Chapter Text
Satori Tendou is a happy person.
Really, truly, he is.
The smallest, most random things in life bring him the most immense sense of joy.
He loves the smell of warm summer air in parking lots at 2 am; that smell of fast food, old cars, and the faint scent of a million cigarettes.
He loves the fifteen minute bus ride to the only convenience store in all of Sendai that sells his favorite candy; there are always new people on the bus that he can observe and mimic and learn something new from.
He loves the way the grass feels against his skin when he lays on the lawn where he, Semi, Shirabu, and Ushijima eat their lunches together everyday. He loves the heavenly sound of his friends laughing at his jokes and sarcastic quips, mingling together with the hum of teenage life bustling around them.
He loves every miniscule sound of the school gymnasium: the squeaky floor, the slamming lockers, the thunderous AC, the echoey showers.
He loves to acquire new tricks to hide up his sleeve that he can reveal at any time he pleases. When he was in middle school he taught himself how to walk on his hands and it quickly became his favorite party trick. He can touch his tongue to his nose, he can recite the entirety of the film Scott Pilgrim vs. The World by heart, and he can play exactly two songs on piano, which he takes great pride in performing as loudly and theatrically as he can.
He has a thirst for life and all that it has to offer, all the minor details of the day to day that constantly remind him that he’s not living in a simulation.
But he has his vices as well, as all people do.
His monthly weed intake is less than your typical stoner, but more than you could expect from a respectable student athlete at the prestigious Shiratorizawa Private Academy. He is inconsistent with getting his laundry done, and on their occasional free-dress days he has a bad habit of going to class in the same clothes he slept in. He drinks too many energy drinks, eats too much sugar, and every one of his pen caps are chewed at the end. He is a little insecure about the dark circles under his eyes, but not insecure enough to do anything about them. He is spontaneous and impulsive and relies far too much on instinct, but he hardly considers those to be vices.
His main one though, the one vice he is all too conscious of, is his sexual history.
Sometimes it was fun.
Reon would throw parties at his parent's house on random Friday nights when they were out of town, and a small group of about half the school would go home for the weekend and party at Reon’s. Tendou loved these drunken soirees, they were always crowded and loud and exciting, an extrovert’s wet dream. He would meet some girl there, or see a classmate he already knew. She would make some comment about his last volleyball game or how impressive it is to be able to walk on your hands. He would exceed his naturally flirtatious personality and add a little extra charm to his voice or ask her to dance with him in the crowded living room. One thing always led to another and before you knew it they’d found some dark room down the hall and around the corner, pressed up against the locked door, sweating and gasping, biting at each other's lips, small hands grasping at his red hair, long fingers slipping down her lace panties. And Tendou would laugh, because for whatever reason, Tendou always laughs when he’s having sex. Sometimes because he’s feeling cocky, sometimes because he is simply having the time of his life. It’s not obnoxious or disruptive, he just can’t help but let out the smallest giggles whenever he’s shaking sheets.
Those times it was fun. The times that he would rejoin his friends with his hair mussed, and Semi would comment on the state of him to which Tendou would reply “I never kiss and tell” with a half-lidded devil’s grin.
Most of the time it was fun.
Sometimes.
Sometimes, though…
Sometimes sex was an escape. A distraction.
Sometimes when he was feeling insecure, or when the ghost-like memories of past bullies whispered insults in ear; when weed wasn’t working and when slamming a volleyball over a net for a few hours wasn’t cathartic enough, he just needed a dopamine hit. In these moments it never took him long to find someone, anyone, who was down for a hookup. It was always hot and heavy, quick and easy, and the fact he was desperate for a distraction always made him kick it up a notch, losing himself in it. And even in these particular affairs Tendou still laughed, because Tendou always laughs when he’s having sex. Sometimes because he is nervous, sometimes because he needs to fill the silence in any way he can. He wasn’t proud of these encounters, in fact, he hated himself for them. Each time made him feel numb, like he was under anesthesia, both physically and mentally, and he hated himself for it. For like a day. And then he was back to his usual self, getting excited over finding shiny rocks and funky new colors to paint his nails. The temporary self loathing never stopped him from using casual sex as an emotional band-aid. It was a bad habit of his, the one bad habit he couldn’t seem to shake, though he never tried that hard to. Just a minor infraction that he could keep to himself.
