Chapter Text
Yamaguchi and Tsukishima had been friends since their fifth year of grade school.
After Tsukishima had stood up to Tadashi’s bullies, the smaller boy found himself attached to the tall blonde, following him around wherever he went. At first it was a bit for protection, but the boy found the tall blonde to be interesting and even a little funny so he stayed. After all, he was the only thing he had besides his family.
It was then that Yamaguchi had been introduced to the sport of Volleyball. Something that Tsukishima had got him into playing, he enjoyed it he really did, but shortly after entering his first year at his middle school did he realize that his skills had been less developed compared to other players.
Even once they entered high school together, Yamaguchi still found himself less developed compared to his peers. Out of all four first years in the team, he was the only one that was not a starter. And he took it really hard on himself.
All his life, he had been the second option. Either tossed away or ignored.
He had been bullied physically and verbally all through primary school up until Tsukishima came around and was mostly emotionally bullied in Junior high.
His appearance…his personality. How he never got any female attention compared to Tsukishima.
He was considered ugly in his country’s “beauty standard”, with his slightly tan face and his prominent freckles spread everywhere like a sea of stars. Tadashi’s features were beautiful, Kei would often secretly exchange small glances at his friend just to marvel at his freckles and hope to trace them over with a pen one day, but beauty was subjective.
Yamaguchi slowly began to believe that maybe what they had been saying were all correct and he had secretly began to take it out on himself.
Whenever he got mad at himself, he would hit himself over his head, his thighs, he would slam his head into his bed as hard as he could. But never the wall, he couldn’t get a concussion on purpose, that would be hard to explain to everyone else.
He would isolate and draw away from everybody else.
He had searched on the internet on how to remove a screw from a pencil sharpener and had done so late one night with shaky hands, using the small metal blade to carve into his upper thigh. He didn’t go deep, he was too afraid.
Tsukishima didn’t find out until it had been too late. But god he wished that he never did.
They were only 13 years old at the time. The bullying never seemed to stop, despite it not being verbal insults or physical intimidation anymore, it became emotionally charged and psychologically damaging.
As far as he knew, Tsukishima wasn’t aware of this until he had seen the group chats that he had secretly been in—group chats that Yamaguchi was purposefully excluded from. Group chats that Yamaguchi had made and was removed from after giving someone Admin controls. They used to speak about him like he was a plague.
But Tsukishima had realized that it had been more serious than he had initially thought when he had went over to Yamaguchi’s house one day only to find it empty.
After calling his cell a few times, his mother had picked up the phone and explained that he was in the hospital.
Apparently they had discovered he had took something and out of concern had rushed him to the hospital right away. Tsukishima didn’t stop worrying for three days, at least not until Yamaguchi came home.
It was obvious that something had changed. There was no sparkle in Tadashi’s eyes anymore and he seemed more lanky than lean if anything else.
Tsukishima told Yamaguchi to tell him if there was something going on. He told him to come to him, to vent to him, anything to not be back in the hospital again. So Tadashi listened so he slowly started opening up a bit more.
It was hard. It always was, but with Tsukishima’s support, the bullying slowly stopped and even though his circle became much smaller, he was surrounded by people he could actually trust.
The self-harm had stopped for a while. But when Tadashi was 16, he relapsed.
All for some stupid reason.
All because his friend wasn’t passionate about something he had been good at.
”All you need is pride.”
He had angrily confronted Tsukishima about this late one night at the Tokyo Training Camp. Something in which he had overheard him talking about with Kuroo and Bokuto.
”Volleyball is just a club.”
Tadashi had heard the playful banter that the two third years had teased him for. But this had been completely different for Tadashi.
He had the passion, but not the talent. Despite training his float serve with Shimada behind his store every week, he still felt like he wasn’t doing enough. Even when he vented his feelings of frustration to him, he still did everything in his power to not burst into tears in front of the man.
Tsukishima was everything that he could not be. He was taller, stronger, faster, and smarter. He had no passion, but he had the talent. He was a damn starter on the team but yet he was not passionate about the sport. He could see that he was secretly envious of those like Hinata and Kageyama.
He always got female attention as well, it slowly became something he had to expect whenever girls would go up to him these days. Usually all they wanted to talk about with him was Tsukki, Tsukki, Tsukki, occasionally an assignment, but never about himself.
Yamaguchi didn’t understand it. But thankfully he had brought along that blade in his pencil case, it had always been there.
He wanted to understand why Tsukishima couldn’t see his achievements, he wanted to understand why he thought Tadashi was miles ahead of him. He was a liar, that’s what Tadashi said about him.
He stared at his freckled face in the bathroom mirror and decided that he hated himself for it.
When the sound of footsteps started getting closer, he had hid himself in a stall and had sat on the seat with the blade in his pocket.
He wished Tsukki were here to save him.
He wished that he could’ve been home doing this instead of at a school mandated training camp.
He had gone too low this time. God, this would be hard to hide. Thankfully his freckles did some courtesy of hiding the lighter ones on his lower thighs.
He prayed that nobody would look too closely.