Archive of Our Own

Humans are sentimental. That’s a certain truth Tsukishima has always been certain of. It was why anniversaries were such a big deal, why family traditions existed, the list went on and he was certain that most of the world’s oddities could’ve easily been explained with the simple statement that humans were sentimental. And excessively so too, it seemed.

For the longest time, he was sure Yamaguchi was another one of these people. All the evidence he needed laid in the battered, old white Polaroid camera that had long since turned grey from age and accidents that never seemed to leave his side. It was too old, way past its expiration date and only held together through the use of regular visits to the witch’s store opposite their school to keep it in working condition. 

It wasn’t anything particularly special either. It had a simple charm, allowing anyone who touched the photos to feel the emotions of the photographer at the time they took it. But it wouldn't have been too troublesome to get the same charm cast on a new Polaroid either.

It would’ve probably saved money to get a new one but Yamaguchi continued to happily carry that old camera around everywhere he went. 

Sentimentality seemed to explain it just fine. Yamaguchi only laughed it off, saying it wasn’t accurate in the few occasions Tsukishima remembered bringing it up. 

Sitting by himself at the newly opened small café they had agreed to meet at, Tsukishima couldn’t help but wonder if Yamaguchi had gotten sidetracked with more photography for him to have been late by an entire 30 minutes. It wouldn’t have been entirely surprising but even so, it wasn’t like Yamaguchi to be late. A little reluctant to get out of bed in the morning, definitely. But actually late, that was a rare occurrence. 

He was about to call Yamaguchi to check in on him when he burst into the café, with the tiny bell hung on top of the door sending a loud ring throughout the café with the strength he’d used to open the door. Parts of his hair stuck to his face with sweat and the sweat soaking through his shirt made parts of it seemingly translucent as he scurried to slide into the seat opposite Tsukishima. 

“I am so so so sorry, Tsukki!” There was an obvious wince on his face as he said in between pants.

“What happened? You’re half an hour late.” His eyes were drawn to Yamaguchi’s hands, tightly gripping his precious camera. 

He raised the camera. “A kid lost control of his bike and crashed into me on my way here and the camera broke which left a giant crack in the lens. So I ran all the way back to Sato’s to get her help which took a little more time than anticipated. Sorry for not telling you in advance though! But hey, it looks good as new, right?” The fact that he knew the witch’s name by memory at this point said enough about his frequent visits to the store. 

“It didn’t look new in the first place.” 

He let out a light chuckle. “I suppose so. So, what are you drinking? Did you order their strawberry shortcake? I remember they had some in their display the other day when we walked by.” 

Tsukishima cast a look at the drink he was mindlessly stirring a straw in. “Some honey bubble tea thing. No, not yet, I was waiting for you.” 

“Ah, sorry about that, Tsukki!” He gave him a sheepish, apologetic smile. 

“I don’t get why you care so much about this camera. You can easily get another one and it’d save money too. You look exhausted. Plus, isn’t Karasuno a long run from here?” 

“I guess so, I mean, it didn’t really cross my mind when I was rushing there. And Sato is the only one who actually knows how to deal with this old camera as far as I know so...” he trailed off. 

Yamaguchi paused for a moment, gently setting his camera onto the table. “As for why, well, that’s sorta hard to answer, I’d say? But I’d say it’s because of the memories, it’s been with me for almost everything and it feels like it’s a part of me I can’t quite let go of?” He let out a small laugh. “I’m sorry, I don’t even know what I’m saying but maybe you’ll understand it better if you tried hanging onto it for a week or something? I don’t know.”

Yamaguchi picked up the menu from the corner, eyes quickly scanning through the menu before deciding on something and hopping up from his seat, taking his camera with him. 

Tsukishima had commented on how peculiar he’d found Yamaguchi using a camera that was clearly too old was but the response was never satisfying. He supposed the idea that it was hard for him to understand without having actually experienced it made sense. It really did and perhaps it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to take Yamaguchi up on his offer anyway. 

No harm could come from it— he probably should’ve tried to understand his friend better anyway. He supposed this would be one of the best ways of doing so. 

Yamaguchi returned to their table, examining the recently taken photos as he sat down. 

“Okay.” 

“What?” Yamaguchi’s eyes left the polaroids to look up at him in confusion. 

“I’ll take you up on the borrow your camera for a week thing.” 

“Oh, wow, I didn’t think you’d actually want to. You’ve never been much of a photos person.” 

“I’m not. And you’d trust me with your precious camera?” Tsukishima was pretty sure he’d seen Yamaguchi on the verge of tears or straight up crying due to the camera almost getting harmed on more than one occasion. 

Yamaguchi let out a small laugh. “Of course! Why wouldn’t I?”

That was… sweet? 

“Okay…” Tsukishima didn’t quite know how to respond to that particular thing. And he didn’t need to either, with Yamaguchi quickly driving the conversation to other topics, like the book he read the other day and how glad he was that the exams were finally over and some holiday plans. 

“What am I even supposed to take though?” Tsukishima asked, raising the polaroid camera up to the rusty evening light as they walked home after a good few hours spent at the café. 

Yamaguchi laughed. “Anything. There really are no rules. Just take anything you want to.” 

Anything, huh? 

The camera switched on with a click and Tsukishima brought the eyepiece to his eye. Yamaguchi stood there, head tilted as he looked right at the camera, question marks floating in his mind. The sunset’s warm light was gently cast upon Yamaguchi, the light coming from his back with his body only partially turned to face the camera, making it seem a little like Yamaguchi was glowing. 

Yamaguchi only then realised what he was doing and let out a soft laugh in realisation. Tsukishima pressed the shutter button. 

A polaroid came out from the top, with Yamaguchi’s light warm laugh captured on it, his face lit up by the gentle evening rays. Tsukishima was careful to not touch the photo itself when Yamaguchi hurried over to see the photo he’d taken. 

Yamaguchi laughed again. “Aww, should I be flattered?” 

“Shut up, Yamaguchi.” 

He let out another light laugh. “Love you too, Tsukki!” 

And they continued to walk down the empty road home, with a picture of Yamaguchi and a polaroid camera resting in Tsukishima’s bag. 

He brushed aside the fleeting thought to take another picture of this laugh too. 

The skies were clearer that night, leaving the bright stars sparkling and a crescent moon glowing in the dark sky. The nights like these, with constellations visible to the naked eye, and with stars that seemed to smile down at earth, those were Tsukishima’s favourites. He knew for a fact, they were Yamaguchi’s too. 

He snapped a quick photo of the open window of his room revealing the stars and sent it over to Yamaguchi. His response was quick as always. 

No words, just another picture of the same sky but from his balcony instead. 

To Yamaguchi: 

...what?  

From Yamaguchi:

Same sky, different pov

From Yamaguchi:

What? I thought it was nice

Tsukishima chuckled lightly in amusement. 

To Yamaguchi: 

Depends on what you consider nice 

From Yamaguchi:

Mean Tsukki 

From Yamaguchi: 

:P 

Tsukishima really hated the fact that there wasn’t a sarcastic smile emoticon he could use. 

His eyes wandered to the side of his desk, where Yamaguchi’s camera was gently placed. He left his phone on the desk and picked up the camera to absentmindedly take a quick shot of the window revealing stars from where he was seated. 

The polaroid didn’t quite do the beauty of the stars justice. But he supposed that wasn’t the point and placed it with the previous polaroid in a small pile at the corner of his desk. 

