebrow to Tsukishima.
“It’s not my fault you didn’t lock the door after I left.” Tsuki shrugged before walking out of the room.
“Right. So which one of you is going to clean my room for me?”
Both Hinata and Kageyama's faces began to resemble fear and it made me chuckle
“Im just kidding! You guys are so gullible!”
I patted my bed, insinuating for them to take a seat to which they both leaped onto it, crashing into one another.
“Idiots!” I laughed
-
I had convinced Hinata and Kageyama to tell me every single detail of life in school and practice since I was bedridden but neither of them really mentioned Tsuki. Both only talked about how they were improving and were raving about some kid on the Nekuma team. I was a little disappointed but it was better than asking Tsuki and only being told about dumb things like it being cold in the classrooms. And watching Hinata and Kageyama fight for the attention of the group was funny. They all had to go home, unfortunately, but they did promise to come back with junk food before the week was over and that was good enough for me.
I was scrolling through my phone when I saw a post of the Nekuma kid Hinata and Kageyama had been talking so much about. He was playing a video game, he looked super intense, and he was playing a video game I knew Bye Sunrise! He was playing as the Monster, and the footage was kind of trash, but In the end, he won. I liked the video and decided that I would try and play Bye Sunrise. I scooted closer to my chair and figured my way onto it and was grateful for the lack of stairs in my house and my parents' investment in roller chairs. I scooted my way to the family computer and realized the computer was too old to handle the newer versions of the game so I disappointedly rolled back into my room and decided to watch videos of gameplay on my laptop.
After an hour of watching gameplay my eyes were crying and I was starving. I never spent much time on my phone, but I continued to watch Bye Sunrise gameplay even while eating. I was hooked from the first video I watched. I needed to play this game. I absolutely needed it too! I was learning all of the characters' names and what the current and past metas were, and which characters countered which. I needed to play and I was suddenly glad I was injured by my friends and their immense guilt. I had stacked up a hundred bucks from them and had a few more hundred dollars saved from birthdays and such. I would ask my parents for some cash and buy a new computer!
I wasn’t completely sure my parents would agree, but my mom had told me she would help me pay a third of it if my father sent the other third. I immediately called my dad, and when I had asked he told me he would buy it whole if it would make me feel better about volleyball. I was so lucky. I told my mom and she agreed to help me order it once my father sent over the money. I just needed to wait 2 days for it to come home to me and I could finally play Bye Sunrise. That night was my first night I was able to peacefully fall asleep.
-
The next morning I checked on the order and of course, it was just being packaged. I was still so excited and even Tsukishima noticed my excitement. I think he had noticed I was becoming annoyed by him before because he was a lot more comfortable around me which made me feel a little guilty. But I shook it off and happily engaged in a conversation with him until he had to leave for school and I made sure to lock the front door this time.
After Tsukishima left I went onto my phone's social app and saw the kid from yesterday had left a like on one of my photos. I didn’t know if he knew who I was but I figured he was just glad someone had engaged with his content. I was still feeling giddy so I checked out his latest video, which was a hundred times clearer than the previous one and it was more Bye Sunshine gameplay this time with him as the survivor. Unlike the video from yesterday, this video was seven minutes long but I decided homework could wait for this. The kid was so good and he was surprisingly sort of funny in a way he was snarky and was constantly fighting with the random postgame and it reminded me of Tsuki, and I ended up laughing hard when a different kid walked into his room, screaming about being late for school.
After I finished watching, I liked the video and decided one more before doing schoolwork wouldn’t hurt and then suddenly I had spent half of my day watching this random kids entire page of gameplay clips and I decided to commit to watching the full Youtube videos after doing my work.
I hadn’t struggled with schoolwork since being injured but I hadn’t been able to think about anything other than Bye Sunrise and how pretty soon I would be the one freaking out on people after fun matches and buying cool skins. Eventually, I pushed through the work and was finally able to watch Bye Sunrise gameplay as much as I wanted. I had been boiling some noodles while watching one of the nekuma kids videos when I got a notification that he had followed me on the social app. I realized I had liked almost his entire page besides the ones that hadn’t pertained to any video games. Maybe he thought I was a viewer from his YouTube channel. Regardless, I followed him back and went back to preparing the noodles and watching the gameplay I had been really excited for.
