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liillyliilly · 6 months ago

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In Time You Get Your Rewards

tsukishima kei x reader words; 6507 synopsis; love takes patience. a lot of patience for tsukishima kei. at least they could be friends for now.

Comparing the times on wrists was everyone’s favorite way to pass the time. Seeing if one’s time matched someone else’s before the time ‘officially’ ran out. Sometimes they would be correct and other times it wouldn’t. Tsukishima was obsessed with the time on his wrist. He thought that he spent much more time on the numbers on his wrist more than anybody else.

Because he still had time.

It seemed like everybody else had already found their soulmate. Most met through school, sometimes from when they were toddlers. But for Tsukishima it was an extreme source of embarrassment that he still had time on his left wrist.

He felt like it wasn’t fair that he hadn’t met his yet. The bitterness for the time on his wrist grew immensely when he started his first year in high school. He still had a little over six months before he could meet his soulmate. Yamaguchi found his before him, Hinata found his before him, even Kageyama Tobio found his.

Tsukishima often lay awake at night staring at the time slowly passing by. Second by second and then minute by minute. She did the same, sitting cross legged on her own bed staring at the time. They went to different schools, and had no idea about the other, but all the same they hyperfocused on that timer imprinted on their skin in black markings.

When Tsukishima played volleyball, he wrapped his wrist in bandages because the time ticking by would distract him from the game at hand.

After the game against Johzenji, he packs up. As Karasuno is exiting the gym, celebrating their wins, Tsukishima feels his wrist itch, he looks down to it and shifts the bandages slightly. While doing so, he bumps into someone.

“Hey! Watch where you’re walking!” She pouts as she puts her hands on her hips. She’s wearing the Aoba Johsai uniform. And she looks pissed. Tsukishima puts his hands up. A pang goes through his heart, but he can’t quite place it. He deems it an unfortunate side effect of playing volleyball for a whole day.

“Maybe if you weren’t such a garden gnome, I would have seen you. But hey, blame it all on me.” Tsukishima rolls his eyes, intending to try and walk past her, but he bumps into her shoulder again. That in turn seems to anger her even more.

“A garden gnome?” She purses her lips together and rolls up her sleeves, “You wanna go? I may be shorter than you but I can still pack a solid punch.” Two of the Aoba Johsai volleyball members come rushing up and tug her back by her arms. She’s still trying to swing her arms around, biting at her schoolmates and telling them to let her go. She even throws her leg out to try and get Tsukishima.

He mocks her with a short laugh, just stepping backwards to avoid the kick she was trying to aim at his shins.

“We are so sorry.” The Aoba Johsai teammates both bow profusely, apologizing in unison. When Oikawa Tooru storms up to the scene all hell breaks loose. She starts to tattle on Tsukishima to Oikawa, and Oikawa pouts a little, patting her on the head. Tsukishima is entertained by her, but also desperately wants to call her a range of insults, brat or crybaby being the top two options floating around in his head.

He can’t quite place another feeling deep within his stomach when Oikawa tugs on her arm and brings her into his side. Tsukishima raises an eyebrow when Oikawa holds onto her shoulder and uses his other hand to squish her face.

“Now, now, Kindaichi and Yahaba, let's hear our dear manager’s point of view. I know for a fact that L/N-chan almost never starts a fight without a reason.” Oikawa tries to settle everything, but the younger members of his team keep snapping and complaining about Tsukishima. Tsukishima felt like he did nothing wrong and just wanted to find a moment to escape. She lurches out of Oikawa’s grasp, but he pulls her back to prevent Tsukishima from getting mauled.

Tsukishima’s wrist is burning now. He rubs it against his leg, trying to ignore the pain.

Her wrist feels irritated as well. When she looks down, she gasps. Covering her mouth with her other hand, staring at her timer.

