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Everybody has always wanted something from him.
His dad wanted him to be the son who plays volleyball. Coach Washijo wanted him to be the unstoppable cannon. His allies wanted him to be an oppressive force. His enemies, to be another name on their list of great rivals.
Everybody wants something from him, expects things from him. For him to be Ushiwaka, the strongest, the best, the greatest. That was his sentence the day he picked up a volleyball for the very first time.
From then on, Ushijima Wakatoshi has been surrounded by volleyball.
Even the simplest thing about him, his left-handedness, gets engulfed by this sport. Defining him when he never even worked for it, never asked for it. Somewhere along the way, because of this, he started hitting the ball like it was his enemy. Slowly, he became that player, the ace, the force and the rival that everybody wanted him to be.
If everybody wanted something from him, he’ll make it so that it is his head on a silver plate.
When Tendou Satori found out that Wakatoshi was left-handed, he said that he must be really good at closing jars.
It annoyed him that he couldn’t place the sensation brought on by that offbeat compliment. No one cares about how well you can tighten the lid on a jar. The real challenge, Wakatoshi remembers mulling over with himself, is opening the jar.
But then something peculiar happened. Wakatoshi started noticing how much more natural the clockwise turn to screw on a jar lid was for his left hand. He began to really put his weight into sealing jars, taking pride in the difficulty met by those trying to open jars that he had sealed.
In those instances, it felt like his left-handedness finally belonged to him. He wasn’t only Ushiwaka Japan, the super ace.
And then, there was Miracle Boy, Tendou’s nickname for him.
It came out so effortlessly one day during practice. Wakatoshi can’t even remember what exactly he was doing to prompt such a designation. At a glance, it felt no different than any of the various monikers volleyballers would give him. But Wakatoshi never felt that it confined him in the way that Super Ace and The Lefty did. Miracle Boy, it associated him with a gentleness that no one has ever attributed to him before.
It made him feel like—well, a boy, a simplicity he never had the privilege of experiencing, growing up as a prodigy.
Without even trying, Tendou was the first to offer Wakatoshi glimpses of his life as a separate entity from volleyball. For the next three years, Wakatoshi continued to secretly steal glances of the world Tendou inadvertently created for him, stowing himself away in it when the one he currently occupied was too much.
Now, in their third year, they have lost to Karasuno and Tendou is declaring that he will be quitting volleyball after high school. In the seconds it took for Tendou to utter those words, Wakatoshi’s very settled existence up until that point undid itself.
Wakatoshi, who is much more perceptive than people give him credit for, came to a realization. At that moment, all the pieces seemed to fall together, the reason why Tendou plays volleyball. He didn’t have to say it, it was clear as day in his resolve to quit, written into the crevices between his words, baring itself in his pleas to not be forgotten, like the fangs of a wolf. They threaten to tear at Wakatoshi’s flesh.
Farewell, my paradise. Tendou’s paradise, it wasn’t a sport, it wasn’t even a place.
And that unsettled Wakatoshi, perturbing him more than losing to Karasuno ever could.
Tendou leaves before they can even finish their cooldown stretches. Wakatoshi cannot bring himself to look away as Tendou gets up from the floor and stalks off towards the changeroom. Wakatoshi is nailed into place, crucified by such a desperate admission.
So even Tendou wanted something from him.
It really bothers him. The more he thinks about how much it bothers him, the more the ground below him becomes like a heap of burning coal. He leaps to his feet as if it were true.
Tendou. He has red hair, the first thing Wakatoshi noticed about him. He sticks out like a sore thumb from the Shiratorizawa lineup and Wakatoshi willingly fades into the background of Tendou’s electrical fire existence. When people are too busy being annoyed by his antagonistic improvised jingles and crushed by his unpredictable and devastatingly accurate blocks, they’re not paying attention to or expecting anything from Wakatoshi.
