081825 ♥︎ let the question spell into an answer—the only answer there is.
content. fluff for comfort. not edited. prompted by anon ask: when did tsukishima realize he’s in love with you?
notes. self-promoting this playlist for the extra feels! ily, this is for you my dear.
“when did you realize you were in love with me?”
oh. tsukishima kei exhales softly. he sets his phone down. looks at you as if you’ve said something stupid (or painfully obvious. though the question sounds too genuine for him to simply leave you hanging, thus concluding that you are in fact, stupid.)
he blinks away after a few heartbeats before he responds with a deadpan remark.
he gives you a hum. debating. or more like he’s actually thinking— when did he?
(if he could give himself three hours into deep cleaning his room, he’d find a crumpled paper of a back-and-forth note tossed during a class in middle school. one that you initiated with your stupid penmanship he can’t seem to read. he remembers giving you a scoff after you confessed on the note, he remembers catching the glimpse of hurt wanting to trickle down your eyes but performed to shine instead with a smile. you walked home together with yamaguchi as if nothing happened.
yet somehow tears stained the paper that night, with a penmanship much cleaner than yours. and then he buried them in between pages of a book he hasn’t seen in years.)
he feels a weight on his shoulder, the scent of your shampoo guides him back into tenderness and nostalgia. he slightly adjusts himself, bringing comfort as you both reminisce.
(“tsukki. what’s taking you so long?”
yamaguchi stands close beside him. and he smells like sweet osmanthus the way your grandma really likes. he looks through the cooler and mulls over whether he should treat you lychee or yakult because you’re too indecisive on the phone, voice gravel with sleep. “should i get both?”
“they’d probably drink them at the same time.”
“i don’t think thats a bad thing.”
tsukishima takes both, and brings them to the counter when his friend says, “aren’t you spoiling them.”
he grimaces, astounded, “i just don’t want them complaining nonstop if i got the wrong one.”
when he visits your home, your grandma always ruin yamaguchi’s hair by ruffling it a little too much, gushes about how much of a lovely boy he is. and him, cheeks hurt from squeezing and nagging him to eat more. honestly, he should’ve just lend yamaguchi to you. he’s got more homework piled up than any other nights he’s had, got more things to worry about than the random sickness you’ve caught out of nowhere.
he walks up to your room, grows a habit of knocking two times to let you know that it’s him. when you don’t answer, he rolls his eyes and tries turning the knob open.
there’s a hill of clothes in the corner of your room, a date on the calendar circled in bold marker indicating your 16th birthday. and you, curled up on your bed and coughing like a sick victorian child, looking miserable and spent.
“i can’t believe you’re still managing to stay alive.”
“please get out of my room.” you sound awful, he thinks. maybe he should’ve chosen something healthier to offer to you.
“i wish i could.” he crouches in order to look at you. even though your eyes are closed. “but guess who insisted on spending my remaining pocket money because someone’s dying from—“ he sputters a laugh, “sickness or craving?”
you mumble something through your comforter, though he knows its nothing more than a muffled groan. he laughs harder and softer this time, and sets down the plastic bag on your nightstand. tiny particles floating within the ray of dusk from your window, poured into your room. he wonders if its the cool air or the proximity, but he can smell something sweet, sweeter than osmanthus, sweeter than your grandma who constantly nags.
you turn your head away, “…thanks.”
“hm? what did you say?” he leans in, smug laced in his tone. “i think i deserve more than just a ‘thanks.’”
“if you don’t want to catch these sick germs of mine, you better leave.”
he doesn’t. quite the opposite, he stays for a bit until the blood orange from your window drowns in blue. his chin propped against your sheets as you sleep away without knowledge of his presence.