Sugawara finally takes notice of the scene and pulls Tsukishima away before anything can start. Tsukishima can hear Oikawa ask her what’s wrong, as Tsukishima is being dragged away by Suga. Her voice feels distant as she starts to cry a little bit.

Tsukishima feels tired from the long day as he walks home with Yamaguchi. The tingles of his wrist still emanate and he scratches at the bandages intermittently.

“Say, Tsukki, I wonder, it isn’t very smart of you to cover your soulmate timer.” Yamaguchi fiddles with his backpack straps. A volleyball keychain dangles down from the strap, his soulmate had gotten him that. Tsukishima wondered if his soulmate would do cringey things like that.

“What are you talking about?”

“Haven’t you heard some of those urban stories, people hiding their soulmate timer end up meeting them but not realizing it. Then they have to wait longer until they pay attention and notice the timer.” Yamaguchi shrugs before walking off to his street. He turns around to yell a closing statement, cupping his mouth with his hands to amplify his voice, “Just something to think about!”

Leaving Tsukishima to stand at the crossroads.

When Tsukishima gets home, he gets a pair of scissors and cuts up the large bandages he used to cover his wrists, cutting the fabric to use for wrapping his fingers instead. Satisfied, he tucks the strips of fabric into his bag. While Tsukishima busied himself getting ready for bed, he never expected to see what he saw.

A ten-minute timer. He swallowed thickly, his hand went limp and his toothbrush fell onto the floor. He’d have to boil it in hot water to get the germs out, but he was too preoccupied with running down the stairs.

Going into the living room he stares at his mom with such an intensity that it frankly kind of scares her.

“Do you have people coming over?” The words spill out clumsily.

“I don’t think so, why?” She sets down the book she was reading to pay more attention to her son, who was obviously in some state of distress.

Tsukishima only holds his wrist up to show his mom. She gasps and then starts to smile. Loud and abrasive knocking is heard from the front door. Tsukishima looks at his mom, and she just waves him off to go answer the door. Tsukishima takes a deep breath before opening the door.

“Hey asshole.” She has her arms folded and she glares at him.

It was his ‘gnome’ from earlier in the day. She was still in an Aoba Johsai uniform, and while Tsukishima did prefer the black uniforms Karasuno had, he could see why some people liked the girls uniforms at Aoba Johsai better. The lilac skirt did have its positive attributes, mostly the length, or the lack thereof.

“Hey?” Tsukishima is taken aback. “You’re not exactly who I imagined to be my soulmate.”

“I didn’t exactly want an oblivious idiot who bumps into girls to be my soulmate either.”

Tsukishima smirks before pulling her in close. “So how exactly did you figure out where I live?” She pushes away from him using her hands against his chest. He wonders how close he can get, if it’ll trigger her fight response again, if he’ll get to see her threatening to punch him. He figures the closer he gets, the more likely he is to have annoying her down to a science.

Plus, they were soulmates, so she had to feel something for him regardless of if he was bothering her or not.

“You have a very nice manager.” She huffs.

Tsukishima thinks back to how Kiyoko was looking at him weird during the bus ride back to Karasuno. He doesn’t know if he’d call Kiyoko nice, especially since she forgot to tell Tsukishima that she’d run into his soulmate and then just didn’t bring it up at all.

“I’m Kei.” He holds out his hand. Better late than never to get to know her on a slightly more formal playing field.

She shakes his hand and introduces herself in return. The warmth that runs up from their hands into their arms is soothing, like getting to go to bed after a tedious day.

“Nice to finally meet you.” Tsukishima uses her hand to pull her into him. Wrapping his arms around her waist. She tries to pull away again, but gives up once Tsukishima reaches to poke her flat in between her eyebrows.

Tsukishima reasoned she was more bark than actual bite.

“Eh, I don’t know how nice an asshole can be.” She taps her chin with her index finger, still wiggling out of Tsukishima’s grasp.

“I can be nice when I want to.”

He kept trying to be nice to her, when he wanted to, the next year as well.