To Yamaguchi: 

You’re stuck with me anyway 

“Morning Tsukki!” Yamaguchi was as bright as ever, brighter than the relentless, glaring rays of the early morning sun piercing through the windows. He took a seat at the dining table, smiling up at Tsukishima. 

“Morning Yamaguchi.” Contrary to the beam of sunlight glowing and shining next to him, Tsukishima felt dead. Very, very internally dead with eyes that were doing a terrible job at staying open and a body that was yearning for the warm comfort of the bed once again. 

Tsukishima was not a morning person and he didn’t try to hide it either. It usually went away after a good, hot cup of coffee but before that, he was sure hell felt better.

“Your peace offering’s here.” Yamaguchi gently pushed a cup of coffee in a tumbler to him as Tsukishima took the seat opposite him. They’d agreed to meet up at his house before heading off to volleyball practice again. 

“Take your time. We still have half an hour.” 

37 minutes, actually. Tsukishima had caught a glimpse of the bright flashing electric clock a slight distance away by the tv console and kept the numbers in his head. He felt the need to have a rough estimate of how much more time he could spend in the comforts of his own home before having to leave. It was a useful and comforting piece of information if he had anything to say in it. 

“Thanks.” He accepted the coffee and gently placed the camera he’d been carrying in his hands back down onto the table too. 

Tsukishima didn’t think it was possible for Yamaguchi to be even brighter than he currently was. Apparently he was wrong, because the moment Yamaguchi’s eyes had fallen onto the camera, his eyes somehow managed to light up even more vividly than before. 

“Oh, how’s the photo taking going?” Yamaguchi excitedly asked, leaning in to see Tsukishina’s reaction. 

“It’s been less than a day.” 

“No matter!” Yamaguchi waved it away. “So?” 

“I have two photos now?” 

“That’s great!” 

Tsukishima looked down at the cup of coffee in his hands. Tilting it slightly, he watched the coffee swish around in the tumbler before he set it down. 

It was strange but Tsukishima found himself taking out the camera to take a picture.  

It was mundane. Routine. Perfectly normal and nothing special. 

But for some reason Tsukishima couldn’t recognise or perhaps no reason at all, he took a picture of it. 

He briefly wondered if this was what Yamaguchi meant. 

But it didn’t seem quite right, and Tsukishima brushed the thought aside. 

As the photo came out of the polaroid, he looked up to see Yamaguchi with a knowing smile but otherwise remaining quiet. Silently, he put his equipment aside and took a sip of his coffee. 

These were his favourite moments. The ones spent in a quiet, comfortable silence with Yamaguchi. Where no words had to be said and everything felt right. Peaceful. 

They were the ones Tsukishima wished would last forever, as cliché and stupid as the idea of a moment lasting forever was. And maybe that was why Yamaguchi was so attached to his camera, if he thought about it. 

All the moments he wished would last forever, could actually last forever. It made sense if Tsukishima thought about it. 

Still sipping on his coffee, he reached his hand out for the camera as subtly as he could, though he assumed it really wasn’t that subtle given how the camera was obviously being taken from the table. He brought it down to his lap under the table and pressed the button. 

The angle or how the photo looked didn’t matter. Only the emotion he felt did and the photo didn’t need to look pretty or clear to capture the comfortable silence that had settled in the air. 

The loud click of the polaroid broke the silence  as it fed the photo out. Tsukishima, with a defeated sigh, set it back on the table. 

Yamaguchi shot him a look with a raised eyebrow and an amused smile playing on his lips 

“Shut up, Yamaguchi.” 

“I didn’t say anything.” Yamaguchi’s smile widened and a mischievous glint flashing in his eyes. 

With a flat flace, Tsukishima brought the camera to his face and took a quick shot of Yamaguchi. 

“Hey!” 

He slid the polaroid out towards Yamaguchi. “Still so sure you didn’t say anything?” 

“Mean, Tsukki!” Yamaguchi stuck his tongue out. 

“You say that too much.” 

“Says the person who says, ‘ Urusai ’ on an almost daily basis.” Yamaguchi said, changing his tone of voice to a flat, bored one at the word Urusai matched with a blank face before returning right to normal. 

“I don’t talk like that.” 

“Well you should see yourself.” Yamaguchi quickly grabbed the polaroid across the table (long arms had its benefits) and snapped a shot of Tsukishima’s face before he could even blink. 

Yamaguchi pushed the polaroid to Tsukishima. “Look at this face. Is it really one that wouldn’t say that?” 

Tsukishima simply shot him a blank, disinterested face. “Shut up, Yamaguchi.” 

He didn’t say anything, raising the camera to his face to take another shot, a small, teasing smile on his face. 

“Look.” Yamaguchi slid another polaroid his way, and Tsukishima’s blank face stared back up at him. 

Tsukishima continued to stare at it for a good few seconds before saying, “...seriously?” 

Yamaguchi burst into light fits of laughter. 

And as far as precious moments went, Tsukishima was certain this was counted as one of them.  

“Oi, stingyshima! What’d you do to Yamaguchi?” Hinata yelled, pointing an accusatory finger at him. 

“Wow, have we really forgotten how normal people greet each other here?” They’d barely stepped into the gym and Hinata had already started yelling. 

Hinata was basically a boundless ball of energy compressed into a human, with whatever recipe used to make humans clearly being messed up along the way to result in whatever he was. 

Hinata scrunched up his face to stick his tongue out at Tsukishima. 

Tsukishima rolled his eyes. “Wow, how very mature of you.” 

“Hinata, shut up! Do you want to play or not?” Kageyama blurted out, shooting Hinata a sharp glare (or it may have just been his regular gaze) after picking up the fallen volleyball. 

“Yes, I do but look! That’s Yamaguchi’s camera in his bag! What did he do to you, Yamaguchi?” Hinata pestered, pointing at the camera resting in Tsukishima’s slightly open bag. 

It was a little surprising how observant Hinata was, given how that was probably one of the last words that would come to mind when thinking about him. 

Yamaguchi laughed a little at the situation, gaining confused looks from the other two.

His laugh was really nice. 

“Relax, he didn’t do anything, guys.” Yamaguchi reassured Hinata who was still sending suspicious looks Tsukishima’s way. 

“Are you sure? You can tell us if he’s taking your camera hostage or blackmailing you!” 

“Hinata boke! What are you even talking about?” 

“That’s Yamaguchi’s camera! He never lets it out of his grip or passes it to anyone else! Don’t you think it’s weird?” Hinata finally lowered his voice to something akin to a whisper at the last bit, shooting periodic glances Kageyama’s way. 

“It still doesn’t make sense.” 

Hinata wove his hand in the air, brushing past the fact that Kageyama was still confused. 

“You guys are ridiculous. Has all that volleyball finally gotten into your head?” 

“Tsukki!” Yamaguchi hissed, gently nudging him. 

“Shut up!” 

“Make me.”  

“Hinata! Tsukishima!” Daichi yelled, storming into the gym with Asahi and Sugawara trailing behind. 

“I had nothing to do with them.” Kageyama bluntly declared, eliciting a muffled snicker from Yamaguchi. 

“Oi, Kageyama! Traitor! Baka!” Hinata scrunched up his face again, shooting another stuck out tongue at Kageyama this time. 

