Archive of Our Own

Ushijima Wakatoshi treated his life with the exact same terrifying consistency he brought to the volleyball court. While the rest of the student body stumbled into morning lectures half-asleep, pale-faced and clutching oversized energy drinks, Ushijima was awake long before the sunrise. He operated on a flawless, unyielding algorithm: he attended every lecture, submitted his academic assignments days ahead of schedule, and trained with a brutal, mechanical intensity that made the university underclassmen fear him just a little. When the day was done, he returned to his dorm room to study in complete, monastic silence like a man twice his age, his life neatly categorized into predictable, efficient boxes. Nobody had ever seen him cram for an exam. Nobody had ever seen him drunk. Rumor had it he once reminded a professor they had forgotten to assign homework.

He was, unfortunately, that kind of person.

Some people thought he was intimidating. Others thought he was painfully boring. Ushijima had the soul of a sixty-year-old salaryman trapped inside the body of a Division One volleyball star.

And granted, he liked his routine. He liked knowing where he needed to be and what needed to get done. There was comfort in discipline, in the predictability of packed schedules and sore muscles and quiet evenings spent studying while everyone else destroyed their sleep schedules. His life worked exactly the way he wanted it to.

One of his oddly-specific habits was doing laundry at one in the morning every Monday and Thursday after practice. As a college athlete, once a week simply was not enough. Between practice jerseys, training clothes, towels, and the endless cycle of sweat-drenched shirts, his laundry basket became unmanageable frighteningly fast. So early into freshman year, Ushijima had settled into this system.

The timing was ideal, as most of the dorm was asleep or too exhausted to care about laundry. The machines were usually empty, the room quiet. He could wash everything in one load, dry it immediately after, fold it neatly at the long metal table in the corner and return to his room by two am without interruption.

Until that night of mid-November.

After a late practice that had dragged on long enough for even Ushijima to feel tired, the routine that had gone unchanged for months finally broke.  His practice bag felt heavier than usual as he made his way down to the basement laundry room, shoulders sore beneath his hoodie, already looking forward to the familiar quiet waiting for him there. Fluorescent lights buzzed softly overhead, the air smelling faintly of detergent and warm cotton.

He pushed open the door and stopped short.

Every machine was running. Every dryer, every washer: they were all in use. They rumbled in steady rhythms, the dryers spinning lazily beside rows of empty plastic chairs nobody ever used. Piles of clothes sat on counters, and something was beeping somewhere in the corner.

...Huh?

This couldn’t be right. He stood motionless in the doorway and glanced at the clock again: 1:01 a.m.

No one was there, which made even less sense as several washers had already stopped spinning. He stepped further inside slowly, eyes scanning the room. One dryer door sat slightly open, warm clothes abandoned inside like whoever owned them had simply disappeared mid-task. A pile of neatly folded shirts rested unattended on one of the counters.

Who would fill every machine in the laundry room and then leave? More importantly, why would they leave finished loads sitting there? It was inefficient. Mildly inconsiderate too, if he was being honest.

Whatever. He’d try again tomorrow, it was not a serious problem. Ushijima was not so dependent on routine that one missed laundry night would destroy him. He could simply come back tomorrow. Right? Right.

With that logical conclusion reached, he picked up his untouched laundry bag and returned upstairs. The moment he dropped the heavy bag back onto the floor of his dorm room, irritation settled unpleasantly into his chest. Because now the bag was still there. Full. And tomorrow he would have classes, practice, studying, and less free time than usual because laundry was supposed to already be finished tonight. Now the system was all wrong...

He went to sleep mildly annoyed.

The frustration followed him into the next day. Not enough to ruin his routine, obviously. He still woke up on time, attended his lectures, took notes properly, ate a healthy lunch and went to practice as usual. But throughout the day, the unresolved laundry situation lingered unpleasantly in the back of his mind. By the time practice ended, he had convinced himself the issue would naturally resolve itself. Surely nobody monopolized an entire laundry room two nights in a row. That would be ridiculous.

So at exactly one in the morning, Ushijima returned to the basement carrying an even heavier laundry bag than before — only to stop dead in the doorway.

Every machine was occupied again.

A washer beeped somewhere in the back and the lights buzzed overhead with all the warmth of a hospital hallway. Now this was becoming concerning. Or competitive, he was not entirely sure which.

This time, there was evidence of an actual person behind the crime. A hoodie had been abandoned on top of one of the dryers — bright red, carelessly folded. Beside it sat an open bag of sour gummy candy and a half-finished bottle of sports drink. Whoever this person was, they had either stepped out briefly or possessed an alarming amount of confidence leaving their belongings unattended. His brows knitted faintly.

He decided to adapt. Clearly, 1 a.m. was no longer viable. Fine. He could be flexible. Though he was not the type to simply “go with the flow”, volleyball had taught him that when one path was blocked, you adjusted. If a blocker closed one angle too aggressively, he simply hit the exact opposite direction instead. This was no different: the laundry room had become obstructed, therefore, he would find another opening. No problem.

He returned to his dorm room, completed two chapters of assigned reading, showered, and waited. At exactly three in the morning, he changed into sweats, collected his laundry bag once more, and quietly padded back down the hallway toward the basement with the calm determination of a man preparing for battle. This time, surely, the machines would be free.

Wrong. Every machine was still running.

At this point he wasn’t just frustrated, no, he was puzzled! This was his time. Who else was here at these hours?

He stood silently in the doorway, staring at the rows of humming machines like they had personally insulted him. His fingers tightened slightly around the strap of his duffel bag.

Now…Ushijima was not used to losing. More importantly, he was not used to his life refusing to cooperate with him. His schedule worked because he made it work. Practice, classes, studying, sleep, everything fit together precisely the way it was supposed to. This bizarre laundry-room rivalry had somehow thrown his entire week off balance.

He did not like it at all. His stubbornness took over: if no machine was available now, then he would simply wait until one became available. Problem solved. He set his bag down beside the wall outside the laundry room and sat heavily on the floor, arms folded across his chest with the quiet determination of a man preparing for a siege. The dryers rumbled endlessly on the other side of the door.

Five minutes passed. Then ten. At some point, exhaustion finally caught up to him. His head tipped back against the wall, eyes growing heavier and heavier beneath the harsh hallway lights until, without realizing it, they slipped shut completely. When he opened them again, sunlight was pouring through the basement stairwell windows. His heart dropped.

Shit. Class.

He shot upright so quickly his shoulder slammed into the wall behind him. He immediately reached for his phone.

8:47 a.m ...He was about to miss his first lecture.

For three horrifying seconds, Ushijima simply stared at the screen in disbelief. This had literally never happened before. He gave up on the laundry mystery entirely, there were larger problems now. He rushed back upstairs, showered in record time, and tossed the clothes he had just changed out of into - unfortunately - an already overflowing laundry basket. The thing was becoming structurally concerning. He grabbed his bag and headed to class at a speed most people would probably classify as sprinting, though on Ushijima it still somehow looked composed.

When he arrived late, several classmates visibly looked up in surprise. One person even checked the clock. He ignored them and sat down silently, but the entire day felt wrong afterward.

Practice went worse than usual. His spike timing was off by half a second, which for him might as well have been catastrophic, as that meant he was getting blocked much more often. And to make matters worse, he was officially running out of clean practice shorts. Even his teammates noticed. Whispers about his weariness reached him through light-hearted teasing, especially when they caught the faint sourness clinging to his kneepads, another symptom of his disrupted routine.

The situation had escalated beyond inconvenience. He needed to do laundry tonight. Non-negotiable.

By the time 1 a.m. rolled around again, Ushijima marched toward the basement with cold determination. If every machine was occupied again, he was going to remove someone’s abandoned clothes himself. Honestly, whoever it was leaving their clean clothes inside the machines had forfeited laundry rights at this point!

He pushed open the door, fully prepared for battle—and froze. Every machine was empty. Six available washers. Four unused dryers. No red hoodie. No gummy candy. No evidence anyone had even been there at all. The room looked untouched, like the past three nights had been a hallucination specifically designed to torment him. He set down his bag, a little unsure, frowning.

Had it all just been a fluke? One weird, inconvenient week?

He shook his head as relief settled in. He loaded his clothes into a machine, closed the door, and sat down against the wall. The quiet hum was the same as always. Just the way he liked it.

Weird, but he will take it. He would accept the victory. He loved winning.

He loaded his clothes into a washer, shut the door, and sat against the wall while the machine rumbled steadily to life beside him. The familiar hum filled the room again, low and predictable and wonderfully uninterrupted.

Just the way he liked it.

Strange situation aside, he was willing to move on. And apparently, so was the universe.

The next several weeks passed without incident. Every Monday and Thursday at exactly one in the morning, Ushijima returned to the basement like clockwork. The machines remained empty. The room stayed quiet. No mysterious red hoodie. No abandoned candy. No inexplicable late-night laundry warfare. Gradually, he felt himself relax again.

Sometimes he reviewed lecture notes while he waited for cycles to finish. Sometimes he stretched after practice, long legs sprawled across the cold tile floor. Other nights, he simply sat there in silence listening to the rhythmic churn of water through the washers, head tipped lightly back against the wall. Everything had returned to normal.

His routine slid back into place with such perfect efficiency that it almost felt embarrassing how much the disruption had bothered him in the first place. His practice gear stayed clean. His towels no longer existed in a condition that could legally qualify as biological warfare. Even his kneepads finally stopped carrying the faint scent of accumulated suffering.

Life improved significantly. Weeks passed. Finals crept closer. Winter settled over campus. Snow gathered in thin layers outside the dorm windows. Eventually, Ushijima almost forgot the entire bizarre situation had ever happened.

Then, one Thursday night in December, he pushed open the laundry room door...and immediately understood that peace had been a temporary illusion.

Every machine was running.

Every.

Single.

One.

No. Absolutely not. That was not happening again. Without hesitation, he strode across the room and pressed the stop button on the nearest dryer mid-cycle. The machine died with a sad electronic chirp.

Was it a crime? Maybe.

Was he possibly losing his mind over laundry? Also maybe.

But after all the sleep deprivation, the ruined schedule, the psychological warfare of mysteriously occupied machines, Ushijima felt his patience fraying at the edges. He was not doing that again. He yanked open the dryer door and started rifling through the clothes. Warm air spilled out immediately, carrying the scent of detergent and fabric softener. Aprons. Dozens of them. Kitchen towels in every possible color were piled together in chaotic heaps beneath them, along with oven mitts, dark work shirts, and what appeared to be an industrial quantity of fabric stained faintly with flour.

He stared into the dryer in complete silence. Was the cafeteria staff laundering the entire university in here? That would explain the sheer volume of laundry monopolizing the room. Then—

Men’s underwear. Ushijima immediately slammed the dryer door shut again.

Okay. Too far.

He stood there silently for a long moment, faintly horrified with himself. His frustration had clearly pushed him beyond reasonable decision-making. In hindsight, rifling through a stranger’s laundry at one in the morning probably was crossing several social boundaries at once. Maybe this situation had escalated more than he realized. He took one slow step back from the dryer, composure rattled for perhaps the first time all week.

Then a voice spoke behind him.

“Hey.”

A pause.

“Why were you touching my boxers?”

Ushijima closed his eyes briefly.

Of course. Fuck.

Slowly, he turned around. The man standing in the laundry room doorway was tall - obnoxiously tall, about his height - with messy dark red hair tied into a crooked little ponytail that stuck out behind his head like an plant sprout. He wore an oversized hoodie, like the ones he had just found in the dryer, hanging halfway over his hands, pajama pants covered in tiny dancing mushrooms, and fuzzy house slippers that looked completely unsuited for winter. A grocery bag hung from one wrist. Most concerningly, he looked far too awake for 1:35 a.m.

Bright red eyes flicked to him, to the dryer, to the abruptly closed door hiding the underwear inside. Then the stranger grinned.

“Ohhh, wait” he said slowly. “Are you one of those perverts?”

He froze, his hand still pinned flat against the dryer door as if he could physically hold back the accusation. A sudden, deeply unhelpful heat rushed to his face.

"What? No! I’m not—this isn't what it looks like," he stammered, his voice cracking slightly in the empty, fluorescent-lit basement.

The stranger narrowed his eyes theatrically. “That’s exactly what a boxer-thief would say.” The redhead leaned his shoulder against the doorframe, the plastic grocery bag rustling as he crossed his arms. The little hair sprout on his head bobbed with amusement. "Because from here, it looks like you just got caught red-handed in the communal dryer. What's your favourite? Lace? Silk? Or are we more of a practical cotton connoisseur?"”

“I was attempting to use the dryer.”

“By aggressively sifting through my underwear?”

“I stopped immediately.”

Ushijima’s hand dropped from the dryer door, his fingers curling into a fist at his side. The flush on his face hadn’t receded, but the embarrassment was rapidly being overtaken by a rigid, defensive irritation. He took a step to the left, away from the machine, trying to re-establish a sense of personal space and dignity—difficult to do when standing next to a mountain of a stranger’s damp hoodies. The redhead hummed like this confirmed something important. He walked fully into the laundry room and dropped the grocery bag onto a folding table with a loud thud.

This was the person. This was the reason his entire schedule had collapsed for one psychologically damaging week in November. The stranger crouched in front of the dryer and started pulling clothes out casually.

“You know” he said conversationally, “most people just steal socks.”

“I was not stealing anything. You were occupying every machine. Have been for awhile”

That made the stranger pause. Slowly, he looked up.

“…Yeah, that’s kind of why I do this at night.” Ushijima frowned faintly. The redhead shrugged one shoulder and tossed another towel into the basket. “I work three jobs, you know?”

He said it casually. Like it was normal for one human being to apparently generate enough laundry to bankrupt a detergent company.

“Dining hall, café near campus, and the bakery by east gate.” He gestured vaguely toward the mountain of fabric. “Hence all this.”

Ushijima looked at the pile again. Suddenly the aprons made more sense.

“You wash everything at once?”

“Do you think I have free time during the day?” the stranger shot back immediately. “I usually come after work because nobody sane is awake.” He paused. Looked up at Ushijima. “Which brings us back to you.”

“I am sane,” he stated, though the sheer defensiveness of the words made them sound immediately suspect in the empty basement. “I have a strict training and study regimen. My schedule required a 1:00 a.m. laundry block to remain on track for the week.”

The redhead stared at him for three full seconds, a black apron dangling from his fingertips. Then, his face split into a wide, utterly delighted grin. He let out a breathless laugh that snorted slightly at the end.

“A laundry block,” he echoed, savoring the syllables like a strange delicacy. “Oh, wow. You really are a freak, aren't you? And here I thought you were just a garden-variety pervert. You’re a spreadsheet guy.”

Arguing with this person was like trying to catch smoke with his bare hands. It was an exercise in pure frustration, and it was actively eating into his remaining four hours of scheduled sleep.

"I am an athlete.”

“Ah” the redhead nodded solemnly. 

He stood up at last, balancing the overflowing basket against one hip with surprising ease. Up close, he somehow looked both exhausted and aggressively energetic at the same time. Like his body had forgotten how sleep worked several years ago and simply adapted. The stranger suddenly stuck out a hand. It was long-fingered, the knuckles slightly red from the chilly  air, and a faint dusting of flour or some kind of baking residue still lingered near the cuff of his oversized hoodie.

“Tendou Satori.”

He reached out and uncurled his fist, gripping his hand in a firm, unyielding handshake.

“Ushijima Wakatoshi.”

The guy froze, his eyes widened dramatically.

“No way. You’re the Ushijima?” the other said, pointing at him “Volleyball guy? Left-handed cannon? National-level scary?”

“People call me that?”

“Not to your face, probably.” Tendou’s shock vanished as quickly as it had arrived, replaced by a sharp, delighted grin that showed a hint of teeth. “This is incredible. "Oh, man, no wonder you’re so wound tight. You’re not just a spreadsheet guy, you’re a cyborg. Do you calibrate your protein shakes to the milligram too?

