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There was no reason in the world for him to accept a 12-6 a.m. shift at the library, but here he is.
He’s only three weeks into the term. He shares his shift with his best friend. He likes being in the library, and the pocket money he earns is much appreciated, but Tadashi is starting to doubt if he really needed to take the 12-6 a.m. shift for another term.
Poor campus folks who have one reason or another to pull library all-nighters are spread all over their desks, chairs, dusty library sofas (swarming with germs, probably); there is not a single person in sight without reading glasses on, but no pages are actually being turned. Four in the morning is a bad, bad hour of the day to be studying.
Kei is Mariana Trench deep in his copy of War and Peace. One of the wonders of the world that he doesn’t drop like a log right where he is, lulled by the whirr of central heating and the occasional yawn from one of the residents. Tadashi is three, two, one second away from the sweet release of sleep when a figure sharpens into clarity in front of his nearsighted eyes, and whispers, “Excuse me, where’s the restroom?”
Tadashi points to his left in a silent yawn. The stranger thanks him and walks off in the direction he pointed at, where, it occurs to Tadashi a full minute later, the audiovisual rooms are, not the restroom.
He finds the confused stranger peering down the stairs by the audiovisual rooms. “I’m sorry, I was a bit sleepy,” he whispers, quiet laugh embarrassed. “The restrooms are down the stairs, to the left. I might as well show you; better splash some water on my face.”
Tadashi notices the stranger’s eyes even with his own open only a quarter of the way. They’re a dark blue, easy to confuse with pitch black, and wrinkle in a really, really lovely way when he turns them on Tadashi in gratitude.
The last time he felt this nervous, he was pinch serving for the first time in an official game. He makes small talk to distract himself out of doing something stupid like gawk at the stranger’s gorgeous face.
“Deadlines, huh?” he starts, very originally. “It’s that time already. Three weeks is really long in college space-time.”
The stranger coughs before speaking. “Ah, actually, the deadline is Monday, but I have a game on the on the weekend, so…”
“Oh, what do you play?”
“Volleyball.”
“Volleyball?” Tadashi can’t help gawking this time. “Where did you go to high school?”
The stranger gives a name he vaguely remembers. Now that Tadashi’s forgotten his embarrassment enough for an actual look at the stranger’s face, he recognises him.
He’s that setter from the Nationals.
“You’re that setter from the Nationals, right? The runner-up team two years ago? I used to play at high school, too, but we never held out until the finals or anything like that.”
The stranger curls his fingers where his hand rests against his thigh, up and down in a scratching motion. His ears are getting pink. Huh, cute.
“Yeah… I’m Kageyama Tobio.”
Kageyama Tobio extends his hand, at which point Tadashi realises they’ve been standing in front of the restroom the whole time.
He learns that Kageyama Tobio can make him forget about his surroundings, completely and all at once, for the first time that morning.
“Yamaguchi Tadashi.” Shaking Kageyama’s hand, Tadashi feels the familiar thrill of skin-to-skin contact with a crush. There’s no single occurrence of it ending well in his past, but it settles in his stomach like it owns the place, nonetheless. It’s welcome, it’s unwelcome, his stomach is in turmoil, and he’s sure it’s going to end badly this time, too. One more time, and he won’t have the face to coax Kei into being his shoulder to cry on.
When he remarks about his previous discovery to Kageyama, the other gets even more pink, almost crashing into the restroom door in his haste to get inside. Tadashi follows with a laugh, freer this time, this far away from the dozing students.
Washing their hands side by side, Kageyama tells him, “Your voice is very soothing… Normally, I’d get defensive if somebody laughed at me like that, but I didn’t, with you.”
The second thing Tadashi learns about Kageyama Tobio is that he’s honest to the very end, in every sense of the word. He isn’t like anybody Tadashi’s ever known; Tadashi’s not sure how he’ll come out of the other side of this conversation without fainting.
Oblivious to his struggle, and unoffended by his lack of a meaningful reaction, Kageyama continues. “Isn’t it difficult, working the graveyard shift?”
“Let me tell you, it is,” Tadashi sighs, more than willing to let the earlier remark go. “I’m questioning my decision to accept it, but at the same time, this is the least busy period of the library, so it’s not all that bad. It’s easier to form spiritual bonds with the other dwellers of the library at night, too…”
This is literally me flirting, he heartily, spiritually facepalms. Kageyama nods in understanding, the pure soul, but not really understanding, because that’s quite the awful flirting on Tadashi’s part.
