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Tsukishima hasn’t seen Yamaguchi all day.
This isn’t overly concerning because the castle is immense after all, awe-inspiring and anfractuous with leagues of hidden chambers and corridors that Tsukishima doesn’t really care to know about in the first place. He honestly just could not care less about them, despite Hinata’s incessant jabbering about how the two them should venture out and see how many they can discover. As if attending a school for literal wizards isn’t adventure enough. Tsukishima is so, so tired.
And by lunch, he’s edging on unsettled. Kageyama reaches across the table and grabs a drumstick right from Tsukishima’s plate, deftly ignoring the entire platter that rests between them, meticulously fanned and charmed to keep warm throughout the afternoon.
“Where’s Yamaguchi?”
“I don’t know,” answers Tsukishima.
“Weird.”
“Is it?”
“Maybe he finally got tired of your shit,” Kageyama says around a mouthful of chicken.
Tsukishima glares. “I’m tired of your shit.”
“Switch houses, then.”
“Yeah,” he replies airily, “why don’t I just do that.”
“I don’t know. Why don’t you?”
“Can I sit here?” a girl asks of Yamaguchi’s unoccupied place on the bench.
When Tsukishima doesn’t answer, she bristles and sits down anyway. Her cat leaps onto the bench with her, its enormous fluffy tail leaving wisps of white fur on his robes. Tsukishima sighs. The cat blinks up at him like, I’m your friend now.
A pair of Ravenclaw girls turn from their table to gawp at him in three minute intervals. They whisper to one another and Tsukishima vaguely recognizes them because he’s seen Yamaguchi greet them in the corridors before, but thinks nothing of it. Tsukishima wonders if they’re aware of the fact that he, like them, knows actual magic and can easily perform a spell to hear them if he wanted. As if suddenly aware of this, they avert their curious stares.
A paper crane zips through the air and drops right into his mashed potatoes.
“Honestly,” Tsukishima huffs in disapproval. He unfolds it, careful to avoid any gravy stains.
“What’s it say?” wonders Kageyama.
“You’re kicked out of Slytherin. Pack your things and head into the forest. It says here you’re going to live with the Thestrals from now on,” Tsukishima drones, “because they need someone just as unappealing as they are to act as their caretaker. Or maybe as one of their equals.”
“Asshole.”
Tsukishima smirks and scans the disassembled crane.
He reads aloud, “‘Where’s Yamaguchi?’”
“I don’t know, that’s why I asked you.”
“No, stupid, that’s what the note says.”
“It got here!” chirps Hinata from over Kageyama’s shoulder, a pinprick of glorious red and gold in a sea of emerald. “See, Tsukishima? I’m getting better. Don’t you think so? Aren’t I?”
“It didn’t explode this time,” Tsukishima answers, blotting a splatter of gravy from his tie.
“I knew it. I am getting better. See? All of Yamaguchi’s tutoring isn’t going to waste.”
“Good for him.”
Hinata beams and wedges himself between Kageyama and the poor second-year at his right. He plucks a cherry tomato from the center of the drumstick platter and pops it into his mouth. Tsukishima glances down at the white cat at his side when it mewls at him. He gives its flat head an uncertain pat.
“So,” drawls Hinata, stretching out the vowel, “where is Yamaguchi, anyway?”
“I don’t know,” Tsukishima grumbles, “and why do you all ask me? I’m not his keeper.”
Kageyama sputters a laugh. It sounds unnatural from him, like a loud, hideous burp from the headmaster.
“You basically are his keeper, yeah,” he says.
Hinata wonders, “Who else would I ask?”
Tsukishima glares between the two of them. He compresses the paper crane between his palms and slides it back to Hinata across the table. Hinata plucks the flattened paper up with his index finger and thumb. Halfheartedly, he folds it into shape once more.
“No big deal,” he insists, “I’ll see him after this in Herbology, anyway.”
Kageyama interjects, “Stupid, you’re getting gravy all over your hands—”
“Today we’re planting Screechsnaps,” Hinata finishes proudly.
