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The box sits below Kei’s bed; narrow, cardboard, unassuming. It’s a simple box. To the untrained eye it looks like an old shoebox, one that used to hold a pair of black Converse. It’s old, with faded lettering along the sides and edges that are torn in several places. One might look at it and assume it holds odds and ends, or all the kitschy keepsakes that live in the gray area between true emotional significance and the garbage can.
No one would expect a faded, dusty cardboard box to hold anything important; this one does.
Kei fetches the box from under the bed, frowning at the dust that clings to his fingers. He carefully brushes the dust from the soft cardboard and sets it on the bed, on top of blankets that are still rumpled from last night. He runs long fingers over the surface, considering.
Kei wonders—the way he does every time he pulls the box out of its hiding place—if he should buy something nicer. A beautiful box made of dark, smooth wood would be nice.
Maybe later, he thinks.
Kei opens the box with rare tenderness, revealing a haphazard stack of his fondest memories. He smiles crookedly as he pulls the first one out. Like the rest of the box’s inhabitants, it’s a narrow strip of shiny photo paper. There are four photos stacked on top of each other like building blocks, surrounded by a white background speckled with stars and moons in varying shades of blue. The top reads ’You’re out of this world!’ which really isn’t any less corny than it was years ago, when the pictures were first taken.
Kei looks down at his own face, younger and more closed off, pressed against the face of another. He takes his sweet time drinking in the details of that face. The familiar, beloved eyes and the sharp, sweet smile and that one unruly piece of hair that refuses to lay flat, even now. It’s a face he gets to see every day—though it’s a little softer now, marked by the years that have passed—yet his eyes still devour it, hungrily, greedily, like it will never, ever be enough.
And it won’t. Not really.
Kei sets the photo strip aside and pulls out the next one. There’s five faces smushed into each photo, except the last one, when one of them had been shoved out of view. Kei had told them that five people was at least three too many to fit inside a cheap photo booth, let alone inside the camera frame, but as always, they had heard his objectively correct opinion and taken it as a challenge.
In the end, Kei hadn’t minded too much.
He wound up squished into one corner with his best friend in his lap, and he had pretty much stopped thinking about anything else for the rest of the night. He doesn’t even remember what they did that night, he just remembers Tadashi’s weight on his thighs, his arms wound tight around Tadashi’s narrow waist. He remembers how Tadashi had smiled down at him and murmured a quiet, “Sorry, Tsukki.” There was no need. (There was never any need for Tadashi to apologize to Kei, especially not for something he very much enjoyed. He should have said, ‘You’re welcome.’)
Kei would sit through hours of the dumbass twins bickering right in his ear if he could sit like that the entire time, with Tadashi in his arms.
His face is at least partially obscured in every picture, but Kei knows how it looked anyway. He can almost see the revealing pink flush in his cheeks between Tadashi’s shoulder and Yachi’s brightly smiling face. In the last picture, Hinata is just a blur of orange hair at the edge of the frame. The rest of their faces are telling; Kageyama looks triumphant (which makes sense because he was certainly the person who had shoved Hinata right out of the booth), Yachi’s round face is dismayed, and Kei and Tadashi, still tucked tight into their corner, are both laughing.
In Tadashi’s defense, his laughter was a surprised, unconscious response. He always had a tendency to laugh at the wrong moment, which Kei finds endearing as hell when it isn’t at his expense. Kei’s laughter, on the other hand, is unrepentantly petty.
The tiniest twinge of guilt pings in his mind, but Kei shakes it off. If he watched Kageyama push Hinata right out of a photo booth today he would still laugh—but at least now he would admit to caring if he was alright afterwards.
Kei pulls out more photo strips and runs his eyes and fingertips over them. Each one is a little different; the dimensions vary slightly, the designs each have different corny sayings and poorly printed art surrounding the photos, and the faces change. Kei watches the passage of time captured in grainy images on shiny photo paper. His friends show up in a couple more, his brother in one, but mostly it’s just the two of them.
Tadashi and Kei. A matched pair. Two peas in a pod—or, more accurately, two boys in a cramped photo booth.
Kei flips through the photos and watches himself fall deeper into love with the boy at his side. He wonders how he ever managed to hide it, when it’s so very clear on his face in every single photo.
He reaches into the box and finds only one left. It’s the oldest, the one with the most wear and tear at its edges, and it's Kei’s favorite. He takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly.
The design is movie-themed, which makes sense. The booth was tucked against one wall in the local movie theater, as if trying to hide from anyone who might want to climb inside. There’s a bucket of popcorn at the bottom, eclipsing one corner of the last photo, and strips of old-school film along each side. The top reads, ’Lights, Camera, Action!’
Even now, Kei can’t find it in himself to even scoff at the silliness of the frame. Not when his eyes are fixed on the pictures themselves. That day was the very first time Tadashi had ever convinced Kei to climb into one of those booths, though clearly not the last.
It was a good day. A great day, really. At the time it was hard for Kei to imagine that he would treasure a day that he spent smack dab in the middle of the most inane arguments two teenage boys have ever had. He always preferred when it was just him and Tadashi, side by side, the way they’d been for so long. Having their time together crashed by the other first years who had adopted them (against Kei’s will) felt like a letdown.
He liked the quiet of Tadashi’s company, the way Tadashi smiled at him when they were by themselves. Kei never wanted anyone else to even perceive that smile, let alone have it directed at them. It was only for him.
It’s right there, in the second photo from the top. Neither of them are looking at the camera, but at each other. Kei remembers that moment. He remembers the entire thing, like it was yesterday.
⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾⋆⁺₊⋆ Summer 2014 ⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾⋆⁺₊⋆
“Tsukki, look!”
Before Kei could even turn his head he was being yanked away from the concessions counter. He always forgot how strong Yamaguchi was, until Yamaguchi was using that strength to drag Kei along on some kind of adventure.
Kei didn’t resist, because it was Yamaguchi.
What he did do was frown, as soon as he realized where they were headed. Against one wall in the movie theater lobby was a large, oddly shaped box. It looked a little bit like a time machine from an old black and white movie, except instead of a door on the side it had a dark velvet curtain. The words and pictures printed on the side of it just confirmed Kei’s suspicions.
