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The first mistake Sugawara makes is opening his big mouth.
Well, in reality Sugawara’s first mistake was being born in the first place. Six million years of human evolution, and Suga just had to be born in the same era as one Tendou Satori. And as if that wasn't enough, the two of them just had to happen to live in the same prefecture, playing the same sport, coming head-to-head in a heated match.
And just when Suga had finally thought he was rid of the lanky, red-headed nightmare, he looked outside of his window to see Tendou, belting out some particularly horrendous renditions of everyone's favorite holiday classics.
Tendou Satori is caroling right outside Sugawara’s bedroom window. And he has what might be the worst singing voice known to man.
The first time this happens, Tendou is surrounded by a sizable group of middle-aged housewives, each of them a least two heads shorter than him. Suga almost has to laugh; Tendou stands out in a crowd under normal circumstances, but this is something else entirely.
The women are all reading off sheet music, but Tendou is singing out freely to his heart’s desire, off-key and off-tempo. His fellow carolers seem charmed by him, nevertheless. Suga is decidedly not charmed.
“Hey, Shiratorizawa!” Suga heads out to his balcony and calls out to Tendou before the group leaves, heading toward the next unsuspecting neighborhood.
Despite the fact that it's been nearly a year since they graduated high school, Tendou’s head turns instinctively, his large eyes locking with Suga’s immediately, “Ah! It's everyone’s favorite second-string setter.”
“Try to get some practice in before next year,” Suga says, giving Tendou his most serene smile, “I’m going to need a hearing aid after that shrieking you call singing.”
Tendou is falling behind his group, but he pauses, throwing his head back with a laugh, “I’m hurt, I'm hurt!” He swings his arm across his body melodramatically, pointing a long, slender finger at Suga, “I'll make you eat those words!”
Sugawara does not eat those words, but he does come to regret them.
The next night, Tendou returns to Suga’s apartment building, this time alone, and belts out a rendition of “Silent Night” that sounds like a group of cats dying a slow and painful death. He sings every single verse, even the strange and obscure ones, and only retreats when Suga comes out to the balcony and begins pelting him with ice cubes.
Two nights later, Tendou comes dressed in a suspiciously well-tailored elf costume. Suga can't even tell what Christmas songs he's singing this time, because Tendou keeps flubbing the words and switching songs halfway through, mixing the various verses and choruses. Suga puts his headphones on and blasts his music until he finally falls asleep.
Another night, Suga gets home late from a night of studying in the library. Blessedly, Tendou isn't there, but there is a plate of cookies on Sugawara’s balcony. Suga knows immediately who they're from, and doesn't want to think about how Tendou managed to get up to the third-floor balcony.
Overall, Sugawara Koushi is losing his damn mind. His Google history could certainly implicate him for a number of crimes – “maximum assault sentence Japanese penal code” “chloroform someone long-distance” – and he's getting increasingly desperate. His neighbors, all of them young professionals or fellow university students, are either back home for the holidays or they just plain don't care about a man with a voice like sandpaper on a cactus serenading Suga at all hours of the night.
One night -- and how many nights has it been now, Suga wonders? – he catches Tendou before he can start singing, bolting down the stairs and out the front door while Tendou stalks up to the building.
“Nope, nope,” Suga holds out both hands, shoes crunching on the frosty grass as he heads toward Tendou, “You can stop right there and turn around!”
Tendou looks positively delighted at this development, “Oh, Koushi-kun, you're finally ready to admit that my singing is beautiful—”
“Wha— absolutely not!”
“—and that I'm spreading wonderful Christmas joy to those who need it the most!”
“And that would be me, apparently,” Suga deadpans, crossing his arms. He really should have grabbed a coat before coming out, “And how do you even know my name?”
Tendou cocks his head to the side; it's almost a ninety-degree angle, and Suga wonders how Tendou’s neck hasn't just snapped yet from all his freakish poses, “Koushi-kun I'm hurt! Did you think I wouldn't commit to memory the names of each person who brought my volleyball paradise to an end?”
