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His name is Tadashi, and for the moment, that is all he knows of himself.
He knows other things. He knows he is on an island. He knows it’s rivers, it’s caves, the quiet mountain at its center. He knows he is alone.
He doesn’t know how he got there, or how long he’s been there. He thinks he’s been here since the beginning, since the mountain was a mere embryo below the ocean, slowing burning itself up to the surface. He is burning still.
He thinks he did it to see the moon.
It engulfs his vision. The moon is full and blue and beautiful, hanging so low that if he could just lift his hands from the sand, he could run his fingers over its rough surface.
But he can’t. He can’t lift any part of himself from the sands of the beach. He is the beach, or the mountain. The whole island. He knows it so well.
---
The moon comes down to him.
“Hey, are you alright?”
Its voice is beautiful, not too deep or too high, and soothing like the tides when they rush over his feet, shins, knees, stealing the heat off his skin like it stole the heat from lava, eons ago.
Eyes the bright gold of a harvest moon stare down at him, narrowed with something Tadashi distantly recognizes as concern.
A face, a voice, gentle fingers pressing against his neck.
(His neck, his body, his own skipping pulse; he is singular after all.)
“Who are you?” the moon asks.
“Well, I might be a mountain?” Tadashi responds, and tries to shrug. He fails.
"A mountain, right,” the moon replies, rolling its eyes. “Are you injured?”
Tadashi can't quite shake his head. He hums a negative instead.
“Good. I’m going to move you now. Help if you can.”
Tadashi can’t. He doesn’t even try.
--
Tadashi comes to in a cave. A familiar one, because all of them are familiar to him.
(It's not familiar at all, and he'll never realize it, because days later when he comes to for real, he'll have already come to know it through the haze of fever dreams.)
He tries to move and manages to prop himself up on his elbows for a moment before his body gives up on him and drops back down to the hard ground. As he goes down, he catches a glimpse of pale hair, and realizes he is not as alone as he thought.
“Are you awake, Mountain-san?”
Tadashi rolls his head in the direction the voice comes from. Maybe a meter away, a man sits, one hand resting on a small, grimy crank radio, the other pulling his grayed tee-shirt collar away from his throat.
Tadashi’s brows furrow. “The moon?”
The moon quirks an eyebrow. “If you insist.”
Tadashi licks his cracked lips; his tongue feels like sandpaper. “My name is Yamaguchi. Yamaguchi Tadashi.”
The corner of the man’s lips tick upward. “And you’re a mountain?”
Tadashi wonders about that. A mountain would be able to stand, after all. A mountain would already be standing.
“Probably not.”
“Mm,” the answer seems to satisfy the other man somewhat, “I’m probably not the moon, either. Until we’re sure, you can call me Tsukishima.”
Tadashi wants to say something to that, especially since he’s pretty sure Tsukishima is the moon (that name is a dead giveaway), but before he can Tsukishima is at his side with a beat-up plastic bottle half-full with water.
“Drink something, you’re dehydrated,” he instructs, sliding one hand under Tadashi’s head, lifting him up enough to drink.
The water is lukewarm, and dirt is embedded into the plastic of the bottle, giving the water a gritty texture. It’s the best thing he’s ever tasted in his life. If he had the strength, he’d take the bottle from Tsukishima and guzzle it down, but he doesn’t. Tsukishima controls his intake, pouring water into his mouth in small gulps.
“There’s plenty of edible plants on this island,” Tsukishima says, his eyes intent on the bottle, “Though, you must know that, since you’ve survived until now. We’ll eat soon.”
When half the water in the bottle is gone, Tsukishima takes it away and lowers Tadashi’s head back to the ground. Tadashi assumes he’s going to fetch whatever food he was talking about, but the man sits back down in front of the radio and fidgets with the controls. A soft static buzz fills the air, but that’s all.
It doesn’t make sense, Tadashi thinks. Why does the moon have a radio?
“The astronauts left it for me.”
The moon can read his mind.
“You’re speaking.”
The moon cannot read his mind. That’s comforting. So comforting it lulls Tadashi right back to sleep.
--
Tadashi opens his eyes and it's dark.
He closes his eyes and it's dark.
Which way is up? The air, the sea, the world spins, violent and turbulent around him and which way is up?
--
The next time Tadashi wakes, it’s to roll over on his side and vomit. He hears a muttered curse and remembers he’s with the moon right now, but he’s too busy forcing bile out of his throat to pay much attention at first. When he finally rolls onto his back again, he sees that Tsukishima looks significantly less composed than he had the last time Tadashi had been awake.
“Tch, gross,” Tsukishima mutters as he grabs handfuls of dirt and drops them over the small puddle of bile.
“Sorry,” Tadashi’s voice cracks, god it burns worse than anything he’s ever felt before. Everything burns worse. His brain is burning through his skull, his blood scorches his veins. He's a mountain again, a volcano, and when he bursts, it's with more hot bile, dribbling out of his mouth, down the side of his face and into the dirt.
“Don’t—“ Tsukishima’s expression cycles, phasing through agitation, helplessness, and concern, before settling on something tired and strained. “I’m not a doctor. I don’t know how to help you properly.”
That’s not unexpected. How would the moon even become a doctor anyway?
“Of all the delusions to have,” Tsukishima mutters under his breath; hysteria edges his voice like lace on a dress hem.
“Delusions?” Tadashi parrots. The word scrapes at his throat like nails over a chalk board.
“You’re obviously dehydrated,” Tsukishima replies, his words trembling, bumbling into one another, “And feverish. You probably haven’t eaten in a while. Or you ate something bad. You think you might be a mountain and I’m the fucking moon. Really original, by the way.”
“Oh,” Tadashi says, “We're not, then?"
"We're not," Tsukishima snaps, "We're people, and we're lost, and we're not going to be found."
--
It takes time, Tadashi's not sure how much time, but--time, all the same, until he wakes up feeling clear-headed and mostly well, with vague feverish memories of his own sickness and of a stranger who helped him through it.
Tadashi covers his face with his hands and groans, pitiably, "I called him the moon, oh my god."
"Many times, even. How embarrassing for you."
Tadashi jolts up off the dirt, then holds his head and breathes his way through a fit of dizziness. The darkness behind his eyelids is so turbulent. Tadashi keeps his eyes open.
"Ts-Tsukishima-san?" Tadashi says. His vision stabilizes, and for the first time he sees Tsukishima, he sees everything, with lucid clarity.
Tsukishima is definitely not the moon. He's not some shining thing, or even a particularly clean thing. His clothes and skin are an amalgamation of brown and gray spots, his blonde curls are pushed back from his forehead and held away from his face by their own grease. Grimy hands fiddle with the dial on the small emergency radio that spews out nothing but white noise.
"Wait--" Tadashi's body attempts to scramble toward the radio before he can think better of it. His arms give out almost immediately, leaving him in a heap in the dirt once more. Defeated, Tadashi wheezes out, "A radio...?"
"The astronauts gave it to me, remember?" Tsukishima replies, rolling his eyes.
Tadashi has no idea what that means, and it must show on his face, because Tsukishima just gives him a flat stare and says, "I salvaged it from the wreck, obviously."
The wreck. Right. The ship wreck (boat wreck, really), that had landed him on this island in the first place. The wreck he had survived. That he'd thought no one else had.
"Does it work?" Tadashi asks, "Can we send messages?"
Tsukishima clicks his tongue. His fingers fiddle with the volume knob. "No. It's only made to receive signals, and there's nothing for it to receive here."
Tadashi's shoulders drop, along with his hopes. "Then why do you keep playing with it?"
"Why were you starved out on the beach?"
The question hits Tadashi like a slap to the face, forcing him to turn away, wide eyes staring unfocused into the middle ground.
Silence sits between them for far too long. Too, too long, until it's shooed away by Tsukishima's murmuring.
"It's something to do. I have--I can't stop. It's all I can do."
The words aren't an apology, but they sound like one. Yet Tadashi's thoughts have rolled too far back into his own head to hear it.
"I didn't have a radio," he says, and welcomes the silence back.