It was a photo booth. One of those kitschy ones that charge you way too much money for a handful of low-resolution pictures. The example photos on the walls made Kei’s gut squirm. Nearly all of them were pictures of couples. They pressed close together and smiled intimate smiles and even kissed.
“Yamaguchi…”
“Come on, Tsukki, it’ll be fun!” Yamaguchi insisted.
He stopped in front of the booth and turned to look at Kei, who was resolutely ignoring him. He knew what he’d see anyway: Yamaguchi looking up at him with round eyes and a soft pout. It was the face he always used to convince Kei to do things with him, and it never failed. Yamaguchi knew it too, the little shit.
“Will it?” Kei asked mildly.
“Please?”
Kei sighed as dramatically as he could manage, and turned to look at his best friend. There it was, just as he expected. Yamaguchi’s dark lashes shadowed his eyes, and the residual light peeking through the photo booth curtain cast irregular rays of light against his cheeks.
Kei was suddenly all too aware that Yamaguchi’s hand was still wrapped around his, warm and solid.
“Fine,” Kei grumbled. “But just you and me—I’m not getting into a small enclosed space with those two dumbasses.”
Yamaguchi giggled. “Okay, Tsukki.”
Kei’s hand was cold when Yamaguchi pulled his own out of it, so he shoved it deep into the pocket of his hoodie. While Yamaguchi pushed buttons and slid money into the slot, Kei looked again at the example pictures. A few of them might not be couples, he realized. And the booth looked too small for more than one adult-sized person from the outside, but the pictures didn’t seem as cramped as he would have expected. There were even three people in one of them. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad.
Maybe. He had his doubts.
The metal rings of the curtain slid against the curtain rod with a high pitched shriek, making them both wince. Yamaguchi glanced back at Kei with one foot in the booth, offering his most apologetic smile.
“Sorry, Tsukki.”
“It’s fine. Let’s just—come on.”
The moment Kei stepped into the booth behind him, he realized he had been very, very wrong about the space inside.
It was fucking tiny.
There was another dark curtain along the other side, a grainy screen above a comically large camera lens, and a bench. The bench couldn’t have been more than a meter wide, maybe less, made of what looked like cheap wood covered in a thin coat of peeling white paint. The ceiling of the booth was so short that Kei had to stoop just to fit inside.
Yamaguchi had frozen next to him, also staring at the bench. Kei was a pretty skinny guy, and it wasn’t like Yamaguchi was very broad himself, but still. There was no way they’d both fit.
“CHOOSE YOUR FRAME TO GET STARTED!”
“Fuck - ow!”
“Tsukki!”
The loud robotic voice had boomed out of the speakers so abruptly that Kei instinctively tried to stand straight and slammed his head right into the ceiling. Yamaguchi had spun towards him in alarm and narrowly avoided giving Kei a second bump on the head with his own.
“It’s okay, Yamaguchi,” Kei said, rubbing at the sore spot. “Let’s just uhh—sit?”
Yamaguchi nodded, looking at the narrow bench again, and said, “Yeah, okay.”
As it turned out just sitting was a lot more complex than it seemed. Their hips were too wide to sit side by side, even pressed tightly together. It took another minute of shifting around and knocking their knees together before they found a position that wasn’t uncomfortable.
Kei’s cheeks flamed as Yamaguchi leaned forward to click through the frame options. One of his legs was slung over Kei’s, and when he leaned forward nearly all his weight was solidly resting against Kei’s thighs.
He didn’t hate it. He actually really fucking liked it. He liked Yamaguchi’s body squirming against his, Yamaguchi’s mint and green tea scented soap in his lungs, Yamaguchi’s quiet, self-conscious giggles as he read some of the more unbearably stupid phrases in the frame designs.
Kei had never been more aware of Yamaguchi, and he didn’t know what to do with that awareness. There were a few freckles along the back of Yamaguchi’s neck that he’d never noticed before. His hands where they clicked the oversized buttons were tanned and strong, tendons flexing with each push. They were nice - they always been so nice?
Speaking of hands, Kei had no idea what the hell he was supposed to do with his.
Looking down, he realized his right hand was fisted so tight in the velvet curtain his knuckles had gone white. Kei forced his tense muscles to relax, and turned to consider his left arm, stretched across the booth behind Yamaguchi’s back, with his hand pressed to the opposite wall.
Which was fine for now, while Yamaguchi leaned forward towards the screen, but what was he going to do when it was time for the pictures?
He could leave it there, and it might not be so weird for Yamaguchi to rest his back against it. Maybe he could wrap his arm around Yamaguchi? Kei told himself that option made the most sense, just to hold Yamaguchi steady while they took the photos, but suddenly he was devoured by his doubts.
Was that weird? Would it make Yamaguchi uncomfortable?
It wasn’t like they didn’t touch often. Kei lost track of how many times Yamaguchi had fallen asleep on the bus home from games with his head on Kei’s shoulder. Yamaguchi was a cuddly person in general, and while Kei was decidedly not, it was effortless to make an exception for his best friend. Sometimes, he put his legs over Yamaguchi’s while they watched movies on his couch, and when Yamaguchi laid his head in Kei’s lap, he occasionally played with his hair. It was soft against his fingers, and Yamaguchi always closed his eyes and smiled a small, contented smile whenever he did it.
When they spent the night at each others’ houses—which was pretty much every weekend and occasionally on school nights—they never pulled out a guest futon. Kei woke up every morning sweaty and sore from the tight fit of two teenage bodies on a twin bed, with his legs tangled together with Yamaguchi’s, and more often than not a small puddle of drool on his t-shirt. It should have been gross enough for Kei to start asking for his own place to sleep, but he never really minded. What’s a little drool between best friends?
Kei couldn’t put his finger on why everything suddenly felt different, sitting close together in the stupid little photo booth. He pushed himself against the wall of the booth to put as much space between them as possible, but it made no difference. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad, he thought, if he did wrap his arm around Yamaguchi’s waist. If he pulled him close, and—
“Tsukki? What about a movie theater theme?”
Kei jumped a little when Yamaguchi said his name, feeling like he’d been caught doing something he shouldn’t.
The smile Yamaguchi cast over his shoulder was the same as ever, and it loosened some of the tension in Kei’s chest.
“Sure, yeah,” he muttered.
Yamaguchi’s smile brightened, and he chirped, “So we don’t forget where we took the pictures!”
Yeah. Like Kei was going to forget a single second of this.
