Fukumoto Taree couldn't remember the last time she had a moment of peace that wasn't scheduled out. Her life had become uniform years ago, following a to-the-minute itinerary planned out neatly in several colors.
Life was meant to be busy. People were meant to work. You didn't get anything in this world unless you put in the effort. Sure, miracles and fantasies could actualize, but only if you made it so.
That was a lesson she had learned early on as her mother struggled to make sure there wasn't too much month left at the end of her salary. And that was why Taree worked so incredibly hard at every task that faced her — to make sure that every sacrifice her mother made was worth it. She'd be everything her mother dreamed she could be and more.
Taree's memories were far too clouded for her to be able to pinpoint when she first felt the pressure to be (and do) everything. It must have been around second year of middle school, though, because that was also the first time she ever remembered feeling really, truly jealous. You know, that kind of jealousy that rooted itself deep in her heart and turned straight to anger at the indignity that someone dare have something she didn't.
There were plenty of times the green-eyed monster made appearances in her life. She'd been jealous of the other students who had fathers. She'd been jealous of the kids who saw their mother every night. She'd even been jealous of the people who had more to eat than whatever they could find on the marked down shelf at the corner store.
But she had never been as jealous as the day she first watched Tendou Satori play volleyball. That was the first time she witnessed what true freedom was.
Never before had Taree seen someone so unabashedly themselves, chasing the high of whatever made them happy with absolutely no regrets. Despite the reprimands, and a severe lack of people understanding him, Tendou was everything she wanted to, but never could be. He was himself.
That first time she saw him had been an accident — a small slip of fate that somehow forced her path across the volleyball practice after staying at the library at her middle school for just a little too long. It'd been a single, otherwise insignificant moment in a slide projector full of insignificant moments, but the look on his face when he blocked a spike made her realize that, maybe, she didn't know what real joy was.
It was just a moment and she hadn't lingered in it, immediately pushing past the open gym door and onward to her reality.
The second time was on purpose (though she wouldn't admit it). She had acted like it was a huge inconvenience for her to attend a volleyball practice match with the other members of the middle school student council, but she had been planting the seed in her classmates' head for weeks.
That game was the first time Tendou noticed her — with her clenched up fists at her side, acting like she wasn't incredibly invested in the outcome of the game, and the discernible frown on her face when he was subbed out and lectured. He thought it was weird how her eyes kept panning his way and he realized, all at once, that she wasn't there to watch the game. She was there to watch him.
Not a single word was shared between the two, but for the first time Tendou felt like he had somebody on his side.
And so, they watched each other out of the corner of their eyes for the rest of middle school — Taree living through Tendou's freedom and Tendou finding solace in knowing someone could actually see him.
The end of one era often means the beginning of another — unimportant moments bleeding into each other despite the feeling of finality — but Tendou and Taree both only had one option to move forward: Shiratorizawa. One for the academics and future opportunities, the other to chase what felt good. Both riding on skills that paved the way for a future they couldn't afford otherwise. Neither knowing the other would be waiting for them when they got there.
By the time they made it to their second year of high school, Taree had stopped numbering their encounters. There were far too many brushed shoulders in the hallways, too many times their eyes connected across the classroom, the gymnasium, the campus pathways as if their eyes were magnetized, and too many nervous smiles as she pushed forward. Always pushing forward while Tendou remained unpredictable on all fronts.
If there was any one thing that her classmates would say about "Fukumoto-san" if asked to describe her, it would be that she never stops moving. She had gotten into Shiratorizawa on her own merit, earned an academic scholarship to a school that was already academically difficult to get into, and she spent every hour of non-class time proving that she deserved this opportunity — that all her mother's hard work was not going to waste.
To anyone else, the fervor with which Taree blew through her days of honors courses, student council meetings, secondary club activities, cram school and a (very) part-time job, would have looked like a driven girl's efforts to get the most out of her youth. To Tendou, though, she looked like a too-tired, scared little girl, trying to prove to herself, and the world, that she had what it took to move beyond the trap of her origins — the daughter of a single mother who thought she had to make up for all the shit life threw at her mother by being the perfect daughter who could, one day, pull her hard working mother out of the gutter through sheer will power.
He saw her for exactly what she was. He didn't like it.
Watching her out of the corner his eye, all throughout the day, wasn't something he had started doing consciously. She just happened to be there whenever he looked up from his desk or when his eyes left the volleyball court during a game. It turned into more of a deliberate action in his second year when he realized she was everywhere and, yet somehow, never available and suddenly he started taking note of her constant buzzing about — like she was a pollinator hopping from task to task, making sure each and every aspect of her life was sought to properly to ensure its growth and stability.
At first, he made assumptions about her similar to their classmates': she was a busy body, somebody who needed to move constantly or she would die. The closer he watched, though, the easier it was to bring her true form into focus. The bags under her eyes, the brief falter in her smiles and small moments of reluctance between being asked to pencil in another task on her color-coded planner and agreeing to do so, were all tells into how she wasn't some superhuman but just a tired, overworked student, overcompensating for something.