--
As he begins moving and doing and being on his own again, Tadashi grows increasingly aware of how much Tsukishima must have done for him before he'd reached this point.
He's dirty, but not soiled. His face and hair are not clean, but he's not grime or puke-covered, either. He doesn't remember what he ate, only the drag of slim, fine fingers with ragged nails moving over and past his lips. He remembers gritty water.
A few paces away, on the other side of their shallow cave, Tsukishima sorts through the miscellaneous nuts and berries they gathered that morning, and Yamaguchi wonders how exactly he's supposed to interact with a man who has done the no-doubt unpleasant business of keeping him alive. The problem is complicated further by the fact that all indicators suggest Tsukishima is, in fact, an ass.
"Um, do you need help?" Tadashi asks. All day, day after day, silence builds between them, molten tension rising under the surface, relieved in fractions by worthless questions like this.
"This isn't exactly above my pay grade," Tsukishima sneers, never once looking up from his task.
Tadashi wonders, not for the first time, why he's here.
"With anything else then?" Tadashi persists.
"Do whatever it is you did before," Tsukishima says with a dismissive wave of his hand, then adds, "And do it quietly."
Yamaguchi is not one to give up, but this island has certainly put him more in touch with his inner quitter than he ever has been before. Only this isn't quitting, he tells himself as he gets to his feet, it's just--a low tide, of sorts.
Slowly, Yamaguchi makes his way to the mouth of the cave, only stumbling once. He stops to murmur, "Okay then," before heading out.
--
Tadashi returns to the cave when the sun is maybe a finger's width away from the horizon. A barely-there sliver of moon already glows dimly in the sky, reflecting across the glassy eyes of the fish in Tadashi's arms. He only managed to catch the one, but it's of a decent size. There should be enough for both of them to get a taste of something different, for once.
The fire at the front of the cave looks new, the wood just starting to burn in earnest. Tadashi takes careful steps around it, and peers into the flickering shadows that inhabit the cave until he finds Tsukishima sitting farther back, one hand fiddling with the crank radio, eyes narrowed, his form a warm blur in the light of the fire.
"I'm back," Tadashi calls, dropping to his knees to put the fish down by the fire. Their collection of fire wood is only a few feet away; surely they must have at least one stick suitable to use as a spit.
He hears Tsukishima's footsteps, but doesn't quite expect them to stop right behind him. When Tadashi looks up, it's to find Tsukishima looking down at him, his usual resting scowl firmly in place.
"A fish?" he asks, jutting his chin out to indicate said fish.
"Yup," Tadashi says as he returns to the task of picking through their wood pile. "It's not much, but it's enough to go around."
"Enough to go around," Tsukishima repeats, like he doesn't quite believe it.
"Sorry, it's not the most impressive catch," Tadashi says, and he realizes midway through the statement that he's got just a bit more pep in his voice than a singular fish calls for, "I'll try for two at least next time."
Tsukishima's steps move, and from the corner of his vision Tadashi sees the other man lower himself gingerly to the ground.
"You don't have to," Tsukishima murmurs, his gaze lost to the fire. His right hand moves up to his face, hovers by his temple, then lowers back to his lap where it clasps his other hand.
"Oh, uh, do you not like fish?" Tadashi asks. In hindsight, maybe it was a bit rude to assume Tsukishima would even want fish? Though these are certainly not the circumstances to be picky during, if it can be helped. "Or have like an allergy...?"
Tsukishima shoots him another furrowed look, but it soon melts into something withdrawn. "No, just--you caught it, it's yours."
Tadashi, who has found an appropriately sized stick and is currently sharpening the end of it with a stone, smashes his own fingers with said stone when he looks away from his task for just a moment to gape incredulously at Tsukishima. His resulting yelp of pain jolts Tsukishima, rocking him first away, and then toward Yamaguchi, a hand outstretched as if to do--something, about the situation, but it's retracted just as quickly.
"If you hadn't saved my life, Tsukishima-san," Tadashi grumbles, "I'd punch you for that. If you'd caught this, would you just eat it in front of me?"
Tsukishima's face glows red in the fire light as he turns away and clicks his tongue. "Damn straight I would," he mutters, and sets his scowl more firmly onto his face.
Tadashi snorts. "You've been sharing food with me for almost two weeks, Tsukishima-san--and I was only really sick for one."
Tsukishima's nose scrunches up, and the nasty twist of his mouth foretells a sharp dressing down, but the expression collapses into that bewildered look from earlier. His brows furrow, the line of his mouth softens into a mild frown.
In the resulting silence, Tadashi manages to adequately skewer the fish, and digs the other end of the stick into the dirt just by the fire. Slowly, the scent of cooking fish fills the air, turning the quiet into something almost sweet between them.
Tsukishima breaks the silence with a deep breath before saying, "I don't really see the point of using honorifics right now."
"O-oh, I'm--" Tadashi flusters, fiddles with the stick holding the fish up, "I didn't want to um, assume any sort of familiarity."
Tsukishima snorts and stares up at the cave ceiling, "I'm already more familiar with you than I ever wanted to be with anyone--trust me, we're way past that."
Torrential embarrassment rains down on Tadashi's head, raises heat to his face like flood waters. His voice is high and stringy when he responds with a flustered chuckle, "Ahah, I g-guess that's true..."
Tadashi lets the other's name roll around his head for a bit as he waits for the fish to finish cooking, as he removes it from the makeshift spit and tears into it as best as he can with ginger touches, trying to separate out the meat of it onto two leaves in about equal portions. By the time he's completed his task, he feels—maybe not comfortable, exactly, but resolved to murmuring, "H-here, Tsukishima..."
Tsukishima's cheeks go pink, or maybe never stopped being pink, but his expression otherwise doesn't change as he nods and mutters, "Yamaguchi," back, an unspoken thank you.
--
They don't talk much, for what seems like a very long time. They tell each other things—we need more firewood, these berries look spoiled, I found this snake and do you think we can eat it?--but they don't talk to each other, and Tadashi is starting to feel positively bloated with all the unasked questions he carries around.
Tsukishima has questions too, he can tell, but he seems much more content to just let them be.
Or well, so Tadashi thought--the other man always looks so stone-cold and composed, the only hint of human nerve revealed in the constant twitch and shake of his hands.
But he's the one who breaks their quiet routine, who rolls the dial of the crank radio lazily between his elegant fingers and asks, like he hasn't been scrupulously maintaining a distance of quiet so at odds with the constant brush of shoulders that defines their lives now, "So why were you there? On the ship."
Tadashi startles so badly at the unexpected question, he drops everything he's carrying (dried out drift wood and a few garments he'd found embedded in the sand on the beach—probably washed up from the wreck, probably having been there the entire time, waiting to be found. However it's not until recently that Tadashi's thought, or had the emotional fortitude, to actively seek out the wreckage in the hopes of finding useful things, so the refuse has remained uselessly lodged in the sand until now.)
"Um, I--" Tadashi's mind goes blank, and even though it hasn't been that long, it takes him a moment to remember that he existed before the accident. "I was a student, and I was--in a study abroad program? For marine biology. I was on my way, and..."
The memory takes Tadashi far away, and for a moment he remembers—but doesn't quite remember, so much has he sees the memory in his mind's eye, like watching a home-made film—the excitement he'd felt when he'd gotten accepted into the program, the way his stomach had swooped when he'd stepped foot aboard the ship that was going to take him on his first big adventure away from home. He remembers his parents, grinning and proud as they'd seen him off, and the large tear stains he'd sported on either shoulder, courtesy of Hinata and Yachi shamelessly blubbering on him moments before he'd boarded.
His heart aches, his throat constricts. He hasn't thought about them in so long. He misses them so acutely now.
Maybe this is why Tsukishima doesn't talk so much—maybe he just can't.
--
"And you?" Tadashi asks, hours later, once he's swallowed down so much loneliness and guilt that he's gorged with it, overfull and nauseous and wanting a distraction. "Why were you on board?"
Tsukishima looks up from the radio, blinks like he's trying to remember what words are, and Tadashi knows distantly that he's being cruel, asking a question that he knows hurts so much to think about, but he doesn't have it in him to care right now.
