Archive of Our Own

Atsumu first notices it when he’s eleven, during the swimming unit of PE in grade six.

His friends talk excitedly about being with the girls during the unit, but Atsumu doesn’t see the appeal of his female classmates in their standardized one-piece swimsuits. He’s more preoccupied with the knocking of his knuckles as he clutches his towel around his shoulders, the wind nipping at the skin the fabric fails to cover. And also the proposition of pushing Osamu into the water. Always that.

When Atsumu is fourteen, he has his first crush. This is when the vague observation from elementary school solidifies itself into a fact: he likes boys. The crush festers for the rest of junior high. It’s young, stupid attraction, sure, but it’s definitely real. It roots itself inside his chest and demands his attention. Eventually, the tendrils of this crush worm outward and sink their teeth into his rationality, and Atsumu decides to ask out the boy. A last-second, snide comment from Osamu obliterates his courage.

Atsumu is understandably bitter. He grabs his brother by the collar and hisses, “Couldn’t ya be a little nicer?”

Osamu only laughs. “Yeah, I could be, but I’m not gonna.” He unceremoniously shoves Atsumu off, and then, as if he’s Cupid himself, says, “Don’t bother fallin’ in love. ‘Specially not when yer a teenager.”

“Samu, it’s just a crush. And why the hell would I listen to you? You some kinda romance expert now?” Atsumu can count the number of dates his brother has been on using a single hand.

Osamu smooths the collar of his jacket. “No, but I’m not a fuckin’ idiot.”

Over time, Atsumu realizes that maybe what Osamu had been trying to do back then was protect him—in the botched way that only a brother could. Osamu is insufferable, but his insults usually have a basis. The teasing had been to prevent Atsumu from taking a risk that came with a possible, irreversible consequence: a first heartbreak.

Atsumu has never enjoyed following instructions, but by some opportune vicissitude of life, the crush melts away with the freezing breath of winter by the time he’s fifteen.

All things considered, this probably should have been a sign to heed his brother’s advice for future romantic prospects. But Atsumu has been a fully-fledged brat since grade four and an asshole-in-training since he was twelve. If anyone is going to bend the will of fate, it’s him. If love is going to break his heart at some point, why not start young? Fifteen-year-old Miya Atsumu flips his newly-dyed hair and walks up to the soccer captain.

Long story short, he’s rejected, but at least the boy is nice about it. He bows an apology before he walks away, and that’s that. For the first heartbreak Osamu was so wary of, it’s rather anticlimactic.

It’s different when it’s with Kita. Kita is special.

For a while, Atsumu entertains the idea that whatever he’s feeling is just respect for his upperclassman. After all, as a teammate, Kita is practical, diligent, and reliable. Atsumu only cares about the latter attribute, but he sees how the combination forms a triple threat any player in their right mind would admire. This means the rushes of awe when he watches his captain play are nothing to be concerned about. But then Kita is smiling at him after a particularly good set, and Atsumu quickly has an “Oh no it’s more than respect” moment.

Admitting the feelings is the hard part. Atsumu thinks people are attractive all the time, but having a crush built upon anything past that is unlikely.

One week Atsumu gets sick, the kind of cold that has him coughing up his lungs and makes it feel like the world is ending. He chooses to blame his impulsive confession on his compromised condition.

He and Kita are catching up before practice, something that has become routine. Normally Osamu talks with them too, but this time Atsumu has managed to shoo his brother away. (“All I’m askin’ is for ya to show up a few minutes late, Samu! You always say yer the smart one, so why can’t ya follow one request?”)

Before his valiant abandon can dissipate, Atsumu interrupts their comfortable banter and says there’s something important for him to announce.

Shit. Now I’ve made it too formal.

This is the first time Atsumu understands why girls with their handmade chocolates look so nervous when they stop him in the halls. This is the first time confessing feels like, well, an actual confession. For starters, there are the sweaty palms and clipped sentences, but there’s also an obtrusive feeling of hope in Atsumu’s gut. It’s putting vulnerable feelings on display, and it is in no way fucking terrifying.

Kita, polite and blunt as always, apologizes to him. “Sorry, but I don’t feel the same way.”

And then the conversation shifts back to volleyball, Osamu joins them with hesitance in his step, and life reverts to normal in the blink of an eye.

Or, Atsumu will say it does. His brother, on the other hand, will argue that Atsumu mopes about the rejection for nineteen days, sulking around the house like a cat that’s been dropped in the bathtub. Osamu will also say that Atsumu had ignored the wise cautions on love given back when they were fourteen, so it serves him right to have to swallow down the pungent taste of rejection.

Atsumu meets Sakusa Kiyoomi in his first year of high school. The spring training camp is exclusive to rising prodigies, with Sakusa being no exception. But if Atsumu’s being honest, above any sort of athleticism, what stands out most about the fifteen-year-old wing spiker is his hideous hair. It’s very clearly straightened, and seeing the fried curls subjects Atsumu to physical pain.

“Imagine havin’ hair that stupid,” he mutters to his brother over lunch while glaring at Sakusa’s pin-straight fringe. Atsumu swears he can smell the singed hair from across the room.

Osamu sets down his chopsticks to flick his brother’s forehead. “Yer one to talk, mustard-head.”

“Eat shit.”

Sakusa meticulously wipes down his chopsticks before he dips them into his rice. Atsumu wrinkles his nose. Who uses disinfecting wipes on eating utensils? He just knows Sakusa is tasting soap as he chews his food.

Eyes still trained on the boy across the room with the horrendous hair and comparably horrendous jacket, Atsumu stabs his chopsticks into his salmon.

“What’s wrong with you?” Osamu scowls in disapproval. “I know yer a heathen, but yer better than this.”