One can only stand idly in a restroom for so long before it gets awkward. Tadashi doesn’t want it to get awkward. He leads them out of the bathroom. “I’d better get back to my post, but do drop by again, okay, Kageyama? It was nice talking to you.”
Those are his last coherent words of the night-turning-morning, because Kageyama smiles.
Oh, boy, Tadashi’s a fool, this far gone fifteen minutes into meeting someone.
Kei offers the slightest of questioning looks when he returns before going back to his book. Tadashi kind of wants Kei to talk to him to keep him occupied, not the least bit sleepy now that the butterflies are laying waste in his stomach. Just, he wants it more to simmer in the sweet elixir of his newfound feelings, gradual and unnoticeable before he realises too late that he’s burning.
Tadashi arrives at his shift next week even more exhausted than before. However much planning he does, however strictly he adheres to a schedule, college manages to be unmanageable, has him sacrificing sleep to keep his plate balanced, every single semester.
He settles down next to Kei-and-his-book-and-headphones at the circulation desk. Sometimes he wishes his friend didn’t put up as insensitive an appearance as he does; it’s very difficult to believe he doesn’t not care about Tadashi when he’s like this.
Wistful looks don’t do anything to crack Kei’s exterior, meaning he has to find his own enjoyment at working hours. Usually, he takes to the shelves and loses himself in the book arrangements. Sometimes a student catches him with the odd request for book recommendations at a very odd hour to be searching book recommendations at. He redirects them to his Goodreads account.
Saturday a.m. library folks change every week, but some three, four people with whom he’s now on speaking terms are fixtures. All of them are English literature majors on weekend shifts at their jobs. All of them are perpetually tired, and offer him coffee, sweet little angels. There’s a blonde girl, very cute, he used to have a crush on in his first year before he saw her with an unmistakeable girlfriend. She made him disproportionately upset over not drinking coffee, because that was the only chance of making conversation back then. Striking up a conversation about English literature at 3 in the morning would be heartless.
He hears a shuffling. Lifting his head to check, he’s hit by a wave of vaguely uncomfortable stomach movements when he sees Kageyama.
“Hello,” Kageyama whispers, eager eyes like a kid promised a visit to the park, before he turns to cut a look at Kei who, to Tadashi’s surprise, is staring at Kageyama.
“King,” he says in his indoor voice, but not library voice. Kageyama scowls.
“I don’t remember meeting you,” he spits, even though Kei has his headphones on, and Tadashi’s pleased to hear that he remembered to bring out his library voice.
Kei returns to his book, but not before shooting Kageyama a wry smile. Great how he has the memory of an elephant and he uses it to recall silly high school indignations. And he doesn’t have music on. He probably also saw the way Tadashi twitched when he noticed Kageyama.
“How are you?” Kageyama directs a faint smile at Tadashi. Tadashi prays for coherency.
“I can’t feel my eyes, but other than that, fine. How are you, Kageyama-san?”
“Oh no, please drop the -san.” Kageyama waves a hand. “My eyes also sting a bit.” His hand curls against his thigh like before.
Not one to enable Tadashi to get mesmerised by his nervous habits, Kageyama takes out two thermos flasks. “Do you prefer coffee or green tea?”
“Green tea,” Tadashi replies without thinking.
Kageyama places two paper cups on the circulation desk and fills them from the grey flask.
“What does your friend drink?”
Tadashi’s a second too late to shut his gaping mouth before managing a “Coffee.” A paper cup of coffee, a small carton of milk and a package of sugar materialise on the desk in front of Kei. Kei raises a perfect eyebrow at Kageyama.
Tadashi takes his cup with a muttered “Thank you,” his shock dissipating into an inconvenient boom of butterflies in his stomach, because what Kageyama just did was the single most attractive thing he’s ever seen. What’s more, judging from the fact that he filled himself green tea, he probably didn’t bring the coffee for himself, and can Tadashi afford to get his hopes up like that?
Kageyama looks like he wants to stay, but Tadashi’s delayed reactions are not helping his case, so before he can find a reason to give Kageyama to stay, he scuffs away, upstairs where the studying area is.
Kei speaks up beside him, startling Tadashi three centimetres off his chair. “What was that?”
Tadashi doesn’t have an answer other than hope in his stomach fermenting at an uncontrollable pace. He just shakes his head.
