The gym always felt bigger when Tsukishima was on the court.
Yamaguchi Tadashi knew that was a stupid way to think about it.
The court was the same size as it had been when he was on it.
The ceiling was the same height.
The squeak of shoes against the floor was the same wrong pitch it had been since the first day of middle school, when Tsukki had pointed out that away-gyms sounded different and Yamaguchi had spent the whole bus ride home listening to the difference.
But when Tsukishima was on the court, calling plays, reading the net, doing the thing he kept pretending wasn’t a thing: the gym felt like it had organized itself around him.
The ball went where he said it was going to go.
The block closed where he was already standing.
The team, without quite noticing they were doing it, had started looking toward the net before the set left the setter’s hands.
Yamaguchi noticed.
He was good at noticing.
He’d been noticing Tsukishima since they were six.
The float serve died in the net for the fourth time in a row.
Ukai’s whistle cut across the gym.
“Yamaguchi.
Toss higher.
The float needs a clean contact.” “Right.
Sorry.” The ball was already back in his hands, and he was already repositioning, and his palms were already sweating through the chalk.
The serve was supposed to be his thing.
The one thing he could do that Tsukishima couldn’t.
Except Tsukishima had never tried to serve a float — had never needed to — and Yamaguchi had been trying for weeks and the serve still died in the net more often than it cleared it.
He tossed.
Too high this time.
The ball wobbled off his palm and sailed into the back court with the trajectory of a dying bird.
“Better,” Ukai said.
It wasn’t better.
The float serve rep wasn’t ready.
It was barely functional.
The coach was logging it as an experiment, not an asset.
He retrieved the ball and set up again.
Across the gym, Tsukishima was running blocking drills with the first-years, his arms going up at the exact right moment every single time.
He didn’t look at Yamaguchi.
He didn’t need to.
Tsukishima knew where the serve was going to die before Yamaguchi even tossed it.
The gap between them had never been wider, and Yamaguchi had spent years cataloguing the width.
In elementary school the gap had been height.
Tsukki growing past him, stretching toward a ceiling Yamaguchi’s genetics couldn’t reach.
In middle school it had been talent: the effortless reads, the coach’s attention, the way everyone looked at Tsukishima and saw a future player.
Now the gap was something harder to name.
The “coach voice.” The scary genius thing.
The way Tsukishima had walked into the first day of club and, without trying, without wanting to, had become the person the whole team was orbiting.
Yamaguchi wasn’t jealous.
He was something worse.
He was proud.
He was proud of his friend and terrified of being left behind, and the two feelings had tangled together so tightly that he couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began.
“Your toss is drifting right,” Tsukishima said.
Yamaguchi looked up.
Tsukishima had materialized beside him during the water break, same as he always did, quietly, without drama, already mid-sentence.
His face was doing the flat thing it always did.
The flat thing was armor.
“I know.
I’m trying to fix it.” “Fix it faster.
The scrimmage is in two days.” “The scrimmage roster doesn’t include me.” “It might.” Tsukishima took a drink.
The pause was deliberate.
“Your float is the only serve on the team that dies off a clean contact.
Everyone else’s float is a topspin with delusions.
If you can land it, Ukai will use it.” Yamaguchi stared at him.
“Did you just.
compliment me?” “I stated a fact.
The fact happens to be positive.
That’s not my fault.” The ghost of a smirk crossed Tsukishima’s face.
It was gone before Yamaguchi could name it, but he’d seen it.
He’d been seeing Tsukishima’s almost-smirks for years.
The smirks meant he was right and felt stupid about it.
The almost-smirks meant he was right and felt something he couldn’t call a feeling.
“The float serve,” Yamaguchi said.
“If I land it.
You think that’s my thing.” “I think it could be.
Whether it is or not is up to you.” Tsukishima walked back toward the court before Yamaguchi could answer.
The conversation was closed.
The conversation had also planted something in Yamaguchi’s chest that he wasn’t sure was hope or pressure.
Across the gym, behind the bench, Aikawa was sitting alone.
The second-year wing spiker was staring at his shoes.
His water bottle was untouched.
His practice jersey was still tucked in, dressed for a drill he wasn’t participating in.
He’d been on the bench for the entire practice.
Not benched.
Just.
not played.
The coach hadn’t called his number.
Yamaguchi knew that look.
The look of someone waiting to be cut and not sure if they’d survive the cut.
Aikawa’s dread was quieter than Yamaguchi’s, but underneath it, it was the same dread.
The bench was a cold place to sit when you were watching other people take the minutes you wanted.
He didn’t approach Aikawa.
He didn’t know him well enough.
But he filed the image — the second-year alone, the untouched bottle, the dread that was a mirror, and let it sit in the back of his head.
Later, after practice, he walked home with Tsukishima, same as always.
The vending machine hummed.
The streetlight flickered.
Tsukishima bought the wrong soda again and didn’t complain.
“Your serve,” Tsukishima said, “has one real problem.” “Just one.” “The toss.” “That’s the whole serve.” “No.
The contact is fine.
Your palm is flat.
The contact is clean.
The toss is drifting right because you’re watching the net instead of the ball.
If you watch the ball, the toss straightens.
If the toss straightens, the serve lands.” Yamaguchi turned the cold can over in his hands.
The aluminum was sweating.
His own palms were dry for the first time all day.
“You’ve been watching my serve.” “I’ve been watching everything.” “I know.
But you’ve been watching my serve specifically.” Tsukishima didn’t answer.
His glasses caught the streetlight.
The silence was the answer.
The silence was Tsukishima’s version of caring, caring presented as data, caring disguised as correction, caring that would die before it called itself what it was.
“Thanks,” Yamaguchi said.
“It’s not a favor.
It’s efficiency.
If you land your serve, the team scores more points.
If the team scores more points, I block fewer desperate swings.” “Right.
Efficiency.” “Exactly.” They walked another block.
The street curved.
The cat on the wall flicked its tail and ignored them.
“The scrimmage,” Yamaguchi said.
“Date Tech.
Are you ready?” “I have two days.” “That’s not an answer.” “It’s the answer I have.” Tsukishima finished his soda and threw the can at the recycling bin.
It missed.
He didn’t pick it up.
“Are you asking for reassurance or intel?” “Both.” “I don’t have either.
But I’ll have the intel by Thursday.” Yamaguchi stopped walking.
The question that had been sitting in his throat all practice finally surfaced.
“Will you use it?
The read thing.
Against Date Tech.” The pause before Tsukishima answered was a full three seconds.
Three seconds was a long time for someone who processed the court at the speed of a set landing.
“I’ll use what I need to use.
The rest stays banked.” The answer was careful.
Yamaguchi heard the caution and decided not to pull on it.
Tsukishima was telling him something about limits, about how much the read cost, about how much he could spend before it spent him, and the information was a gift whether it sounded like one or not.
“My serve,” Yamaguchi said.
“You really think it can land.” “I think you can land it.
Whether you do is a different question.” “If I land one.
In the scrimmage.” “When you land one.” The correction was small.
The correction was enormous.
“Let me know.
I’ll be at the net.” Tsukishima turned down his street without saying goodbye.
The absence of the goodbye was the goodbye.
Yamaguchi stood under the streetlight, the empty can still in his hand, the gap between them still the same width, but the gap felt, for the first time in weeks, like something he could actually cross.