Typically, if Tendou picked up on someone's tells, they were done for but he couldn't bring himself to believe it was his place to break Taree's spirit. If she was confident in her capabilities to handle everything she threw herself into and was happy enough to do so, then what purpose was there to pointing out that her strands were thinning.
But then, just two months into their third year, he watched her fall asleep under a tree at lunch five times in two weeks and he thought, maybe it was time for her to be woken up to just how hard she was pushing herself.
It started with some mild jeers — quiet "you sure look tired Fuku-chan"s whispered under his breath as he passed her in the halls and teasings about how cute her panda-eyes were — in hopes that she would get the message without direct interference. The new, and frankly unexpected, attention from Tendou had quite the impact on her, (somewhere stuck between embarrassing, infuriating and intriguing), but didn't quite give way to the results he wanted. What can he say? Sometimes his intuitions are wrong.
His tactics quickly changed from subliminal coercion to explicit interference — him jumping into the middle of conversations with comments about how "Fuku-chan is already incredibly busy. Why bother her with your menial requests" — only to be immediately undermined by her insisting that she is always happy to help others.
In the end, it wasn't Taree that ended up frustrated and resigned but Tendou. He had been persistent and borderline aggravating in his mission to show the only person who had ever paid attention to him that they were working themselves into the ground and had only ended up watching her take on more in the process. Almost as if him insisting that she shouldn't take on more only encouraged her to do so to spite him (She did.) and to prove that she really could do it all on her own. (Also true.)
Maybe, that's what really drew them together. Not the fascination in his freedom or the liberation of not being alone but the overwhelming desire they both had to do "it all" by themselves. Tendou on the volleyball court and Fukumoto in life.
After just a few weeks of his direct methods Tendou's resolve broke though, and he found himself unable to hold back the urge to just walk straight up to Taree and tell her just what a self destructing, overly-proud, ridiculously stubborn, pain in the ass she was. So, he did.
He stopped her in the hall right after the last class of the day and literally asked her if she knew that she was a self distracting, overly-proud, ridiculously stubborn, pain in the ass, with as straight of a face and level of a voice as he could.
"Excuse me?" She breathed out, incredulous more than apparent in her voice and indignity painted prominently on her face
"You heard me," he shot back. "What is your deal anyway? Can't you just let one thing go or let one person help you?"
"I never asked for your help," she huffed.
"And that's part of the problem," he shouted back. "There is no reason for you to be doing as much as you do and no logical conclusion I can reach as to why you would do it all alone. I mean, seriously, how many times do I have to catch you falling asleep around campus before you realize that you're overworking yourself."
Taree stood still as she gave Tendou a hard stare, as if she was trying to figure just how much about her life he knew and how long he'd been taking stock of her well being, before frowning slightly. "It's not really your concern," she replied flatly.
"Maybe not," he shrugged. "But you don't get to decide who worries about you."
"I don't need you to worry about me. I am completely fine," she mumbled, her resolve faltering slightly.
"Oh, I'm sure. That's why you have huge bags under your eyes and why you keep having to ask people to repeat what they're saying to you," he said, sarcasm dripping from every word. "When, even, was the last time you slept for more than four hours straight or, I don't know, took a break and went out with friends?"
"Those things aren't really important right now," Taree responded. "I have to spend my time making the most out of high school and focusing on school."
"Why?"
"What do you mean 'why'? Because it's critical for my future. Because good grades and a heavily-loaded student resume all but ensure acceptance to a good university. Because getting a good education likely means a good career," she stated before adding under her breath, "and a good career means I can finally take care of mom. That she can finally stop working so hard."
There was a heavy pause as Tendou watched her explain herself and took in each and every word. It was exactly what he had expected, right down to her savior's complex, and as he narrowed his eyes at her, he set to tear it all down. That's what he did best, after all — taking what's spiked at him and knocking it right back in their face.
"I don't understand the purpose behind this sick, cyclical game of self martyrdom you have going on," he said flatly. "You can't honestly believe your mother would work so hard just for you to live a life of practical indenturetude to work."
"Huh?"
"I don't think I stuttered," he responded, almost amused as he rested his hands behind his head and began to walk away. "Your mom would probably hate to know that you have no friends and have made no memories while at high school."
Taree stood there, trapped in a trance as she tried to decipher his words. She blinked through the thoughts before turning to chase the red head.
"Hey!" She shouted at his retreating figure. "You can't just blow apart the understanding upon which I have lived my entire life and just walk away!"
Tendou stopped in his tracks, hands in his pockets as he looked back at her before jerking his head in the direction he was walking. "Well, come along then," he said, turning to move forward again. He got about 20 more steps away before he heard the rushed echoes of Taree's soles catch up to him.
"Where are we going," she asked.
"Hmmm," he toned, tapping his forefinger on his lips before breaking out into a satisfied smile. "I think we'll start with ice cream."
[TFW: You just happen to finish the Tendou short story you've been working on for weeks the day before his birthday. 🎂 Is this what small luck is? Should I buy a lotto ticket?]