Chapter Text
The end of his high school life isn’t something he’d ever put much thought into. While he’d spent the past three years inching towards whatever’s beyond—university, volleyball, his future in general—he never really stopped to consider what graduation day itself would feel like.
The air in Miyagi is crisp, his gakuran and his scarf not doing much to protect him from the cold. Around him, sakura trees were at the cusp of bloom, and in his hand, the diploma he spent three years of his life working hard for. It’s lightweight and honestly doesn’t feel like much.
There’s a deceptive sense of normalcy that envelops him. Somehow, finishing their last run at the Spring Tournament had a lot more gravitas to it, but then again it might have been due to the overwhelming feeling of almost. Third place is the first place of those who didn’t make it to the finals, so his last day as Karasuno’s official middle blocker slightly sucked.
But maybe that’s the thing: right now, there’s no real feeling of almost nagging at him. After half-heartedly singing the school hymn for the last time, collecting his diploma, and then saying goodbye to his classmates and his volleyball kouhai, for once Tsukishima Kei feels satisfied.
He’s off to his dream university, off to play more volleyball for a good team, he’s probably going to be stuck with Yamaguchi and Yachi and Hinata for the rest of his life, and, well. There’s Kageyama.
So maybe there’s one thing he could end up leaving behind as an almost.
If there is one thing about his graduation day that he’d put some thought into, it’s the super strange, super pointless tradition of giving his uniform’s second button, the one closest to his heart, to the person he liked the most. Because he had thought about it, twice or thrice, the fleeting fantasy of giving the king his button and gently placing it in Tobio’s calloused hands. He thought about it, and then promptly shot it down, because it’s stupid and uncomfortable and weird and just because everyone else had done it before doesn’t mean he has to, right?
So when a giggling girl—his classmate, he notes idly, the girl who sits diagonally from his desk—comes to bashfully him to ask him for his second button, he turns her down with an I’m not planning to give anyone my button, sorry, instead of an Oh, I plan to give it to someone else.
Except, the nagging thought in his mind, one of Kageyama giving his second button to someone else, really drives him up a metaphorical wall. And Kageyama has so many admirers. And Kageyama is so easy.
He tamps down his jealousy; he’s being really, really ridiculous. If he has no plans of reciprocating, he really has no right to expect, but then from a distance he sees Yamaguchi give his button to Yachi-san and Yachi-san’s reaction really is adorable and why can’t he be less of a coward and go and get the same reaction from the person he likes, god damn it—
Just because they’d gone out several times after that first curry date—it wasn’t a date, but maybe it was—doesn’t mean anything.
(Gone out, together, alone, in places with warm atmospheres; both conversations and silences with Kageyama were so easy and Kei thinks he sees opportunities to take his plays somewhere further, to up the stakes, but he never does, preferring risk-free gameplay.)
Kei sighs and leans against the sakura tree he’s under. His parents and Akiteru had gone home ahead of him, knowing that Kei would want some privacy as he ties the loose threads connecting him to Karasuno. To be frank, he’s pretty much done with everything so he can just walk home. This isn’t the last time he’ll see his friends; they’ll all be in Miyagi in one way or another next year.
There’s nothing special about today’s goodbye.
“Tsukishima!” a familiar voice calls out, and he looks up from his brooding stance to see that it’s Kageyama, walking briskly to his position. From this distance, he can tell that Kageyama has his uniform hanging open, and today is so cold that there really is only one explanation.
He tries to ignore his heart sinking down to the pit of his stomach.
“Tsukishima. I—” he huffs, catching his breath slightly. “Good, I found you—”
Tsukishima pushes up his glasses up the bridge of his nose, and peers at Kageyama with an expression carefully controlled to look neutral. “Why were you looking for me, your highness?”
“Don’t call me that,” Kageyama says on reflex, before he sighs and corrects himself, “You know what, it doesn’t even matter.”
“Didn’t answer my question,” Tsukishima answers flatly. He’s not jealous over some stupid buttons, he’s not stupid, just cause it’s tradition doesn’t mean…
The setter catches his gaze, and Tsukishima notices the way he takes a deep breath, steeling himself before he says, “Give me your hand.”