Kageyama’s face turned into its usual scowl at the mention of baka. “Hinata boke! Shut up!” Tsukishima was pretty sure that was just an instinctive reaction to being called baka by Hinata.

“You shut up!” 

Nothing out of the ordinary. 

Before Kageyama could snap back with yet another response, Daichi forced himself between them. “Enough! Hinata! Kageyama! Do you want a repeat of last Wednesday?” 

The two of them fell into a complete, dead silence with a light blush dusting across their cheeks 

 at the mere mention of last Wednesday. Tsukishima couldn’t help but snicker. Neither could Sugawara by the looks of it, though in his defence, he did look away. Not that it really helped much. 

But the glorious events of last Wednesday, yes. Daichi had finally had enough of them and started implementing a new form of punishment Tsukishima was enjoying watching. Holding hands. 

Nothing had been as effective. 

After a certain incident involving a cracked glass, a volleyball and the idiots last Wednesday, Daichi had decided to punish them by forcing them to sit outside and hold hands for two hours. The alternative was being suspended from extra practice for a week. 

Yeah, it was obvious from the very beginning the choice they’d end up going with. But it didn’t make watching the process of them struggling to decide any less entertaining. 

The idiots had kept away from any other volleyball related “incidents” since that day. Like he said, effective. 

And watching them avoid eye contact and act all shifty at the mere mention of it was just a bonus. 

“Good. Now, until the others show up, continue your practice and do your warm ups.” 

A chorus of “yes”, mainly just from the first years came and the blush was still lingering on both Kageyama and Hinata’s faces as they went back to the net to continue practicing. 

“Wow, how very leader-y of you, Daichi.” Suga said in that teasing voice of his, lowered to a soft voice. 

“You’re the vice-captain, Suga.” 

“Yeah, yeah, let’s go.” He waved it off with a light laugh and a hand gesture as they headed off to stretch. 

Tsukishima looked to his right and found Yamaguchi wearing a small fond smile. 

Yamaguchi, for some strange reason, never really had many friends. Up till Karasuno, he’d basically stuck to him and no one else. Not that Tsukishima really had any other friends other than Yamaguchi either, but he really didn’t mind. Yamaguchi… at some level, always seemed to. 

And the team, with the chaos and mess they brought with them, was a group of people he genuinely enjoyed the company of. They meant a lot to him, and the fact that he had never had many friends positioned them even closer to his heart. 

Or at least that was what Tsukishima suspected. He didn’t know if he was actually right but regardless, the one thing he knew about Yamaguchi and the team was that the smile he wore near them was something he hoped would appear more often.

“Hey Tsukki, can we take back the camera for a bit?” Yamaguchi was all the way across the gym, standing next to Hinata with a water bottle in his hand. 

“It’s yours. You don’t have to ask.” 

A light, sheepish laugh. “Yeah… well, it’s polite? Anyways, thanks Tsukki! I’ll just go ahead and grab it then.” He waved his hand and fished the camera out of Tsukishima’s bag. 

Hinata peered closer at it, examining the precious camera Yamaguchi carefully held. He’d seen it pop up here and there before but he’d never actually looked at it too closely. 

“It’s quite old, isn’t it?” Hinata asked after a moment. 

Yamaguchi laughed. “Yeah, quite.” 

“Why don’t you get a new one?” A surprisingly good point from Hinata. 

Yamaguchi’s answer was the same. “I don’t know, it’s honestly pretty hard to explain. I mean I’ve had it since I was a kid and, well, it means a lot to me.” Tsukishima already knew that bit but Hinata still eagerly nodded, his way of saying it made sense, Tsukishima assumed. 

“Can I try it?” 

“Sure, why not? You know how a Polaroid works, right?” He handed the camera over to Hinata. 

He had to give Hinata credit. He held it like it was something precious, not to be mishandled in any way and worth way more than he could ever hope to estimate. Or maybe Hinata had no idea of its value, just that it meant a lot to Yamaguchi and hence decided to treat it as such. He knew he did. 

“I’ve seen you use it before, it’s this button, right?” 

“Yup.” 

Hinata’s head moved from left to right, trying to figure out what to take before finally shifting the camera to Yamaguchi. He took a few steps back to get Yamaguchi in the frame. 

Yamaguchi laughed a little as Hinata quickly snapped a shot. “I don’t wave it around, right?” 

“Yeah, that’s a myth.” 

“Ooh, cool!” Hinata gushed as the polaroid came out. The picture slowly started becoming clearer when a small frown started appearing on his face. 

“Tsukishima, you creep! What are you doing just staring at Yamaguchi like that?” 

“What are you talking about, you idiot?” He hissed back at him, shooting him a dangerously poisonous look. 

Hinata still didn’t shrink back. Used to it, he supposed. “You look!” He started charging over to Tsukishima, waving the polaroid in the air while Yamaguchi was obviously holding back snickers watching them. 

The photo was surprisingly… not the worst. Photography wise, at least. The background, on the other hand, was horrible. 

With the photo shoved into his face, Hinata pointed at Tsukishima in the photo. “Look! You tell me what this is!” Hinata quickly turned his head to check on Yamaguchi who had given up on holding back his laughter and was just openly snickering away. 

Traitor. 

“Sorry Tsukki!” Yamaguchi shouted back in between laughter. 

“I’ll protect you from him, Yamaguchi! Don’t apologise to him!” Yamaguchi’s laughter started increasing in intensity. 

“Explain yourself, you bastard!” 

Tsukishima in the polaroid was simply looking at the two of them with a neutral face. 

Hinata was weird… 

He snatched the photo out of Hinata’s hands with a scowl on his face. “I’ll be taking this.” 

“Oi! Give that back!” 

“Bastard!” He then hissed when Tsukishima stuffed the picture to the very bottom of his bag and zipped it up tightly. 

“You can take another photo, if you’d like and keep that one.” Yamaguchi offered it up as “compensation” with a soft smile, ever the amiable friend. 

“Thank you Yamaguchi! You’re the best! Unlike a certain someone.” Tsukishima could feel the pointed stare on his back but held back another retort, instead opting to return to practice. He didn’t want to interrupt Yamaguchi again anyway. 

“These are so cute!” Yamaguchi gushed and Tsukishima could practically hear the triple exclamation points in his voice. 

Yamaguchi leaned forward, eyes glued onto the bottle. Practice had finally ended, they were both sweaty and tired, and were making their way home when they’d come across the slushie stand which seemed to fill Yamaguchi with excitement. 

It reminded him of the ones found in theme parks, with the reusable cups that came with the slushie. Tsukishima thought that businesses ordering specific cups couldn't ever be profitable,

but Yamaguchi seemed happy enough looking at the translucent, pale blue cup with cute little hedgehogs doodled across its surface. It had caught his attention from a slight distance away and Yamaguchi had dragged him all the way there just to get a closer look at it. 

Tsukishima’s eyes wandered away to the other cups on display, all roughly similar to each other. There was a dim orange one, translucent too but this time with little foxes doodled all over it. And a light purple one, crystal like with cats peppered across the surface. And a- 

“Hey, Tsukki, look! They even have a dinosaur one too! And the anatomy looks surprisingly accurate!” He gestured to the mint green cup stationed at the other side of the stall. 

Mint green with plesiosaurs scattered here and there. The neck was actually accurately long and snake-like, a feature he’d found to be missing in most works featuring dinosaurs like the plesiosaurs. Sacrificed for the overall “cuteness” of it. 