He can go upstairs, excuse at the ready that he needs to stretch out his legs, wants a refill, go for a casual conversation with Kageyama. But he’s on the clock, and didn’t he learn last night that Kageyama makes him forget about his surroundings?
If he could at least learn his major; but Kageyama doesn’t check out books.
He drills his fists into his eyes. This is not going to work out; he knows that he will be able to think of nothing but Kageyama for the following days. He has classes, assignments, an intricate landscape model he needs to complete.
On top of being desperate and smitten, Yamaguchi Tadashi is a weak man, so up he is on his feet, up he climbs for a refill. Down he is again, from halfway up the stairs, because he forgot to take his cup.
He finds Kageyama poring over his notes. ELT 111, the coursepack on his desk reads.
English literature, huh. Tadashi sure does have a thing for literature majors.
Kageyama lifts his head to the sound of approaching footsteps. Tadashi tips his cup towards him in greeting.
“Hey,” he starts, his voice every centimetre the smitten he feels. He promptly shuts up. Clearing his throat, he restarts, “Care to give me a refill?”
“It’s not free,” Kageyama answers, and Tadashi can read nothing but mirth in his eyes, but damn, the coarseness to his whisper sends Tadashi’s mind down the gutter.
“Can I buy you with professor reviews?” Tadashi sits down opposite of Kageyama. For a person whose internal organs are presently engaging in a gymnastics competition, he can boast only the slightest of trembles in his voice.
Tadashi has enough friends in English literature, notably Kei, that he has substance to back up his words. Kageyama asks a question here, requests a comparison there, before he asks Tadashi what his major is.
“I’m in geography, but I have friends in English literature. I’m also a second year, and have my ear to the ground from working at the library.”
Kageyama hums his understanding. “I’m a first year because I didn’t apply for a university at first, after I got an offer to play professionally on a team,” he offers. “But then I started to think about what I would do after retiring from sports. I’m fairly interested in books and the English language, so why not.”
You’re fairly interested in books, and you bring me green tea. Kageyama, marry me, Tadashi thinks. “Cute,” he says.
“Cute,” he says.
“Cute,” he says?
“Cute,” he didn’t say. Oh, oh, oh dear, his face is on flames, he literally feels smoke emanating from his head; Kageyama is bewildered, the dark blue sluicing into a sapphire sparkle, and Tadashi just called him cute.
“Thanks,” Kageyama breathes. Eyes darting right and left, he finds Tadashi’s cup of tea going cold, onto which he latches, just as embarrassed as Tadashi. “Let me fill you a new cup,” his whisper hitches into a shriek at the last note; filling another cup in a hurry, he’s an accomplice of Tadashi in ending this conversation right this now.
“I’d better get back to work,” Tadashi says, airy with a hand up at his ear, tucking behind a strand. “See you around soon, Kageyama?”
“Yeah,” Kageyama mutters into himself. He pushes the flask of green tea at Tadashi. “Take it. You might need it.”
Taking this to mean that Kageyama’s creating an excuse to speak to him again, Tadashi takes it.
Kei actually takes off his headphones to ask him what he was doing with Kageyama. Tadashi’s probably blanched face proves to be enough of an answer, because Kei shakes in silent cackles for the rest of the night whenever he catches sight of Tadashi. After they finish their shift, parting ways at the dorm hallway, his farewell is “Stay strong.”
He keeps shaking the rest of the way to his room, Tadashi glaring daggers.
His eyes are on a hopeless quest to find Kageyama’s trail at campus, but he doesn’t see him until his next shift.
Kageyama’s brought chamomile tea and lavender tea this time in his seemingly unending supply of thermos flasks. Tadashi’s practically forced to file for marriage.
“Lavender and chamomile,” he chirps, voice birdsong in Tadashi’s ears, “for better sleep and healthier skin.”
“I shouldn’t be sleeping now, but I won’t say no.”
It’s becoming a routine, small talk inevitably cut short by Tadashi’s duties. Kageyama dropped the -san at his request; they’re extraordinarily well-acquainted for people who met two weeks ago, but Tadashi can’t read the atmosphere. He has a crush, for sure, and Kageyama seems to be reciprocating some kind of feeling at least, but he’s been burned many times before. He may not have it in him to take that step once more. Even though Kageyama’s done more for him already, gone the extra mile no one’s ever gone for him before, he’s thinking, what if he’s just looking for a friend?
“I’m not used to having so many different groups I take classes with, and something to talk about with all of them,” he said earlier. “At high school, I wasn’t really on speaking terms with most of my classmates.”
