Archive of Our Own ^beta

The first time Kei realizes that Yamaguchi is attractive, he’s at his cousin’s wedding reception.

Yamaguchi isn’t sitting with him. He’s across the room, talking with another cousin of Kei’s named Akane. The only reason Yamaguchi’s here is because Kei didn’t want to spend the night alone, and the only reason Kei is here at all is because his parents insisted that the whole family attend. Invitations were, unfortunately, extended to basically anybody who knew either family, which means the ballroom the reception is being held in is packed with strangers in suits and cocktail dresses, smelling like cologne or wine or sweat from dancing. Kei is stuck here between all of this, never rising from the pocket of personal space he’d claimed in the back corner.

Across the room, he sees Yamaguchi laugh at something Akane said. Kei can’t hear the laugh from here—he only sees the motion, the lips pulling back to reveal white teeth before Yamaguchi tilts his head back to let it out and the laugh rises from his chest. He’s dressed up tonight in a black suit, although he left the jacket at the table with Kei before he got up. It’s one of the only times he’s ever worn a suit, he told Kei. In the four years since he’s transitioned, he hasn’t had that many chances to attend formal events.

Kei picks up the glass of water on the table in front of him and takes a small, tentative sip. It’s warm in here from all the body heat; even without his own suit jacket on, Kei is starting to sweat.

He glances back at the two. Akane is still talking, Yamaguchi’s attention dedicated entirely to her in that classic way of his—he’s always been a good listener. Kei wants to know what they could be discussing that would make Yamaguchi look so interested yet so relaxed, his shoulders pulled back, standing at his full height instead of slouching into himself like he does when he’s anxious. He stands so much taller over Kei’s cousin, who can’t be anything over 5’3”, but he doesn’t loom or look out of place the way Kei tends to do on accident—in fact, the juxtaposition is almost…pleasant, visually. And Akane certainly doesn’t seem bothered by the height difference, if the way she’s leaning into him is anything to go off of.

“Enjoying the food?”

Kei barely keeps himself from jumping at the sudden question. He hadn’t even noticed Akiteru sliding into the chair beside him. He quickly turns his attention away from Yamaguchi and to his brother, who’s sitting with his elbows on the table and a smile on his face.

“It’s fine,” Kei says, trying to keep the irritation at being caught off guard out of his voice.

“You’ve barely touched it,” Akiteru points out, gesturing vaguely to the still-full plate sitting in front of them.

Kei ignores that. “I thought you were with Saeko.”

“I was.” Akiteru leans back in the chair. He’s missing his jacket and tie, Kei notices, with the top buttons of his dress shirt undone; he must have done that earlier to dance with Saeko. From the small amount of attention Kei gave to the events around him, he’d seen that his brother and his girlfriend were enjoying themselves. “But you looked lonely, sitting here by yourself all the way in the back. I thought Yamaguchi came with you?”

“He did.”

“Did he run off somewhere then?”

Without meaning to, Kei glances across the room. Akiteru’s eyes follow the look and land on Yamaguchi a moment later. “Oh, hey. I didn’t know he knew Akane.”

“He doesn’t—didn’t,” Kei says. “They just met.”

Akane finally finishes whatever story she’d been telling, and Yamaguchi waves his hands around him as he responds with something just as enthusiastic. Akane laughs at him, but she seems excited, pleased.

“Well,” Akiteru says, still watching the two, “they seem to be hitting it off pretty good.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Yamaguchi’s, what, seventeen now?”

“Yeah.”

“Wow.”

Yamaguchi smiles at Akane’s laugh, showing off his dimples, and Kei glances at Akiteru curiously. “What?”

“It’s just—” He pauses as if to find the words. “I didn’t realize how much he’s grown up, you know? In my head he’s still, like, nine years old.”

“It’s not like this is the first time you’ve seen him since we were kids.”

“No, but it’s way harder to ignore the fact that you guys are almost adults when I see you both all dressed up like this. It’s like, one minute Yamaguchi is this scrappy little kid that basically lives at our house, and the next, he’s all grown into this…”

When the pause continues for too long, Kei frowns and prompts, “This what?”

“I guess the closest word is stud,” Akiteru says. “Although, that kinda sounds like he’s a womanizer and not just someone with natural charm, which is more what I mean.”

Stud. It’s a bit of a ridiculous term, Kei thinks, like the kind of thing people say in old movies but never in real life, and anyway, he’s certainly never thought of Yamaguchi as one—that’s more someone like Oikawa, or Kuroo, maybe. It feels…silly, impossible to think of Yamaguchi as someone like that.

But, then again, Akane is certainly interested in him. Kei isn’t oblivious enough not to realize what they’re doing is considered flirting.

And now that he’s thinking about it, ever since they entered their second year, there’s been a sudden influx of interest in Yamaguchi at school. Plenty of girls, and even a guy they played a practice match against one time, have tried flirting with or confessing to Yamaguchi. Kei used to be the one that was fawned over at school—Yamaguchi would frequently complain to Kei that yet another girl approached him only to ask if he could pass on a message to Kei or help her try to get his attention—but ever since this year, the tables have turned, and Yamaguchi has already surpassed Kei in terms of interested peers, and by quite a lot.

Kei’s not entirely sure what it is that’s made this change occur. Maybe it’s the new haircut he got, or all the training he’s been doing that’s led to a noticeable difference in stature, or the way he’s been a little more relaxed since the summer started, a little more confident in himself, a little more outgoing and a little more sure. His panic attacks have lessened recently. He hangs out with Yachi and Hinata and Kageyama now, not just Kei. He’s even become good friends with a few kids in their class.

Or, well. Maybe it’s not new. Maybe Yamaguchi’s always been like this—with the potential to be charming.