“Hurray,” Tsukishima deadpans.
“You can say that again, Tsukishima.”
~
Somehow, the corridors between classes are even more uproarious without Yamaguchi at his side chattering his ear off. Hinata assures him he’ll send a note if Yamaguchi shows up to Herbology, and Tsukishima assumes this means Hinata will send a paper crane whirring through the immense corridors, smacking right into the hefty door of the Divination classroom, crumpling to the floor and subsequently being trampled by students when lessons let out. Tsukishima claims he’ll keep an eye out for it anyway.
A group of students in jade robes eye him on his way to class. Their stares are wide—stupefied, almost—and they mutter to each other behind curved hands as he passes. Whatever is said makes them snicker. Tsukishima turns.
At his attention, they perk up. Tsukishima blinks when the tallest of the group clears his throat.
“Tsukishima,” he sneers through a cheeky grin, “congrats on jumping the broom, pal.”
The other students rustle at this, hands rising to stifle more snickers. Tsukishima passes without a word. He hasn’t even been to the Quidditch field in weeks. He hasn’t ridden his broom in even longer than that and therefore contributes the comment to wizard weirdness, as he does with most things that happen. Wizard weirdness or muggle jargon.
He continues to Divination unbothered.
~
Tsukishima is embarrassed by the relief he feels when he finally does see Yamaguchi, smiling ear to ear and making a beeline across the crowded corridor to where Tsukishima is.
“Tsukki!”
“Hey,” says Tsukishima, moving closer to the wall to allow Yamaguchi to fall into step beside him.
“I’m so happy to see you, Tsukki,” chirps Yamaguchi, all freckles and smiles, “you have no idea.”
“You are?” he asks. “Why?”
“Because I’m always happy to see you. Even when I’m in a really bad mood or you’re in a really bad mood—which is a lot of the time, not that I mind it—seeing you just makes me happy,” Yamaguchi rambles on, “like, really happy and it pretty much always has since we first sat together on the train when we were little kids.”
“Are—are you okay?” Tsukishima asks him, face burning uncomfortably hot like he’d used it to snuff out a small-scale fire.
“I feel great, Tsukki,” Yamaguchi answers.
“Okay then.”
“Tsukki, Tsukki, Tsukki,” he singsongs.
They separate to weave around a cluster of students congregated in the very middle of the corridor.
“Where have you been all day?”
“With Bokuto,” Yamaguchi answers immediately, “and with Akaashi.”
“So with people from pretty much every house but our own,” huffs Tsukishima.
“Pretty much, Tsukki.”
“I thought you were avoiding me,” he half-jests, but it falls flat with the accidental and obvious note of dejection in his tone. At his side, Yamaguchi nods and nods and nods.
“I was. I was avoiding Tsukki.”
“What?”
There’s an uncomfortable twinge in Tsukishima’s chest and he clears his throat in an attempt to subdue it.
“Why, though?”
“Because this morning in Potions, we—”
Bokuto tears down the corridor like a lightning strike, clapping a meaty hand on each of their shoulders and shouting nonsense noises in an overt attempt to drown Yamaguchi out. Tsukishima covers his ears with his palms and glowers at him. Bokuto beams in return.
“Hey, you two,” he says pleasantly as if he wasn’t screeching like a baboon just five seconds ago. The string of students around them eye Bokuto warily before continuing down the hall. He goes on, “Yamaguchi, what’re you doing?! Uh, I mean, I, um—need your help with something! Yep, that’s it. And you are just the man for the job.”
Tsukishima squints. “Help with what?”
“Something,” Bokuto answers, golden eyes blinking owlishly. “Something over there. Away from this particular place. Something very important and Yamaguchi-related. Not here, though.”
“Yeah,” huffs Tsukishima, hands on his hips, “I’ve gathered that.”
Yamaguchi looks between the two of them like a little kid between two arguing parents.
