[Haikyuu!!] YamaTsukki; but meanwhile it flees
but meanwhile it flees (time flees irretrievably)
Fandom: Haikyuu!!
Pairing: Tsukishima/Yamaguchi
Contents/Warnings: non-canonical flashbacks
Word Count: 1,250
Prompt: time capsule
for Joanna.
The summer days were long, but after-school practice was longer, and the sun was melting into the horizon as Tsukishima treaded his way home. The space beside him was a cold silence he couldn’t block out even with his headphones on.
It was a small thing. It had to be a small thing to catch his attention, to slip through the cracks of the world he had created around himself. A warning sign. The emptiness where children had once played happily. The metal teeth in bowed heads; they waited for the morning and the hands that steered destruction.
Shoulders hunched, Tsukishima blinked dismissively at the renovation across the road, but his feet wouldn’t move.
It was hardly a detour. It only took a moment to slip past the make-shift fencing. The top soil was already disturbed, and Tsukishima only had to brush it aside to find what he was looking for. He could have found the place in his sleep, so well watched was the memory.
They had taken the idea from school, lifted the words from well-worn pages and made it their own. In the evening they had sneaked past Yamaguchi’s mother, who had her hands full of children even without the addition of Tsukishima to her family, and ran to spot where the magnolia fell. Under the white petals they had buried it, with their knees green and grit under their fingernails.
“When we’re grown up we’ll come back,” Yamaguchi had said, holding out his pinky finger. “We’ll dig it up together, because we’re going to be best friends forever.”
Tsukishima had promised.
Yamaguchi had moved on.
The tree was gone, but plastic remained. The box was smaller than Tsukishima recalled, but it grew heavier with each glance passers-by gave him, and he glowered the rest of the way home.
No one called out to him as he let himself into the house.
Withdrawn to his room, Tsukishima shed his uniform for the comfort of his own clothes. He put everything away before slouching back to the box; even as a child he had been orderly, and it was not a habit he had grown out of. Hesitating before undoing the latch, Tsukishima worried his lip a moment before his expression set and he unceremoniously upended the contents.
Marbles scattered across the floor, rolling and ricocheting in a whirl of colour and clinking. A stegosaurus and pikachu bounced happily after them. A few pebbles reluctantly tumbled before stubbornly digging their feet into the carpet. Scraps of paper landed softly over them.
Tsukishima squinted in the box. The sellotape that bound the disc didn't stop the light glinting off it. A bit of digging in his closet produced a long abandoned CD player, and with the self-satisfaction of someone who never threw anything away, he slipped the disc in and pressed play on the first mix he had made for Yamaguchi.
Picking up a rock, Tsukishima rubbed a thumb over the fossil inescapably embedded on the side before placing it neatly back onto the table.
And approximately eight years previously, Yamaguchi picked it up from Tsukishima’s desk to admire it closer. Show and tell had ended and the class had fallen into its natural state of disrepute.
“You could be an archaeologist,” Yamaguchi said.
“Or a geologist,” Tsukishima replied.
Yamaguchi made a non-committal noise. Geology was apparently less exciting to him than archaeology. Tsukishima quite liked rocks, but he was starting to like Yamaguchi rather a lot more so he let it pass with barely a scowl.
At what point, Tsukishima wondered as he rounded the marbles up, had that feeling of ‘like’ become so inextricably infused within him? Compressed by layer upon layer of every smile, every word, and every moment Yamaguchi had given him. The present was only possible because Yamaguchi had found him, and shaped his existence into not one person but two. He was Tsukishima, and he liked Yamaguchi. They were synonymous states of being.
With all the marbles extracted from their hidey-holes, Tsukishima turned his attention to the painted reflection. The colour had faded, blotched in the corners of the photograph, but the image was still recognisable. Yamaguchi had still been taller than him back then. He was beaming like he had found a lost treasure, rather than just getting the weird quiet kid in his class to talk to him. The past Tsukishima smiled bemusedly up at the present one, sharing his puzzlement over the nature of friendship in general and even more so this one in particular.
After some deliberation, Tsukishima propped the picture on his desk.
The other scrap of paper was a mystery. Tsukishima unfolded it gently, since the years had seeped through the cold damp soil and left the page brittle and frail. The words on were smudged but their echoes rang loud, and Tsukishima curled shuddering in on himself in an attempt to hold in the overwhelming surge of feeling.
The CD skipped and whirred into a cacophony of nothingness. Tsukishima switched it off, but it took another moment for him to realise that there was another sound playing, an insistently ringing doorbell.