Atsumu ignores his brother’s reprimand and begins twisting his chopsticks back and forth in his food, defacing the deceased. The monotonous movement of Sakusa’s jaw across the room is quiet and obnoxious, and it steals Atsumu’s focus away from his rumbling stomach. But after earning two rapid-fire smacks on the head from Osamu, he finally digs into his food.

By their second year, Sakusa has ditched the straightener (thank god), but the mysophobic tendencies remain. They’re as unwavering as the jump serves he’s refined over the past six months, and they’re just as tricky to be on the receiving end of.

“Yer so weird,” Atsumu grouses when Sakusa refuses to high five him after spiking one of his sets.

Sakusa visibly bristles before letting out an, “I think you’re one to talk,” so quiet Atsumu is convinced he’s misheard him.

“What’d ya just say?”

“I’m not the one who tackles my brother to the ground when he does nothing,” Sakusa says, a new assertiveness resonating in his voice, followed by a level, “Look out,” before Atsumu promptly takes a volleyball to the face.

Atsumu doesn’t have to brush his thumb below his nose to know he’s bleeding, but he’s always appreciated confirmation (and relished dramatics), so he does so anyway. The tip is dashed scarlet. The drills stop. Teammates surge toward him to help. The only stroke out of place in the picture of camaraderie is Sakusa, who is slowly backing away, one foot behind the other as if he’s a fawn learning how to walk.

And all at once, Atsumu feels like laughing. Sakusa was the one who’d distracted him to the point of injury, and here he is running away. One of the top aces in the country, squeamish at the sight of blood? Or maybe feeling guilty for nailing his marvelous setter in the nose? Either way, it’s humorous.

Atsumu keeps a hand against his nose to prevent dripping while he’s hoisted up by a teammate. As he walks to the nurse’s office, head tipped back and vermillion running down his throat, only one thought drones in his mind: “Wow, Sakusa Kiyoomi is a fuckin' asshole.”

Volleyball remains Atsumu’s pride and joy for the rest of high school. He makes several spur of the moment promises to the opponents he plays. He crushes on more people, he graduates, and he doesn’t fall in love.

Atsumu isn’t one for believing in life to be predestined, but he’s positive there are gods out there, somewhere, laughing at pulling off a stunt like this.

He’s been a member of the MSBY Black Jackals since he was scouted fresh out of high school, opting to skip the traditional route of college athletics. A degree seemed like a waste when he already knew he’d be spending the rest of his days playing volleyball.

By now, Atsumu’s gotten quite comfortable with his teammates. But tryout season has inevitably rolled around, which means it’s time for new players to weasel their way into the dynamic he’s worked so hard to craft.

In theory, tryouts should mean unfamiliar faces and connections. But Atsumu must have murdered an entire village in his past life because there, lined up among all the other auditionees, is none other than Sakusa Kiyoomi. He’s taller now, a bit broader, but still donning an ombre sports jacket that is anything but easy on the eyes. Rancor floods Atsumu’s mouth. The blood from training camp his second year crusts itself below his nose. The sweat after losing to that jerk’s team on various occasions drips down his face.

When Atsumu is asked to set to the potential team members, he resents that his body automatically sends his best possible toss to Sakusa. He’d been hoping for an exception to his perfectionism here, considering his ill feelings toward the guy, but muscle memory is a resilient, unforgiving phenomenon. He regrets the set even more seconds later when Sakusa slams the ball down with a definitive smack, and Coach Foster gives a curt nod of approval.

Atsumu considers the ramifications of hurling a volleyball at Sakusa. The ball cart is only a meter away, taunting him. He then considers whether having a temporary suspension on his playing record will affect his professional career.

Sakusa ducks to the back of the line of spikers, cringing away from anyone who attempts to pat his shoulder. He doesn't thank Atsumu, and Atsumu makes no move to compliment him.

Suspension is seeming more and more reasonable.

Sakusa makes the team because of course he would make the team. That doesn’t mean Atsumu’s going to like him. That doesn’t even mean Atsumu’s going to tolerate him, and he makes sure to demonstrate this by pretending to be hard of hearing or making shitty excuses when he’s asked to do additional practice. “My wrists are sore,” he apologizes half-heartedly, only to earn a death glare from Sakusa who rolls his own as if to say, “You’re not the only one, drama queen.”

Maybe Atsumu’s being petulant, but it’s what he’s best at. He thinks he’s gotten away with it for the most part, too, aside from the scowls he earns from Sakusa. But those don't really count, because Sakusa almost perpetually looks like he’s suffering. It’s only when Meian claps him on the back one practice that Atsumu knows his displays of aversion have come to a close.

“Look, I know he’s not the easiest guy to get along with,” Meian begins while they’re stretching. (This is an extremely generous understatement, in Atsumu’s very unbiased opinion.) “But you’re our first-string setter, and Sakusa’s going to be in the starting lineup. So you better start synching up with him.”

Because Atsumu’s a brat, he says, “It’d be easier if he’d show me a little respect.”

Meian only nods absentmindedly. “Well, sometimes it’s hard to give respect to people who don’t seem keen on returning it.” Then he walks away, leaving Atsumu with a mission to complete and a bizarre sense of Deja Vu he’s had this conversation with a school administrator in the past.

“Respect,” Atsumu grumbles to himself, turning the word over with his tongue. He doesn’t like it. But he does like his captain, who is currently peeking out from the locker room and giving him a firm look that says, “Fix this.”

Atsumu showers fast so he can catch Sakusa, who insists on being the first one in the building and the first one out.

“Hey, Kiyoomi!” he shouts, elbowing his way out of the gym to fall in stride with his teammate. Sakusa has his hands in his pockets and a grimace deep enough Atsumu can see it through the surgical mask spanning his face. “Thought I missed ya!”