Yamaguchi selected the frame and leaned back against Kei’s extended arm. He didn’t seem to notice or mind its presence, settling comfortably into the cramped space. Kei… didn’t hate it. Yamaguchi was taller than him like this, and Kei couldn’t say he hated that either.
“Are you comfortable, Tsukki?”
Kei huffed a sarcastic laugh and looked at him with one eyebrow raised. It was Yamaguchi’s turn to flush pink, laughing much more sincerely.
“Okay,” he said. “Dumb question. But like, do you want to move or anything?”
“I’m—I’m good,” Kei managed. “Are you, uh, good?”
“Yeah!” Yamaguchi smiled wider. “Just promise you’ll catch me if I start falling out?”
Kei wrapped his arm around Yamaguchi and held on tight. He wasn’t going to let Yamaguchi fall, no matter how confused and awkward he suddenly felt. Yamaguchi was warm through the cotton of his shirt, the soft space between his ribs and hip a perfect fit for Kei’s fingers.
“Oh, that’s. That’s better,” Yamaguchi whispered. “Thanks, Tsukki.”
The speaker crackled to life again and began talking, saving Kei from the need to reply. It said they would take four photos, and there were no retakes, so they should be ready when the timer gets to zero. At the end, they could choose how many copies they wanted printed. Kei made a mental note to make sure nobody but the two of them ever saw these photos—he did not trust his teammates not to blackmail him with a strip of dorky pictures. (However, he also wasn’t sure if Hinata or Kageyama understood what the word blackmail meant, so he might have been safe either way.)
“Oh god, wait,” Yamaguchi said. “What are we going to—Tsukki, give me your glasses.”
“What? No.”
“Tsukki, please! Just for this picture, I could wear them, it’ll be cute, and—”
“Just do a normal picture!”
Yams pivoted to face Kei, his expression somehow both giddy and frantic.
“Come on! Tsukki, there’s no time!!”
Kei had only opened his mouth to let out another resigned sigh when he felt the glasses plucked right off his face. The world went blurry, but Yamaguchi was close enough to see in profile, with the dark frames perched crookedly on his nose.
“Three… two…”
Shit. Kei had time to turn and face the camera, but no time to think about what he was supposed to do for the picture. The speakers made a loud shutter clicking sound, and well, that was it.
Yamaguchi pulled the glasses off his face, and turned sheepish eyes to Kei. He opened his mouth to speak, but the speakers cut him off.
“Next photo in five… four…”
“Oh, my god!”
Yamaguchi tried to shove Kei’s glasses back onto his face, clumsy in his haste. He poked the ends of the glasses’ arms into Kei’s forehead, then a cheek, then his eyebrow. Yamaguchi was giggling helplessly, saying, “Sorry, Tsukki,” with each miss, finally sliding the glasses into place on his fourth or fifth try.
By then, the countdown had reached ‘two,’ and Kei was caught up in Yamaguchi’s laughter. He was laughing helplessly along with him, too focused on holding Yamaguchi up and staying still enough to not lose an eye to even notice the countdown’s urgency. When the loud shutter sound went off for the second time, neither of them were looking at the camera.
Instead, they were looking at each other, faces crinkled in mirth. Kei’s vision was blurred with tears and the thumb-sized smudge on one of his lenses. But like always, he could see Yamaguchi clearly, who was taking deep, gulping breaths to try and subdue the hysterical laughter still sneaking out of him. He turned to Kei with a bright smile and brighter eyes
“Okay, let’s do a silly one!”
Kei felt his own laughter bubbling up again, which was entirely illogical and more than a little unfamiliar, but he shoved it down to fix Yamaguchi with a sardonic stare.
“Have they not already been silly?”
Yamaguchi stuck his tongue out at him and didn’t respond, which Kei took to mean, ’I’m ignoring you, and doing a silly one anyway.’
Fine. Kei could be silly. Well… he could try. Probably?
As he saw the countdown start again, he realized he had absolutely no idea what a silly pose was, or how to do one. He wasn’t sure he’d ever been intentionally silly in his life, and he avoided doing it accidentally whenever possible. Funny? Sure. (Yamaguchi always laughed at his jokes, even when he whispered, ‘That’s terrible, Tsukki.’) But he’d never been silly.
Glancing around the inside of the booth, which was also helpfully plastered in example pictures, he picked the first pose that seemed both doable and not embarrassing enough to make him spontaneously combust into flames.
Kei puffed out his cheeks so wide he could feel them stretch, and right before the countdown got to one he crossed his eyes. Holding them like that until the camera shutter clicked made his eyes sting and water a little. As he blinked away the moisture, the booth got quiet; the only sounds were Yamaguchi’s soft, steady breathing, the chatter of movie-goers in the lobby, and Kei’s heart pounding in his ears.
Kei turned to face Yamaguchi, only to find that Yamaguchi had done the same, his face so close that Kei had to shift his gaze back and forth to take it all in. The white light of the camera screen made his smattering of freckles stand out in stark relief, like a night sky full of stars. Kei wondered if he could find the shapes of constellations there, across the bridge of Yamaguchi’s nose.
“What now?” Yamaguchi whispered.
Kei swallowed, embarrassingly loud in the quiet, tight space.
“This is your show, Yamaguchi,” he managed. “You tell me.”
Yamaguchi hummed, digging his teeth into his lower lip as he thought. Kei watched, captivated by the way the chapped skin on his lip paled from the pressure. After a few seconds, he realized that he was just sitting there, silently and unsubtly staring at Yamaguchi’s mouth, of all places. Like a creep.
Kei turned his head away in a hurry, fixing his eyes on where their feet rested against the dingy metal floor. The way their legs tangled together and left their feet squished into one messy pile did not help. If anything, it made Kei even more aware of their dizzying proximity.
“Let’s just smile,” Yamaguchi decided. “We can do a normal one this time.”
“Finally,” Kei muttered, for the sole purpose of making Yamaguchi laugh.
The countdown began.
Kei tried to relax and smile; it was hard, but watching Yamaguchi’s smile on the screen helped. Yamaguchi’s smile was a marvel, sweet and bright and genuine. It effortlessly reached his eyes and lit up his whole face. Kei wasn’t sure he’d ever smiled quite like that, or that he even could.