Akiteru did say it was a natural charm thing, and…Kei can see that one, maybe. He can see how Akane could be attracted to the toned muscles of his forearms when his dress shirt is rolled to his elbows, or the long, slender slope of his nose, or the way his eyes crinkle at the corners when he laughs, or the full-bodied sweet sound of that laugh, the kind of way Kei imagines princes in stories are supposed to laugh, maybe, or at least heroes.

And he can see how she’d find the way that he speaks with his hands charming, or the way that his voice still cracks when he gets too excited (because, after all, his voice didn’t drop until he started hormones a year ago) a little endearing instead of lame, and he can see why she would lean into him, why she would try to talk to him just a little bit longer, keep him to herself for as much time as she can manage, why she would monopolize Kei’s best friend for the majority of this stupid reception just to get a little bit more time with him.

Kei can see that.

“I guess,” he says in belated response. If Akiteru notices the abnormally long pause, he doesn’t say anything about it.

“He doesn’t have a girlfriend yet, does he?” he goes on asking, oblivious to the way Kei is still trying to trace Yamaguchi’s outline from the corner of his eye, still trying to watch him laugh without looking as mesmerized as he feels.

“No. No girlfriend.”

“Lucky for Akane,” Akiteru laughs.

The girl in question reaches a hand out to settle on Yamaguchi’s forearm subtly. Kei looks down at his glass of water, at the condensation on the sides, and stares.

“Yeah. Lucky for Akane.”

--

It’s after this first realization that Kei starts to go a little crazy.

He didn’t used to notice these kinds of things, but now that he’s admitted consciously to himself that Yamaguchi is considered attractive (not just by others’ standards, but by his too), Kei can’t seem to stop noticing this.

At practice one Saturday, when they’re taking a break from receiving drills and everyone is drenched in sweat and breathing heavily and smelling like animals, Ukai asks them all to take five minutes before getting started again. There’s a collective sigh that passes through the team; even those who are pumped up like Tanaka and Hinata and a few of the first years are happy to be taking a break. They’ve been working nonstop since practice started.

Yamaguchi makes his way to where Kei’s sitting on the gym floor, his back against the wall with his knees up to his chest. Yamaguchi is out of breath like everyone else, but he’s still smiling, obviously pleased with the results of the drills. He’s improved a lot even from just earlier this year, and he’s clearly happy about the progress. Even if he doesn’t make it widely known, Yamaguchi works harder than anyone Kei knows.

“You still alright, Tsukki?” he asks, bending over to pick up his water bottle from the ground. Where he’s sitting, Kei has a good view of Yamaguchi’s legs, and as he pulls back into a standing position, bottle in hand, it’s difficult not to stare at them. They’re—good. For lack of a better word. Toned.

“Fine,” Kei mumbles, forcing himself to move his gaze. He takes a swig of his water bottle as he looks back out across the gym in front of them. On the other side of the gym, Hinata is pestering Kageyama about something, although Kageyama doesn’t seem bothered so much as amused by whatever it is. Kei feels Yamaguchi’s heat next to him, and he feels it when Yamaguchi slides his back down the wall to sit down too.

“Hey,” he says.

Out of habit, Kei looks over at him. He wishes he hadn’t.

Because Yamaguchi has this soft, almost unnoticeable smile on this face as he looks across at the rest of the team. It’s just the barest hint, the smallest upturn of his lips, a ghost of something really, yet it’s packed with so much fondness, so much—affection, in just that twitch, and even without that smile Kei would be able to see it in his eyes, would be able to tell it from his easy posture, the relaxed slope of his shoulders, the gentle tone of his voice when he says:

“I’ve got a good feeling about this year.”

And god dammit, he’s still covered in sweat and his breathing hasn’t evened out completely yet so his chest still rises and falls under his damp t-shirt quicker than usual, and he brings a hand up to his forehead to move his sweat-drenched bangs out of his eyes absentmindedly, pushing it out of the way just enough to reveal the freckles on his forehead, small brown stars that complete the map of them on the rest of his face, and when he lowers his arm again it brushes against Kei’s on its way down, and Kei looks back across the gym because if he doesn’t he thinks Yamaguchi will catch him staring.

--

“See you tomorrow!” Yachi calls, waving to them.

“See you!” Yamaguchi waves back until she disappears around the corner. He lowers his arm to his side, but stands there watching where she’s gone for a moment longer. Kei pretends not to have noticed this, instead looking down at his phone in his hand. He feels Yamaguchi shift next to him.

“You ready to head home?” He pauses, noticing how Kei’s attention is turned away. “What are you looking at?”

“Nothing.” Kei stops what he’s doing and locks his phone screen swiftly. In reality, he’d just been going through a playlist absentmindedly, holding his thumb down on shuffle so it would play only a second of each song before going to next. He can’t find one that doesn’t get on his nerves right now; his mood’s been—weird lately. He’s been easier to rile, quicker to jump to conclusions, a little more caught up about small stuff. It’s ridiculous and stupid, and it’s affecting even his taste in music.

But that’s way too much to try to explain. So he just shoves his phone into his jacket pocket and starts down the road. “Let’s go.”

“Alright, Tsukki.”

They walk side by side, Yamaguchi talking about his day as Kei just listens. Usually this is when he’d have an earbud in one ear, playing something on low volume as he listens to Yamaguchi explain in detail the events of his school day, but he doesn’t bother with that today, something that, if Yamaguchi notices, he doesn’t point out. Kei slides his hands into his pockets, subtly pulling his jacket around him closer. Cold wind blows past them, and overhead, the sky is muddled with dark clouds.

“Hey, Tsukki,” Yamaguchi says once his story is finished.