“That would have been nice,” Sakusa says blankly. “And don’t call me that.”

“Kiyoomi? Why not?”

Atsumu has a hunch why. He might be reckless, but he’s not completely uneducated on social customs. But he’s also grown up with a twin, and if there’s one thing he despises, it’s being addressed as “Miya.” Thus it has become his standard to use first names if he knows a person to an extent. Atsumu doesn’t know Sakusa all that well, nor does he have any interest in getting to know him better, but he does know that he finds some twisted delight in seeing Sakusa’s brow pinch at the sound of “Kiyoomi.”

So before Sakusa can answer the question, Atsumu says, “Does it bug ya, Omi-kun?”

He’s trying not to look this cheeky, he swears, but his attempts are in vain.

Sakusa’s seems to be one button press away from popping a blood vessel. “Don’t fucking call me that,” he repeats, before adding, “Miya.”

It should be illegal for Sakusa to play Atsumu’s own game.

“Yeesh, okay!” Atsumu says, and he scratches the back of his neck, even though he doesn’t have a reason to.

“Why are you talking to me?”

Atsumu’s about to say, “Does a guy need a reason to talk to his teammate?” but he realizes that’s a bit of a stretch, and he’s still feeling his cooldown exercises in his calves.

“Oh, ya know. Meian told me I should,” he says instead, trying to sound nonchalant.

“Told you you should . . . what?” Sakusa’s looking at him out of the corner of his eye now, which is about the highest level of engagement Atsumu expects he’ll be getting tonight. Maybe ever.

“Sort stuff out with ya.”

“I didn’t think we had any problems.”

“That’s what I said!”

“Except for that you can’t set properly when it’s to me.”

While Atsumu tolerates a lot of insults (growing up with a brother relies on it), he’s not one for bullshit unless it’s coming from himself.

“Excuse me, but my tosses are always phenomenal!” It’s meant to sound earnest, but it comes out juvenile.

In turn, Sakusa laughs, or at least lets out what Atsumu assumes is a laugh. Breathy and short, it’s not exactly a nice sound, but it’s not entirely unpleasant either. Regardless of how euphonious it is or isn’t, it’s undeniably one of the most unusual noises Atsumu’s ever heard, mainly because he never expected Sakusa to laugh. He assumed it required too much polluted air entering the lungs or something. The whole scenario feels like an oxymoron.

And then Sakusa says, “Trust me. You can think you’re phenomenal and someone will still see the cracks in your form,” and the world suddenly feels a little tighter. An unspoken I’m that someone drapes itself over the space between them.

Goosebumps rise on Atsumu’s skin, and his nails beg to claw them off. Of all people, Sakusa should not have this kind of influence on him. “Yer creepy, Omi-kun,” he shudders.

Sakusa seems indifferent to this reply. “You’re not much better,” he retorts, and now it kind of sounds like his windpipe is closing up.

Sakusa’s attempting to suppress a chuckle. A chuckle at Atsumu.

“Fuck you,” Atsumu barks, but there’s no bite.

The silence they settle into isn’t like any they’ve had before. Atsumu registers that their near-decade of enmity has somehow collapsed in on itself in a single night, but there’s no grand supernova to mark its end. An aura of acceptance soundlessly takes its place, and perhaps that’s all he can ask for. (He ignores the fact that, for some reason, it feels a lot losing.)

Atsumu remembers why he’s here in the first place just as they’re approaching the train station. “So from now on let’s try to be on better terms. Civil, ‘kay?”

“I’m not quite sure ‘civil’ is in your realm.”

The air quotes are audible. Atsumu moves to swat Sakusa, but his teammate scoots away in a knick of time. And then Sakusa’s slunk off to catch his train, and Atsumu’s finishing the last leg of the walk to his building. Once he’s inside, he crosses his arms and leans back against the peeling wall paneling.

“Sakusa Kiyoomi. What a weirdo.”

Housing comes as part of the contract. The Black Jackals living complex resembles a college dormitory in appearance, and if all team members actually lived there, it would in orderly chaos, too. As someone who has neither the time nor effort to juggle another job and pay for something better, this the perfect fit for Atsumu. It’s a less than ostentatious building, and about half of the year there’s something broken in his room, but there’s a semi-working elevator, a regularly stocked kitchen, and clean bathrooms.

Of all the people to live in the dorms, Atsumu would not have put Sakusa Kiyoomi on the top of his predictions list. But there is Sakusa, holding sleeved arms under a cardboard box labeled “practice clothing” and wearing a look of revulsion. He has on gloves as he unlocks the door to his room, careful as always.

Atsumu can’t explain why, but it pisses him off. Having Sakusa Kiyoomi living a few doors down the hall pisses him off. He’s never been very partial to the building, but now he’s struck by an unmistakable sense that this is his haunt.

Sakusa exits and reenters his room to bring in new items. It’s funny to watch because he’s struggling to keep his face collected, as if every minute he spends in the dorms is taking a day off his lifespan. But the process draws to a close far too soon. Sakusa, it seems, owns a disappointing number of personal belongings. He also possesses shrewd peripheral vision, showcased when he whips his head around to where Atsumu’s observing from the doorway of his room.

They look at each other for a moment, and Atsumu’s face colors as he realizes it probably looks like he’s gawking.

“Wouldn’t have pegged ya for the type to stay in the dorms, Omi-kun.” Atsumu’s mind briefly wanders to the communal restrooms.

“I won’t be staying here full-time like you.” Sakusa nudges his last box through the door with the side of his shoe.

Figures.

“How’d ya know I stay here full-time?”

“You look like you do.”

