#semigata

summary: throughout their 3 years together at shiratorizawa, yamagata can vividly recall 5 times semi said “i love you” to him

tw: mentions of homophobia, light swearing, yamagata being a horny little shit at the end

________________________________________

𝘐

yamagata was standing in the gym on his first day of high school. the air was cold, but the smell was uncomfortably hot. everyone was in casual dress, since the uniforms hadn’t come in yet. hayato, specifically? a dayglow t-shirt and ripped jeans. nothing special, or at least, he didn’t think so. that was, until a boy with ashy blond hair came running up to him.

“is that dayglow?!” he asked excitedly, looking at the libero with a little smile. it took hayato a minute to answer. that smile was the type to knock the wind out of whoever it was directed at.

“um. yes?” yamagata responded, arching an eyebrow as he examined the boy in front of him. he was.. cute, he thought. a little shorter than him, with eyes the color of honey and something you’ve never seen but recognize anyway.

“dude, i love dayglow- look.” pretty boy raised up his phone to show him the song he was listening to. 𝘳𝘶𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘭𝘥!!! by dayglow.

“hey, i love that song.” yamagata finally returned his smile.

“well, clearly you’ve got good taste.” pretty boy laughed, holding a hand out for him to shake. “semi eita. 𝘪 𝘭𝘰𝘷𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶 already.”

𝘐𝘐

a few weeks later came their first official game as high schoolers. the lineup had been switched around a bit. ushijima was playing, of course. semi had been switched in as the official setter, and hayato, though not on the court at first, was the new starting libero.

it was a long game, and a tiring one. after what seemed like forever, though, shiratorizawa finally had match point. they were all sweaty and exhausted, but they were up by 7 with 𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘱𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘵 𝘭𝘦𝘧𝘵 to win. they all exchanged nods, silent promises to each other to push through until the very end.

the rally went on for a while. after a few minutes, the other team was in a perfect position to score. it wouldn’t cost shiratorizawa the game, but it would certainly dampen their spirits. the opposing team’s ace spiked the ball, and no one was in position to stop it. everyone ran, everyone reached, but they were sure it was going in. semi felt like he could have dropped.

but then.. a flash of purple and white whizzed in front of them. 𝘺𝘢𝘮𝘢𝘨𝘢𝘵𝘢. there he was, digging up the ball like it was nothing. it went flying up in the air. one of the third years hit it toward semi, while everyone cheered for hayato’s amazing receive. semi jumped up for the set. his stomach dropped once again when he realized all his spikers were covered. panic overwhelmed his mind, and his body seemed to move on its own.

left foot, right foot, launch, analyze.. dump it himself. and that was exactly what he did. everyone else seemed to know before he did, loud cheers erupting from the crowd. a pair of arms wrapping around his waist and lifting him up snapped him out of his daze. “semi!” yamagata laughed. “you did it!”

once he understood what was happening, semi laughed a bit. “i- me?” he laughed louder, getting excited. “are you kidding?! you! that receive, i-” he huffed out a tired breath. “𝘪 𝘭𝘰𝘷𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶 for that.”

𝘐𝘐𝘐

while hayato remembers each of these instances like they only just happened, this one stands out. because it absolutely broke his heart.

it was a normal day. so normal, he doesn’t remember literally anything else about it. so what does he remember? he remembers walking down the hall, on the way back to his dorm from his last class of the day. what was that class? couldn’t tell you. but he could tell you exactly what the soft sobs he heard coming from the bathroom sounded like.

they were… delicate. almost melodic. the kind of cries that come from girls in cheesy romance movies, not real people. it was that day he learned that pretty criers existed. or, at least one did. he went into the bathroom, because.. he couldn’t just leave someone in there crying. the sight he was met with shattered him.

semi sat on the floor under one of the sinks, his phone in one hand and paper towels in the other. “eita.” yamagata didn’t waste any time kneeling in front of him, hesitantly cupping his face in his hands and wiping his tears. “hey, hey, it’s alright..” he whispered, moving to sit next to him and let him lean on his shoulder. “what’s going on, hm?”

semi explained that he got in a fight with his parents, that they’d been calling him horrible things all week and threatening to kick him out. “all because i told them-” and then he stopped abruptly. more tears poured down his flushed face, wetting the shoulder of yamagata’s shirt. not that he cared, of course. “i’m 𝘨𝘢𝘺, yama.” he whispered. the words hit hayato like a ton of bricks.