“It is a standardized nutritional plan” Ushijima corrected flatly.

Tendou let out another sharp, delighted cackle, shaking his head so hard the little hair sprout on his head danced.

“Of course it is. Beautiful. Absolutely beautiful.” He stepped aside, finally clearing the doorway, “Damn, I met a celebrity athlete—and he's a total pervert!”

“I am not!” Ushijima repeated. He could feel the heat radiating off his own skin, a blistering, betraying crimson that started at his collarbone and rushed all the way to the tips of his ears. He had never felt so thoroughly cornered, not even by a triple block at nationals. He took a heavy breath, forcing his shoulders back down.

“But… I apologize. I should not have gone through your dryer.”

The stranger's entire face lit up with wicked glee.

“I was frustrated,” he admitted honestly, refusing to look away even as his face burned. “But it was still rude.”

Tendou leaned forward, tilting his head back so he could look straight up into Ushijima's agonizingly flushed face.

“I was just teasing ya,” he said, waving a hand dismissively as he straightened up. “I’m sorry too. I didn’t realize somebody else would actually be doing laundry at these hours.” He shifted the heavy basket against his hip before suddenly snapping his fingers.

“Tell you what,” he said brightly. “From now on, I’ll leave one machine open for you at this hour. How’s that sound?”

“Thank you” Ushijima replied, his tone dead serious. "That would be perfect."

“There.” Tendou nudged one of the empty washers with the toe of his fuzzy house slipper. “Machine number one will be all yours.”

He glanced at the faded number sticker on the front of the washer.

“…Like my jersey number” he murmured absentmindedly, mostly to himself.

“Oh?” Tendou paused mid-motion, his grin widening instantly, delighted. “Sure. Exactly like your jersey number.”

Ushijima nodded once, apparently finding this deeply satisfying. The other stared at him for a second longer than necessary.

“I’ve still got a few more rounds,” he continued, shifting the overflowing basket higher against his hip. “Might see you later. Might collapse before sunrise. Hard to say.”

Then he pointed finger-guns at Ushijima. “But hey,” he said brightly, “that’s fun. We’re laundry buddies now.”

Before he could properly respond to whatever that meant, the stranger turned and disappeared back out into the hallway with his mountain of aprons and towels, the sprout of red hair bobbing one last time before he vanished around the corner. The laundry room fell quiet again almost immediately. As he picked up his first basket of wet clothes and began loading them into his newly designated machine, Ushijima decided the adjustment was acceptable.

Order restored.

True to his word, the stranger left machine number one empty every Monday and Thursday afterward. For the first two weeks, Ushijima never actually saw the redhead, though he frequently found subtle signs of his presence: a rogue dryer sheet left on the folding table, the faint warmth still radiating from the drum of machine number two, and the distinct, sugary scent of artificial strawberry ice cream lingering in the damp basement air.

By the third week, however, the stranger began appearing during the same late-night hours with the consistency of a raccoon returning to a dumpster.

Ushijima pushed open the heavy fire door at exactly 1:00 a.m., his laundry baskets balanced in his arms, only to find the basement already occupied. Tendou was sitting directly on top of machine number three, his long legs dangling over the edge, kicking them back and forth in a slow, rhythmic pattern. He wore a different oversized hoodie this time—a loud, faded red that matched his hair—and fuzzy mushroom slippers were tapping a silent beat against the metal front of the washer. He was deeply focused on a piece of bubble wrap, popping a single bubble with a loud, echoey snap, then shifting his fingers to find the next. At the sound of the door, his head snapped up. The ridiculous hair sprout on his head bobbed in greeting, and his face instantly split into that familiar, wide grin.

“Well, well, well,” he drawled, his voice bouncing off the cinderblock walls. “Look who it is. The spreadsheet king returns.” He stopped his assault on the bubble wrap and pointed a dramatic finger down an empty machine .

“See? Pristine. Untouched. Just like we agreed, Captain.”

They barely spoke that night, the conversation feeling a bit awkward as they navigated the shift from a one-time encounter to a recurring reality.

“Practice?”

“Yes.”

“You look dead.”

“Well, I am tired.”

Still, little by little, Tendou became part of the routine. Ushijima would enter the laundry room and instinctively glance toward machine number one first. On the nights Tendou was running late, there would already be a neon-colored sticky note slapped crookedly onto the lid, bearing scribbled messages in looping handwriting.

reserved 4 mr. scary volleyball :)

The notes were ridiculous.

DO NOT TOUCH
(this belongs to waka-chan now)

And for some reason, Ushijima kept every single one.

They began to share the long, empty stretches of the night in a way Ushijima hadn't anticipated. He would sit on the metal folding chair with his textbook open, while Tendou stretched his long limbs across the top of the adjacent dryers, humming bizarre, self-composed songs about baking or volleyball blockings.

Winter settled fully over campus after that. The nights grew colder, students stopped lingering outside. By one in the morning, the dormitory usually felt half-abandoned, hallways quiet except for the occasional distant door slam or the hum of old heating pipes behind the walls. But the laundry room stayed warm. Warm and loud and increasingly familiar.

Eventually, the redhead started talking more, words spilling out of him effortlessly while he sorted through seemingly endless mountains of café aprons. Ushijima became a captive audience to an erratic stream of consciousness: theatrical rants about aggressive customers, tragic sagas of burnt pastries, and elaborate conspiracy theories about two coworkers he was entirely convinced were secretly pinning after each other.

Ushijima, for his part, mostly listened. He processed the data with the same steady, unblinking focus he applied to studying, cataloging the names of Tendou's enemies and the specific baking temperatures of sourdough while systematically folding his laundry. He found he didn't mind the noise; in fact, the chaotic barrage of words provided a strange, grounding counterweight to the sterile silence of the basement.

"You don't get it." Tendou sighed dramatically, tossing a perfectly flat, square-folded apron into his basket. He draped himself backwards over the folding table, staring up at the fluorescent lights. “Kageyama from the espresso bar definitely dropped his favorite tamping tool on purpose just so Hinata from the register would have to help him look for it. It’s all psychological.”

Ushijima smoothed down the collar of a university polo, aligning the seams precisely before folding it into a perfect third.

“If it was on purpose,” he reasoned flatly, “it is an inefficient use of company time. They should simply speak to one another.”

Tendou let out a loud, delighted gasp, snapping himself upright so fast his hair sprout whipped through the air. “Oh, you beautiful, literal creature. You just don't understand the delicate art of the slow burn, do you?”

The man had also slowly developed a highly specific habit of stealing exactly three of Ushijima’s lavender-scented dryer sheets every single week. He would pluck them right out of the box with theatrical flair, completely ignoring the perfectly good, unopened pack sitting right there in his own basket.

“It’s a tax” he had explained cheerfully one night, waving a stolen sheet beneath his nose like a fine silk handkerchief. “A space-rental fee for machine number one. Besides, yours smell like a wealthy grandmother’s garden. Mine smell like industrial cardboard.”

“They are the same brand,” Ushijima pointed out, watching the redhead toss the sheets into a drum full of flour-dusted aprons. “I saw the packaging in your basket. It is identical.”

“Ah, but the ambiance, Wakatoshi” the other corrected, leaning his weight against the vibrating dryer and offering a brilliant, sharp-toothed grin. “Everything tastes better when it’s stolen...metaphorically speaking. Don't call the campus police on me.”

Ushijima simply grunted, returning his attention to the precise lines of his folded athletic shorts.

He never moved the box out of Tendou’s reach.

Some nights, though less often than usual, the redhead was quieter.

Those were the nights Ushijima started noticing things. He noticed the slight, unnatural slump in Tendou’s usually animated shoulders, or the way the sharp-tongued barista would stand staring blankly at the spinning glass doors of the washing machines, his expression completely hollow as if his brain had temporarily powered down from sheer exhaustion.

Once, Ushijima watched him nearly fall asleep while sitting upright on top of a rumbling dryer. Tendou’s head dropped forward, his chin hitting his chest with a sudden jerk that startled him awake. He blinked rapidly, his bright red eyes glassy and unfocused under the harsh basement lights, before offering a weak, unconvincing smile that didn't reach his eyes.

Ushijima paused mid-fold, a heavy practice jersey held between his hands. The silence in the room suddenly felt heavy, stripped of its usual chaotic soundtrack. He looked from the exhausted line of Tendou’s posture down to his own neat piles of laundry.

"Tendou," Ushijima said, his deep voice cutting through the steady drone of the machines, measured and deliberate. "The cycle has eleven minutes remaining. You should sit in the chair. If you fall from the machine, you will sustain an injury. You should go to bed.” 

The other cracked one eye open.

“Can’t. My work uniform’s in there.”

“The laundry takes exactly forty-five minutes to dry,” he countered. His hands kept folding practice jerseys, but his eyes stayed fixed on the exhausted slant of Tendou’s shoulders. “You are currently losing forty-five minutes of sleep to watch a machine spin.”

Tendou let his head drop back against the cinderblock wall with a dull thunk, staring up at the buzzing fluorescent light tubes.

“Yeah, well, if I leave it, some freshman’s gonna dump my soggy aprons on the floor because they need to dry their one pair of lucky socks,” he muttered. His voice sounded raw, completely stripped of its usual melodic, teasing cadence. “Can’t risk it. Bakery shift starts at five. If I smell like mildew, the head baker will throw a rolling pin at my skull.”

“I will watch it” Ushijima said flatly.

Tendou’s head rolled to the side, his bright red eyes cracking open to peer at him through a messy tangle of dark red fringe. The little hair sprout on his head looked wilted.

“Huh?”

“I have two more loads to run,” Ushijima explained, his voice entirely devoid of hesitation or drama. He set the folded shirt onto his neat stack. “I will be in this room until exactly 2:40 a.m. I can transfer your garments to the dryer and add three of my lavender dryer sheets. I can then place the dried contents into your basket and take it upstairs to you.”

Tendou stared at him. The silence between them stretched, heavy and profound, before Tendou slowly slid off the top of the washing machine. His feet hit the linoleum with a soft slap of his fuzzy slippers. He didn't bounce back up with his usual hyperactive energy; instead, he stepped directly into Ushijima’s space, looking up into the ace's face with a look that was dangerously close to bewilderment.

“Are you proposing to be my personal laundry maid, Wakatoshi?” Tendou whispered, trying to summon a smirk, though his eyelids were visibly heavy. “Because I don't think I can afford your hourly rate.”

“You require sleep to perform your duties. I am already required to remain here. Just go back to your room.”

For a second, the faint, exhausted shadow of Tendou's usual wicked glee touched his mouth, but it dissolved before it could truly form.

“Room 412,” the redhead murmured, his voice dropping into a quiet, raspy register that Ushijima had never heard from him before. He reached out, his long fingers blindly searching the edge of the folding table until they found his plastic grocery bag.  “The door’s unlocked. I always forget to turn the latch anyway.”

“I will deliver it around 2:45 a.m.,” Ushijima said nodding.

“Thankyouthankyouthankyouuuu.” Tendou let out a long, slow breath, his shoulders dropping a fraction lower. He turned toward the basement exit as he teased him "Don't steal my underwear though!" The soft scuff-scuff of his mushroom slippers sounded sluggish against the linoleum. At the heavy fire door, he paused, his hand resting flat against the metal. The door clicked shut behind him, the latch echoing loudly in the vacant room.

At first, Ushijima thought Tendou was simply busy. As time passed though, he started realizing just how much the guy actually worked. For someone their age, it was excessive. Not academically, the redhead himself admitted, very proudly, that his grades were “below average.” But real work? Work consumed nearly all of his time. Early café shifts. Dining hall evenings. Bakery hours whenever holidays approached. As Christmas crept closer, he somehow became even more exhausted.

“There are too many desserts,” he groaned dramatically that same night as he collected the laundry from Ushijima's hands. “Do you know how many people suddenly remember cake exists in December?”

His face looked paler that week. His cheeks appeared thinner beneath the white laundry room lights.

The next Monday, before heading downstairs, he decided to stop at a vending machine and bought two canned coffees instead of one. he didn't know why. He felt like it.

When Tendou arrived that night looking half-dead on his feet, Ushijima silently slid one across the folding table toward him.

“Oh my god,” he had whispered. “Acts of service.”

“You looked tired.”

Tendou pressed a hand dramatically against his chest.

“I’m going to think about this for the rest of my life.” He cracked the tab open with a sharp pop and took a long, desperate gulp, letting out a satisfied hum as the sugar and caffeine immediately hit his system. 

After that night, the conversations came easier somehow. Somewhere along the way, Ushijima kept helping without really thinking about it. By January, their routines had become so intertwined that it stopped feeling strange entirely.

If Tendou arrived first, there would usually be some bizarre offering waiting on the folding table beside machine number one. Sometimes it was a leftover blueberry muffin from the bakery, wrapped neatly in wax paper, or a carton of banana milk. Other times, it was chocolate—and uff, Tendou was dangerously good at making chocolates. He would leave behind rich, jagged shards of dark sea-salt bark or smooth, hand-rolled truffles that melted instantly, providing a heavy hit of sweetness that Ushijima found himself looking forward to during long study blocks. Once, inexplicably, the offering was a tiny rubber duck wearing sunglasses. Ushijima didn't ask; he simply placed it precisely next to his detergent box.

In return, Ushijima’s assistance became an unwritten rule of the basement. He no longer waited for Tendou to fall asleep or drop things. The moment the loud, metallic clunk of Tendou’s washing machine finished, Ushijima would naturally step away from his own table, haul the heavy, wet mass of aprons into the dryer, and drop the coins into the slot. And when the night was over, Ushijima didn't wait for Tendou to struggle up the stairs. He would simply lift the heavy plastic basket of dried laundry in one hand, wait for Tendou to clumsily push himself off the machines, and walk with him all the way up to Room 412.

Standing in the dim hallway as Tendou unlocked his door, the redhead would lean back against the frame, a soft, sleepy smile tugging at his mouth.

“You’re spoiling me, Wakatoshi,” the man would murmur, taking the basket from him, his long fingers brushing against Ushijima’s wrists. “People are going to think the fierce ace has a soft spot for me.”

“Goodnight, Tendou.” Ushijima would simply reply, voice steady and completely unbothered by the teasing.

“Night, Spreadsheet.”

Some nights they talked for hours. Other nights they barely spoke at all, existing comfortably in the same space while dryers hummed around them. Ushijima would study at the folding table while Tendou leaned upside down across plastic chairs complaining about customers.

“You know what’s evil?” Tendou asked one Thursday night.

Ushijima looked up from his notes. “What?”

“People who order complicated coffee five minutes before closing.”

“…That does sound inconsiderate.”

“THANK you.” Tendou pointed dramatically at him. “You understand me spiritually.”

Ushijima wasn’t entirely sure that was true. But he found himself smiling faintly anyway. Which Tendou noticed immediately.

“Oh my god” he gasped, clutching his chest. “You smiled. Quick, someone record this for the university archives!”

“I was simply agreeing with your assessment” he stated flatly, his deep voice carrying its usual rhythmic cadence. 

Tendou rolled over completely, his long limbs tangling in the plastic chairs before he managed to prop his chin in his hands, staring up at Ushijima from his upside-down position. His bright red eyes were wide, a slow, wicked grin spreading across his face.

“No, no, don't try to use logic to cover up your crimes” Tendou teased, his hair bobbing with amusement. “You smiled because you think I’m funny. Admit it. I am the highlight of your grueling athletic schedule.”

The laundry room became something else entirely after that. The sort of place Ushijima started thinking about during long practices or exhausting lectures because he knew that later, at one in the morning, Tendou would probably be there sprawled across a dryer complaining about life. And somehow, without Ushijima realizing when exactly it happened, the thought became comforting.

One Thursday night near the end of January, Ushijima had pushed open the laundry room door to find Tendou already there sitting cross-legged on top of a dryer, chin resting in his hands. The moment he saw Ushijima, he perked up dramatically.