Atsumu glances at the porous walls of the hallway, which have absorbed liters upon liters of sweat, then at the cracked floor that has borne witness to dozens of drunken stumblings in the dead of night. His lip curls. He turns around and slams the door of his room.

It’s five am, an absolutely dreadful hour of existence in Atsumu’s mind, but one he’s well acquainted with. He’s never had the best sleeping habits, but lately nerves from god knows what have been waking him up at the most unholy of times. He can feel the buzz in his blood, his brain gradually adjusting to the early hour. There’s no use in trying to knock out again, so he might as well do something.

He sits up in bed and runs a hand through his hair. His fingers get knotted immediately, a sure sign that he must look stellar right now. After attempting to make himself presentable for all the people he’ll be seeing now (namely, zero, meaning he gives a corresponding amount of effort), Atumu pads down the hallway to the communal kitchen. Since no sane person is awake at this hour, he expects the room to be empty.

It’s not.

Sakusa is sitting on a stool at the counter, sipping what Atsumu assumes is tea and doing nothing else. It’s the first time Atsumu has seen him in the building, aside from moving in a few weeks ago. His phone is nowhere to be seen. There’s no breakfast in front of him either.

Overall, it’s a sight that causes Atsumu to freeze at the junction between the hall and the kitchen. It’s strange, the way he feels like he’s intruding on something. But it’s a shared living space, Atsumu reminds himself. What could he possibly be intruding on? And, if Atsumu’s being petty—which he always is—he’s lived here longer anyways.

He walks as casually as one can while being reminded of their loud existence with every step that creaks loose floorboards. His hands come up to rest on the counter. At the same time, Sakusa tilts his head up from his mug.

Atsumu’s not sure whether he can say Sakusa’s looking at him. He’s making eye contact, but he seems far away, and Atsumu can tell by the lack of dark circles it’s not because he’s tired (Atsumu’s eye bags, on the other hand, are full-on, checkable luggage).

Finally, after an eternity of this distance, Sakusa acknowledges his presence with a, “What are you doing here?”

“Well good mornin’ to you too,” Atsumu mutters.

Sakusa puts down his mug, gives Atsumu a once-over. “It does not look like a good morning for you.”

To be fair, he’s not wrong. Atsumu had thrown on the closest t-shirt he could find after teetering out of bed, which is coincidentally his rattiest. His face is swollen with sleep, and his hair is still an abomination. But it’s never too early for sass. “Gee, thanks, Omi-kun. Good thing I’m headin’ off to win Miss Universe in just an hour.”

It’s a lame attempt at humor, even factoring in that it’s before the roosters have crowed.

Sakusa stands up from his stool, pushes it in. Atsumu’s waiting for him to walk out of the kitchen, but instead he snakes towards the cupboard. From his pocket he pulls out a pack of disinfecting wipes. He wraps one around his fingers, wipes the handle of the cupboard, then the mug he takes from the first shelf. This process seems far too extensive for one ceramic, but Atsumu has known about Sakusa’s idiosyncrasies for going on eight years now, and no amount of teasing seems to be able to change them.

Atsumu’s a stubborn bastard, but when it comes to sticking to a routine, Sakusa makes him look flexible.

The mug is set down on the counter. Sakusa scoops a teaspoon of matcha powder into it, reaches for the kettle, and pours in the hot water.

(The matcha powder, measuring spoon, and kettle must have been cleaned recently. It’s the only possible reason Sakusa doesn’t wipe them down like a madman.)

Any good child knows how to make a simple green tea, but something about Sakusa’s motions is mesmerizing. He’s methodical, timing his actions to minimize surface contact. Atsumu watches from the other end of the counter, entranced until he blinks at the sound of a mug dragging across marble.

Sakusa is pushing the green tea towards him.

Atsumu steps in closer to accept it. “This for me?” he asks, because it doesn’t seem like a very Sakusa Kiyoomi thing to make tea for someone, let alone someone he hates.

“Green tea has polyphenols. They help reduce inflammation.” Sakusa winces as he looks at Atsumu’s swollen eyes. “You could use it. Clearly.”

“Aw, Omi-Omi, ya lookin’ out for me?”

“No, on the contrary, your face is horrid to look at like this.”

Atsumu takes a swig of his green tea, lets the scalding liquid turn his tongue numb and thwart his more disgraceful fighting words. “Fuck you.”

“Is that the only insult you have?”

“That the only jacket ya have?”

Sakusa frowns, looking at the yellow sleeve of his Itachiyama jacket.

Atsumu wants to sigh at the fact Sakusa doesn’t realize what’s wrong with it. Instead, he opts to drink his tea, slowly this time. The warmth of it settles in his chest. It’s nice, actually. For five am, it’s nice.

They stay side by side, a meter between them, sipping their tea. Atsumu’s surprised Sakusa stays put the whole time, since he started with less tea in his mug and surely finishes his first. When Atsumu starts tipping his mug to get the last drops of matcha paste, Sakusa puts his mug in the sink. Atsumu follows suit.

Then they’re left standing side by side, a meter between them, with just themselves to fill the space. For the first time in all of the years Atsumu has lived here, the kitchen feels awfully big. Sakusa’s doing the distant thing again, eyes trained past Atsumu even as he looks at him.

Atsumu clears his throat. “Well, it was nice to see ya, Omi-kun.” He stifles a yawn in favor of a brattish tone. “Don’t expect me to say thank you for the tea or anythin’.”

“You just did,” Sakusa calls over his shoulder as he walks out of the kitchen.

Atsumu’s jaw clicks. Fuck.

