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Tsukishima took a deep breath as he stared down at the piece of paper in his hands. Written on this piece of paper was quite possibly one of the most ridiculous, idiotic, unattainable, pathetic New Year’s resolution lists ever written. Well, probably not, actually; these would all be fairly reasonable resolutions for the average person, but he was still allowed to think that. He did write it, after all. Probably. In all honesty, he barely even remembered writing it, but now, as he read each item on the list, it was coming back to him. New Year’s Eve last year, in Sugawara’s basement, the night where he had drank just a little too much champagne in an attempt to get through a terrible party. That was when he had written this. A few minutes till midnight, the captain had passed around pens and pieces of paper to everyone, explaining that it was a tradition for all the team members to make a New Year’s resolution list of all the things they would try to accomplish or improve on for the New Year.Tsukishima hadn’t wanted to write anything. He thought that New Year’s resolutions lists were stupid, because it wasn’t as if anyone actually did any of the things that they wrote on their lists. Writing down resolutions was simply a way for people to pretend that they’re going to do better in the New Year, when in fact they won’t, and they probably never will. But Sugawara had urged him to try and think of a few things, and his only alternative activity at the time had been to listen to the king and his idiot sing karaoke, which they both sucked at. So reluctantly, Tsukishima had grabbed himself another glass of champagne and found a nice, quiet, or quieter, corner of the room to start making his list. It had taken him awhile to complete his list. In fact, it had taken him almost an hour to complete his list. He still wasn’t sure why he had spent so much time on it, because he really didn’t care about the list. Perhaps it was because working on the list was a good excuse to ignore everyone else? Yes, this was probably it, he decided. It was because he didn’t want to talk to anyone anymore, and definitely not because he was thinking deeply about all the things he needed to fix about himself. He was a perfect student, a valuable member of the volleyball team, and a good son, who always did his share of chores at home, and even did the cooking on the weekends. What did he need to fix? However, despite his self-assuredness, Tsukishima had still managed to come up with five resolutions for 2014, which he had written down on his piece of paper, then crumpled up and shoved into his pocket. Sometime the next day, the list had been emptied out of his jeans pocket and dumped into a desk drawer, where it was soon forgotten… Until now. It should have stayed forgotten, Tsukishima thought to himself, as he continued to stare at the list, confirming what he had already suspected. He hadn’t done anything on this list. He had only set five goals for this year, and he hadn’t accomplished a single one. 1. Run every day four three times a week to increase stamina during matches He definitely couldn’t cross this off his list. In his defense, he had tried to get in the habit of running a few times a week last year, but since his only consistent free time was before early morning practice, every day was a choice between running and sleeping. And every day, sleep always won out. Really, he shouldn’t have expected anything different; Tsukishima was not a morning person. He never wanted to greet the day any earlier than he had to, so while getting up before the sun to go jogging to increase stamina was a nice idea in theory, it was never going to happen. Offer to help tutor the idiots probably should stop calling them that with English, Japanese, and Math. Left unchecked, they’ll fail all three and we need them on the team
Not a chance in hell was he going to try and do that. Ever. He had to seriously wonder how drunk he was when he came up with that resolution. Because, while he actually considered himself to be a good tutor, those two were hopeless when it came to academics, and Tsukishima just didn’t have the patience to deal with their level of stupidity. Thankfully for the team though, Yachi did. Talk to Akiteru more often
