Chapter Text
Getting up in the morning had never been much of a hassle for Tsukishima, but Saturday mornings tended to be a little more difficult than any other days of the week. Now that he was living on his own, he had to get money somehow, and that was what had pushed him to hand out resumes in every single store that seemed to be tempted to hire him if they needed someone. After a week of waiting to be called back, a small shop that he hadn’t thought much about at first contacted him for a job. It was a very small photo place where people could come and print pictures, take passport photos or order products like t-shirts and mugs with pictures printed on them. It was nice, paid minimum wage, and it wasn’t exhausting like a restaurant job would’ve been. Really, it was great. Except it was a disaster.
The dictionary’s definition of a disaster: an occurrence causing widespread destruction and distress; a catastrophe or a grave misfortune. Yes, that was what it was. A disaster.
The morning of the disaster, Tsukishima woke up groggy, cold and upset. Normally, he didn’t give in to childish urges, but he went for a five more minutes and pressed snooze on his phone. This was his second weekend working at the photo place and he already felt like he might’ve taken his free weekends for granted all summer.
He got up a little later than usual, but he still managed to get ready and look proper before he left to take the bus. His apartment wasn’t far away from one of the most crowded bus stop in the neighbourhood, so he quickened his step to make sure that, if he’d miss his bus because there were too many people taking it and he’d have to take the one after that, he still wouldn’t be late. People running into him wasn’t as irritating as it used to be when he first moved to Tokyo, since he was slowly getting used to it. He felt like this was something he should be recognized for, in all honesty.
He caught his bus on time and arrived to his work place 10 minutes before his shift started. His day started smoothly, he had an average of two clients every hour and that was just enough for him, because he had screens to clean and 35mm films to develop in the darkroom. As he was drying off some strings of film that were done developing, he heard the bell of the door ting. It was the first day that he was working on his own, so he couldn’t assume that someone else was going to take care of it and had to drop everything to go assist the client. He hung the pieces of film and put the undeveloped pellicles away in a closed box. Once he was back into the client area, he noticed someone standing at the self-serving machine who were scratching their head. Tsukishima assumed they needed help, so he walked up to the person to offer his assistance in the nicest way he could.
“Hi,” he started off simply, waiting for the client to turn around and look at him, or talk to him, anything.
He was rapidly acquainted with a strange smile and surveying eyes. Tsukishima backed off one step, his professional half-nice expression falling right off. “Hello”, the man answered as he kept smiling, his traits softer than they were seconds before.
The worker frowned, his eyebrows falling in line with the edge of his glasses. The client laughed, because apparently that was funny. “Did you need help?”
Tsukishima couldn’t have been colder if he had tried. “Guidance, maybe,” the black haired man answered, turning back to the machine after he stopped speaking. Tsukishima took the time he had while he was standing a step back to evaluate what kind of guy he was standing next to. Tall, but not taller than him. That would’ve been surprising anyway. His hair was dark and weirdly styled, or maybe it wasn’t styled at all. It was barely 10 o’clock in the morning on a weekend, after all.
But there was something about the way he was talking and the way he was standing that made Tsukishima uneasy. He figured he probably had that effect on people too. “Ok, what are you looking to do?”
The man scoffed at Tsukishima’s tone, brushing his bangs away from his face only to have it fall back in the exact same spot. He didn’t seem to mind it, so maybe that was just a nervous habit. “This picture, I have to get a copy of it for every member of my team. We pulled the short straw and I lost,” he ended with a face like this was the funniest thing in the world. Tsukishima only blinked at him.
“Alright,” the employee chanted in his most enthusiastic voice, “you’ll have to put it in the scanner there.”
Tsukishima guided the man through the process of scanning the picture and picking the quantities desired on the machine, which took a couple of minutes. After that, he was out the door and would only come back an hour later to get his printed pictures.
When Tsukishima launched the printing on the computer, he saw a preview of the picture on his screen. He hadn’t seen the picture before because the man had put it face down on the scanner before he could catch a glimpse of it. He wasn’t exactly curious, but he was able to see it now, so he looked at it. It was a picture of a sports team, as expected, but something caught his attention: the client with the crazy hair was standing in the middle of the picture, holding a volleyball. Of course it had to be a volleyball.