“…that’s all?” he asked, pulling away to look at him. from the way he stopped in the middle of his sentence and cried like that, he expected him to confess to a crime of some sort. “that’s.. that’s just fucking stupid. so what if you’re gay?” he spat angrily. but, that only seemed to stress semi out more. so instead, he spent the next hour comforting him softly on a dirty, uncomfortable bathroom floor. by the time semi stopped crying, yamagata’s shirt was two different colors from the amount of wetness on his shoulders and chest, but it didn’t matter to him. semi was smiling.

"𝘪 𝘭𝘰𝘷𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶 to death, yama.. thank you.”

𝘐𝘝

games were always stressful- more so when they directly coincided with exam week. it was their second year, toward the end, when they had an away game against aoba johsai that semi told hayato that he loved him for the fourth time. or, more so, after the game.

they all loaded onto the bus, tired and damp from the showers. it had been a win, but long and drawn out. needless to say, everyone was exhausted. exhausted enough to forget things. exhausted enough that it took semi halfway through the ride to realize something.

“i forgot my rings!” he jumped up, looking at his hands with wide eyes. he had 3 rings that he wore regularly- when he wasn’t playing, of course. he’d left them behind when he exited the locker room, not even an afterthought among the flurry of those about his bedroom, and, more importantly, his bed. he looked down at his empty fingers, tears in his eyes. he wasn’t the weepy type, but he’d been worked closely to his limit in that game. his teammates tried to comfort him, promising that washijō would surely ask the coach at seijoh to keep them in his office until next time. luckily for him, though, yamagata forgot something, too.

he didn’t hear what semi was saying at first, but when he looked up to see him nearly crying, his stomach dropped. quietly asking around, he figured out quickly what was happening- which, jogged his memory of what he’d put in his pocket. “oh, semi!” he called, pulling 3 rings out of his shirt pocket. “i uh.. i noticed you left them behind, so i grabbed them. kinda forgot.. heh.. sorry.”

he didn’t see at first how semi’s eyes lit up, or how he climbed over the back of his seat. he only noticed anything out of the ordinary when he felt arms being flung around his neck. “thank you thank you thank you yama, 𝘪 𝘧𝘶𝘤𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘭𝘰𝘷𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶!”

“heh.. no problem, sem..”

𝘝

he couldn’t believe it. he played the moment over and over in his mind as he sat on the locker room bench. the 𝘭𝘢𝘴𝘵 𝘨𝘢𝘮𝘦 before nationals, and he fucked up the receive. he’d never forgive himself for that. he was sure the team wouldn’t, either. he messed it up for all of them. if he could have done his 𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘫𝘰𝘣, then they-

“hayato?” a voice came from the doorway. semi’s voice. great. the last person he wanted to see him like this was sitting next to him on the bench. “hey. what’s going on?” he asked, rubbing his friend’s back.

“what the 𝘧𝘶𝘤𝘬 do you think is wrong, eita?” he snapped, jerking away from his hand. “my last game. my last fucking game, and i fucked up the receive. we’re not going to nationals, and it’s my fault, and you come in here and you ask me what’s wrong?! if i just-”

“HEY!” eita’s voice came out stern, a little hurt, but mostly worried. “we’re all responsible for the outcome of that game, every one of us. you making a mistake on the last point doesn’t mean it’s your sole responsibility.” he told him, with his arms crossed. he then stepped forward to place his hands on either side of yamagata’s face. “you played your heart out, and we all know that. we’re proud of you. we love you, yama. 𝘪 𝘭𝘰𝘷𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶.”

in that moment, hayato could see how much semi had changed since he met him. the now-taller boy, the flaming intensity in his pretty brown eyes, the way his voice, his confidence, never once wavered. so different than the person he’d met back in their first year. before he knew it, his hands were on eita’s waist, pulling him into a kiss. it barely lasted five seconds before he was pulling away to apologize for his momentary lapse in judgment. that was, until he saw the pinch server’s face. and the bright shade of red dusted over it. it made him smile as he pulled semi into a hug, earning a giggle from the blond. “hey, eita?”

