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“You’re cold.”
Yamaguchi meets Tsukishima’s eyes. “Hmm?”
Tsukishima quirks a brow. “You’re cold. You’re shivering.” he says, shuffling his hands around his pockets. His headphones hang around his neck, unused at the moment. Yamaguchi has his full attention.
They’re standing on the front porch of Yamaguchi’s house. His father isn’t home— he won’t be for a while— so he’s fumbling to pull his house keys out of his pocket. Something is stopping him.
“I’m not- um, I’m not cold.”
Tsukishima scoffs. “Okay, sure,” he says, his familiar sarcastic tone added in. “What’s taking you so long? Now I’m getting cold.”
“Sorry, Tsukki.” Yamaguchi finally pulls the keys out, but stops himself. He closes them in his palm. The grooves dig into his skin—cold metal on cold flesh. “Actually, um… we can’t go inside yet.” He says, eyes turning towards the ground. If his cheeks weren’t flushed already, they would be now.
“Huh? Why not?”
Yamaguchi takes a shaky breath. “I, um… I need to tell you something.”
Tsukishima crosses his arms. “Something that can’t wait until we go inside?” he huffs.
Yamaguchi shakes his head. “No, it’s- it’s better to do it out here, just in case…”
“In case? In case of what?”
Yamaguchi takes a deep breath. Oddly, it feels like some of the tension is lifted. Maybe because Tsukishima hasn’t seemed to pick up on anything yet. Maybe because Yamaguchi is too cold to focus on his nervous feelings anymore. He grips the keys tighter and meets Tsukishima’s narrowed eyes.
“We’ve been friends for- for forever. We’ve been best friends— Tsukki, you’re my best friend. And I know, I know this is probably going to ruin everything, because that’s just— maybe that’s just what I’m good at, I don’t know, but–“
Tsukishima interrupts him with the wave of a hand. “Yamaguchi.”
This is when Yamaguchi’s heart begins to sink.
It doesn’t sound like Tsukishima. There’s nothing behind the name— no sarcasm, no jab, no vague insult— it’s empty. Yamaguchi cringes when it hits him that it’s full of pity .
“I— I think I know where you’re going with this.” Tsukishima continues. “And unless you really want to keep going— which is fine, I won’t stop you— you should probably know that I don’t…”
Yamaguchi doesn’t hear much of what comes out of Tsukishima’s mouth next. There’s a lot going on his head for the next minute, a lot of thoughts he doesn’t like. You messed up , his brain repeats, you messed up. Messy messy messy. You’re a mess. It takes everything in him not to burst into tears, or scream, or release… whatever else is pent up inside his body.
But then again, maybe he’s just cold.
“... Yamaguchi?”
Yamaguchi’s head snaps up from the downward position he doesn’t remember it falling into. “Sorry, Tsukki.” he mumbles.
Tsukishima says nothing in response. He clears his throat, fully intending to say something, but Yamaguchi senses him come up empty. Within the next minute, he leaves the porch.
The minute he’s out of sight, Yamaguchi robotically jams the keys into the front door. He wrestles it open and to get inside, then slams it behind him. He discards his bag in the hall. He doesn’t even remember making it into his bedroom, but he does. Mentally, he curses himself; it’s messier than he remembered. But who cares , he thinks, because who am I going to show it to anyway?
He collapses on the bed. Time moves like melting ice from then on— his father gets home, they eat dinner, Yamaguchi locks himself in his room. He doesn’t get any homework done. Instead, he thinks about how Tsukishima probably finished his the moment he got home. He hates both of them for that.
By the time his father goes to bed, Yamaguchi has been sitting up against his bedroom door for two hours, thirteen minutes, and forty-six seconds. Forty-seven. Forty-eight .
He pulls out his phone.
To: tsukki :D
hey, i just wanted to say tha
He deletes the message before he finishes it.
To: tsukki :D
you don’t have to keep being friends with me. if it makes you uncomfortable, that’s okay. i understand.
That sits for a while. He reads the same words over and over, and then deletes them too. He doesn’t type for a while. He’s accepted at this point in the evening— early morning, now— that he won’t get much sleep, if any. He doesn’t care much about that fact.
But then that turns out to be just another lie he’s told himself. He starts getting tired. Maybe it’s everything that happened that afternoon, maybe it’s leftover from volleyball practice, maybe he's just cold.
He pulls out his phone again.
To: tsukki :D
[delivered 1:27 AM]
i’m sorry
i’m sorry i made everything so messy
[delivered 1:42 AM]
see you tomorrow?
From: tsukki :D
[delivered 1:43 AM]
yeah