Kei, well, he did his best. His own smile was small and close-mouthed on the camera’s screen, nowhere near the brightness of Yamaguchi’s. But it was genuine. He was squished into a tiny photo booth and forced to take embarrassing pictures, but had his arms wrapped around his smiling best friend and he couldn’t actually think of anywhere else he would rather be at that moment.
He was happy, just like this. With Yamaguchi.
“Three… two…”
As Kei watched on the screen, Yamaguchi’s expression started to change. His smile faded, his eyebrows furrowing in an expression Kei always called his thinking-so-hard-he-might-pull-something face. What could he possibly be thinking too hard about right now? It wasn’t like he had to work at coaxing his muscles into the easy smile that usually came naturally to him.
“... One…”
Yamaguchi shifted in Kei’s lap, turning his face away from the camera and toward Kei’s. Just before the shutter clicked for the last time, Kei felt the press of lips against his cheek. He watched it happen on the screen half a second later, which felt a lot like watching it happen to someone else entirely. Everything happened so fast, like his brain was moving in slow motion. Eventually, Kei understood.
Yamaguchi was kissing his cheek.
Yamaguchi was kissing his cheek.
The kiss was quick but firm, warm lips against Kei’s cheek in the space between one heartbeat and the next. Kei’s hand tightened reflexively on Yamaguchi’s waist, and he felt Yamaguchi exhale through his nose, warm breath shuddering over his skin so lightly it almost tickled, and then… it was over.
Yamaguchi pulled back slowly, cheeks pink, and let out a little breathless laugh. Yeah, Kei wanted to agree, me too.
He didn’t say anything.
Together, they sat in the quiet for a bit longer, with their legs tangled together and Kei’s arms still wrapped tight around Yamaguchi’s waist. (He wasn’t sure when one arm around Yamaguchi became both arms, but he couldn’t make himself pull either of them away, and Yamaguchi didn’t seem to mind, so he didn’t exactly try).
Kei felt like his cheek was hot—was it hot?—but now wasn’t the time to touch it with his fingertips and find out. He clenched his hand into a fist to keep himself from reaching up and tracing the skin where Yamaguchi’s lips were. Wrapped around each other as they were, Yamaguchi would surely notice.
He was saved by the photo booth’s robotic voice once again, asking if they wanted one or two copies of the pictures. Yamaguchi started turning towards him, no doubt to ask Kei if he wanted a copy, but Kei answered before he could say a word.
“Two,” he said, surprised at how rough his voice sounded.
Shit. Well, if his cheek wasn’t hot before, it definitely was now. Yamaguchi stayed facing forward, but Kei could see that pink bloomed in his profile too, and along the curve of his ear.
Yamaguchi punched the buttons to select two copies and sat back again, waiting as the screen flashed ‘PRINTING.’
The silence returned. Kei was no stranger to silence, and silence with Yamaguchi had always been companionable. Comfortable. This new silence was loud with tension. Something had shifted between them, here in this cramped metal box, and Kei couldn’t fully understand or explain what it was.
“So…”
Yamaguchi lifted one arm to point at the wall on Kei’s side of the booth. Kei had to crane his neck to see what he was pointing at.
“Look. That one,” Yamaguchi said quietly. It was another ‘example’ picture. In it, a girl was turned to the side, kissing the cheek of the boy next to her while he smiled so wide his eyes crinkled shut. “I did it like that one, see?”
Kei had no idea what to say to that. He couldn’t tell if that information made him feel better or worse. He nodded, and when the photos spat out, Yamaguchi grabbed both of them before climbing out of the booth without a word. Kei’s legs were a little unsteady—from sitting in a weird position for so long, or from the lingering shock of being kissed by his best friend, he wasn’t sure—so he stretched them out one at a time before following.
Kei took his copy when Yamaguchi offered it, slipping it into his pocket after only a brief glance. He heard their names being called from the other side of the lobby, where Kageyama, Hinata, and Yachi were waiting with several giant buckets of popcorn, and almost felt relief, which wasn’t an emotion he was accustomed to feeling whenever he saw the idiot twins. But for once, he was grateful for their nonsense. Surrounded by his chatty teammates, Kei’s preoccupied silence would go mostly unnoticed.
Kei didn’t remember a single fucking thing about the movie they saw. It was one of those lame action movies that are really just twenty explosions strung together by a predictably stupid plot, so he hadn’t planned on paying attention anyway. He had planned on making snarky comments to Yamaguchi about the laughable dialogue and the scientific impossibility of the stunts, but he couldn’t even focus enough to know what to make fun of. Instead, his attention was fully fixed on the awareness of Yamaguchi in the seat next to him.
Yamaguchi laughed loudly at all the stupid puns, sometimes so hard it shook Kei’s seat. A few times, they both reached into the popcorn bucket at the same time. (Kei didn’t even really like popcorn that much, but it was something to do with his restless hands.) Whenever that happened, Yamaguchi would murmur an apology, and they would exchange an awkward, darting glance. But Yamaguchi never yanked his hand away. He dug his fingers into the popcorn to pull out a handful, letting his fingers trail against Kei’s in his retreat.
Whenever Yamaguchi rested his arm on the armrest between them, Kei couldn’t stop glancing down at it, wondering what it might be like to slip his own fingers into the spaces between Yamaguchi’s. His hand would be warm—unlike Kei’s perpetually frozen fingers— a little sweaty, and probably covered in popcorn grease. Despite that, Kei still wondered. And he found that he wanted to find out how it might feel for himself.
Hours later, alone in his bedroom with the door locked, Kei pulled out the photo. He stared at it for longer than he would ever admit, at Yamaguchi’s pretty smile, and how cute he looked wearing Kei’s glasses, and his tightly closed eyes as he smushed his lips into Kei’s cheek.
Kei was so caught up in looking at Yamaguchi in every picture that it took him a while to notice his own expressions. Admittedly, the first picture wasn’t his best look—he seemed disoriented, his eyes unfocused without his glasses and his hair stuck up at odd angles. The third photo was even worse—Kei officially decided he would never attempt to be intentionally silly again for the rest of his life, if this was how it turned out—but Yamaguchi looked just as ridiculous, so it wasn’t actually so bad. He had his tongue stuck out and one eye closed in an exaggerated wink, which was so much cuter than Kei’s crossed eyes.