Yamaguchi was outside.
The storm of emotions cleared and the moonlight revealed the one remaining truth.
“You were looking for it,” Tsukishima said breathlessly.
“Tsukki, I-” Yamaguchi looked up and his eyes widened in understanding. “You found the time capsule? I thought we’d lost it.”
Tsukishima didn’t know how to say I didn’t think you cared any more without upsetting Yamaguchi further, so he didn’t say anything at all. Instead, he pulled Yamaguchi indoors and wrapped him in his arms; ignoring the squeak of surprise and feeling the shudders slowly ease into a calm stillness.
“Tsukki, it’s okay, you can let go.”
He couldn’t.
He had tried to tell himself before that it didn’t matter if Yamaguchi stopped telling him everything, if he looked happier when he was with other people, but it had bled too far into his own insecurities. His sense of self-worth had become measured by Yamaguchi’s approval, and part of Tsukishima had always been waiting for Yamaguchi to find him lacking and leave. Now holding on to Yamaguchi was his only way of expressing his fear.
He was startled by a touch against his cheek. Yamaguchi was smiling in understanding, his fingers tenderly stroked Tsukishima’s face.
I’m here.
“Sorry,” Yamaguchi blurted out, blushing under Tsukishima’s scrutiny and withdrawing. “I should wash my hands they’re still-”
Tsukishima stopped him, raised Yamaguchi’s hand again to rub his face against the palm.
Stay with me.
They got comfortable in Tsukishima’s room, side pressing against side, as Yamaguchi reminisced about their early days together and interjected himself with updates on his family and could Tsukishima believe what so-and-so had said?
Finally, Yamaguchi read the note he had hidden in the box without Tsukishima’s knowledge, and his smile became tinged with the melancholy of unvoiced feelings.
“I still mean it,” Yamaguchi said.
Tsukishima kissed him. It was rough and awkward and he wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do with his lips and he had a feeling you were supposed to bring tongue into equation somehow but his glasses were being pushed into his face and he wasn’t sure it had been worth waiting so many years for -
Then Yamaguchi gently took control, and Tsukishima sighed against the quiet reassurance of his mouth.
It was going to be fine. Not easy, maybe, but for once Tsukishima didn’t mind putting some effort into making it work.
Fandom: Haikyuu!!
Pairing: Tsukishima/Yamaguchi
Contents/Warnings: non-canonical flashbacks
Word Count: 1,250
Prompt: time capsule
for Joanna.
The summer days were long, but after-school practice was longer, and the sun was melting into the horizon as Tsukishima treaded his way home. The space beside him was a cold silence he couldn’t block out even with his headphones on.
It was a small thing. It had to be a small thing to catch his attention, to slip through the cracks of the world he had created around himself. A warning sign. The emptiness where children had once played happily. The metal teeth in bowed heads; they waited for the morning and the hands that steered destruction.
Shoulders hunched, Tsukishima blinked dismissively at the renovation across the road, but his feet wouldn’t move.
It was hardly a detour. It only took a moment to slip past the make-shift fencing. The top soil was already disturbed, and Tsukishima only had to brush it aside to find what he was looking for. He could have found the place in his sleep, so well watched was the memory.
They had taken the idea from school, lifted the words from well-worn pages and made it their own. In the evening they had sneaked past Yamaguchi’s mother, who had her hands full of children even without the addition of Tsukishima to her family, and ran to spot where the magnolia fell. Under the white petals they had buried it, with their knees green and grit under their fingernails.
“When we’re grown up we’ll come back,” Yamaguchi had said, holding out his pinky finger. “We’ll dig it up together, because we’re going to be best friends forever.”
Tsukishima had promised.
Yamaguchi had moved on.
The tree was gone, but plastic remained. The box was smaller than Tsukishima recalled, but it grew heavier with each glance passers-by gave him, and he glowered the rest of the way home.
No one called out to him as he let himself into the house.
Withdrawn to his room, Tsukishima shed his uniform for the comfort of his own clothes. He put everything away before slouching back to the box; even as a child he had been orderly, and it was not a habit he had grown out of. Hesitating before undoing the latch, Tsukishima worried his lip a moment before his expression set and he unceremoniously upended the contents.
Marbles scattered across the floor, rolling and ricocheting in a whirl of colour and clinking. A stegosaurus and pikachu bounced happily after them. A few pebbles reluctantly tumbled before stubbornly digging their feet into the carpet. Scraps of paper landed softly over them.
