Under the Stars

Chapter #9: I Always Act Like I'm the Best

The next morning, Tsukishima wakes up with Tadashi still sleeping next to him. He feels relieved, knowing that he's no longer avoiding him, but he still feels a little uneasy, given the events of last night. Since they were both up for a while last night too, Tsukki decides to let him sleep a little bit longer. A few others are up too, shuffling around the mats of their sleeping teammates, trying not to wake them up. Tsukishima imitates their movements, keeping quiet so as to not disturb anyone while he gets ready.

Just as he is about to walk back into the classroom, Tanaka exits yelling, "Somebody wake Tadashi up!" back into the classroom. Tsukishima enters the room to see Yamaguchi sound asleep on his mat.

Tsukishima makes his way over to him, weaving his way through his teammates who are rolling up their own mats. He's still in Kei's hoodie, hugging his pillow. Tsukishima crouches down next to his sleeping friend, and flicks a stray piece of hair out of his face. His hand lingers on his cheek for a moment, before he snatches it away and places it on Yamaguchi's shoulder, and proceeds to shake him awake.

"Hhhhhhhhhngwhat?" Yamaguchi mumbles, not even opening his eyes.

"It's time to wake up, so get your ass out of bed," he asserts, knowing that if he said it in a gentle tone, Tadashi wouldn't listen.

He exhales loudly, "Fiiiiiiiiine," he grumbles as he rubs the sleep from his eyes.

After some time - and considerably more effort than one would deem necessary - he gets up and starts to get ready. Tsukishima - feeling a bit more mindful than usual - rolls up his mat from him.

By the time he's done with that, Tadashi starts to change into his gym clothes, probably too tired to care who sees him, but then Tsukishima remembers how he's been avoiding changing in the classroom since the beginning of camp, and puts it together in his head.

"Wait!" he says sharply right as Tadashi pulls the hoodie over his head. It lifted his shirt up a little, exposing a small amount of his torso.

His skin is littered with cuts there, too.

Tsukishima's breath hitches, and he points to his own forearms, hoping that his friend will get the message. Thankfully, he seems to understand and immediately pulls the hoodie back on. Even though there's nobody in the room, Tsukishima knows that Tadashi wouldn't want to run the risk of somebody seeing him.

"Oh no," Tadashi says under his breath.

"What's wrong?"

"I can't play today, I didn't pack any long sleeved shirts."

Tsukishima curses to himself, and begins to rummage through his bag, looking for a long sleeved shirt. Unsurprisingly, he doesn't find one.

"What are we gonna tell the coach?" Tadashi asks in a nervous tone.

"I...I don't know," he thinks for a moment, and comes to the only believable conclusion. "We can tell the coach that you're feeling sick, and that you can't play today."

Tadashi makes a face of disbelief, "But is he really going to believe that?"

"Well the other option is playing with my hoodie on, or worse, playing with just a regular T-shirt on, and I don't think you want to do either of those."

"Sickness it is," he says without a second thought.

***

The conversation with Coach Ukai and Takeda Sensei goes unexpectedly well, probably due to Tadashi being so visibly exhausted that they were probably willing to pull him just over that.

The practice matches only go until noon, with their last match being against Fukurodani. A match that Tsukishima can only describe as entertaining in an incredibly strange way. He knew that Bokuto was a weird guy, but he wasn't expecting him to have a complete mood swing mid-game. They still end up winning however, with Bokuto scoring the last point.