He responded decently quickly to her text messages at least. He even introduced her to his family. They would eat dinners together at each other’s houses, and she showed him how to bake all kinds of treats. He always pretended to not care for them, but when she let out a hum after eating a fresh cookie out of the oven, he just had to give in and eat one too.

Second year was easier to go through, minus the teasing from his friends about his soulmate. Tsukishima just couldn’t give them enough information for their liking.

“What’s she like?” A classmate had asked once.

Tsukishima leaned back in his seat for a second, thinking about how last week she had refused his offer to carry her bag when they went to get new pencils at the corner shop. He thought of the time she shoved her hand onto his face, covering his lips when he tried to lean in once during a movie at her house.

“She’s like me.”

The response from his seatmate was just a groan in dissatisfaction, “Well, that sure tells me a lot. She’s a sarcastic, son of a bitch weirdo with a music obsession who ends up with a dent in the top of their head from wearing those thick headphones.”

Tsukishima could handle those kinds of comments about himself, but when they were also applied to her, he felt like there was something off kilter in the universe. “She doesn’t use headphones, she prefers earbuds.”

“She prefers earbuds.” The seatmate lifted up his pointer finger and pretended to push up imitation glasses on his nose, mimicking Tsukishima. A few of the other classmates chuckled a little in response.

He just rolled his eyes. Then he pulled out his flip phone, sending her a quick message.

To- (soulmate 😐): i just defended your honor i should be rewarded

From- (soulmate 😐): no

To- (soulmate 😐): i wonder what i’ll be getting as my gift

From- (soulmate 😐): what do you want, i’m in class

To- (soulmate 😐): i want a reward for keeping your name clear from these hooligans i go to school with

From- (soulmate 😐): …

To- (soulmate 😐): wow

To- (soulmate 😐): you must really care about me

From- (soulmate 😐): sure do.

Tsukishima shoved his phone back into his pocket. Tapping his fingers along to the beat of the song playing in his headphones, the wood of his desk numbing his fingers a little bit from the resistance.

They were slowly becoming- something. He couldn’t sense if they were friends, more than friends, less than friends, or even in the realm of being in a relationship.

But she did give him encouraging words from time to time, such as his favorite thing she’s ever told him right before the Inter-High tournament began.

He had almost swooned dramatically when she had come up to him and told him, “I hope you don’t trip on your shoe laces and that you can make one half decent block,” before going back to her own team to hand out water bottles.

After the last day of the tournament, and Karasuno not making it to nationals, but rather Date Tech making it, she had found him sitting on a bench all alone near the laundry room of the gym.

She didn’t say anything. She just sat down next to him, bumping her knee into his.

“I don’t want to joke around right now. We almost had it in that last set.” Tsukishima felt bad for being so prickly with her, but he had completely fumbled some of his blocks and he felt like an embarrassment.

“I’m not making any jokes.”

What she did next did come as a surprise to him, she pulled his hand from how it was clasped with his other one, resting over his legs in front of him. She intertwined their fingers and pressed the back of his hand to her lips.

She mumbles something that he can’t quite distinguish, but then she pressed a kiss to each one of his knuckles. When she finished what seemed like a small ritualistic behavior, she rested their hands on her thigh.

Tsukishima held down a smirk that was attempting to crawl over his face. In an almost craving way, he broke his hand free, and instead gripped the expanse of her bare thigh, going as far as pushing his pinkie and ring finger under her skirt a little.

She makes eye contact with him and gives him a flat look.

“What?” He feigns ignorance so well he might as well be considered an imbecile of the highest regard.

“Yeah, right. I’ll let it slide because you’re being whiney and ornery.”

His smirk really did have a mind of its own. He wondered what else she’d let slide just because he was in a sour mood.

He pushed his hand up just a little more, but she gripped his wrist bringing his hand down to her knee instead of her thigh.