Kei glances at him from the corner of his eye. He steps very purposefully on a brown leaf in their path, but the brunt of its crunch is swallowed by the wind. “Yeah?”

“Are we still planning on seeing that movie on Sunday?”

For a moment, he almost verbalizes his surprise that Yamaguchi remembered. It was a request he’d made while nearly asleep about a week ago, and over text too. They’d been talking late and Yamaguchi had mentioned he missed going to the movies, so Kei did a quick google search for the most interesting looking film out right now before suggesting that they go. He hardly remembered sending it when he woke up the next morning, but it was on his phone as proof. When he’d first offered, Yamaguchi seemed excited, but since he didn’t bring it up again Kei assumed the idea had been dropped or forgotten.

He hides the surprise. “If you’re still up for it.”

Yamaguchi nods. He has one hand on the bag strap over his shoulder, clutching it loosely, and the other hand thumbing the hem of his shirt collar. His eyes are trained on the road in front of them. Since there aren’t any cars around, they’ve migrated to walking in the middle of the road.

“Why?” Kei asks.

“It’s just that this guy…” He catches when Yamaguchi bites his bottom lip, just for a second, a quick, thoughtful pinch before he finds the rest of the sentence, and Kei looks back to the road again. “You know Suzuki, from our class? He asked if I wanted to see something with him Sunday.”

“Oh.”

Something drops onto Kei’s head, but when he looks up reflexively, there’s only the sky and charcoal clouds over them.

“I told him that I wasn’t sure yet because I’d kind of made plans but that I wasn’t positive if they were still happening, so if you still want to go, it’s not like a big deal or anything if I say no—”

“Yamaguchi,” he interrupts. “Did you bring an umbrella?”

He stops and looks at Kei for the first time since he started his explanation. He blinks owlishly before Kei sees a drop of water land directly on his forehead. “No. Did you?”

“No,” Kei sighs. The rain picks up from a few drops to a light drizzle, and he lifts his jacket as if to use it as a cover. He hates getting wet.

“Shit,” Yamaguchi mumbles, following Kei’s idea. “There’s the grocery store a little way’s up. You wanna try to run?”

It moves from drizzling to full-on raining before Kei can even verbalize a response. He only nods before doing as suggested and taking off running.

Yamaguchi is right behind him the whole time, his feet splashing against the puddles that grow steadily as they sprint as fast as their practice-tired legs will take them. Kei regrets changing his shoes back after practice; this pair won’t be spared from the mud. By the time they get up to the store, it’s pouring, and they’re both soaked head to toe.

“Closed?” Yamaguchi reads, coming to an abrupt halt under the store’s canopy.

“We’ll be fine under here at least.” Kei takes his jacket off from his head, returning it to the original way it’s meant to be worn, although there’s no point in that now. He’s already drenched.

“I checked the weather this morning, but it didn’t mention anything about rain,” Yamaguchi mumbles. He sighs and let’s his backpack slide to the ground, leaning it against the store’s door. The cover they’re under isn’t much; there’s a lot in terms of length but not so much in width, so they have to stand with their backs almost pressed against the building behind them. Kei leaves a few inches between the two of them but takes off his backpack too. There’s no point in holding it up.

“How long do you think this will last?” Yamaguchi asks.

“Dunno.”

“Shit.”

Kei makes a halfhearted noise in agreement. Of course today would end in them stuck outside a grocery store, dripping wet as they wait at the mercy of mother nature to go home.

They stand in silence, listening to the rain only a few inches in front of them. When the wind picks up, it blows rain their way, and they both flinch back, shuffling around under the awning to find the place least likely to allow they get soaked again. They find a spot further down the right, where the side of the building meets a fence, and stand in that corner while they wait. Kei is about to offer to call his parents to come pick them up when Yamaguchi shifts next to him.

“It’s not a big deal if I tell him I can’t make it,” he says. “I just wanted to make sure that we’re still, you know.”

The way he ends that, you know, makes Kei think there’s meant to be something else there, but he doesn’t ask about it, instead looking out to the street to watch the rain. And a little bit to avoid meeting Yamaguchi’s eye.

“You can go with him if you want,” Kei says.

“That’s not really an answer, Tsukki.”

He can’t help it now. He looks. “What?”

“I just mean that…” Yamaguchi scratches his cheek. Water from his bangs is still dripping down his face. “The question wasn’t about whether or not I wanna go with him. It was if you’re still up for us going. Because if you are, even if I wanted to go out with him, I already made that commitment, and besides, I was the one that wanted to go with you so badly. It’d be kind of a dick thing to cancel on you.”

“It’s a going out thing?”

“…What?”

“You said ‘go out’ with him.” Kei is far too conscious suddenly of how stupid that sounds, of how ridiculous it is that the only thing he got from that shpeel was that Suzuki had meant it as a date. Which is also stupid because, well, it wasn’t like Kei hadn’t assumed it was intended as a date thing. But it’s the first time that Yamaguchi has confirmed that’s the intent, and maybe he’d been holding on to some kind of—hope?—that he’d only read too much into it and jumped to conclusions.

Which is also, also stupid. Because why would he need to hope that Yamaguchi didn’t get asked out by someone?

What kind of best friend hopes for that?

“Um, yeah,” Yamaguchi agrees, not looking uncomfortable so much as confused. Embarrassment burns in Kei’s stomach, and he lowers his eyes to a mud puddle in front of them, at the rain sliding off the awning’s edge and dripping into it.

“It’s fine,” Kei says. “If you want to go with him—”

“That’s still not what I mean. Do you wanna go to the movies with me?”

