hello hello lia! for your unsent project prompts if all your slots haven't been filled yet:
to: tsukki. i regret not being brave enough to tell you back then. now i keep wondering what we'd be like today if i had been.
excited to see what you do with this 🤩
“This is my boyfriend,” you introduce Tsukishima, bowing your head and biting your lip. You can feel the absence of his hands as palpably as if he was holding you tight enough to bruise. Your parents must assume that you’re a nervous wreck introducing your new relationship to them after so long insisting that the Tsukishima boy you talked about so often was only a friend. That he’s being respectful, his hands at his sides as he bows stiffly.
You wish he wanted to touch you. You wish you were introducing a real relationship to your family, truly bringing home someone you could look at openly with stars in your eyes.
Tsukishima’s just doing you a favor, you remind yourself. He’s helping you avoid yet another awkward dinner where your family tries to set you up with someone you don’t like at all.
He’s the solution to a problem he unknowingly created; if you were able to feel for anyone but him, you wouldn’t have to do this.
“That’s correct, we met working at the museum,” he’s saying when you zone back in. “We brushed hands over the artifact restoration table. It was very romantic.”
His tone is so deadpan, you watch your parents blink at him for a moment, trying to determine whether he’s joking or not. Eventually, they just laugh it off uncomfortably, and you suppress your own giggle in your throat.
“Clearly, you two are a good match,” your mother shakes her head. “I could never guess what’s going to come from your mouth growing up.”
“L/N is very funny,” Tsukishima says, and it’s your turn to squint, searching for the lie in the lines of his face, the tilt of his mouth. “I have a hard time controlling myself when we’re together at work.”
Your mind immediately goes to a number of foul and evil places, picking apart every clench of his jaw, every brush of his shoulder against yours, every lazy double-edged remark that has left your cheeks heated and your professionalism flustered in the long time you’ve worked together.
Your father ignores the innuendo of the second sentence entirely and zooms in on the first.
“So formal,” he says. “You’re still referring to each other by last name?”
You freeze, glancing up at Tsukishima.
“We thought it’d be better to err on the side of formality,” you trail off. “I was really nervous. Tsukishima was kind enough to indulge me—”
“I wanted to show you that I’m serious about this,” Tsukishima interrupts. He puts a hand on your shoulder: it’s a clumsy touch, unnatural, but the insanity of this declaration forces you to look up at him in shock, your cheeks blushed, giving you the appearance of a smitten, real-relationship-having truth-teller. You’re shocked to realize he’s already looking at you, unblinking even as the glare in his glasses flickers with the restaurant candlelight.
“So sweet,” your mother gushes. “We’d be lucky to snag a son-in-law like you.”
“Please,” Tsukishima snorts, his most derisive voice coming out. You only hear this passive-aggressive tone when your boss is being particularly slow about sending out paychecks or when museum patrons are rude to you. “I’m lucky every time Y/N chooses to even look at me.”
You lie awake that night, the sound of your name rolling over his tongue looping through your mind. Beside you, he’s already sound asleep, his glasses folded on your childhood nightstand. Everything feels wrong, the sheets rubbing your skin raw, your body feverishly hot.
You had almost told him how you felt, back when you had first realized how you felt about him. You had written a letter and slid a packet of dinosaur stickers into the envelope, an embarrassingly sappy admission of weakness.
You had been jumpy the whole day, hands shaking when you looked at him, wobbling on your feet like a newborn fawn. Eventually, it had culminated in accidentally knocking over an Edo-era pot you had been piecing together, shard by shard, the fragments of it scattering across his workspace.
You had expected a scolding, a snappy comment, at least a joke. Instead, he had sighed wordlessly and kept working without ever mentioning it. On your end, the thought of him being angry in the few long seconds you spent staring at him, horrified, over the artifact’s debris, unnerved you so much you had never gotten the courage to try again. You were clearly unprepared to face rejection.
He’s sleeping far on the end of the bed, nearly falling off. You shiver slightly and wonder if he’d always say your name like that, reverent and warm, if you’d been brave enough to ask him to.
