Rules

A Rule Book

A friendship rule book. Yamaguchi had always wanted one, he knew that some of the people in his class made them to share with their friends and he would have done the same if he had any friends. Tsukishima was his friend sorta but Yamaguchi felt like he was more of an annoyance to him than anything and he had just barely meant him.

"Yamaguchi." a voice called out for him, Tsukishima sat next to him on the small bench as they sat and waited for their rides home.

Yamaguchi figured if he'd propose the idea to get rejected the best time was now " Tsuki, there this thing going on in my class and uh"

Tsukishima cut him off " Friendship rulebooks, I've heard, what you wanna make one?" He asked "uh" Yamaguchi answered not sure what to say, Tsuki scoffed "Of course you do, fine I guess we can".

Yamaguchi was so excited! Tssuki had agreed to his idea! well sorta, did it count if he already knew the idea? The next day was the weekend so he ran over to Tsukishima's house with his paper and crayons as soon as he could. They sat at the small picnic table in his backyard that day and made the "rules of their friendship" in construction paper books and crayons just like Yamaguchi wanted.

The idea was that Yamaguchi would write Tsukishima's copy and Tsukishima would do the same with Yamaguchi. They chose yellow and green as the opposing colors for each other, one would keep their crayon and the others copy and if a rule needed adding no matter what it must be written in their crayon otherwise it wasn't legal.

"Okay so.. First rule, uh I didn't think past there" Yamaguchi said crayon stopping before it hit the page,

"well, Yamaguchi what the most basic thing about friendship?" Tsukishima prompted him,

" Oh to always be friends no matter what and be there for each other?" Yamaguchi scratched his head, Tsukishima nodded.

"Okay so first rule, Yamaguchi and Tsukishima cannot go anywhere without each other!" Yamaguchi wrote down in his yellow paper book with green crayon,

" anywhere?" Tsukishima raised an eyebrow " well not everywhere obviously Tssuki, there will be exceptions, like the restroom and stuff, just the important things." Yamaguchi pointed at Tsukishima's green paper book with a yellow crayon implying to write it down.

"Okay, that's one rule down, what's next?" Tsukishima pulled back from writing the first rule on his pages.

"Uhhh" Yamaguchi went blank, he really should have thought more about this before he proposed the idea but hey he was excited!

"How about we can't watch shows without each other, that way things can't be spoiled or anything?" Tsukishima suggested remembering the one-time Yamaguchi watched one episode of their favorite show without him which kinda hurt.

Yamaguchi nodded and wrote it down, as did Tsukishima, then Yamaguchi closed his book and took Tsukishima's as Tsukishima's mother called him to tell him his mother had arrived to pick him up. "Okay Tssuki, I have to go now but thank you for doing this with me, if you think of anything else let me know!" and took off leaving Tssuki in the backyard with a yellow crayon and yellow booklet.

*****

(time skip boys Elementary so 12-15)

Tsukishima and Yamaguchi ran upstairs to Tsukishima's room, it was after school and they wanted to get in some studying and also maybe they could have a sleepover. During studies Tsukishima's eyes drifted to his desk as he scanned all the items once more, There was the small booklet right under a fossil paperweight Yamaguchi got him for Christmas, he picked it up and flipped through the small fragile yellow paper pages. More rules had been added since when they first made it and of course the state of their handwriting changed thank god.

One of his favorite ones was rule 3, added a few years after the first 2, turns out that Tsukishima and Yamaguchi had really good music taste, put together they both were truly gods of music taste. This rule was his idea after Yamaguchi gave him a few songs to listen to which were really enjoyable. He basically demanded it was written into the book, Yamaguchi was happy to oblige.

Another that was added sometime between now and then was rule 4, Which was about gifts, it mostly came from Yamaguchi receiving small things from Tsukishima then feeling bad when there was nothing to return for it. He forced Tsukishima into that one no matter how much he protested, it was still put down at the end of the day.

*****

(High school first year 16)

God practice was taxing, Yamaguchi was tired, he cleared a few things off from his desk in his room. Tsukishima was coming over so they could watch some new movies together that he wanted to see, if Yamaguchi didn't at least fix it a bit it would turn into a cleaning session instead of a relaxing movie night. He hit the small paper book of his, green and yellow, they have added a few rules since the last time, they now had a total of 2 more rules.

Rule 5, All Apologies Must Be in letter form unless super important, this was mostly created because both Yamaguchi and Tsukishima had a hard time with words and it was just easier to write them down beforehand, so besides their joking apologies, every other was in letter because they weren't even in that big of an accident to permit an in-person one. Yamaguchi hoped things stayed that way too, he couldn't imagine him fighting Tsukishima.

Rule 6, When one is talking the other listens, This was again a Yamaguchi thing, he used to fear that when he spoke to Tssuki, he was never truly listening and just kinda nodded along. Then Tssuki proposed the rule so he wouldn't worry about it anymore, Yamaguchi still worried about it sometimes but He also knew that Tssuki wouldn't break their promise so easily, so he trusted it.

They had 6 rules, that was all they needed, sure they were written in old crayon on ripping faded paper but it was important to both of them. Yamaguchi set the old book back down and began to clean again, just in time for Tssuki to barge in startling Yamaguchi, "oi, Yams why is ur room in this condition?" He asked, Yamaguchi began to stutter. It turned into a cleaning session by the end of it.