That was always annoying.

Tsukishima thought the plesiosaurus looked just fine. No, even better with accurate proportions. He still held a vengeful grudge against that company which somehow managed to think that the dreadnoughtus’ front and hind legs were actually of the same length. Yamaguchi still laughed at him about it. 

“Huh.” 

“Hi, good afternoon! Can I get a blue raspberry slushie in this cup please?” He pointed at the pale blue cup, an excited smile painted across his face. 

Tsukishima turned to look at his bag carrying the camera. Just one picture. It wouldn’t take more than a second. 

And he fished the camera out of his bag, aligned it to his eye, aimed and snapped. Just a picture of the light blue cup with a beaming Yamaguchi in the background. Despite the cup being the subject, Tsukishima found his eyes being drawn to Yamaguchi anyway. 

It was a certain charm Yamaguchi had. He generally always faded into the background but once you focused on him, it was impossible to look away. 

As the colour started appearing on the polaroid, Tsukishima kept it inside the pocket of his bag but kept the camera in his hand. He took a few more shots of the cups but eventually shifted his focus back to Yamaguchi. 

“Do you want one?” Yamaguchi offered, turning his head to Tsukishima and giving him a small head tilt for some reason. It seemed to be some sort of habit, tilting his head whenever he was asking a question and awaiting a response. 

“They have a discount if you order two!” 

That wasn’t what convinced him but he nodded anyway. “Okay then. I’ll get a strawberry slushie please, thank you.” 

The person manning the store nodded with a polite smile. 

“Do they even taste different though?” Tsukishima asked, lifting his pink slushie up to the light to examine. 

The sun was setting as they made their way home again. It was a repetitive cycle. Always going home with the sunset in the background. But something about the near-daily routine was comforting. Tsukishima mindlessly aimed the polaroid at the slushie against the sunset and snapped another shot. 

He was getting a little more used to lugging the camera around. Tsukishima previously did find it troublesome but it was getting slightly better.  Slightly, but better. Or perhaps he was just starting to get used to it. Either way, it wasn’t too bad, he supposed. Walking to school and walking back, volleyball, finding random, stupid things to photograph. 

He still didn’t quite get the point but it was fun. 

Pretty cool, he’d admit. 

“Hmm, I mean, now that you mention it, maybe not…” Yamaguchi shrugged, happy to continue drinking his slushie. 

“Hey Tsukki, let’s exchange! Okay with you?” Yamaguchi had came to an abrupt stop, turning to face him with his entire body. 

“Sure, why not?” Tsukishima brought the camera and the slushie back down. They exchanged slushies and in his hands was the bright blue slushie disguised as “blue raspberry”. It looked practically identical to his and he was almost certain that there was basically no difference in flavour. And if there was any, it’d be minute. 

Tsukishima was never that person who spent way too much time photographing the food while making everyone else suffer in silence and hunger waiting for them to finish their “photo shoot”. So he didn’t know why he’d suddenly started taking so many pictures of food, five polaroids were more than enough photos of slushies. 

But still he clicked the button, generating a sixth one. 

He pocketed the camera, despite the small nagging feeling that he was likely to take it out again, taking a sip of Yamaguchi’s slushie. 

“Can you taste any difference?” Yamaguchi asked, turning his head to face Tsukishima’s again.

He took another long sip before shaking his head. “No, don’t think so. Either that or my mouth’s actually broken.” 

Yamaguchi giggled lightly in response to that before continuing to walk and looking forwards. 

“It’s still cute though. The cup.” 

Tsukishima didn’t say anything in response and he didn’t need to either. 

They had these moments too. Ones where Yamaguchi would go on rambling and talking, and Tsukishima would stay in the background, listening to him talk. 

A lot of things about Yamaguchi were calming and therapeutic. His soft smile. The sound of his first name. Tadashi. Tsukishima did try the way the name sounded on his lips in private before and he liked the way it rolled off the tongue. 

His laughter. His eyes. His touch. And his voice. 

His voice. Tsukishima couldn't think of an accurate descriptor to use for it. It didn’t flow like honey, the opposite really. Or flutter like butterflies either. 

It leaped from foot to foot, without much of a rhythm. It slipped and it fell. It was messy and it dropped and it rose from moment to moment and he really didn’t know how else to describe it. Beyond the simple fact that everything about it was comforting. 

He wasn’t sure if Yamaguchi knew this fact and he’d never told him either. 

“You have a nice voice.” 

Yamaguchi froze in his tracks and slowly turned to face him, seemingly in amused disbelief. “What?” He asked with a hint of laughter in his voice. 

Yeah, his voice was nice. 

“You have a nice voice.” Tsukishima repeated again, not even batting an eye. “What’s so shocking about it?” 

Yamaguchi let out a laugh somewhere in between sarcastic and amused. “I’ve just… never heard that before. Or thought about that much.” 

“Your voice sounds different to you than it does to everyone else. Like due to certain vibrations your voice actually sounds different to you than it would to everyone else.” 

“Huh, that’s cool.” Yamaguchi took another long sip of the slushie that wasn’t his. Not that either of them had noticed.  

“So, well, do you like your voice?” 

He paused. And lowered the slushie down. “I don’t know. It’s just something I’m used to. I’ve never given it much thought before. It’s just always been kinda just there.”

 Tsukishima brushed aside the fleeting thought that it sounded a little like what Yamaguchi was to him. Not the part about him not giving much thought to it. No. But rather the part about it always having been there. 

The camera suddenly felt a lot heavier settled in his bag. He took it out. “Hey, Yamaguchi?” 

“Yeah?” 

“Can you smile?” He raised the camera to his eye and looked through the viewfinder. 

Yamaguchi laughed lightly again and Tsukishima clicked the button. It was a pity the  polaroids weren’t able to keep sounds too. But he supposed that was good enough. 

He didn’t really bother to examine much of the photo beyond that. He had the real thing in front of him anyway. 

“Well there you have it.” 

They continued walking and Tsukishima didn’t miss that small fond smile Yamaguchi wore. 

No one would miss the warm glow of a campfire in the middle of a forest either. 

“See you, Tsukki!” The sky was darker and the roads were now lit up by the street lights.

“Wait, I forgot to mention, they want you over for movie night again.”

Yamaguchi turned around and laughed a little. “Really? That’s sweet.” He wore the same face he had whenever he saw a cute puppy. Tsukishima never quite understood why Yamaguchi found puppies so cute, always insisting that they stopped for at least three minutes just to pet it. On top of that, Tsukishima was relatively sure that most dogs in the area already knew Yamaguchi as the nice human who always gave them pets and occasional treats. 

That wouldn’t even have been a far stretch. Yamaguchi had literally stopped by the pet shop just to get some dog treats to give to them the next time he saw them. 

But Tsukishima always stopped to wait for him anyway. 

He scoffed. “If you can consider it sweet. They’ve been bugging me all week to give you an invitation. They would’ve continued bugging me if I didn’t tell you. I swear, they talk about you way too much.” 

“Aww, please send your parents and brother my regards.” Yamaguchi shifted his position from merely turning his head to turning his entire body to face Tsukishima. 

Tsukishima scowled. “It’s not ‘aww’, I have to actually hear it all day.” 

“Well if it makes it any better, my mum loves you. She was just asking when you’d come over next.” Yamaguchi laughed a little. 