Well, this one had actually happened, now that he thought about it. Tsukishima did in fact talk to his older brother more often this year than in the past, but it wasn’t as though he could take much credit for it. He had called Akiteru one time- ONE TIME- and somehow his brother had taken that as an invitation to start calling him once a week, every week. Normally, he could get away with just listening, and occasionally adding in a few words of acknowledgement, but sometimes, Akiteru would pry and ask him questions about what was going on in his life. Those phone calls proved to be the most exhausting, because Akiteru always managed to pull something out of him if he really tried, whether it was about school, or volleyball, or music. Sometimes, there wasn’t much to talk about at all, and they would both hang up quickly, but Tsukishima did answer nearly every single one of his brother’s calls. He supposed that was worth something. Be nicer to my teammates. Especially Yamaguchi. He’s my only real friend
This one, he decided, could be considered another partially fulfilled resolution. Technically. He had been nicer to Yamaguchi. A lot nicer, actually. During their first year of high school, Tsukishima had finally realized just how much Yamaguchi really meant to him. He had always cared about him, of course- they were best friends, but it wasn’t until after the team’s first big loss to Aoba Josai that he had come to truly appreciate his friendship with the freckled boy. Because after that loss, Yamaguchi had begun to work hard at improving his serves, staying late after regular practice was over, and training on the weekends with one of the coach’s friends, who specialized in the jump float serve. For a while, they barely saw each other, and Tsukishima realized that without Yamaguchi there to talk to, he was actually very lonely. Of course, he never came right out and told him that; instead, he began to stay late after practice too, helping him work on his serve, and then inviting him over for dinner afterwards, or treating him to fries and a milkshake. At first, Yamaguchi had been surprised at his sudden thoughtfulness, but over time, this became the norm, until he felt he had mastered the serve, and their friendship was right back on track, if not a little stronger than before. And sure, watching the jump float serve for an hour or more, when all he wanted to do was go home and relax, was hard. Lifting Yamaguchi’s morale when he had had a particularly bad practice was harder. Tsukishima had never been great with comforting others and making them feel better. He still wasn’t sure if he was any good at it now. But for Yamaguchi, he tried, because Yamaguchi was worth it. He was worth everything.As for the rest of the team though? There was definitely room for improvement. Maybe he would try and be nicer to his senpai this year, or at least try and act like he respected them. Being nice to the whole team though; he needed to be realistic- that was never going to happen. Not as long as the two other idiots in his year were on the team.Tsukishima would have liked to tell himself that this was where the list ended, then crumple it up, throw it away, and forget it ever happened, but the last item on the list demanded attention. It was the one resolution he had attempted, and failed at, so many times, he’d lost count. And now, this failure was staring him right in the face.
Kiss Yamaguchi Tadashi KISS YAMAGUCHI TADASHI.
It was written once, crossed out, then written again in all caps, at the bottom of the paper, as if that would help get the message engraved in his brain. As if it wasn’t already engraved in his brain. Fuck. Out of all the resolutions he’d made, this was the only one he’d actively thought about, hundreds of times this year. He’d even attempted to do it a couple of times when they were alone, only to chicken out at the last second, offering up a pathetic excuse as to why he’d been so close to Yamaguchi’s face.He didn’t know when these feelings, this desire to be more than friends, had started exactly- some time in middle school, most likely. But if he did have to pick a moment, he knew which one it would be. It was during their first year of middle school. Yamaguchi was still having problems with bullies, and despite his constant reassurances that he would be fine, when the bruises got worse, Tsukishima knew he couldn’t let this keep happening.It was purely by accident that he’d found where the bullies had dragged Yamaguchi off to that day; it was outside, behind the gym. Upon seeing Yamaguchi huddled against the wall, trying to protect his face, Tsukishima just lost it. He remembered that he had charged into the group slamming all of his bodyweight into one of the larger boys and knocking him over. Tsukishima was tall and fairly strong for his age; he always had been, so if it had just been one bully, he might have won. However, he was no match for four of them. All of them quickly forgot about the brunette, and turned their attention to him. With hands and feet coming at him from every which way, he didn’t stand a chance. At first, he had tried to fight