His expression in the last picture made Kei groan out loud. His mouth had fallen open a little in shock as Yamaguchi kissed him, but he was still smiling, and his eyes were wide with pleased surprise.
God, he was so obviously smitten, it was embarrassing. How had Yamaguchi never noticed?
How had Kei never noticed?
Kei looked again at the second picture, the one where he and Yamaguchi were ignoring the camera entirely. It was… the happiest that Kei can remember himself ever looking in a photo, and maybe it was the new rose tint his glasses had developed, but Yamaguchi seemed just as happy. He stared at that picture until his eyes stung, at the way Yamaguchi looked at him, smiled down at him like the world around them ceased to exist, and wondered if maybe his own obvious feelings weren’t the only thing he had failed to notice all this time.
He wondered if maybe Yamaguchi would notice the affection in Kei’s eyes and wouldn’t mind at all. He wondered if Yamaguchi might be in his own room tonight, looking at the same pictures, feeling the same butterflies fluttering against the cage of his ribs.
⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾⋆⁺₊⋆ Present Day ⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾⋆⁺₊⋆
Kei carefully stacks the photos and puts them carefully back into the box, keeping one out. As he closes the lid, he decides to leave the box on his bedside table instead of shoving it back under the bed. It’s past time to find a new home for these pictures, one that will keep them safe for the rest of his life.
The box is old, but more than that, it’s a relic of a version of himself that no longer exists. A boy who pretended not to care about anything, one who foolishly believed that not caring would somehow protect his secretly tender heart. After all, nobody could really accuse him of caring when he kept something so precious in an old shoebox.
But he’s not that Kei anymore, and he long since stopped pretending to be. He cares, and he loves, and his heart is that much stronger for it.
He sets the beloved keepsake on his desk, next to a much smaller black velvet box. Running a finger over it, he thinks about the dark velvet curtain shielding him and Tadashi from the world, and Tadashi’s lips on his cheek. Kei takes a deep breath in, letting it out in a shaky exhale. The nerves are back somehow, winding into his tense limbs and making them feel weak and unsteady.
“Tsukki! Can you help me?”
Kei startles. He quickly grabs the box and shoves it in his pocket, right before Tadashi walks through their bedroom door. He’s frowning down at his tie, and the ugly, lopsided knot he’s managed to make in it.
“Come here,” Kei tells him.
He sighs like tying his boyfriend’s tie every single time he has to dress up is exhausting, but his voice is pure affection. He doesn’t even bother trying to hide it anymore.
“Are you ever going to learn how to tie your own tie?”
“Not when I have you around to do it, Tsukki.”
Tadashi beams at him, standing perfectly still as Kei plucks at the knot. It takes a while—honestly Kei’s a little impressed at just how badly Tadashi managed to tangle up the silk this time—but it gives Kei the perfect excuse to indulge in the rare sight of his boyfriend in a suit.
Tadashi’s already gorgeous in just a white shirt tucked into dark slacks. His sleeves are still unbuttoned, fluttering loosely around his wrists, and Kei makes a mental note to pull out the cuff links that his mom gave Tadashi for Christmas a couple years ago. They’re gold, each inlaid with a small piece of jade, so they’ll match the forest green tie that Tadashi picked out (and then mangled). The tie is perfect, bringing out the flecks of green in his hazel eyes, and Kei just hopes the silk isn’t too wrinkled for Tadashi to actually wear it tonight.
“Do you know where we put the lint roller?” Tadashi asks in a quiet voice, keeping carefully still.
His adam’s apple bobs as he talks, and Kei can’t help brushing the back of his knuckles against it. That little touch turns into a sweet stroke over the warm skin of Tadashi’s throat. Tadashi’s eyes fall closed and he hums absently.
Kei murmurs, “Junk drawer, I think.”
“Hmm, I didn’t see it.”
“I might have one in my bag,” Kei says, only somewhat paying attention. He’s worked the knot out of the tie and the wrinkles seem salvageable, so he starts tugging it into position. “Do you need it tonight?”
“Well, Little Foot took a nap on my suit jacket.” Tadashi huffs a laugh. “So it’s the lint roller, or showing up covered in white cat fur.”
“That little shit,” Kei grumbles, but he’s laughing too. “I’ll find it for you.”
Kei pulls the knot tight, smoothing out the fabric, which might not have been strictly necessary, but this way he gets to run a hand over Tadashi’s chest before letting him go.
Tadashi has other plans. He grabs both of Kei’s lapels—probably wrinkling them too, but honestly, who cares?—and pulls him into a kiss. This kiss is nothing like the one he’d pressed into Kei’s cheek almost a decade ago. It’s slow and indulgent, confident in its familiarity. Kei cups Tadashi’s cheek in one hand and deepens the kiss, sinking into it. Tadashi tastes like mint toothpaste, and his lips fit perfectly against Kei’s. They always have.
When they part, Tadashi nuzzles his nose against Kei’s, making him smile. He looks down into Tadashi’s face, with its beautiful, feline eyes and constellation of freckles and smiling, well-kissed lips, and the anxiety he was feeling earlier melts away entirely.
Kei knows, unequivocally and without a shred of doubt, that he’s making the right choice.
“Don’t ever learn how to tie your tie,” he murmurs, dropping one more brief kiss on Tadashi’s smiling lips. “I’ll do it for you.”
“Okay, Tsukki.”
⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾⋆⁺₊⋆
Despite how long it takes to get the cat hair off Tadashi’s black suit jacket, and how many times the process is disrupted by slow, lingering kisses, they make it to the event on time. This is the third year that Kei’s organized the Sendai Museum’s fall fundraiser—a Family Fun night—so by now he has it down to a science, and things were running smoothly before they even arrived. His boss looks frazzled as he greets them, but he always looks that way, so Kei doesn’t take it personally.
“Tsukiiii!”
“Oh god,” Kei says, deadpan.
Tadashi giggles but does absolutely nothing to help him when Hinata runs up and launches himself right onto Kei’s back. Luckily, Kei’s used to this nonsense by now, so he was braced for impact.
“Get off me or I will lock you inside the ancient primates exhibit.”
“You wouldn’t!”
“If you’re going to act like a monkey, I absolutely will treat you like one. Last chance.”