They did seem to always mostly go to his house too. 

“And do you want me to come over?” 

Yamaguchi froze for a mere moment before laughing again. “I don’t mind either way. I mean my mum definitely wants you to but I don’t mind going to your house either. It’s nice going there too.” 

“Then I’ll go to your house tomorrow.” 

“Wait, what about movie night?” 

“I’ll tell them ‘another night’.” 

“Bye Yamaguchi.” He turned to leave and lifted his headphones up to his ears. 

But right before his headphones covered his ears, he heard a soft, fond ‘bye Tsukki!’ and smiled. 

“Tsukishima! How nice to see you again!” Yamaguchi’s mum appeared to be fighting off the urge to hug him as she let him in.

“It’s nice to see you too, Yamaguchi-san. It’s been a while.”

She laughed. “Too long, really. Tadashi constantly goes to your house nowadays. I swear, it’s almost like he’s harbouring a secret girlfriend there.” She laughed again. 

The thought settled a little uncomfortably with Tsukishima and Yamaguchi-san seemed to pick up on it too. “Not that there’s anything wrong with it! It’s really nice to have you as his friend. When he was younger, he struggled a lot with making friends and I’m so glad he found you.” Tsukishima had a sneaking suspicion that Yamaguchi didn’t tell his mum about the bullying and that only seemed to further confirm it. 

“I’m glad I met him too.” This wasn’t a lie. Far from it, really. 

“Oh yeah, is it true that Tadashi lent you his camera? I almost couldn’t believe it when he suddenly parted from his beloved camera.” Neither could he honestly.

“Yeah, he did. I was asking why he spent so much money to maintain this particular camera when it would’ve been way cheaper to just get a new one, so he told me that it was hard to explain and understand unless I’d had the camera for a while and well, here we are.” 

Yamaguchi-san laughed again. “You really do mean a lot to him, don’t you?” 

Tsukishima didn’t say anything. 

“You’ve known him long enough, you know what I mean.” She was right, of course. He did. He’d stuck by Yamaguchi long enough to know that that camera meant more to him than anything else. Yamaguchi told him a lot of things but the reasons behind why the camera meant so much to him still remained foreign to Tsukishima.

The camera being willingly passed to anyone else was a symbol of trust in and of itself. Tsukishima knew that bit well enough.

Yamaguchi-san gave him a knowing smile. “Well, this has been nice. I really have to go to work now. I’ll hope to catch up with you later, Tsukishima. Have fun!” 

And he was left alone in the Yamaguchi living room, with Yamaguchi probably still asleep upstairs. 

The house wasn’t much different. The only thing that seemed to have changed were the flowers. The Yamaguchi family seemed to particularly like flowers, with a small flower garden outside and a vase of them on the coffee table. Last he remembered, Yamaguchi also had a small vase of flowers in his room too. Unsurprising, honestly.

The vase of flowers were irises now. They seemed to change every few weeks and they took turns deciding on which flower to go in the vase. He assumed the irises were selected by Yamaguchi-san. He’d heard Yamaguchi ramble on about flowers enough to know that Irises weren’t on his list of favourites or interesting ones. 

But regardless, he took out the camera and took a quick, random shot of the Irises in the vase. 

The logic behind his shots was starting to fade away more and more with each shot and he briefly wondered if that was how Yamaguchi did it too. At that thought, he instinctively looked up, towards the stairs, trying to figure out how long it’d take before he got up. 

“I’m up! I’m up! I swear I’m up now!” Yamaguchi quickly declared rushing down the stairs, hands put up in mock surrender. 

Tsukishima couldn’t hold back the snicker and the quick shot he took of Yamaguchi like that. 

“Oi!” 

“What?” Tsukishima usually didn’t give his photographs much of a second look beyond the initial photo taking but with that one, he continued to stare at it until the colour trickled in. 

“I look terrible right now.” Yamaguchi grumbled, walking up to him and peering at the photo over his shoulder. 

“You’ve taken worse of me.” 

The colour had fully entered the polaroid by then. The quality was surprisingly good and the photo… wasn’t the worst. Then again, he probably should’ve looked at the photos after taking them, rather than just tossing them into his bag without giving it a second thought. 

“Minus the unflattering photos, you seem to be having fun!” 

“I suppose so. It’s not the worst.” Tsukishima didn’t have to turn around to know the smug, satisfied smile Yamaguchi was most definitely wearing. He did anyway. 

He was, unsurprisingly right. 

“Can I see the other ones?” 

“The ones from yesterday and before are at home. I still have a couple of shots I took today though.” He put down the polaroid and started digging through his bag for the other five shots.

Tsukishima really should've cared more about where he placed things, because struggling to find small pieces of film in a large bag was not an experience he was excited to relive. Eventually, after a bit more fumbling and a concerned, awkward smile from Yamaguchi, all five polaroids emerged from the depths of his bag.

A picture of the house. A picture of a vending machine he passed by on the way to Yamaguchi’s house. The irises. The cracked pavement. The pale blue sky. 

They joined the polaroid of Yamaguchi on the table as Yamaguchi himself plopped onto the chair right next to him. He quickly adjusted himself and the chair to be angled to face the photos and be closer to them. 

Yamaguchi stared at the pictures intensely for a few moments before his eyes and face lit up again. “You know what you should do? Wait, let me get it here!” 

The edges of Tsukishima’s face tilted up as he looked at the direction Yamaguchi had disappeared to. 

“I’m back!” 

“You don’t have to announce that, you know.” 

“Haha, yeah.” Yamaguchi scratched the back of his neck with a sheepish smile. Another nervous habit of his. “Sorry.” 

“You don’t have to apologise either.” 

He evidently bit back a sorry. 

“Yeah… anyway, look!” He brought out five markers with a flourish. 

“Markers… right.”

Yamaguchi settled back into his seat again. “No, you see, it’s fun to doodle or make little comments on the polaroids you take! Well, at least I think it’s fun. Not sure about you.”

“Want to give it a try?” Even if he didn’t want to, Tsukishima was slightly embarrassed to say that the genuine grin on Yamaguchi’s face would’ve convinced him otherwise. 

He took the 0.3 black marker Yamaguchi offered and dragged the polaroid of the vending machine closer to him. The marker hovered over the empty space of the polaroid for way too long as he tried to figure out what to write. 

Eventually, he settled with writing a simple ‘vending machine’ Yamaguchi ended up laughing at. 

“What? You were the one who asked me to do it.” 

“I know, I know, it’s just, of all the things you chose to write, you chose to write an actual description of the picture.” Yamaguchi said in between fits of laughter. 

Tsukishima shot him a scowl he only laughed more at. 

“Sorry Tsukki!” Yamaguchi said, obviously not sorry. 

“What else did you expect me to write?” 

“I don’t know but I mean, vending machine is very… you.” The fact that Yamaguchi said it like it was meant to be a compliment was slightly insulting.

“Shut up, Yamaguchi.” 

Yamaguchi laughed again. “Sorry, Tsukki!”

“Mind if I maybe write a little on it though?” 

Tsukishima pushed the polaroid towards him with a raised eyebrow, waiting to see what he’d do. 

Yamaguchi’s face was scrunched up in concentration with it hovering a little above the polaroid and simple black lines eventually came together to form the shape of a hedgehog at the bottom of the polaroid, next to vending machine . 

“Seriously?” 