The particular video was a gameplay where he was trying every single character and there were two parts and I knew part 2 was the funniest but I had to watch part 1 to understand most of his jokes. I had picked up the intel from the comments on his videos. His fans were funny and most of them had joked about his hair needing to be touched up and toned. They were right, his hair was almost orange and his roots were indeed in need of a touch-up. He always freaked out when he would talk about the comments that were about his hair and would yell at the audience that he was too busy. I'm sure he was since he did volleyball, what I would give to be him. Be able to play Bye Sunrise and entertain people while also being good at volleyball and not to mention being on the court the whole game. I stopped thinking when the water of my noodles had started to smell and I realized there was no water and I had burnt the noodles.
-
After burning my noodles I slept the rest of the day and the day after that the pain from my legs had become unbearable, leading me to pass out but thankfully, tsukishima had returned from practice early due to there being an ugly rain. It was now the day after the fainting spell. And Tsukishima was sitting next to me while we scrolled through my social feed.
“Tadashi?”
“Yeah?”
“How do you know Kenma?”
“Who??”
“You followed him on a social app, the blonde setter from Kozume. How do you know him?”
“Oh.”
I looked up Kenma's social page on my phone and showed Tsukishima a video.
“He plays Bye Sunshine! I ordered a computer and it should show up later today.”
“Oh”
“Yeah!”
Tsukishima got up and collected his things.
“Are you going to need me to help you set it up?”
“Yeah probably. Can you tell Hinata and Kageyama to come over too! They promised me junk food and I want pizza!”
“Sure.”
Tsukishima walked out of my room and out of the house and I scooted my chair shortly after to lock the door and quickly made my way back to my room to do the work I was given.
The whole day I had spent in anticipation and when I heard the knock on the door after practice hours, I practically jumped for the door. I had managed to get the door open when I slipped on the cast on my left foot and fell in front of four sets of shoes.
I had recognized the first three sets of shoes but the last were not familiar.
“Did you three really bring a stranger to my house?” I looked up with annoyance.
Then I saw him, Kodzuken.
Chapter 2: Maybe he is sort of pretty
Summary:
Look what the crow dragged in.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
I quickly rose to my feet, shifted my weight onto my right leg and leaned on the door.
“Tadashi! We brought food and Kenma!” Hinata was super excited, holding onto the blonde's arm.
“Hi guys!” I was embarrassed but at least nobody had said anything.
I led them inside and Kageyama as well as Hinata were making their way towards my bedroom hallway while I locked the door. Meanwhile, Kenma had stayed behind along with Tsukkishima. They were both staring at me and it made me deeply uncomfortable.
“So um what's with the staring? It's creeping me out.” It really was. Kenma's eyes strongly resembled that of a cat about to hiss at you and Tsukishima was giving me an evil smile. I was doomed.
“I invited Kenma to help you set up Tadashi. Don’t you think you should thank him for being so generous?” Tsukki smirked and then walked away from us. What a little dick.
Kenma and I both watched Tsukki as he slowly descended into the hallway and into the light of my bedroom. Once Tsukkishima was no longer in sight, Kenma turned to me expectedly.
“Um, thank you?” I looked down waiting for an answer but I didn’t hear anything. Kenma had walked away from me!
What in the world was this kid's problem? I didn’t expect him to be friendly but he didn’t even say anything? And he was in my house about to be in my room and he didn’t even acknowledge me? What the heck!?
I shortly followed after him and when we walked in the room there had been a spread of junk food and Hinata had somehow unlocked my computer and had cringe pop music playing. Kageyama was under a blanket I didn’t even know was in my room and Tsukishima was rolling in my chair and I turned to see Kenma against the wall near the door looking severely uncomfortable.
“You can sit down, you know?” Kageyama said with Hinata and Tsukki both nodding.
I realized then my room was definitely overcrowded at this point and so I pushed Tsukkishima off the chair and onto the bed. I then rolled it towards Kenma.
“Sit. Tsukkishima always gets the chair anyway.” Kenma nodded and sat down.
“Hinata?”
“Yes?”
“Why doesn’t Kenma talk?”
Hinata giggled and Tsukkishima was laughing.
“Tadashi, your guest is standing right there.”
“Okay well if I asked him I doubt he would have even given me an answer.” I turned to look at Kenma who looked embarrassed and spun himself to face away from me.
“See! He won’t even look at me!”
Hinata had laid between Kageyama and Tsukki at this point, laying his feet on Kageyama and trying to get Tsukki to let him lay his head on his arm.
“Kenmas is just getting used to being in your house, he's totally cool!”
Kageyama nodded and Tsukishima just continued to push Hinata away from him. To that Hinata began to make smooching noises at Tsukkishima.
“Ew you guys need to get a room!” Both Kenma and I spoke at the same time.
“I'm done.” Tsukishima sat up and walked in front of Kenma.