“There you are!” he announced dramatically as the other stepped inside. “I have terrible news.”

Ushijima set his laundry basket down beside machine number one.

“…What happened?”

Tendou pointed at him accusingly from atop the dryer.

“Valentine’s Day is coming.”

“I fail to see the issue.”

“The issue,” he said, sliding dramatically off the dryer, “is that the bakery is entering hell season.” He gestured wildly toward the trays and containers scattered across the folding tables. There were already several small boxes filled with experimental chocolates and pastries.

“Heart-shaped desserts everywhere. Chocolate-covered everything. Couples holding hands while ordering strawberry tarts with terrifying eye contact.” Tendou shuddered theatrically. “It’s sickening.”

“…I see.”

“You have to be my taste tester.”

“…Me?”

“Yes, you.” Tendou squinted at him suspiciously. “Unless your athlete diet is, like, terrifyingly strict.”

Ushijima thought about it for a moment. Technically, yes. His diet was monitored carefully during season. Sugars limited, junk food minimized, his nutrition planned around training schedules. But Tendou was looking at him now with complete expectation, already halfway opening one of the pastry boxes. A faint smile appeared at the corner of his mouth.

“It is fine” he said. “I can do that.”

The other pressed both hands over his heart.

“Oh my god” he whispered. “The power I hold.”

Ushijima ignored him. Tendou immediately shoved a chocolate-covered strawberry toward him.

“Here. Try this one first. The manager says it needs to feel romantic.”

Ushijima accepted it carefully.

“How can food feel romantic?”

“That…” Tendou said solemnly “is exactly why I need your help.”

Ushijima examined the chocolate-covered strawberry with the same concentration he usually reserved for analyzing opposing blockers. Tendou watched him impatiently from across the folding table.

“Well?”

Ushijima took a bite. The chocolate cracked softly. Sweet strawberry, dark chocolate, something slightly citrus underneath. He chewed thoughtfully. Tendou leaned forward like a man awaiting critical medical results.

"It tastes good” Ushijima said at last.

The other stared at him blankly.

“That’s your review?”

“Yes.”

Tendou groaned loudly and collapsed face-first onto the folding table.

“You are the least helpful taste tester imaginable.”

“It tastes good,” Ushijima repeated, slightly firmer this time, as though defending his position. “The chocolate balance is appropriate.”

The other finally looked delighted.

“Okay, I can take that!”

Tendou scrambled backward, pulling a small, flour-dusted notebook from his hoodie pocket and scribbling furiously with a chewed-up pen.

“‘Chocolate balance is appropriate,’” he muttered under his breath as he wrote. “Direct quote from the Nation’s top ace. That’s going right on the promotional chalkboard outside the shop.”

Ushijima finished the remaining half of the strawberry, wiping his fingers on a paper napkin, folding it exactly into quarters before placing it on the table.

“The chocolate shell is firm enough to provide resistance, but it does not separate from the fruit entirely upon impact. It is structurally well done.”

Tendou stopped writing. He slowly lowered the notebook, staring across the laundry room folding table with an expression that was half-horrified and half-fascinated.

“Wakatoshi,” he said softly, his eyes wide. “Are you describing a Valentine’s Day pastry or a high-rise building? ‘Structurally sound’? People don’t want to eat chocolate strawberries because it is structurally well done. They want it to taste like... like a candlelit dinner! Like a tragic poetry book!”

“Food cannot taste like poetry,” Ushijima stated flatly. He picked up his pen to return to his sports psychology notes, his posture perfectly straight. “Poetry is an arrangement of words. It lacks nutritional value and chemical flavor profiles.”

Tendou let out a loud, dramatic wail, burying his face in his hands so his voice muffled against his palms. “You’re killing me. You’re actively draining the romance from the room. The dryers are weeping, Wakatoshi. Look at them.”

He didn't look at the dryers. Instead, his gaze lingered on the top of Tendou’s head, where the little red hair sprout was twitching with every exaggerated breath.

“If you clients require romance,” he reasoned, his voice dropping into a slightly quieter cadence, “they will find it in the person sharing the food with them. The strawberry itself only needs to be high quality. And yours is.”

Tendou slowly dropped his gaze and cleared his throat loudly, his usual sharp wit stumbling over itself as he hastily gathered the remaining chocolate wrappers on the table.

“R-right” he mumbled, his voice suddenly losing its theatrical projection and dropping into that rare, breathless register. He wouldn't look Ushijima directly in the eyes, focusing intensely on a rogue piece of foil instead. “Right. Yeah. Good point, Spreadsheet. A very... logical assessment.”

Over the next few weeks, the bakery apparently descended fully into Valentine’s chaos and so did the laundry room. Tendou started carrying containers of experimental desserts nearly every night. Heart-shaped cookies, chocolate mousse cups, tiny strawberry cakes decorated with aggressively romantic frosting. Ushijima tasted every single one seriously.

“This one is too sweet.”

“The texture is better on the second batch.”

One Thursday night, Tendou shoved an entire tray toward him while loading aprons into a washer. “Okay, try these.”

Ushijima picked one up carefully. “What are they?”

“Triple chocolate espresso cookies.” he pointed proudly. “Designed specifically for exhausted university students in love.”

Ushijima took a bite. Then another. Tendou immediately noticed.

“Oh,” he said slowly. “Those are good good. You took a second bite!”

Somewhere along the way, they slipped into a kind of intimacy so gradual neither of them seemed to notice it happening. Their routines simply began overlapping more and more until the boundaries between “mine” and “yours” blurred naturally into something shared. Ushijima started bringing extra canned coffee automatically because Tendou never remembered to eat or sleep properly during busy weeks. Laundry loads would mix together without thought, towels and hoodies tumbling side by side through the dryers while they sat shoulder-to-shoulder at the folding tables half-asleep at one in the morning.

And then there were the desserts. At first, Ushijima had only intended to help by tasting them. One bite. Sometimes two. Enough to offer an opinion before handing the rest back because his diet during training season still mattered to him, no matter how much Tendou mocked it. The other, apparently incapable of letting food go uneaten, would simply take whatever Ushijima left behind and finish it himself without hesitation. His half-eaten cookies, the last piece of tart sitting on Ushijima’s plate. A forkful already bitten into moments earlier. It became normal for the other to finish what he started that Ushijima had not even consciously noticed it.

Until that one February night.

Tendou had brought an experimental chocolate éclair from the bakery, complaining loudly that the filling texture was a complete disaster. The athlete, as always, took a careful bite while listening to the rant. The custard was far too sweet for his preference, overly rich beneath the thick dark chocolate glaze, so after a moment of consideration, he handed the remaining pastry back absentmindedly.

The redhead took it immediately, leaning casually against the scratched metal folding table, he bit directly into the exact spot Ushijima’s mouth had been moments earlier. A faint trace of vanilla cream escaped the corner of his lips as he used his free hand to continue rummaging through a pile of warm shirts fresh from the dryer, completely unfazed.

“Honestly, I think the espresso ratio’s wrong too” he muttered, chewing thoughtfully. “Needs something bitter to it, or else the chocolate just tastes overwhelming, you know?”

Ushijima heard almost none of it.

Because something intense and unfamiliar had risen abruptly beneath his skin, spreading a heavy, sudden heat across the back of his neck and directly into his face before he could fully comprehend it.  He stared at Tendou for a second too long, suddenly hyper-aware of ridiculous, uncoordinated details he had never paid attention to before: the sharp curve of the redhead's mouth against the dark pastry, the quiet, sleepy rasp in his voice, and the way a few messy strands of deep red hair had escaped his tie after another exhausting shift, clinging damply to the side of his neck.

That was, technically speaking, an indirect kiss.

The realization hit him with the blunt force of a poorly received volleyball. Ushijima’s internal processor stalled, his eyes locked on the small smear of vanilla cream still lingering at the corner of Tendou’s mouth. According to all established social norms and the standard terminology of his peers, sharing food in that specific, precise manner constituted an intimate act. It was an exchange reserved for individuals who had crossed a definitive boundary. 

Every single time they had done that, every late-night laundry session where Tendou had finished his desserts, handed the spoon over, or casually offered the rest of his ice cream carton, those had been, too.

He looked away immediately, shoulders stiffening as his pulse kicked strangely against his ribs. It was absurd. Completely absurd.

He swallowed hard, his throat suddenly feeling incredibly dry in the humid basement air. How was he supposed to look at Tendou now, knowing they had technically been intimately entangled via cutlery for the past ninety days? The sheer volume of instances recalculated in his mind, transforming months of mundane routine into a quiet, overwhelming history of shared spaces.

Beside him, entirely oblivious to his internal crisis, the redhead continued eating the éclair while sorting a tangled mass of dining hall towels into uneven piles. He tossed a damp rag into the basket with a lazy flick of his wrist.

“You okay over there?” he asked eventually, his voice dropping into a slightly slower cadence as he glanced sideways. The silence between them had stretched past the point of casual comfort, turning heavy and rigid.

“Yes” Ushijima answered far too quickly. His voice lacked its usual unhurried, heavy resonance, coming out sharp and tight instead. He picked up his textbook with an abrupt, forceful motion, his dark eyes fixed entirely on the print without absorbing a single line of text.

"Hm. If you say so." the redhead simply licked a stray smear of chocolate off his thumb, turned his attention back to his basket, and hauled out a final, crumpled mountain of aprons to shove into the dryer.

That, was, unfortunately, not an isolated incident.

The line between casual closeness and something else had begun blurring in ways Ushijima no longer knew how to ignore. Tendou stole sips from his drinks without asking, his mouth pressing absentmindedly against the rim of the water bottle moments after Ushijima had used it himself. Ushijima found his own hands reaching out to adjust the twisted hood of Tendou’s sweatshirt automatically, his large fingers flattening the fabric whenever it bunched awkwardly beneath that vibrant red hair sprout.

Even their spatial boundaries had collapsed. Their knees brushed constantly beneath the cramped folding table, a steady, warm contact that lingered for minutes at a time without either of them bothering to pull away anymore.

And then there were the moments that were far worse, simply because Tendou never seemed aware of the impact they had. Like the night he leaned entirely across Ushijima's shoulder to read a sports psychology passage, his chest pressing flat against Ushijima’s back, breathing the scent of vanilla extract and sweet dough right into the crook of the his neck. Or when Tendou would grab his wrist to check the time on his watch, his long, flour-dusted fingers wrapping completely around the skin, leaving a lingering heat that remained long after the grip was released.

Tendou, still struggling dramatically with the detergent bottle, remained entirely unaware.

“Why do they make these so heavy?” he complained, finally yanking it free. “Do they think normal people bench press laundry supplies recreationally?”

Ushijima tore his gaze away instantly.

“I can carry it” he said, voice rougher than usual.

Tendou blinked at him before grinning lazily.

“Wow. So gentlemanly.”

Ushijima did not respond. Because somewhere between the shared desserts, the sleepy late-night conversations, and the unbearable softness of Tendou existing comfortably beside him, Ushijima was beginning to realize he had developed a problem far more disruptive than a messed up laundry schedule.

After the lower back incident, Ushijima became painfully aware of how careless Tendou was with proximity. Or perhaps not careless, perhaps the other simply did not think about these things at all.

One night, Tendou showed up twenty minutes late, smelling intensely of burnt sugar and espresso, his hair completely untethered from its usual upward spike and falling into a damp, chaotic fringe around his face. He practically poured his long, exhausted frame into the chair directly beside Ushijima, his shoulder slamming heavily against his bicep as he groaned.

“Wakatoshi,” he whined, his voice a raspy, low vibration that rattled directly against Ushijima’s ear. “My arms are dead. The industrial mixer broke. I had to whip three gallons of meringue by hand. By hand. Look at me. I’m a ghost of a barista.”

To prove his point, he lifted his right arm and let it drop limply across the table, his long, pale fingers landing directly over Ushijima’s open notebook, effectively pinning down a chapter on cognitive behavioral therapy. From this distance, he could feel the radiating heat of Tendou’s skin, see the faint flour dusting trapped in the fabric of his sleeve, and trace the sharp, pronounced line of his collarbone where his collar had stretched out.

“You should rest your muscles” Ushijima said, his voice coming out lower and rougher than he intended. He didn't move his notebook. He didn't move his arm.

“I am resting,” Tendou mumbled, and then, with absolute disregard for Ushijima’s remaining sanity, he tilted his head sideways and let it fall directly onto Ushijima’s shoulder.

Tendou's sharp cheekbone dug slightly through the heavy cotton of his athletic hoodie, and a few stray strands of red hair brushed against the bare skin of Ushijima’s jaw. His pulse didn't just kick; it escalated into a full, panicked sprint that echoed loudly in his ears, completely drowning out the rhythmic sloshing of machine number two. But Tendou didn't move. He just let out a long, shuddering sigh of relief, his body going completely soft against his side as he closed his eyes.

“Don't move, Spreadsheet,” Tendou whispered into the fabric of his shoulder, his voice heavy with sleep. “You’re sturdy. Like a wall. Just let me stay here for five minutes.”

He stared at the wall as if it held the secrets to the universe, his heart hammering a frantic, uncharacteristic rhythm against his ribs. 

"Aha! Found it!" Tendou announced triumphantly from the floor, entirely oblivious to the absolute cataclysm occurring three feet above him. He stood up, slapping the dust off his hands and turning around with his usual sharp grin. "Just a loose coin trap. See? I am a genius, Wakatoshi-kun"

“Right. A genius indeed.”

The transition from internal panic to external desperation happened during a post-game team dinner. Ushijima sat at the end of the long dining hall table, staring down at his meticulously balanced meal: exactly two hundred grams of grilled chicken, a measured scoop of brown rice, and steamed broccoli. Normally, he would have consumed it with efficiency. Tonight, he was just shifting a piece of broccoli around with his chopsticks.

Sitting across from him were his teammates, Ohira Reon and Yamagata Hayato, both deeply engrossed in a debate about the upcoming weekend training camp.

He cleared his throat. It was a heavy sound that immediately silenced the table. Both Reon and Yamagata blinked, turning to look at their ace. Ushijima rarely interrupted. When he spoke, it was usually about blocking formations, court strategy, or dietary requirements.

"I have a question" he stated, his expression completely deadpan, though his posture was so rigid he looked like he was testifying in front of a grand jury.

"Uh, sure, Wakatoshi," Reon said, exchanging a slightly confused glance with Yamagata. "What’s up? Trouble with the new rotation?"

"No" He set his chopsticks down with perfect, geometric alignment beside his bowl. He leaned forward, his unblinking gaze locking onto his teammates. "How do you determine if your physiological responses toward an individual indicate a preference that exceeds standard platonic boundaries?"

The table went dead silent. Yamagata mid-bite, choked slightly on his rice. Reon’s hand froze an inch away from his water glass. For five agonizing seconds, the only sound was the distant clattering of dishes from the dining hall kitchen.

"......Uhm, wow" Yamagata finally managed, coughing into his fist as his eyes widened to the size of saucers. "Are you... are you asking us this? Like, a romance question?"

“Is that what he asked?”

"Yes," Ushijima said, completely unfazed by their shock. "You are my peers. You might have the answer to it."

"Wait, wait, back up," Reon interrupted, his usually calm demeanor completely shattered as he leaned in, lowering his voice to a frantic whisper. "Wakatoshi, are you saying you... like someone? More than a friend? Who? Is it someone from the sports science department? A manager from another team?"

"The individual's identity is irrelevant to this" Ushijima replied stiffly, though a faint, treacherous hint of pink began to dust the tips of his ears. He was aggressively blocking the mental image of bright red hair out of his head.

Yamagata let out a stunned, breathless laugh, shaking his head. "Man, I never thought I’d see the day." He leaned back in his chair, grinning. "Alright, look. If you like someone more than friends, it's pretty simple. You start seeing them everywhere. Like, you see a sweater that looks like something they'd wear, and your heart does a weird flip."

