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Tsukishima had always seen taunting people as a hobby.
It was something that brought him joy, so of course he stuck with it since he was such a difficult person to please. The two idiots were a blessing, they annoyed Tsukishima, but Tsukishima could get under their skin just as easily.
Of course, Hinata and Kageyama didn’t get any satisfaction out of it.
Kageyama was Tsukishima’s favorite to taunt.
He knew how much it bothered him, knew how much it messed with his mind. Kageyama’s past made Tsukishima’s present so much more interesting.
Every time he said “king”, Kageyama would tell him to “shut up”, Tsukishima’s response was always “make me.”
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“Hey, King!” Tsukishima called as Kageyama walked through the gym doors.
“Seriously, when are you going to stop with that?” Kageyama said through gritted teeth.
Tsukishima shrugged. “When it stops making you angry.”
“That’s it?”
“Yup.”
Tsukishima knew Kageyama would never be able to do it. He had the shortest temper he had ever witnessed in a person.
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“King,” Tsukishima said as they were in the club room, changing to go home. “Do you have any tape, I hurt my fingers during practice.” Tsukishima had his own tape, but he wanted to see how Kageyama would react to such subtle use of his taunt.
“Yeah, here.” He muttered, handing Tsukishima the tape roll.
It was the calmest he had ever seen Kageyama when talking to him, Tsukishima was so surprised that he didn’t even take the tape until Kageyama literally forced it into his hand.
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“What’s he planning?” Tsukishima muttered to himself as he sat on the bench.
Yamaguchi sat next to him. “Who?”
“Kageyama.” He narrowed his eyes, staring at said person. “He’s acting different.”
“He’s doing exactly what you said.”
“What?”
“He’s trying not to get angry so you won’t call him ‘King’ anymore.”
“I don’t like this.” Tsukishima grumbled, standing up and making his way back onto the court.
He picked up the nearest volleyball.
“King.” Tsukishima said, loud enough for him to hear.
Kageyama looked away from talking to Hinata.
“Here.” He set the ball.
Kageyama caught it. “Thanks..?” And he was back to talking to Hinata.
Huffing out a breath, Tsukishima trudged his way back to Yamaguchi.
“I really don’t like this.”
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Kageyama had been looking particularly grumpy that day.
Tsukishima decided he wanted to take another jab.
“King.”
Kageyama glared at him. “I’m not in the mood today.”
He grinned. “Why? Are your commoners not listening to you or something?”
“No, I’m just really not in the mood so if you could just not today that would be great.”
“King, I am offended, I’m just trying to be a good citizen under your power and you are shooting me down.”
“I don’t understand why you do this to me.” For the first time, Tsukishima heard Kageyama’s voice waver. He had never seen any other emotion than anger expressed through Kageyama.
Tsukishima frowned and didn’t talk to Kageyama for the rest of practice.
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“Do you think Kageyama has feelings?” Tsukishima asked as he and Yamaguchi were walking home.
“What?”
“Like, does the King have any other feeling than anger?”
Yamaguchi stopped walking. “Of course he does.”
Tsukishima stopped with him. “I mean, yeah of course, he’s human but—“
“I know what you mean, Tsukki. The only reason you’re thinking like that is because you refuse to look past his anger because for some reason you get a kick out of sticking him to his past.” Yamaguchi said with a monotone voice.
Tsukishima frowned as Yamaguchi started walking again, brushing past him and not waiting for him to catch up.
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Tsukishima went a few days without calling Kageyama ‘King’.
He started feeling antsy, the highlight of his day was usually taunting him or Hinata. Taunting Hinata didn’t have the same feeling as Kageyama. It wasn’t as satisfying.
Kageyama seemed to be in a better mood about a week after Tsukishima had stopped. So, he took this as the chance to put it back into his routine.
They were doing spiking practice, Tsukishima was up.
He ran, Kageyama tossed, Tsukishima jumped, and he purposely missed it.
“King, that’s not how I like my tosses, let’s not fall back into old habits, okay?”
“I don’t think you can even refer to me as King anymore.” Kageyama said quietly.
Everyone in the gym stopped, it was silent.
“Like, I’m sorry for making mistakes. I’m only human, just because I’m good at volleyball doesn’t mean I’ll be perfect every. single. time. I don’t even demand anymore. I’ve changed, you know I’ve changed, everyone here knows I’ve changed and they’ve all accepted it but you.” Kageyama stepped closer to him, jabbing a finger in Tsukishima’s chest. “I don’t like myself, okay?” He said louder. “But I’m trying my best, I can’t change in a day, and you bringing up my past every god damned second you get isn’t helping me either. If anything, you’re the one acting like a “King” now.” With that, Kageyama quickly turned around and stormed out of the gym. Tsukishima thought he even saw him bring a hand up to his face to wipe away a tear.
Tsukishima frowned as the gym remained silent. He turned to look at his teammates who all averted their gazes, except Yamaguchi who looked him straight in the eye and shook his head disapprovingly.
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“Don’t you think the King over reacted today?” Tsukishima asked as he and Yamaguchi entered his room. He threw his things next to his bed and sat down on the floor so they could do homework together.
He didn’t get a response.
“Like, is it just me, or are his King tendencies getting worse?”
Still silence.
“Yamaguchi, why are you ignoring me?”
