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Ushijima falls in love with Tendou as easy as breathing. It just makes sense to him, he's beautiful, kind, funny, and understands Ushijima in a way he feels no one else ever has. and though he fell fast, it's a long wait.
Tendou guards his heart, hurt in the past, bullied and outcast for his strange exuberance and quirkiness. he knows he's falling but he grips the edge with white knuckles, it's too scary.
Ushijima makes him feel safe, makes him feel wanted, but how many people in his past had promised safety just to rip the rug from under his feet and laugh as he crashed and burned? He won't be lulled into a false sense of security, he tells himself. But Ushijima makes it hard. Accepts his quirks, embraces his strangeness, laughs with him instead of at him. Not only does he feel safe, he feels cherished.
When Tendou asks why, why he stays, why he was his friend, why him, he'd say
"Anything for you, Satori."
Every time, without fail. and Tendou would blush.
Regardless of any rumors, Tendou is not stupid, nor is Ushijima very subtle. He knows the spiker holds affection for him, deeper than the friendship they share. But, he also knows that Ushijima is patient. And for that, he is grateful.
The day Tendou meets him on the floor, where Ushijima has tripped and fallen over and over and over again on his own clumsy, lovestruck feet, for this spitfire of a man, is many years later.
Ushijima is a professional volleyball player, swarmed with adoring fans bearing gifts, sports reporters teeming with questions, long practice hours and even longer games. But still, he makes time for Tendou.
Tendou, in Paris, living his dream, making sweets for the people of France and loving every minute. They call nearly nightly, no matter how Tendou insists Ushijima does not need to fight the time difference to speak to him.
Each time countering his worry with
"Anything for you, Satori."
One particular evening, just after Tendou had closed up his small shop, around 5pm, he sends a text to Ushijima, informing him he was finished with work for the day, and that he hopes the ace is resting well. Almost immediately a call comes through.
"Hello? Wakatoshi? You're supposed to be sleeping!" he whisper shouts into the phone, sure that wherever Ushijima is, it's meant to be lights out.
"Are you at home or on the road?"
"I was sleeping, your text woke me. And we are traveling at the moment. Though, Kageyama is my current roommate, and he sleeps like the dead"
"Waka-kun, you should go back to sleep, you need rest for your big game tomorrow!" Tendou is baffled as to why this lunatic of a man would call him at what he knows is a late hour in Japan, so he asks.
"Why are you calling me anyway? You could have ignored my text, plus we have a call scheduled for tomorrow evening, your time, you big goof! You don't have to call all the time you know." Tendou can practically taste the response that comes next from Ushijima's static muffled, sleepy voice.
"Anything for you, Satori."
Tendou can hear Ushijima’s smile, and knows that buff dummy really would do anything for him.
It gives Tendou pause, as the feelings he's been burying behind a wall of fear suddenly rush to the surface all at once.
He's heard the same sentence drip from Ushijima's mouth, adoration detectable in every syllable, dozens, maybe even hundreds, of times. This time, something is different.
Maybe it's the way sleep coats Ushijima's throat as he speaks, making him sound soft and pliant. Maybe it's the fact that he had an incredibly tiring shift and, despite his protests, it's so comforting to hear him on the other end of the phone. Perhaps, even, it's the way it's said this time around, smothered in fondness and warmth. Whatever the case, the dam gives way in Tendou's mind as he sucks in a breath.
The Paris air tastes like cigarettes and coffee and love, and it gives him the courage for his next words.
"I love you, Wakatoshi."
On the other end of the call, a sigh of relief.
"You do not know how long I’ve waited to hear you speak those words, Satori." A smile is clear in his voice. Tendou returns it, though nobody is around to see.
"Thank you, for waiting for me Wakatoshi" he caresses the phone against his ear, as though it was Ushijima's cheek.
"Anything for you, my love."