Obviously Kei does if they still can. But he doesn’t want to take away this opportunity for Yamaguchi—after all, it’s rare that he genuinely considers saying yes when someone asks him out. He tends to be a bit more selective with who he does and doesn’t date, especially since, he’s said, he’s probably “the kind of person that doesn’t date without it meaning something serious”—his words. This is one of two times Kei has seen him genuinely want to go out with someone, and the first time was when he had a crush on Yachi for a few months during their first year.

But if he says yes, I do, but go with him anyway, Yamaguchi won’t listen and he’ll turn down Suzuki. Kei knows the moment he admits to wanting to go, the conversation is over. Some part of him wants to say yes for that reason—because he knows Yamaguchi will drop whatever it is for him, because he knows he’s prioritized above all else. He won’t see Suzuki’s reaction, but he’ll know that Suzuki will have to hear Yamaguchi tell him, sorry, I can’t, I have plans with Tsukki that day, and that knowledge will bring him brief, overwhelming satisfaction.

But then, he thinks, it’ll burn away just as fast, down to the quick, and extinguish to shame.

Water drips steadily into the puddle. The wind has died down again, leaving his voice clear when he says, “I can’t. I have a lot of homework this weekend to catch up on. Have fun with Suzuki.”

The last comment sounds much more bitter out loud than it had in his head, but Yamaguchi doesn’t ask about it. He’s silent for a moment, only standing with their shoulders still pressed together. Water drips down his back and cheeks. His brown hair, usually feathery and almost light, is flattened to his head and plastered there. Kei feels it when Yamaguchi’s shoulders tense, held there for a silent moment, then un-tense again as if he’s released a sigh.

“Oh,” he says.

Kei tries not to make it obvious that he’s looking, but he stays glancing long enough to watch Yamaguchi’s eyebrows pinch slightly, his mouth turned down in a soft, hardly visible frown, the way he does when he’s trying to hide how he feels but it isn’t working out well. He’s always been bad at keeping a poker face up. Or maybe Kei has just known him for so long that, regardless of the subtleties, he can see through it.

The rain still isn’t letting up. Kei glances one last time at Yamaguchi’s profile, at the way his eyelashes curl, the masculine slope of his nose and the curve of his jaw, sharper now than it used to be. When he blinks, a droplet clings to his eyelash before falling down his cheek again, tracing a trail across planes of freckles and moles and pink skin from the cold. It drips down his throat.

Kei looks away and pull his phone out. It takes him a while to find what he’s looking for, but eventually he digs up the old playlist he’d made Yamaguchi years ago. He plugs his earbuds in and holds out the right one.

“Hm?” Yamaguchi hums in question but takes the offered earbud and puts it in. Kei puts the left one in too before pressing play. It’s an old pop punk song from a band they were both into during middle school. He doesn’t like the band’s music anymore, and in hindsight it was all just awful, shallow nonsense, but it’s worth having to re-listen to it when, as the first verse starts, Yamaguchi’s face lights up in a nostalgic smile

“I thought you would’ve deleted this off your library by now,” Yamaguchi says over the music.

Kei wants to say of course not. He wants to articulate how much he associates this with them, with Yamaguchi, wants to articulate how he’s never deleted anything they’ve listened to together, and certainly not the band they claimed as their favorite for three years straight.

But he doesn’t. All he does is nod and let the song play.

They get home an hour later than usual.

--

“Can I see your phone for a second?”

Kei reaches over to his bedside table where his phone is plugged into a small, portable speaker and passes it to Yamaguchi, who’s sitting on the floor beside Kei’s bed. Why he’s on the floor, Kei doesn’t quite know. He just knows that Yamaguchi tends to sit on the ground when he’s doing homework.

“Thank you.” Yamaguchi smiles, taking the phone before unlocking it with his thumb print. Since it’s still plugged in and the cord doesn’t reach very far, he has to lean to use it. Kei sits back against his bedpost as the song playing changes to something he’s never heard before. It sounds vaguely like a Rock band he heard on the radio recently, but he doesn’t ask. Yamaguchi sets the phone back on the table and returns to his homework, mouthing the lyrics and tapping his pencil against the AP Calculus textbook propped up in his lap.

Kei returns to his own homework. He’s already finished with math, so he’s on to history reading. In a moment, he knows Yamaguchi will ask to check his calc answers with Kei’s, despite the fact that he most likely got them all correct. He sells himself short when it comes to math.

“I wanna hurry home to you,” Yamaguchi sings under his breath from the floor. It’s distracting enough that Kei has to reread the sentence he’s on. It shouldn’t be distracting by any means, but it is, even more so when the melody changes dramatically and Yamaguchi has to go into his head voice to sing along.

The song fades out finally. Another starts—he must have put the artist on shuffle—and Yamaguchi asks, “Can I check my answers with yours?”

Kei nods and hands his whole folder to Yamaguchi to fish out the sheet himself. He takes it with a smile. “Thanks, Tsukki.”

The artist sings in a raspy voice about needing someone. Kei looks down at his reading again while Yamaguchi compares their calculus answers, and they sit like that for the next two songs, doing their homework in companionable silence, or what would pass as companionable to anyone outside of Kei’s head.

Love is a virtue, the artist goes on to sing, and Kei asks, “How was the movie?”

Yamaguchi stops singing along but doesn’t respond right away. There’s a moment of nothing before he answers, “It was alright.”

“Ah.”

Kei isn’t sure what else to say. He doesn’t know what he wants to know, only that he can’t ask it, whatever “it” may be.

“Suzuki’s nice,” Yamaguchi says.

Ah, Kei tries to say again, but fails this time.

Another song begins. Yamaguchi looks up from his work briefly, only a small glance at Kei as if to gauge his reaction, but Kei sees an almost fond smile starting up. “It was kind of funny, he—well, we both assumed we were gonna be the one paying, so when we went to get popcorn we tried to give the cashier our cards at the same time. And then we both kept insisting that the other person didn’t have to do that, and this poor girl was just standing there unsure whose to take…” He punctuates the story with a small laugh. A real one.

