Chapter Text
Makoto Shimada has had one too many to drink. Sitting on a crate out back behind the shop, he is all grins and laughter, and is no longer providing any real help to Yamaguchi's training, but the boy still lingers. Their practice has run so late that Yamaguchi is just kidding himself, trying to practice when he can hardly see the ball in the air. All he can do is look for the shadowed area in the sea of stars overhead. The air is chilled against his arms, but he doesn't shiver.
Rather than training, it's an idle motion. Something to be doing with his hands and body to keep Shimada talking. He does not want to go home yet. There is a heating vent around back the shop that Yamaguchi sometimes brushes past, and the gust of heat reminds him of the small space heater he keeps in his bedroom. Whenever he turns it on he inevitably ends up getting drowsy.
Cold air usually refreshes him. When he is exhausted after his club activities, stepping out into the night always makes his lungs clear. It gives him the energy to come here to spend time with Shimada.
Double practice each day takes it's toll. Yamaguchi tries not to yawn as Shimada regales him with stories of when he and Takinoue were in school. The time they hung up fake club posters, or the time in freshman year when Takinoue dated a popular third year and faced the wrath of her fans. The school festival incident. The popsicle stick incident. None of them are amazing stories. Some are boring and pointless and meander off into what Yamaguchi suspects was a different story entirely.
But hey, at least the popsicle stick incident explained the weird off-colored patch of paint by the faculty office. Yamaguchi likes that feeling of being in on a secret. A stupid one, but it's like when Tsukishima catches his gaze to roll his eyes at someone else.
In return for the stories, Yamaguchi happily rattles off his own stories about Tsukishima. The two of them don't get up to many antics, not really, but Tsukishima's way with words is an adventure enough. Yamaguchi admits that he used to not care for reading, until he realized how much power there was in language.
"Like, video games - the ones I like," he tells Shimada, now just tossing the ball up in the air and catching it again and again. "They're really simple. The gameplay is really fun so the story is easy, and so all the dialogue and stuff is super clear."
Shimada nods along to show he is listening, though he doesn't seem to know much about games at all.
Still, Yamaguchi continues. He has to step forward to catch his own tosses. His aim is getting worse and worse the more tired he gets. "So I thought that was the kind of stuff I liked. But then I learned the way Tsukki can twist up words and make 'em lyrical but precise. And it kind of made..."
He pauses. Looks up to see how closely Shimada is paying attention. He hopes that in this dim lighting he cannot see his blush. "It's stupid. But like, if I read stuff with Tsukki's voice in my head it makes it easier to read books."
The one-man game of catch, with its poorly aimed throws, leads Yamaguchi straight to Shimada. He catches the ball one last time over the man's head before looking down and noticing his wide grin. Yamaguchi knows what that look means. He has gotten that look too many times from his mother, when he talks about Tsukishima at home.
He blurts out, trying to distract from that part of the story, "Well, I still mostly just read light novels or stuff they assign in school!"
He waits. Shimada's grin does not waver.
"Tadashi," he sing-songs, ready to tease him, "I think you should tell Tsukishima how you feel!" Shimada throws his hands up like he wants to catch Yamaguchi's next toss, but with how close they are he seems like a child wordlessly asking for a hug.
Yamaguchi stares at him for a long moment, with his flushed cheeks and slightly crooked glasses. Shimada makes a brief kissy-face at him. An imitation of what he thinks Yamaguchi should do? What he thinks Tsukishima will do?
Yamaguchi loves Tsukishima. Probably for five years, now. He tries not to keep track because - because it doesn't matter. People fall in love or have crushes, and if it's one-sided they eventually have to get over it and move on.
This is why he has never been particularly perplexed by his simultaneous crush on Shimada. He has always thought love is probably something simple, and in its simplicity, cannot be a black and white matter and does not need to be excused or explained with rules.
He is tired and his inhibition is shot, something Tsukishima has mentioned happens to him, often. Whenever he stays the night and stays up late, Tsukishima insists, he talks and talks without shame and can't be shushed as easily as usual. Yamaguchi takes great relief in his friend sounding more amused than anything else, because this means he isn't talking about The Thing from junior high.
Shimada looks stupid with his pouting fish-lips, and if Yamaguchi had to guess, he's on the verge of making sound effects.
Yamaguchi preemptively cuts him off by leaning down and actually kissing him.
There is only a beat before Shimada's hands in the air lower to cup Yamaguchi's cheek with one hand, the other touching fingers feather-light across his collar. The motion feels smooth and casual, like a natural reaction. Shimada kisses back, a soft press back against his lips.