With a huff, Hinata jumps down, landing lightly on his feet. Kei turns to face him and is immediately tackled again, this time with a tight hug. Hugging anybody but Tadashi might never come naturally to Kei, but he’s learned a few things through the years. He wraps his arms briefly around Hinata’s shoulder and gives him a little squeeze, then two pats on the back. That should be more than enough, in Kei’s opinion, but Hinata holds on for another second or two anyway.
When it’s Tadashi’s turn for a hug, he matches Hinata’s enthusiasm. Hinata squeezes him so hard his toes come off the floor for a second, setting him down with a quiet, “Oof.”
“So, where’s your quieter but equally annoying half?” Kei asks.
“Yama’s here! Well, he was…”
Hinata looks around with a small frown, and Kei wants to laugh. Those two have barely changed, despite what anyone might think. Hinata has a deep tan and he’s certainly thicker than he was in high school, but he’s still just so Hinata.
He disappears into the crowd to find his husband, leaving Tadashi and Kei alone at the edge of the room. As they watch him go, Kei drapes an arm over Tadashi’s shoulders and pulls him tight to his side, dropping a kiss in his hair.
“Where do you think Kageyama ended up?” Tadashi asks, his expression playful.
“In the ancient primates exhibit,” Kei answers dryly.
Tadashi’s shoulders shake with silent laughter.
“You’re terrible, Tsukki.”
“You love me.”
Tadashi sighs. “Yeah. I really, really do.”
Kei’s heart swells almost to the point of pain, and just as he is about to abandon his entire plan just to drag Tadashi into a storage room and make out with him for at least an hour, he hears his name.
“Tsukki! Yamaguchi!”
Yachi runs towards them with an excited smile on her face. Well, she runs as well as she can in heels and a pretty, shimmery dress, which is to say she shuffles as fast as possible without really picking her feet up off the ground. On anyone else the image would fly past ridiculous and right into embarrassing, but it’s Yachi, who is 150 centimeters of pure cuteness, so it’s not that bad.
Kei doesn’t hesitate this time to lean down and give her an affectionate hug. With her arms around Kei’s neck, Yachi turns and whispers in his ear, “You ready?”
Kei nods. He is, and of everyone, he’s glad he chose Yachi to trust with his plans for the evening. She’s a sweet little ball of manic anxiety at the best of times, but she has good taste and she can keep a secret.
Unlike… some other people he knows.
As if summoned by his slightly uncharitable (but completely accurate) thoughts, Hinata reemerges, dragging Kageyama behind him. Luckily he’s also not much of a hugger, giving Kei and Tadashi little nods in greeting. He can’t escape Yachi though. Once she’s done squeezing Kageyama so tight his head nearly pops off—which is impressive considering the fact that Kageyama is a professional athlete and Yachi is quite literally half his size—they fall into comfortable conversation.
It’s been a couple years since all five of them were in the same country, let alone the same room, and as much as Kei doesn’t want to admit, he might have missed it. Maybe. But only a little.
Nah, he can admit it, just this once. He missed his friends.
He must be getting soft in his old age, Kei thinks as he listens politely to Hinata tell them a story about his old teammate’s wedding in Brazil. He doesn’t have much to say as they bounce rapidly from subject to subject, and he’s far too wise to even try to interrupt Yachi once she’s launched into a story about her work drama that Kei's already heard twice in the last month.
After a few minutes, Tadashi squeezes his waist and asks in a whisper, “Do you want a drink?”
Kei nods, kissing Tadashi sweetly before letting him disappear towards the table full of champagne flutes. Yachi’s voice trails away mid-sentence as she watches Tadashi’s retreating back. As soon as he’s out of earshot, she rounds on Kei.
“So, how are you feeling? Excited? Nervous? Do you have it? Please don’t tell me you forgot it at home. I can go get it if you need—”
“Breathe,” Kei interrupts. “I am excited, and nervous, and of course I have it. It’s in my pocket. Everything is fine.”
Even so, Kei pats his pocket just to be sure the small box is still there. What can he say? Yachi’s anxiety is infectious, and this is too important not to check one more time.
“What’s in your pocket?” Kageyama asks, frowning in confusion as he looks between Kei and Yachi.
“Oh my god!” Hinata cries. “Tsukki, are you gonna—mmf!”
Kei had slapped his hand over Hinata’s big mouth, which, now that he thinks about it, is kind of gross. Very gross. Ugh.
“Be. Quiet,” he hisses.
Hinata’s eyes are wide and excited as he nods. Kei wipes his hand on his slacks but he’s still all too aware that he had Hinata’s spit on him. For what must be the millionth time, Kei mildly regrets his choice of best friends. He could have chosen someone quieter, and less ridiculous.
He loves them, though. Which he will probably never say out loud, and definitely never where they can hear him, but he doesn’t bother denying it in his own head.
“Yes,” Kei says quietly. “I’m going to propose to Tadashi tonight.”
Yachi’s already at the brink of tears, and Hinata expresses his excitement by whisper-screaming wordlessly while smacking every part of Kei’s arms and torso that he can reach. Kageyama on the other hand, is quiet, his face pensive.
“Good,” he says, once Hinata’s antics have died down. “You should. You two are good. You know, together, and all that.”
Kei blinks at him.
“Uh, yeah. Thanks,” he says, at a rare loss for words. He and Kageyama don’t bicker the way they used to, but it still feels odd to be having such a genuine conversation, about feelings of all things. Kageyama nods, and before anyone can say anything else, Tadashi returns with a drink in each hand.
“Whoa, did I interrupt something?” he asks with a smile, handing a flute of champagne to Kei and sipping from his own.
“Nah,” Hinata answers, with a level of loud cheerfulness that would sound forced coming from anybody but him. “How’s work going, Yamaguchi?”
After a few more minutes of conversation, they disperse to join the event. Before Kei took over planning the fundraiser, it was geared at old, wealthy people who only really wanted to donate so they could brag about their philanthropic selflessness. Kei could count on one hand the number of times he’d seen any of the attendees in the museum outside of the fundraiser. Those stuffy old donors still got a fancy event where museum staff schmoozed them out of their money, but it happened in the spring now.
The fall fundraiser was for the people who actually cared about the museum itself. They set up family-friendly activities, sold champagne and beer to the adults, raffled off prizes, and gave ‘behind the scenes’ tours of rarely seen parts of the museum. Tadashi always loved joining the activities, even the ones designed for kids, and Kei loved watching Tadashi have fun, so it worked out for both of them. They sit side by side on too-short stools, excavating fake fossils from a sandbox with little brushes. After a few minutes, Kei abandons his partially revealed plastic triceratops skull to use his brush to tickle Tadashi behind his ear, which makes Tadashi yelp and laugh in surprise, earning them both a stern look from Kei’s boss.