Kei isn’t sure how to respond to that one, either. So he doesn’t.

“Eventually we decided to split it, though,” Yamaguchi finishes. “I used my card and he made up the difference in cash since I didn’t have any. So I didn’t get to pay for all of it, but at least I have money for the vending machine at school now.”

Kei just nods. A question is on the tip of his tongue, but he still doesn’t know what “it” is, what he’s looking for right now. He doesn’t open his mouth, even when the silence stretches after Yamaguchi’s story and covers them in a less comfortable atmosphere than before. Or maybe it’s just Kei who suddenly wants to be alone.

Yamaguchi looks down at his paper, brows pinched in and eyes narrowed like he’s contemplating something. His mouth twists into a frown before he opens it to say, “I’m not going on another date with him.”

Kei’s knee twitches, rustling the book on his lap. As evenly as he can, he asks, “Why not?”

“I don’t know. It’s like…don’t get me wrong, Suzuki is nice, and he didn’t do anything weird or bad or awkward—but he’s just not…I don’t know. I don’t think I’d be happy if I were dating him. Like, seriously dating him.”

“Oh,” Kei says.

“Yeah. Sorry for talking about it, I’ve just…” He shrugs.

“Don’t apologize for that. It’s not like it’s a big deal for me to listen.”

“I know, but I know you hate it when, like, Hinata starts talking about him and Kageyama’s relationship, so I didn’t wanna, like…annoy you by talking about this kind of thing.”

It all, all just catches up to me drifts from the speakers. Kei picks his book up and crosses his legs under him before sitting it back down in his lap again. “You can’t annoy me,” he mumbles.

“Hm?”

“Nothing.” Louder, he says, “I’m here to listen if…if you want to talk about ‘this kind of thing.’”

Yamaguchi blinks as if he wasn’t expecting that. “Oh. Thank you. Although, there’s probably not gonna be much more of that now that I’m not going out with Suzuki again.” He smiles self-deprecatingly, which Kei finds absolutely ridiculous for a few separate reasons.

“What do you mean?” he asks, before he can tell himself there is no good end result to this line of question.

“C’mon, Tsukki,” Yamaguchi says. He taps his finger against the edge of his paper anxiously. “Don’t make me have to explain.”

“I just don’t get it.”

“I’m not exactly the next Oikawa, Tsukki.”

Which. Well. Fuck. The way he says it, looking down and away and refusing to meet Kei’s eye, his voice lowered and sounding like he’s genuinely hurt that Kei would make him have to talk about it, sounding so believing in the myth that he’s somehow undesirable despite all the evidence that proves otherwise—it makes Kei sting with guilt, and he wants so badly to say something, even if it’s something stupid like you’re better than Oikawa, if only it would make Yamaguchi understand that he’s not ugly, and especially not because of some arbitrary things like his freckles or his identity or—or whatever it is he thinks makes him unattractive to others.

He knows then that he wants Yamaguchi to understand that he’s hot. He wants Yamaguchi to get that he does stuff to Kei and to Suzuki and to plenty of other people. To know that seeing him breathing heavily and drenched in sweat has made (and still makes) Kei go a little stupid, that he has to keep himself from staring most of the time, that he thinks about Yamaguchi in the changing room and his shoulder muscles shifting as he slides his shirt over his head. That it’s a little all-encompassing, a lot distracting, and kind of maybe ruining Kei’s life right now because he spends so much time just thinking about how fucking hot his best friend is, and how he can’t believe he didn’t notice it until this year.

He wants Yamaguchi to know this. He wants Yamaguchi to be aware of how he actually looks to everyone other than himself. He wants Yamaguchi to never think of himself as ugly again.

But Kei would also rather cut off his own tongue than admit to that right now, so all he says is a lackluster, “That’s not true.”

Yamaguchi shrugs like it’s nothing, obviously not wanting to argue the topic. Kei can’t blame him. If he were someone else, he would push it, try to make Yamaguchi see what he means, where’s coming from.

But he’s not someone else, so he just lets the music play as they fall back into silence.

--

One night while Kei is sleeping over at Yamaguchi, it snows.

That’s not out of the ordinary for January. It’s only notable because when it snows that night, it snows hard enough to keep Kei from making the commute back home. Yamaguchi’s parents are out of town for the weekend—that was part of why Kei came over in the first place; they used to spend most of their time sleeping over at each other’s houses, but since they entered high school that’s been reserved to special occasions and nights when they don’t need to be up early the next day—and they won’t be able to make it back until Monday with the weather as it is. When Kei calls his mom to let her know that he won’t be home the next day, she just tells him to stay warm and have a good time.

So they spend a weekend cooped up in Yamaguchi’s house. Practice is cancelled, and there are no stores in walking distance, so they pass the two days doing what they would have done otherwise: finishing the remnants of homework they had, hanging out in the living room, watching movies they’ve seen a hundred times already. Talking. Lounging around like they have nowhere to be. Just…being together.

It’s nice.

The only downside is that, with no parents around or restaurants to eat out at, they have to fend for themselves. Kei’s not a particularly good cook, but Yamaguchi has always been way worse, so he ends up in charge of making them breakfast and dinner, while lunch is a free-for-all that consists mostly of the popcorn they munch on while watching reruns of Star Trek.

“Would you rather have constantly dry eyes or a constantly runny nose?” Yamaguchi asks, leaning against the kitchen counter while Kei makes their dinner that night. He’d somehow managed to rope Kei into entertaining a game of Would You Rather, despite how uncreative Kei often is with his own questions. He can at least admit it’s a good way to pass the time.

“Dry eyes,” Kei says.