“What? It’s cute.” Yamaguchi raised the polaroid up to the light with a satisfied smile as he looked at his hedgehog. 

“I don’t see the connection.” 

“There isn’t one. That’s the whole point. Well, sometimes there is, sometimes there isn’t. If you want, I can craft a story about a hedgehog and a vending machine?” Yamaguchi offered. 

“I’m good.”

Yamaguchi laughed. 

“What time did you take this?” He lowered the polaroid. 

“Maybe around half an hour ago? Why?” 

“The sky in here’s nice.”

Tsukishima took another quick look at the polaroid. He hadn’t exactly noticed it previously but along the right side and the top of the polaroid, behind the building the vending machine was put against, was a sliver of pale blue and white puffy clouds lazing against the sky that reminded him of cotton candy. 

It wasn’t surprising that he’d missed it. Tsukishima never paid much attention to the weather anyway, but it was a pity he didn’t realise it sooner. 

“Huh.” He took the pen and polaroid from Yamaguchi, scrawling a ‘nice sky??’ on the polaroid and Yamaguchi laughed again as he took it from him again to write on something of his own. 

The words ‘nice sky.’ was formed in Yamaguchi’s somewhat messy somewhat neat handwriting he’s had since they were 12. Neither of their handwriting changed much and at this point, Tsukishima was sure he could recognise it almost as well as he did his own. 

He laughed and looked away. 

He could still feel Yamaguchi’s inquisitive gaze on him even as he focused his eyes on the window. 

“What?” Yamaguchi leaned forward to try to catch a glimpse of what he was seeing. 

“The sky’s still the same colour.” 

“Oh yeah! Wait, just let me take a pic or two. I really like the sky right now.” He grabbed the Polaroid set at the top of his bag and made a hurry to the window, as though the sky would change its colour if he waited just a little longer. 

“Why?” 

“Hmm?” Yamaguchi adjusted the Polaroid to his eye as he aimed at the pale blue sky. 

“Why do you like this sky so much? It’s not exactly rare.” Only Yamaguchi would get so excited over a simple sky. Sure, it was pretty, but still, it didn’t warrant such a large reaction. 

“The sky we see everyday is the same, but don’t you think it’s really cool that the colours we see each day, the shades and hues, they’re always different? And well, this sky, it’s the type of sky they describe in the epilogue, the type you see in the last few moments of the movie, when everything has been settled and all is right with the world. The association’s nice.” Yamaguchi lowered his camera and turned to face Tsukishima from the kitchen window once again.

“Plus, it doesn’t hurt that the clouds look like cotton candy too.”  

“Do you want to go out then?” Tsukishima offered, observing Yamaguchi’s cheery smiles despite the fact that he’d only just dragged himself out of bed. 

Yamaguchi paused in thought for a quick, brief moment before his face broke out in a larger grin. “Sure, where do you have in mind?” 

Their original plan was to watch downloaded classic movies in the comfort of Yamaguchi’s room. They had spent an hour or so the previous day compiling the small collection of films they had wanted to watch for quite a while. 

That plan flew out the window. 

They were sitting on grass, surrounded by sunflowers towering over them and there was nowhere Tsukishima would rather be. 

The sunflowers stretched for miles and down the hill, like a sea of them covering the hill’s surface. They were happily seated in the middle of it, with sunflowers in every direction. Seated down, he couldn’t see the end of it and that in and of itself was nice in a way. 

The sky was nice too, a pretty pale shade of blue, the type Tsukishima would find on an aesthetic blog or on someone’s lock screen. The weather was cooling enough but not too cold to the point where he’d regret going out entirely, and the sun peeked out of a few clouds, the earth basking in the light gentle rays of the sun. 

By all definitions, it was perfect. 

Yamaguchi was lying down on the grass, his head in between sunflowers and with a satisfied smile on his face as he lifted the polaroid above his head to take a quick shot of everything around them.

“This is amazing, Tsukki. You have no idea how much I love you right now.” He shut his eyes and spread his arms, polaroid still resting in his left hand. 

“I’ll keep this in my bag.” Tsukishima took the polaroid from Yamaguchi’s hand but before he could put it in the bag, he took a quick shot of Yamaguchi like that, lying down in a field full of sunflowers, satisfied and happy. He smiled a little to himself as he stuffed the polaroid that came out right at the very bottom of his bag while putting the polaroid inside and securing the bag shut. 

“I know you took a picture of me.” He moved an arm to cover his eyes, smile taking on a mischievous glint. 

“You really think I wouldn’t recognise the sound of my own camera? I’ve been living with that fossil for years.” 

“So you finally admit that it is indeed a fossil.” 

Yamaguchi sat back up and opened his eyes. The sunflowers blocked the rays of the sun causing light shadows to fall upon his face, making it seem like something from a photoshoot or some magazine cover. The streams of sunlight that trickled through the cover of flowers were gentle, caressing him with warm, golden color. And his eyes were like glass, tinted glass orbs that danced with light and held Tsukishima captive. Yeah. 

“Yeah, yeah, it is. So what? You like old fossils as much as I do anyway.” 

Tsukishima laughed. “I still don’t lug dinosaur fossils everywhere I go, do I?” 

“You would if you could.” 

He laughed again. “And you wouldn’t lug yours around if it wasn’t a fossil.” 

There was no immediate response, with Yamaguchi stopping to think for a moment and crossing his legs. “That’s part of the reason. Not the full one, but part of it.” 

“What’s the full one?” 

Yamaguchi leaned forward, locking eye contact with him, as though he was about to spill the untold stories of the universe out to him. “It’s a secret.” 

Yamaguchi moved back to his original position, laughing the type of laugh that didn’t reveal his eyes but made the creases at the corner of them appear again. The ones that only appeared when he laughed. 

“You’re ridiculous.”

“Your face says otherwise!” Yamaguchi responded in some sing-song tone. “Let me show you!” He leaned forward to quickly grab the camera from his bag and snapped another quick shot of him. 

Tsukishima swore, sometimes the reflexes Yamaguchi had when it came to photography almost rivalled the freak duo’s when on the court. 

“You seem to like taking pictures of my face a lot.” Tsukishima commented, looking at the polaroid Yamaguchi had proudly presented to him. 

“Well, so do you, so I say it’s fair trade.” 

Tsukishima shrugged but could still feel a light burn on his cheeks. He obviously knew but he simply… chose not to dwell on that fact for too long. 

He didn’t like the feeling of being called out on. But that was perfectly normal, right? Yes. 

Yamaguchi laughed again and Tsukishima found the sides of his lips tilting up at it too. Perfectly normal, yeah. 

Yamaguchi’s attention had shifted to a particular sunflower, swaying in the wind before him. He seemed to find particular amusement in watching the sunflower move from left to right and vice versa. 

“Is it very amusing to just watch it sway from side to side?” 

Yamaguchi’s gaze returned to him. “It’s… it’s not particularly amusing, but it’s nice.” 

“How’d you even find this place though? It’s incredible and I swear if you asked me to come here every day after school, I’d probably willingly come along. It’s amazing here and I don’t think I’d ever want to leave.” That fond smile had found its place on his face again. 

It was by far Tsukishima’s favourite. Yamaguchi used smiles to communicate just as much as he did with words. There were more than Tsukishima could remember off the top of his head, but the fond ones always felt the most intimate and genuine. It was nice seeing Yamaguchi like that. It was. 

