ᯓ★ Love Letters

ᯓ★ love letters

tsukishima kei x gn!reader

a/n: probably ooc tsukki

wc: 1.2k

hq m.list | gen m.list

TSUKISHIMA KEI had always written you letters.

in childhood, you'd lived a little too far away from him to be able to see him every day, so he would write you a letter.

even as a child, his penmanship was impressive. every letter was printed neatly on special card paper. he would write it in pencil, then seal it up and hand to his mother to send it to you.

dear y/n, how are you? i wish i could see you more often. my mother said i couldn't see you every day, and that i should write a letter instead. i decided to send you some stickers that i thought you would like. i hope we can see each other on the weekend. yours sincerely, kei

you'd send him replies, too — albeit in messier handwriting and with multiple spelling mistakes. you had also been quite fond of using coloured pencils and markers to write yours.

dear kei, thank you for the stikers!!! my parents said we can play in the park on the weeknd. i can't wait to see you!! yours sincerly, y/n

this continued on until you were teenagers. despite everyone having graduated to texting, the two of you still wrote letters to each other. even though you went to the same school, there was rarely a morning when you wouldn't slip a note into his locker, or one where you didn't find one in your own.

you never thought too much of it, and you didn't think tsukishima did either.

it was a habit, after all. it wasn't a big deal.

until it was.

you couldn't pinpoint the exact time it happened, but suddenly, the letters weren't a small matter anymore.

all you knew was that suddenly, the letters meant a lot more than they used to. suddenly, you were rereading every letter you found in your locker, overanalysing every detail, the words on the page, the intricate curve of his letters.

dear y/n, i hope your classes are going well. i heard you did well on the chemistry test; congratulations, i knew you could do it. i also noticed you weren't at math yesterday, i left notes in your locker for you. sincerely, kei

you notice that his handwriting hadn't changed that much from when you were kids. it was neater, and smaller, but it was still so distinctively kei.

when did these letters become so important to you?

tsukishima kei was an idiot.

he knew that he couldn't keep this up forever — pretending that he was writing these letters for the sake of habit. hell, even kageyama caught on. now that you were at the same school, there was no reason to keep doing this.

but you kept writing back.

dear kei, thank you so much for the notes, they were very helpful!! and i couldn't have passed the chem test without your help, so thank you for that too. good luck for your volleyball game tonight! sincerely, y/n

and it wasn't just responses to his letters — they detailed your day, how much you hated a subject, what you were going to do after school.

it scared him. it was a terrifying feeling, waking up every day and thinking i hope there's a letter in my locker today. it's terrifying for him, the way he always tucks your letters in his breast pocket.

falling in love was a terrifying feeling.

this continued on for more than the two of you would like to admit.

you knew that you would have to tell him at one point — there was no way you could continue this forever.

kei, on the other hand, refused to admit anything to his friends.

"come on, tsukki, we all know you like her." yamaguchi had been on his back for weeks.

kei decided not to answer.

hinata, unhelpfully, decides to join the conversation.

"come on, tsukishima, even kageyama and i have noticed."

kageyama nods, sipping on his milk. honestly, kei never understood his obsession with milk. it didn't taste any good, and whatever benefits it has to height, kageyama still isn't as tall as kei.

he's still lost in this thought when yamaguchi says:

"what if you wrote a letter to her?"

kei freezes.

and for a moment, he's not quite sure why he does — he writes a letter to you every day. surely it wouldn't be that hard?

but when he picks up a pen and a piece of paper torn off from hinata's (unused) notebook, three heads peering over his shoulder, he pauses.

dear y/n—

"go on," yamaguchi prods his shoulder.

kei glares at him.

he lifts his pen again—

and upon hearing kageyama and hinata snigger, he puts it back down again.

maybe he'd just write it at home.

but when he picks up the pen again, in the safety of his own room, he's stuck.

he'd discarded hinata's scrappy notebook paper and decided to use one of his own — one that wasn't creased. he starts off the same way:

dear y/n...

he almost misses yamaguchi's insistence.

it's fine, he thinks. if it's really bad, just throw it out.

he takes two hours to finish the letter.

dearest y/n, we've been writing these letters for a while. from when we were young, it became a tradition for us to write each other letters when we couldn't see each other. but even when we started at the same high school, you kept writing letters to me. i sort of expected that you would stop, given we were going to the same school. after a while, i started to look forward to receiving your letters. i mean, i always did, it started to become more than it used to. in the morning, your letters would be the motivation for me to get out of bed. i think i've read each letter about three times each, now. i think i like you, y/n. i think i have since we were children. so i was wondering: do you feel this too? yours sincerely, kei

before he can think too much of it, he folds up the note and seals it in an envelope.

kei's sleep-deprived and moody the next morning.

unable to sleep at all that night, he gets to school half an hour earlier than he usually does. there's nobody there, the hallways scarily quiet.

he slips the envelope in your locker, then escapes.

when yamaguchi, kageyama, and hinata get to school, he tries to act as normal as possible, but he can feel their cautiousness around him.

by the time school finishes, he's drained.

he hadn't seen you all day, and he was tired of checking his locker all day, trying not to hope that there might be something there.

as soon as his last class finishes, he practically runs from the classroom, without even saying goodbye to yamaguchi.

but when he opens his locker, there's a flower and a note sitting on his books.

dear kei, i do. i always have. meet in the courtyard after school? yours truly, y/n

hinata and kageyama's faces had identical expressions of shock as kei rushed past them.

towards the courtyard.