“Really?”

He shrugs. “Sure. It’s not like this is a real scenario.”

“Yeah, but you’re meant to treat it like one,” Yamaguchi insists. He reaches over to pick a piece of chicken out of the pan, and Kei watches him without protesting. Yamaguchi pops the piece into his mouth before grimacing.

“Too hot?” Kei asks, trying to hide a smile.

Yamaguchi nods, pushing off from the counter and grabbing a small glass from the cabinet. He fills it with water and downs it in a matter of moments. Once his mouth isn’t burning, he says, “Jesus Christ.”

“That’s why you shouldn’t just take food from the pan while I’m still cooking.”

“Mean, Tsukki,” he mumbles. Louder, he reminds, “It’s your turn.”

“Would you rather be late to everything by a few minutes or early by an hour.” Kei doesn’t pose it as a question.

“Definitely early. I’m already anxious enough as is about being late to important stuff. You?”

“Early.”

“Okay, so my turn again. Um…” Yamaguchi sets the now empty glass on the counter, twisting his mouth up in a small, thoughtful frown and crossing his arms loosely over his chest. Neither of them has bothered changing into real clothes, so he’s clad in Donald Duck-print pajama pants and a paint-splattered t-shirt he might have taken from his dad’s closet. Even this is somehow charming to Kei, rather than just flat out dumb.

Kei’s getting seriously tired of everything being endearing, frankly. He wishes he could go back to when he wasn’t wildly aware of every way Yamaguchi’s hair sticks up or his shirt folds or his nose wrinkles. Just—God.

“Would you rather find true love or a million dollars?” Yamaguchi asks. Kei side-eyes him kind of uncertainly, to which he fidgets and defends, “It’s—a genuine question. Besides, you said it’s not like this is a real scenario.”

“A million dollars then.”

“Not even gonna think about it, huh,” he says but doesn’t push for a different answer. He returns to looking over Kei’s shoulder as he cooks, leaning into the counter. Like this, he’s standing closer to Kei than he was before, and it makes Kei uncomfortable conscious of his movements as he stirs the noodles. Yamaguchi nudges his side with an elbow gently. “Your turn, Tsukki.”

Kei, still stirring, asks the first question that comes to mind. “Would you rather go on a date with Tanaka or Nishinoya?”

Yamaguchi makes some kind of noise in surprise, almost like a hiccup if hiccups could be crossed with squawks. “What made you ask that?”

He shrugs like he doesn’t know. In reality, it’s probably because he’s still been thinking about Suzuki recently. After their conversation a few weeks ago, Yamaguchi hasn’t brought the guy up again other than to let Kei know briefly that he turned Suzuki down on an offer for another date. It doesn’t help that, like Yamaguchi mentioned, Hinata hasn’t shut up yet about him and Kageyama. Kei gets that their relationship is new and that they’re blindly navigating the whole “romantic feelings” thing, but he wishes he didn’t have to hear it, if only because focusing on it makes him think about and say stuff like this.

After his brief surprise, Yamaguchi considers the question seriously. He’s like that with this game. Even if it’s something blatantly ridiculous, he still takes a second to weigh the pros and cons.

“Tanaka,” Yamaguchi answers finally. Without prompting, he provides the explanation, “He’s not in a relationship already like Noya, and he’d be the kind of person to insist he pay no matter how expensive it ends up, and he’d spend the entire time cracking jokes to make his date laugh, which is kind of nice. Also…he’s only a few centimeters shorter than me, which I like more than always towering over Nishinoya.”

Kei looks back at the pan. “I didn’t realize that was something you cared about.”

“I mean, it’s not, like, a deal breaker, but I kind of like guys that are taller than me more.”

Oh. “What about with girls?”

“All sizes of girls are pretty,” he answers easily, which…Kei doesn’t really get, in the sense that he doesn’t think he’s ever looked at a girl and thought in any way other than objectively, you’re beautiful.

Which, also, isn’t a big deal. Kei’s known that for a while, that he’s never thought that about women, that he’s never gone weak-kneed around Kiyoko or been so nervous to impress a girl in his class that his heartrate picked up. He’s never been able to understand where Tanaka, Nishinoya, Yamaguchi, and Hinata come from when they talk about how cute Yachi is, even in the most innocuous or platonic of ways. He just…doesn’t see the appeal.

And for the most part, he doesn’t see the appeal in guys, either. Oikawa’s objectively hot, sure, and Daichi has nice legs by anyone’s standards, and Tanaka doesn’t spend so much time working out his abs for nothing, but it’s never been that sort of inherent, surrounding attraction that he hears everyone else experience. There have been moments, one or two guys that caught his attention, but for the most part Kei hasn’t been focused on stuff like that.

Until, of course, recently.

“My turn,” Yamaguchi says. He grins. “Kageyama or Hinata?”

“What?”

“To date. Since you asked Tanaka or Noya.”

Kei had not expected this to be where this went. He takes the finished meal off the stove, sliding the noodles and chicken into a large bowl on the counter and flipping the burner off. Just to humor Yamaguchi, he admits, “Kageyama.”

Yamaguchi laughs, a loud, startled sound. “What? Really?”

“Hinata’s too loud and would spend the whole time trying to make conversation and talking about annoying shit,” Kei elaborates quickly. He shouldn’t be embarrassed by this, but he can’t help it when his ears heat up as he speaks. “At least I’d suffer through the whole meal with Kageyama in silence, instead of with someone who’d try to make things work.”

Yamaguchi only laughs more, showing off the whites of his teeth. It reminds Kei of that wedding reception months ago, watching across the room as Yamaguchi’s lips pulled back and a laugh rose from his chest.

“That’s fair,” he says. “But what about looks? You really think Kageyama’s better looking than Hinata?”

