Night to dawn (A TsukkiYama AU)

Chapter 2

Tsukishima stared at the stranger. Millions of questions flooded his mind all at once so that he had to take a few seconds to clear his head. After doing so, he looked back at the boy. On a second glance, the boy seemed not as weird as he'd thought. He looked harmless with his head drooping downwards, like the top of a strawberry, Tsukishima thought. He cautiously went over to the wall and poked the boy gently in his arm.

The boy stirred and his eyes opened. Then he shook his head lightly and muttered "I'm up, Mom..." before realizing that he was lying on the grass against a red brick wall with his face full of early-morning sunshine. He jumped and noticed Tsukishima, then jumped even more violently.

"E-eh?!" He stammered with a bewildered look on his face. "Wait - what's the time?! Who are you?! Where am I?!"

He looked at the blonde-haired boy crouching next to him and the first thing he noticed (other than his blonde hair) was that he was obviously very tall. The next thing he noticed was that he was wearing rectangular-shaped glasses. The third thing he noticed was that the boy was wearing the same uniform as him.

"You must be a very absent-minded person to be sleeping on the wall of some stranger's house on your way to school." said Tsukishima with a slight smirk on his face. 

"Oh.. s-sorry, but hey!" said the freckled boy, "You go to Karasuno High School?!"

"Boy oh boy, we are very late to school, aren't we?"

"Aah! You're right! C'mon, let's go!" said the boy, and he grabbed Tsukishima's wrist and dragged him along with much more power than Tsukishima had expected. He wrenched his hand away and said "Calm down, we still have a few minutes."

"A few minutes isn't enough!"

"First tell me your name, then we'll go."
"I'm Tadashi Yamaguchi, now let's hurry!"

...

They reached the train just as it was beginning to move. Both of them jumped hurriedly on and then caught their breath. "T-thank god..." Yamaguchi said with a sigh, and dropped into one of the seats. Tsukishima sat down beside him and asked with a heavy amount of emphasis, "Now, how about you explain what the hell you were doing sleeping on the way to school?"

"Ah... about that..." For a split second, Tsukishima saw Yamaguchi's face darken. Then the moment passed and he smiled and said "Sorry, the thing is that I got up at 5 o' clock to do some running and got tired, so I figured it wasn't a problem if I just took a nap for half an hour."

"Your half an hour turned into two hours and a half."

"Haha, yeah, sorry about that..."

Tsukishima stared at the boy who called himself Yamaguchi. He wondered how Yamaguchi could be so carefree and trusting, but he kept the thought to himself, put on his headphones (which he was wearing around his neck until now), lay back in the seat and disappeared into his world of music. 

Fifteen minutes later, he was shaken back to reality by a frowning Yamaguchi, who was urgently tapping his shoulder saying "C'mon! If we don't get off now, we'll be at the next stop!" He stood up and started walking over to the exit before he remembered that he'd taken off his bag. He was about to get it, but saw Yamaguchi coming over with his bag, grumbling "And you call me absent-minded!". He handed Tsukishima the bag and gave him a wide smile. "Let's go!"

Tsukishima stared at that smile, allowing his mind to take a mental picture of it. He recognised something familiar in that smile, something that he was sure he remembered and had seen before, but where? He mentally shook himself and him and Yamaguchi got off and looked at the big, grey-tiled building in front of them, with big orange letters spellling "Karasuno High School".

"This is it!" Yamaguchi's eager voice came from his right. "It's so big and it reflects the sunlight so much that it feels like it's shining! Right? Right?"

"Yeah..." Tsukishima agreed, somewhat amazed. He and Yamaguchi then found their way up the stairs to their class. In the beginning, Yamaguchi kept talking enthusiastically. Tsukishima caught snatches of what he was saying through the music he was listening to ("...do you think the lessons are gonna be hard?...I really hope there are afternoon clubs...") but pretended not to hear him. Eventually he was gonna give up, right? He found, to his shock, that he was wrong. 

As they walked through the school, students and teachers alike stared at them in astonishment. Everyone knew of Tsukishima and how he had behaved in middle school, so they were very confused. How did Tsukishima, the person who had pushed away everyone he met, the kind of guy who would rather eat rotten vegetables than interact with someone, find such an innocent and enthusiastic boy to befriend? They started talking among themselves, but Yamaguchi ignored them and kept talking about how fun the school would be and wonder if they would make many friends or just end up alone. 

Once in the classroom, Tsukishima walked over to the desk at the back next to the window, and to his surprise, Yamaguchi chose the seat next to him. Yamaguchi would have started talking again had it not been for their teacher coming in to start their first lesson in Karasuno High.

...

By lunchtime, the news had spread all over the school that Tsukishima was hanging out with the new student. Everywhere they went, students stopped talking and stared at them until they passed. Tsukishima naturally paid no mind to them; he was used to this kind of thing. He had expected Yamaguchi to at least be a little sad or confused, but to Tsukishima's utter perplexion, he stayed irrevocably bright and happy. 

At one point, when they were both eating lunch, Yamaguchi said "Hey, I don't think I ever got your name."

Tsukishima glanced at him. He looked back at his lunch and said "Kei Tsukishima". 

"I'll call you Tsukki then!"

He looked up. He swallowed what he was chewing and said "That's lame." with an incredibly straight face. Yamaguchi stared at him. "Pfft...". He burst into laughter. After a very long time, during which everyone in the vicinity (a.k.a, the school yard) started staring at him and Tsukishima had finished his lunch, he wiped away a tear and said "Aaah, what a good laugh!"

All day long, Yamaguchi followed Tsukishima around, and no matter what insult Tsukishima gave him, he merely laughed and kept talking. By the end of the day, Tsukishima's brain was spinning. Why did this green-haired boy want to stick by him? What did he see in Tsukishima that made him want to be his friend? 

Why wasn't he running away?

...

"Hey, can I come to your house?"

Tsukishima looked stopped walking and looked at Yamaguchi, surprised. "Wouldn't you like to stay with your family more?" he asked. Yamaguchi's eyes widened and he looked down. A shadow settled on his face and he said "No, not really..."

Tsukishima was about to ask why but used his common sense and said instead "I live alone, so there's no family of mine to meet.. but you can come if you want to."

Yamaguchi looked up with a mixture of joy and surprise. Tsukishima looked away and blushed a little. No one had ever been this eager to be with him before, not even his brother. Eventually he said "Thanks, Tsukki!" and beamed. Tsukishima observed that his freckles squashed together when Yamaguchi smiled. He pushed his glasses further up his nose and said "Don't get too excited, it won't be much fun." Yamaguchi laughed and said, "Alright, then, lemon boy!"

"Lemon boy?!"

"Yeah. You're like a lemon, cause you're bittersweet. Get it?"

Tsukishima looked at him and the corners of his mouth lifted a few centimeters. Lemon boy, he thought.

What an accurate name.