“Okay, that’s enough kindness and affection for one day.” She stood up, ruffling Tsukishima’s hair since she could now reach it while he was sitting down. “We can hang out at mine if you want later. You did great today Kei. Sometimes we just lose. That’s how life is. We lose and we win.”

He grabs her hand as it’s still in his hair.

The air is stagnant.

He looks up to her, brown eyes slightly narrowed but containing more in them than she could distinguish. She felt like he was studying her for an exam of sorts. She returned his glare with ease, looking right into his eyes.

“We’re so much alike it hurts sometimes.” He lets the words out softly, if she hadn’t been paying careful attention to him then the squeaks in the gym would’ve overpowered his voice.

“Well, that’s why we’re soulmates. Built in best buddies.”

She left him alone, to consider her words. Buddies?

What the hell did she mean by buddies?

At her house, Tsukishima felt comfortable. The moment he crossed the threshold, the smell of fresh linen, honey lemon tea and her shampoo overpowered any sort of smell he had carried with him throughout the day. He had gone home and changed into casual clothes, then he made his way to her house. The walk to her house was long enough to let him ponder, keeping his hands warm in the pockets of his zip up hoodie.

He slid the hood of his jacket down when her mom opened the door and greeted him, and he absorbed the feeling of being at her house. He had decided to not text her, assuming that she would know that he wanted to hang out.

“She’s in her room, you should be able to just go in. Does your mom know you’re here?” Her mom took Tsukishima’s jacket from him and hung it up on the coat rack.

“Yes she does. Do you need me to leave at a specific time?” Tsukishima remembered his manners and bowed in gratitude to the older woman.

“Well, if it was up to me, I’d be fine with you sleeping over instead. She’s the one you have to get through to.” When she laughed to herself a little, Tsukishima nodded, deciding to make his way down the stairs to the basement bedroom. He ignored the use of the word ‘instead’.

He never should ignore ‘instead’ because ‘instead’ hurts a lot more than he could realize.

In the moments following him opening her bedroom door, he got a shirt thrown at him and was witnessing something that made his jaw clench tighter than ever before.

“Kei, what-” She pushed the curly brown haired boy off her bed, he was shirtless, and the shirt Tsukishima was holding in his hands likely belong to Mr. Wide-Eyed-Frozen-in-Place.

“What- what-” He fake stuttered, replicating her reactive words, then he spat out, “What the hell more like it.”

The curly haired brunette looked between Tsukishima and her rapidly. He tried to cut the tension with a laugh. “I’m Ito, nice to meet you.”

“Oh, shut up you Dr. Suess-wanna be.” Tsukishima threw the shirt back at him. He scrambled to shrug it over his shoulders, Tsukishima then noticed that his shoulders were much broader than Tsukishima’s own. A self-consciousness that he didn’t know was possible crept up, crawling and leaching itself on each of the prongs on his spine. He shuddered.

“Well, I’m just gonna,” Ito went to hug her goodbye but a scoff from Tsukishima deterred the action.

Tsukishima folded his arms from where he was standing. She bit down on her bottom lip, lips that Tsukishima noticed were particularly swollen and plump.

“This is just great.” Tsukishima sat down next to her on the bed, she curled her feet up, so she could wrap her arms around her legs and rest her head on her knees. “I suppose that you’re one of those people who view the whole soulmate thing as arbitrary.”

“I suppose you’re one of those people who view soulmates as sacred then.” Tsukishima can tell she’s joking around a little. If there was anything to genuinely joke about then he would’ve been the one making the joke.

He shoved her legs a little, so she slipped on the bed and broke out of her fake shell of limbs.

“Ito?” Tsukishima posed.

She filled in the gaps, “Ito Yuuta, second year at Aoba Johsai, swim team captain, biggest dork I’ve ever met.” She did like him though, he was nice, he just didn’t have the same charming wit that Tsukishima had. She felt a little bit like a complete jerk now realizing that Tsukishima had seen her kissing someone who wasn’t him.

