futile devices - sufjan stevens . nsfw
ushijima watched the clock strike six at night. he stood against the gym door with his bag over his shoulder and a grimace on his face. he'd been standing there waiting for the closer end of three hours, but the second that y/n entered the schweiden adlers gym with a smile, she'd been the attention of his rather nosy and easily excitable teammates.
she attempted to show them all some sort of attention as they all asked her questions, a lot of which had extremely private answers.
"you've been together four years? how much longer do we wait before you two get married?"
"i'm just trying to figure how wakatoshi managed to secure you. because he's as dense as a rock."
"i can be better, tenma! i'll message you three times a day instead of one! hell, i'll be a fan page!"
"i heard you like to cook! i have a recipe book if you'd like?"
"hinata and bokuto say hi."
y/n happily kept up conversations despite feeling a sense of anxiety as she seemed to get further away from ushijima. he was clearly growing impatient with his teammates. still, he knew how important the moment was for all of them.
during the drive there that morning, y/n had helped him understand that them meeting was not only inevitable, but it was also necessary. how could ushijima live his life and expect that his most important people would never meet? ushijima had met her family, the same as how she'd met his mother and his aunt. as long as ushijima planned to play with the schweiden adlers, y/n was sure that she should at least know them.
despite all of that, ushijima hated how friendly they seemed with each other. in the span of three hours, they'd discovered that y/n and kageyama shared a birthday, nicollas and her both cooked from the same book, and that hoshiumi scarily had a lot in common with her. it was all fine at first, but ushijima was having trouble acting like he didn't care.
"tenma, i've got to know," sokolov started, leaning closer to the younger woman. "what exactly do you see in wakatoshi? you guys are total opposites."
ushijima momentarily lifted his head at sokolov's question, finding that he often wondered the same thing.
it seemed like it would be a difficult question to answer, but there was barely a second and no hesitation before y/n responded.
"i always thought that wakatoshi was able to understand me a bit better than a lot of other people. i always felt like nobody cared or even saw the real me, but he did. he's sweet like that, and i think that he could tell when i needed help before i even could. i never felt like i was alone when he was around, and i guess that's what made me fall in love with him in the first place. plus we have a lot in common."
ushijima watched his girlfriend play with her fingers and turn light pink when she answered, which was evidently one of her tells that she was being truthful.
"sounds like you're really happy," sokolov said, smiling lightly.
"of course i am," y/n replied. "i don't think i could ever be sad when i'm with him."
ushijima smiled to himself as he scrolled through his social media and pretended not to listen. as he did, he stumbled across a four minute video that y/n had posted earlier that morning. it showed her pressing record and stepping away from the camera to continue cooking breakfast that morning.
he watched the ushijima from that morning drag himself in with a look of exhaustion and hold her delicately while he kissed her. he got to see her relax with his touch and pull away to present him with the breakfast that he could still remember the taste of. he watched her every move the same way that ushijima from then did. y/n took their dishes and put them in the dishwasher, and then she was pulled back into his larger build right before she'd told him that she wanted to move in with him. he lifted her in the air and reveled in the moment. the video ended with her smiling into the lens with ushijima's arms around her, and that was that.