Tsukishima squinted in the box. The sellotape that bound the disc didn't stop the light glinting off it. A bit of digging in his closet produced a long abandoned CD player, and with the self-satisfaction of someone who never threw anything away, he slipped the disc in and pressed play on the first mix he had made for Yamaguchi.
Picking up a rock, Tsukishima rubbed a thumb over the fossil inescapably embedded on the side before placing it neatly back onto the table.
And approximately eight years previously, Yamaguchi picked it up from Tsukishima’s desk to admire it closer. Show and tell had ended and the class had fallen into its natural state of disrepute.
“You could be an archaeologist,” Yamaguchi said.
“Or a geologist,” Tsukishima replied.
Yamaguchi made a non-committal noise. Geology was apparently less exciting to him than archaeology. Tsukishima quite liked rocks, but he was starting to like Yamaguchi rather a lot more so he let it pass with barely a scowl.
At what point, Tsukishima wondered as he rounded the marbles up, had that feeling of ‘like’ become so inextricably infused within him? Compressed by layer upon layer of every smile, every word, and every moment Yamaguchi had given him. The present was only possible because Yamaguchi had found him, and shaped his existence into not one person but two. He was Tsukishima, and he liked Yamaguchi. They were synonymous states of being.
With all the marbles extracted from their hidey-holes, Tsukishima turned his attention to the painted reflection. The colour had faded, blotched in the corners of the photograph, but the image was still recognisable. Yamaguchi had still been taller than him back then. He was beaming like he had found a lost treasure, rather than just getting the weird quiet kid in his class to talk to him. The past Tsukishima smiled bemusedly up at the present one, sharing his puzzlement over the nature of friendship in general and even more so this one in particular.
After some deliberation, Tsukishima propped the picture on his desk.
The other scrap of paper was a mystery. Tsukishima unfolded it gently, since the years had seeped through the cold damp soil and left the page brittle and frail. The words on were smudged but their echoes rang loud, and Tsukishima curled shuddering in on himself in an attempt to hold in the overwhelming surge of feeling.
The CD skipped and whirred into a cacophony of nothingness. Tsukishima switched it off, but it took another moment for him to realise that there was another sound playing, an insistently ringing doorbell.
Yamaguchi was outside.
The storm of emotions cleared and the moonlight revealed the one remaining truth.
“You were looking for it,” Tsukishima said breathlessly.
“Tsukki, I-” Yamaguchi looked up and his eyes widened in understanding. “You found the time capsule? I thought we’d lost it.”
Tsukishima didn’t know how to say I didn’t think you cared any more without upsetting Yamaguchi further, so he didn’t say anything at all. Instead, he pulled Yamaguchi indoors and wrapped him in his arms; ignoring the squeak of surprise and feeling the shudders slowly ease into a calm stillness.
“Tsukki, it’s okay, you can let go.”
He couldn’t.
He had tried to tell himself before that it didn’t matter if Yamaguchi stopped telling him everything, if he looked happier when he was with other people, but it had bled too far into his own insecurities. His sense of self-worth had become measured by Yamaguchi’s approval, and part of Tsukishima had always been waiting for Yamaguchi to find him lacking and leave. Now holding on to Yamaguchi was his only way of expressing his fear.
He was startled by a touch against his cheek. Yamaguchi was smiling in understanding, his fingers tenderly stroked Tsukishima’s face.
I’m here.
“Sorry,” Yamaguchi blurted out, blushing under Tsukishima’s scrutiny and withdrawing. “I should wash my hands they’re still-”
Tsukishima stopped him, raised Yamaguchi’s hand again to rub his face against the palm.
Stay with me.
They got comfortable in Tsukishima’s room, side pressing against side, as Yamaguchi reminisced about their early days together and interjected himself with updates on his family and could Tsukishima believe what so-and-so had said?
Finally, Yamaguchi read the note he had hidden in the box without Tsukishima’s knowledge, and his smile became tinged with the melancholy of unvoiced feelings.
“I still mean it,” Yamaguchi said.
Tsukishima kissed him. It was rough and awkward and he wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do with his lips and he had a feeling you were supposed to bring tongue into equation somehow but his glasses were being pushed into his face and he wasn’t sure it had been worth waiting so many years for -
Then Yamaguchi gently took control, and Tsukishima sighed against the quiet reassurance of his mouth.
It was going to be fine. Not easy, maybe, but for once Tsukishima didn’t mind putting some effort into making it work.