The second time Atsumu sees Sakusa in the building is less striking because at least it makes sense. It’s seven am, which isn’t all that much better than five, if you ask Atsumu, but is an inconvenience that comes in tow with being a professional athlete. (Morning practices are far from being his favorite thing in the world.)

Sakusa is standing at one of the sinks, fresh out of the shower. He has his practice clothes on, which is a tad bit more put together than Atsumu’s sweats and hoodie. He’s engrossed with combing through his locks, eyes only briefly darting over when the door opens. Atsumu knows that Sakusa micromanages everything within a ten-kilometer radius to a T, even things that one wouldn’t consider physically possible to manage. But the utmost precision he’s applying to his hair is unlike anything Atsumu has seen before. The feeling of disturbing something pools in his stomach again and weighs him down by the door.

Sakusa looks at Atsumu’s reflection in the mirror. “There’s more than one sink,” he points out, then busies himself in his hair again.

“I know that!” Atsumu snaps. He leaves a sink between them and begins to brush his hair.

Sakusa has curls to tame—which Atsumu can’t even begin to fathom the genetics behind—but Atsumu has a hell of a bedhead. He doesn’t even sleep like a maniac, only occasionally ending up on his stomach with his legs dangling off the mattress. But supine in his sleep or not, Atsumu consistently wakes up with his hair plastered to his forehead. It gives him such vivid flashbacks to his bowl cut from grade three that he’ll spare the time in the miserable mornings to run some gel through it.

He wets his hands in a morning ritual of sorts, then unscrews the cap of his hair gel. The smell of it is refreshing, reviving his senses as he cards it through bleached blond. Beside him, Sakusa is squirting a tube of paste onto the tips of his fingers.

“What’s that stuff?”

“Leave-in crème. It’s good for curls. I use it after I shower.” Sakusa runs the product from the roots of each curl to the end.

“Well, no duh, ya showered.” Atsumu jerks his thumb to the fogged glass of the stall door behind Sakusa. “But why if we’re just gonna practice and yer gonna have to shower again?”

Sakusa has no right to look that disgusted at a legitimate question. “Some of us actually care about personal hygiene, Miya,” he says, as if that makes sense.

It doesn’t. Atsumu showered last night, and the scent of his artificial coconut shampoo lingering beneath the potent hair gel provides convincing evidence of this. The double showering is what’s abnormal, and while Atsumu knows Sakusa is anything but orthodox, he still finds himself asking, “Why’re ya always like that?”

“Because you irritate me,” Sakusa answers plainly.

“That’s not what I meant,” Atsumu jeers. Using a thumb to turn the faucet on, since his fingers are now thoroughly sticky with product, he washes his hands. “I mean like, why’re ya so cautious with germs and stuff?”

Perhaps it’s Atsumu’s imagination, but Sakusa seems to stiffen, as if he’s a video chat buffering because of shitty WiFi, or because a memory that’s been locked in the basement for years has been dug up. Atsumu almost regrets asking, since he’s guessing it’s the latter. But innate curiosity shouldn’t be something to apologize for, and for once in his life he genuinely had no malignant intent.

“It’s always been like this, I guess,” Sakusa says once his connectivity issues have resolved. “Since elementary school, maybe. I was a cautious kid.”

Atsumu cocks his head. “How the hell did ya manage to do, like, swimmin’ in PE and stuff?” He recalls his memories of the school pool, kicking his legs and splashing Osamu (and being splashed too, since they generally engaged in half-submerged, epic quarrels).

“By being very, very patient with a lot of very, very stupid people and curriculums.”

It takes Atsumu a minute to understand that this is probably Sakusa’s idea of a joke. He gives an obligatory laugh.

“That wasn’t a joke,” Sakusa clarifies, and now Atsumu’s actually cracking up, because no one should be able to give a deadpan like that at seven am when their hands are all tangled in their hair.

Sakusa is unamused. “You’re a dumbass.”

“Basic insults don’t work on me, Omi-Omi!” Atsumu croons. “I grew up with a twin. You’ll have to get more creative.”

Their conversation blurs into routine bickering—the kind that Atsumu can do for hours at a time and the kind that makes Sakusa look like he’s repressing a migraine. But then it’s already seven-thirty, and Atsumu likes to leave now to show up to practice early, and apparently, so does Sakusa. They both halt in front of the door; they’ve called to receive the same ball, and now it’s crashing down between them.

“You open it,” Sakusa says flatly.

“What if I don’t wanna?”

Sharp eyes narrow. “Then we’re not leaving this bathroom because I won’t touch it.”

“Ya really are a weirdo,” Atsumu says very indiscreetly as he props the door open with his foot.

“And yet here you are, holding the door open for me.”

Atsumu is about to shoot back that that’s an invalid argument because he would have held it for anyone, but then he recalls all the times he’s let the door close on others. He leaves the bathroom with a chill in his bones and a heat in his cheeks.

The shared mornings of hair gel and leave-in crème become a somewhat regular occurrence, depending on whether Sakusa is staying in the dorms or not. (He dislikes doing so, but will when his exhaustion after an evening practice outweighs his desire to take the train back to his real apartment.) Each seven am session widens Atsumu's insight into Sakusa’s life by a millimeter and begrudgingly piques his interest. Sakusa is either unaware or unaffected by this because he remains as brief and vague with his answers as he was four months ago.

“Why the mask?”

“Because it’s comfortable. And safe.”

“Why tea?”

“Because it’s healthier than coffee.”

“Why volleyball?”

Sakusa pauses at that one. They’re in the shared living room, with Atsumu sprawled out on the couch, and Sakusa folded into himself in the armchair. They often end up here at the same time. (Atsumu can’t tell whether he minds this.)