It is brief, but warm and wonderful and Yamaguchi thinks that of all the idiotic shit he has done or said because he was exhausted, this has been the best mistake. And if he is being honest, he likes Shimada, he really really does. The other day Tsukishima, particularly ill-tempered over who-knows-what, had glared at nothing and told him, "too much, Yamaguchi. Shut up about him, already."
His heart feels flooded full. Tsukishima was smart to have noticed; Yamaguchi bets he's had him figured out for weeks.
But Shimada suddenly jerks away from him, pulling back so quickly that he falls backwards off the crate.
Yamaguchi stares down at him, amused. Until the cold air washes over his heated face and kick-starts his brain back into reality. His lungs feel ice cold even as his ears are burning up. He realizes what he has just done and compreheneds that it will have lingering effects. He runs a hand down his face, already feeling nauseous and stupid.
He hears the sound of Shimada pulling himself to his feet and clearing his throat. From between his fingers, he watches Shimada ruffle his own hair and adjust his glasses like it's helping him to organize his thoughts.
"Well. That." Shimada almost manages to say. Yamaguchi finally lowers his hands from his face, although he doesn't want to with how red his cheeks must be. Shimada looks physically pained, and his fingers are still holding his glasses in place as though they will fall if he lets go. He eventually decides to finish a sentence, reminding Yamaguchi firmly, "I'm twenty six years old, Tadashi."
Yamaguchi may be shy, may be insecure. But he knows a whole lot about non-answers. Tsukishima is the king of answer-avoidance. This is nothing.
"I know," Yamaguchi replies, faster than he had expected from himself. Shimada certainly has a youthful face, but Yamaguchi has never once forgotten that he is a decade older. It has also never once been a negative, in his mind. "It's not that much of a difference."
He is pleased that Shimada seems to take the time to consider his words before arguing. Even if the response he comes to is, "No, but..." Shimada finally drops his hands from his glasses. His thumbs toy with his pockets nervously, and Yamaguchi finds this irrationally cute. "That's not the point. Who I was at twenty six and who I was at twenty aren't that different. But who I was at sixteen and who I was at twenty absolutely were. Do you understand what I mean?"
Not really, Yamaguchi thinks, even though he does. He has to breathe, and mentally talk himself through a good answer. He wants to sound like he has thought about this longer than the three minutes since Shimada looked up at him with a stupid drunk kissy-face.
Yamaguchi tells him, "that's normal, though. Obviously someone my age is going to change a lot in the next couple of years. That doesn't mean they can't change with someone, or that they can't make any decisions yet."
Shimada does not seem to have a response for that. Yamaguchi has heard every warning one can about older men going after much younger boys. As clueless, innocent jokes from his teammates who would make the joke to anyone. As peeved warnings from Tsukishima, telling him to shut up about his apparently obvious crush.
Those kinds of warning stories never depict the older man fleeing from the younger's affection, he thinks. He wonders if that makes it any better at all.
"If I were dating someone my own age, we would end up growing a lot, together," Yamaguchi adds. "Even though we'd have just as much change to go through, that would be fine?"
"It's different," Shimada says, then after a moment, sounding stuck between awe-struck and baffled, "you want to date me?"
"I. Maybe?"
At the unsure answer, Shimada seems a whole lot less distressed by the situation. He laughs, not condescending like Tsukishima does, but just - amused. Like Yamaguchi has told him a good joke at no ones expense, a joke they are both in on.
Yamaguchi feels shy and young, and for once it is not the former that bothers him the most. He blurts out, realizing just how painfully awkward he is before the words even leave his mouth, "I like you."
Shimada smiles, but suddenly looks as weary as Yamaguchi has been for hours. He does not say anything back. Yamaguchi needs more than maybe-maybe-not. He does not need excuses in the place of a no.
Yamaguchi steps closer. His fingers come to rest gingerly against the hem of Shimada's sleeve.
In the quiet of the evening, Shimada leans down and kisses him again.
His hands are big and warm when they find themselves back on Yamaguchi's cheeks. They feel comfortingly in control, and Yamaguchi feels safely guided, like a gentle current. Shimada's fingers are soothing in his hair as he holds his head.
Shimada's kisses are light. Just lips against lips like it is the most simple thing in the world. There is no embarrassment or desperation like Yamaguchi feels, because he is sixteen and hormonal. There is no tongue or biting or moaning like in movies, no abrupt shift from butterfly kisses to intense makeouts.
Yamaguchi is grateful things do not progress so fast. He is already overwhelmed. He hears himself whimper against the man's mouth and feels the puff of warm breath as Shimada chuckles at him. He still feels more comfortable than ashamed. Even if he is young and stupid, even if he is needy.
Shimada is soft as he kisses Yamaguchi's lips, and down his jaw and neck.