Kageyama is becoming less of a mystery the more he opens up to him, but also more of an enigma as Tadashi’s feelings get more complicated, admiration for Kageyama on different fronts adding layers to his feelings. Kageyama is quiet, but joyful in his laugh, subdued, but animated in their talks, wide-eyed, but confident in the one thing he’s dedicated his life to. As soon as Tadashi finds a parallel to trace between them, in their shyness and quietism and acquiescence, he lands on another essential difference between them, in the ways they adopt or reject, hide or project, the dualities in them.
He’s staring into the distance, four fifths removed from the mortal plane, when it’s once more time for Kageyama to leave. He waves at Tadashi before leaving the building at around five thirty. Kei is sleeping; lavender tea got to him. Tadashi stands by the glass door, watching Kageyama blur out of visibility into the twilight.
Seven hours later, he will come back here to study. One hundred sixty-three hours before he sees Kageyama again, probably.
When Kei wakes up and finds Tadashi lost in a trance, cheek smushed against his forearm on the desk, he doesn’t mention it, but Tadashi knows there’s the kind of understanding and acceptance in it only his best friend can give. They leave the library, a place becoming a far more complicated setting for his life’s mundane happenings than it has any right to be, much too fast for an inexperienced child-turned-adult like him to keep up with.
Six forty-five, nestled in his bed, despite the heavy thoughts he fell asleep to, Tadashi dreams of daisy fields and warm, big hands enveloping his.
Dreamland lets up in the afternoon and Tadashi’s horrified to realise he woke up smiling, something that’s never happened before. He traces the quirk of his lips in the mirror. Hair in knots, pyjama t-shirt stretched out on one side and creased up on the other, and he’s shining.
He’s enamoured. There’s a boy with nervous fingers curling whenever Tadashi smiles at him, bringing him tea for an easier time at his shift, specifically the most soothing kinds. There’s a boy he talks to, and everything should be going swimmingly, but Tadashi’s past is full of ghosts; can ghosts swim?
The fall leaves paint the campus in pumpkin spice orange and caramel glaze brown. The weather is the perfect overcast for his melancholy. He thinks about his future, the possibility of a lifetime of trying and failing, being alone. He wonders if it’s worth trying, when he’s already twenty and nobody’s loved him before. He asks himself, accusatory, if Kageyama’s not worth shooting for.
His raises his head at the turn of the road, and there Kageyama is, framed in drying branches. The students between them make it difficult to see, but he’s carrying a gym bag, dragging his feet towards the first years’ dorm with closed eyes, possibly back from training with his team.
Did he go to practice after spending the night awake at the library?
Tadashi’s sensing something here, something that scares him because he can’t tell if it’s wishful thinking. He’s a self-discouraging realist, but crushes make everyone a wishful thinker to some degree.
He can’t go up and ask Kageyama, to not keep him from much needed rest if nothing else. Forget that, and he doesn’t even know how to ask, what to ask. If Kageyama likes him? If he cherishes Tadashi the way Tadashi cherishes him?
If he’s just happy to have found a friend, and Tadashi’s sullying it with his whims?
Now he has to wait an entire week before having his answer.
The buzzing of the nerves in him gain power instead of losing their ferocity as days pass by. Saturday midnight, at his post once again, Tadashi’s so twitchy that Kei takes off his headphones to give him advice.
“Look, the King clearly likes you, Tadashi,” he drawls, “and he’s probably going to ask you out one way or another even if you don’t, so you don’t have anything to worry about.”
Not as encouraging as Kei probably meant it, and not believable by his standards of someone having romantic feelings for him, but Tadashi smiles, nonetheless. Those standards are probably lying, anyway.
Kageyama turns up half past, dishevelled and carrying half the contents of his bag in his arms. The plan Tadashi’s been formulating hatches and withers into a premature death as soon as he sees him. This is the tardiest Kageyama’s been since the beginning of their library hangouts and he seems to be aware, desperate not to lose any more minutes. He wants to be with Tadashi, he will be receptive. All good, but is Tadashi brave enough?
Kageyama nods at him in greeting, then motions upstairs with his nose to signal that he’ll be down after he settles down at a desk. Now or never, Tadashi knows; Kei pinches his arm, throws out a hand in Kageyama’s direction, message clear; Tadashi gets up, catching up to Kageyama by the stairs.