“He’s certainly taller.”

A snort escapes him before he can cover it up. “Tsukki,” he chastises halfheartedly.

“You’re the one that just admitted you like tall guys more.”

“I mean, yeah, but still.”

Kei grabs two bowls from under the cabinet and sets them on the counter. Without being asked, Yamaguchi grabs utensils and fills two glasses with water for the two of them.

“I’d probably go with Hinata if we’re going by personality,” Yamaguchi muses as he follows Kei to the table in the dining room. Kei sets their dinner down. He passes a bowl to Yamaguchi, who fixes his portion before passing it back.

“That’s just because you two are friends.”

“Kageyama’s my friend too.”

Kei raises an eyebrow. Yamaguchi slides one glass across the table, keeps the other for himself, and sits down to start eating.

“Okay, fine,” he relents. “We’re not as good of friends as I am with Hinata. And it’s true that if, just, like, physically…”

Considering everything else they’ve said today, this shouldn’t surprise Kei, but he still can’t help but ask, “You think Kageyama is good looking?”

“He’s not bad looking.”

He sits down across from Yamaguchi, his chair scraping against the tile floor when he scoots it forward. He takes a bite of his food while he waits for Yamaguchi to continue. It’s not great, but it’s better than a frozen dinner.

“It’s just the tall thing again,” Yamaguchi mumbles. “And he’s kind of attractive when he isn’t scowling and, you know. And he’s definitely gotten a lot calmer this year, especially with Hinata. He’s…softer with him.” Kei must accidentally make a bewildered expression because Yamaguchi’s face heats up, and to his dinner he says, “I’m just saying that I sometimes get what Hinata sees in him.”

The expression hadn’t been a conscious one. After all, Kei can’t really judge, considering he also chose Kageyama when asked. It’s just that—for some reason—hearing that about being soft, and being calmer…it makes him think about Suzuki again.

He swallows his bite of noodles and says, “Would you see yourself happy dating him?”

Yamaguchi looks up from his bowl and blinks once, twice. “Where’d that come from?”

“Like we said.” Kei shrugs self-consciously. This is so stupid. “It’s not a real scenario.”

There’s a contemplative silence while Yamaguchi chews on the question. Kei stretches his legs out in front of himself, only to retreat again when his foot bumps into Yamaguchi’s.

“No,” Yamaguchi answers finally. “But that’s partly because I don’t know that I could be actually happy dating anyone that I didn’t already have a really strong connection with.”

He must have noticed Kei bump into him because Kei feels him reach out too, knocking their knees gently together, the kind of thing he might do as a comforting gesture, like how sometimes he’ll nudge Kei’s side with an elbow or touch his upper arm lightly. At the touch, Kei looks up, and Yamaguchi isn’t meeting his eye. Whether this is purposeful or not, Kei doesn’t know, but with his eyes lowered like that, his lashes look even longer than usual.

“Would you rather date Kageyama or Tanaka?” Kei asks.

This is another one that Yamaguchi has to think about, which he does while chewing his food. He washes it down with water, and Kei watches his throat move as he swallows. “Tanaka. He’d keep conversation going without needing me to talk the whole time.”

“Fair.”

“Would you rather date…” Yamaguchi bites his lip—a quick tug before releasing it again. In a rush he asks, “Would you rather date Kageyama or me?”

There’s a moment where Kei thinks he’s misheard, then he thinks he’s misinterpreted, but the longer he sits there only looking at Yamaguchi, the more visibly nervous Yamaguchi becomes, shifting in his seat and playing with his food. He opens his mouth—maybe to apologize, maybe to clarify, maybe to take it back—at the same time that Kei answers, “You.”

Which—what else was the answer supposed to be, regardless of how Kei’s felt the past few months? Even if he didn’t get distracted by Yamaguchi, would there ever be a universe in which he put another person over him, let alone someone he’s hardly friends with like Kageyama? It should be expected. It should have been a shocker if he didn’t choose him.

But Yamaguchi still looks like a deer in headlights. “Oh.”

And, because they’ve already reached this point, Kei asks, “Would you rather date Tanaka or me?”

The deer look disappears when Yamaguchi lowers his eyes back to his bowl. He’s arranged his food so all the chicken is nestled in even rows on top of the noodles. He moves one over to the left when he says, “You.”

Even with the knowledge that he should have seen that answer, even knowing that he gave the same one just moments earlier, Kei is still thrown a little off kilter by hearing it out loud. It’s the kind of thing that surprises him to have confirmed, like how he knew for years that Yamaguchi loved him and yet was still shocked the first time they actually said it.

He watches Yamaguchi rearrange the chicken again, this time into slender columns. Kei says, “Is it because I’m taller?”

Yamaguchi snorts, that kind-of-laugh that escapes when he’s caught off guard. “Oh, definitely, Tsukki.”

Things feel a little less odd with this there, his easy laugh and easy teasing—a little more normal.

--

After dinner, they go back to their earlier activity: watching Star Trek reruns on the couch.

The sun has gone down by now, casting the sky outside the living room window into darkness. They keep all the lights off, leaving only the glow of the TV to provide light, and grab chips and Oreos from the kitchen to snack on. Nestled under several layers of blankets with junk food and no interruptions, it’s the perfect film-watching experience.

Kei’s sitting cross-legged on the couch, Yamaguchi next to him with his feet propped up on the coffee table and the chip bag resting in his lap. The blankets they’re under are the ridiculously soft, expensive kind, one of which Kei actually bought Yamaguchi as a present one year, and Kei adjusts it so it covers his feet. Yamaguchi turns the bag so it’s facing Kei as if to offer him one, but Kei shakes his head. He’s still full from dinner.