Kei’s narrows his eyes in suspicion. “Ew, gross.”
Tobio glares back at him. “Give me your hand,” he repeats more firmly, with the same tone he uses when he demands for difficult plays on the court. Tsukishima relents; it’s not like he’s been great at refusing Kageyama lately, so he extends his palm for the other boy to take. Kageyama’s expression morphs into a rare, genuine smile, one that makes Tsukishima regret being petty for stupid reasons.
Kageyama takes his right wrist in his left hand, lightly grasping while he fishes for something in his pocket. It takes a few moments until Kageyama drops little pinpricks of cold onto his hand, and he looks down to see five gakuran buttons against the pale skin of his palm.
Tsukishima looks at Kageyama, throat suddenly dry. “What…?”
“For you, I guess,” he answers, blue eyes holding onto Kei’s amber gaze for a few heartbeats, until he seems to realize the awkwardness of the situation that they’re in. He breaks eye contact, composure shattered, a dusting of pink on the tips of his ears. There’s relief that floods Tsukishima’s heart, and he allows himself to smile.
“You guess?” Kei says, a teasing tone in his voice. “You mean you aren’t sure?”
“No!” Kageyama responds. “I mean I’m sure, I just didn’t know if you wanted them, but—”
Tsukishima hums. Nothing can bring him down from his high. He’s invincible, he can do anything, he can conquer the world. “All five though? Shouldn’t you save some for your admirers, Kageyama?”
“And give them false hope?” Kageyama huffs. “No thanks. Now do you want them or not?”
“Hmm… You could have just been honest and told me that no one asked you for your second button, your highness,” Tsukishima says lightly, chuckling before letting his fingers envelop the buttons, enclosing them with his fist.
Did he win his stupid game? Is this still a game? Does it matter?
It’s a very, very good day.
Kageyama grabs at Tsukishima’s fist, which he holds up above his head, just slightly away from Kageyama’s reach. “Give them back, you asshole!”
“Nope,” Tsukishima answers brightly, moving swiftly to pocket all of Kageyama’s buttons, before continuing, “Touch-move, no takebacks.”
The realization that Tsukishima wanted the buttons hits Kageyama, and his smile returns. “Then give me yours in return!”
Tsukishima looks down at his gakuran in mock indignation.
“Me? Give you my button? And ruin my perfectly good school uniform in the process?” he responds with fake incredulity. “Never.”
“You piece of shit, I really regret liking you—”
Ah, so Kageyama likes him.
“Relax, Kageyama,” Tsukishima says in a sing-song voice, drowning out the quickening staccato of his heart. Kageyama likes him.
A stray sakura petal falls onto Tobio’s dark hair, and he reaches over to gently pluck it away. Tobio looks at him and sees Tsukishima’s fond smile and the blush on his face.
“Look, I’m not giving you any buttons, because I think this whole thing is stupid,” he says, letting his hand drop from Kageyama’s head to beside his hand, lightly brushing against the setter’s wrist. He entwines their palms and lets his thumb rub circles over Kageyama’s knuckles. “I don’t want to give you anything that I don’t fully intend on giving you.”
Tobio nods in slight understanding. “Okay…?”
“But,” Tsukishima continues, boldness shooting through his veins like adrenaline in the middle of a five-set match. He intertwines their fingers. Kageyama’s hands are really warm. “I’m not going to lie, I was scared you were going to give yours to someone else and I know that’s unfair—”
“You really have character problems.” Tobio is grinning at him now.
“Which means you have bad taste in men,” Tsukishima bites back. “Thank you for your buttons, your highness.”
“You’re… welcome?”
A gust of wind blows, and it’s cold, and getting into his first high school relationship the second he ended high school is really stupid. They’re going their separate ways, and it’s only going to get harder from here. But Kei wants this.
And if there’s something he learned over the past three years, something that bears more weight than a flimsy white diploma, it’s this:
There’s really no harm in going for things that you like.
“Kageyama Tobio. I like you, too.”