“Please.” Kenma nodded and traded with Tsukkishima and now he and Hinata both had their feet on Kageyama who I could not tell if he had been awake or asleep.
“This is so stupid.” I plopped onto the floor and snatched my laptop from Hinata and played a Bye Sunshine gameplay video.
“Is that [semi-famous gamer]?” Kenma's curiosity had peaked.
“Um yeah.”
“I wanna see! Let me see!” Hinata and Kenma both shoved their feet onto Kageyama's head while flipping onto their stomachs to be able to see from the edge of the bed. I turned the laptop so they could see and Tsukkishima rolled towards us to watch also.
We had gone through twenty minutes of watching the gameplay before Kageyama woke up and bit Hinata's foot. Which led to Hinata running away into the living room with me, tsukki, and Kenma watching from the doorway and they chased one another and tried to beat one another up. Eventually, we had to intervene when the landline rang and I couldn’t hear the phone call. Tsukkishima came to my rescue and shouted at them to get out. Kenma was laughing next to me and it was pretty obvious he was trying to listen into the conversation I was having on the phone.
After I hung up, Tsukkishima let the two idiots back inside and we all sat around in my living room.
“Who was that?” Hinata asked.
“It was my mom. She said she won't be home tonight.”
“Aw that sucks, she makes really good food.” Hinata spoke and Kageyama nodded along.
“You guys are going to be so fat once high school is over.” Kenma said
“Agreed” Both Tsukkishima and I said.
“I won't get fat if I become a pro!” Hinata said.
“Yeah!” Kageyama was shaking his arm in the air.
“You two are idiots.” Tsukkishima had commented
“Speaking of you idiots, when are you planning on going home?”
“Well we are helping you set up that computer. And also none of the train stations are going to Kenmas town or anywhere near mine.” Hinata said with Kenma and Kageyama nodding.
“You guys are seriously so annoying! I don’t have enough room for all of you!” I threw a pillow I had been holding up to my stomach towards Hinata.
Hinata laughed and threw the pillow back at me as I tried standing up. I glared at Hinata before using all my power to try and throw the pillow back hard enough for it to hurt.
“If you’re all going to freeload off of me then you better get to work! I want the computer setup done by yesterday.” I crossed my arms and only Tsukkishima stood up.
“You all do realize Tadashi is still very capable of beating all of us to a pulp even while not being able to use his legs right?” Tsukkishima said before quickly walking towards my room. Both Hinata and Kageyama ran towards my room leaving me and Kenma alone again.
“Tadashi?”
“Um yeah?”
“Is it okay to call you that? I don’t know your last name.”
“Oh yeah! I don’t care”
“Cool.” Kenma and I walked silently towards my room and it wasn’t awkward. I think we were both too tired from watching Hinata and Kageyama running around to feel awkward.
Walking in I saw the two idiots shoving pizza down their throats and Tsukishima trying to step over them to grab the box. He was successful and held it out in front of me and Kenma. We each took a slice and tossed the box to the corner of the room. It was finally time for the setup. Tsukkishima took charge and pulled all the parts out and was reading over the manual while eating his food. Kenma was inspecting the box while Kageyama was popping the bubble wrap and Hinata was cozzied up in my bed.
“Tadashi.” Kenma looked towards me still in the doorway.
“Hm?” Everyone looked at us.
“Do you need to sit down?” He scooted from his position on my desk.
I hadn’t even noticed he had been sitting on my desk but I nodded and sat next to him.
“Thanks.” He nodded and continued to inspect parts while everyone went back to whatever it is they were doing. I was staring at Kenma and watching his expressions without realizing until he looked directly at me.
“Can I help you?” Kenma mumbled.
“Sorry!” I maintained eye contact and pointed to his hair.
“You keep tucking your hair behind your ears but it's still in your way. Do you need a hair tie?”
“Oh, uh sure.” I walked towards my mom's bedroom and I hadn’t noticed until I walked out of her room that Kenma had followed me.
“Kenma? Are you okay?” I looked down at him, he looked embarrassed.
“Can you tie it for me?” He looked past me.
“Oh okay.” I whispered for him to turn around and I combed my fingers through his hair and collected it all in my hand using the other to loop his hair through the elastic band twice. Then I parted the ponytail into two and pulled them to tighten it.
“Is that okay?” I whispered.