Then he shrugs, a deliberate attempt at casualness. "Same as you," he says, "Study abroad, also in marine bio."
"Oh," Tadashi is flung from the past and into a future that can never happen now. What would it have been like, to have met Tsukishima on the ship, maybe sharing a table at breakfast? Or seeing each other in passing for days, only to finally become truly aware of the other during some painfully contrived ice-breaker? What would it have been like, to see Tsukishima for the first time, clean and neat, his wit brilliant and sharp as a freshly whetted knife and not whatever jagged, rusted thing isolation and exposure have made it? Tadashi knows himself well enough to think that, indeed, his heart might've skipped a beat, had they met like they should have.
But they hadn't. (And it still did.)
"Ugh, and I called you the moon."
"Why bring that up now?" Tsukishima's mouth twists into a grimace, fighting down embarrassment he hadn't expected to feel, hadn't thought to guard against. His cheeks are pink again—his ears too. Tadashi's heart aches in a new way, and he ignores it, because he knows he's seeing a fantasy and not the taciturn, awkward man he only knows through the barest gestures and scant exchanges.
They were students in the same field. The could have been classmates. They could have been friends.
"We need to talk more," Tadashi declares, and keeps his expression firm, even in the face of Tsukishima's wide-eyed bewilderment. "We're all we have, we can't—we can't just survive next to each other anymore."
Tsukishima pulls in on himself, uncomfortable and shifting like he expects the cave walls to close in on him. "What, so the power of friendship will get us off this island?"
Tadashi rolls his eyes, but persists. "No, but—if the ship hadn't gone down, we could've been—would have been friends. Do we have to lose that, on top of everything?"
"You're—you don't know that," Tsukishima says. His fingers scrabble against the cave floor, his eyes flitting between different points in the darkness, skittering always away from Tadashi's persistent stare.
"We would have been friends," Tadashi repeats, insisting, leaving no room for argument.
Tsukishima looks like he's tempted to try all the same.
He doesn't though, and the look of loss and being lost is so bare on his face, so painfully honest--
Tadashi's heart won't stop aching.
--
Tsukishima stares at the cave ceiling with deep resignation and sighs.
"Blue."
Tadashi pointedly ignores the other's lack of enthusiasm, and answers with a chipper, "Nice, mine's lime green. Your favorite food?"
There's a pause, before Tsukishima admits, "Strawberry shortcake." He says it with a glare, daring Tadashi to comment.
Tadashi dares. "You've got a sweet-tooth? Really?" Gap moe, Tadashi wisely holds back from saying.
Tsukishima looks down his nose at Tadashi, imperious. "And what great refinements do you prefer?"
Tadashi grins, sheepish, rubbing at the back of his neck. Well, when he puts the question like that...
"Eheh, um, french fries? Like, the really floppy ones."
Tsukishima leans back on his arms, away from the fire and, presumably, Tadashi's unfortunate taste in food. "You philistine. Hobbies?"
"Uh, well, I played volleyball?" Tadashi says, "And entomology? I almost went into that field, actually."
"Why'd you go with marine biology then?" Tsukishima asks. He leans forward again, resting his elbows on his knees. Tadashi finds himself oddly embarrassed to have been asked a follow-up question.
"Uh, well, honestly?" Tadashi says, turning his eyes away from Tsukishima's bright stare, "I wrote everything I really wanted to study on one paper, then dropped a pen on it. It landed on marine biology, so..."
He doesn't dare look up at Tsukishima's expression. He almost doesn't need to either; the man's amusement is palpable in the air.
(There is a moment, a second really, where the desire to know what amusement looks like on Tsukishima's face outweighs his own embarrassment and he peeks—just a glance, just a fleeting thing—and sees that smirk, lop-sided and dashing. Tadashi looks back to the fire, and pretends he saw nothing.)
"W-what about you?" Tadashi asks, "Was there anything else you wanted to do?"
Tsukishima shrugs, "Paleontology."
"Uah, that's so cool Tsukki!"
It's obvious from his face that Tsukishima wants to say something along the lines of damn right it's cool, and maybe he would have, if the nickname didn't register with him just as he opened his mouth, pulling his face into a comically affronted expression. "Tsukki?"
"You don't like it?" Tadashi asks, feigning hurt in a way he hopes Tsukishima reads as joking. The alarm that flits over Tsukishima's face, like he thinks Tadashi is about to break into tears, suggest that Tadashi's intentions go right over the other man's head, and he clarifies before the other can start panicking, "I'm joking, just kidding! It's okay not to like it!"
"I do like it," Tsukishima declares in a rush, then proceeds to look entirely mortified by the admission. His face is still red when he pulls himself together with a disdainful sniff and says, "It's not the worst nickname you've come up with, at any rate."
Tadashi covers his face with his hands, groaning. "I was delirious Tsukki!"
"Of course, mountain-san."
Another groan, and Tadashi flops back onto the cave floor with as much force as he dares, which is admittedly not much. His point has been made though, and with his eyes closed, he can almost believe he hears Tsukishima's laughter, mixing with the crackling of the fire.
--
Tadashi starts inviting Tsukishima along when he goes fishing. Tsukishima, in turn, recruits Tadashi's help in foraging for dry wood. Their game of twenty-one questions doesn't end, and has long since gone beyond its numerical bounds.
Tsukishima has a brother; Tadashi is an only child. Tsukishima had played volleyball until middle school, then dropped it for music, and worked as a DJ on weekends; Tadashi had stuck with it through high school, and played in the intramural league. Every February Tsukishima drowned in confession chocolates but has never kissed a girl; Tadashi has never received confession chocolates, but has kissed multiple girls. They've both kissed boys.
Tadashi learns, finally, that Tsukishima's given name is Kei.
--
Wind sweeps between and around them as they walk side-by-side along the beach. That, and the crash of the waves against the sand is the only sound that moves around them. Tadashi can't quite find his words today, all of them subsumed by solemnity. Tsukishima, though more free with his thoughts now, is still pointedly not the chatterbox between the two of them, and so does nothing to ward away the quiet.
They are going to the wreckage today--or, the bulk of it, at any rate. Tsukishima had some time past stumbled upon a stretch of beach where a sizable amount of debris from the ship had washed up. Tadashi too remembers once, in the earliest days of his internment on the island, having come across it, but fear and stomach-churning dread had kept him far away.
But Tadashi isn't alone now, and neither of them can afford to be sentimental or superstitious; what clothes they have are nearly tatters, and they can't quite be sure when or if the island's weather will take a turn for the worse, though Tsukishima thinks they should anticipate a monsoon season.
If there's anything of use in the wreckage, they need it.
"So," Tadashi breaks their silence when they come across the first stretch of refuse. "Should we each take one side, and meet in the middle?"
Tsukishima nods, and makes his way to the far side of the wreckage. Quiet unfurls once more between them as they pick through suitcases that washed ashore, snatch up a few first-aid kits, safety razors, an entire nail care kit (Tadashi spends a moment outright cooing at it, positively thrilled with the prospect of trimming his ragged nails back down to size with something more precise than his own teeth). Tarp, rope, a compass, scissors--the wreckage is a veritable treasure trove, and Tadashi feels silly for letting these things go to waste for so long.
He feels less silly when the sounds of retching cut through the sea breeze.
"Tsukki?" Tadashi shouts, anxiety spiking his pitch. His eyes quickly find Tsukishima on the shore, by an outcropping of rocks. There's something by him, large and bright--a life raft, maybe?--and Tsukishima kneels near it, his back turned to it, puking what little food he'd eaten that morning out onto the sand.
Panic lances through Tadashi's chest, sends him running across the sand as fast as he can, but before he makes it within ten feet of Tsukishima, the other holds up a hand, a clear sign to stop.
"Tsukki, what..." Tadashi slows to a halt, staring at Tsukishima's shuddering form as he dry heaves.
Tadashi takes another step closer, then another, until he's nearly within Tsukishima's reach, but Tsukishima looks up then, wild desperation in his eyes as he hacks out a dry, painful "No, Yamaguchi. No."
