{TsukkiYama}I Hope the night sky is pretty wherever you are

Chapter 3

It seems as if there are only arms participating in volleyball practice that Friday. Kei can't seem to focus on anything else.
Frustrated, he walks to the sidelines to pick up his water bottle.

Of course Yamaguchi follows him.
Sweat makes his hair stick slightly to his forehead, and his cheeks are red from exertion.
Kei thinks he looks perfect.

'Have you noticed that Kageyama tried to compliment Hinata?' Yamaguchi giggles. 'He switched the words around though. He called him perfectly useless.'

Kei laughs with him. 'That's just the truth.'

Just then Hinata's head swivels their way, and he looks suspiciously at them. 'Are you talking about me?'

Yamaguchi tries to smother his laughter by hiding his mouth behind his hand.

'No, we were talking about-' Kei starts, and then stops.

Hinata looks expectantly at him.

After a few seconds, his eyebrows slowly lower.

Yamaguchi snorts loudly behind his hand.

Finally, the descend of Hinata's eyebrows has ended. It's a full-on frown now.
'You were talking about?' he yells.

Kei's smile becomes devilish. 'That's what I said.'

'But you didn't finish your sentence!'

Hinata starts angrily waving his hands in the air at the same time that Yamaguchi doubles over from laughter. 'His face is hilarious,' he laughs. 'Nice one, Tsukki.'

He loves making Yamaguchi laugh like that.

⋆*☆⋆*

They practice volleyball. They study for school. They have their usual movie nights where, after the second movie, Yamaguchi gets tired and leans his head on Kei's shoulder, and Kei tentatively puts his arm around him. They fall asleep like that.

They don't talk about soulmates, and Yamaguchi's arms never have any writing on them.
Neither do Kei's.

But it's when they're watching a nature documentary at his place that, for the first time, he sees Yamaguchi looking worryingly at his arm.
Kei quickly looks back to the screen.
But.
He's a good friend. The best friend. He has to ask what's wrong.

'Is... everything okay?' he forces himself to say.

Yamaguchi winces, and it takes a while for him to reply.

'I don't know.'

Kei keeps staring at the screen.

'Do you want to talk about it?'

But Yamaguchi puts his hand on Kei's arm and says softly, 'It's okay.'

It's unexpected, the touching, and Kei blurts out, 'If your soulmate's a jerk, don't bother.'

At this, Yamaguchi starts giggling. 'But Kei, you can be a jerk too.'

He scoffs. 'Only to some people.'

Yamaguchi raises one eyebrow to tell him that was exactly his point, so Kei looks away and shoves him softly with his shoulder.
With a yawn, Yamaguchi lets his head fall on Kei's shoulder again.
He says fondly, 'I don't mind, Tsukki.'

⋆*☆⋆*

Why am I so afraid to lose you, when you aren't even
mine?