He nodded and we walked back towards my bedroom where we found Kageyama was asleep and Hinata was fighting Tsukishima for the setup manual. I took a seat next to Kageyama and pulled him closer onto the bed. Our best buds had not realized Kageyama was on the verge of diving head first off the bed. I watched Kenma and Tsukishima build the computer while Hinata complained about Tsukishima not allowing him to help. Tsukkishima and Kenma made a great team. Kenmas instructions were perfectly suited to Tsukkishima's building pace and Kenma could also mostly keep Hinata at bay. Before I knew it, I was asleep laying next to Kageyama and I had managed my way into the blanket he was under. The last thing I heard before falling asleep was Hinata calling Tsukishima an evil grinch because he had skipped Hinata's Christmas music.
-
I woke up to breathing in my ear. It tickled and I almost giggled but then I realized it wasn’t Kageyama it was Kenma. I suddenly felt uncomfortable. I was used to everyone else breathing or snoring in my ear but only really interacted with Kenma on a surface level and now he was sleeping right next to me. Even worse, he was holding onto my arm. I felt deeply uncomfortable. I looked around and Kageyama was sleeping on the bare floor with his blanket
halfway on the bed and halfway under his butt, Hinata's feet were on Kenma's chest and it almost looked like Hinata was reaching for Kageyama on the floor. I figured tsukki had chosen to sleep on the couch and wiggled my way from under Kenma. I walked towards the living room and noticed Tsukki was awake reading a book.
“Goodmorning, Tsukki!” I leaped to the space next to him and laid my face next to his shoulder trying to see what book he was reading.
“Morning.”
“My feet are killing me! Will you get my medicene?” I reached over him to the small table next to him for the remote.
“I told you, you should use your crutches. I won’t always be here to do stuff for you when you’re feeling lazy.” I rolled my eyes.
Tsukishima did in fact get up and come back with my medicine. He was about to sit down when we heard a thump. After 2 or so minutes, Kenma had dragged his feet towards us. He looked like shit and both me and Tsukkishima smirked at one another.
“You are all the worst sleepers imaginable.” He plopped himself next to me and immediately fell asleep with his head slowly falling onto me.
It was much less weird than having his breath down my ears. I turned to Tsukki who was still holding out my medicine.
“Tsukki!! Where's the water?” I whined
“You’re such a pain Tadashi.” He still went to get me a glass of water.
When tsukkishima came back I took the medicine and we looked for something good to watch until Kenma's head had swayed to the other side of the couch and had finally slumped over with him hitting his head. We couldn’t control our laughter and Kenma had woken up. He was clearly pissed.
“Im going to kill you” He was staring daggers at both of us which made us laugh even more.
“Sorry Kenma!” I tried to pull him back towards me and Tsukki but he chose instead to sit on the opposite couch and he quickly fell back asleep.
Tsukki and I decided to watch a documentary about rats in New York. We had spent most of our morning just lounging until thing one and thing two had woken up and decided on trying to cook us all breakfast. Me and Tsukki were roasting them in front of the coach about the burning smells and distressed look in their eyes. Somehow Kenma had slept through their entire try at being chefs. And had only woken up when Hinata sat on him.
After being sat on he had managed to push Hinata off him and was forced by Kageyama to stay up and watch the rat documentary with us. The documentary was funny but then I remembered that the dream team should have had the computer set up.
“Did you do it?”
“Do what?”
“Finish the computer?”
“Oh yeah we did but you need to sign into your email and stuff.”
I sat up and grabbed Tsukkishima trying to rush towards my room. I had almost slipped. Him and Kenma had managed to grab my arms and he and Tsukishima both helped me into the room.
Hinata and Kageyama had stayed on the couch. Arriving in my room Kenma and Tsukki helped me into the rolling chair.
“Thanks guys!” I spun myself towards the computer and they helped me set up a new account on the computer.
This computer was all mine. I could do whatever I wanted to do with it and I was so excited.
“You two are the best!”
The first thing I downloaded was Bye Sunshine! I had Kenma make me an account and He showed me the basics of how to move around and stuff on the keyboard. Eventually I got the hang of it and we spent 30 minutes getting 'em through the tutorials in which Tsukkishima complained as to why the tutorials were necessary. After the tutorials were complete Kenma let us know we still had to wait for the full game to download before actually being able to play which caused Tsukishima to let out an annoying loud and dramatic sigh before leaving the room. Kenma and I giggled and I spun my chair to face Kenma who was sitting on the desk.
I didn’t say anything and neither did he. The light from my windows hit his eyes very nicely and the hazel eyes I thought of as creepy the night before were suddenly really pretty. He was pretty. I noticed his hair was still in the pony tail I had done for him but a few strands had escaped and were in front of his face, baby hairs were slighting stuck on his forehead and suddenly I realized my hand was reaching for his hair. He noticed and was staring at my hand. I let my hand rest on his knee and he looked from my hand to me. Before I could say anything Tsukkishima was back and he was looking strangely at us. I removed my hand and rolled over to my nightstand looking for my phone. I had a missed call from my mom. I texted her asking if everything was okay and noticed Kenma and Tsukishima staring at one another.