“See you later, Tsukki,” he calls as Bokuto pulls him away by his robes, “you’re the boy of my dreams!”
Tsukishima nearly walks face-first into a pillar.
~
The corridors are a strange and overwhelming place on most days—owls careening past unwitting heads, doorways appearing in the walls out of nowhere, sonorous fireworks sending multicolored sparks raining down and singeing the robes of students and professors alike, pets charmed to recite inappropriate muggle phrases, that one incident with a combusting pumpkin that Tsukishima’s only partly sure both Hinata and Bokuto are equal parts responsible for—but today, the corridors are especially baffling. This, Tsukishima knows, is saying a lot.
“Hey there, champ,” lilts Kuroo, and Tsukishima’s cringing already.
“I don’t have any money you can borrow right now.”
“Huh? No, that’s not what I—”
“And I don’t know where Bokuto is.”
“Good to know,” Kuroo mentions offhandedly, “but I was just going to congratulate you.”
Tsukishima levels him with a look as they walk. “For what?”
“You know, your recent achievements.”
“Kuroo, I’d say thank you,” he sighs, “but I’m sure I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Kuroo purses his lips in a quizzical fashion and tugs a hand through his unruly hair. He nods dutifully at a passing professor and readjusts his prefect badge before returning his attention to Tsukishima.
“Keeping it on the down-low,” he says with a wink, “I get you, four-eyes. Take it from me, sometimes it’s better that way. Everyone in this school is an incorrigible gossip.”
“Is that so?” Tsukishima asks with disinterest.
Kuroo nods. “Unbearably so. I don’t really mind it, though. Keeps things interesting.”
“Right.”
“But if you are trying to keep it hush-hush, you guys are doing a shit job of it so far.”
Tsukishima quirks an eyebrow at him. He silently debates whether to engage him or not.
“No offense, of course,” Kuroo adds.
“None taken. Because I don’t have a damn clue what you’re talking about.”
“Right, right,” he singsongs, granting Tsukishima another wink. “Hey, tell me when you finally get some, if you know what I mean. I’ll award ten points to Slytherin.”
“Excuse me?”
Kuroo gives Tsukishima’s shoulder a convivial shove.
“You’re a riot, Tsukki, you know that? Ten points—don't forget!"
~
Because the Slytherin common room feels too lifeless without Yamaguchi (and someone has charmed one of the armchairs to tap against the hardwood to the tune of a nineteen-fifties advertising jingle), Tsukishima studies in the library.
“Hey.”
Tsukishima looks up to find Kageyama looming over him.
“This is the first time you’ve been to the library, isn’t it?”
Kageyama ignores him. “Hinata said he had something to tell you, but he was already late for Frog Choir so I couldn’t catch it. He said he’ll tell you later, though.”
Tsukishima sighs and looks back to his notes.
“Why doesn’t he just send it via crane?” he mutters.
“He’s not as good as he thinks he is,” says Kageyama.
~
Tsukishima’s plan of just don’t ask becomes increasingly more difficult to enact as the day goes on. He’s certain that he has never felt more conspicuous in his life. Even in the library, he notices the other students' furtive glances.
He throws all of his attention into a book; something thick and random he finds on a nearby table entitled The Magicking Away Of Scars And Abrasions. He’s halfway through a chapter that discusses in horrible length the nature of abrasions versus lacerations when Yamaguchi finds him and lets out a half-squawk, half-gasp noise of surprise.
Tsukishima bites back a compulsive grin.
“Tsukki, it’s literally insane how much I miss you after just a day of barely seeing you,” Yamaguchi confesses airily, pressing his palms over the pages of the book Tsukishima reads.
“Figuratively,” Tsukishima corrects, “but I, uh—I get it.”
“It’ll be better tomorrow, Tsukki, and we can hang out again. It’s my favorite thing to do, after all—hanging out with Tsukki, being with Tsukki, seeing Tsukki, calling Tsukki Tsukki.”
“Yamaguchi, do you have a fever or something?”