One of the characters on screen worries over a malfunction. Even though Kei knows for a fact that Yamaguchi has seen this episode already—they went through a phase in middle school where basically the only things they watched were classic scifi shows and movies—he still looks completely engrossed in it, captivated into focusing all his attention on the eleven minutes of the episode they have left. When the stakes are raised, he doesn’t turn his eyes away from the screen.

He reaches vaguely in the direction of the Oreo package, and Kei nudges them towards his hand gently. He eats a few without taking his eyes off the screen once.

The episode is finally interrupted by a commercial break. Yamaguchi sinks back into the cushions and sighs like he’d been holding his breath that whole time.

Kei passes him a napkin. “Here. You have something on your face.”

“Oops. Thanks, Tsukki.” Yamaguchi takes it, but he misses the spot of chocolate when he goes to wipe his mouth. Kei gestures vaguely to the corner of his own lips, and Yamaguchi imitates him with an “Oh, okay.” He finally gets it, but not before making Kei uncomfortably aware of the whole—mouth. Area. Which, like Kei has said, is just the stupidest thing for him to be caught up on.

But he’s been caught up on a lot of stupid stuff lately. Like the fact that he can’t find music that doesn’t grate on his nerves; or the fact that Yamaguchi grew up and into himself while Kei wasn’t looking; or the fact that Yamaguchi turned a perfectly nice guy down, even when he was funny and sweet and good looking, because he can’t imagine being happy with him; or the fact that, of the whole three people Kei’s ever been attracted to in his seventeen years on this earth, his best friend just happens to be one of them; or the fact that his best friend isn’t just on that list of three people, but at the very top; or the fact that it’s driving him crazy, his best friend being good looking; or that he’s always noticing how Yamaguchi is good looking—

Or that he’s noticing that right now, with the TV’s glow turning his skin a shade of blue and his hair even darker, and his freckles look like smudges in the low lighting, barely visible, and with the last few minutes of the episode playing he sits with his back off the couch, his eyes wide as he watches, waiting for the resolution despite knowing it already, and it is so, so dumb for Kei to find that as endearing as he does, for Kei to think of it as something charming instead of just the way Yamaguchi is, instead of just a fact.

But it’s difficult not to.

The episode ends. Credits roll. Yamaguchi’s lips part as he sighs a second time, then turn up in an easy smile. They part again as if to speak, shaping something.

“…Tsukki?”

Kei blinks. He hadn’t meant to move closer, and he certainly hadn’t meant to lean in, but they’re sitting here, hardly breathing now with Kei’s face so close to Yamaguchi’s.

“Is something wrong?” Yamaguchi asks, eyebrows furrowed in worry and what might be confusion.

Kei closes his eyes and takes a slow, deep breath. Since they’re already close, it’s not a reach for him to slump over in defeat and bury his face in the crook of Yamaguchi’s neck.

“Tsukki?” Yamaguchi says again, and Kei can hear the frown in his voice there.

“I’ve been an idiot lately,” he mumbles, the words muffled into Yamaguchi’s shoulder. He can hear another episode starting up on the TV in front of them.

“What do you mean by that?”

I don’t know, Kei thinks helplessly. When he doesn’t say anything out loud, Yamaguchi continues, “Did you do something? Like, did something happen?”

“No.”

“Then what are you talking about?”

“I—“ think I could make you happy, he doesn’t say, and he doesn’t understand why he even wants to say that at all when it’s so dumb, and he’s sure Yamaguchi doesn’t remember what he said about Suzuki all those weeks ago. There is no point in saying it, but it’s the only sentence playing in his head right now, the only explanation for his behavior he has to offer.

He raises his head from Yamaguchi’s neck to meet his eye. Yamaguchi is frowning. He insists, “Tell me what you’re thinking right now.”

“Can I kiss you?”

There’s that moment like there was earlier of pure panic, a feeling of being completely out of his element, of having fucked up being repair, and it only increases when Yamaguchi just blinks. His eyes are wide, his face heating up visibly even in the dim lighting, and with every second that passes in silence, Kei’s stomach drops even further.

He opens his mouth to say—something, to apologize, or to take it back, or to make up an excuse or say that he’s only kidding, anything to try to repair the situation as much as possible—when Yamaguchi leans in.

He doesn’t kiss Kei immediately. There’s hesitation, where he knocks their knees together clumsily and they overlap where they’re sitting and the blankets start to slide off of them. And for that second they sit there, their noses centimeters apart, both just staring at each other and holding their breath, maybe hoping the other person will move first, or maybe waiting to see if either takes it back or freaks out.

When nothing happens, Yamaguchi inches forward and closes that last gap.

It’s soft. Miniscule. It only lasts a second, two seconds, three, a chaste press of their lips against one another before Yamaguchi pulls away again and they’re left just staring. Like this, Kei could count all of Yamaguchi’s freckles, all his eyelashes. He doesn’t think he’s ever been this close to someone else.

“Oh,” Kei says.

The TV is still playing. Some kind of explosion on screen happens at the same time that Yamaguchi agrees, “Oh.”

“Is that a good or a bad ‘oh’?”

Kei sees Yamaguchi’s eyes flicker to glance at his mouth then back up again. “Depends on what yours was.”

“Good.”

“Then…me too. I mean. Mine was a good ‘oh’ too.” Neither of them had moved from their close proximity post-kiss, but now he suddenly pulls back. He laughs, loud and pleased. “This is the most difficult way possible to talk about this.”

“Like I said,” Kei agrees. “I’ve been an idiot lately.”

“We both have.”

There’s a small grin left on Yamaguchi’s face from laughing. Or maybe that’s from the kiss.

“Tsukki,” Yamaguchi says. “Do you wanna go on a date sometime?”

Kei smiles.