Sometimes when they talk, Sakusa will go all quiet, like he’s an appliance that’s been unplugged, or Atsumu’s laptop when he clicks “remind me tomorrow” for the forty-eighth time and his software is lagging just to spite him. The first time it happened, Atsumu had expected Sakusa to speak after taking a moment to collect his thoughts. He didn’t. Atsumu isn’t sure where this reluctance to share details about his personal life comes from. (But really, how personal of a question is, “So, why'd ya decide to try out for the team, Omi-kun?”) Either way, this pause usually signifies the end to another one of their offbeat conversations.

This time is different. Sakusa is opening his mouth to speak, shaping it around words that aren’t coming out just yet. He’s making the same concentrating face as when he combs through his hair in the mornings, or before he puts a particularly nasty spin on one of his serves.

“Volleyball is . . .” Sakusa starts, and there’s unease in his voice. “It’s freeing. Like, taking off ankle weights you’ve worn for hours and then sprinting.” He’s twiddling with one of the loops of his mask. “There’s just something about it.”

Atsumu feels sick with familiarity. He knows what Sakusa is trying to convey. He knows it like the back of his hand.

Volleyball has been Atsumu’s life for as long as he cares to remember. But it’s been Sakusa’s too. Atsumu is drumming his fingers along the couch now.

Ah, so that’s what it is.

It’s nerve-racking that sitting across from him is someone whose passion for volleyball is on par with his. It shouldn’t be, because Atsumu knows any pro player has to have a zeal for their sport, but it is. It’s been like this since he was little: when someone else is as unique as him, or as dedicated, he becomes stupidly agitated. His relationship with his brother would have been markedly more strained had Osamu pursued volleyball with a hunger that matched his.

Normally Atsumu can ignore this fear of being ordinary, having built up walls over the years to keep people and their passions far from him. Sakusa has just come in with a pistol masquerading as a bad analogy and shown these walls are not bulletproof.

Sakusa seems to take Atsumu's absent response as a sign to continue. “I was never great at making friends, and volleyball offered some support in that area. For the first time I had teammates, who then had to be my friends.”

Atsumu snorts.

“What’s funny about that?”

If Atsumu didn't know any better, he'd say Sakusa looks defensive. “Aw, does Omi-kun feel bad now? Don’t worry. I didn’t mean it like that.”

And he didn’t. Sakusa’s tale of automatic friendship is at least one thing they don’t have in common. (What a relief.) There’s a difference between being well-respected and well-liked, and Atsumu had no qualms with only being the former in high school. Even today, he’s quite comfortable with it. Having networks cover him means more than accumulating surface-level, cross-league friendships, and being respected by other players back then was more of his focus than having them enjoy his company.

Teammates as friends? That wasn’t important. Besides, Atsumu had a built-in best friend either way.

Osamu. What’s that loser doing tonight? Atsumu estimates it must be half past eight by now, judging by the thumbnail of sooty black sky the living room window frames. So his brother is probably still working, shaping those damn rice balls into equilateral triangles like it’s his favorite thing to do. It probably is. God, Atsumu loathes him.

But, he’ll concede it was nice to have someone there when he was playing and trying to grow up at the same time. What would it have been like if he hadn't had anyone? If there had been no one forced to endure him, if only because they had to go home down the same path to the same house to sleep on the same tatami floor with him? Would it have been lonely? Or would he still have been too consumed by the sport to care?

Atsumu’s never had a way with words, but if he had to put his passion for volleyball into a shabby simile, he’d probably say it’s like fire: it's brilliantly blinding, captivating, and it has the power to burn everything else that matters in his life to ash. Even when Atsumu was fourteen, that fire had been kindling.

“Are you okay?” Sakusa’s voice barely breaches his roaming thoughts.

Atsumu blinks. He blinks and blinks and blinks until he processes he’s blinking to try and reorient himself. His throat feels dry. It’s been a long, long time since he’s been able to spend that long in his head, weeding through countless memories and what-ifs.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine.” Atsumu gives a shaky laugh, sliding on a grin and trying to overlook the fact he has no idea of what his face has been like the past five minutes he was staring into oblivion. “Sorry, gotta little lost in my head there.”

He’s not sure why he says it. It’s not like him to disclose that kind of information, even if it’s obvious.

But Sakusa only nods. “That happens to me sometimes,” he says, and Atsumu recalls all the times Sakusa is there but not quite there.

“The distant look,” he says under his breath, clasping his hands over his chest as he settles back into the couch.

“The what?”

“Oh, nothin’. Nothin’ at all.”

Even though the clock hasn’t struck nine yet, Atsumu is inexplicably drained. The faint lamplight feels heavy, the glow threatening to tug him to sleep.

“You should go to bed,” Sakusa muses from behind crossed arms.

“Nah, it’s not even nine yet. I’m fine.”

“I wouldn’t trust you to walk down to the convenience store in your current state, Miya.” Sakusa’s standing up now, ready to return to his room. He taps Atsumu’s shoulder as he passes by him. “Get some sleep.” Then he’s walking down the hall.

The hand was tucked under a shirt sleeve, and the contact was fleeting, but Atsumu finds his hands clasping tighter above his heart. He scrambles up. “Hey, wait, Omi-kun!”

Sakusa turns around, and Atsumu’s vision must still be fuzzy at the edges because it almost looks like he’s wearing a soft, mischievous smile.

“Uh,” Atsumu starts, but he doesn’t know what to say because he wasn’t expecting to get this far. Sakusa does as he pleases, and most of the time, that involves walking away from Atsumu’s cries. “Thanks for tellin’ me ‘bout why ya play volleyball.”

Well, he’s not sure where that came from. But Atsumu supposes it was nice to learn a bit more about Sakusa.

His teammate only gives a nod.