“hm?”

“i love you, too.”

𝗜

a few months and several dates later, yamagata was waiting for his boyfriend to come out of the bathroom and cuddle him to sleep. he scrolled through his phone in the meantime, yawning quietly and shifting around in bed. he was about to call for him when the door opened up. there stood his beautiful boyfriend, messy blond hair in his eyes, wearing hayato’s clothes. “eita..” he hummed with a smile, sitting up and holding his hands out. “c’mere, pretty boy.”

semi came over as instructed, hopping into his boyfriend’s lap happily. “what’s got you all smiley?” he asked, kissing his cheek and tilting his head.

“you’re in my clothes.” he hummed. “i like the way you look in my clothes.”

“oh wow, so you don’t like how i look in 𝘮𝘺 clothes?” semi asked sarcastically, suppressing a laugh.

“wellllll…”

“yama!”

“i’m just saying, there’s a reason you fell in love with my fashion sense, not the other way around..” he teased with a cheeky smile.

“…i’m leaving you.”

“noooo! i’m sorry, kisses?”

“yeah, you can kiss my ass.”

“is that an offer?” hayato asked, raising an eyebrow and smirking. eita rolled his eyes and laid his head on his chest.

“go to bed. i hate you.” he mumbled.

@stzfanweek day 7 - terrible pick up lines

{ Hayato Yamagata, Eita Semi & Taichi Kawanishi }

pushing my semikawagata agenda

semigata - “Am I your lockscreen?” “You weren’t supposed to see that.”

Hayato knew a lot of things about Eita. He knew his favorite snack and his favorite music, he knew his shitty fashion style and how to dig his serves, he knew how much he sucked at English and that he got kinda grumpy in the mornings. He knew that he disliked writing with pencils and that his soap smelled like almonds and that he had been playing the guitar since he was 10. 

And he also knew without a doubt that Eita was secretly sentimental. Still, he hadn’t been prepared to see a picture of himself when Eita checked the time after training. 

“Am I your lockscreen?”

Eita looked like a deer in headlights. “You weren’t supposed to see that.” 

“Why?” 

“Just...” Eita trailed off and rubbed his neck. He was already flushed from training but Hayato could have sworn his cheeks turned a shade darker still. Was he embarrassed? The thought warmed his chest and he laughed.

“No reason to look so guilty! I should have known that you would have lockscreens and wallpapers of our team.” 

Eita didn’t reply, not that he had to. Satori took over for him. “Oh, yeah, his homescreen is of the team!” Eita glared at him but Satori was undeterred. “He changes it sometimes but aaaalways makes sure that all of us are on there, isn’t that right, Eita-kun?”

“One more word from you and I will-”

“That’s a yes!” Satori crowed. “But, get this, you’re the only one who has ever been his lockscreen! Apart from Wakatoshi-kun in his first year, but he got out of that phase when-” Before he could continue, Eita whacked him with a towel. 

“Tendou!” 

“What, are you embarrassed? Don’t you want Hayato-kun to know that he is special?”

“SATORI!” Eita jumped at him but Satori was already halfway across the gym, cackling all the way. When Eita took a step in his direction, Hayato grabbed his arm. He froze immediately and gave him an uncertain look.

“Wait here for a second,” Hayato told him. He didn’t wait for Eita to agree, he just hurried over to where he had left his phone with his water bottle and towel. Within a few seconds he was back, holding his own phone out for Eita to see. 

Eita breathed in sharply. “That’s-”

Hayato grinned. “We match!”

Inspired by Mayflies by Benjamin Francis Leftwich