“So um do you guys want to go get some real food?” I asked and they both waited for a good couple of seconds before breaking eye contact and nodding.
We had all made our way to a small busted cafe near the train station. We agreed that Hinata, Kageyama and Kenma would leave from the cafe for the train station for their homes and Tsukishima would help me clean up before my mom got home and stay the night. I was actually excited to go to the cafe this morning. They had specials every weekend and this week was Apple pie. I noticed me and Kenma were the only ones to order the pie. Tsukki ordered a black coffee with a baggie of biscuits, Hinata ordered a lemonade and egg sandwich, Kageyama ordered chai with some waffles. I asked for water and the pie, Kenma ordered the pie and some milk. We didn’t talk much during breakfast, everyone was probably already tired of one another. We did watch an older man complain to the manager about his hot chocolate having milk in it and the entirety of our table was laughing at him until he glared at us and we all decided to part ways after that.
Tsukkishima and I were walking back to my house and I was holding onto his arm as extra support for my legs.
“Tadashi.”
“Tsukki?”
“What's up with you and Kenma?”
“Hm?”
“You two kept sneaking off together. Don’t tell me you’re crushing on him?” Tsukki smirked.
“You’re not very bright Tsukkishima.” Maybe I did think Kenma was cute but Tsukki didn’t need to know that.
Notes:
Im so tired whys it the next day. wait edit but should the next chapter be in Kenmas pov? 🤔
Chapter 3: You owe me a game
Summary:
Kenma discovers a new prize to compete over
Notes:
Short chapter in Kenma's POV
I kind of lost the plot near the end so bare with me and maybe the next chapter will have more structure.
Chapter Text
Walking from volleyball practice to go home usually isn’t that bad, but today Kuroo was feeling really chatty and I kept shoving him off every time he leaned into me,but he clearly wasn’t backing off right now.
“Hey, did you ever finish editing the video you’ve been working on?” I could feel his heavy hand on my head.
“I posted it already.” I pushed him off me and pulled out my phone.
“Okay, not very chatty today, why is that?”
“It doesn’t matter, can we just walk in silence? You're giving me a headache.”
“Sure.”
We did end up walking in silence until we reached the convenience store before our neighborhood. I was waiting for Kuroo outside when I got a notification from my phone. Someone had liked my Social App post with clips from the video of last night, It was Tadashi. I noticed he had been watching my content recently. I was at his house 6 days ago, I never thanked him for being nice and letting me stay there but maybe it was too late for that now. Maybe I would see him again and thank him then. I was thinking while staring at my phone until I heard the door ring open and Kuroo walked out with two lime sodas. He tossed me one and we both opened our drinks.
“Thanks.”
“Yep.” he nodded his head and looked at me suspiciously
“so..”
I raised an eyebrow at him.
“You never mentioned you went to Hinatas last weekend. I had to find out through Lev what’s up with that?”
“Why do you care?”
“Is it really so bad for me to care that my best bud is finally making friends?” He leaned into my face.
“Creep.” I swatted his face away and we had arrived at my door.
“Okay well I'll see you later. I'm going to spend the weekend with my aunts by the way.” He waved me goodbye and walked past me to his own door.
When I got to my room I tossed my bag against my bed and flopped onto my bed and planned on falling asleep but then my phone had begun to vibrate in my pocket. It was Shoyo, so I picked it up.
Hiii
Hi Shoyo, what’s up?
We are hosting game night at yamaguchis.
Want to come?
I wasn’t sure what I wanted. Tadashi was nice enough last time and everyone else was fine. But I got the feeling Tsukishima didn’t like me and I didn’t want to deal with his drama. But I had sort of been needing to practice teamwork for a gaming competition I was offered to join. It would be beneficial to my channel and at least I knew these people now.
Sure.
Ok! I'll pick you up from the train station tomorrow at 12 be ready.
Okay.
-
It was 12:13, I just checked the time and Shoyo was nowhere to be found. Last time I was here he was already waiting for me. Had I gotten stood up? I started to doubt he was coming when I heard a loud crash and then saw Hinata and Kageyama both running full speed towards me. I then felt the weight of both of them take me down and I immediately kicked them off.
“What are you morons doing?”
“Sorry!” Both of them stood up and bowed their heads slightly.