Yamaguchi cocks his head and strands of chestnut hair fall over his ear. He blinks.
“Nope,” he answers.
Tsukishima blinks back. “Then why will it be better tomorrow?”
“Well, because it’ll wear off,” Yamaguchi replies matter-of-factly, a sweet, genuine, and above all achingly familiar smile on his lips that makes Tsukishima’s chest tighten despite his confusion. The phrase boy of my dreams zings through his bewildered mind as it’s done all afternoon, so loud that he barely catches when Yamaguchi says, “It’ll wear off and I won’t have to be babysat. Maybe, probably even by this evening.”
“Yeah,” Tsukishima drawls unsurely, “you’re not making any sense. Who’s babysitting you now?”
He gets a pretty good idea of the answer when Akaashi saunters around the bookshelf nearest them, robes of royal blue fluttering behind him. He approaches them with a steady stare. His calm gaze flits between them like he tries to gauge something and Tsukishima stares up at Yamaguchi, his brow furrowed.
“Tsukishima, hello. Please excuse us.”
“When you look up at me through your eyelashes like that, I wanna kiss the tip of your nose,” Yamaguchi fawns.
Tsukishima stutters a single syllable in reply before Akaashi coaxes Yamaguchi away, mumbling something inaudible with a gentle hand at Yamaguchi’s back. Tsukishima stares, mouth agape, until the two of them turn the corner. He brings a finger to his nose and touches it to the very tip. The empty space Yamaguchi once occupied on the other side of the table seems to sparkle. Tsukishima lets out a breath held without his knowledge.
He closes the ancient book in front of him with a heavy slap.
~
“It was truth potion!” Hinata shouts when Tsukishima finds him in the near vacant corridor on his way to the Great Hall for supper. “Truth potion, truth potion, truth potion! Oh my god, I sent you a paper crane about this hours ago!”
“Well, I didn’t get it,” growls Tsukishima.
“Yamaguchi drank some truth potion this morning in class and ended up spewing all kinds of stuff!” Hinata reports.
“Veritaserum usage is restricted.”
“Duh, Tsukishima.”
“Wait,” says Tsukishima. “What kind of stuff?”
“What?”
“What kind of stuff did Yamaguchi say in class?”
“Real truthful stuff, Tsukishima. Like how much he loves you and stuff, how cute and cool you are, and, and, and,” rambles Hinata, tripping over his words in his excitement, “how badly he wants to marry you! I wish I was there when it happened so I could give you specifics!”
“That’s—that’s specific enough, thanks.”
Tsukishima feels the heat of the color on his face. He guesses it’s not dissimilar to the rich red of Hinata’s robes. Yamaguchi’s babbling today—somehow worse than other days—and his strange confessions, his avoidance and spaciness, the questioning looks from his peers, Kuroo’s lewd and congratulatory comments—Tsukishima is utterly relieved to finally discover the reasons behind them.
Staggeringly quickly, relief is drowned out by his mounting heartbeat.
“Where is he now?”
Tsukishima’s inquiry sounds distant in his own ears. Hinata points a finger upward.
“The library with Bokuto and Akaashi, probably.”
“Hinata!” Bokuto bellows from down the corridor. “What are you doing?!”
Tsukishima turns over his shoulder. “Shouldn’t you be babysitting?”
Bokuto looks between him and Hinata with giant eyes. He points an accusing finger.
“You told him! All of me and Akaashi’s hard work to keep them apart all day and then you just go and tell him!”
“It’s nothing we all didn’t already know!” Hinata shouts back.
Tsukishima gives him a dirty look and spins on his heel to accost Bokuto.
“You should have told me. Some friend you are.”
“Tsukishima,” wails Bokuto, “you’re the one who’s always telling me that we’re not friends!”
“Whatever.”
Hinata steps out from behind Tsukishima and asks, “Why are you down here now?”
“I got hungry,” says Bokuto with a heavy pat to his stomach. “Oh, and the potion’s mostly worn off.”