Suga opens his mouth and then immediately closes it; for once, he’s speechless. For as much as he and his Karasuno teammates had come to think of Shiratorizawa as the enemy – in some ways, their ultimate obstacle – it was also true that in Tendou’s eyes, Karasuno was the enemy. And Sugawara was just another person who had helped end his high school volleyball career.
“What do you want, Tendou?” Suga sighs, trying to hide his shivering.
“Nothing in particular,” Tendou shrugs, shoulders coming all the way up to his ears. He's smiling but his eyes are predatory, and he's standing close enough to Sugawara that their height difference is evident, “Just for you to say something nice like, ‘Oh Satori, I've been wooed by your dulcet tones!’ or ‘Wow you really understand the spirit of Christmas!’”
“Highly unlikely.”
“I'll settle for a simple ‘you were right, I was wrong.’ Can't you indulge me, Koushi-kun?”
“I think I'll pass, Satori-kun.”
The matchup of stubbornness between them makes it so neither boy wants to stand down first. Neither wants the be the first one to concede, turn around, and head home. So, Sugawara and Tendou just stand there for longer than either of them would ever admit, staring each other down (or in Suga’s case, staring up.)
It's Tendou who finally relents, turning on his heel and loping away with his hands shoved in his pockets. Suga heads back inside, shoves his face in his pillow, and screams.
On Christmas Eve, Tendou throws rocks at Sugawara’s window.
“Don't you have anything better to do?!” Suga screams, opening the sliding door to his balcony and dodging a rock, which goes sailing past him into the living room, “What the fuck is your problem?!”
Tendou just clears his throat, “Romeo, oh Romeo!” he sing-songs, jutting his arm out theatrically, “Wherefore the fuck are thou Romeo!”
“At least— get the words right at least!” Sugawara hisses, “And if I'm on the balcony I'm obviously Juliet in this scenario!” Suga suddenly wants to slam his head into the wall, because why of all things is the accuracy of Tendou’s Shakespeare suddenly his primary concern?
“Koushi-kun! I'm expanding my repertoire!”
Sugawara massages his temples, “It’s Christmas Eve, don't you have friends to hang out with instead of bothering me?”
For a second, hurt flashes across Tendou’s face, and Suga finds himself wishing he had held his tongue. Ushijima, Reon, Semi— they had all gone to universities in Tokyo. Suga was all too familiar with how that felt; Daichi and Kiyoko had gone to Tokyo as well. Asahi was still in Miyagi, but working constantly. He and Tendou were probably in the same boat; feeling disconnected from their best friends, feeling too old to visit their teammates still in high school, not wanting to see how the world was continuing to turn even without them.
And alone on Christmas Eve.
“I'm a selfless man, Koushi-kun,” Tendou’s trademark grin is back in place, “I sensed your loneliness. I could hear your tender heart breaking from miles away!”
Against Sugawara’s better judgement – all of his better judgement – he turns back into the apartment, closes the door to the balcony, heads down the stairs, and opens the door onto the sidewalk. Tendou is waiting, looking very much like the cat who just got the cream.
“Just… come inside, before I come to my senses and change my mind.”
Sugawara’s apartment is small, and Tendou has to duck in the doorframe to make it inside. (Suga hates him for it, among other things.)
Over hot chocolate they talk about volleyball, which is easy enough. Suga could talk about volleyball with anyone, even someone who might actually be the incarnation of the devil himself.
“Wakatoshi-kun and Oikawa still aren't getting along,” Tendou says, “I was there for their last game and he didn't set to Wakatoshi until the second set. I got chills in the stands from how frosty they are!”
“Oh, I was at that game,” Suga says, “Daichi was playing that morning so I stayed. Oikawa is… a handful, to be sure.”
Tendou’s eyebrows shoot up his forehead, “And you didn't even say hello! We could have traveled together, Koushi-kun!”
“I didn't see you. And I think I'd rather die, thanks,” Suga rolls his eyes but there's no venom in his voice, “You go to all of Ushiwaka’s games?”
“Nah, I don't have the train money. I would if I could though.”
“That's…” Suga stares deeply into his hot chocolate. That's actually really sweet, is what Suga wants to say. But he bites his tongue, because he's given Tendou enough kindness for today. He's done his Christmas duty.
Instead he asks, “So what’s with the caroling?”
