Problem

[ "Here comes the doubt to shut the sunlight out I feel the brunt,

And I keep the world away to be asleep throughout the day is all I want."

-Overdone by Bombay Bicycle Club ]

"Yamaguchi Tadashi!" The teacher had rolled up the packet in his hand and very quickly bopped Yamaguchi's head with it, succeeding in waking him up. He quickly lifted his head from his desk and immediately began to apologize.

"Ah! I'm sorry sens-"

"Third strike and you're out." The teacher said coldly as he walked away from his desk to resume the lesson.

Watching this same occurrence happen for the third day in a row began to annoy Tsukishima. He knows that Yamaguchi hasn't been sleeping well in the past few weeks for some unknown reason that he hasn't confided in him yet. Perhaps the reason why this ticked him off was because Yamaguchi would brush him off whenever he'd ask him if everything's alright. It was always the same response.

'I'm fine!' or 'Don't worry!'

Tsukishima obviously knew both responses were bullshit, and yet he'd still back down from further prying. He didn't want Yamaguchi to tell him anything he wasn't comfortable in sharing, but he couldn't help not caring and just forgetting that something is really wrong with his best friend. The best he could do right now is to just keep an eye on him. Observing and making valid judgements was his best quality anyway, so he's been utilizing it extensively.

Since there wasn't any volleyball practice after school today, Tsukishima and Yamaguchi walked home on their usual route.

"Too bad there wasn't any practice tonight, huh?" Yamaguchi piped in.

"I guess." Tsukishima replied while turning to look at the Yamaguchi who wasn't next to him, but a foot or two behind him. "Yamaguchi."

He was looking at the pavement with droopy eyes, and the sunlight helped him trace out the dark circles under his eyes, intruding his set of freckles.

"Yes, Tsukki?" Yamaguchi soon realized he was trailing behind and jogged up quickly to meet Tsukishima at his side. This usually wasn't a problem for Yamaguchi since he was able to adjust to Tsukishima's pace a long time ago. It's not that Tsukishima walked fast, but his taking his long legs into account and one could make the statement that he takes big steps sometimes. "Sorry." He grinned a little from the embarrassment.

Tsukishima didn't immediately respond, but instead he began to worry if his friend would make it home. Even now in the privacy of his mind he stole a quick glance at him and saw that he was looking at the ground again. Not only is that worrisome, but a hazard and he could easily walk into an oncoming vehicle. "Yamaguchi."

"Yes?"

"Stop that." He ordered him to pay more attention to his surroundings, otherwise he could really injure himself.

"Stop what?" Yamaguchi grew just as confused as worried too.

"Don't look at the pavement you idiot." Tsukishima stated as he rolled his hand into a loose ball and bopped Yamaguchi's head gently. "Pay attention."

"I'm sorry! I promise I won't do that again!" Yamaguchi apologized as he clapped his hands together, swearing he wouldn't do it again. He hadn't been aware of what he was doing until Tsukishima pointed it out. He was thankful he did, and well, he wasn't completely numb to his surroundings, but not looking at what's ahead of you was kind of stupid.

They parted on different roads like always to get to where they each lived, and Tsukishima was pretty reluctant to keep on walking home by himself. He would rather have had Yamaguchi over now that he thought about it, but the guy looked worn out and besides he would've felt like he was forcing him to stay awake just to be with him.

He pulled out his phone and looked through their text messages briefly. Yamaguchi rarely texted him nowadays. It went from paragraphs of things he would say about whatever to short sentences to finally just one-worded replies. It made their conversations look choppy since he usually only replies in one word too. He admitted to himself that he wasn't the greatest in words, or making conversation for that matter. Yamaguchi knew how to conversate though, so he let him lead most of their conversations. Conversations at school when he's face-to-face with him were also skewed a bit from the normal. Sometimes Yamaguchi would talk and talk about a certain subject and then change subjects rapidly to not talking at all and it was all very inconsistent that even Tsukishima didn't understand what was running through his mind. These sorts of things sometimes gave him a headache that only working on something else would remedy it.

Yamaguchi miraculously arrived home. He was beginning to feel sick from the fatigue and was itching to get to his bedroom. He walked through the front doors, engulfing himself into the silence that enveloped his house.

His mother was gone, working the second the shift at a bread factory, leaving him alone most of the time. She would also grab overtime; avoiding home as much as possible for now was understandable. This was a consistent cycle ever since his father left them a couple weeks ago. At this point, he wasn't sure if he missed him. He thought that things at home would've been better off without him, but he rarely saw his mother now. He thought that he shouldn't be so selfish, but it hit him sometimes that he wished things were like before. That would never be the case though.

Sometimes it would get lonely and boring, with only his video games to quench that same boredom. That scapegoat ended a while ago though, as he eventually grew bored of it . Nowadays he would sleep off his entire afternoons or be with Tsukishima if he insisted in having him over. On the days that he would, Yamaguchi found himself forgetting about the pain that took him prisoner at home. It was an ecstatic feeling, and he wished it happened more often now than ever. However, he couldn't just tell him that. It would sound sort of creepy and he didn't want to cause him trouble just because of something as stupid as this. He supposed that this would suffice for now.