A moment of helplessness and deep isolation passes by, where Tadashi does nothing but stand, perfectly still, his eyes unwavering from Tsukishima's form as the other man gets to his feet and stumbles in Tadashi's direction. He falls, face-first, into Tadashi's shoulder, smelling of bile and sea salt. Tadashi turns them away from the ocean, from whatever it was that upset Tsukishima so much, and leads them back to the direction of their camp.
For today, they leave their treasures behind.
--
The next day, Tadashi leaves Tsukishima in their cave, more withdrawn than usual and furiously twisting away at the dials on the crank radio, to return to the wreckage and collect the things they'd put aside as useful. He promises Tsukishima that he won't go near the life raft. He keeps his word.
As he makes his way back, his precious cargo loaded up onto a tarp and dragged behind him, Tadashi stumbles upon one more treasure.
He keeps that, too.
--
The secret treasure burns in Tadashi's mind for days. It's hard to keep a secret, living in close quarters with someone in a narrow, shallow cave, but Tadashi is blessed with a cave-mate who is the exact opposite of nosy, and a large haul of brand new things to sort through and hide things in.
What Tadashi is not blessed with, however, is the ability to keep secrets from people he cares about and, inevitably, he's come to care for Tsukishima Kei.
"Oh, just spit it out already," Tsukishima says over dinner, not even three days after Tadashi has collected his newest item. Tadashi, mid-bite, raises his eyebrows as if to say are you sure that's what you want? before slowly opening his mouth and sticking out his tongue, still lined with the half-chewed mess of his meal.
Tsukishima shutters and throws a berry at his head. Yamaguchi catches it in his still-open mouth, then goes back about his business in a way that wouldn't make his parents cry.
A few more minutes pass in quiet, and Tadashi notes that Tsukishima waits until his mouth is empty before saying, "You know that's not what I meant. Something's been up with you lately. What is it?"
"Ah, well..." Tadashi squirms in place for a moment, before getting up and moving toward the woven pallet of palm fronds he calls a bed. He stays there, even after he's retrieved his little gift, keeping his back to Tsukishima to better keep the object hidden.
"It's silly, probably," Tadashi begins, staring intently into the middle distance. His heart is speeding up, embarrassment and a newly-born shyness leading him to fidget. "But I found this the other day and it, um, reminded me of you?"
A quiet pause passes, just long enough to encourage Tadashi to look back over his shoulder at Tsukishima. The other's eyes glitter in the flickering light of the fire, intent and curious. His whole aspect is given over to a warm, golden glow. Tadashi's heart skips a beat. He tells it to stop being ridiculous.
"What do you mean?" Tsukishima asks, when the pause goes on for longer than his curiosity can stand.
Tadashi returns to the fire, clutching the object in his hands. "You'll, uh, I think you'll get it when you see it."
With sweaty hands, Tadashi offers his gift to Tsukishima.
Tsukishima's eyes go wide, and he takes the thing from Tadashi with more eagerness than Tadashi anticipated, possibly more eagerness than Tadashi has ever seen him express over anything.
"It's--" Tsukishima begins, turning the object over in his hands. His touch is almost reverent.
Tadashi only notices these things peripherally, too caught up in his own sudden and overwhelming sense of embarrassment. "I know, it's silly, saying it reminded me of you just because of the moon logo, but--"
"--It's mine," Tsukishima says with slow awe, and then again with something close to breathless rapture, "Tadashi, these are mine."
Tadashi's brain comes to a halt, and if pressed, he could not say definitively which part of Tsukishima's response had done this to him.
So he watches, mute, as Tsukishima opens the hard-shell, moon-marked glasses case, takes out the glasses within, and places them with disbelieving slowness on his face.
For a moment, they stare at each other, as though meeting for the first time.
A dozen little bits and pieces of Tsukishima suddenly make sense to Tadashi now. The way his hands sometimes flit around his face--the habit of trying to push glasses into place, even when they aren't there. His constantly narrowed eyes, which Tadashi had taken as any number of things--light sensitivity, sand in his eyes, extreme and ceaseless distain for his surroundings--had just been a matter of trying to see more clearly. The distressing frequency with which he'd press on his eyes and the bridge of his nose, as though he had a headache--he probably did, from eye strain.
But now the missing piece of Tsukishima has been put right back into its place, and he stares at Tadashi with wide, astonished eyes, as though he's never quite seen him before.
(Which, Tadashi thinks, might very well be the case.)
"Oh," Tsukishima murmurs. Tadashi is afraid to ask what it means. "Oh."
--
To say that Tsukishima becomes more pleasant with the return of his glasses is an accurate assessment, but one Tadashi would not overstate. He bites his tongue on his more cutting remarks. He laughs more openly at Tadashi's jokes. He stares, intently, and never looks away when he gets caught.
--
Glasses don't light up the darkness.
But when Tsukishima's panicked breathing cuts through the night air and jerks Tadashi out of his dreams, Tadashi doesn't pretend to be asleep, and Tsukishima doesn't try to hide that he needs help.
Instead, Tadashi gets up and finds the radio. He presses it into Tsukishima's shaking hands. He sits, shoulder-to-shoulder with Tsukishima, breathing deeply, until the other falls asleep against his shoulder, limp fingers falling away from the radio's crank handle.
--
"So what did you do, at first?" Yamaguchi says one day, while tidying up their cave. A sense of futility surrounds the whole affair, but so too does a sense of normalcy, so they do it more or less regularly. "To try to be found, I mean. It seems weird that it took so long for us to find each other. I tried my hand at a signal fire--did you see the smoke?"
Tsukishima pauses for a moment in the rearrangement of the leaves that make up his bed, the expanse of his back (bare to the world, his usual tee-shirt out on a branch, drying in the sun) going still with tension.
"No. Nothing," he says at last, the words like a needle thrown at a balloon. "I did nothing. Didn't see the point."
Tadashi's breath hitches. He fears what he will miss if he looks away.
"I stayed in here for days and fiddled with that stupid radio," Tsukishima continues. The line of his shoulders curves down into a slump. Tadashi aches to reach out to him. "I knew it was pointless but I couldn't stop..."
"Tsukki..." Tadashi gives in to what his heart bleeds to do--he steps forward and wraps his arms around Tsukishima, pressing his face between the taller man's shoulder blades. Tsukishima's bare skin is oddly cool. "I'm sorry Tsukki. I wish I'd found you earlier, it--so much would have been easier if we'd just found each other sooner."
Tsukishima goes rigid in Tadashi's hold. Tadashi thinks he needs to pull back, pull away--but he's frozen on the wrong side of a boundary he shouldn't have crossed. He doesn't move.
"We..." Tsukishima speaks, and Tadashi feels the rumble of it move through his chest, feels the hitching breath that Tsukishima takes before continuing. "We did. I did."
"What?" Tension fills Tadashi, like a contagious disease or a poison that he's siphoning from Tsukishima's body. His arms feel locked in place. "What do you mean?"
"A few weeks before--before the beach. I found your camp."
Tadashi's arms drop to his sides, limp. His knees are trembling. His legs feel weak.
"You knew I was here," Tadashi murmurs, his voice hollow with disbelief, "You knew I was here and you--you left me alone?"
"I didn't know you, you could've been anything and I--" Tsukishima doesn't turn around to face him. His voice is a brittle imitation of his usual monotone, ready to crack any moment. Morbid curiosity, a wonder of what does this look like on Tsukki's face? clamors at the back of Tadashi's mind, but he ignores it. "I didn't know you."
"You left me alone here," Tadashi repeats, his throat tight. "Fuck stranger danger, we're the only people here that we know of, and you left me alone! I--"
A lump catches in Tadashi's throat, remembering those last days--the agony of total isolation, of knowing he'd be alone forever, that everything was lost to him and would never be found. Walking down to the beach at sunset, laying down. Not getting back up.
"I need to go," Tadashi says, stepping away. This, finally, gets Tsukishima to turn around, but so does Tadashi, unwilling as he is to see the other's face.
"Don't," there's naked terror in Tsukishima's voice, in the tremble of the hand he wraps around Tadashi's wrist. "Please."