Yamaguchi scrunched his eyebrows before looking up from his books. He had a heavy frown on his face that was honestly kind of scary. “Tsukki, I get that you like taunting people,” He finally said after a few seconds of silence. “That you’re not the nicest person in the world, but I also know that you’ve never gone to the extent to literally hurt someone; you like to harmlessly tease them, not make them hate themselves. You’re honestly acting like the bullies you rescued me from the day we met, and that’s truly pathetic. I know you’re better than that.” After the last word, Yamaguchi looked down at his books and continued working as if nothing happened.
Tsukishima stood. “I’m gonna go get some water.” He muttered before going to leave the room.
He walked down the hallway to the steps to go to the kitchen.
Was Yamaguchi serious? Was Tsukishima really acting that bad?
The more he thought about it, the more he realized that he actually was. He didn’t know why he enjoyed taunting Kageyama so much. Sure, his responses were funny, but obviously it stopped being funny a long time ago or else Yamaguchi wouldn’t have said anything.
After he grabbed his water, he wandered back up the stairs mindlessly.
“I need to apologize to Kageyama…” He said quietly as he reentered his room.
Yamaguchi looked up from his books. “What made you come to that conclusion?” He deadpanned.
“I’m not a good person, I’m just as bad as Kageyama used to be.”
Yamaguchi huffed out a laugh. “Well, acknowledging what you did was wrong is the first step to everything.”
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“Hey, Kageyama,” Tsukishima peeked his head into Kageyama’s classroom when their lunch period started.
Kageyama looked up from his desk, seeing it was Tsukishima. His confused stare confused Tsukishima. He kind of expected him to just yell to just get out of there. But, since that didn’t happen, he took that as the okay to walk into the classroom.
He held out a bento box, to which he just received another confused stare.
“It’s for you.”
Hesitantly, Kageyama took the lunch and set it on his desk. “Why?”
“Just open it.”
Slowly, he did. There was nothing in the box but a piece of paper.
Tsukishima cleared his throat and rubbed the back of his neck. “I couldn’t get the ingredients for pork curry and I really want to apologize, so will you let me take you out after practice?”
“What? Why would I let you take me out? After all you’ve done to me? You really thought I’d forgive you this easily?”
“I was hoping…”
“Well, you’d be wrong so you can take your money elsewhere, why would you need to waste it on a greedy king anyways.” He said sarcastically, quickly standing up from his seat and shoving past Tsukishima to exit the room.
Tsukishima stood there with a frown on his face before walking back to his own classroom to sit down next to Yamaguchi.
“I don’t think he’s going to forgive me.”
“If it were him I wouldn’t forgive you, either. You were such a dick to him, you can’t expect him to give in that easily.”
He didn’t even know how to respond to that. Tsukishima had never heard Yamaguchi call someone a dick before, and he never thought himself would be the first person he’d refer to one as.
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Throughout the next two weeks, Tsukishima tried at least once a day to try and get Kageyama to forgive him. However, Kageyama was being as stubborn as ever.
“Honestly, just give it up, I don’t care about your bullshit apologies.” Kageyama finally said.
“But I’m actually sorry…” Tsukishima muttered. And honestly, at first he really wasn’t, but now the guilt was really hitting him and he felt worse than he had in a while.
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“Have you ever screwed up so much it hurts?” Tsukishima asked as his brother had finally settled in from getting back from college.
“Where’d that come from?”
“I screwed up, like really bad.”
“Girl troubles?”
Tsukishima frowned. “Guy troubles, actually.”
Akiteru looked at him with wide eyes before Tsukishima realized what that sounded like. “Kei, I didn’t know—“
“I didn’t mean it that way!” He interrupted as his face started burning. “One of the guys on my team, I always taunt him but I guess he finally reached his breaking point and I just feel really bad because even Yamaguchi told me I screwed up.”
“Wow, even Tadashi, huh?” Akiteru closed his eyes for a second. “And you’ve tried apologizing to him already?”
“I’ve practically begged every day for two weeks.”
“Kei, what exactly did you do to him? This sounds like more than just taunts.”
Tsukishima sighed. “I make fun of his past.” Hearing it come out of his own mouth made it seem even worse.
The look Akiteru gave him just confirmed how bad it was.
He buried his face in his hands. “What do I do?”
“Make subtle efforts and let him come to you for your final result.”
“What?”
“That’s what I did with you.”
“What?”
-
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A month passed and all Tsukishima had done was try and be a little friendlier to him, stopped calling him King completely and even tried to be genuinely nice to him.
He could tell that Kageyama was confused by it, but honestly what about Tsukishima didn’t confuse Kageyama by this point?
“You’ve been really nice to me…” Kageyama finally said to him one day after practice. Tsukishima almost wanted to smile that he was finally acknowledging his efforts. “Is this just a calm before the storm kind of thing?”
His heart dropped a little. “No… I’m trying to actually be nice to you because I truly am sorry and just want your forgiveness.” Was that too strong?
Kageyama’s face started to turn red and Tsukishima thought he had blown it. “Maybe I’ll be willing to forgive you…” He muttered. “Is your offer for curry still on the table?”
He remembered back to when he had offered it about two months ago, and for the first time, Tsukishima was smiling at Kageyama for something that wasn’t bad. “Of course.”