“We can continue to come here in the future, you know.” 

“I know, I know, and that’d be really nice. I just feel like it’d be different from how it feels now.” Yamaguchi’s eyes wandered back to the sky. 

Wordlessly, Tsukishima reached for the polaroid and offered it to him. “This is one of the reasons you like it so much, right?” 

Yamaguchi’s gaze returned to him. “Yeah. Thanks Tsukki.” He took the camera but it felt as though his thanks was for more than just handing over the camera. 

It felt a little like there was a missing phrase behind it but Tsukishima paid it no mind. 

He aimed the camera high up at the sky again and with a small, minute smile, one Tsukishima almost missed entirely, he snapped the shot. The polaroid came out and he lowered the camera, turning back to him. 

“Thank you, Tsukki. Really. Thank you. I, yeah.” His words were a bit of a mess but Tsukishima understood what he was saying. 

“I don’t mind anyway. It’s nice coming here.” Yamaguchi laughed lightly again and lay back onto the ground. 

Yamaguchi had fallen asleep. 

Lying on his side and still on the sunflower field, he continued to stay in the arms of sleep. An arm tucked under his head acted as a pillow and the jacket draped over his body was a blanket. Tsukishima wasn’t sure how effective of a blanket it actually was but Yamaguchi seemed alright. Hopefully.

He looked back up at the sky. The sky had changed shades, a deeper and darker blue now, more ordinary.

The clouds remained fluffy and puffy, though thicker with more layers now, making the filtered rays of sun more gentle. 

“Morning Tsukki.” Yamaguchi rose up again, stretching his arms with a yawn. 

“It’s afternoon.” 

“Yeah, yeah, sorry, I kinda dozed off.” He yawned again, blinking his eyes multiple times in an attempt to be less drowsy. 

“I could tell. What time did you sleep last night?” Tsukishima was aware of the scowl taking over his face. 

Yamaguchi laughed softly and sheepishly. 

“What time?” Tsukishima demanded, eying Yamaguchi up and down. 

“Four.” Before Tsukishima could respond, Yamaguchi started launching into a long explanation. “But in my defence, that wasn’t the intention. I was originally going to sleep at ten but I was tired and when I went to pour myself a drink, I poured myself the wrong drink and I accidentally drank extremely caffeinated coffee all in one gulp. I would not recommend, yeah, it took a—” 

Yamaguchi’s eyes latched onto Tsukishima’s shoulder. Or rather, something on his shoulder, causing Yamaguchi to completely freeze and come to an abrupt silence. 

“What?” 

“No! Don’t move! Shut up, Tsukki.” He demanded, putting a finger near his face to get him to stop. 

“What’s up with you?”

“No, there’s a butterfly that landed on your shoulder. Just stay still. I really want to take a picture of it. ‘Kay?” 

“Right. The camera’s in the bag?” Tsukishima offered weakly, still slightly confused. 

Yamaguchi slowly crept towards the bag. He was suddenly a lot more alert and seemingly terrified of making too much of a disturbance to scare away the butterfly while Tsukishima remained completely still. 

“Got it! Just stay as you are.” Yamaguchi moved back to his original  spot and slowly leaned in a little closer to take the picture. The loud noise of the polaroid taking the picture scared off the butterfly but Yamaguchi was happy enough with the close-up he managed to take. 

That was… interesting. 

He hopped over to sit next to Tsukishima and showed him the polaroid, with the colour slowly filling the polaroid. 

Dark inky wings with smudges of blue near the edge of the wings. Tsukishima looked around but couldn’t see it anywhere near them. Oh well. 

“It’s nice, right?” 

“Yeah.” 

“Do you want it?” Yamaguchi’s eyes left the polaroid and turned back to him. 

“Don’t you want to keep it?” 

“Yeah, but I wouldn’t mind giving it to you either.” 

Yamaguchi really was too sweet sometimes and Tsukishima could feel his cheeks warming up. “Sure.” 

The sun was hidden and the smile Yamaguchi wore was just as bright as it would be if the sun wasn’t hidden. 

The butterfly continued to linger in his mind long after it’d flown away, acting more like a pesky cockroach he couldn’t get rid of than the graceful creature the polaroid captured. The lights were turned off and the curtains were half closed but Tsukishima still couldn’t sleep, the butterfly refusing to leave his mind.

He turned to lie on his left instead. It still didn’t help; he was just as awake as he was at noon. He swore. It must have been some sort of curse passed on from Yamaguchi. 

Tsukishima gave up on sleep after a few more minutes and switched on the lights. It felt a lot more fitting to have the lights on and with nothing better to do, he sat by his desk and shot his phone a glance. No, but Yamaguchi was probably asleep. It was late and he seemed like he probably needed the extra sleep. As well as he tried to hide it. 

His eyes wandered off to the now thicker stack of polaroids sitting at the corner of his desk. He was suddenly reminded of Yamaguchi’s earlier suggestion and figured why not, since he wasn’t getting much sleep anyways. 

He took the only marker he had, a thick black one he used for writing his name on textbooks and stuff. Not as brightly coloured or with as many different variants of thickness, but it worked.

The first on the stack was the polaroid of the butterfly. 

Tsukishima smiled a little looking at it again. He took the marker and jotted down a ‘taken by Yamaguchi, blue butterfly @ sunflower field’, squished because of the lack of space and the thick marker, but still legible. 

While putting it aside, his hands grazed against the polaroid, something he was careful to avoid for the past few days of camera usage. Tsukishima was well aware of how the polaroid and the photos it took worked. 

An intense sense of concentration fell upon him abruptly, and just for a quick second before it faded away. Tsukishima shot it another quick look and after some internal debate, reached out for the polaroid and touched its surface again. He didn’t withdraw his hand immediately this time. 

The same sense of concentration fell upon him, but this time more complex. It wasn’t just a powerful wave crashing into him, but rather a steady flood, with layers thickening with each second. It wasn’t simply concentration, it was excitement and happiness and the fluttery feeling akin to a butterfly flying around. 

Tsukishima let go and laughed. Yamaguchi was… he was adorable. He couldn’t think of how else to put it as he set the photo against a dinosaur figurine. The dinosaur ended up looking like it was eating the polaroid as a result which made him laugh a little again. 

The next polaroid was one of them at the nearby McDonald’s they were eating at for lunch. The polaroid was blurry, as if it was smudged before it had properly dried. It was taken by accident when Tsukishima was passing his bag over to Yamaguchi to put at his side, which had more space. 

He remembered the laugh Yamaguchi let out after that. Yamaguchi laughed and smiled a lot, Tsukishima had come to realise.Yamaguchi was like a constellation: little twinkling stars that smiled and laughed in the darkness of the sky, completely unassuming until you took a step back and realised what those little twinkling sparkles formed. And it was impossible to tear your eyes from it once you realised the constellation was there. Just like Yamaguchi. 

With a small smile, he drew three circles and connected them with a line. Orion’s Belt. One of the brighter constellations, obvious in most places in the world, despite the invading air pollution that threatened to rob humans of their view of the stars. It continued to shine despite it and that seemed particularly fitting. 

He set that polaroid aside and took the third picture. 

Tsukishima remembered, once, when he’d went over to Yamaguchi’s for a sleepover, the first thing he did when he got home was to look through the photos he had taken. Tsukishima was getting to understand why. It was like reviewing the day, going through and looking through the better parts of the day, the accidents, the laughs, the smiles, and it seemed to bring out the brighter side of everyday life. 