“tsukki, granny baked us a— oh.”
tsukishima doesn’t bother recalling the details after, but he doesn’t seem to let go of the urge to buy you a pack of lychee after learning that it’s one of your ‘faves.
on the day you turned seventeen, he gifts you a pack of it. but he knows you’re sweeter than anything in the world.)
maybe he never realized he’s in love until you actually found someone. maybe it’s when he slowly softened over the years of your friendship. maybe he always knew ever since you were thirteen and that he couldn’t bear the thought of hurting you again. couldn’t bear hurting you ever. the creased paper a perpetual reminder that seared enough in every moment spent with you. maybe it’s when he caught himself searching for flowers to supposedly ‘comfort’ you after your date stood you up.
(four januarys ago, you’ve stained his shirt with gruesome tears after being sore from all the standing and waiting and hoping on valentines. he didn’t have to ask you what happened. you’ve been tearing his ears off the night before that you’re finally meeting your long distance, four months in, and a ‘loving’ partner. you passed out on the couch after crying your arse off, and he…he had chocolates ready, just sitting patiently on the top of his fridge. he searched for flowers online as he tucked you in. so when you wake up, you won’t have to wonder on completely nonsensical things like being a second choice.
he should’ve told you right off the bat that this ‘person’ of yours was an asshole.
nineteen years in and he has to admit. he’s not really any better. he can still feel the texture of a paper crumpled beneath his palm. can still taste something salty and guilt that won’t stop flooding the night of your silly confession.
hesitant, he tries to brush your hair aside, kiss your forehead as you snore away the bitterness of nineteen.)
“i think it was when i kissed you out of a dare.” you pull him out of it, tapping his palm two times as you muse.
“uh, no.” he says it almost immediately, “that’s too far off.”
(you were both twenty. drunk off campus. you taste of sauce-dipped salmon slice and reek of drunk, long stewed fervour. someone dared you to kiss him. you didn’t even hesitate. just grabbed his cheeks and pressed a sloppy one to his mouth, laughing. everyone laughed while something throbs against his throat. and when he drives you back to your studio, he can’t even—stay mad at you. though he was at first, tried holding on until he realizes how stupid you look. he’s not one to be lenient, but with you, he’d take the extra mile to be patient. because it’s you. always been you.
he scoffs softly, you started crying out of guilt.
“i’m so sorry,” you let out a wince, “i’ll never get drunk around you again.”
he raises one brow, tilts his head and lean a little to your face, still warm and red “just around me?”
you nod. one of your dreams consist of kissing him since— well, since you know. but not like this. mouth filled with all the wrongs you can’t speak of. you twist your fingers around the loose thread of your worn sweater, blink away any stray tears left to fall. it never feels good to pine.
it feels like you can’t tame it with language, stuck being a wordless funk forever.)
“so that means, you already knew before that?”
you end up nuzzling against his chest, yawning in between your words. “you sure like to keep a lot of secrets from me.”
“not a lot.” he combs your hair through his fingers. rain starts to fall outside. he engulfs you in his arms for a long while until a yawn escapes his own. “just one.”
(that same night, tsukishima kissed your forehead, looking at you as if he meant it. “this is payback.”
he gifts you another. throws away the pride before the fall. “kiss me again when you’re not drunk, okay?”)
“so that’s why you asked me to kiss you again.”
“—when you’re not drunk.”
humming, you intertwine your fingers with his. a touch that feels too reminiscent of your childhood together. staring at your hand until it bleeds when he closes the curtain of his eyes, your preference for sweet scented cologne— where will his life take him if he had sent back his response to your confession?
probably not here. where he tucks you in for a nap instead of properly answering the question. its obvious isn’t it? yamaguchi knows, its honestly surprising he kept his mouth shut this long, yachi considered it, but ultimately couldn’t, knowing tsukishima could have done the same.
everything has led to this moment, a love not impulsive nor juvenile. not too early nor too late. he buries the letter to promise himself to do better in the future, knowing that he knows nothing about love— but tries to learn it because he feels it’s true. and real. and something like it could be told forever.
he steps into twenty three knowing everything there is to know. not all, but what he considers important ; where his happiness comes, where his love will take him, where your hands have finally fit between his.
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