back, to at least push his way out of the circle that had formed around him, but then one of the bullies hit his face and knocked his glasses onto the ground. Once he heard the cracking of glass, he knew he was in trouble. From then on, it had been a blurry haze of punches and kicks, while he slowly curled in on himself, determined not to come home with two black eyes that day. He wasn’t sure how long the beating would have gone on for if the bullies had gone unnoticed. Thankfully though, he never had to find out, because one of the boys saw a teacher coming their way, and they all ran off. Apparently, that was where Yamaguchi had run off to, to get an adult who could actually help. Really, this was what Tsukishima should have done in the first place, but he hadn’t been thinking. The teacher, whose face he couldn’t quite make out, helped him to his feet, handed him his broken glasses, which were useless now, looked him over, and quickly decided he needed to go to the nurse’s office. The teacher put Yamaguchi in charge of escorting him there, explaining that he would deal with the bullies, and with that, he left them alone.“Tsukki, are you alright?” Yamaguchi had asked him. “Can you see?”“Not really,” he had answered, holding up what used to be his glasses. “Right- sorry! Here, let me help…” He slipped his hand into Tsukishima’s, and laced their fingers together. Then he pulled them along, slowly, which Tsukishima was thankful for, as he felt too dizzy and breathless to go any faster. His left eye was swelling shut; he could feel it; and his other eye could only see a rush of fuzzy, colorful blobs, so he closed both of them and let Yamaguchi be his sight. “Hey Tsukki?” came the brunette’s voice after a couple of minutes.“Yeah?” “Umm… Thank you…” “…Idiot. You shouldn’t be thanking me; I couldn’t do anything against those jerks.”“Yeah, but you tried. And because you tried, I was able to get away, and get help. I doubt those guys will be bothering me ever again. And you took a beating for me, Tsukki… That was pretty cool.” And then it happened. Tsukishima couldn’t see it, but he felt it; Yamaguchi’s warm, soft lips pressed against his cheek. They were only there for a second, and then they were gone, but the warmth stayed with him long after that. He remembered that Yamaguchi had gotten really flustered after that, stuttering out an apology, and then dragging him much faster the rest of the way to the nurse’s office. They never talked about that day again; both of them were too embarrassed to bring it up. But ever since then, Tsukishima had always wondered what would have happened if he had kissed him back, on the cheek, or on the lips… Four years later, he was still wondering, and not any closer to finding out the answer. A knock at the door snapped Tsukishima out of his thoughts, and he hurriedly threw on his coat and scarf. As an afterthought, he ended up shoving the list into one of his pockets. Maybe that way, instead of having to make a whole new list, he could just recycle the old one. Sure, the paper was crumpled and worn looking, but he doubted that anyone would be sober enough to notice by midnight. It was Tanaka who was hosting the party this year, after all. Another knock at the door, followed by the doorbell. “Yeah, yeah, I’m coming,” he mumbled to no one in particular, as he descended the stairs. He opened the door to find an apologetic brunette waiting on the front porch. He smirked and rolled his eyes. “Took you long enough, Yamaguchi.”“Sorry, Tsukki. I realized I didn’t have anything clean to wear to the party, so I had to do a little last minute laundry.” “A little? You’re… an hour late.” Though in truth, he hadn’t actually noticed that until he checked his phone just now. “What- did you do all the laundry in your house?”“Well, not all of it; just… most of it. Sorry Tsukki.” “It’s fine. Let’s go.” “Ok!”Tsukishima locked the front door behind him, since no one would be home until late, and then the two of them headed off for the New Year’s party. They walked in silence for only about a minute before, surprisingly, Tsukishima was the first to break it. “You look nice,” he said. And he meant it. Yamaguchi was wearing the wool cardigan he’d bought him for Christmas, along with a button-down shirt underneath, and tailored black pants. His hair, which usually stuck up everywhere, was carefully smoothed down. It still stuck up in a few places, but the effort was apparent. At this compliment, Yamaguchi’s whole face lit up. “Really? Thanks, Tsukki! You look nice too! But then again, you always look nice… I mean… aha… uh… so… anyway, what do you think the party’s gonna be like this year? Other than terrible, cause I know that’s what you were going to say. Think it’ll be as crazy as last year?”