But Tendou did stop, eventually.
He stopped the day that Shirabu asked him if it was true.
Huh? he thought.
He didn’t understand the question.
It was a cold winter day in between classes in his second year. He was sitting on a brick bench, drawing little cartoon characters on Ushijima’s right hand with a pen as he tried to do homework with his left.
“Is it true you’re like, the go-to guy for… you know, like random hookups?”
Tendou's heart jumped into his throat, choking him before it dropped into his stomach like an anchor.
“ーI just heard some people talking about it. I thought I’d go straight to the source and ask because.. I don’t know, it just didn’t seem like something you would do, but they were saying you did.”
Tendou felt sick to his stomach, like he could have puked right there on the cold brick bench he sat on.
That day he learned he had made a name for himself throughout Shiratorizawa as a good lay with no strings attached; the first resort for desperate people on the rebound, manic dumpees trying to make their exes jealous, and general horny kids in need of a fix.
Tendou was fairly popular at school. He was a friendly and sociable guy, he had recently been moved to the starting lineup on the volleyball team, he was goofy in class and made people laugh. But people didn’t ask him out. No one ever pulled him aside to confess their feelings. No one ever had a crush on him to his recollection. Now he knew why. Because that’s how people saw him. As Satori Tendou the ugly hot volleyball guy who’s a total freak in the sheets and willing to try anything once, with anyone .
Tendou skipped the rest of his classes that day.
That was the lowest Tendou had ever felt in his life. No amount of bullying in his childhood could ever measure up to the gut-retching disgust he felt on that day. He hated them, hated them all for saying that about him because they were wrong; but hated himself even more because he knew they were right. He felt used, taken advantage of, and angry at the fact that he himself had used and taken advantage of them. He didn’t realize until then that everything they said about him was true. He never felt more alone than he did then in the middle of his second year.
That was when Ushijima Wakatoshi changed everything.
Tendou and Ushijima met in their first year when they both joined the volleyball team. Tendou took an instant liking to him, of course, and they became quick friends (at least in Tendou’s mind) along with Semi, and Shirabu joined their little gang the next year. Anyone who knew them would say they were good friends, even best friends. They had certainly gotten closer over the years, but Tendou knew he never shared anything truly important with Ushijima, even when they were roommates in their second year. They played volleyball together, Tendou convinced him to read a few of his favorite manga, they spent a lot of their free time together as well. But Tendou never told him about his insecurities, how lonely he felt sometimes. And while, of course, Ushijima knew about his occasional fling at parties and such, he never told him just how bad it really got, how many bodies were on his list for all the wrong reasons, he never told anybody about it. Until that day.
Ushijima entered their shared room after volleyball practice was over, Tendou hadn’t attended. He flicked the lights on and set his bag down, scanning the room finding only the tips of bright red hair peeking out from under a blanket creating a Tendou-shaped lump on his bed. Ushijima sat down at the foot of the bed, hands folded together in his lap, wordless. He remained silent for several minutes, this kind of thing didn’t come naturally to him.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Ushijima finally asked, low and quiet.
Tendou tensed under his blanket. Of course Ushijima heard everything. The whole group probably investigated the rumors after he disappeared. He really, really did not want to talk about it. He never wanted anyone to know, never wanted anyone to see this part of him. So he didn’t say anything.
A few more minutes passed in silence before Tendou heard his friend inhale deeply.
“Would you… like to hear about the girl I am seeing?” Ushijima asked, methodical and deliberate in his tone.
That piqued Tendou’s interest quite a bit. He had no idea that his roommate was seeing someone. Ushijima wasn’t one to share much to begin with, but Tendou was shocked that he hadn’t figured it out on his own considering how much time they spent together. Though, he realized, he wasn’t one to talk.
After a moment, he pulled the blanket up around his shoulders, turning to face Ushijima who was still sitting stiff with his hands in his lap.