“Can we just go? This is embarrassing.”
With that we were on our way to Tadashi's house. Tadashi lived a lot closer to the Highschool then Shoyo did, I think that’s why they always hung out there. We were on his doorstep and Kageyama had rung the doorbell. Tsukishima opened the door and mentioned something about a king before letting us in. Tadashi was spread out on the floor belly on the floor and I noticed all the board games on the floor. I guess the disappointment was very obvious on my face because Tsukkishima was laughing.
“You thought this was going to be a screen game, didn’t you?” He smirked.
“Aw come on Tsukkishima don’t be like that.” Yamaguchi threw the remote towards Tsukkishima who dodged and I glared at the blonde.
After that I had decided I would participate regardless. I realized no one thought I was good at board or card games, but I'm actually pretty good If I say so myself. I mean what did they think I did before mobile games were popular? Tadashi was first to pick out the game of the hour and he chose Uno. The game progressed quickly. The matchups were Kageyama vs Tsukkishima, Shoyo vs me. Then whoever won their respective matches would go against Tadashi who was the group's agreed-upon pro.
To nobody's surprise Tsukishima won his round and during mine and Hinata's round I also won. Tsukishima was still obviously bothered by my presence and I could feel our game was a true competition, the prize was Tadashi of course. Or more so the match with Tadashi. Tsukkishima had a pleased look on his face, my deck was nothing but numbers. The center card was a green 7. Tsukkishima went first, he stacked a green 7 followed by a yellow seven, he was down to 5. My turn was next. I had no sevens but I did have a yellow card, down to 6. He went again and placed a yellow skip card then he placed a yellow plus 2 card, He was down to 3. I drew my two cards. I had gotten a blue reverse card and a color changing card. I placed down the color changing card. I figured Tsukkishima didn’t have any more yellows. I was right and he had to draw a card before it was my turn again, he had 4 cards now. I then placed a yellow 6 and then a blue 6. Down to 6 cards again. Tsukkishima placed down a blue 8, he had 3 again. I placed down a blue 4 card followed by the blue reversed card. Next I placed a blue 1 card. We were both down to 3. I noticed Tadashi wasn’t really paying attention to our match. He was staring at me.
I felt the red in my ears build up and I knew I had to quickly end this match before I spaced out. So I won. Tsukkishima seemed really pissed off. I had beaten him but at least now I would get to match up against Tadashi. When I finally got the cards in a good shuffle I took a look at Tadashi who was still on the couch and was patting Tsukkishima's shoulder in an attempt to make him feel better about losing, Tsukkishima looked smug.
“Can we play now?” I asked.
“Eh I don’t know, to be honest I'm actually not a huge fan of card games and I’m not even that good anyways.”
I was mad. I had actually tried against Tsukkishima just for Tadashi to refuse me my rightful match. I could feel myself about to push for him to play me but then I heard a noise. It was my stomach, I hadn’t eaten since yesterday. Hinata laughed at me and Kageyama asked me if I wanted to order some food, I agreed.
It had been twenty minutes since we ordered our food. When we heard a knock on the door everyone ran to get their food we almost forgot to pay. We retrieved our food and all were in Tadashi's room. Tadashi had bought a small screen projector and set it up so we could all see the show Tadashi had picked out. He picked a show called “Volleyball”. We tried to eat and watch the show but Shoyo and Kageyama kept comparing the show to them every 5 seconds so it quickly became background noise for them to go on a monologue of how they could write a book of their volleyball careers once they took off. The remaining three of us just nodded and tried to block out their conversation for the most part.
I eventually asked Tadashi to use his bathroom, he told me I'd have to use the other guest bathroom since his bathroom was messy. I followed him silently through the hallway until he turned around to face me. He looked embarrassed and I could sense his stiffness.
“Tadashi?” I looked down to look at his hand on top of my arm.
“Kenma…I'm sorry , okay? I know that you were looking forward to the match but Takishima was really adamant about not wanting me to play. He said it would be funny to see you mad.”
“Oh.”
“But If I'm being honest you’re somebody I actually admire and I don’t want you to think of me negatively.”
“Yamaguchi. You know I don’t really care about that right? I know Tsukkishima doesn’t like me, but if you do, does it really matter?” It doesn’t?
“I guess not..” He let go of my arm and I quickly rushed into the bathroom. I actually cared about his opinion of me? I guess I hadn’t realized until now that I had begun to find Tadashi interesting.
