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Tsukki was lying back on his bed, reading and listening to music, when Yamaguchi peered into his room. Mrs. Tsukishima had sent him up with a faint smile. Yamaguchi didn’t come by when her husband was home. Tsukki had never said anything about his father except to avoid him, and Tsukki didn’t give advice unless it was serious. Yamaguchi had only ever met him once and it had convinced him that Tsukki was absolutely right.
Tsukki pulled his headphones off one ear. “Hey.”
“Hi,” Yamaguchi said, stepping into the room.
“Shut the door,” Tsukki said.
Yamaguchi blushed and closed it carefully behind him. “Uh.”
“What?”
“N-nothing!”
Tsukki smirked and tugged his headphones all the way off. “You want to listen with me? Grab the splitter.” He waved a hand in the vague direction of, presumably, the splitter, and yawned.
Yamaguchi scrabbled through Tsukki’s desk while Tsukki proceeded to sigh or grumble at different volumes without ever actually offering to help. It was buried in the pen cup. Yamaguchi tidied things up a little until Tsukki snorted at him, which sent him scurrying over to the side of the bed. He stood there, shifting from foot to foot, until Tsukki looked at him over his glasses and said, “Well?”
Moving over to give Yamaguchi extra room would have required effort. Of course Tsukki wasn’t going to do that. Yamaguchi sighed and passed him the splitter. He pulled his own headphones out of his pocket and plugged them in beside Tsukki’s, then carefully lay down next to him—there wasn’t a ton of extra space on the bed. Tsukki hit play.
There was a cacophony of guitar and drums and lyrics that made Yamaguchi twitch before it resolved itself into something familiar. It was an older CD, one of Tsukki’s favorites. It was the middle of a song, too, so it took a moment for Yamaguchi to recognize the chorus.
You know I’ll never be lonely! You’re my only one, and I love the things, I really love the things that you do…
Yamaguchi swallowed quietly. He popped his head up to look at Tsukki. He had his eyes closed. His hand was splayed across the pages of the book he’d been reading, keeping his place but making no move to resume. Yamaguchi glanced at the door. Still closed. Tsukki liked the volume up so they probably wouldn’t hear if anyone was coming. Yamaguchi put his head back down, slowly realizing that he was lying shoulder to shoulder with his—
Was Tsukishima his boyfriend? Were they dating? He’d kind of just never wanted to leave Tsukki from the minute he met him, back in middle school. He’d spotted him, a head and shoulders above the rest of their class, gliding through the hallways with a bored expression. His music was perpetually playing, except when the teacher was talking or when he was practicing volleyball. They’d wanted him for basketball but he’d snorted and signed his name up to volleyball like anything else would be a stupid idea. Yamaguchi had felt his stomach flip and then he’d been signing up too, his name right next to Tsukki’s. The way it had been ever since then. Sometimes people didn’t even remember him as anything but Tsukki’s shadow. This was kind of unfair, but Yamaguchi didn’t really know what else to do about it. He wasn’t going to stop hanging around Tsukki.
They’d never said anything about dating. They’d never held hands or kissed. Yamaguchi wasn’t sure he even wanted to do that. He just wanted to be around Tsukki. That was plenty.
Tsukki shifted suddenly, lifting his left arm—the one closest to Yamaguchi—and then hooking it around his own head and scratching at his right ear. His eyes were open now, staring at the ceiling. Yamaguchi flipped onto his side. He’d felt like he was about to slide off the bed when he was on his back but on his side he slid further into Tsukki’s gravity, mashed up against him. Tsukki yawned and held his book up over his face. He started reading again.
It felt completely natural to drape his free arm over Tsukki’s stomach. His right arm was going to go to sleep, but—
Tsukki uncoiled his arm and tugged Yamaguchi’s arm out from underneath him. “Fold it under your head,” he said over the crescendoing rock music. Yamaguchi did, though his elbow was kind of stabbing into Tsukki’s ribs now. Tsukki winced and shifted away, just enough to get an inch of space between his chest and Yamaguchi’s elbow. “No, ow. Just lay on me, go ahead. You’re not going to be comfortable otherwise.”
Yamaguchi blinked at him. There was no way he was not going to climb on top of Tsukki and cuddle him, though. So he did. His head fit in the space between Tsukki’s shoulder and ear, and as long as he kept his weight to one side, it was sort of comfortable. They were both kind of bony in the rib area, but they fell into a pattern of breathing that left enough space that nothing hurt.
They fell asleep like that for a little while, Yamaguchi wearing Tsukki’s book like a hat. Mrs. Tsukishima found them, her son back to reading and studiously ignoring both her and the drooling boy laying on top of him, which was quite a surprising thing to be able to ignore. Mrs. Tsukishima gently poked Yamaguchi awake and asked him if he wanted to stay for dinner.
“He can’t,” Tsukki said flatly. He stood up when Yamaguchi did, readjusting his glasses and glaring down at her.
His mother nodded and left, her lips tight and eyes wet.
“See you later,” Tsukki said. The way he looked down at Yamaguchi, from the corners of his eyes, made it a question rather than a command. A shy question, too.
Yamaguchi smiled at him, nodded, and left until tomorrow.
THE END