"And," Reon added, still looking at Ushijima like he was a completely different person, "you find yourself paying attention to things you'd normally ignore. You remember small details about them. You want to be close to them, even if you're just doing something boring, like studying or..." He paused, trying to think of the most mundane thing possible. "...or running errands for them."

Ushijima's jaw tightened.

"But the biggest giveaway?" Yamagata leaned back over the table, pointing a finger directly at Ushijima's chest. "You find yourself looking at them. Not just looking, but like... noticing things. The way they laugh, the way they move. And if they get too close to you, or if you accidentally touch them, your chest gets tight and you forget how to breathe. If you're experiencing that, Wakatoshi? You're a goner."

The athlete sat in absolute silence, absorbing the data. Every single point they had listed matched the exact behavioral anomalies he had been experiencing.

Did he have...what is it that kids say these days? - it bad?

"Wakatoshi?" Reon asked gently, noticing the intense, heavy silence radiating off the ace. "Are you okay?"

Ushijima slowly picked up his chopsticks again, his face remarkably pale before a violent, sudden flush completely overtook his cheeks.

"The dining hall" he croaked, his voice tighter than a over-inflated volleyball, "is poorly ventilated tonight. I am going to return to my dorm."

He stood up so fast his chair scraped loudly against the linoleum, leaving Reon and Yamagata staring after him in utter, jaw-dropping bewilderment.

That same night, Tendou sat on top of one of the dryers eating instant noodles while waiting for a load to finish. Ushijima was seated at the folding table directly in front of him, sorting clean clothes into neat piles while Tendou scrolled aimlessly through TikTok above him. Yamagata’s words from dinner kept looping through his head in a cruel, continuous cycle.

He was trying very hard not to at him. If he looked back, if he looked at Tendou, he would notice the way his long pale legs dangled lazily over the edge of the dryer, one heel knocking softly against the metal every few seconds. He would notice the oversized shorts riding slightly higher on his thighs whenever he shifted.

“Oh my god! Look at this.”

Before Ushijima could respond, Tendou had already leaned down from the dryer to shove the phone into his line of sight. The movement was clumsy enough that he nearly tipped forward in the process, and instinctively one forearm caught itself around Ushijima’s shoulder to steady his balance, ramen still steamy and in his hand, now dangerously close to his face.

The position forced them uncomfortably close.

Tendou remained perched on the edge of the dryer behind Ushijima’s chair, bent forward over him so far that Ushijima could feel the weight of his arm resting partly across his shoulder. One of the man’s long legs slid down along the side of the chair for support, his knee pressing lightly against Ushijima’s outer side to keep himself from slipping off the machine entirely. Meanwhile, the phone hovered awkwardly inches from Ushijima’s face while Tendou laughed softly above him, completely unaware of the effect the proximity was having.

From this close, he could feel warmth everywhere – and it wasn’t the steam coming from the noodles. His breath tickled near the side of his temple when he leaned lower to point at something on the screen.

Ushijima absorbed almost none of the actual video.

“You smell nice” the other said absentmindedly while scrolling. Ushijima’s entire nervous system collapsed instantly.

“Hm?”

“Your detergent. Smells clean.”

Ushijima swallowed once. Hard.

“I… I mean, it’s only because you smell like noodles instead.”

Tendou gasped dramatically above him.

“Wow, rude! I was hungry!”

“You always smell faintly like food.”

“That’s because I work in places where food exists, Wakatoshi. We can’t all make money playing volleyball. Some of us have to contribute to society.”

Ushijima’s chest huffed with a quiet, nearly imperceptible laugh. Above him, Tendou cackled at his own joke, leaning even further over Ushijima’s shoulder to shove the phone directly into his line of sight. The movement brought him impossibly close this time—his chin practically brushed the top of Ushijima’s head as he pointed a long, flour-dusted finger at a ridiculous meme on the screen.

Without thinking, Ushijima tilted his head upward slightly, intending to look at Tendou instead of the phone.

It was a catastrophic tactical error.

From this distance, the spatial metrics of the room collapsed completely. Ushijima could see everything with an overwhelming, high-definition clarity: the sharp curve of Tendou’s mouth still shiny from instant broth, the loose red strands falling over his flushed cheekbones, and the soft, rare crinkle near the corners of his eyes when he laughed. Something heavy and hot twisted low in Ushijima’s stomach before his internal processor could even log the data.

And then, Tendou noticed him looking.

The frantic, theatrical laughter caught sharply in Tendou’s throat mid-sound. He froze, his phone hovering uselessly between them, his wide red eyes locking directly onto Ushijima’s unblinking dark gaze. For one suspended, agonizing second, the basement laundry room ceased to exist. Their faces were far too close, their breaths mingling in the tight space between the folding table and the dryers.

Both of them forgot entirely about the ramen cup balanced precariously in Tendou's hand. Which was precisely why, when Tendou shifted instinctively backward, the cup tipped sideways immediately and warm broth poured directly down the front of Ushijima’s hoodie. Both of them watched in horror as it all slid sideways.

“SHIT!” said the redhead, sounding worried. Thankfully, the liquid wasn’t as hot as it seemed.  Ushijima stared down at himself. His freshly folded laundry sat right in the splash zone and Tendou made a strangled noise somewhere between horror and laughter.

“I AM SO SORRY! I SOUP-ASSASSINATED YOU.”

The redhead looked genuinely devastated. Despite himself, despite the warmth soaking unpleasantly into his clothes, Ushijima felt laughter threaten dangerously at the edges of his chest just from looking at Tendou’s horrified expression.

“Oh my god!” he groaned, sliding off the dryer immediately. “I’m sooo sorry! Wait—don’t move—actually no, move, your clothes are becoming soaked.”

Tendou grabbed fistfuls of paper towels from the counter nearby and immediately started patting uselessly at Ushijima’s hoodie with increasing panic. Unfortunately, in his rush, he was suddenly even closer than before.

“It is fine” he said finally, catching one of Tendou’s wrists lightly before he could continue “I will just wash it now before the oil sets.”

Without thinking too much about the sequence of actions, Ushijima let go of the wrist, hooked his thumbs under the ribbed hem of his hoodie, and pulled the soaked garment straight up over his head. The low, rhythmic thunking of the dryers behind them seemed to instantly amplify as the room went dead silent. Because underneath the hoodie… there was nothing.

Ushijima stopped halfway through the motion of setting the ruined fleece onto the table, his arms freezing in mid-air as the cold basement air hit his bare chest. He only now realized his tactical error. After grueling late-night practice sessions, his standard recovery protocol involved shedding his sweaty compression gear and changing straight into a comfortable, oversized hoodie without bothering with a secondary layer beneath it. Usually, in the privacy of his dorm or a standard locker room, this was a non-issue. But now, they were in a six-by-nine laundry room. And Tendou was staring.

The paper towels crumpled completely in Tendou’s slack grip. His eyes were locked onto the broad, heavily defined expanse of Ushijima’s torso. A heavy, suffocating stillness descended on the corner by machine number three. Tendou’s throat bobbed as he swallowed hard. His gaze lingered on the center of Ushijima's chest before he finally, violently snapped his head upward.

“Oh wow.”

Ushijima felt heat rise instantly beneath his skin, a sudden, heavy flush that completely bypassed his usual athletic control. Tendou was still holding the crumpled paper towels in midair like his brain had temporarily disconnected from his motor functions.

“You…” his voice cracked slightly, dropping an octave into something thin and entirely uncharacteristic. “You certainly work out.”

Then, apparently operating entirely on primitive instinct, he reached forward with the damp paper towels and dabbed carefully at the center of Ushijima’s chest where the broth had managed to seep through the fleece. The rough texture of the brown paper was a dull friction against his skin, but it was entirely eclipsed by the proximity of Tendou’s fingers, who were trembling slightly.

Ushijima stood rigid, his core locked, his chest rising and falling in shallow increments as he watched the top of Tendou’s head. The redhead's gaze was fixed blindly on the small patch of skin he was cleaning, his touch growing lighter, slower, until it was barely a wipe at all—just the warm, hesitant pressure of his hand resting against Ushijima's sternum, separated by a thin layer of wet paper.

Beneath that hand, Ushijima’s heart was hammering with the force of an aggressive jump serve, a heavy, rhythmic thudding that Tendou had to be able to feel through his palms. 

“Like I said…I am an athlete” he managed eventually. He became acutely aware of literally every inch of exposed skin on his body all at once.

“Yeah” Tendou said faintly, eyes still fixed somewhere around Ushijima’s chest before snapping violently upward again. “I can certainly see that now.”

The redhead cleared his throat abruptly and looked away with enormous theatrical effort, though his gaze kept flickering back like it physically could not help itself.

“I mean,” he said weakly, still clutching the paper towels, “obviously I knew you were built. You play Division One volleyball. But this feels unfair somehow. Are you planning on leaving some of the girls on campus for the rest of us or what?”

Girls.

The suggestion felt strangely distant in Ushijima’s mind right now. Mostly because Tendou himself was standing entirely too close while staring openly at his chest with visible distress.

“I do not think girls are interested in me very often.”

Which was true, technically. He knew people found him attractive in theory, but most interactions never moved beyond awkward greetings or nervous staring before the other person eventually gave up trying to decipher him. Volleyball occupied most of his life anyway. He had never thought about it very seriously before.

Not until recently. Not until one very loud redhead started invading his routines and making his pulse react strangely. Tendou stared at him.

“…Wakatoshi. You are six-foot-whatever, built like…like that…” he pointed accusingly at his bare chest. “I mean, look at yourself. Of course they must be interested in you!”

Ushijima looked down automatically. Objectively, he understood what Tendou meant.

“…I suppose” he admitted after a moment. Then, before he could really reconsider the words, he added quietly: “I guess I have not really been interested in any girls for a while anyway.”

The second part slipped out more honestly than intended.  Silence followed immediately. Tendou’s fingers tightened visibly around the paper towels in his hand while his expression went strangely blank for half a second, as though his brain had abruptly lost connection with the rest of his body.

“Oh” he said. Then again, quieter this time. “So…it’s like that.”

Ushijima frowned slightly. “Like what?”

Tendou looked at him for one long moment, color faintly touching his cheeks now too.

“Nothing,” he murmured. “I just think maybe I understand a few things better now.”

Ushijima watched him carefully

“Is that strange? What I said?”

“No,” the redhead replied a little too quickly, laughing softly “No, not strange at all.”

But his voice sounded different now.  The warmth that had settled briefly in Ushijima’s chest twisted unpleasantly instead. Because suddenly he became painfully aware of the possibility that perhaps he had made things uncomfortable.

Ah. So it was strange after all. Of course it was.

Ushijima looked away first this time, suddenly aware again of the silence hanging awkwardly between them. Perhaps he should not have said it. Perhaps Tendou now understood how Ushijima felt towards him lately more than he wanted him to.

His staring. The strange tension. The embarrassing inability Ushijima seemed to have developed when it came to existing normally around him.

“A-Anyway” Tendou said suddenly, rubbing the back of his neck. “You should probably go up to shower before things get too weird.”

Ushijima blinked once.

“Someone might come in and find you smelling like ramen” he pointed out right after, lips twitching upward. He bent to pick up the soaked hoodie from where it had fallen beside the chair, avoiding eye contact a little too intentionally now.

“I’ll take care of your clothes this time” he continued more casually. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll wash them and bring them up to your room after.”

“That is unnecessary.”

Tendou snorted softly.  “Wakatoshi, I literally dumped hot soup on you. Let me at least make it up to you. Besides, if you stay standing there shirtless much longer…”   He stopped himself abruptly, squeezing his eyes shut for a second before groaning. “See? Weird. I told you it would get weird. Just go, now”

Ushijima, still far too aware of the heat lingering beneath his skin, gave a short nod and turned toward the door exactly like that, damp sweatpants, no shirt, carrying the remains of his dignity somewhere on the laundry room floor. He had barely reached the doorway when Tendou suddenly made a strangled sound behind him.

“WAIT.”

Ushijima turned back.

“Put something on first, are you insane?” He pointed wildly toward the hallway outside.  “What if the RA sees you?”

Heat climbed violently all the way to the tips of his ears. Before he could answer, the redhead grabbed blindly into one of his clean laundry baskets and hurled a shirt directly at his chest.

“Here. Wear this. Please, for public safety.”

He pulled what was meant to be an oversized t-shirt quickly over his head. Unfortunately, because of the difference in their builds, the shirt did not hang loosely on him at all. The fabric stretched slightly across his shoulders and chest instead, clinging embarrassingly where the ramen broth had left his skin damp. It smelled faintly like detergent and bakery sugar and unmistakably like Tendou.

It was deeply distracting.  The redhead looked at him once, then immediately looked away again.

“God” he scoffed weakly, dragging a hand down his face. “Just…get out of this room?”

Ushijima did not reply. Mostly because he was beginning to suspect that if he spoke right now, he would make things worse. So instead, he turned and walked toward the door as calmly as possible. By the time he reached his dorm room, heat was still burning unpleasantly beneath his skin, and it had nothing to do with the soup.

The shower water took a moment to warm, hissing softly against the linoleum tile while a thick, damp steam slowly began to fill the small bathroom.

He should put it down. Immediately. Preferably burn it. Instead, he stood there another second too long, steam curling around his shoulders while his brain committed what felt like a catastrophic betrayal against his dignity. His chest felt strangely tight.

A wave of shame hit him with immediate clarity.

What the hell was he doing?

He lowered the shirt immediately, staring at it with genuine alarm now. He felt like some kind of creep. A pervert—exactly like the exaggerated, half-mocking accusation Tendou had thrown his way on the very first day they met in the laundry room. Except this time, there was no joke to shield him. Standing completely alone in the fog of his own bathroom, smelling another person’s clothes in the dark, felt like a total  betrayal against his dignity. He had completely lost his mind.

He stepped beneath the hot water, exhaling sharply through his nose, tilting his head back. Heat rolled immediately over tired muscles and lingering tension, washing away the faint smell of broth still clinging to his skin. Usually, showers quieted his thoughts almost instantly. Tonight, unfortunately, his brain had chosen violence.  Because now every small detail replayed itself with clarity beneath the spray of water.

He could still feel it. Those pale, long fingers brushing briefly against the bare skin of his chest, trembling slightly against the rough paper towels. He could see the stark, dark crimson of Tendou’s eyes flickering traitorously downward, tracking the lines of his body with a visible, breathless distress before snapping away.

Ushijima squeezed his eyes shut, his large hands flat against the wet tile wall as he tried to force his heart rate back down to an athletic baseline. But the phantom warmth of Tendou's touch stayed locked in his skin, entirely immune to the water.

This was becoming a problem. A genuine one.

Was he seriously that attracted to the redhead? 

Obviously, they had gotten closer over the past few months. That part was undeniable. Tendou had become woven naturally into the fabric of Ushijima’s routine until his presence no longer felt unusual there. But attraction? Lust, even? Really?

He tried, unsuccessfully, to sort through his feelings. Because yes, his body’s reactions lately seemed fairly difficult to misinterpret. Still, part of him struggled to fully believe it. Tendou was…Tendou. Bright and chaotic and effortlessly affectionate with everyone around him. Maybe Ushijima had simply misunderstood the closeness between them. Maybe he had mistaken comfort for attraction because he had never experienced this sort of intimacy with another person before.

And what if Tendou had noticed, now?

The thought made Ushijima’s stomach tighten unpleasantly. Because in hindsight, perhaps he had not been particularly subtle lately. Tendou was perceptive in strange ways. Irritatingly observant whenever Ushijima’s emotions slipped even slightly out of place.

What if tonight had made things too obvious?

Ushijima exhaled slowly beneath the water, pressing one hand back through damp hair. And perhaps worst of all was the possibility that Tendou had been uncomfortable because of it.  Weirded out.