"I'll come back," Tadashi says, because he'd said it himself, it's just them here, and he can't go back to being alone, he can't even pretend. "I'll come back, I just--I can't bear you right now."
--
Tadashi walks down to the beach. The sun is setting. He can't sit down, can't be still. Agitation eats at him, drives him to pacing.
So he builds a fire, the biggest one he can manage. He throws himself completely into the task, rationalizing that it's a signal fire, that all the ships and planes and google earth satellites that never saw his fires before will see him now, that they'll rescue him and he'll be away from Tsukishima, and this island, and this loneliness.
He doesn't sleep that night.
Or the next.
He tends the fire.
--
"How long have you been watching me this time, Tsukki?"
Tsukishima plops down beside him in the sand, and offers up a half-full, beat-up water bottle. "Long enough to know it's been almost a day since you last drank anything."
Tadashi considers the bottle. It's been days, he's starving and thirsty and he's pretty close to not caring. Close, but not there yet. He takes the bottle.
"Don't guzzle it," Tsukishima scolds, his hand shooting out to lower the water bottle from the high angle Tadashi holds it at. Their hands overlap. They are too exhausted to care.
"I've been sitting here a week, you know?" Tadashi says, once he's finished drinking. "Trying to figure out why you'd choose this, why you'd choose this when you--when you knew you had a choice."
Tsukishima stays quiet for long enough that Tadashi becomes convinced he'll never get an answer, that he will have to spend his life learning how to forgive without ever knowing why. Or, if not forgive, to make peace with this, somehow.
But Tsukishima saves him from that, too--eventually.
"I thought you were a dream--that I was dreaming, hallucinating," Tsukishima says, stumbling over his words in a way Tadashi has never heard him do. "I thought I'd lost it. And if you were real, then--"
Tsukishima takes a shuddering breath, covers his face with his hands and breaths.
Tadashi waits.
"If you were real," Tsukishima begins again, "Then it was enough to know you were there. It was better than--than this."
Tadashi feels like he wants to throw up.
"Better than what Tsukki?" Tadashi asks, his breathing harsh, "Better than having to deal with me?"
"Better than you knowing me, knowing the alternative, and choosing the latter."
Tadashi finds himself sucking on his teeth, agitated. He thinks he understands, a little, if only because the experience of this past week has made him understand. To know someone is within reach, and find oneself utterly alone regardless--it's a bad enough experience even when its self-imposed. He allows himself a moment to think of what Tsukishima must have felt, watching Tadashi walk away, even knowing that he'd be back. How he must've felt when Tadashi didn't return.
His heart, his stupid heart that feels too much for and because of Tsukishima Kei, twists into an unbearable knot.
(Even so. Even so.)
"It was still selfish," Tadashi says, "I--I understand, but it was still really, really selfish of you Tsukki."
"I'm sorry," Tsukishima says, his voice tight. "I'm sorry."
Tadashi looks at Tsukishima, hugging his knees to his chest, his knuckles white from how hard his fingers grip into his forearms.
He breathes out, and forgives.
--
"We should keep this going," Tsukishima says, when evening falls and they finally decide to return to their cave. He's gesturing towards the bonfire. "As long as we can. Maybe start a second one, too."
Tadashi raises an eyebrow at him. "Do you think we'll be found?"
"No," Tsukishima replies immediately, which is about what Tadashi expected. Tsukishima looks away, toward the sea. "But it's more productive than fiddling with a radio all day."
Tadashi shrugs, realizes Tsukishima can't see him, and says, "Okay. We can even sleep out here, when the weather's nice. The stars out here are so bright--oh, hey, do you know anything about constellations?"
Tsukishima's gaze moves up from the sea to the twilight sky above them, and says with a hint of pride that he tries, habitually, to smother, "I've read a thing or two, yeah."
Tadashi grins, "So, stars and dinos, hm? You're such a nerd, Tsukki."
For a moment, Tsukishima just gapes, like he can't quite believe this exchange is happening, before sputtering, accusingly, "You're a bug enthusiast."
"Space, dinosaurs, glasses," Tadashi counts off each point on his fingers, "Nerd."
"And what are you going to do about it?" Tsukishima straightens his posture and lifts his chin, making sure to look down his nose at Tadashi, "Push me into a locker?"
"Hmmm," Tadashi hums in exaggerated consideration for a moment, tapping a finger against his chin. "Well, there are no lockers here, so..."
Without warning, Tadashi shoves his shoulder against Tsukishima's, sending them both sprawling into the sand. They fall together, somewhat entangled, and somehow in the process of trying to detach from one another, they end up wrestling instead, rolling back and forth over the sand, getting it all over their hair and clothes in a way they'll sincerely regret later.
When they finally stop, Tadashi having gained ascendency, Tsukishima stares up at him, his grin like nothing Tadashi has seen on his face before--wobbly around the edges, like he's straining rarely-used muscles, or maybe he's just on the verge of laughter--and asks, "What are we doing?"
Tadashi thinks, if even Tsukishima is smiling, then it's impossible that he himself could not be smiling, too. With a warm sigh, he lets himself fall into the sand beside Tsukishima.
"We're having fun, I think."
They stare at each other for a moment before it hits them--the laughter. And then it's shaking them both to the core, rolling toward each other on the sand, Tsukishima's hand coming up to clutch at Tadashi's shoulder, Tadashi holding onto his forearm in turn as they exhaust themselves on joy.
--
They spend that night out on the beach. Then another. Then another.
Then, the downpour comes, and chases them back into their cave.
"Well, that bonfire's doomed now," Tadashi says, frowning at the sheets of rain falling just outside the cave's entrance and, to some extent, inside of it. They've pushed their belongings as far back into the shallow cave as they can, and have decided to forgo a fire for the night--the rain would make it impossible to start one in their usual spot by the entrance, and neither much like the idea of bringing it farther in and filling the place with smoke and undo hazard.
"We'll make a new one," Tsukishima says. In the intense darkness of the cave, Tadashi can barely see the other, but he can hear the rustle of palm fronds as the other lies down on his make-shift pallet.
Tadashi lays down, too. He closes his eyes. The world seems to fall away from him, anything that he can't touch disappearing into nonexistance.
When he opens them again, he can hardly tell the difference.
"Tsukki?" His voice seems so tiny in the yawning darkness, doesn't even make a dent in the void.
Tsukishima hums in reply, bringing himself back into true existence. Tadashi lets out a quiet sigh of relief, before nerves jitter back up his spine and pull him tense again.
"Uh--this is gonna sound weird but it's not weird," Tadashi says, cringing at how spectacularly weird he'd just made everything, "And, um, you can say no if you want, I was just..."
"Spit it out, Tadashi," Tsukishima says, fatigue weighing on his breath.
"C-can we sleep closer together?"
The silence that follows lasts just long enough to send arctic cold spilling through Tadashi chest, and he scrambles to say, "I just mean that--with how dark it is and, it's like, when I close my eyes--"
The low rustle of palm fronds and the scraping sssh of leaves over the rough cave floor cut off his words. The vibration of something hitting his own bed of leaves follows.
"With my eyes closed, it's like you're not here."
When Tsukishima's voice sounds, it seems to materialize intimately close, if only because Tadashi isn't quite sure how close he is.
He learns how close they are, how close they might have been, when he feels the warm press of Tsukishima's back against his own.
The steady draw of his breath, the gentle pressure of their touch--it lulls Tadashi to sleep faster than any lullaby could.
--
The next morning, they wake up sprawled across both pallets, with Tadashi's head pillowed on Tsukishima's chest, and Tsukishima's arms slung loosely around his shoulders.
The next morning, too.
And the next.
--
"Aaaah, I'm so full!" Tadashi exclaims as he throws himself down onto the sand. They eat pretty well these days, having found through trial and error what bounties of the island agree with them, what things are better left for the birds, and what birds occasionally can count as a part of the island's edible bounty.
Tsukishima looks down at Tadashi, whose bent knee nudges against his own. He quirks an eyebrow in amusement and hums.
Tadashi rolls his eyes. "Oh Tsukki, always so aloof and mysterious."