“Let me help,” he says. In the lack of a formal greeting, the low volume deepening his voice, Kageyama looks dazzled, lost.
Ahh. Ah. He has to survive a lot if he wants to catch Kageyama at the end of the road.
Kageyama’s “Thanks,” is almost inaudible. Climbing the stairs together, Tadashi notices that Kageyama is taller than him with longer legs, not by much but enough for his heart to flutter. It’s hard to tell with Kageyama’s habit of hunching, shutting down into himself, but for eyes that know what they’re looking for, it’s clear.
When they ease Kageyama’s load onto a desk, Kageyama pipes in with a request, “I’m looking for Wuthering Heights, can you help me find it?” And Tadashi owes it to Kageyama to be confident, be brave, to read the book neatly placed wide open in front of him, because Kageyama could have easily looked up where the shelf he’s looking for is located, had he checked the library’s website.
“Of course,” he replies, and it carries a promise soon to be fulfilled.
They use one of the computers assigned for the purpose to scan the library catalogue and locate Wuthering Heights. They’re talking about the book, Tadashi relaying his reading experience of it, but their words are vivaciously patterned shells to camouflage something hazy and unknown within, the air heavy with anticipation, Kageyama’s hand right next to his shoulder where he’s peering down from behind Tadashi’s chair, the upfront offer of help from before a spark between them.
Wuthering Heights is on the window end of its shelf. Spying a still conscious student at the end of the aisle, Tadashi makes the abrupt decision of skipping the aisle for a darker one, into the safety of a sleeping audience. Kageyama falters behind him, but follows Tadashi’s confidents steps.
Tadashi turns to face Kageyama once they’re hidden between shelves.
“I saw you returning from practice last Saturday. You sacrificing sleep to come see me on my shift is really cute.”
Kageyama’s lips are parted when he raises his head to lock eyes with Tadashi. Tadashi’s throat is sandpaper, hands clamming up and collecting cold breeze in his palms.
“Now, I’m an avid reader, but literary texts have different interpretations.” His voice wavers in its whisper. Kageyama comes a step closer.
“Are we on the same page for this particular one, Kageyama?”
Kageyama is coming closer second by second. He holds his ground. If his is a misunderstanding, it’s over. If he’s overwhelmed Kageyama with his eagerness to read romance in his actions, it’s over. If he can’t stand by his decision, even when he’s so close to the climax, it’s over…
A hand is on his, and Kageyama’s murmur registers a second later than the movement of his lips. “Yamaguchi…”
Kageyama’s hand curls around Tadashi’s in that familiar nervous habit. “I… I’m on a page that says, I’m giddy, and the butterflies are at their worst when this boy looks at me, and…” the lovely pink of his cheeks is shadowed in the semi-blocked fluorescent light. Tadashi squeezes the fingers in his in encouragement.
Kageyama continues. “I wasn’t sure if he felt the same until tonight, but… you decide, are we on the same page..?”
Tadashi nods, and tilts his head up, eyelids heavy. Chasing warmth, he finds Kageyama’s waist. Kageyama’s other hand is on his cheek, breath tickling his lips as he leans in, eyes flickering close, their eyelashes mingling as Kageyama’s tongue flicks out to wet Tadashi’s lips before the distance is closed.
The ground is abandoning post right underneath his feet; Tadashi’s gripping the closest shelf as his head grazes another. Before he can so much as lose balance, though, Kageyama’s hands are around him to catch his fall, and it’s so much like drowning, how he surrendered breath to Kageyama’s lips and sense of gravity to his arms. So easy to blank out the landmarks keeping him connected to the world, to melt in Kageyama’s embrace.
They don’t stay kissing for long before Kageyama pulls back, steadying Tadashi as he does, eyes clouded over in their unseeing gaze into Tadashi’s. There’s oceans’ worth of emotion in them to discover, to steep in and lose track of time, erase the ghosts from his past and replace the melancholy with elation.
It’s long before he focuses into coherency again, but Kageyama’s not judging. Gushing out of his earnest eyes are adoration, love for Tadashi to bathe in till eternity if he so wants to, it seems. It’s invigorating.
“Meet me by the copy shop, tomorrow at noon, after a good night’s sleep?”
Kageyama’s eyes are lost to the lovely wrinkles, for the second time since they met, and it’s so easy to feel stupid for his doubts, with how easy it is to trace ardour in the tilting of Kageyama's head to the right as he gazes at Tadashi.
It’s a date.