The memory of that brief awkwardness downstairs still lingered unpleasantly in his chest now that the initial embarrassment had settled. Tendou had laughed, yes, but Tendou laughed through nearly everything. That did not necessarily mean he had wanted Ushijima to look at him that way. The thought sat heavily in his chest for reasons Ushijima did not particularly enjoy examining. By the time Ushijima finally stepped out of the shower, steam still clinging heavily to the bathroom mirrors, his thoughts felt no more organized than before.

His hair dripped steadily onto the floor as he tugged on a clean white t-shirt and sweatpants, movements slower than usual from exhaustion settling deep into his muscles. The hot water had done little to quiet his mind. If anything, it had only left him alone with it longer. He had just finished rubbing a towel distractedly through damp hair when a knock sounded against his dorm room door. He crossed the room to open it.

Tendou stood outside holding the laundry basket. His eyes moved visibly over Ushijima before he seemed capable of stopping them, to the thin white shirt clinging slightly against broad shoulders from lingering moisture, the fabric faintly translucent where it rested against warm skin beneath the hallway lights. His gaze lingered longer than it probably should have and only afterward did he seem to realize he was doing it. His entire body jolted slightly like someone waking abruptly from a trance. His eyes snapped upward, then immediately away with almost alarming speed.

“Laundry delivery,” he blurted out, shoving the basket directly into Ushijima’s arms with the urgency of a man evacuating a burning building.

He blinked once, startled by the intensity of the reaction. “…Thank you.”

“Like I said, no problem,” Tendou nodded rapidly, already stepping backward into the hallway despite the fact he had only been there for approximately four seconds. “Now…have a night good…have a goodnight!” The words tangled together messily on the way out.

Then, he turned so quickly he nearly walked directly into the wall beside the stairwell before correcting course at the last second and disappearing down the hallway at suspicious speed.

Ushijima stood there holding the laundry basket silently for a moment. A strange heaviness settled slowly in his chest afterward. Because from his perspective, there seemed to be only one explanation for Tendou suddenly being unable to look at him properly tonight.

He had made things awkward. He had noticed Ushijima liked him. And now things were becoming weird.

Unfortunately, the following weeks did absolutely nothing to disprove that suspicion. Tendou still came to the laundry room on Mondays and Thursdays, he knew because machine number one always remained empty for him exactly like before, but the redhead himself was suddenly…gone.

At first Ushijima assumed their schedules had simply missed each other by coincidence. Maybe the bakery had kept Tendou late. Maybe Ushijima had arrived earlier than usual after practice.

Then an entire week passed. Then another. And slowly, the absence itself started becoming impossible to ignore.

No crooked sticky notes slapped onto machine number one anymore. No leftover bakery muffins wrapped loosely in napkins. No experimental chocolates shoved into Ushijima’s hands with demands for brutally honest reviews. No tiny conversations filling the empty space between dryer cycles. Tendou was clearly still using the room at some point, just never when Ushijima was.

Ah.

Things really had become strange after all.

His schedule remained as demanding as ever. Volleyball season did not particularly care about complicated feelings or awkward laundry room incidents. There were practices nearly every day, strategy meetings, away games that stretched entire weekends into exhausting bus rides and cramped hotel rooms.

Spring break arrived and disappeared almost without feeling like a break at all. While the rest of campus scattered home or toward beaches and bad decisions, Ushijima spent most of it in unfamiliar gyms beneath harsh lights, playing match after match until exhaustion settled permanently into his muscles.

There were wins. Important ones. Their coach seemed pleased. His teammates celebrated loudly afterward in hotel hallways while Ushijima stood off to the side drinking sports drinks and checking the time out of habit.

1 a.m. The thought appeared automatically now. Every single time that particular hour came, something tight twisted quietly in his chest afterward.

After returning from spring break, nothing had changed. Machine number one remained empty for him.  Studies resumed. Midterms followed. Life continued moving forward exactly as it was supposed to, yet Ushijima found himself increasingly distracted.

Where was he?

He even started considering simply going upstairs and knocking on Tendou’s dorm room door. Just to ask him directly: had something happened? Was he upset? Had Ushijima made him uncomfortable somehow? Simple questions. Logical ones. And yet every time he seriously considered it, another realization stopped him cold.

Somehow, despite months of knowing nearly everything about him, their entire relationship existed almost exclusively between one and four am beneath bright laundry room lights. Tendou never came to his games. Ushijima had never once visited the café or bakery where the redhead worked. They had no shared classes. No mutual friends. No daytime routines together at all. And still, Ushijima knew Tendou more than anyone else in his life.

He knew that he hated strawberry yogurt but loved artificial strawberry sweets. That he became unusually quiet whenever he was truly exhausted. That he folded towels terribly on purpose because he thought Ushijima’s annoyed expression was funny. That during stressful weeks he stopped taking care of himself properly unless someone reminded him to eat. Ushijima knew the shape of Tendou’s laughter at two in the morning. The smell of detergent clinging to his hoodies. How he preferred his instant noodles. The exact way he smiled when pretending not to be pleased by something.

And yet standing outside the laundry room now, staring at machine number one sitting empty for him again, he realized with growing unease that he did not know how to reach him at all.

It was almost like waking up and discovering an entire part of his life had never existed.

Eventually, something inside Ushijima snapped quietly into place.

Enough.

He was tired of standing alone in silent laundry rooms pretending it did not bother him. Tired of carefully avoiding thoughts he could no longer realistically avoid anyway. Most of all, he was tired of not seeing Tendou. He was going to change that.

One rainy Thursday afternoon, after practice ended earlier than expected, he changed quickly out of his training clothes and headed toward the bakery near east gate. Daylight still lingered faintly over campus, students crowding sidewalks in noisy groups while spring rain dampened the pavement beneath Ushijima’s shoes. 

The bakery appeared near the corner exactly where the redhead had described it countless times during late-night conversations. Small. Cute. Windows fogged lightly from ovens inside. He hesitated outside the door for one brief second before stepping in. Warmth hit him immediately alongside the overwhelming smell of sugar, coffee, and fresh bread. Customers crowded near the counters, conversation blending softly beneath the hiss of espresso machines and clatter of trays. He scanned the room silently and finally saw him.

Tendou stood behind the counter tying pastry boxes with quick movements, red hair messier than usual beneath the bakery cap pushed halfway off his head. He wore a dark apron dusted lightly with flour and looked natural here, moving easily between customers while laughing at something one of his coworkers said. The sight hit Ushijima far harder than expected.He missed him.

As though sensing the attention, the man had glanced up casually toward the entrance. The smile slipped off his face instantly. Abruptly, fear crept unpleasantly into Ushijima’s chest.

Had this been a mistake?

Maybe this was strange. Maybe showing up here unannounced crossed some boundary Ushijima had failed to understand. They had never really existed in each other’s daytime lives before. Maybe Tendou wanted to keep it that way.

Had he made things even weirder now?

He immediately gave a short, awkward nod toward Tendou, something halfway between greeting and apology, before looking away first. Then, deciding retreat was no longer socially possible, he walked stiffly toward one of the empty tables near the window and sat down. 

Around him, the bakery continued moving normally. Espresso steaming. Customers chatting. Someone laughing near the register. His heart was beating fast as he sat rigidly at the small table wondering if he had just accidentally destroyed the only friendship he had managed to build at university.

From behind the counter, he could feel Tendou staring at him. Not subtly either. Every few seconds Ushijima caught movement from the corner of his eye — Tendou almost dropping tongs, nearly tying the wrong pastry box shut, blatantly looking over again while pretending not to. His coworkers had started noticing too. One girl beside him followed his line of sight toward Ushijima before her eyes widened immediately. She smacked him lightly with a tray, making him jump.

He felt bad.

The last thing he wanted to do was disrupt Tendou's routine or compromise his efficiency at work. The thought that his presence was actively causing Tendou to fumble his duties made him feel like an encumbrance—he didnt want to be that annoying, uncoordinated friend who showed up at their friend's job because he didn't know what to do with himself.

Ushijima looked down at the table instantly, suddenly feeling very aware of how absurdly large he probably looked sitting alone inside a tiny bakery during peak afternoon hours. He tightened his grip on his coat pockets, his instinct telling him to execute a tactical retreat before he caused Tendou to ruin any more pastries. He shouldn't have come. He had let his lack of control dictate his movements, a critical error he rarely committed.

He was already considering the least awkward way to leave when a shadow suddenly appeared beside his table.

The redhead stood there holding an empty tray against his chest like a shield. Up close, he somehow looked even more startled than before, flour dusted faintly along one sleeve of his black apron and loose red strands escaping from beneath his cap. He cleared his throat awkwardly.

“You know, to order, you actually have to go to the counter…”

“…Oh. Sorry.”

“It’s a pretty advanced bakery system.”

“…I see.”

Silence followed again. Tendou shifted his weight once, fingers tightening briefly around the tray. Up close now, Ushijima could see the faint flush lingering high across his cheeks.

“You came here” he said finally. Not really a question.

“Yes.”

Another pause.

“Why?”

“I wanted to see you.” The sounds of the bakery continued around them, milk steaming, customers talking, dishes clattering somewhere behind the counter, but suddenly all of it felt very far away. Ushijima realized belatedly that perhaps that had been too direct.

“I mean” he corrected stiffly “we have not spoken in several weeks.”

Tendou stared at him for another long second before laughing softly under his breath, though it sounded nervous around the edges.

“Yeah,” he admitted quietly. “That part might’ve been my fault.”

Ushijima frowned faintly.

“Did I make you uncomfortable?”

The reaction was immediate.

“What?” the other looked genuinely alarmed now. “No. God, no!”

Relief hit Ushijima.

“I just…” Tendou rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. “Needed a minute.”

Ushijima lowered his gaze briefly toward the table.

“I understand. I can give you space. I just wanted to apologize if I said something strange.”

The redhead opened his mouth immediately, but Ushijima continued before he could interrupt.

“I mean, just because I am not interested in girls does not necessarily mean that I—”

“Oh my god, no!” Tendou cut him off so fast he nearly dropped the tray again. “No, no, that’s not the problem. I mean…kinda?…but” He glanced around quickly like he was worried someone nearby might somehow overhear the conversation through sheer destiny alone before lowering his voice again. “I don’t want you to feel like it’s a problem! It just…”

He hesitated.

“…you know...changes things.”

Before Ushijima could ask what that meant exactly, someone behind the counter suddenly shouted Tendou’s name.

“SATORI! TABLE FOUR!”

Tendou flinched violently.

“COMING!”

Then he looked back at Ushijima again, caught awkwardly between fleeing and staying. Ushijima’s chest tightened unpleasantly at the expression on his face.

“I don’t want things to change” the volleyball player said before he could overthink it.

Tendou went very still. For one suspended second, something soft crossed his face so quickly Ushijima almost missed it entirely. Then, he smiled sweetly.

“Deal” he said quietly. Another voice yelled his name again from behind the counter and he groaned dramatically toward the ceiling before pointing at Ushijima accusingly. “Now…please order something before I get fired?”

Ushijima blinked once.

“I…I did not look at the menu yet.”

Tendou stared at him for half a second before spinning around, marching back toward the counter with suspicious speed. A few minutes later, he reappeared beside the table balancing a tray against one hip.

“I took the liberty of choosing for you” he announced.

On the tray sat a coffee and what appeared to be two aggressively large slice of strawberry shortcake. Ushijima looked up at him.

"It's a serving for two"

“You look underfed”

Tendou slid into the seat across from him before immediately correcting himself. “Wait, no. I can’t take my break yet. Sorry.”

And yet he made absolutely no move to leave. The athlete looked down at the cake.

“…This has strawberries” he observed quietly, recognizing almost immediately that the slices sitting in front of him were not something he would have chosen himself.

It was Tendou’s favorite.

“Correct.” he rested his chin lazily in one hand from across the table, watching him with obvious expectation. Soft whipped cream layered between sponge, fresh strawberries arranged carefully along the top. Excessively sweet by his usual standards. Still, eventually, he picked up the fork and took a bite.

Tendou watched him immediately. “Well?”

The cream melted softer than expected against his tongue, lighter than most strawberry cakes he had tried before. The fruit itself tasted fresh instead of artificial, something Tendou would have preferred, balanced carefully enough that the sweetness did not overwhelm everything else.

“The cream balance is better than usual.”

The redhead’s face brightened instinctively before he could hide it.

“You noticed?!”

“Yes.”

The smile that followed was small, immediate and entirely unguarded. Something warm settled heavily in Ushijima’s chest at the sight of it. Before he could overthink it too much, he pushed the plate slightly toward Tendou.

“You should also have some.”

He shifted the fork toward him too, holding it there expectantly. The gesture made Tendou look up to him, he stared at the utensil like his brain had failed to process what was happening. Then, slowly, color began spreading across his face until the flush matched his hair almost perfectly.

Still, after a moment, he leaned forward slightly and took a bite directly from the fork Ushijima held out for him. He felt absurdly aware of all of it, the way Tendou’s eyes flicked upward briefly while pulling back. A faint warmth lingered strangely in his hand afterward.

“G-great. I’m really great at this baking thing, am I not?” Tendou muttered under his breath, covering part of his face and mouth immediately afterward.

Ushijima stared at him quietly across the small bakery table, heart beating strangely uneven beneath his ribs now. This moment felt unbearably familiar.  Just like in the laundry room.

Tendou still had one hand half-covering his face, when a sharp voice suddenly cut across the bakery.

“TENDOU SATORI I NEED HELP OVER HERE NOW.”

Both of them looked up. A middle-aged woman near the espresso machine was staring directly at them with the exhausted expression of someone who had tolerated entirely too much nonsense from him over the years. Tendou jumped so hard he nearly knocked his own chair backward.

“COMING!” he squeaked with genuine panic before scrambling awkwardly to his feet. In the rush, his knee clipped the edge of the table, making the plates rattle loudly enough that he muttered a horrified apology to the cake itself.

He adjusted his apron quickly, then hesitated beside the table before looking back at Ushijima again. The earlier awkwardness had softened now into something nervous but hopeful around the edges.

“I…” He rubbed the back of his neck once more. “I guess I’ll…see you tonight?”

Ushijima nodded once without hesitation.

“Yes. Please.”

Tendou smiled immediately. Bright, familiar again.

“Perfect” he said softly.

Then someone yelled his name a second time and he visibly re-entered reality.

“RIGHT SORRY SORRY IM HERE” he shouted before rushing back behind the counter in a blur of red hair and flour-dusted apron strings.

Ushijima sat there for another moment afterward, watching him move through the bakery with renewed lightness in his step.

He was looking forward to 1 a.m. 

By the time one in the morning finally arrived, he had already checked the clock six separate times. Which was six more than usual. He tried not to think too hard about what that implied as he hauled his laundry basket down the dorm stairwell later that night, the familiar weight of towels and practice clothes resting against his hip. Outside, rain tapped softly against the basement windows, campus quiet beneath the dark blue stillness that only existed this late. The silence no longer felt heavy. It felt anticipatory.

He reached the laundry room door and paused briefly before pushing it open. Warmth spilled out immediately alongside the steady hum of dryers. Tendou sat cross-legged on top of machine number three, exactly where Ushijima somehow knew he would be, wearing an oversized hoodie and plaid pajama pants patterned with tiny strawberries this time. A half-eaten convenience store sandwich rested beside him while he scribbled something messily onto a sticky note balanced against one knee.

The moment the door opened, he looked up. And just like that, something in Ushijima’s chest settled back into place.

“There you are” he announced, like he always used to do.

Ushijima glanced automatically toward machine number one. Empty. Waiting for him. A sticky note had already been placed on the lid.

Reserved for tall people with terrifying shoulder muscles.

The knot in Ushijima’s chest loosened.

“I see the notes have returned” he said quietly.

Tendou looked suspiciously pleased with himself.

“I had a brief artistic retirement.”

Ushijima set his basket down beside the washer, trying unsuccessfully to ignore the warmth lingering beneath his stomach now.

“Sorry for that” the other said simply. Ushijima looked at him. Tendou tugged absentmindedly at one sleeve of his hoodie. “I just panicked a little.”