Tsukishima scrunches his nose up in response. The action is so cute it leaves Tadashi feeling flush, and he laments that whatever soppy expression his face is making, Tsukishima has a clear view of it.
"What?" Tsukishima asks, like he expects to be told he's got a fish bone stuck between his teeth.
Tadashi turns his head away. "Nothing!"
Companionable silence passes between them for a moment, before Tsukishima turns to face the ocean once more.
"We did eat well today," he murmurs. He's not smiling, but when Tadashi looks at him, he's sees contentment in the relaxed lines of his face.
"Mhm," Tadashi agrees, then adds, only hesitating for a moment before he does, "Can't wait to have fries again though."
Tsukishima whips his head in Tadashi's direction so fast, Tadashi worries he'll hurt himself.
"What?" Tadashi says, when Tsukishima does nothing more than stare, wide-eyed and gaping. "I know we don't--don't talk about it. And I know why. But just this once, can we pretend like we'll get to go home someday?"
For a moment, Tadashi thinks Tsukishima will say no. A frankly uncomfortable number of seconds go by, featuring no sound and Tsukishima staring at him, consternation written into the furrow of his brows.
Then, he says, without warning and without changing his expression, "I'm going to buy a whole cake and eat it in one sitting. I am going to do so every day until I hate cake."
Tadashi snorts, loudly, and if he weren't already laying down, he'd have fallen to the ground with the force of his laughter. "T-Tsukki, what the hell!"
Tsukishima scoffs, and he's taken to smirking that damnable, satisfied smirk of his. "Laugh all you want, nothing will stop me."
Tadashi takes the words to heart, and continues laughing until he's wheezing.
"F-follow your dreams, Tsukki," Tadashi says, when he can. "I won't say 'I told you so' when they make you sick."
Tsukishima clicks his tongue. "What's your dream then, going to McDonalds and ordering a large fry?"
Just the thought pulls a hungry groan from Tadashi. "Yes," he says, "Five of them."
An exaggerated shudder runs through Tsukishima. "Gross. Do you have any non-greasy dreams?"
Tadashi considers, then says, with the most deadpan delivery he can muster, "I'm gonna buy so much benzyol peroxide. And exfoliating facial wash. Citrus-scented."
It's Tsukishima's turn to laugh, hiding his grin behind his hand. "W-well, that is non-greasy, at least."
Tadashi goes on, undeterred. "Then I'm gonna write a wildly dramatized novel about our harrowing adventure and live off the royalties. Might have to add a romantic subplot though. To spice things up."
"Will you now?" Tsukishima asks, one brow raised.
"Yup," Tadashi says with a decisive nod. His neck feels warm, but he perseveres in retelling his daydream. "Greasy bug enthusiast meets bombshell blonde in a kooky survivalist rom-com. Bet we get a television spin-off and everything."
Tsukishima snorts. "Well, I could do worse than a wealthy author, I suppose."
"Don't worry, I'll support your cake habits."
"How generous of you."
"Right? And we can move somewhere landlocked, like Switzerland, and just eat terrible junk food and gourmet confections all the time. Maybe get a dog?"
Tadashi turns to face Tsukishima, his grin relaxed and silly, but where he expected to see amusement on the other's face, he instead sees something much more contemplative.
For a moment, Tadashi fears he's gone too far. Or that maybe Tsukishima isn't a dog person which--okay, it's just a fantasy, Tadashi can compromise.
"Tsukki?"
"Tadashi," Tsukishima says, his voice quiet. "If we do get home somehow, do you really think we'll stay together?"
Air catches in Tadashi's throat. He wants to say of course, how could they do anything else? Only he knows that a return to normalcy would be hectic at best, that the misstep that brought them together would not necessarily keep them together once thrown back into the routine of school and work and family.
"I..." He takes a deep breath, lets it out slow. "I don't know what'll really happen, but I want you to be there, Tsukki. To be honest, I don't know if I could cope with going back to... going back to everything, and pretending like none of this happened, surrounded by people who weren't here with me, who won't understand. And," he takes another breath, more steeling this time, "And regardless of that, we're friends, aren't we?"
Tsukishima doesn't answer for a long time, and Tadashi wonders if Tsukishima maybe doesn't want that, or thinks him strange.
But when he speaks, Tsukishima takes all the weight off of Tadashi's heart.
"...We'll need two dogs. At least."
Tadashi welcomes his laughter back.
--
The radio dies.
It was bound to happen, they both knew, and it wasn't as though it did anything but spew white noise anyway. The crank radio had held out for so long though, despite the damage it must've taken--how it even survived a trip through the ocean is utterly beyond Tadashi--that they lost sight of its ephemeral nature, had imbued it with some sort of magical longevity that they'd come to depend on.
Tsukishima's fingers pause in their rhythmic twisting of one of the dials. Tadashi braces himself for--something. To do something, to say something, to be constant in the way the radio had failed to be.
Tsukishima is still for a moment, before his shoulders lift with a deep inhalation, and he says, "Well, it's not like it worked to begin with."
--
Tadashi goes to sleep uneasy, and all but jumps out of his slumber at the sound of a ragged, muffled breath.
Through the dark, Tadashi can barely see the suggestion of Tsukishima's body, curled in on itself and shaking. Tsukishima has moved himself half-way off their bed, toward the radio that still sits by the cave wall.
"Tsukki?" Tadashi calls out, low and hesitant. He sees enough to know that Tsukishima is moving, and guesses Tsukishima is moving away. He reaches out, slowly moving his outstretched hand through the air until he makes contact with what he thinks is Tsukishima's bicep. The muscle trembles with tension under his hand.
He doesn't know what Tsukishima wants, or needs. He wants to laugh at the person he was scant hours before, who thought he could somehow be what he doesn't know.
--
The next day, the radio disappears. Tadashi doesn't know if Tsukishima threw it out, or just hid it out of sight, and he doesn't ask.
That night, they sleep out on the beach. They stay out there any night it's not raining.
Sometimes, Tadashi wakes up in the night and catches Tsukishima tending to the fires.
Sometimes, Tadashi is the one who gets caught.
They don't talk about it in the mornings. They keep it together.
--
The end comes, sudden and unexpected, from the sky.
A helicopter circles over the beach while they search for fire wood not too far behind the tree line. They look up in unison and stare, dumbstruck, the percussions of the spinning wings rustling the foliage around them and filling their senses.
Tadashi tears his eyes away to look at Tsukishima, who stares back at him in turn. They see it in each other's eyes, the understanding that it's real, it's there, you see it too.
Then, they run for it, scrambling through the underbrush to get to the beach, falling over themselves and each other as they hit the sand and keep going at the same frantic pace.
The helicopter lands with an uneasy lurch. From what Tadashi can see, there might be three or four men inside it, but only one drops out onto the beach. He approaches them with caution, his dark uniform in stark contrast to the bright sand and blue sea. Tadashi and Tsukishima don't (can't) move.
The man speaks in a language neither of them recognize, and the confusion must show on their faces because after a moment he tries again in English, speaking slowly, "How did you come to be here?"
Tadashi himself has a working comprehension of English, and understands what's being said, though his brain is slow to construct a response.
Tsukishima, it turns out, has no such problem. "We were shipwrecked months ago How did you find us?"
The man looks the two of them up and down, and seems to decide that he believes them, before saying, "A container ship reported seeing distress signals in the night a week ago. We are investigating."
Tadashi and Tsukishima share a disbelieving look, like they can't quite accept that after all the time, their little signal fires had actually worked. The silence of their non-response grows awkward with the weight of their company's expectations.
"We're the only ones here that we know of," Tsukishima says after a moment. "We're just students from Japan. We--where will you take us?"
Tadashi tunes out the rest of the conversation, watching as a second person comes out of the helicopter, carrying blankets. He hands them to Tadashi, who mumbles his thanks as he wraps one around himself, then hands the other to Tsukishima.
The beach is sweltering. They keep the blankets on anyway.
--
The helicopter ride goes by in a long blur, throughout which Tadashi is aware of nothing but Tsukishima's voice, answering question after question posed to them, and the other's tight, trembling grip on his hand.