I used the bathroom and took the opportunity to think of what I would say to Tadashi next. What I had said to him before locking myself in the bathroom sounded really weird considering we hadn’t even confirmed our friendship. At most we were the equivalent of online mutuals. But maybe I was okay with being real friends. I was most definitely intrigued with the obstacles that came with trying to get to Tadashi. Kageyama and Shoyo weren’t like Tsukkishima they could share, Tsukkishima on the other hand was selfish, but if that's the case why didn’t he hate Kageyama and Shoyo? What a weirdo.
After a few more minutes of thinking over my situation I finally returned to the room.
“Did you take a dump?”
“Ew. No? Do YOU take dumps at other peoples homes?”
To nobody's surprise Shoyo just nodded. I looked at Tadashi who was sitting at his desk. He was spinning himself in the chair, tsukkishima noticed me looking at Tadashi and gave me an ugly face. I didn’t like Tsukishima's face, He was objectively more attractive than me but at least I wasn’t a dick for no reason. I mean why do his friends still stick around? Maybe I was dragging his behavior out of proportions but it pissed me off knowing he could be such a pain but had good friends like Shoyo and Tadashi. Sure Tadashi also made fun of people but his jokes had substance and he knew when to back off someone. Tsukkishima was the opposite, his jokes were overdone and he always pushed.
I realized I was still standing at the doorway and Tsukishima was staring through my soul. I was uncomfortable but I felt like I wanted to push his buttons regardless. I walked up to Tadashi's desk and sat in front of him using my foot to stop his chair spinning. My face was close to his and I forgot about making Tsukishima mad. Instead my attention was on Tadashi's face. His hair was messy and a few pieces of his hair were stuck to his slightly shiny nose. His eyes were staring back at me and they were filled with curiosity. His eyes were narrow and his cheeks were flushed. His freckles were less prominent than the last time I had been over. He had probably not gone outside in the sun much since then. Was Yamaguchi pretty?
Before I could say anything Yamaguchi had grabbed onto my leg, he was still looking at me and his hand was firmly placed on the side of my lower leg. Tsukkishima had walked out while saying he was gonna go to the bathroom. Hinata and Kageyama had followed behind him and it was just me and Tadashi again. I felt a slight excitement in my chest, what would Tadashi do? He could be lame and back down or be bold and do something interesting. I had expected him to pull away and ask me to excuse him but instead.
“You know you’re kind of clingy?”
I was? Weird.
“Is it creepy?”
Considering we still weren’t officially friends I probably was. I was becoming aware of how odd my behavior would look to anyone else.
“I don’t know.”
Tadashi was reaching his limit and would probably pull away soon but for some reason I didn’t want that. I placed my hand on shoulder and hunched over to meet his gaze.
“I still want that match.”
“You’re on Kenma.”
Looking back It sounds a lot more inappropriate then it actually was, Tadashi had given me that match but only after I had gone home. I left him my Bye Sunshine! Username and told him to text me whenever he was ready for our game. But maybe I’ll let him tell you that story. He claims it’s one of his favorites. This is actually getting cringe so I'm done now.
Chapter 4: Pinky Promise
Summary:
Yamaguchi would always walk ahead of Tsukkishima
Notes:
Short chapter because I want to sleep tonight also this chapter could probably be considered tsukiyama angst lol.
Chapter Text
After Kenma and I had been so close It was really hard to focus on anything, I hadn’t even had the chance to ask Kenma to play with me. I was finally getting my cast off by the end of this week, My first day back at school would be the following Monday. I was nervous because I knew I might have had some complications. The last time we went to the doctor’s he told us I may walk with a limp. He said it would be easily fixed but I wasn’t sure what to think of it. I was only staying at home and both of my legs were in constant pain but I was finally feeling better. I couldn’t avoid school after getting my cast off. I had gone out of my house at least a few times a week but now that I had to go back I felt an intense feeling of dread in the bottom of my stomach.
I was tapping my pencil on my desk trying to figure out how to start the assignment Tsukki left me on friday when he texted me. He asked to come over and I agreed of course and while I waited I decided to scroll on my phone. I saw a social app post by Kenma. He was celebrating 10k subscribers. He looked so happy. He was posing next to a cupcake with a singular candle. His friend Kuroo was taking the photo, I could tell because his bracelet was showing. Kenma mentioned a story of him and his friend getting matching bracelets after joining volleyball when they were little. Apparently, they got the bracelets resized every time one of them had a growth spurt. I thought it was cute. I left a like on the post and continued to scroll while waiting for Tsukki to get to my house.
When Tsukki arrived he looked nice, he had finally worn the matching sweater I had bought him for his birthday. He was lying on my bed while I was spinning in my chair.
