— i want to be great or nothing.

yamaguchi is fed up. done with the way that people treat him. he’s kind, he’s supportive, he’s there for everyone when they need it. and what does he get in return?

“shut up, tadashi.”

 right. he gets that. he gets told his ideas aren’t important. he gets reminded his opinion doesn’t matter. he never stops people from making fun of him or teasing, nor does he complain. but it starts to hurt a little when his best friend laughs. he laughs at the jokes that he knows hit the hardest. but yamaguchi doesn’t complain, nor does tsuki see him cry.

“sorry, tsuki.”

he doesn’t even know why he’s apologizing, he didn’t do anything wrong. but tsuki is right, and tsuki matters more because tsuki went through something and now he can’t trust people. yamaguchi thought tsukishima would at least trust him. he was there before his trust was broken and yamaguchi never wavered. he stayed by tsuki’s side because he knows how much it affected him, but he’s getting a little sick and tired of the way he’s been treated since then.

“yama, are you in here?” he said while peeking through the crack of his friends doorway. tsukishima’s voice was faint through yamaguchi’s pounding headache, opening his eyes felt like such a large task.

“mmhm” he nodded as his vision adjusted to reveal the blond boy in front of him. in tsuki’s hands were a grocery bag nearly stuffed to the brim with supplies, his hair a little messy and a hoodie with dirt stains on the sleeve cuffs hung on his small frame.

“oh hi, your mom told my mom you were sick so i brought you things,” the blond said, fiddling with the handle of the plastic bag as he spoke. “uhm, do you want me to show you what i brought?”

“yeah, sure” he responded, slowly moving to sit upright and look at tsukishima. a small smile crossed tsuki’s face as he knelt down and began rummaging through the bag.

“okay, uhm i brought some cough medicine and some pudding,” he continued, listing the items in the bag and placing them neatly on the floor beside the bed. yamaguchi looked at him as his legs swung off the edge of the bed, eyes glancing between the supplies in a line and tsukishima’s glasses covered eyes as he spoke, his frames too big for his face.

“oh! i brought you this!” tsukishima exclaimed, holding up a small cyan stuffed dinosaur with yellow spots.

“his name is maru and he’s a brachiosaurus. he eats plants all day and he’s kind of gentle,” his eyes lit up a bit as he talked about the dinosaur, yamaguchi noticed that. he watched intently as tsukishima placed the small dino into his lap.

“he reminds me of you so I want you to have him.” yamaguchi was a bit taken aback. tsukishima was not the type of boy to share his toys, let alone give them to people entirely.

“are you sure?” he asked hesitantly.

“yeah! you’re my best friend, why wouldn’t i?”

“oh, thank you kei-kun!”

Tsukishima’s frames fit his face now and his eyes no longer lit up when he talked. Something happened when he was a kid, and yamaguchi knew tsukishima then, but he’ll never understand why he feels like he didn’t. Why it feels like such a new and shallow friendship, shouldn’t they be closer than they feel? tsuki actually used to care about yams. he would often remind him that he was in fact his best friend and not someone he kept around because it was convenient. yamaguchi just wanted to feel appreciated. he was so sick and tired of putting others before himself, he just wanted someone to do the same for him as he does for them. he wanted someone to listen to his problems, he wanted to be able to get a word out before-

“shut up, tadashi.” before he was cut off again. he wanted to feel cared for, he wanted to be missed and needed.

but that wasn’t happening anytime soon. tsukishima was hard to change and not often did he take others into his consideration. It was a one way street with him.  but other than tsuki, yams didn’t know who he could turn to. so he stuck around for a bit, continuously enduring tsukishima’s cold remarks, that is until he met someone who made him feel good. he became friends with a girl in his class who constantly made yamaguchi feel appreciated and needed. she showed him kindness and consideration, she went out of her way to make sure that yamaguchi was happy and felt appreciated. And thats all that she was, a really good friend, but yamaguchi hasn’t felt this loved in a while.

Yamaguchi was seated on the soft yet scratchy carpet of tsukishima’s bedroom, his phone in hand, doing other things with what seemed like wasted time. tsuki was situated on the end of the bed, headphones in, flipping through a book and paying no mind to the boy on the floor.  The silence in the room was uncomfortable, it always seemed to be lately. Getting bored of the novel, tsukishima’s eyes began to wander, eventually resting on yamaguchi who smiled slightly at his phone as he proceeded to type something. He knew who he was texting and that smile should not have affected tsuki as much as it did. 

“Tadashi?”

“Hm,” eyes still glued to his screen. 

“What are you doing?”

“Nothing,” he responded, soon after a small giggle escaped from his lips and he typed fast to respond to the message. 

“Oh..” liar. “we should do something, do you want to go to the movies on tuesday?”

“Sorry Tsuki, i have plans with Yuri on tuesday,”  again? he felt his heart sink, of course it was okay for yamaguchi to have other  friends but this, he never thought that he’d be pushed to the side like that.  

“ you know, you’re spending a lot of time with her lately,” he was nearly choking on his words as he said them. “I’m starting to think you’re forgetting about me” he added a small chuckle to hide how hurt he truly was. Faking and avoiding emotions, well wasn’t that his specialty. 

“Oh come on tsukishima, i could never forget about you!” his words almost sounded forced, like they were a line off a script he had memorized for times like these.  Tsukishima could only nod in response, scared that his voice would begin to crack if he did. Shortly after the room was filled with the familiar stiff silence, and eventually yamaguchi left. It was the last time they had truly hung out together. 

tsukishima found himself lonely, yamaguchi barely spoke to him,  most of the free time he would usually spend with tsuki was spent with his newfound friendships. If he was going to be partially honest, tsukishima was happy for yams, he was finally branching out and meeting new people without needing tsukishima at his side. But not being at his side was probably what hurt the most.  All he had wanted was to be beside him as he flourished, but now, he was stuck watching from afar, every last bit of his childhood was clinging to the smaller boy, and now tsuki had to watch it slowly walk away with a grand smile on his face. He never really noticed how much he relied on yamaguchi, how much he truly needed him until he no longer had him. And it was all tsukishima’s fault. he never really noticed the impact that his words had, he would have never guessed that a simple phrase could make yamaguchi feel so horrible. But maybe it was more than a simple phrase, maybe it was just him as a whole. Tsukishima has never been described as kind or nice, let alone friendly, but kind and friendly always came so easily for yamaguchi. Maybe after all tsukishima was just never a good friend. 

“sorry, tsuki” he was always genuinely sorry, he didn’t even do anything wrong. he was always apologizing when in reality it should have been tsuki saying those words.

i’m sorry, tadashi. why didn’t he say it? sure he had thought it many times but why did those simple words never vocalize? 

im sorry, tadashi. he really was sorry, but was he sorry for his actions or sorry that he was now all alone? Lately it seemed that the words simply didn’t exist. Although neither of the two had changed, they were different people. every time they looked at each other there were no words to be said, they just didn’t work anymore.

They made a promise that they’d be best friends forever, and now they are drifting apart. 

Ill always be there for you he said, I could never forget about you he said, you mean so much to me he said. Now there’s absolutely nothing left, no words, no actions, nothing. now all those words seem like lies. 

yamaguchi was always a man that walked in front of tsukishima, he just can’t remember when yamaguchi started running.