Atsumu lies back down on the couch. Yeah, he probably should go back to his room, because he feels like he could doze right here. The only thing he’s sure of is that he needs to sleep off whatever this is.

(Sleeping it off does not go as planned. Atsumu wakes up after only an hour, sweating an obscene amount, with cheeks flushed red and scenes from his very, very questionable dream replaying through his head. When he passes by Sakusa in the restroom later that evening, he almost hurls from mortification, as if the guy somehow knows what he dreamt.)

At three am, Atsumu finds himself in the convenience store Sakusa had advised he shouldn’t go to earlier. He can’t say he’s much better now, having zombie-walked out of his building and nearly missed the fluorescent sign at the entrance of the store. He probably looks as disheveled as he feels. Atsumu’s perusing the aisles, but it seems to be an aimless bumble, as he cannot remember for the life of him what his psyche hauled his ass out of bed to buy.

And then he’s parked in front of the cleaning supplies, reaching for the travel-size disinfectant wipes. He grabs five packs, and he’s not sure why. Two hand sanitizers also find their way into his basket. The cashier doesn’t bat an eye at his cleanly haul. Atsumu thanks her and stumbles back to the dorms. He puts one pack of wipes in his practice bag and shoves the rest, along with the hand sanitizers, in his cabinet. They rest in their tacky convenience store bag.

Atsumu doesn’t remember any of this when he wakes up from the best sleep of his life the next morning, feeling right as rain. As far as he’s concerned, the entire excursion was just another installment in his very strange, not-to-be-elaborated-on dream sequence.

(And if that’s what he has to tell himself, that’s okay.)

The MSBY Black Jackals is the first team Atsumu’s enjoyed hanging out with. In high school and middle school, he had no interest in social outings. He’d tag along for mandatory bonding but never initiate or appreciate it all that much. With this group, it’s different. They’re somehow more compelling.

(Or, maybe it’s Atsumu who's different. Maybe he’s had to grow up these past few years while being alone for the first time in his life, in the middle of a big city that has no intention of holding him delicately.)

He’s out at lunch with Bokuto, Hinata, and amazingly, Sakusa. Hinata had quite literally begged on his knees to get Sakusa to come with them, pleading, “We’re the high school nationals squad!”

Atsumu suspects the only reason Sakusa agreed was so that Hinata would give his poor joints, which were already mottled in bruises, relief. Despite his sullen front, Sakusa does care about the wellbeing of his teammates. Sakusa cares. Atsumu is still smiling to himself, turning the knowledge over in his hands like it’s a shiny pressed penny.

Group activities revolve around Sakusa and his miscellaneous provisions. Street food was the main condition. It’s somewhat puzzling because Atsumu has witnessed Sakusa manage in a sit-down restaurant without imploding, so he’s not sure what’s different this time. He doesn’t ask. For as much as Sakusa comes off as routines built upon routines, there’s a degree of variability in his response to a given situation. The levels of his anxieties are as fluid as they are unexplainable, and he'll satiate them accordingly. Atsumu notices this. He doesn’t think most people do.

The four of them are sitting at a picnic table in a relatively empty park, clearing the remnants of their bento boxes. Sakusa’s food is untouched. Atsumu had ordered for him, knowing he’d rather avoid the masses of people that frequented the street. He had taken great care not to contaminate the food, curled two fingers around the handle of the plastic bag and held it out from his body like it was hazardous waste. He tries not to take the lack of appetite personally.

Practices are good for check-ins, but they don’t block out inherent time for catching up, which means these hangouts center around conversation. And whenever Bokuto is involved, one can bet that the conversation will be somewhat sporadic. This time is no different, but Atsumu is having even more trouble navigating the inflections of Bokuto’s boisterous voice because Sakusa’s there with them. It’s been like this lately: Sakusa’s presence distracting Atsumu in even the simplest of situations. Sakusa still pisses him off, but something accompanies the feelings of irritation.

They delve into the waters of their past, recalling high school matches and antics.

“Man, I was wild back then!” Bokuto says, and he almost sounds mournful.

As if Bokuto’s matured self can’t talk off the ear of any stranger who enters his general vicinity for more than thirty seconds.

“But ya had Akaashi-san,” Atsumu says instead of giving into a sigh. Akaashi has only come to a few of their games this season, but his attendance alone seems to calm Bokuto down.

“But I had Kashi,” Bokuto repeats, and his voice is uncharacteristically soft as he smiles down at his hands like he’s picturing hitting the setter’s tosses. He probably is.

For someone who can have an entire conversation with a brick wall, Bokuto deserves credit for how well he manages to avoid rubbing his relationship in Atsumu’s face. Even today, he’s been sparing with it. But for some unknown reason—one that Atsumu’s sure wouldn’t be justified even if he could put his finger on it—the mention of Akaashi is making him want to throw up. He resists the urge to throttle Bokuto. Or push him off the bench. Anything to wipe that dopey smile off of his face.

So this is what dating someone does to ya? Makes ya look like an idiot?

Osamu harps that Atsumu “doesn’t have a single romantic bone in his body.” (Osamu has been an absolute sap since getting together with Suna last year. It’s ironic, considering how opposed to love he’d been when they were young.) Atsumu takes no offense to this remark. Love, when the sugarcoating is stripped away, seems like a lot of work. It’s too unsteady, and if it does work out, it’s so time-consuming. It also seems unlikely that two people can love each other equally. One party is bound to give more love than they receive, which means someone’s going to come out in pieces.

They’re jumping down the rabbit hole of setters now, and of course, Hinata has to start talking about Kageyama. Yama this, Yama that. God, could he drone on anymore?

Atsumu makes a point to tell himself, Okay. It’s really bad. If yer makin’ fun of Shouyou, it’s really bad.