“I’d say crazier. It is Tanaka who’s hosting the party, after all. If the cops get called tonight, I wouldn’t be surprised.”Yamaguchi chuckled. “Yeah, good point. I’m sure Sugawara and the others will be shocked and appalled if they show up tonight.”“You think they will?”“Well, Suga and Daichi are in town, since they’re on break.so I think they might stop by. And we already know that Asahi’s going to be there. Nishinoya would never let him get away with not showing up! I wonder what he and Tanaka have planned for tonight… Hopefully they don’t make us play truth or dare again, because let me tell you, it’s not an innocent game when Tanaka and Nishinoya are involved… Or Spin the bottle; that was awkward. It’ll be even more awkward now that most everybody is taken… with each other… Though I’m not sure about any of the first years yet. I wonder if any of them are dating yet… I mean, not necessarily dating each other, but just dating in general, you know? I know we weren’t! We still aren’t, actually… I wonder if there’ll be any hookups tonight… I mean, not for me; for other people! Not that I would mind, if it did happen to me, but…” Yamaguchi’s words began to fade away after that, or at least, he couldn’t hear them anymore. The words We still aren’t kept playing over and over in his head, and he couldn’t focus on anything else. He reached into his pocket and curled his fist around the crumpled up piece of paper inside. Then, having no idea if this related to what Yamaguchi was saying at the moment, he said,“I wonder if we’ll end up doing those stupid resolutions lists again like last year.” Yamaguchi paused for a moment, then he laughed. “Oh yeah; I remember that! A Karasuno tradition, apparently, so I bet we probably will… To be honest though, I’m surprised you remember that at all, Tsukki; you were pretty far gone by that point, and you only got worse.”“Far gone?”“Yeah, far gone. Drunk. Really drunk. You took a whole bottle of champagne into the bathroom, and you wouldn’t come out! Finally, Sugawara got worried, so he volunteered to go check on you, and apparently, you were sitting in the bathtub, writing your list, and singing quietly to yourself. You had just about finished off the bottle, and, well… we’re not sure why, but… you took off your pants.”“I did what?” This wasn’t happening. He thought he’d only had a few glasses that night. “Umm, if it makes you feel any better… you kept your boxers on.”“Why didn’t you ever tell me this? Who else knows about this?! I swear, if it’s the whole team, I’m going to…”“Just me, and Suga; I swear!”“Really?” “Tsukki; do you really think that if Hinata had found out, he’d have kept quiet about it? No. He would have never let you live that down!” “You have a point… So you’re serious, then? No one else knows?” “No one; I promise. I… put your pants back on, and Suga got you a belt, so you couldn’t do it again. Then he filled the champagne bottle back up with water and forced you to drink it… So as far as anybody else knows, anybody who was sober enough to notice you’d gone missing, that is, you got drunk and took a nap in the bathtub. And trust me, that is definitely not the weirdest thing that happened that night.” Tsukishima let out short laugh, along with a sigh of relief. “That’s true. Ok… Well, that explains why I don’t remember very much of the party last year… And why I felt like shit the next day; remind me to stay away from the champagne… Unless the idiotic duo starts singing karaoke again- then I’ll take my chances…”It was Yamaguchi’s turn to laugh. “Yeah, they were pretty awful! They may be in synch on the court, but their voices did not go together at all!” “The King’s voice was especially bad,” Tsukishima chimed in. “Further proving that volleyball is his one and only talent. There’s not enough room in his brain for anything else, apparently.”“Yeah… Though he and Hinata were both pretty drunk that night too- almost as drunk as you- so I’m not surprised they were bad… They couldn’t even form coherent sentences when it was time to write the resolutions lists. In fact, they left theirs on the floor for everyone to see. Kageyama drew a picture of a smiling volleyball, and Hinata just used his piece of paper to try and make origami. We think it was supposed to be a dragon. Key word, think. We’re still not sure. Hinata doesn’t even remember what he was trying to do, so I guess we’ll never know…” “Shame… I was dying to know…”“I’m sure you were… Hey, Tsukki?” “Yeah?”“Just between you and me, what did you end up putting on your list? If you remember, that is. I know that’s a big if; I’m just curious…”“I didn’t remember it. But I found it. Earlier today, actually…”“You did?” He chuckled. “So, what did you end up writing on there?”