The fluttery feeling that danced along his body wasn’t from some big revelation, not that he got into some top university, not that he’d won some award or national scholarship. Just that Yamaguchi had spent ten minutes poking and prodding at the fries waiting for them to soften up before eating and the small things like that. They made him smile; something about that was particularly sweet and in the best way. 

He continued to go through the photos, making little notes on the polaroid of whatever road his mind had decided to take him down after seeing the polaroid and occasionally poke at the surface of the polaroid. 

All in all, it was relatively fun. Not great for his sleep schedule, sure, but fun. 

Another picture of Yamaguchi. Every time he saw another one of those (which he was starting to realise, there were a lot of), his cheeks, against his will, heated up again. But that was normal, right? 

Right. 

Tsukishima tried not to touch any photos of him, opting to leave them alone after touching the first one for a quick second. The sugary sweetness that smacked him after touching the polaroid was astounding and sent chills down his spine. It felt akin to what Tsukishima assumed floating on air would feel like and it was… weird. He didn’t know how else to phrase it. 

But this one was different. A selfie Yamaguchi had apparently taken without him realising, slightly blurry with bright neon lights of the vending machine in the background and blurred out. His gaze was staring at, what was it? The moon? A star? A paper airplane he saw lying on the concrete pavement. Yes, he remembered. It was on their way back home, when they’d stopped by the vending machine to get a drink and they’d both gotten just a little bit distracted. And Yamaguchi stared into the camera, bright smile as always with the angle high up. His face seemed to have been caught while in the middle of laughter. 

Tsukishima had seen quite a few pictures but by far, this was probably his favourite. 

And out of curiosity, just curiosity, he touched the surface. 

He wasn’t hit with a wave of emotion, just a small trickle of emotion that slowly entered his observation, like the way colour would slowly but surely trickle into the polaroids. 

The first thing he realised was ecstasy, that fast beating pace of a heart mixed with what laughter felt like. The fluttering of a butterfly that refused to settle inside him. 

The second was the feeling he felt whenever Yamaguchi laughed or smiled. A quiet smile in response to seeing him happy. 

The third was that stupid, giddy, laughter-filled type of joy. The one that followed after they’d done something dumb and silly. The one that followed after they’d successfully taken the teacher’s lift up because they didn’t feel like climbing up the stairs. When Yamaguchi made recycling paper into paper planes to aim into the recycling bin to try to get in. It took 23 tries. Tsukishima counted. 

The one that followed the small stupid things they sometimes did and never regretted doing. 

At that, Tsukishima smiled.

But he couldn’t seem to shake off the feeling that the feelings from this polaroid were  similar to another one he’d already touched. He started quickly flipping through polaroids he’d already annotated to try to find it, and after a good few second, he located it. That one polaroid he took with Yamaguchi lying down, eyes shut, surrounded by sunflowers way taller than him and looking like there was nowhere else he would rather be. 

He didn’t realise or particularly remember feeling everything the polaroid expressed but magic didn’t lie. Or maybe it did, who knew.

With a finger touching the surface of the polaroid, the emotions came rushing in again. And yeah, it was similar to Yamaguchi’s, but different at the same time. If Tsukishima had to classify it, he’d say they stemmed from the same core but had different branches. His had a certain level of being swept away, immersed and so utterly in- wait, no. No, no, no. 

It wasn’t. No. 

But it checked the boxes, it didn’t feel entirely like what movies and books always labelled it as, but similar enough that Tsukishima couldn’t think of any other way to classify it

Yamaguchi was comfortable. He was laughter and smiles, starlight and galaxies he couldn’t see at night. He was milkshakes and slushies, entire days spent out in the sun. Pretty skies and gushing over things in the window. 

And oh, shit. He liked him. He did. 

Cautiously, he touched the polaroid Yamaguchi took again. 

Nothing changed and the more he thought about it, the more he was sure Yamaguchi liked him too. 

Tsukishima Kei had no idea what was going through his brain when he grabbed the polaroid and some other photos and rushed out his door at 11:05 at night.

He had no idea what he was doing when he was rushing out of the house without a jacket. 

No idea what he was doing as he ran to Yamaguchi’s house. 

And no idea what he was doing when he called Yamaguchi to ask him to let him in, panting outside his door. 

The pieces fit. And it wouldn’t have been completely surprising either. It really wouldn’t.

“Tsukki?” Yamaguchi looked confused in his pajamas, answering the door.

Tsukishima straightened up. 

“What are you doing here? You look terrible. Wait, no, come in first. You’re not even wearing a jacket.”

“I can tell. It is way too cold right now.” Tsukishima walked into the house.

Yamaguchi closed the door behind him. “Why are you here? It’s late and, wait, did you just run all the way here?” 

Volleyball training had more than one benefit. “Yeah.” 

“Why? And is that my polaroid?” 

Tsukishima could basically see the question marks hovering over his head.

“Wait, just shut up for a moment. Wait, no, that wasn’t the right thing to say, was it?” 

“I’m used to it?” 

Tsukishima winced a little. “Right. Right.” 

“Just spit it out. You’re acting weird.” Of course this was how his confession scene had to work. 

His eyes fell to the polaroid he held in his hand. 

He raised it and took a shot. “Just, take this.” Tsukishima pushed the polaroid towards Yamaguchi. He really should’ve planned it better. 

There was only one source of light in the living room, a small lamp on the table with dim yellow light. The photo would undoubtedly turn out dark, but it didn’t matter. 

“It’s too dark to see it.”

“The feelings part?” 

“Oh?” 

“Huh. Why are you so nervous though?” 

Tsukishima didn’t quite trust himself to answer. He took the sunflower polaroid from his pocket and handed it over as well. 

Yamaguchi accepted it and the next few moments could not have passed by any slower as he waited for some sort of reaction, any reaction and Tsukishima was eternally grateful for the general darkness shrouding them. 

“I— Tsukki?” 

So he got it. 

“I like you. I came here to say I like you.” 

Yamaguchi let out a laugh. 

“What?” Tsukishima scowled, looking at him.

“Shut up, Tsukki.” And he crashed his lips onto his. 

They were soft and sweet from the lip balm Yamaguchi always used before sleeping. But, well, this was nice. 

“You know, I honestly didn’t expect you to confess at all, but this wasn’t how I expected you would do it.” He had that teasing smile on, behind the guise of a perfectly innocent smile and Tsukishima knew exactly what he was thinking.

“Shut up, Yamaguchi. It worked, didn’t it?” Not very elegantly, but it did the job.

“It was… creative.” 

“Shut up, Yamaguchi.” 

“You still like me.” 

Tsukishima gave up. “Yes. Yes, I do.” 

Tsukishima still wasn’t sure if his guesses behind why he kept the camera was right, and he didn’t ask either. It didn’t matter. But, for what it was worth, he did end up agreeing with Yamaguchi. 

It wasn’t just sentimentality. Not because it didn’t relate to the concept but because it didn’t cover it. The word ‘sentimental’ was too broad to accurately mean anything. It was more complex than just sentimentality and Tsukishima didn’t think it was something that could be explained with words either.

But, even so, his original statement still stood. Just with a minor addition. 

Humans are sentimental, and Tsukishima Kei was human too.