Tadashi Yamaguchi only had eight percent battery left on his phone, and if Tsukki didn't hurry it'd soon be dead. He wanted to keep some of it for the walk home. The sun had gone down, after all, and he might need the flashlight to see his way. He might need to call someone. Someone might need to call him.
Probably not, but that's how his luck worked. Today would be the one day his mother was frantic trying to look for him, forty-five missed calls in twenty minutes. She was a fragile sort of person. The kind that apologized to the computer whenever she had to shut it down. Even one missed call was enough to convince her he'd been kidnapped or killed.
And then his father. One voicemail, filled with the bitterest dissapointment.
You didn't answer the phone, Tadashi, he would boom. And now your mother has died of worry and neglect. I am selling all your things and sending you to boarding school in China.
Life ruined. No friends. No grasp of the language. He'd wind up working in a laundry, and the owner would pay him with rice and fresh cardboard to sleep on each night. His only prospects would be reaching the rank of deputy stain scrubber, because the laundry's chief stain scrubber was the kind of prodigy that only comes along once in a lifetime.
Dead at twenty seven. Cause of death: some kind of slapstick blunder. They would bury him out back, and on his headstone they'd be stuck for his name because they never asked for it.
Here lies freckles, it would say. He was quiet, wasn't he?
Except in Chinese.
All that because Tsukishima dawdled in the club room, and Tadashi had run his battery down browsing the web.
Seven percent now.
He'd exhausted his twitter timeline and started following links he didn't even want to read. Nobody was on LINE—his address book was mostly volleyball club, anyway, and they were still making their way home. Facebook was dead. He dared not double the battery strain by watching any video.
He yawned and slumped backward.
Karasuno High was eerie-quiet at this time of night. Most of the staff were gone, club activities over. He thought he could hear something going on in the assembly hall, so he wasn't the only person around for a thousand miles. He just felt like it.
At least the temperature was falling. A hot day was giving way to a breezy, cool evening. This afternoon's practice had been brutally physical, and the rivulets of sweat running down the back of his neck tingled in the cold air.
He checked his email. Nothing.
Six percent battery.
He closed his eyes and took a few breaths.
Maybe if he kept them closed long enough, a bunch of interesting tweets would come in.
He waited forever. Then just a bit longer, to be sure.
Three tweets.
Better than nothing.
Two were about a meet-up that he'd never go to at one of Miyagi prefecture's biggest LGBT groups. They didn't tweet much. He'd forgotten he was still following the account.
He'd added it a couple of years back, in amongst a bunch of foreign celebrities who were out of the closet and writers who wrote about gay characters. His twitter feed was a shrine to the people living like he couldn't—out and proud and comfortable, and not at all worried how their friends and family thought of them. They were brave, he thought. Braver than him.
They were honest with their Tsukkis.
Probably married to them. The bastards.
The other tweet was from the GayNewsJapan account, and something about it looked weird.
He looked closer, just to be sure, and read the tweet three times over.
Click for our exclusive with Oikawa Tooru!
His heart skipped.
No way.
There was no way it was that Oikawa.
He mashed his thumb on the link and waited for the page to load.
A box filled the screen to announce he had five percent battery left. He flicked it away.
Another lightbox filled the screen warning him he needed to be over eighteen to view the article. He threw a guilty look over his shoulder, saw the coast was clear, and used his fifteen year old finger to confirm he was an adult.
The headline just about leapt from the screen.
MEET OIKAWA TOORU – JAPAN'S FIRST OUT ATHLETE!
He tried to keep his mouth closed as he scrolled down the page. A full-length picture followed the headline.
It was Oikawa, all right.
He was naked except for his Seijou shorts and clutched a volleyball against his bare hip. His other hand ruffled his chocolate brown hair, roughing it up just enough to be utterly adorable. And then there was his face, fixed with a flirty smile that asked 'what if we spent the rest of our lives in bed together? Would that be okay?'
The cool air was useless. Tadashi felt his face get hotter than it had ever been during practice.
He read the lede line.
On the day of his 18th birthday, we talk to Oikawa about what it means to be the first openly gay athlete in Japan, his plans for the future, and the all important question—is he single?