Tendou leans back in his chair, “I have a song in my heart and I must share it with the world!”
“And with some housewives, apparently.”
“They're my neighbors,” Tendou shrugs, “Sometimes they cook for me, I don't know. I have a whole bunch of extra mothers caring for me. They needed a male voice for the group, I figured why the hell not.
“Plus, my folks don't really do anything for Christmas,” Tendou adds, lips curling in a bittersweet smile, “I've got a Christmas bucket list! I made Wakatoshi go ice skating with me and he was perfect at it! A monster just like always!”
Tendou snickers, biting his tongue between his teeth and Suga also has to bite his tongue again because, damn it, that's also really sweet. The last thing he expected was for Tendou Satori to turn out to be anything other than a volleyball monster hell-bent on making his life miserable. Now, apparently, he has to make room for this version of Tendou Satori that loves Christmas and carols with old women who probably deliver foil-wrapped dinners to him when he returns home after a long day of classes.
“So, what d’you say, Koushi-kun?” Tendou leans forward and the kitchen chair legs clack against the laminate, “Have you been seduced by my golden-throated serenades yet?”
Suga makes sure the door hits Tendou on his way out.
On Christmas morning Suga has breakfast with his parents, opens some presents, lounges around his childhood home. He has lunch with Asahi and Nishinoya, calls Daichi to say hello, stops by the convenience store to stock up for the long nights of midterm studying ahead of him.
Then at 8 o’clock, right on schedule, the doorbell to Suga’s apartment rings.
“Merry Christmas!!” It's Tendou, with at least three scarves wrapped around his freakishly long neck, wearing a puffer vest the exact same shade as his overly-gelled hair, “I wasn't sure you'd be home!”
Suga feels something in the pit of his stomach that's either a spike of fondness or a bit of overwhelming nausea, “Taking the direct approach today, aren't you?”
“I can go back to throwing rocks but I actually have awful aim,” Tendou says. His eyes shift toward the kitchen table behind Suga, where there are two mugs of hot chocolate already set out, “Do you have company?”
“Oh,” Suga’s face goes bright red, “No.”
Tendou leans down, eyes narrowing and lips curling in a way that is all too familiar for Sugawara –he'd seen it plenty of times across a volleyball net, but never this close-up, “Is that, perchance, for little ol’ me? Because you've accepted I am the bringer of Christmas cheer and—”
“Shut up.”
“Ah, it's my greatest talent,” Tendou leans against the doorframe, crowding into Suga’s space, “I grow on people. Like a weed! I'm already in your heart, Kou—”
Tendou doesn't get the chance to finish his sentence, because Suga reaches out and covers the taller boy’s mouth, “Shut up. And close your eyes. Before I change my mind.”
Despite Suga’s beet-red face and the fast that he can hardly make eye contact with Tendou, the red-head feels oddly compelled to follow his instructions. He closes his eyes, lips still pursed in a half-formed word.
Tendou isn't sure what to expect, but he’s definitely not expecting the sensation of soft lips at the corner of his mouth. Barring the possibility of a sudden stranger leaping in to plant one on Satori, those are certainly Suga’s lips lingering against Tendou’s. It’s almost instinctive the way that Tendou leans into Sugawara’s kiss, chasing the taste of peppermint and vanilla.
But it’s over in a second, Sugawara pulling away stammering, “I—it’s, your list… the Christmas list. Bucket. You know.”
“… What,” Tendou’s eyes are half-closed, and his brain is all-too-focused on the fact that one of Suga’s hands is still gripping Tendou’s scarf, causing him to lean down into Suga’s space.
It’s then that Tendou notices the bit of plastic mistletoe in Suga’s other hand. He’s held it up between them
“I’m guessing mistletoe was on your Christmas bucket list!” Suga says loudly, “So, Happy Christmas! You’re welcome! Never bother me again!”
“Koushi-kun…” Tendou’s voice is uncharacteristically soft.
He reaches out to stroke a thumb across the beauty mark under Suga’s right eye. And just when Sugawara thinks Tendou might actually say something sweet for a change, he says, “Actually, Christmas sex was on my list, if you’d like to—“
Tendou can only laugh when Sugawara slams the door in his face.