“So you’ll let just any loser kiss you then?”

“Just preparing myself for you, cutie pie.” She reaches out and pinches his cheek.

Tsukishima fake vomited, sticking a finger almost into his mouth.

They rubbed off the strangeness, and she mentally took a note to lose Ito Yuuta’s number.

She pursed her lips, “I’m not quite ready to be with you the way I think you want to be with me.”

His mouth goes dry, and he emptily chews, trying to break apart the stale taste in his mouth. He never realized just how serious it all could be. Soulmates at seventeen. The way that he perceives it is that, you’re supposed to be the one who knows you best, and intrinsically, your soulmate was supposed to be that. How are you supposed to be soulmates with someone if you didn’t even know them well enough to order their food at the corner store?

He figures this is the moment he makes a shift. He’d just have to work harder to get to know her. And he’d have to stake a claim. Maybe claim was the wrong word, but clarifying to her that they were something rather than nothing to each other was the highest priority.

“I got myself a stupid soulmate.” He chimed.

Instead of a funny retort from her, she just smiled. He laid back onto her bed, and she copied the motion. He had his hands on his stomach, tapping his abdomen. She rolled onto her side, brushing against his fringe a little.

“Just, uh, don’t go around kissing other dudes.” Tsukishima closed his eyes and brought a hand up to his face. “I sound totally batshit crazy. Do whatever you want, I just don’t want to witness whatever that was ever again.”

She laughed, and it was like they were in another world. They both agreed to just be friends, for now.

He wondered if they’d ever become more than this in-between. Was there an expiration on becoming something with his soulmate? Some people never did much with theirs, choosing to remain as friends. Some people got married as soon as possible. Others bided their time and waited until they were ready to handle the responsibility of someone’s heart.

She agreed to not kiss anyone else for the time being.

They watched Clueless on her TV, and he kept complaining that it was weird that a fifteen year old was in love with a college kid, or that the college kid actually reciprocated. Not to mention the whole step-sibling thing.

“I don’t know, college kids have a sort of je ne sais quoi. Think of Akiteru for example, he’s just like Paul Rudd in this movie- entirely delicious.”

“I might have to actually drown myself in the tears of my ancestors, they'd be ashamed of you, betraying me for my brother.”

“I’d never do such a thing, but if Akiteru wanted a taste test, who am I to deny-”

Tsukishima sat up and covered her mouth with his hand. He slowly shook his head from side to side. It was damning how riled up he could get with just one statement from her. Though, he supposes they match that way, knowing exactly which chord to strike in order to make the other entirely irate.

In third year, it was much more common for them to spend time together, still with an ambiance of annoyance but underneath all the banter, all the forced charm, all the pseudointellectual grown-up talk, they were just them.

There he was, jumping up for another block, shifting his feet from where he had been sitting and lunging upwards, fingers outstretched just barely going over the net. He landed, having successfully blocked Hinata’s spike. In response, Hinata groaned and pulled on his hair, Kageyama shrugged.

Yamaguchi clapped his hands, telling the juniors on the team why Tsukishima’s block was successful and how to replicate his technique.

“Or you know, just grow taller and not have to work on technique.” He laughed in response to Yamaguchi’s glare.

Tsukishima had grabbed a towel from Yachi and was drying the sweat from his hair. His shoulders were sore from the work out he and Kageyama had done the night before. He was aiming to see how much width he could put onto his shoulders before the school year was over. Kageyama was already three centimeters broader than him despite them starting at around the same shoulder width.

Once the gym had been cleaned, Tsukishima and Yamaguchi were changing in the locker room. Yamaguchi fidgets with his ponytail hair tie.

“You need to get a haircut, your whole shaggy thing is a major deterrent for any sort of friendship we have going on.”