He comes back into himself for a moment when they land on some sort of naval base, and zones right back out when they're ushered into a car and brought to the Japanese Embassy. They learn there that they are now in Jakarta, Indonesia, that they've been presumed dead by the Japanese authorities for six months, and that getting replacement passports without any identifying documentation is going to take a while.
It's a blow that makes Yamaguchi wish he'd just kept on not listening.
Eventually they are shown to a phone, and shown how to make international calls. Tadashi insists Tsukishima make the first call, since he'd done all the talking for both of them all day. Tsukishima puts up a token resistance, before taking the phone and dialing with shaking fingers.
Tadashi turns, and walks towards the door.
"Hey, it--it's me. Nii-sa--"
--
When Tadashi calls home, his mother picks up.
She accuses him of being a prankster, tells him that this is a cruel, cruel joke.
Then, she believes him.
Then, she cries.
Tadashi had been crying from the very start.
--
"This is..." Tadashi begins, not quite comprehending what he's seeing.
Tsukishima finishes for him. "This is weird."
Looking at Tsukishima for the first time since they'd had access to real showers--and hair care products, soap, shaving cream, new clothes and apparently a barber--he thinks that 'weird' is not quite the word he's looking for. It is, however, the only word he's going to admit to.
(He twists a long strand of hair between his fingers, wondering if he should've done more than trim off the dead ends. After his shower, he'd decided he rather liked it long, but now he thinks it might've been worth it, just to see the shock of his transformation on Tsukishima's face.)
Their families had coordinated to get them a room at the local hotel and some spending money within a few hours of their initial calls home. Tsukishima had taken first shower, then left to buy them new clothes at the hotel's gift shop while Tadashi had taken his. He'd also apparently found a place to get a haircut.
Buffed and polished, Tsukishima looks like he could be a model.
Tadashi's heart feels like it's beating against his larynx, and he is suddenly distinctly aware that he'd--somewhat shamelessly, towards the end--flirted with this man.
(He is aware that this man, who probably had never gone a day in his life questioning his own good looks, had flirted back.)
(A bit hysterically, Tadashi thinks that no one would buy into a romantic subplot between him and this.)
Tsukishima looks to the floor, his face red and his fingers pressed together in front of him, and says, "What?"
Tadashi realizes he's been staring.
"Oh, uh," he pushes a strand of hair behind his ear, thinks for a moment about investing in some hair ties, then says, "Um, just tired? Sorry."
Tsukishima raises an eyebrow, but shrugs not long after. "It's been a long day, and tomorrow likely won't be much better. We should sleep."
"Y-yeah," Tadashi agrees. Silently, they migrate to the double-beds closest to themselves, Tadashi turning the bedroom light off on his way.
Falling into the bed, with its firm mattress and plethora of fluffy pillows and comforters, is like falling into heaven, yet Tadashi can't find it in him to fall asleep. He tosses and turns, unable to get comfortable.
The sounds of his own struggling is all he can hear, and so it shocks him when Tsukishima says, "Can't sleep?"
"No," Tadashi huffs, feeling betrayed, "It's too--too--"
"Too comfortable," Tsukishima says.
Tadashi hears movement from the other side of the room, hears feet hitting the floor, but he doesn't look over until he feels a hard tug on his comforter that drags him to the edge of the bed.
Tsukishima is standing at his bedside, the comforter from his own bed pooled on the floor between their two beds.
"C'mon," he says, and Tadashi doesn't quite understand what he's supposed to do until Tsukishima steps back and gives the comforter another hard yank.
Tadashi falls out of bed with an undignified yelp, grateful that the pillows and comforter that fell with him broke his fall. He glares up at Tsukishima, but that glare quickly turns into something more alarmed, as Tsukishima drops to the floor, and lays down beside him.
"What?" Tsukishima asks, when Tadashi doesn't stop gaping at him. In the yellow light from the street lamps outside, Tadashi can see something almost shy in Tsukishima's expression. "It's the only way we'll sleep."
Immediately after Tsukishima says it, Tadashi knows it's true, not in the least because he yawns, wide and long, in response.
Tsukishima chuckles, and reaches out to lay his palm against Tadashi's cheek, the cool, rough skin of his palm sliding back just enough to let his fingers delve into Tadashi's hair. Gently, he leads Tadashi down to the floor.
Tadashi's ears burn, even in his sleep.
--
There is something about the comforts of the hotel room that reduces them to constant irritability and petty squabbling.
"Seriously Tsukki?" Tadashi says, snapping the book in his hands shut. An embassy worker had been kind enough to give them directions to some stores that catered to Japanese expatriates, and he'd picked up a few things to take his mind off the endless waiting that characterized their bureaucratic captivity.
"Seriously what, Yamaguchi?" Tsukishima replies, his tone just as caustic as Tadashi's. The first time he'd switched to Tadashi's family name, it had been a spiteful slap to the face. Now it's just the way of things.
"What's the point of making your bed when we're just going to sleep on the floor anyway?" The noise of rustling fabric, the movement consuming his peripheral vision is driving Tadashi up a wall and he doesn't know why, only that he wishes Tsukishima would stop, or leave.
"Because we don't live in a cave anymore, Yamaguchi," Tsukishima says, condescending as anything. "If you have a bed, you make it."
"Well if you have a bed you usually sleep in it too, and I don't see you doing that," Tadashi snaps back.
"Maybe I will, then," Tsukishima declares with an imperious huff.
Tadashi opens the book up again to a random page, stares at the characters uncomprehendingly until they swim in his vision. "Fine," he says, his tone petulant.
"Fine."
--
Tadashi dares to kneel at the side of Tsukishima's bed, his arms propped on top of the comforter, his chin lowered and resting on his knuckles.
"I'm sorry Tsukki," he says. His voice sounds plaintive and pathetic to his own ears. "I don't know why I was so mad before."
Tsukishima all but springs out of his sleeping position, the alacrity of the motion demonstrating that he'd been nowhere close to drowsy. The suddenness of it startles Tadashi, and he falls backward, away from the bed and into the nest of pillows and blankets that litters the floor.
"And I don't know why I said I'd sleep on this bed," Tsukishima says, sliding down to the floor, "I'll never be able to."
--
They find new ways to be around each other.
They turn on the television, and mute the sound, and watch dramas while making up their own lines. They don't use the radio; even the smallest amount of static pushes Tsukishima's moods in erratic, though all decidedly negative, directions. They go on walks and window shop, then pick up microwave dinners that they eat in the hotel room, because the streets and crowds and noise have overwhelmed them enough already and Tadashi feels the shame of being unable to finish anything too acutely to eat in public. Tsukishima still tidies their bed things, but folds and stores the comforters and pillows like he would if they were part of a futon set. Tadashi helps, and finds peace in the neat folds and crisp corners.
And just when they seem to have negotiated the terms of their new life together, they get the call.
They are going home.
--
The plane ride home is made up of too-many hours of too-little leg room and an irrational fear that the plane is going to go down over the ocean and kill him for real this time. By the time they disembark, Tadashi's disoriented and groggy, and leans heavily on Tsukishima as they make their way through the terminal to the pick-up area. Tsukishima keeps a death-grip on his arm, and the pain of it is all that keeps Tadashi awake.
He doesn't expect to see a small crowd of people--half of them strangers--waiting for them in the pick-up area and holding a "Welcome Home" banner between them, but that's what he finds. On one side he sees what must be Tsukishima's family--two very tall men and one average-sized woman with sandy blonde hair. Besides them is a group of young men he assumes must be Tsukishima's friends (two of whom look like models, one of whom looks suspiciously like a member of Japan's national volleyball team), but his eyes don't linger on them long because right next to them are his friends, Yachi and Hinata, and even Kageyama is with them, hanging awkwardly behind. And holding up the other end of the banner--
His parents.
They hit him like a tidal wave. One minute they're across the room, the next their arms are around him, squeezing the life out of him and holding it in at the same time. He remembers using too much of his father's cologne on his first real date, remembers volunteering to help his mother fold clothes just so he could revel in the warmth and fresh scent of fabric softener. He remembers watching movies with them on Saturday nights.