“Let’s check out the VR area,” Tadashi says, taking Kei’s hand and leading him away from the fossil table.
They take turns putting on the VR headset to explore ancient ruins, and have to grip each others’ arms for balance when the headsets leave them feeling dizzy. The champagne probably doesn’t help, but it soothes Kei’s slowly prickling nerves a little. He sneaks a second glass and drinks half of it one go, hoping it might draw the tension out of his muscles, and the irrational worries out of his mind.
After a few more activities and unavoidable conversations with his coworkers and their spouses, Kei decides it’s time. He takes Tadashi by the hand and leads him to an alcove off of the main room.
“Ooh, am I getting a special VIP tour?”
“Something like that.”
Tadashi slows to a stop when he sees it, an excited smile spreading across his face.
The photo booth is small and unassuming, and it looks distinctly out of place on the museum’s marble floors. There’s a little screen on the outside that displays the camera’s view inside, and the curtain this time is red.
“When did… you didn’t have one of these last year!”
“I thought it would be a fun addition,” Kei shrugs.
Tadashi beams at Kei like he’d planned this all for him—which, to be fair, he did—and intertwines their fingers. This time, when Tadashi leads him by the hand to the photo booth, Kei goes without hesitation. Tadashi pulls back the curtain for Kei and bows, because he’s ridiculous and adorable, so Kei climbs in first.
When Tadashi follows and pulls the curtain closed behind him, they are even more squished than they were in high school. This booth seems smaller than that one, and they’re both bigger, but this time it’s not awkward. Kei wraps his arms around Tadashi and pulls him close, and Tadashi throws an arm around his shoulders in return. Their bodies fit together just right on the cramped bench, perfect with all the practice they’ve had.
“Ready, Tsukki?”
“Always.”
Tadashi leans forward to choose the frame design, which has officially become his job. Kei usually thinks they’re all stupid and corny, and all he really cares about are the pictures themselves. This time, because Kei is secretly a pretty sappy guy, he pre-selected a handful of design options. They range from simple and clean to disgustingly over-the-top, but they’re all vaguely romantic. Because Tadashi is openly a very sappy guy, he picks a frame on the over-the-top romantic end of the spectrum.
“Silly one first?” Tadashi asks.
“They’re always silly,” is Kei’s automatic reply.
Still, he crosses his eyes and sticks his tongue out for the camera, relaxing once the shutter clicks.
Kei reaches into his pocket to grab the box, taking a deep breath. He’s practiced this like a hundred times, so he could make it perfect for Tadashi.
That is, it would be perfect, if Kei had remembered how little time he actually has between pictures.
He feels the panic rise in his throat, threatening to choke him. Why didn’t he think of this? He won’t have time to say all the things he needs to say. All the things Tadashi deserves to hear. He spent weeks practicing, and now it feels like the bench has fallen out beneath him and he’s freefalling.
“Tadashi,” he whispers.
Tadashi’s expression quickly shifts into concern as he looks at Kei.
“Tsukki?”
“Fuck, I didn’t,” Kei says, desperation cracking his voice. “I forgot how fast these go, and I—damn it, I had a whole speech! I didn’t know I wouldn’t have time, I thought—”
“Speech? Time for what? Tsukki?”
Before Kei can say a word, the robotic voice comes.
“Five… four…”
“Fuck,” Kei whispers again.
He pulls the box out of his pocket and holds it in one hand, using the other one to keep Tadashi close to him. Tadashi’s eyes dart rapidly between Kei’s face and the box, confusion clear on his face.
Kei takes a deep breath as the countdown gets to three, and opens the box with a flick of his fingers.
“I love you, Yamaguchi Tadashi,” he says simply, because in the end, those are really the only words he needs. “Will you marry me?”
When the camera shutter clicks for a second time, it captures Tadashi’s tear bright eyes and open mouthed smile. What it doesn’t capture is Tadashi’s hand, coming up to cup Kei’s where it holds the ring, or the way his voice breaks when he says, “Yes, yes, oh my god, Tsukki, yes!”
Kei completely forgets about the camera, blinded by Tadashi’s teary smile. He hears the countdown distantly, but he’s a little busy at the moment. He slides the smooth gold ring onto Tadashi’s finger with his own shaking ones before lifting it to his mouth.
Tadashi tolerates exactly one kiss to his ring finger before he’s sliding both hands into Kei’s hair and pulling him close to take Kei’s mouth with his own. They kiss and kiss, and Kei loses himself in it. He thinks his heart might actually burst into confetti right inside his chest, but he doesn’t even care. He’d die happy, with the taste of his fiance on his lips.
When the camera takes a third picture, Kei has his tongue in Tadashi’s mouth and his hands under his suit jacket, pressed to the warm planes of his back. The click of the shutter startles both of them into laughter. Kei thinks briefly of the screen on the outside of the photo booth, and two seconds later decides that he does not care even a little bit if anyone sees them making out.
“I love you,” Tadashi whispers, sniffling a little self-consciously.
Kei wipes away the tears still shining on his cheeks and kisses him again. Tadashi presses his forehead against Kei’s and laughs wetly. He strokes Kei’s cheek and Kei’s surprised to find that it’s a little damp, too.
“I love you too.”
“You’re so romantic, Tsukki,” Tadashi coos, laughing against his lips. “So sweet, and cute too.”
“Shut up, Yamaguchi,” Kei says, fighting a smile and losing.
He cups Tadashi’s jaw in his hand and simply holds him there, as if he might evaporate like smoke through Kei’s fingers if he lets go. For a minute it’s enough to share the same air, to laugh breathlessly and hold each other and boop their noses together. Then Kei feels the smooth metal of the ring against his cheek, and he thinks he might actually die if he doesn’t kiss Tadashi at least a thousand more times, right now, in this cramped photo booth.
Kei doesn’t really know how long they stay there—absolutely not long enough for him to give Tadashi a thousand kisses, that’s for damn sure—but it must be a while, because he hears some commotion outside the booth.
“You can’t just interrupt them, Tobio!”
