HAIKYUU!! // one shots

22

⌲ ❝ saudade ❞
『tsukishima kei × yamaguchi tadashi』

⸙.

『外の世界は美しいです。少なくとも、山口のために。』

Tsukishima Kei never wanted to be a part of the Survey Corps.

After witnessing how his older brother sacrificed his life for the safety of people that they don't even know, Tsukishima never understood why someone would be willing to waste his life just for someone else's. The appreciation won't even last long. They'll remember you for a week, and then proceed to go back to their everyday lives after. If possible, he wanted to live a safe, peaceful life inside the walls, forgetting about the fact that titans exist.

But Yamaguchi doesn't want that.

When he was 10, Yamaguchi was found by Tsukishima's brother outside the walls. Having no one that he can call family, Tsukishima's family accepted the young boy just like that.

"What are you reading?" Yamaguchi asked. It has been a month since he started living with the Tsukishima's, and yet the youngest son hasn't warmed up to him. Maybe it's jealousy since his parents had another one to take care of aside from him, or maybe he just really hated strangers. Yamaguchi never tries to figure it out, and would instead watch Tsukishima from afar, wondering what kinds of books interest a kid like him.

Tsukishima raised his right eyebrow- a little bit surprised that the other actually approached him after a month of watching him like a stalker. "A storybook," Tsukishima answered, raising the small book to give it to the smaller. "It's boring, though. I hate it."

Yamaguchi skimmed through the pages- a picture can speak a thousand words, and the book was filled with different pictures on every page. It was colored in an amateur way, Yamaguchi could tell that a kid owned it previously before Tsukishima. "What do you call this one?"

Tsukishima stood up from the ground, his slender figure towering over Yamaguchi. His eyes are set on the page that the smaller has been pointing on. "They call it the sea."

"How pretty," Yamaguchi exclaimed as he brushed the pads of his fingers on the page. "It seems like it was sparkling. I'd like to see it someday."

"You can't," Tsukishima mumbled in a low voice as he looks away. "It's fictional. It doesn't exist."

"Who are you to decide that?"

Tsukishima's eyes twitched as he looks back at Yamaguchi. The other pointed to the high wall in front of them. For kids like them, those walls looked like it was as high as the skies beyond what the eyes could see.

"Outside these walls... I'm sure there is another world to discover." Yamaguchi's eyes are gleaming in pure amusement- even the stars would be ashamed. "Beautiful things that we'll see for the first time. When we grow up, I'll show them to you- the beauty that you only saw in storybooks."

Tsukishima thought it was ridiculous. He is more than convinced that the books he read are a product of someone's massive imagination. But looking at how Yamaguchi stares at the walls as if they were his ancestors, how he hopes for the future that is not going to happen, and how he raises his pinky finger to promise Tsukishima that they'll see the beautiful world together, the blonde couldn't do anything but promise him, staying by his side until they both saw the beauty that was once found in storybooks.

Well, that was when they were kids.

"Tsukki, Tsukki!"

"What is it, Yamaguchi?"

Carrying a large book in his fragile arms, Yamaguchi's smile is beaming as ever as he rushed towards his childhood friend. "I found the book that Commander Kenma was talking about!"