He cleared his throat a little, “Her name is Yuriko Nakamura, she is the libero on the girl’s volleyball team. She is “5’3 and she has blonde hair and brown eyes.”
“How long have you been going out?” Tendou inquired. He didn’t feel fully like himself, but the conversation was helping.
“One month and eight days.”
Tendou’s eyes widened, how did he manage to miss his closest friend dating someone for a whole month?
“What do you like about her?” he prompted, slouching a little and resting against the wall behind him, content to just listen to Ushijima talk.
Ushijima thought for a moment. “I admire her athletic ability and her intuition on the court… and she is very smart…I also think she is very beautiful.”
Tendou closed his eyes and listened to Ushijima go on about Yuriko Nakamura. He wrapped himself in the warm blanket and let his heart rate decrease. He knew what Ushijima was doing: giving him a distraction instead of prying and forcing him to open up, and he was thankful for that.
Thirty minutes passed like this. Tendou had never heard Ushijima talk this much in his entire life. He switched subjects, away from Yuriko, to what Tendou had missed in class and how volleyball practice went; but when Ushijima started talking about the shape of the clouds in the sky that day, Tendou had to let him stop.
Then they were left in silence once more.
“Okay,” Tendou sat up straight, keeping the blanket tucked around himself, “I’m ready to talk about it now.”
And Tendou told him everything. For the first time in his life he opened that door and showed Ushijima all the skeletons in his closet; every single vulnerable detail of the memories that plagued him, the insecurities that consumed him. He told him about all of his weakest moments and every shameful act they led to, how he felt about himself afterward. Every memory that entered his conscious brain was expelled from his mouth like word vomit, every fragmented thought was purged from his body. He even listed every person he had ever slept with and what inner demon compelled him to do so; each and every name tasted bitter on his tongue, but he remembered them all. The longer he talked the more he revealed, spouting out revelations that not even he himself had realized until he said it out loud. It felt like an exorcism.
Eventually, his words tapered off when he had no more to say. He had completely laid it all out on the table, and for the first time in as long as he could remember he felt an incredibly heavy weight lifted off his chest, his back, and his heart. He felt it in his muscles as they relaxed. But a new tension settled in the pit of his stomach.
Ushijima’s eyes were wide and burned searing hot holes into him. His lips drawn in a closed, thin line on his face. Over the course of the night he had moved fully onto Tendou’s bed and sat cross-legged with his hands still folded in his lap. He looked so stiff.
Suddenly, Tendou couldn’t make eye contact anymore.
Fuck… I am the most fucked up piece of shit… and now he knows it.
I think I made him uncomfortable,
Why did I tell him? I shouldn’t have told anyone, it fucking disgusting, I’m disgusting.
His brain ran wild again when he felt two strong hands wrap around his shoulders and the back of his head. Suddenly, his face was buried in Ushijima’s shoulder, his entire upper body pressed against his friend’s. The heavy arms embracing him held him so tightly. Ushijima held him so tightly.
Tendou’s breath hitched with the initial shock, the warmth that enveloped him was not disgust or repulsion like he expected, it was comfort, protection . Tendou wrapped his arms around Ushijima’s rib cage hesitantly, but couldn’t stop himself from clinging to his comforting form and nuzzling into his broad shoulders. The breath that was trapped in his lungs suddenly burst out as tears started to sting his eyes. He buried his face in Ushijima’s shirt and for the first time that night he let tears pour out freely.
Ushijima said nothing, he just held his friend in his arms, never wavering, never loosening his grip. Tendou didn’t need him to say anything, the slow inhale and exhale of his breath and the dull thud of his heartbeat were the only sounds Tendou needed to drown out his lingering anxieties as he felt consciousness slipping away from him.
That was the day Ushijima became his best friend.
That was the day he fell for him.
Nowadays, they are in the middle of their third year, and they do just about everything together. They study together, practice together, play together. Neither Tendou nor Ushijima used to be able to open up easily, if ever. Now they share their deepest secrets with each other as willingly as they share the newest volumes of Shonen Jump.