Tendou. He talks a lot and Wakatoshi finds a strange comfort in just listening; because, whatever it is that Tendou is going on about, he manages to make it seem like the most interesting thing in the world. The fact that he never talks about volleyball is just an added bonus.
Tendou. That idiot. He really believes that Wakatoshi can do anything. Really, anything. Not just volleyball. Anything. Everything.
The astounding part is that he has made Wakatoshi believe it too.
Wakatoshi’s outside the changeroom. His ears are hot, the tips heating up like they’re on fire. His entire body, actually, feels like it’s burning up. He fills with an emotion akin to annoyance, bordering on maybe anger, that he can’t quite place.
He pushes the door open and he can hear the hinges groan at the force. It hits the wall with a smack but he’s already too far into the room and too far determined to look back and check in on its state.
He finds Tendou just standing there, leaning against the locker as if he was expecting him. Wakatoshi is flooded with that unnamable emotion again. He can sense it etching itself onto his face, but Tendou, who is looking at him, able to read the expression, does not cower or look fearful in the slightest.
“You came,” says Tendou. His arms were crossed in front of him, but have now migrated to behind his back.
“All of my stuff is here,” Wakatoshi replies, though he knows that is not what Tendou is talking about.
“That’s not what—”
“I know,” Wakatoshi cuts him off. The tone of his voice, he’s never heard it before, but he has felt the emotion that it’s laced with. He feels it whenever he looks at Tendou and struggles to place the sudden dryness in his mouth or the clamminess of his palms. He felt it when they were stretching, when Tendou spoke. “How could I not?” He feels it now.
Wakatoshi steps forward, his chest still pounding with the indiscernible annoyance he has been enduring. He places both hands against the lockers, at one and eleven of Tendou’s head. Their faces hover inches apart.
“I did not know you could be so desperate,” Wakatoshi says, the directness of his statement surprising him. He would be taken aback by the cruelty of his word choice if Tendou were not grinning.
“Are you touched?” comes Tendou’s response, cleverly in the form of a question. His eyelids fall ever so slightly and he gazes up at Wakatoshi through his eyelashes.
“I am moved,” replies Wakatoshi and he acts before Tendou can offer another quip. Steadily, he brings one hand down to Tendou’s face, grabbing it by the jaw, and dives forward to press his lips against his.
In the suddenness of it all, their teeth collide and they both grunt. But then, they’re just kissing, standing there, connected to each other by their mouths. Wakatoshi has never kissed anyone before, so he just stays there, holding his breath, intensely aware of the softness of Tendou’s lips against his.
If it weren’t for the electric current running through him right now, it would probably be very weird and not good in the slightest. He wonders then if Tendou might not be enjoying this, pulling back to check in on him.
Tendou’s eyes are still closed when Wakatoshi opens his to look at him. His lips sit momentarily in a pucker until they register the absence of Wakatoshi’s, settling thus into a serene smile. “My heart is racing,” Tendou says, so brazen in his honesty.
“You should not have left during cooldown stretches.”
Tendou hums and doesn’t bother to correct Wakatoshi’s assessment. He knows that Wakatoshi knows what he meant.
“You should grab your stuff and go,” Tendou says.
Only then, does it really register with Wakatoshi that they are alone in the room. He heats up at the possibility of a witness to the moment he and Tendou just shared.
Wakatoshi obeys, grabbing his things and exiting wordlessly.
Everything seems different now, as if time has separated itself into before he kissed Tendou and after he kissed Tendou, with the kiss as a moment that exists beyond it all.
He passes by people and it seems like every one of them is looking at him like they know, despite there being no way that they could. He finds his way to the rest of the team. They’ve all presumably boarded the bus, outside which Coach Washijo stands, looking unimpressed by Wakatoshi’s tardiness and overall AWOL-ness.