“Tadashi.”
“Yeah?”
“Let’s go to the mall.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
I immediately got up and hunted down the matching sweater. I put it on and sat on the bed next to Tsukkishima.
“Look! We can match!”
“Yes, because we need even more dating allegations.” He smirked and I smacked his leg.
We had taken a short train ride into the city and when we got to the mall I saw a small stand run by a small, older lady. I grabbed Tsukkishima's arm and led him to the stand. The lady asked to measure our wrists and we both held them out. She asked what colors we wanted. I got a red bracelet and Tsukki got a purple bracelet. I had asked for the bracelets to have our jersey numbers on them. Tsukishima was clearly embarrassed but he didn’t say anything.
After getting the bracelets, Tsukkishima wanted to go to the bookstore. We made our way to the bookstore and he led me to the back of the bookstore. We were in the travel section. He skimmed through the books in Spanish for adults while I looked at their children's selection of Spanish books. There was only one shelf, the surrounding books were religious and historical texts. Usually, Tsukkishima went for a historical book, the back of the store almost never had any others in it. I finally chose to start reading a children's book that provided both languages in it. It was about two baby birds fighting over a worm. There was a taller yellow bird and a girthier red bird. They were both pulling on the worm with their beaks. They were both pulling with their all until the worm ripped. Both birds fell off the tree they were standing on and one of them fell onto a cat. The cat had a scary expression on its face and I started to wonder if a children's book would really show a cat eating or killing a bird. They didn’t, infact the cat turned out to be nice and let both of the birds lay on it till they fell asleep. I didn’t end up needing the translations because I wasn’t actually reading the book. I was watching the art.
“Tsukki?”
“Hm?”
“Do you think things would change between us if I were gay?”
There was a long silence which didn’t make me feel great but what scared me more was the possibility of Tsukishima ignoring me, he did that whenever I brought up an uncomfortable topic. But I couldn’t let this time be like all the others.
“I don’t see why it would.” phew.
“Oh okay.”
“You do realize my opinion of you is the same no matter what right?”
“I don't know.”
“Well I do. I promise.”
I looked up from the book I was holding and our eyes met. He looked…sad?
“Tsukki-”
He dropped the book he was reading and pulled me into his arms, he was hugging me. He was so close, yet I didn’t feel nervous, I felt warm but I wasn’t shaky. I laid my arms on his back and he pulled me closer. I felt his tears on my neck. He was crying?
“Tsukki what’s wrong?”
He pulled away letting his hands rest on my shoulders. He was definitely crying, He looked sad but there was a glint of determination in his eyes.
“You know you’re the coolest person I know? I know why you’re telling me this and I promise no matter what I'm always going to be your friend.” He held out his pinky.
“Okay.” I grabbed his pinky with mine and he pulled me by the hand still on my shoulder and our foreheads connected. I let go first and I grabbed his wrist.
“Let's trade bracelets.”
“Why?”
“Beacuse Im cool and you can rep my merch.” I smiled at him.
Tsukki and I had indeed traded bracelets. We were on our walk back to the train station from the mall and Tsukki noticed a cute cafe. He nudged me and pointed to it.
“Look, it's perfect for a photo.”
“Oh wow, You’re so right! Let’s take a photo. I wanna post it to my Social app!”
Before I finished Tsukki grabbed my sweater sleeve and dragged me inside. The cafe was perfect. The chairs were metal and looked nice compared to the wooden tables and the green accents. The lighting was dim and the building's light was mostly coming in through the tall windows. The menu was short. Tsukkishima and I were standing there looking over it for a solid 5 minutes before we both ordered. I asked for a strawberry refresher, Tsukki ordered a Matcha iced latte and Tsukki paid for both of us. When we got our drinks, I picked out a window seat and opened up my camera. I motioned for Tsukki to sit beside me. I selfishly took a seat in front of the window since the sun would hit my freckles nicely. I pulled his arm so it would be around my shoulders and told him to lean in with his drink in his left hand so we could take a selfie with us cheering our drinks.
“Perfect.”
-
When we finally got home he dropped me off at my door and before he went home he gave me one last hug. He didn’t lean down and I could’ve sworn I felt him press his mouth into my hair. He walked away without saying anything. Maybe he was just getting tired and resting his head on me. But I wasn’t dumb, I knew what today was. It was clear I was no longer in love with Tsukkishima, he had been too late and now we both had confirmation of eachothers feelings for one another. I just hoped he meant it when he promised we would be friends no matter the circumstances.
azyl1316 on Chapter 3 Wed 01 Oct 2025 05:46AM UTC
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