It had to be some kind of fever dream. The heat had overwhelmed him at practice, and he was actually passed out on the court, delirious. Tsukki wasn't late. Oikawa wasn't gay. Certainly not openly gay. Openly gay was a phrase Americans or Europeans used. Here, you kept that kind of thing to yourself. Nobody asked, nobody told.
Oikawa. The guy who was routinely late to matches because he was drowning in a tsunami of girls.
No way.
He pressed on through the article, and the interviewer droned on about what a difficult decision this must have been, and how nobody had done it before, and how Oikawa was so young. And Oikawa gave really articulate answers about how he felt it was time, how young people didn't have a problem with it these days, and how important it was to promote a safe and accepting culture in team sports.
Did he feel vulnerable, out there all by himself?
I'm not by myself, Oikawa said. There are lots of us. I'm just here to prove it's okay to be honest about it.
There was another picture—an action shot of Oikawa on the court, backlit by gym lights as he set the ball. Tadashi flicked up to the first picture, then back to the second, then back to the first one again. It looked like him and sounded like him. A few more minutes staring at the picture and he might be convinced. In fact, maybe he ought to save it, just in case—
"What on earth are you reading?" A deep voice nearly knocked him over.
A little gasp squeaked from him as he spun on the spot, shoving his phone into his pocket. Tsukishima was less than arm's length away. Plenty close enough to have seen the phone screen, and tall enough to see over Tadashi's shoulder. How had Tsukki's giant feet managed to sneak so close without making a sound?
"Tsukki!" he said, forcing a smile onto his face. His mouth curled into the right shape so easily. This was his Yamaguchi Grin—the one he wore every day like he would a hat, or a scarf. He'd trained himself to put it on whenever he spoke to anyone, about anything. Even if his heart was trying to pound its way through his chest, he could wear it. Because it was the way people liked him most.
Happy, easy Yamaguchi.
"Nothing, nothing!" he said. "I was—"
"Was that Seijoh's captain?"
"Ahh..." Tadashi closed his eyes and rubbed the back of his head as his brain turned itself inside-out for a cover story. "Yeah, that was Oikawa. I was searching for information on Aoba Johsai and one of the links was to an interview—"
"With Gay Japan News?"
"Ahhhhh..."
"In his underwear."
"I think they were Seijoh shorts."
Tsukki raised his right eyebrow exactly half an inch.
"Rookie mistake."
Tadashi was sure his face was the color and temperature of a forest fire. He tried to force a chuckle through his throat, but it got caught half way and he wound up with an awkward cough-giggle.
"He, ah...Oikawa came out. As gay. Is what the article said."
"Did he."
It wasn't a question. It was a Tsukki response. The kind of thing he said when he was busy thinking one thing while Tadashi bothered him with something else.
"Ah, yeah. Funny!"
"Not really."
Tadashi turned the Yamaguchi Grin up to 110%, and gave the tension in the air a chance to drain away. It was stubborn, though. Clinging to him like the sweat from practice.
Tsukki was staring at him.
Tadashi tried to change the subject.
"You're late, Tsukki," he said. "I almost wore my battery down!"
"I was caught with a phone call."
"Ah, that explains it! Phone calls. They take time."
"Some do, yes."
"It can't be helped!"
"...no. What's wrong with you?"
Tadashi's fingers went numb with fright.
"What do you mean?"
"You're grinning at me like I'm other people. Why?"
"I'm not."
"Your face is split across the middle. Since when do I get small talk and the Yamaguchi Grin?"
Tadashi laughed.
"This is just my face, Tsukki."
Tsukki's eyelids drooped so low, Tadashi thought he might be drifting off to sleep. They stood facing each other for a few silent seconds. Finally, Tsukki took a few slow steps forward and they set off toward their homes.
"Whatever," Tsukki said. "You don't have to talk about anything you don't want to. It's fine."
"Eh? What's fine?"
Tadashi's cheeks were beginning to cramp. The grin worked in both directions. He had to concentrate to keep it up, and that occupied a vast part of his brain. He didn't have to think about what Tsukki was saying as long as he kept grinning. He could even squeeze Oikawa out of his thoughts.
Just keep grinning.
Tsukki looked sidelong at him, then back to the road.
"Don't worry about it. Sorry about your battery."
"No problem," he said. "But if I wind up in China, I will write you very angry letters."
Their footsteps scraped along the pavement.
"You're weird, Tadashi."