“Why?”

Tendou’s expression did something small and unreadable for a second before he exhaled softly through his nose.

“Let’s change the subject,” he decided. “Move toward more interesting topics.” He pointed accusingly toward Ushijima’s laundry basket. “Volleyball. Tell me about volleyball.”

“Volleyball?”

Tendou shifted on top of the dryer, pulling one knee closer to his chest. “How was your season? It’s almost over, right?”

“We qualified for Nationals.”

The redhead straightened immediately.

“You what?”

“We won during spring break.”

“And you’re telling me this now?” the man looked genuinely offended. “Wakatoshi, that’s huge! You must be really famous now!” he continued dramatically.

“I am not famous.”

“You play Division One volleyball and qualified for Nationals.” Tendou pointed at him dramatically from atop the dryer. “You must be at least campus-famous.”

Ushijima shook his head faintly while pouring detergent into the washer.

“You exaggerate often.”

“It’s one of my most marketable qualities.”

Then, after a second, Tendou tilted his head slightly.

“Nationals…huh.” Something softer slipped into his voice unexpectedly. “That was always the goal. I used to play volleyball too, actually.”

Ushijima looked up immediately.

“You did?”

“Mhm.” He rocked one foot absently against the dryer door beneath him. “Back in high school.”

The interest that moved through Ushijima this time was immediate and genuine. Somehow, despite all their conversations, this had never come up before.

“What position?” he asked quietly.

Tendou grinned a little at the sudden seriousness in his tone.

“Middle blocker.” Then, apparently unable to resist physically demonstrating things at all times, he sat up straighter atop the dryer and threw both arms upward dramatically into blocking position. The oversized hoodie rode up instantly with the movement.

It happened fast, barely a second. But Ushijima saw it anyway. The sharp lines of Tendou’s abdomen disappearing beneath low sweatpants. A defined v-line dipping lower alongside the faint trail of hair disappearing into his—Let’s stop there.

But Ushijima’s brain certainly did. Heat surged violently upward beneath his skin while Tendou, still enthusiastically mid-explanation and completely unaware of the psychological destruction he had just inflicted, continued talking.

“and then if the setter panicked, I’d close the line like this-”

Luckily—or unluckily, depending on the status of Ushijima's fracturing composure—a horrible, grating sound suddenly erupted from somewhere behind them.

Both of them turned violently toward the row of washers, their bodies jerking in unison. Machine number four let out a deep, shuddering mechanical groan that sounded distinctly fatal, the metal casing vibrating violently against the concrete. Then, with a sudden, wet pop, a steady torrent of gray water started pouring out from the bottom seal, spilling directly onto the basement floor.

For one stunned second, neither of them moved. The puddle spread rapidly, a dark, soapy mirror expanding beneath the machines and rushing toward the tips of their sneakers.

“…Huh?” Tendou said weakly, his long arms freezing mid-gesture as his jaw dropped.

The washer made another dying noise and the leak somehow worsened, water rushed across the tile at alarming speed now, carrying suspicious soap bubbles with it while the machine rattled violently like it was actively losing a fight with itself.

Ushijima reacted first. He crossed the room immediately and slammed the stop button. The machine shuddered aggressively beneath his hand before finally falling silent. Unfortunately, the water did not. It kept leaking steadily onto the floor.

“Why is it still doing that?” Tendou asked from atop the dryer, visibly offended by the betrayal.

“I do not know. We should call for maintenance.”

The redhead jumped off the dryer immediately.

“So the university can blame us and we have to pay for damages? Please, I am already in debt as is. We can manage.”

Right on cue, another terrible, wet gurgling noise erupted from the depths of the washer. Then, catastrophically, the high-pressure drainage hose at the back burst completely free from its wall mount. A wall of gray water exploded across the small basement room. The pressurized spray caught both of them instantly—cold, soapy water splashing violently across Ushijima’s grey sweatpants and directly soaking the front of Tendou’s oversized hoodie, while mountain-fresh suds skidded wildly across the tile floor.

Tendou’s feet lost all traction on the slick linoleum. He slipped, his long limbs flailing. Ushijima’s athletic reflexes kicked in instantly, his large hand snapping out to catch the redhead by the waist before his head could connect with the concrete. Unfortunately, because the universe was clearly operating on a set of hostile parameters tonight, Ushijima’s heavy drive-step landed directly into the center of the growing soapy puddle.

They lost balance together. The ace hit the floor first with a heavy, rib-rattling thud, his broad back absorbing the brunt of the impact. A split second later, Tendou landed directly on top of him in a chaotic tangle of wet fleece and breathless shock.

The room fell silent except for the frantic, dying hiss of the broken hose. Slowly, Tendou lifted his head from where he had accidentally buried his face directly into the crook of Ushijima’s shoulder.

“Uhm…Hi” he said weakly.

Ushijima stared up at him. There was a soap bubble in his hair.

For three completely absurd seconds, that was the only data point Ushijima’s brain allowed himself to process. It was a matter of psychological self-preservation. If he didn't focus on the bubble, he was going to have to acknowledge the fact that the redhead he was fiercely attracted to was currently sprawled directly across his torso. He would have to register the intense warmth of Tendou's body pressing through the freezing, soapy water soaking into both of their clothes. Or the fact that one of Tendou’s long legs was currently tangled awkwardly, intimately between his own.

Slowly, his large hand moved upward, his fingers moving with uncharacteristic delicacy as he plucked the bubble carefully from Tendou’s hair.

The movement shattered the illusion of distance. Something about the small gesture finally seemed to hit both of them simultaneously. Suddenly, the spatial metrics of their positioning became entirely too clear. Very aware.

Tendou’s face hovered mere inches above his now, damp strands of red hair falling across highly flushed cheeks while the broken hose continued to spray wildly into the dark corners behind them. Ushijima could feel practically every inch of him through the layers of soaked fabric—the frantic, rapid rise and fall of Tendou's breathing, the heavy warmth of his thigh resting against Ushijima’s hip, and the white-knuckled grip Tendou still maintained on the fabric of his shoulder from the fall.

Ushijima swallowed visibly, his throat tight. Beneath Tendou’s chest, his heartbeat stumbled hard enough that he physically felt it judder against his ribs.

“Okay,” he whispered after a second. “I think we should do something before the water reaches the first floor.

The words sounded sensible. Responsible, even. Unfortunately, Tendou’s eyes betrayed him immediately afterward. They flicked downward for the briefest second, toward Ushijima’s mouth this time, before snapping back upward again so quickly it almost looked painful.

Ushijima noticed. He hated that he noticed.

Water continued spraying violently somewhere behind them, soap bubbles drifting lazily across the flooded floor like the universe itself had decided to become disrespectful. Tendou nodded quickly.

“Yes. Absolutely. Emergency situation. Very serious.”

He tried to stand up, his plastic slippers hitting the soaked tile for approximately half a second before immediately betraying him again. Tendou made a startled, high-pitched sound as both feet slipped sideways at once. Instinctively, his hands flew out, grabbing onto Ushijima’s broad shoulders for balance. Which only made things worse.

He collapsed directly back down onto Ushijima’s chest with enough force to knock the breath briefly from both of them. This time, their faces ended up impossibly close. Close enough that the buffer zone between them was entirely obliterated. Close enough that Ushijima could feel the hot, rapid puff of Tendou’s breath directly against his mouth now.

Neither of them moved. The cold water was pooling deeply beneath Ushijima's back, but his entire core was burning. Tendou's fingers were dug so hard into his shoulders that it was bound to leave marks, his red eyes wide and entirely trapped by Ushijima's unblinking gaze. The air between them felt thick, heavy, and completely saturated with the scent of cheap laundry soap and sudden, undeniable panic.

“…Okay” Tendou whispered after several unbearable seconds. “Now this is bad.”

Ushijima’s hands had somehow ended up resting against Tendou’s waist during the fall. He became aware of that fact all at once. So did Tendou, his entire face turning bright red immediately. 

But he still didn’t move away.

"Wakatoshi," Tendou breathed. The syllables were barely a whisper, completely stripped of his usual sing-song cadence.

His gaze dropped to Ushijima's mouth again. This time, it stayed there a fraction of a second too long. His lower lip parted slightly, a tiny tremor running through his jaw before he forced his eyes back up to meet Ushijima’s unblinking stare. The flush on the redhead's face had deepened, spreading down his neck and disappearing beneath the soaked collar of his hoodie.

“Tendou”  His own voice sounded incredibly deep in the small space, vibrating straight through his chest bone and into Tendou's ribs.

“…Yeah?”

“We are in so much trouble. The University will certainly ban us.”

“That sounds like a problem for future me.”

Despite everything a laugh nearly escaped him. He felt it rise unexpectedly in his chest. Tendou’s expression softened instantly.

“There it is” he murmured, almost distractedly. “I like when you smile.”

The honesty of it hit harder than it should have. Before Ushijima could think carefully enough to stop himself, his grip against Tendou’s waist tightened slightly.

He wanted to kiss him. He was going to kiss him.

He wanted to pull him closer and close the remaining distance between them right here on the flooded laundry room floor while Tendou looked at him like that. And judging by the way Tendou had gone completely still above him — eyes flickering once toward Ushijima’s mouth again before lingering there this time — he thought maybe Tendou would let him. His heart was pounding hard enough now that he could feel it everywhere. Slowly, the man leaned down the slightest fraction without seeming aware he was doing it. His wet hair brushed softly across Ushijima’s forehead. Their breaths mingled warm between them.

Another inch. Ushijima’s hand shifted instinctively higher against Tendou’s waist, caressing his back.

Then, somewhere behind them, the washer exploded in another violent sound.

Both of them flinched so hard the moment shattered instantly.

“…R-Right” he said after a strained second.

Unfortunately, he was still a responsible adult. Which meant he forced himself to inhale deeply once before sitting upright carefully, dragging Tendou with him by the waist in the process. The movement left them wobbling dangerously on the soaked tile again.

“Grab onto me” he instructed, one arm tightening securely around Tendou before he could slip again.

Tendou, still visibly dazed from whatever almost just happened, obeyed automatically. His fingers curled into the front of Ushijima’s hoodie while staring at him with the sort of expression that was doing absolutely nothing helpful for Ushijima’s self-control.

Then, Ushijima finally turned toward the flooding machine with grim determination. Several exhausting minutes later, involving one nearly broken valve, an alarming amount of water pressure, he finally managed to wrench the hose back into place enough to stop the active leak. The washer sputtered weakly, then died.

Silence fell over the room except for water dripping steadily from somewhere. Ushijima exhaled slowly, soaked head to toe now. Beside him, Tendou looked equally disastrous. His hoodie clung damply against his frame, red hair dripping into his eyes while soap bubbles still clung stubbornly to one sleeve.

Ushijima looked over at him.

“Uhm…Do you have any towels?”

Tendou burst into helpless laughter so suddenly he had to grab Ushijima’s arm for balance again.

“Oh,” he wheezed, still laughing, “how I missed you.”

Still smiling helplessly to himself, Tendou finally disappeared briefly into the storage closet and returned carrying an absurd amount of towels balanced against his chest.

The next three hours of their lives became dedicated entirely to emergency flood management. At two in the morning, they were still mopping up water from beneath the dryers. At three, Tendou slipped again while trying to wring out soaked towels dramatically enough that Ushijima had to catch him by the elbow before he face-planted into a basket of clean clothes. At three-thirty, they gave up pretending efficiency mattered and started sitting on overturned laundry baskets between cleanup attempts because exhaustion had begun turning both of them stupid.

Tendou looked especially disastrous by then. His damp hoodie sleeves had been pushed messily to his elbows, exposing pale forearms streaked with soap bubbles while his hair escaped completely from its tie. He sat beside Ushijima on the tile floor holding a towel around his shoulders like a traumatized survivor of maritime disaster.

The warmth between them had returned naturally somewhere along the night. The earlier awkwardness dissolved gradually beneath shared exhaustion, dripping clothes, and increasingly delirious conversations held while surrounded by piles of wet towels.

By four in the morning, the floor was finally dry enough to stop reflecting the fluorescent lights overhead. Tendou stared at the room silently for a long moment before lifting one exhausted hand weakly into the air.

“We won” he whispered.

Ushijima looked around at the disaster they had barely contained.

“I suppose we did.”

Then Tendou’s head tipped sideways slowly until it came to rest against Ushijima’s shoulder. The movement was casual. Tired. Thoughtless. Still, Ushijima went very still beneath the warm weight of him. The man sighed softly against his shoulder after a second.

“I really did miss you, you know.”

Ushijima looked down at him for a moment. Then, very carefully, he leaned his own head lightly against Tendou’s damp hair.

“Come watch my game”

For a second, Ushijima wondered if he had spoken too suddenly. Too directly. Then Tendou slowly lifted his head from his shoulder to look at him properly, eyes searching Ushijima’s face like he was trying to confirm something there. Whatever he found seemed to make his shoulders loosen slightly afterward.

“Are you asking me on a date?”

Yes

“I am inviting you to something important to me. I do not know the correct classification.”

It was, it absolutely was.

Tendou laughed quietly under his breath at that, tired but fond.

“I was just teasing ya, don’t worry.”

Then he looked away briefly, smiling to himself while rubbing at one damp sleeve. When he glanced back again, there was something warm and unguarded lingering in his expression now.

“…Okay” he said. “I’ll come.”

And just like that, Tendou started coming to his games. The first time it happened, Ushijima spotted him almost immediately during warm-ups despite the crowded gymnasium. Mostly because he was impossible to miss. He sat halfway up the bleachers wearing a Shiratorizawa University hoodie two sizes too large, waving both arms obnoxiously the moment Ushijima looked his way.  He felt something warm settle low in his chest for the entire match.

He came to every important game after that. And Ushijima, in return, started visiting the café and bakery whenever his schedule allowed.  

At first it felt strange seeing Tendou beneath daylight so often. The laundry room version of him had always belonged to soft lighting and 1 a.m. exhaustion. During the day, however, Tendou somehow became even more expressive. Louder. Constantly moving between customers with flour on his sleeves and terrible playlists humming from his phone speakers while he worked.

Ushijima liked both versions equally. Perhaps more concerningly, he realized he simply liked seeing Tendou anywhere.

Most impressively, neither of them ever got caught for the laundry room flood incident. Maintenance blamed old pipes. The university blamed budget cuts. One suspicious RA claimed it looked “intentional somehow,” but fortunately the basement security cameras for that dorm section had stopped functioning months earlier. Tendou considered this their greatest shared achievement.

They started spending time together outside their laundry room appointments naturally after that. Study sessions that became mostly Tendou complaining dramatically about economics homework. Late convenience store runs after practice. Walks back from the bakery while Tendou carried boxes of leftover pastries against his chest and complained about customers who ordered complicated drinks five minutes before closing.

And still, somehow, Mondays and Thursdays at 1 a.m. remained theirs too. Machine number one always stayed open. The sticky notes stayed ridiculous.

Reserved for emotionally constipated volleyball captains.

Warning: athlete may bite you if you use me.

Neither of them addressed the fact that they still had not properly defined whatever this was becoming.

Which perhaps explained why Ushijima noticed summer approaching with growing dissatisfaction. The realization hit him fully sometime in late May during practice.

Three months.

Once the semester ended, Tendou would return home. Ushijima would spend most of the break training, traveling for matches, attending conditioning camps. Their carefully built routines would disappear entirely.

And the thought bothered him deeply. Not seeing Tendou at one in the morning would feel…wrong, somehow. He already knew that feeling intimately now. The few weeks Tendou had disappeared from their routines earlier that semester had unsettled Ushijima far more than he cared to admit, which was precisely why he found himself visiting the bakery more often lately. Even on days he did not particularly need coffee.

More dangerously, somewhere along the way they had become touchier with each other too.