Followed by a stream of scolds, Wakatoshi boards the bus and takes a seat. There is a lot of chatter for a bus full of teenage volleyball players who just lost their chance at Nationals. Wakatoshi drowns it all out, gazing out the window with a silence everyone currently on the bus would read simply as his typical brooding. All he can think about is Tendou, and his red hair, and his chattiness, and his smile, and his mouth, and his kiss, and his stupid, unabashed honesty that cuts through Wakatoshi like a butcher’s knife.
The bus engine starts with a sputter. Wakatoshi, lost in thought, is startled. His eyes dart to the front of the bus. Tendou is shuffling down the aisle and Coach Washijo is grumbling after him about how one more minute and they would have left him behind. Wakatoshi meets Tendou’s gaze just in time to see him snicker, letting the scolds roll off his back.
“Scooch,” Tendou says, settling into the bus seat next to Wakatoshi, who lets out a breath he had no idea he was holding.
Perhaps, a small insecure part of him fretted over whether or not Tendou would want to speak to him again after their last encounter—even if Tendou is the last person who would care about that stuff.
Wakatoshi finds himself smiling as he watches Tendou rifle through his overstuffed bag to fish out an issue of Shonen Jump. It looks new, save for the slight crumple in the cover page from having been shoved into a sports duffle bag. He does not seem to notice that he’s being watched.
Tendou liked to read on bus rides when he couldn’t lean across the aisle to bug Semi. Every time, it made him dizzy to the point he’d have to sleep it off. This ride is no exception and halfway through, Tendou lets the magazine fall into his lap as he leans back and nods off.
Once he starts softly snoring, his hand, having now gone limp, slides off from where it was resting on his thigh and into the space between him and Wakatoshi. It lands palm up and Wakatoshi stares at it like he has just been handed a gun.
He sets his hand down next to it with intent, but stops himself at the last minute to ponder his next move. He wants to hold Tendou’s hand, lace his fingers through his. But he’s asleep and Wakatoshi worries that he could be traversing a boundary he shouldn’t be.
His eyes dart back and forth, looking at Tendou’s hand and at his. Then, like an answer to the question plaguing him, Tendou’s thumb twitches, beckons, and Wakatoshi finds a happy medium by hooking his index finger onto it.
He spends the rest of the ride staring at their hands, mainly his. This hand, his left hand, it made Wakatoshi feel like a being so different from those around him. The fuss his father caused over it. In this moment, however, because of this hand, he’s never felt closer to the one person he’s been dying to get him.
When they get back to school, Washijo keeps his promise and has them performing drills until well after the sun sets. He lets them go with just enough time to wash up and grab dinner before the dining hall closes.
Wakatoshi doesn’t run into Tendou again until he finds himself outside Tendou’s room later that night. He knocks.
“Come in,” he hears Tendou’s voice say from the other side of the door.
Wakatoshi pushes it open and stands in the doorway. The lights are on, but Tendou is curled up in his bed, buried under the covers. It’s like he was expecting him once again. Wakatoshi wonders if he really is that predictable.
“Turn off the light,” Tendou says, pulling back the comforter and making space for Wakatoshi on the outer half of the bed.
Wakatoshi does as told. He switches the lights off and he feels his way through the darkness, illuminated only by the moonlight. He sits on the edge of Tendou’s bed. It is clearly not big enough for two people, but Tendou shifts to accommodate the space that Wakatoshi occupies as he settles in under the covers.
Wakatoshi lies on his side, facing away from the wall and away from Tendou, who has wrapped his arms around Wakatoshi’s waist and is exhaling warm breaths into his back.
“You were great today,” whispers Tendou, his words are felt against Wakatoshi’s spine. Wakatoshi shivers.
“I didn’t play well by any means,” Wakatoshi replies. His hands, he wasn’t sure what to do with them, so he has them tucked under his head like a pillow.
“I wasn’t talking about your playing,” Tendou reveals, as if the truth of the matter is very simple despite it being very unobvious to Wakatoshi. “I was talking about you.”