Tendou loves it when they sneak out of the dorms at night to get french fries from the fast food joint down the street from the school. As third years they are allowed to go off campus, but the 10pm curfew they always break. This year they’re not roommates anymore, Semi is Tendou’s and Reon is Ushijima’s, so even though they get to hangout after classes and at volleyball practice, Tendou cherishes the late night drives in Ushijima’s car. The old beater car always smells a little like him, and the scent of the nighttime air blowing through Tendou’s hair from the open window as they drive is always an intoxicating combination.
He loves it when Ushijima lets him run his fingers through his brunette hair and tie it up into a ponytail on top of his head. He loves it even more when he leaves it in for the whole day, keeping it up during classes and volleyball practice.
He loves that when Ushijima finds a ladybug or a rolly polly outside he always catches it and gives it to Tendou to let it crawl around on his hands and arms and be his little buddy for a few minutes before it flies away or falls off and gets lost in the grass.
Tendou loves his friend so much, and he’s proud of him too.
Ushijima didn’t used to be the strong, confident ace that he is today. If you had told first-year Tendou that Ushijima Wakatoshi would sneak out of the dorms past midnight with him, laugh at his dumb jokes and even crack a few of his own, or that he would even partake in the occasional joint being passed around the group at a kickback every now and then, first-year Tendou would have told you that you were certifiably insane. But third-year Tendou knows just how much his friend has grown, how much he has come out of his shell. They both have.
Especially in terms of relationships.
Tendou knows just how much of a better place he is in now than he was a year ago, but it still a struggle. At least when he looks in the mirror the dark circles under his eyes don’t bother him so much anymore, and he no longer feels compelled to whisper “whore” under his breath at his own reflection as he did for so long. He hasn’t had sex with anyone at all since that day, though he’s not sure if its for his own self esteem or because of his feelings for Ushijima.
Ushijima, who is the perfect boyfriend to Yuriko Nakamura.
Tendou is beyond proud of him for how good of a boyfriend he has been to her for going on a year now. He is attentive and kind, and treats her with love and respect. Even if she’s not necessarily deserving of it.
She’s a nice enough girl, Tendou always tells himself. She’s a film fanatic, always analyzing cinematography and shooting her own minifilms when she can. She’s definitely strong and confident, just like Ushijima. Well, maybe not exactly like Ushijima. She’s determined and iron-willed, for sure… and stubborn… she's kind of a bitch.
Tendou often finds himself biting his tongue when he sits on Reon’s couch next to Ushijima who has Yuriko half in his lap with his hand on her thigh, and she snaps at him to get her another drink; she doesn’t ask, she snaps. Or when Ushijima is telling a story from practice that day and Yuriko interrupts to tell him to ‘ shut up about club activities for like two seconds’.
Actually, Tendou has to hold back a grimace almost every time she opens her mouth.
Ushijima doesn’t ever look hurt by her tone, nor does he ever call her out on it. He just looks sort of indifferent to her harsh words, like it doesn’t seem to faze him.
He’s voiced his opinion about her to Ushijima before, but he leaves it at that. If he’s being honest with himself, he doesn’t feel like he has the right to tell Ushijima who he should and shouldn’t be with, even if they are best friends. Because even though all the things he thinks about Yuriko are true, he also knows that they are excuses.
Excuses that he tells himself to bury the fact that he knows he fucked up.
Excuses like: as good of a boyfriend as he is he can’t really love her, can he?
Because tonight, he and Ushijima snuck out in Ushijima’s beat up 1995 Subaru Outback, like they do so many other nights, and Tendou knows that Yuriko being a shitty girlfriend isn’t a good enough excuse.
Because—
“ Satori…”
—because Tendou’s friendship with Ushijima is perfect as it is.
“ Wakatoshiii…”
And he wouldn’t want to do anything to endanger that—
“ Right there…”
— but this time is just like the last time—
“ Mhhh keep going…”
—and Tendou finds it hard to listen to the little voice that tells how fucked up this is when there’s a louder voice telling him that he doesn’t care.
When Ushijima’s voice whispers his name as he drags his lips along the column of his throat in the back seat of that old, beater car.
And this is how it starts.