Ushijima still was not entirely sure whether that counted as a good thing or a terrible one. Good because the contact itself had become strangely natural now. Tendou leaning lazily against his shoulder during late-night study sessions. Fingers brushing absentmindedly against Ushijima’s wrist while stealing bites of food from his plate. Ushijima adjusting Tendou’s crooked apron strings automatically while standing behind the bakery counter because they bothered him. Their bodies simply seemed to gravitate toward one another instinctively now, always finding excuses to close small distances without thinking too hard about it.

Bad because Ushijima was, quite frankly, losing his mind since Tendou seemed completely inconsistent about it. Some days he acted almost openly affectionate, clinging dramatically to his arm while complaining about exams or resting his chin absentmindedly atop Ushijima’s shoulder while reading over his notes. Other days, however, the moment things lingered too long — a stare held accidentally past comfort, a silence turning softer than teasing — he would suddenly short-circuit and flee emotionally like a startled animal.

Ushijima found it deeply confusing. By now, surely the attraction he felt for the redhead was obvious. At least, to him it felt painfully obvious. And yet he did nothing about it, which was becoming increasingly frustrating.

He should have kissed him that night in the laundry room. He should have reached out, wrapped his broad hand around Tendou’s lean waist where his hoodie bunched up, and pull him across the narrow gap separating them.

The thought kept returning with miserable consistency lately. Usually at deeply inconvenient times like now.

The late afternoon heat pressed heavily against campus as Ushijima ran laps around the outdoor track, lungs burning pleasantly while summer crept steadily closer with every passing day. Sweat clung to the back of his neck beneath the harsh sunlight, muscles aching from conditioning drills already made worse by the weather. Still, somehow, his thoughts kept circling back toward the same thing.

Tendou’s face hovering inches above his own beneath fluorescent white lights.  The deep line of his back.His happy trail disappearing in his shorts.

Damn it.

By the time Ushijima finally returned to his dorm later that afternoon, he felt overheated in every possible sense of the word. He let his hand rest against his own stomach, his fingers tracing the line down toward the waistband of his low-slung shorts, replicating the exact path his mind kept wandering down. A low exhale caught in his throat.  He let himself lean into the memory entirely, substituting the quiet emptiness of the dorm for the sharp friction and breathless tension of Tendou's proximity.

The image arrived easily. The redhead bent slightly over the washing machine. The narrow stretch of exposed skin under his shorts. His slim waist in his hands. His mouth on a chocolate éclair.

Ushijima’s head tipped back slowly against his bedframe. Fuck. Fuck. He couldn’t help it, his hand curled around the visible tent in his shorts, wishing it was Tendou’s long fingers instead. He wondered if they would have felt much softer than his own roughened callused ones. Probably. Hopefully.

He lowered his shorts and gripped around his base, tanned thick thighs twitching. He sighed, imagining a set captivating red eyes half-lidded with amusement, dark circles faint beneath them from another terrible sleep schedule. His fingers tightened slightly against his own length as an image sharpened in his mind: Tendou beneath him, red hair messy, eyes fixed entirely on him. He wanted him with an intensity that genuinely frightened him.

There was no training drill to mitigate this specific kind of hunger, the weight of wanting to press the tall man down against a mattress and find out if his white, milky skin was as delicious as it looked. 

He pressed a thumb against his slit and inhales shakingly. He felt a knot in his gut getting tighter. He could only curse, body tensing as he wished he was spilling inside the redhead instead of his own abs.

He stayed still for a long time, his breathing gradually leveling out as the ceiling fan spun lazily overhead.

After showering quickly, he stood in the middle of his room staring at the growing pile of clothes and half-packed bags scattered across the floor.

Summer break preparations. Laundry included.

The realization felt vaguely offensive: it was a Wednesday afternoon, very unnatural hours for laundry in Ushijima’s mind. Going downstairs before 1am somehow felt incorrect now, almost intrusive, like entering a place not meant to exist during daylight. Still, he had already finished most of his finals and his schedule had emptied considerably this week. If he wanted to avoid packing chaos later, he needed to start now.

Eventually, with visible reluctance, Ushijima gathered an armful of clothes and headed downstairs. His hair remained slightly damp against the back of his neck while residual heat still lingered beneath his skin from practice earlier. He wore loose volleyball shorts and a sleeveless black tank top, exposing broad shoulders and sun-darkened skin still warm from the track. He pushed open the laundry room door automatically while mentally calculating how many loads he would need to finish before tomorrow.

Then stopped dead. Tendou was already there, sitting cross-legged atop one of the dryers with a basket of unfolded clothes beside him, a lollipop in his mouth and red hair falling down messily on his forehead while one earbud dangled loose against his shoulder. At the sound of the door opening, he glanced up casually. The sock he had been folding slipped directly from his hands.

“Are you cheating on me???”

Ushijima blinked once.

“Excuse me?”

“This is not our time slot” Tendou said, visibly offended now as he pulled the lollipop from his mouth dramatically. “It’s six in the evening, Wakatoshi. The sun is still out. What are you doing here?”

“I need to pack before break.”

“That doesn’t explain why you abandoned our sacred hours.” Tendou narrowed his eyes suspiciously from atop the dryer. “I thought we had something special.”

Ushijima stared at him for a second before glancing pointedly around the room.

“…You are also here?”

Silence.

“That is completely different.”

“How?”

“Because I’m me.” he pointed at himself confidently. “I dirty too many aprons to be able to only do laundry twice a week, my dude.”

Ushijima found himself suddenly far too aware of the lollipop balanced between Tendou’s fingers. More specifically, the absentminded way he kept rolling it slowly against his mouth while talking, lips parting lazily around the candy before pulling away again with soft clicking sounds that he absolutely did not need to be noticing this intensely.

His brain, deeply unhelpful lately whenever Tendou existed within a five-foot radius, chose that exact moment to become hyperaware of every small movement his tongue was doing against the candy.

Ignoring the entire situation for the sake of his own sanity, Ushijima moved quickly instead, setting his laundry basket down beside machine number one with perhaps slightly too much focus.

“So, since you started packing, tell me,” the redhead had said lazily around the lollipop “how many University t-shirts have you managed to emotionally hoard this year?”

“Mh...we get free merchandise as athletes, so…a lot.” Ushijima continued sorting clothes calmly. “I might have to throw some away before next year.”

“Well, you absolutely seem like the type to own fifteen identical t-shirts.”

“I own several different shirts.”

“Oh?” Tendou sounded genuinely impressed. “Diversity? Show me then.”

“That is unnecessary.”

“Coward.”

Ushijima sighed faintly before reaching into the basket anyway, separating darker clothes from lighter ones as he pulled shirts out one by one.

“This one was from the spring invitational.”

“Mhm.”

“This was nationals qualifying.”

“Oh wow, look at you. That is bright yellow.”

“And this one-”

Tendou was barely pretending not to enjoy this now, sitting atop the dryer kicking one leg idly while Ushijima unwillingly explained tournament merchandise like a man presenting historical artifacts. As the athlete reached deeper into the basket, however, he froze.

Oh no.

Unfortunately, Tendou saw them at the exact same moment. Bright red boxer briefs. With a giant Terminator graphic across the back. Silence detonated across the laundry room. Tendou slowly removed the lollipop from his mouth.

“…Wakatoshi.”

Ushijima immediately attempted to shove them back into the basket.  Too late.

“No no no no-” Tendou nearly slid off the dryer in his excitement. “WHAT are those?!”

“They are nothing.”

“Those are TERMINATOR BOXERS.” The redhead looked personally victimized by the discovery. “Why do you own them?!”

“I…forgot those existed.” Ushijima’s face felt uncomfortably warm as the redhead managed to grab them. “They were at the bottom of the drawer. I never wear them for your information.”

“Oh my god.” The other couldn’t hear him, he laughed so hard he physically folded forward against his knees. “This is the greatest thing that has ever happened to me.”

“Give them back now, so I can throw them away” he tried to reach for the boxers again.

“No!” Tendou yanked them away immediately before he could grab them. “These are evidence.”

“They are just underwear. An embarassing gift from my mom.”

Ushijima stepped closer, attempting to retrieve them with what dignity he still possessed. Unfortunately, Tendou immediately dodged sideways around the folding table while laughing helplessly.

“You touched my underwear first, remember?” he pointed out between laughs. “This is just karmic justice.”

“That was different!”

“Oh? So when you aggressively rifled through my boxers in November it’s fine, but suddenly now we have boundaries?”

“I stopped immediately.”

“Mhm, right. Pervert.”

If he only knew what Ushijima had been doing just minutes before coming downstairs...

“Tendou.”

The warning in Ushijima’s voice only made the redhead grin wider. He lifted the underwear triumphantly above his head before Ushijima could grab them again.

A regrettable strategy, considering Ushijima was much taller.

His wrist was caught easily. The shift happened too quickly after that. One second Tendou was twisting away laughing, sliding slightly against the tiled floor, and the next he found himself backed lightly against the row of dryers, Ushijima close enough that there was nowhere natural left to retreat.

Then both of them went still. The dryer behind Tendou rattled steadily beneath the weight of the wet clothes inside it, the vibration humming through his spine and making him jolt faintly in surprise. Instinctively, his free hand landed against Ushijima’s shoulder to steady himself, his back arching away as he tried to put distance between their faces.

But the movement backfired catastrophically.

“I…” Tendou laughed once under his breath around the lollipop still tucked in the corner of his mouth, the sound unsteady this time. The white stick bobbed faintly as he spoke. “I-I know you said you didn’t want things to change between us, but…” His voice trailed off, swallowed by the hum of the laundry room.

The closeness was unbearable. Heat spread violently across Tendou’s face, flushing down his neck to the tips of his ears. Ushijima’s hand at his waist felt solid and far too easy to lean into.

“This feels kind of impossible to recover from” he admitted quietly.

Ushijima’s other hand loosened slightly around his wrist, but he didn't pull back.

“…Do you want to?” he asked, his voice low, steady, and entirely devoid of his usual hesitation. “Change things.”

Deep down, Ushijima already knew the answer didn't matter. No matter what response came out of those lips, they were past the point of turning back. He simply couldn't stop himself anymore. Not with Tendou right beneath him like this, half-reclined against the vibrating warmth of the dryer, a small, colorful lollipop tucked into the corner of his mouth.

Ushijima wanted this.

He wanted him.

The realization no longer carried the sharp sting of fear; instead, the only thing that terrified him now was the sudden, agonizing possibility that Tendou might pull away.

But Tendou didn't move.  Instead, a soft, breathless laugh hitched in his throat—weak and entirely fond. Slowly, Tendou pulled the lollipop from his mouth, holding it out toward him in a silent offering that bridged the final inch of space.

“Yes” he whispered, his voice cracking slightly on the syllable. Abandoning the small distance left between them, he slid fully into the solid heat of Ushijima’s chest.  “Yes, please.”

The words nearly unraveled him. He stared at him for one suspended second too long. At the shine of saliva along the candy. At Tendou’s half-lidded eyes watching him carefully now, red irises dark beneath the laundry room lights, waiting.

Heat crawled violently up his throat. All this time, while Ushijima had been convincing himself he was imagining things, the other had apparently been struggling too.

Never breaking eye contact, he leaned forward, closed his hand gently around Tendou’s other wrist. Large fingers fitting easily there, rough calluses brushing warm skin. He felt Tendou shiver faintly beneath the touch.

Then he lowered his mouth to the lollipop, his lips closed around the candy exactly where Tendou’s had been seconds earlier, sweet artificial cherry flooding his tongue, but it barely registered compared to the look on Tendou’s face now - startled delight melting rapidly into something breathless.

The sound the other made was quiet, but Ushijima nearly lost whatever remained of his composure at that alone. Suddenly all he could think about was how easy it would be to lean the remaining distance forward, to taste sugar directly from his mouth instead, to finally discover whether those  red eyes would flutter shut if Ushijima kissed him hard enough.

Slowly, Tendou reached up and pulled the lollipop back from Ushijima’s mouth, his gaze never leaving his face.

He looked wrecked by it.

Eyes unsteady. Shoulders tense. Fingers flexing faintly against the dryer beside him like he needed something to ground himself.

“Oh, screw it” he muttered breathlessly, his eyes dropping immediately toward his mouth afterward. He carelessly tossed the lollipop across the laundry room and he grabbed the front of Ushijima’s tank to kiss him. The athlete made a startled sound low in his throat, body locking briefly from pure surprise before instinct took over completely. 

Tendou pried his mouth open with his bold tongue, licking, tasting the fake strawberry flavor. His grip tightened, pulling him closer with a soft sound against his mouth that nearly destroyed whatever coherent thought Ushijima had left, making another soft sound against his mouth,  the noise going straight through his dick. The Terminator underwear slipped forgotten from his hand and landed somewhere on the floor beside them. Neither of them noticed.

The dryer continued humming steadily below them while Tendou’s head tipped back slightly, allowing Ushijima to kiss him deeper.

The angle was an invitation, raw and entirely unguarded, and Ushijima took it. He leaned heavily into Tendou's space, his thigh pressing between the redhead's legs as he followed the tilt of his chin, slanting his mouth to kiss him deeper, harder, devouring the lingering taste of sugar and the quiet, breathless gasps Tendou kept losing to him.

“Fuck, you’re good at that.” he whispered, completely dazed.

Heat climbed instantly into Ushijima’s face.

“I have never done that before.”

That seemed to short-circuit the redhead even harder somehow.

“…You’re kidding.”

“No.”

“Oh my god.” Tendou laughed breathlessly, forehead falling briefly against Ushijima’s shoulder. “That makes this so much worse for me.”

Ushijima’s hand remained steady against his waist. He didn't offer an apology or an explanation; instead, his fingers tightened instinctively before he moved without warning. In one smooth, effortless motion, he lifted Tendou cleanly off the floor.

“What are you-“

Tendou let out a startled, wild laugh as Ushijima set him down onto the top of the washing machine behind him. The metal rattled faintly beneath the sudden weight, vibrating and warm from constant use.

Before  the redhead could even catch his breath, his legs instinctively bracketed around Ushijima’s hips, and the other stepped deeply into the cradle of his thighs. Trapping him there, he placed his large hands firmly on the enamel on either side of Tendou's legs, looking up with an intense, unblinking focus that made it clear they weren't done.

Tendou made a startled, muffled sound against his mouth before both hands slid instinctively upward around his neck, his long fingers curling into the damp, dark hair still soft from the shower. The slight tremble that had taken over the redhead a moment ago vanished completely, replaced by a sudden, fierce desperation. 

The shift in posture changed everything. With Tendou lifted onto the machine, the angle of the kiss became deeper, hungrier, and entirely unglued from the tentative hesitation of moments ago. The metal casing of the running machine rattled behind them, but the sound was completely swallowed by the rush of blood in Ushijima's ears. The invasive, consuming thought that had wrecked his entire week was suddenly real, tangible, and entirely consuming.

Tendou tasted faintly sweet, his lips impossibly warm and opening readily beneath Ushijima’s heavy, unyielding pressure, the industrial vibrations of the dryer making the whole scene even hotter than it was. He shivered as the machine's movement buzzed through his spine. He arched his back into the touch, a soft, broken gasp eliciting from his lips and breaking the seal of the kiss for a fraction of a second. Driven by the strange, pleasurable friction of the pulsation beneath him, Tendou spread his legs wider, his hips instinctively bucking up against the edge of the enamel as he sought more of the friction, more of the heat, and more of Ushijima.

“W-Wakatoshi, I-…” he whined out, clearly aroused, face the same color of his hair. Ushijima’s hot breath fanned over his neck, and he couldn’t help but bucking into where both their hips met after hearing the other moan like that.

He was so turned on it hurt.

He ran his hands on the milky thighs around him, fingers raising the fabric of his shorts until he could reach his waist again. The contrast of Tendou's pale, lean skin against his palms sent another jolt of pure adrenaline straight down his spine.

The heat in the tiny, secluded room spiked instantly, thick with the scent of lavender and the raw, uncontainable friction of their bodies. Ushijima’s senses narrowed entirely down to the physical reality of the man in his arms. 