“Let’s eat!” barks Hinata.
“You go,” Tsukishima tells them and heads toward the Grand Staircase.
“Tsukishima, you go commandeer Yamaguchi—”
“And Akaashi!”
“—and we’ll save seats!”
~
Tsukishima finds Yamaguchi curled in an armchair on the upper floor. He promptly grabs his arm and drags him into the nearby Dragon Section of the library, dusty shelves looming over them as Tsukishima walks them to the very end of the aisle.
“Tsukki?” squeaks Yamaguchi, eyebrows pinched together.
“Did it wear off?”
“Huh?”
“The Veritaserum. Has it worn off completely?”
“Yeah, Tsukki.”
“Are you sure?”
Yamaguchi pushes his hair behind his ear and says, “If it hadn’t, I wouldn’t be able to lie to you and say that it had, would I?”
Tsukishima squints at him. “I suppose not.”
“Who, um—who told you? Was it Bokuto?”
“Yes,” Tsukishima lies. “Now please start from the beginning.”
“Tsukki, you’re—you’re not mad at me?” Yamaguchi implores. “‘Cause if you are, I totally get it, I would be mad at me too, er, I am mad at me, actually, and you don’t have to pretend that you’re not or whatever just because of what—”
He goes silent when Tsukishima takes a loose hold of his wrist. Tsukishima would have never, ever guessed that he’d find Yamaguchi’s circuitous rambling so fond upon its return after only a single day of its absence. He lets his hand fall back to his side.
“Please,” he reiterates, “start from the beginning.”
Yamaguchi takes a steadying breath and taps his fingertips together anxiously.
“In Potions this morning, Professor suggested that we test Wideye Potion and I was the first one in the row so I took it first—only it wasn’t Wideye Potion, Tsukki, it was stupid Truth Serum which I thought was restricted by the Ministry and it turns out it is, so what she was doing with it, I have no idea. But I think it’s something that needs to be mentioned to the higher-ups.”
“Let’s put a pin in that,” suggests Tsukishima, “and keep going.”
Yamaguchi nods. “So I was the only one who accidentally took Truth Serum and apparently I started telling secrets to the entire class and I—I can never go back in there, Tsukki.”
Tsukishima quirks an eyebrow. “‘Apparently’? You mean you don’t remember it? Any of it?”
Yamaguchi ducks his head.
“I do,” he mutters. “But I really, really wish I didn’t.”
Tsukishima blinks and recoils.
“Oh,” he says. And then again, “Oh.”
“I’m, um—I’m really sorry that I embarrassed you, Tsukki. I embarrassed me too.”
“I see,” replies Tsukishima, sounding far away again.
“Anyway, the Professor appointed Bokuto and Akaashi to look after me the entire day and they kind of, well, they steered me clear of you so I wouldn’t embarrass myself any further. Or directly embarrass myself, I guess. But they weren’t the best at that.”
“No, they weren’t,” Tsukishima agrees with a faint grin. Blush after blush blooms beneath Yamaguchi’s freckles, splotching his tan face with pinks and crimsons. “There was some mention about me being the—what did you say, now—the boy of your dreams?”
Yamaguchi groans and throws his hands over his face.
“Tsukki, please,” he begs, “don’t make it any worse.”
“I’m not trying to.”
Yamaguchi speaks into his palms, “And then I said that thing about the tip of your nose, how I wanted to kiss it, oh my god, how can you even be talking to me after that? Tsukki…”
At once, he throws his arms back to his sides and takes a deep breath. Tsukishima eyes the loose knot of his tie just below the dip in his throat. He resists the urge to reach out and correct it. His gaze flits back to Yamaguchi’s crimson face when he exhales shakily.
“Listen, Tsukki. We don’t have to talk about this, okay? Like, ever. We can just pretend it didn’t happen. We don’t have to talk about it. We do not have to talk about it. Can we please not talk about it?”
Tsukishima just stares. Yamaguchi crumbles under the scrutiny, hiding his face in his hands once more. He shakes his head back and forth, back and forth, his cowlick bobbing all around with the force of it.