“They’ve been making out for so long! Why can’t we just knock?”
“Oh my god, do not knock!”
Kei sighs, burying his face in the crook of Tadashi’s neck.
“I never should have invited them.”
“You know you love—wait, did you invite them here for this?” Tadashi asks, but he doesn’t wait for Kei’s answer. He yanks the curtain open and climbs out, leaving Kei gaping at his retreating back.
“Congratulations!” He hears Hinata shout.
When Kei emerges from the photo booth, Tadashi is caught in the middle of what might be the world’s most uncoordinated group hug. Hinata has both arms—and a leg—around Tadashi, and Yachi and Kageyama have come up on either side of them. Tadashi stumbles a little under Hinata’s exuberant weight, and when he does the entire blob of limbs and laughter shuffles to one side, then the other.
Yachi sees Kei first, freeing one arm to wave him over. When Kei hesitates, Yachi’s expression turns steely.
“I swear to god, Tsukishima Kei if you do not get in this group hug right now-”
Well, that settles that. Groaning, he lets Yachi yank him into the hug, and all things considered, it could be worse. He’s pressed against Tadashi’s back, and with Yachi and Kageyama on either side of him—people who actually understand how to hug someone like a normal human being and not a wild, squirmy animal—he doesn’t get squeezed too tight.
That is, until Hinata wriggles his arms free and reaches up to wrap them around Kei’s neck.
“Alright,” Kei says with a grunt. “Let go of me.”
Hinata does not let go. Somehow he squeezes tighter, until Kei thinks his head might pop right off.
“You’re squishing my fiance to death, Hinata.”
“Oh, shit! I’m sorry!”
When Hinata lets go, Kei stumbles back a step or two. Tadashi looks just as unsteady, falling into Kei’s arms with a wheezing laugh.
“Squishing your what, now?” he asks Kei, whose cheeks were already red from nearly suffocating, which almost hides the blush blooming there now.
“My fiance,” he whispers, dipping down to kiss the giddy smile right off Tadashi’s lips.
“Say it again,” Tadashi whispers between kisses.
“Fiance.”
To their friends’ credit, they let the two of them kiss for a while before interrupting again. A few minutes later, Akiteru comes in, clapping Kei on the back and making a big production of welcoming Tadashi to the family.
“He was already part of the family, idiot,” Kei mutters under his breath, but his brother ignores him.
“Now, Tadashi,” Akiteru says gravely, “You know that if you ever hurt my little bro—”
“I have security on speed dial, big bro, and I will call them if you finish that sentence.”
Akiteru raises his hands in defeat.
“Just looking out for you, Kei,” he says with his most impish grin.
“I would never hurt Tsukki!” Tadashi chimes in. “I love him!”
His expression is so serious, Kei has to kiss the frown right off his mouth. He’s so fucking cute. Kei has to kiss his cheeks too, and his scrunched up nose, until Tadashi is laughing and squirming away from him.
Kei and his friends find an empty table to sit and talk while they drink another glass or two of champagne. The event winds down, leaving them alone in the empty, dark museum.
“Wait! Wait wait wait,” Tadashi says suddenly, sitting bolt upright. He looks at Yachi accusingly. “You were in on it!”
“Ummm,” Yachi hedges, nervously glancing between Tadashi and Kei.
“That’s why you made me try on all those rings a couple months ago, isn’t it?”
Yachi nods.
“I asked her for help,” Kei interjects. “I didn't know what size you were. I also know basically nothing about rings, and I didn’t want to pick out something ugly.”
“You wouldn’t have—”
“No, you did great, Tsukki!” Yachi beams at him. “I barely did anything, really. You picked it all on your own, I was just there for, um, quality assurance, I guess? It wasn’t at all like when I had to talk somebody out of buying the world’s largest and ugliest ring.”
Kageyama frowns. “It was the most expensive one.”
“It must have weighed two kilograms!”
Kei chokes trying not to laugh.
Hinata grabs Kageyama’s hand, looking at him with uncharacteristic seriousness.
“Tobio,” he says. “I would have worn whatever ring you picked out for me, even if it made my finger fall off! All that matters is that it was from you.”
Kageyama goes bright pink and quiet, hiding his face in Hinata’s neck.
“Wait. Yachi,” Tadashi says again. “The weird magazine style quiz?”
“That too,” Yachi admits. “I thought you liked gold, but I wanted to make sure.”
“I do,” Tadashi says quietly, but he’s not looking at Yachi anymore.
He’s looking at Kei, all soft adoration. Kei rolls his eyes, but the arm he has around Tadashi tightens. It’s an old argument, and one Kei might never be tired of having. Tadashi always says his eyes are gold, while Kei insists they’re light brown at best. Tadashi never gives up, and after putting a matching gold band on his finger for the rest of his life, Kei might have just resigned himself to losing the argument once and for all.
That’s okay. They’ll find new silly things to argue about, just so they can kiss and make up later. After all, they have the rest of their lives.
Kei takes Tadashi’s left hand in his now, running his fingertips over the smooth gold of the ring. He brings it to his mouth and kisses the ring, and Tadashi’s finger beneath it.
“Tsukki,” Tadashi whispers.
“Yes, fiance?” Kei whispers back. Tadashi giggles and pulls him into an enthusiastic kiss, then another, and another.
⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾⋆⁺₊⋆ Three Months Later ⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾⋆⁺₊⋆
The box sits on a shelf; dark, polished, elegant. It’s a simple box. It could hold anything inside its wooden frame. One might look at it, sandwiched between alphabetized fantasy novels and a mini Apatosaurus fossil replica from the Sendai Museum gift shop, and assume that it might even be empty, just there for decoration.
One could also expect such a well-crafted box to hold something important; it does.
Twelve pieces of shiny photo paper sit inside the box, stacked neatly together. They used to have a different home, one made of flimsy cardboard, shoved under the bed like a secret, but not anymore.
On the wall above, two of the photos are set apart from those in the box. They lay side by side in a dark wood frame. On the left, two teenage boys sit close together. They are the best of friends, still learning what it might mean to fall in love, to become something more. On the right, two young men tangle together. They know how it feels to be in love, to become each other’s everything.
After ten years, Tsukishima Kei found a new home for his favorite pictures—the ones that capture a decade-long love in cheap ink and corny phrases—a home that will keep them safe for the rest of his life.