In an act of boldness, he presses a chaste kiss to the back of Wakatoshi’s neck. Wakatoshi’s eyes widen at the impact, almost missing Tendou’s next words: “You don’t have to play great to be great, you know.”
Wakatoshi rolls over to face Tendou. The moonlight leaking into the room strikes the inches of space between them like a blade, a box cutter opening up a tightly bound package, so that finally, finally Wakatoshi can see inside.
So everyone wants something from him. Even Tendou. And Wakatoshi first thought that recognizing it would bother him. At this moment, however, he finds himself wholly untroubled by this knowledge. It is actually the uncertainty with which his heart pounds that disturbs him the most. It is the clarity that inconveniences him, that comes to him so suddenly as Tendou shifts forward. He strategically nestles his face into Wakatoshi’s chest so that his lips meet exposed skin.
“Tendou, you are also great,” Wakatoshi finds himself saying.
Without budging, Tendou asks, “Is that a confession?” His words are contained in an exhale that tickles Wakatoshi’s skin.
“Yes,” answers Wakatoshi without even having to think about it. He is surprised at Tendou’s boldness rubbing off on him.
Embarrassed, Tendou whines. “Shut up.” Tendou’s hands tighten their hold on Wakatoshi, his fingers pushing into the firm muscles of Wakatoshi’s back. “You have no idea what you’re saying.”
“So you can be in love with me, but I can’t be in love with you?”
There is a beat of silence and the room fills with the ambient sounds of the night. Tendou’s grip on Wakatoshi slackens. Wakatoshi can just barely sense the presence of Tendou’s fingers through the fabric of his t-shirt.
The bed creaks and Wakatoshi can faintly make out the sound of the bed sheets rustling as Tendou repositions himself to meet his stare. The look he gives Wakatoshi communicates wariness and a warning. You better not be fucking with me, it says.
Meekly, Wakatoshi shakes his head. “I’m serious,” he assures him. He purses his lips, tightening his brow to communicate his determination and the veracity of his feelings. It seems to work. Wakatoshi hears a sigh of relief come from Tendou’s side of the bed, followed by a chuckle.
“I know you’re trying to convince me of your intentions, but you look really constipated right now,” Tendou jokes, to which Wakatoshi rolls his eyes.
“Satori.”
As if a direct reaction to hearing his given name uttered, Tendou’s eyes disappear as he bashfully scrunches up his face, letting out an accompanying groan. “Okay, I get it,” he mutters, his briefly averted gaze settling back on Wakatoshi’s face.
Cautiously, Tendou removes his hands from where they were on Wakatoshi’s back, weaving them out from under his arms. They glide up his chest, resting on the back of Wakatoshi’s neck. With apprehension, Tendou shifts himself up and simultaneously pulls Wakatoshi down to connect their lips.
Wakatoshi isn’t sure if it is the fatigue of a long, arduous day, but he readily sinks into the kiss, matching the movements of Tendou’s mouth and protectively wrapping his arms around his waist. Eyes closed, Wakatoshi feels his mind empty of all the thoughts that have raced through it since the match against Karasuno, including the crushing loss.
Right now, the only agitation facing Wakatoshi is the dizzying strangeness of kissing Tendou. He doesn’t even detect the tension in his face until he senses Tendou’s fingers, brushing against the scrunch of his clamped shut eyes, urging the muscles to relax.
They don’t pull apart until Wakatoshi, who had forgotten to breathe, pulls away breathlessly. Eyes having adjusted to the dark, they narrow in on Tendou’s face. He’s wearing that expression again, the upward glance through his eyelashes that prompted Wakatoshi to kiss him the first time. He leans down, like a reflex, pressing a kiss to each of Tendou’s eyelids, enjoying the ease of this new territory they’re entering together.
Everybody wants something from him. Tendou is just the first person from whom Wakatoshi wants something in return. No one has ever before allowed him to indulge in the delight of getting to be himself.
He prays that Tendou’s expectations of him stay the way they are forever.