He took in a deep breath and walked upstairs slowly, eventually making it to his bedroom. There wasn't a ray of sunshine that peeked into his room, most likely because he didn't bother to open the blinds in a long while. He found that any sort of light would give him a headache. This was the better alternative. He threw his backpack against his closet door and laid down, face flat, on his bed.

'This isn't so bad.' Yamaguchi's eyes began to weigh down and soon after he was out like a light.

Just before Tsukishima was going to called it quits and go to sleep, he checked his phone and noticed that there wasn't the usual 'goodnight' text that he would always receive from Yamaguchi. He scolded himself at this, because wasn't today just a day of noticing new things out of the ordinary for him?

'Maybe he's asleep.' Tsukishima pondered wishfully. He hoped Yamaguchi had been asleep after seeing today's show he put on at school. He wondered if he should at least send him a text, just to make sure.

To: Tadashi

hey good night 11:46 pm

Tsukishima hit 'Send' and set his phone onto the table stand next to his bed to put to charge. Rolling back into his covers, he hoped that for Yamaguchi's sake that his phone didn't wake him up.

Yamaguchi gradually began to feel something buzzing right under his right arm. Fluttering his eyes from the daze, he slowly propped himself up from the bed and rubbed his eyes harder than he should have. The headache pounding against his skull was more than enough to encourage him to go stop whatever was buzzing. It wasn't hard to realize that it was phone since it lit up his dark room as bright as daylight.

He reached over to grab it and then read the text notification. It read: 'hey good night'. The statement added confusion and wondered why he would send a text message like this so early in the afternoon. But glancing over at the clock, it read something completely different.

"It's almost midnight…" He managed to whisper in utter shock. But wasn't it like this all the time? He would come home from school and sleep and wake up at 8 or even 9 pm at most. This was most definitely the first time something like this happened. What worried him the most was the fact that his mother could be coming home any second and see him with his school clothes on still.

Discarding the phone aside, he quickly got himself up on his two feet and grabbed a fresh set of clothes to sleep in; with a towel he found along the way, he scurried down the hall and into the bathroom to take a quick shower. He stripped himself down and just before entering the bathtub he caught glimpse of his body and how ragged and worn down it looked. Raw patches of bruises and combinations of incisions were planted around both arms, crawling up to the bases of his shoulders. His freckled face was intruded with dark circles under his eyes, his natural tan skin color washed away and replaced with a sick yellow tint. That, he thought, would be from the fact that he hadn't had a bite of food since this morning.

All in all, he was ashamed. He wondered how he'd ended up like this so fast. He knew very well that he needed aid, or to at least let someone know that he isn't exactly alright. From watching all of those speakers at school in the past and how they stressed to tell someone, he was ashamed that he couldn't say anything. Well, it wasn't that he couldn't, but he just didn't know how to. Besides, even if he wanted to tell Tsukishima about this, it would add more stress on his plate. He didn't want him to deal with unwanted problems, and besides, this is something that he could take care of himself. 'Tsukishima can't always be there for me, so this is enough.' He had decided a long time ago that instead of always relying on Tsukishima for things, he could, for once, try doing something for himself.

He ran the warm water and slipped into the tub, letting the temperature of the water burn his body.

In the next morning, Tsukishima was able to get up faster than most days. He wasn't a slug or anything, he just wasn't a morning person in general. He sat on the side of his bed and checked his phone for any messages. There were none. He checked the message he sent to Yamaguchi last night and it hadn't notified him that he read it. This odd occurrence and just an awful feeling looming over him prompted him to send another text.

To: Tadashi

hey 6:46 am

He didn't see any reason to be worried. For all he knew, he could be busy with something and have no time to be on his phone. However, this didn't stop Yamaguchi from texting him before when he should've been doing other things that were much more important.

'Stop overthinking.' He told himself, tossing the phone to the side. If he kept this up then he might end up being late for school.

Tsukishima met up with Yamaguchi at their usual meet up spot to walk to school together. Again, he could from his distance that Yamaguchi was already bobbing his head slightly downwards, as if he were to fall asleep while standing.

"Oi, Yamaguchi!" He called him, causing him to open his eyes widely in a split and look around for him. Rarely did he ever call him out like this, considering they were in public, someone could be watching and thinking about how loud he was being bright and early in the morning. He hadn't thought about that before raising his voice like that; however it did save his friend from the high possibility of hitting the pavement.

Yamaguchi jogged up to him, meeting him half-way with a small smile. "Hi, Tsukki!"

By the time Yamaguchi caught up to him, he was already out of breath. The prolonged fatigue was really taking a toll on his body. He could've only hoped that he didn't look as bad as he thought he did. "How was your morning?" Yamaguchi asked him.

"Delightful." Tsukishima's response sounded sarcastic, but was then followed by, "I actually don't feel like kicking a cat for once."

"Tsukki that's horrible!" Yamaguchi was now wide awake, and he playfully nudged Tsukishima's side once he saw the smirk growing on his face.

They hadn't had an exchange like this in a while, and because they had it gave both of them a sense of normality. This, however, didn't cloud up Tsukishima from the fact that there was still a problem. He decided that he would enjoy this moment a little longer.

Notes:

Tsukki not being a morning person is my headcanon ngl

Also if you hadn't already noticed, this is probably going to be a really sad story anD IM SO SORRY.

(Chapter 2 is already in the works woooo?)