“Maybe if your hair was longer, she’d actually come to watch us practice. And you could finally put all those lateral raises and shoulder presses to good use. You know, for your aesthetic purposes in trying to get hotter for her.” Yamaguchi finished taking his shirt off and ran hands through his hair, turning around and trying to wave the strands in Tsukishima’s face.

Tsukishima grabbed the top of Yamaguchi’s head and shoved him away. “She can’t come watch us play because she’s busy with her team, my little manager extraordinaire.” He faked jazz hands and put his regular shirt back on, stuffing the volleyball uniform into his black duffel bag.

She had given him a keychain, of herself. Well, it was her photo in a holder that was decorated with dinosaurs and strawberries, there were shaker emblems in the hollow space of the rectangular cube, of stars and volleyballs. It was a visual atrocity, none of it working together cohesively, but he loved the keychain all the same.

It dangled from his duffel bag when he slung it over his shoulder, and Yamaguchi chuckled a little, rushing to put his shirt on so he could walk out of the gym with Tsukishima.

“Wait up!”

It was a shade of light orange fading into purple outside, and Kageyama, Hinata, Yamaguchi, and Tsukishima were making their way down the street to the crossroads where they went their separate paths. She usually met up with Tsukishima there as well, despite his reluctance for her to walk around late at night.

Seeing her with a wad of tissue up her nose and a pack of ice on the side of her face was ultimately the worst way to put an end to the night. The other boys quickly caught on and bid their farewells, sensing an air of undisclosed intimacy.

Tsukishima sucked in a deep breath, setting his duffle bag down on the ground next to her and using his hand to hold the ice pack for her. He used his other hand to lift her chin up so he could see if there was still blood coming out from her nose.

He didn’t even have to say anything for her to start explaining, she kept trying to hold the ice pack herself, but he kept anxiously swatting her hand away so he could hold the pack himself.

“It was a stray ball gone entirely haywire. The first years we have are on crack cocaine I swear.” She winced a little when he applied some pressure from the ice pack to her temple. “Ouch, stop, let me do it instead.”

He let out a clicking sound, being gentler with the ice pack.

“It’s nice that you care, but please I need to get home.”

“Just a little bit longer.” Tsukishima pulled her down to the street curb, so they could sit down. “The best they could do for you was an ice pack and a wad of paper to stick up your nostril?”

“I know, I’m out here working my ass off for the volleyball hooligans and I don’t even get princess treatment when they pop me in the face with their balls.” She sets the ice pack next to her foot, kicking at the plastic a little.

He laughed, his shoulders shaking a little.

She pulled out the tissue, tucking the bloody end into the main body of the tissue and shoving it into her pocket. She covered her nose, knowing there was some dried blood on her upper lip, she turned her head around so he couldn’t see her.

“Hey, c’mon, I know what blood looks like,” He shakes her knee a little, teasing her. “I think I have a wipe in my bag,” Tsukishima pulled the bag into his lap, searching around. He hands her the disposable wipe and she rubs it under her nose.

“How do I look?” She turns back to him, giving him a smile.

“You look great. You always look great.”

She bumps into his shoulder with her own and he winces slightly.

She frowns a little, “You got hurt at practice?”

“Ah, let’s go with that.”

She figures that since he gave her something to clean her face off, she should give him something back.

“Want me to rub your shoulders a little?” She brought a hand to the shoulder closest to her, and started to rub her thumb in a circular motion on the back blade.

He swallows, his fingers twitching from a want to hold her hand that was on his back. She shifts so she’s behind him, sitting on her calves as her knees press against his back a little. Her thumbs are on his shoulder blades and her fingers wrap around the bulk of his shoulder to reach his collarbones. Her ministrations reduce the aching in his muscles but only intensify the buzz he gets when he’s around her.

“If you keep doing this I might fall in love with you.” It’s wistless but carries an appetite that itches to be satiated.

The sun had finally set, streaking the sky with strands of reds and yellows at the cusp of the edge of the earth that was visible to them. The sky directly overhead was deeply purple and dark navy blue. Some white splatters of stars dotted the universe.