“Holy shit, I dreamed about this for so long.”

The confession settled warmly somewhere deep beneath Ushijima. He lifted his head slightly just enough to look at him properly again. Tendou’s cheeks were flushed bright red, lips swollen from kissing while red hair stuck messily against his forehead from the heat building between them.

"You..." Ushijima murmured, his breath catching as his thumbs stroked the smooth curve of Tendou's hips. "You dreamed of this?"

"Of course I did, you big dummy," the other huffed, a soft, breathless laugh shaking his chest as he pulled his hands from Ushijima's neck to cradle the solid, rugged line of the ace's jaw. "You really are a genius on the court and an absolute blockhead everywhere else, Wakatoshi" he whispered affectionately, leaning forward until their foreheads nudged together. The proximity allowed him to look directly into Ushijima's dark eyes, his breath fanning warm across his lips. "I've been practically throwing myself at you all semester."

Ushijima blinked, his literal mind processing the new data with a sudden, overwhelming wave of relief that loosened a knot deep in his chest.

"I thought I had made things weird" he admitted.

Tendou let out another soft huff, his thumbs lightly tracing the rigid, tense line of Ushijima's jaw. The swollen curve of his lips pulled into a crooked, slightly self-deprecating smile, one entirely stripped of his usual theatrical sting.

"You did" he murmured honestly. His gaze dropped to the space between them for a brief second before flickering right back up to lock onto Ushijima's dark eyes. "You completely wrecked my system. I didn't know how to act once I realized you might actually like guys."

Ushijima tilted his head slightly, pressing into the comforting warmth of Tendou's long, taped fingers.

"I am not interested in men" he said, his deep. He looked at him with absolute, unblinking clarity. "I am only interested in you."

The redhead’s breath hitched in his throat, his hazel eyes widening as a soft, completely breathless sound escaped him. The raw honesty of the declaration struck him deeper than any of their physical contact so far, cutting straight through his remaining defenses. For a second, he just stared, before a brilliantly warm, genuine smile broke through the shock.

Tendou tugged lightly on the collar of Ushijima's shirt, pulling him back down to bridge the gap and seal the confession with another deep, unyielding kiss.

When they finally broke away, Tendou’s breath hitched in a sharp, ragged gasp, his chest rising and falling rapidly against Ushijima’s solid torso. He stared up at the ace, his eyes dark and blown wide, completely stripped of any lingering irony. He let out a weak, desperate laugh, his taped fingers tightly bunching the fabric of Ushijima’s collar to keep his balance on the vibrating machine.

“Okay, now seriously” he breathed, his voice dropping to a raspy, unvarnished whisper against his lips. “Take me upstairs before my dick explodes.”

Ushijima considered the parameters of the risk, though he didn't immediately set Tendou down. He simply adjusted his hold, his large palms pressing firmly against the smooth skin of Tendou’s bare thighs where his shorts had ridden up, letting the raw heat of the contact simmer between them for one more deliberate second.

Then, with a low,rumble of frustration in his chest, he relented. He lowered Tendou back onto the linoleum floor.

"Now let's go, quickly," Tendou breathed. His eyes were dark and blown wide as he grabbed Ushijima’s hand, his long, taped fingers locking tightly between the ace's. He tugged him toward the doorway, casting a fierce, heavy look back over his shoulder. "Lead the way, Captain. Before I change my mind and strip you down right here."

They scrambled inside, the athlete kicking the heavy wooden door shut behind them, the lock snapping into place.

The silence of the dark dorm room lasted for exactly one heartbeat. Before the athlete could even straighten his posture, Tendou completely devoured him. The redhead threw himself forward with a fierce, unbridled desperation, his tall frame slamming full-force into Ushijima’s solid chest. His hands shot straight into his hair, fingers pulling with a raw, terrifying hunger as his mouth crashed against the ace's lips.

He backed him up aggressively until Ushijima’s shoulder blades hit the solid wood of the closed door, the impact sending a heavy tremor through the frame. A fractured, breathless groan escaped the back of his throat as his teeth lightly grazed Ushijima's lower lip, his tongue tangling with the athlete’s in a deep pressure that made Ushijima’s knees almost go weak.

He reached out, his palms locking onto the lean waist under the hoodie, squeezing the warm meat of his hips as he returned the kiss with an equal, consuming intensity. Without breaking the suffocating line of their mouth, Tendou’s legs hooked back around Ushijima’s waist, his body lifting off the floor entirely as he climbed the man like a tree.

Ushijima didn't break the kiss as he carried Tendou across the small, dark room, until his knees hit the edge of his neatly made twin bed. He let him slide down onto the mattress, following him down immediately until his broad frame completely pinned the redhead beneath him. The vivid image that had aggressively wrecked his focus all week vanished, replaced by a reality that was infinitely more consuming. 

A pair of hands clutched frantically at his tank top, pulling him down with a desperate, breathless laugh as their mouths collided again.  The single-sized mattress groaned softly under their combined weight as they shifted, the neatly tucked corners of Ushijima's bedding pulling completely free.

Tendou's hoodie came off in a frantic tangle of long limbs. Ushijima's hands  found immediate, unhindered purchase against Tendou’s bare skin, feeling the sharp ridges of his spine and the rapid, electric expansion of his ribcage with every ragged breath he took. The man let out a sharp, shuddering gasp against Ushijima’s neck, his fingers curling like claws into the muscle of the larger man’s shoulders.

"Wakatoshi"  his voice was broken, a completely undone sound that vibrated directly against his collarbone.

He shifted his weight, his heavy arms pinning Tendou’s long legs to the mattress, grounding the redhead completely beneath him. Every touch was thick with a desperate need to memorize every inch of the man who had effortlessly dismantled his entire life.

Tendou slided his hand under his tank top, hiking it up further and further until it was off him. He tangled his fingers into the hem of the discarded fabric, throwing it blindly onto the floor before his hands came right back to rest against Ushijima's solid shoulders. He let out a low, ragged whistle, his crimson eyes raking over the expanse of the exposed chest in the dim dorm light.

Even with the frantic pacing of their breathing, the sheer, perfection of the ace's body was completely on display, muscle built from years of relentless, unyielding discipline.

"God," he breathed, his thumbs dragging over the heavy slope of Ushijima’s collarbone, a weak, entirely undone smirk cutting through his breathlessness. "It's genuinely a crime how you look.”

Ushijima’s frame shivered under the touch, his large hands pressing against the mattress on either side of Tendou’s head as he leaned down, trapping the redhead completely beneath his weight.

He felt his own erection pressing right against the redhead’s. The other’s eyes widened, a flush spreading down his face.

“Shit, you are so big. Of course you are so big. Why wouldn’t you be big?” Embarrassment burned through Ushijima as his hips couldn’t help rocking forward at his words, thrusting unevenly against the redhead’s length.

The friction was sudden and intense.

“Satori, I-…” he groaned into his ear, voice low and groggy, feeling some of the dampness of his pre-cum seeping through his volleyball shorts.

"Don't... don't apologize" he choked out, his voice a ragged, broken whisper as he shoved his hips back against the pressure, matching the uneven rhythm with a fierce necessity of his own. 

There was a collision of teeth and bruising pressure, fueled by the agonizing minutes spent hiding in the hall. Tendou's hands scrambled up Ushijima's chest, his fingers griping him so fierce it bordered on painful. He tilted his head, baring his throat to the dark as Ushijima’s mouth dropped down to bite and suck at the taut line of his neck.

"Fuck—yes, right there-"

Ushijima couldn't stop, he kept his hips locked tight against Tendou’s, rocking into him with a relentless, heavy rhythm that completely short-circuited whatever control they had left. The burning heat that made Tendou’s fingers claw frantically at the muscles of Ushijima's bare shoulders.

"Wakatoshi—wait, wait," he gasped, though his own hips were bucking back against the pressure, completely contradicting the words. His eyes almost rolled back at the sensation, panting desperately against Ushijima’s collar as he spilled in his own underwear, a sloppy kiss engulfing his mouth right after.

The sudden, intense release left the redhead completely undone, his body going momentarily lax as he slumped against the the materess. His head dropped, his breath coming in shallow, frantic stutters against the damp skin of Ushijima's neck.

But wet patch in front of Tendou shorts only sent Ushijima over the edge. The heavy, unyielding ache in his lower abdomen was agonizing now, demanding an end to the restraint he had held onto for weeks.

"Satori" Ushijima groaned, his voice completely wrecked and thick with friction.

Without breaking the solid seal of their bodies, he reached down with one hand, his fingers hooking into the waistband of his own athletic shorts and underwear, shoving them down past his hips in one heavy, impatient motion. He didn't even bother taking them off completely, just freeing himself from the suffocating fabric.

Tendou felt the shift and let out a weak, raspy whimper. Even completely exhausted, his fingers found Ushijima’s shoulders again, digging in deep. "Wakatoshi... do it. Please."

Guided by pure, primal friction, Ushijima adjusted his grip under Tendou's thighs and drove his hips forward one last time, pressing his bare, burning length firmly against the smooth skin of Tendou’s inner thigh and stomach.

The direct, uninsulated contact sent a violent jolt straight up Ushijima’s spine. His eyes shot wide in the darkness, his jaw locking so tight the muscles strained. A deep, guttural sound ripped from the back of his throat, a raw, unvarnished noise he had never made in his life.

He rocked forward twice more, heavy and completely uncoordinated, before his body went completely rigid.

He buried his face into the bright red hair at Tendou’s temple, his chest heaving violently as his own release crashed through him, hot and overwhelming, painting the space between their lower bellies.

Ushijima’s knees trembled under the sheer weight of the sensation, his fingers clutching bruisingly tight into Tendou's hips

The narrow twin bed was now an absolute disaster area. The top sheet was twisted somewhere around the footboard, and the thick, pristine comforter Ushijima usually kept perfectly smoothed down had been kicked completely onto the floor. The sterile neatness that usually defined the his living space had been thoroughly compromised, replaced by the scent of lavender dryer sheets, faint sweat, and a lingering, profound warmth.

The athlete lay flat on his back, the solid muscle of his chest rising and falling in a deep, recovered rhythm. Beside him, Tendou was completely dead to the world, sprawled sideways with half his weight slumped comfortably over Ushijima’s torso. His long frame was loose and heavy with exhaustion, his messy red hair fanning out in a chaotic halo against Ushijima’s shoulder. One of his pale, slender arms was draped across Ushijima's ribs, his fingers twitching occasionally in his sleep. He adjusted his arm, his large hand coming to rest flat against the small of Tendou's bare back. The skin there was warm, smooth, and rising rhythmically against his palm.

1-2-3-4.

He counted the beats of Tendou's breathing in his head, a faint, rare smile finally softening the rugged lines of his face.

The heavy, suffocating heat of the night eventually gave way to the pale, cool light of a Thursday morning.

Ushijima woke up precisely at 5:00 a.m. His internal clock, an unyielding biological algorithm developed over a decade of athletic discipline, did not care that he had only slept for three hours. It did not care that they had returned to the absolute brink twice more after that initial, explosive collision —first tangled clumsily in the sheets, and then hours later in the slow, heavy quiet of the pre-dawn darkness, thoroughly exhausting themselves until their bodies were entirely spent.

His discipline certainly did not care that his muscles felt heavier, hotter, and more deeply unstrung than they ever had after a grueling five-set match.

He blinked, his dark eyes instantly adjusting to the dim gray light filtering through his single dorm window. For the first time in his university career, he did not immediately sit up, roll out of bed, and begin his stretching routine.

He couldn't. Tendou was still completely anchored to his side. In a standard week, an unscheduled three-hour sleep deficit would severely compromise his court efficiency, slowing his reaction time by an estimated twelve percent. It was an unacceptable deviation from his strict training parameters.

And yet, looking down at the faint freckles on Tendou's nose, Ushijima didn't care about the percentage drop at all. Slowly, Ushijima lifted his hand and ran his fingers through the messy red strands sticking to Tendou's forehead. The other stirred at the contact. A soft, fractured hum escaped his throat, and his long lashes fluttered open, revealing sleepy, crimson eyes that locked instantly onto Ushijima’s face. He pulled a lazy, swollen smile, his hand sliding up to loosely grip Ushijima’s bicep.

“Morning” he murmured, voice rough and thick with exhaustion.

The sound alone did something unfair to Ushijima’s chest. His fingers paused briefly where they had been combing slowly through messy red hair before that rare, genuine softness returned quietly to his expression again. The kind Tendou seemed uniquely capable of drawing out of him. He leaned down and kissed him once. Then again. And again after that, slower each time, like he simply could not stop now that he finally had permission to do this openly.

Tendou smiled helplessly against his mouth between sleepy laughs, one arm still loosely looped around Ushijima’s neck.

“We’re never going to survive summer break, are we?”

Ushijima looked at him quietly for a moment. Tendou’s lips were pink from kissing, hair completely ruined now beneath Ushijima’s hands, a long leg still tangled lazily around his waist like he had no intention of moving anytime soon.

The thought of suddenly not seeing him every few days anymore settled unpleasantly in Ushijima’s chest all over again.

“Probably not” he admitted honestly.

Tendou groaned dramatically and let his head fall backward. “Great. Fantastic.”

Ushijima almost smiled again. Then Tendou looked back at him with that same warm expression that always seemed to undo him a little.

“You’re gonna miss me a disgusting amount, huh?”

“Of course.”

Tendou stared at him for exactly one second before breaking into helpless laughter.

“Wow” he snorted, dragging the word out. “Not even pretending to play it cool.”

Ushijima’s hands settled firmly at Tendou’s waist.

“Should I?”

“Well, yes” he replied immediately. “A little. For my dignity.”

“I don’t think we have much left after what we did in the laundry room.”

Tendou gasped so theatrically it nearly dissolved into another laugh.

“You make it sound like we are criminals!”

“I wanted to take you against the dryer. It’s a bit criminal, isn’t it?”

Tendou made a strangled noise and shoved his face briefly into Ushijima’s shoulder at the honesty.

“You…you can’t just say things like that so seriously”

Ushijima rested his cheek lightly against the top of his head.

“I don’t know another way to say them.”

The laughter faded slowly after that and summer break suddenly felt far too close.

“You know,” Tendou murmured eventually, voice muffled against him “I’m going to call you every three hours.”

“That seems excessive.”

“That’s normal. You’ll survive.”

“I don’t think you’ve ever acted normal once in your life.”

Tendou gasped loudly.

“Mean. Evil, even.” But he was smiling too hard for the accusation to land. Ushijima finally let himself smile properly then: small, rare, but enough to make Tendou go abruptly quiet.

“That’s dangerous. Don’t do that unexpectedly.”

“Smile?”

“Yes. I nearly fell in love on the spot.”

“Nearly?”

“Wakatoshi, I have to preserve some dignity,” Tendou mumbled, though the attempt at exasperation was thoroughly undermined by the fondness bleeding through every word. “You already know how embarrassingly obsessed with you I am.”

A soft, breathless laugh escaped him as he buried his face right back into the crook of Ushijima’s neck, warm from sleep and still carrying traces of detergent and the faint sweetness of last night’s stolen candy. Beneath the tangled sheets, Tendou’s long legs tightened lazily around Ushijima’s thigh, pulling him even closer despite the complaints.

“Now please,” he muttered against his skin, voice rough with exhaustion, “shut up and let me sleep for another hour. It’s the absolute crack ass of dawn.”

He closed his eyes, his broad arm wrapping securely around Tendou’s waist to hold him close against his chest. His mouth curved faintly against the top of his hair. Then, before he could overthink it—before the unfamiliar weight of the words could settle too heavily in his chest and stop him from saying them at all—he spoke quietly into the dim room.

“I love you, you know?”

Ushijima felt the exact moment the words registered fully because Tendou’s grip on him tightened abruptly beneath the blankets.

“Ok, that’s it. I’m going to call you every two hours.”