Hinata and Yachi attach themselves to him wherever they can a moment later, and he remembers all-nighters pulled during exam periods, Yachi helping him with his English, Hinata's head in her lap and his legs slung over Tadashi's. Kageyama doesn't try to force himself into the fray, but his hand rests on Tadashi's shoulder, the weight as warm and the sentiment as genuine as it had been when he nominated Tadashi for captain of their high school volleyball team.
He remembers home--and forgets everything else.
--
Later, during the car-ride home, his father turns on the radio. Static edges some new pop song that Tadashi's never heard.
He realizes he never said goodbye.
--
That evening, Tadashi finds that his photo is still in the family alter.
--
Home feels like too much of everything.
Too much comfort, with his futon (though he's grateful it's not a western-style bed), and his couches, and clean clothes that are weather-appropriate.
Too much food, served in too-big meals when he'd rather graze throughout the day, too many flavors and rules of etiquette.
Too much noise--the televisions, the radios, his friends and family chattering until he needs to leave the room, exhausted and confused.
Too many irrational feelings, triggered by loud noises, and silence, and static, and the damn bathtub.
Too many concerned stares from loved ones, and too much to explain that he just can't.
--
Tadashi's short stint as a legally deceased person had, predictably, lost him his place in his university program. Tadashi spends long hours on the phone with the registrar trying to see what can be done to get him back into the program and on track. He shocks himself with how badly he wants it.
He should be done with the ocean, but inescapably, it calls him.
--
Tadashi had stopped thinking of Kageyama as scary years ago, but he still flinches when he sees the familiar silhouette of the other man walking down the hall toward him.
"I'm sorry," Tadashi says, lowering his head into his hands. His palms muffle his words, but he continues on regardless. "I don't--Hinata didn't deserve that, I'll apologize."
Kageyama frowns. "Hinata's an idiot," he says, like that absolves Tadashi of all guilt.
Tadashi frowns back, even though Kageyama can't see it. "He was just excited about the game. He's always excited about volleyball matches. It was nothing to freak out at him for."
"It's how he's always been," Kageyama agrees, voice mild, "But you're not how you've always been."
Tadashi presses the heels of his hands against his closed eyes, presses color into the sickening darkness behind his eyelids.
"How am I supposed to be the same?" he asks, the words coming out stricken, "Everything here is the same but--with all that's happened and, and I can't even explain it to you, or me! I don't understand how I was, or what happened, or how I'm supposed to be what I was again."
The warm tips of Kageyama's fingers press against Tadashi's shoulder. Tadashi looks up at him, takes in the intensity of his concern and conviction when he says, "No one expects you to be the same. You don't have to try to be."
Kageyama turns his head just slightly then, his gaze moving down to the end of the hall as he asks, "Right?"
Tadashi follows his gaze down the hall, to where Hinata and Yachi are both peeking around the corner, cautious and contrite. He meets their stares with an apologetic look of his own. Taking this as permission, the two make their way down to where Tadashi and Kageyama have taken up residence.
They sit beside him, and Kageyama does too, none of them quite touching him, but all close enough that even a minor shift would bring him into contact with any one of them, if he so desired. Tadashi is infinitely grateful for those scant centimeters of space.
"It's okay that everything's different now, and you need different things," Hinata says, with his eyes so wide and earnest, "We're just happy you're home."
"A-and I know it's not quite the same," Yachi adds, looking nervous and resolute, "But things here, they did change when we thought you'd--" her voice wavers, "When you left. And again, when you came back. We can--what you went through, it's not the same--but we can get used to it all together, can't we?"
Tadashi doesn't know if that's true; Yachi is right, their experiences of the past half-year are entirely divergent from one another, maybe too much so. But he wants to believe that whatever this is, they are in it with him. He thinks he can do this, if they are.
--
Tadashi gets help. From his parents, and his friends, and twice a week from a professional.
He has fewer nightmares. He learns techniques for managing his mood swings. He eats a whole happy meal inside the restaurant, including a large order of fries cooked to perfection, and doesn't feel queasy.
--
It's the middle of winter when Tadashi takes a train out to the nearest beach, which is not especially near at all. It's a ridiculous idea, and his rationale feels even moreso.
He wants to be sure he can face the ocean.
He hopes the snow drifts and steel gray skies will maintain a safe distance between his past and his present.
It works, to a degree. The sound of waves lapping at the shore is the same, but even when he closes his eyes the frigid wind still slices at his cheeks, and the scent of the ocean here is subtly different than what he remembers.
He keeps his eyes closed for a long time. When he opens them again, the moon has edged its way above the horizon. It's a full moon, hanging heavy in the sky, blue and beautiful.
He breathes out, or the breath is taken from him, whisked away on the tides. His eyes grow wide.
"Tsukki."
--
His therapist advises caution. His parents are more eager. His friends are shocked he hadn't done this sooner.
Tadashi holds the worn piece of paper between two fingers in one hand, and his new cell phone in the other. On the paper is the number for the Tsukishima household's land line. Tsukishima had given it to him before he'd made his first phone call home at the Japanese Embassy, had told Tadashi to pass it along to his parents so they could coordinate plans with his family. Tadashi had done so, then put the paper away in a book and completely forgotten he had it. At the time, it had been superfluous to him.
Now, the careworn slip of paper trembles in his hands, the only line he has to Tsukishima.
It's been months.
"I want you to be there," he'd said.
Tsukishima hadn't said no. He also hadn't reached out since they'd returned.
Well, I didn't either, Tadashi reminds himself. He puts the numbers in his phone. Breathes. Starts the call.
Three rings, then--
"Tsukishima residence."
Tired and dispassionate and made tinny by the imperfections of telecommunication, Tsukishima Kei's voice reaches through the phone and pulls him somewhere else. Not the island, not Japan, not that damned hotel room, but somewhere that's theirs. Somewhere peaceful.
"Oh Tsukki," Tadashi says, his voice already thick and wavering, "Always so aloof and mysterious."
"Tadashi," Tsukishima says his name in a sigh, like he'd been holding his breath for months, waiting for this moment to be able to breathe again.
Tadashi smiles.
"Kei."
--Epilogue--
"So, how many cakes did you eat when you finally got back?" Tadashi asks. They're sitting on the same side of a booth in a coffee shop in Sendai. Tsukishima drinks some diabolically sugary thing. Tadashi takes his coffee black, and off-sets it with a croissant.
"Only one," Tsukishima says, and looks put-off by the fact. "Akiteru-nii has been a tyrant about my sugar intake and general nutrition."
He takes another sip of his liquid confection. The action is petty and vindictive and hopelessly charming.
"What about you?" Tsukishima asks, something fond and teasing evident in the curve of his lips. "How's the book coming along?"
"Book?" Tadashi asks, and remembers just as Tsukishima clarifies.
"The book," Tsukishima repeats, his smirk dastardly and, again, charming. Tadashi thinks Tsukishima could do absolutely nothing, and he'd be charmed. "About our harrowing adventure? I was very invested in it, especially that sub-plot you mentioned."
Tadashi hides his face in his hands. "Oh god, I called you a blonde bombshell didn't I?"
"And the moon," Tsukishima adds, a touch gleeful. "You also promised me dogs. Two, at least."
Tadashi laughs, but his ears are burning. "I, uh, said some pretty shameless things then."
One of Tsukishima's hands moves across the table, seeking without demanding. It stops scant centimeters from Tadashi's elbow.
"Can I say something shameless now, then?" he asks.
Tadashi takes his hands away from his face, and looks at Tsukishima. A pink tinge has crept up Tsukishima's face. Tadashi's stomach swoops.
"I--I want to see you again," Tsukishima says. His hand trembles a bit on the table, and Tadashi is unsure if it's just from momentary nerves. "Do you still--?"
Tadashi places his hand over Tsukishima's own. "Yes," he says, "Please."
Tsukishima has gone well and truly red now. His hand feels hot against Tadashi's own.
"Good," Tsukishima says, "That's--good."
Tadashi grins, "But we should probably work our way up to the dogs, I think."
Tsukishima blinks once, then laughs.
This time, Tadashi doesn't look away.