“Who’s to say you aren’t already in love with me?” She wraps her arms around his neck, resting her chin on the top of his head.

He moves his head, and hers falls down a little, no longer able to use his head as a support for her chin, he presses a quick kiss to her jaw.

“Now that’s a great question from you, let’s keep those kinds of inquiries coming.”

She liked to pester him with questions well into college, especially as they sat side by side in their anthropology class.

“So how do I tell the difference between the 1400s and 1300s? Professor keeps saying we can clearly see the difference between a vase from the 1350s and a vase from the 1410s but honestly they both look like piles of crust to me.” She was tugging on his hand under the desk they were sitting at. He just kept taking his notes, transcribing what the T.A was talking about for an upcoming exam.

“Okay, Kei. I see how it is. Leaving your lovely girlfriend to struggle in the same class you begged her to take with you.”

He shushes her a little, grabbing her hand with his free one. “I’ll help you after class.”

He got a glance of the zeroes in black on his wrist.

He looks at her wrist, matching zeroes. He was glad that he bumped into her that day.

They were soulmates. It was plain to see, plain to feel, plain to understand.

The T.A closes a notebook and dismisses the class, he announces he’s going to his office to grab something and then he’ll be back to answer some questions.

Tsukishima sets his pen down and grabs her face with both hands, she raises an eyebrow at him and tries to lean back.

“This doesn’t feel very academic in nature, this is definitely not an answer to my question, so what is this?” She gesticulates her hands between the two of them.

“This is me kissing you.”

He rushed to close the distance between them. Their noses bumped into each other before he tilted his head a little bit. When he slid his tongue into her mouth, she whimpered a little and nudged his chest. But he stayed connected to her. Tsukishima could hear the classmates that hadn’t left yet making some barraging comments, he didn’t care.

He tried to pull her into him, lifting her slightly by the back of her knee and trying to bring it around his body with zeal. He licked her bottom lip before nipping at it. She went with it, resting a hand on his chest and leaning into the kiss slightly.

Tsukishima pushed the rolling desk away slightly, and used a hand to bring her chair closer to his. When she placed her other hand behind his neck and toyed with the strands of hair along the back of his head he kissed her with more pressure. He kept trying to coax her into his lap as he kept tugging on the back of her knee.

The T.A got back and dropped a stack of papers, seeing as Tsukishima had just given up on coaxing her and had entirely just pulled her into his lap of his own volition. She was so embarrassed when the teacher’s assistant had, in a voice barely below a scream, chastised them and said they’d need to write a paper on proper classroom conduct.

Tsukishima had zoomed through his essay, spending the rest of the hour in the office drawing shapes on her back with his fingers, lackadaisical with his motions. She had almost, just barely, snapped at him when he pressed a kiss to her shoulder.

“I’m sorry.” He drew a heart on her back in a wide sweep motion, before changing his tactic and using just his finger tips to scratch her back lightly.

“You are not sorry.” She said with teeth clenched, pausing writing her essay.

“Yeah. I’m not. I just really wanted to kiss you.” To Tsukishima’s words, she just clicked her tongue at him.

“There’s nothing hot about anthropology so I don’t know what gave you the animalistic urge to kiss me like that.”

He pouted a little, then picked up the pen from her paper and twirled it between his fingers.

“While anthropology may not be hot, you definitely are.”

She groaned in response, trying to take her pen back. He just shook his head no and gave a traditional Tsukishima ‘tsk, tsk, tsk’. He took the paper from her as well, writing the rest of the outlined points rapidly so they could get out of the office and into their apartment.

“Remember when you kissed me in the middle of class, and then the T.A got so mad at us. I want more memories like that, and I suppose I’ll get them because now we’re legally stuck together.” Her hands were shaking a little, reading the paper in front of everyone.