“Well, I can tell you, it was more coherent than a smiling volleyball, or a deformed dragon.” Amazingly.“As expected. So what was on your list then? What does the clever blocker Tsukishima think about when he’s-”“Drunk off his ass?”“I was going to say highly intoxicated, but that works too.” “It’s… you don’t want to know.”“What if I do?”“What if I don’t want you to know?” “Oh, come on, Tsukki; it can’t be that bad… And it’s not like I’m going to tell anyone, no matter how stupid it is..."“Yeah; I know, but…” But you’re on this list, he wanted to say. And I don’t know if I’m ready to let you know that yet. “There’s some pretty weird stuff on there.” “I don’t care. Come on; If you tell me what was on your list, I’ll tell you what was on mine if you want… It wasn’t that interesting though…”“ Fine. If you really want to know that bad… You can read it yourself.” He pulled out the crumpled up list and quickly shoved it into Yamaguchi’s hands before he could change his mind. Yamaguchi raised an eyebrow at this. “You brought it with you?” he asked.“So I could reuse it. That way, I don’t have to try and make a new one. Not like I’ve done anything on the list anyway,” he mumbled. He tensed as Yamaguchi opened up the piece of paper, and steeled himself for what he knew was coming. At first, the brunette giggled. “Wow, Tsukki! You were going to get up early? And tutor Kageyama and Hinata? And call your brother? And be nice to people?”“Don’t remind me.” “Yeah, I see what you mean by weird. You must have been really drunk when you wrote this! Though I am sort of impressed that you managed to write complete… sentences… Oh…” He stopped walking.So, he finally read it. Took you long enough… Yamaguchi bit down on his lower lip, blinking back tears, before forcing out a quiet laugh. “Oh… yeah, you were… definitely pretty far gone when you wrote this, Tsukki… Did you… did you even read all the weird stuff you wrote? Like that last thing?” “Every word,” he choked. “I… I showed it to you because I didn’t know how to tell you that, out of all the resolutions I failed at- there was one I actually wanted to do…”“Only one?” “Only one.”“So… which one is it?”“I’ll give you a hint,” he said, taking a step closer. “I never intended on calling my brother more often.” “You didn’t?”“And I hate everyone on our team…” he moved in closer.“I don’t believe that, but ok…" “And the idiot duo really sucks at math…” Even closer, now. “Yeah, they really do; don’t they?”“I wouldn’t waste my time on them…” Their faces were just inches away at this point. Tsukishima reached down and tilted Yamaguchi’s head up, so that their eyes met. “And one more thing,” he whispered. “I hate the morning.”“Oh god, shut up, Tsukki,” Yamaguchi whispered back, and then he leaned in and closed the distance between their lips. Tsukishima’s eyes widened in surprise; he was just about to do that! But, he supposed it didn’t matter who initiated the kiss; it was happening either way. So slowly, he closed his eyes, and melted into the warmth that was Yamaguchi’s lips. They felt just like he remembered, but better, because they were both older now, and they were ready for this… Yes. It had been a long time coming, and they were ready now, for whatever came next. He knew it.When they finally pulled away, both boys were panting, slightly flushed, but happy. Tsukishima even found himself smiling, and for once, it wasn’t a smirk or a sneer, but a real, genuine smile. He still couldn’t believe that had really just happened, so he said the only thing he could think of. “I was going to do that.” “You took too long.”Tsukishima laughed. “Shut up, Yamaguchi,” he said, but there was no bite to it this time; the smile still hadn’t left his face. “So… you really want to-” “Yes. Yes! God, yes!”“Do you even know what I was going to say?”“Well, yeah; I mean, it was kind of obvious after... all that. And my answer's still yes; I want this." “… You’re sure?”“Tsukki, I don’t think you understand how long I’ve been wanting to do that… I just didn’t think you wanted to…”Tsukishima didn’t answer him this time. He didn’t need to. Instead, he slipped his hand into Yamaguchi’s and laced their fingers together. It didn’t feel exactly like before; their hands were larger, and much less sweaty than last time. However, Yamaguchi’s hold on him tonight was just as strong as it was four years ago. But this time, Tsukishima’s grip was strong too, because he was sure of what he wanted. And now that he had it, he wasn’t ever going to let it go.
Well, that’s one resolution for 2014 that can be crossed off the list, he thought to himself. And since it’s the most important one… One out of five is pretty good.