Tsukishima sighed as he walked around, waiting for the pictures to be chemically printed on the paper and end their journey inside the printer so he could look at them from up close. It was actually a rule that they weren’t allowed to look at client’s pictures unless they wanted them too and he hadn’t gotten an ok from Crazy Hair Guy, so technically he was doing something bad, but there was no one else there to know.
There was a total of 13 pictures, one for each team member, and they were all smiling wide, looking like they were all such good friends with each other. Tsukishima’s nose instinctually scrunched up.
Friends weren’t a foreign concept to him. He had Yamaguchi, who was even going to the same university as him now. Having your entire team as friends seemed like more of a hassle than a fun experience though, so he gazed at the pictures with disgust. In his attempt to find a good side in being in this many friendships, he sat down and studied the pictures with seriousness. They were from another university than him, probably a better one. Maybe they were just friends for the picture. Maybe they hated each other. That would make more sense.
Tsukishima remembered his 3 years at Karasuno high school as one big mess of unnecessary friendship. Like he had found out earlier, the only friend he had that was worth mentioning was Yamaguchi and he didn’t feel the need to call anyone else from that godforsaken team his friend. Hinata was ok at times, but he really wasn’t someone Tsukishima could stand on the long term. He didn’t even want to think about Kageyama, or Nishinoya. He would take ten Hinatas before he’d take one of these guys again.
No, being friends with all the guys from your team was impossible. It was gross, even. Of course, he had had moments of weakness where he softened up for some of his teammates, but he never considered them his friends.
The fraternity on the pictures almost ended up making him feel sick. Why was he still looking at them? He decided to put them away in an envelope and leave them on the counter where they belonged.
Tsukishima went back to his business in the darkroom only to hear the bell ring again 15 minutes later. When he came back, Crazy Hair Guy was standing next to the counter, laying an elbow on it. The worker picked up the envelope on his way and ringed up the total without saying anything.
“So,” the guy started suddenly, breaking the silence and making Tsukishima jump internally, “how did they look?”
“Oh,” Tsukishima replied as he frowned in surprise, “just fine. You can look, if you want.”
The client picked up the envelope and took out its content. He looked at the pictures for a while, smiling a little the whole time he did. “Familiar with volleyball?”
Tsukishima was definitely taken aback by that question. It had been a while since he had met someone who didn’t know that already. “Mmh, yeah. I played in high school.”
“Oh, really?” The man was quickly very interested. “Where you from? Maybe I played you once.”
“I doubt it. I’d remember you.”
The tone was final, probably a little weird too, but it seemed to shut him up. When Tsukishima thought he was finally free of the volleyball questions, he saw that there was a huge shit-eating grin on the guy’s face. “I think I’d remember you too, blondie.”
What on earth was this guy’s deal? Tsukishima wanted to call the police, or, no, the pound. “That’ll be a total of 1480 yen.”
The client hummed, grabbing his wallet from the back of his pants. He still had that satisfied smile on his lips. “Sure, whatever you say. Why won’t you come over to our gym one day? If you’re bored.”
Tsukishima took the money the man handed to him and placed it in his cash register. “I have very entertaining hobbies already, thank you.”
Crazy Hair Guy just laughed before he turned away and started leaving. “If you change your mind, just come and ask for Kuroo. I’ll fix it up for you.”
Tsukishima kept his mouth shut until the doors of the store closed behind the man. “No thanks,” he then breathed out angrily.
-
Kuroo Tetsurou had a weird feeling in his guts as he walked back to his place. Meeting new people wasn’t a rare thing for him, and this guy hadn’t exactly left a good first impression, so he was really at a loss. He decided to pay no mind to it and go on with his day without dwelling on it. He had the pictures he had promised his team a week ago and that was all that mattered.
He only lived 5 minutes away from the store, so it didn’t take him long to get back, change and catch a bus to go over to his university grounds. There was a practice starting at noon and he wanted to bring the pictures for everyone.