Tsukishima was easily able to ignore everyone else, focusing on the way she had done her hair. He had heard the vows beforehand. She didn’t trust anyone else but him to be a proofreader for her little speech. She also wanted him to get out all the cringes so he didn’t tease her during the wedding because then her dad would’ve gotten mad at him.

They had gone over their vows together the night before, curled up on their couch, joking and laughing at what the other had written.

“You cannot say that you can’t wait to replicate our college graduation night over again, that’s foul.”

“We have a better car now.” He shrugged. She hit him with her stack of drafts repeatedly.

“And you need to add in how much you love me.”

“I’m marrying you, isn’t that clear enough for a statement of love?” Tsukishima groaned and threw his head back onto the couch.

“Yeah, that’s not gonna cut it, mister. I need you on your hands and knees in gratitude. I need you wallowing in desperation for me. I need you to be obsessed.”

Tsukishima could do that. He quickly wrapped an arm around her waist, tugging her over his lap so she was straddling his thighs. He let his hands rest on the small of her back, before sliding around to rub her thighs languorously. Tsukishima sighed in contentment when she slumped over him a little, tucking her head into the nook of his neck.

“There’s a lot I’m sorry for,” Tsukishima blinked a few times, she hadn’t included a bit like this when he read her draft. “And there’s a lot I wish that I could go back and redo. I’m sorry for you because I know that I’m stubborn, and I’m sorry that I made you wait until college so we could date, despite knowing we were soulmates in high school. You did a great job of sticking it out. And you stuck it out for me, the girl who tried to fight you in the middle of a gymnasium after you accidentally bumped into her.”

Tsukishima didn’t expect to get choked up. When he looked over to his family, Akiteru was sobbing uncontrollably as their mom rubbed Akiteru’s back. Tsukishima glanced over to his friends, and Yamaguchi was forcing a smile despite looking completely overwhelmed with tenderness.

“I’m gonna tease you now so don’t bite my head off when this reception is over okay? I stuck it out too for you, especially when you kept trying to kiss me all throughout high school, or when you would slide your hand over my thigh.”

Tsukishima blushed and he used his hands to cover his face with an incredulous noise erupting from his throat. He hoped that her parents would have selective hearing for that specific part of her vows.

“But, you chipped away at me. Slowly. With a sort of dedication that would impress even the builders of the Pyramids. I wish that everyone got to see that side of you, but I’m glad that I got to experience it first hand. The side of Tsukishima Kei where he knows what he wants and pursues any path to achieve it. My Kei, who when faced with obstacles, decides that the obstacles aren’t a problem for him and that he can keep going.”

He wipes away the tears prickling away at his eyes.

“So, here’s to the future. Here’s to our lives pressing onward. I say that we win some and that we lose some, and you say back to me that you deserve a reward for doing either. Winning or losing, you want a reward for the experience. From this experience, getting to know me, and then dating me, and then being engaged to me, I hope that now that we’re moving onward that I’m enough of a reward.”

He knows he isn’t supposed to interrupt her, but he does, “You’re the only reward I need.”

She turns the paper around. She’s laughing a little, ignoring the tears on her face. Tsukishima looks at where her finger is pointing to. And right below her line of hoping she’s enough of a reward, clear as day is a prediction she had written.

Cue Kei saying something cringey in response, 10 bucks it’s “You’re the only reward I need.”

Tsukishima clicks his tongue and rolls his eyes.

But it was true.

She was all he needed.

He remembers reading something about soulmates during high school. Or maybe it was about relationships in general, but that’s not the point. The article had said something along the lines of, when you date someone you’re competing with that person.

You compete to be worth something to that someone, to be worth the time they would be spending on themself instead.

Tsukishima thought that was all a load of bullshit.

Love isn’t something you compete for, or something you build up virtuous worth for. Love is natural and doesn’t require anything but patience and effort. He didn’t need to compete to be worth anything to her, he just had to be himself.