A fond grin spreads across Tsukishima’s face. His heartbeat mounts once more without his permission. He reaches up and separates Yamaguchi’s fingers with his own. A pair of students pass the row they reside in, their chatter floating down the aisle and through the neighboring bookshelves. Tsukishima ignores the stares over Yamaguchi’s shoulder. Yamaguchi peeks at him through his fingers. Tsukishima gently presses his fingertips to the back of Yamaguchi’s hand.
“What if I want to talk about it?” he questions.
Yamaguchi spreads his fingers further and asks, “What?”
Tsukishima shrugs. “We might as well. Everyone else is.”
At the sight of Tsukishima’s grin, Yamaguchi loosens up.
“They are?”
“Yes. Not just Slytherins, either.”
“Oh god,” Yamaguchi moans.
“Kuroo, too.”
“Even prefects?”
“Even prefects. Would you uncover your face, please?”
He mumbles into his hands, “Can’t, Tsukki. Too embarrassed.”
“Stop being embarrassed.”
“Can’t, Tsukki,” Yamaguchi says again, “way, way too embarrassed.”
Tsukishima rolls his eyes, his grin entirely too fond.
“At least uncover your mouth, then.”
Yamaguchi peeks at him again. Tsukishima nudges Yamaguchi’s palms out of the way with one hand and raises his other to curl around the back of Yamaguchi’s neck.
Before he really knows what he’s doing, Tsukishima brings them together in a firm kiss. Yamaguchi’s hands fall immediately to the side. Tsukishima feels Yamaguchi grin against his lips. With the slightest tilt of Tsukishima’s head, Yamaguchi’s hands hurry forward to cup his face and Tsukishima relaxes into the warm, secure touch. His hand at the nape of Yamaguchi’s neck slides up into his hair. He gives the fine brown strands a soft, exploratory tug.
Yamaguchi pulls back for a moment, the tip of his nose nudging pointedly against Tsukishima’s before he ducks down to bring their lips together again. Tsukishima rests his hand over Yamaguchi’s that cups his jaw. He slides his fingers over the back of it until he gently grips Tadashi’s wrist, the pad of his thumb right over Yamaguchi’s pulse point, and it is crazy. It’s crazier than his own from what Tsukishima can tell by the way blood bangs uproariously in his ears.
The quiet smack of their disconnect hardly registers when he pulls back.
Yamaguchi regards him, pupils blown wide within rings of dark copper. Tsukishima glances down at his parted lips before their gazes meet once more, panting breaths intermingling in the modest space between them. He squeezes Yamaguchi’s wrist.
“Can you stop being embarrassed now?” Tsukishima asks him.
“I think, um—I think I can do that, Tsukki.”
“Good.”
“Do you—do you still want to talk about it?”
“I like you,” Tsukishima says. “I like you and today was miserable without you.”
“It was?” Yamaguchi asks, quiet and sheepish.
“Yes.”
Yamaguchi ducks his head again, a relentless smile on his lips.
“Tsukki, did you take Truth Serum, too?”
“No. I’m just doing what you didn’t have the courage to.”
“Tsukki,” he whines.
“I’m joking. But please don’t get accidentally magicked ever again.”
Yamaguchi huffs a laugh.
“I’ll do my best, Tsukki,” he promises. “Although this did turn out pretty well for me, so.”
“Me too.”
Yamaguchi brightens. He aims a stellar beam right at Tsukishima and takes his hand in his. Tsukishima feels warm, inside and out, so comfortable he could lie down and fall asleep right here, right between the dusty bookshelves of the castle library’s Dragon Section.
“All’s well that ends well, right, Tsukki? Isn’t that what they say?”
“They do say that, yes,” he answers, his thumb petting over Yamaguchi’s where their fingers interlock. “And what’s more is that Kuroo said he’ll give ten points to Slytherin if we tell him that we kissed.”
“He said what?”