He briefly wonders why no one’s talking about him. After all, he is their setter, and he’s damn good at what he does. He voices this complaint and is met with an irritated, “Because your ego is already big enough to eclipse the sun, Miya,” courtesy of Sakusa.

Blunt jerk.

“You know, I first met Kageyama in middle school!” Hinata says, interrupting Atsumu right as he’s finding his stride in brooding and glaring at Sakusa. “My team got crushed by his. Like, to smithereens. Destroyed. I was so frustrated!” Hinata clenches his fists emphatically.

“I’m sure that was very fun for Kageyama-san,” Sakusa says, and it’s hard to decipher whether he’s being sarcastic or not. His participation points have been less than proficient, but Hinata and Bokuto must have expected as much because they haven’t nagged him for it.

“I mean, yeah, probably,” Hinata agrees. Then he gives a boyish grin. “But that’s all in the past. I was weak back then, but now Yama calls me his strongest opponent!”

Sakusa’s forehead scrunches. He’s fraying at the edges.

Atsumu cups his hands around his mouth. “Whipped,” he says, popping the “p.”

“Mmm, you’re just jealous!” Bokuto exclaims, reaching over the table to aggressively ruffle the hair that Atsumu definitely did not spend thirty minutes gelling. “You wish you could be this whipped!”

A provocation like that doesn’t dignify an actual response, so Atsumu lets out a laugh and pretends that it doesn’t leave a white-hot cut across his aplomb.

“Don’t worry. He’s just kidding,” Hinata interjects into the silence that is brewing. There’s something in his defensive posture that tells Bokuto to turn it down a notch. Atsumu is simultaneously flattered and aggravated. “Besides,” Hinata continues, “Kageyama isn’t very romantic anyway.”

Atsumu could see that. Guy seems about as emotionally intelligent as a medium-sized rock.

To prove his point, Hinata recalls his third year when Kageyama confessed to him. “And then, you won't even believe it, he asked me out while we were on a water break! Just out of the blue! It was ridiculous.”

It doesn’t seem ridiculous to Atsumu. It actually seems kind of sweet.

In Atsumu’s mind, it’s pretty smart to ask out your spiker at practice. You’re both doing something you love, which improves spirits, and neither of you are in a position to run away. He sees the further appeal of the confession method when Hinata recounts that it had been after they’d just won their 2v2. There’s always that dizzying feeling that accompanies a win, where everything looks like it’s glittering, and you can feel your heartbeat in your ears. Atsumu knows from personal experience it can drive people to do very, very bold things. (It’s not because he asked out the baseball captain after a match his third year, only to be rejected.) Kageyama probably got a confidence boost from the victory.

Really, for as dense and cold-hearted as Kageyama is, Atsumu respects his confession method.

In contrast, Bokuto looks incredulous after hearing the anecdote. And judging by Hinata’s repeated, “I know, but it’s true!” that seems to be the appropriate response.

“Really?” Bokuto asks again. “That’s how he asked you?”

Hinata shakes his head lamentingly, but there’s a fond smile gracing his face.

Atsumu has a knack for picking things apart—whether that be people, their motivations, or actions—but the shared look between Hinata and Bokuto right now is not one of these things. They’re exchanging a secret with only their eyes. It makes Atsumu feel like he’s talked over the punchline, and now he’s the only one who doesn’t get the joke.

He dreads this feeling.

There are two ways to tackle it. The first is hoping it gets elaborated on, preferably because someone other than him is also confused and asks for an explanation. Much to Atsumu's chagrin, Sakusa Kiyoomi doesn’t fit the description of such shamelessness. That leaves option two: sucking it up and asking about it himself.

Every second that ticks by will make it more troublesome to bring up the topic again. It’s now or never.

Atsumu steels himself. “Okay, this is goin’ to sound real stupid but—”

“—Stop saying that,” Sakusa sibilates, interrupting him. He’s pressing two fingers to his temple. Oh, if he’s willingly touching his face while they’re in public, it’s bad.

A shiver runs down Atsumu’s spine. He regains an ounce of pride when he notes that Bokuto and Hinata have also straightened their backs.

Sakusa rubs at his head. “You never sound stupid, alright?”

Hinata directs a look at Atsumu that says we’re talking about this later. Atsumu’s face heats up. He praises the gods that Sakusa’s eyes are glued shut in annoyance.

Okay, so maybe Atsumu always introduces his questions with a self-deprecating segment to mitigate the embarrassment he feels asking them. But most people don't pay enough attention to pick up on this pattern. Atsumu's not sure how to feel knowing that Sakusa does. (He knows exactly how he feels, but he’s pretty sure he’ll die of hyperthermia if he admits it while Sakusa is still sitting next to him.)

“I’m going home,” Sakusa announces. He tucks his chin into his jacket and walks away, unaware of the blazing inferno he leaves in his wake.

If Atsumu could, he’d poke fun at him, but his brain has forgotten how to form coherent sentences and is only rebooting by the time Sakusa is a figurine in the distance.

It shouldn’t matter. Atsumu knows he shouldn’t be reading into that one sentence. He knows it has no underlying implication. He knows that, if anything, Sakusa meant, "Hey, you actually don’t always sound like a fucking idiot, even though I treat you like one, and you agree with me half the time.”

Yeah, that’s the stuff straight out of romance novels, for sure.

Oh.

Atsumu's hand goes limp, his chopsticks splashing soy sauce as they hit the plastic container. It leaves a brown spatter across the bento box and a prominent smell of salt on his right hand.

So that's what's been bugging him.

And then, all at once, any possible solace found in Atsumu finally understanding his feelings is swallowed by a new revelation: he’s pathetic.

“Dude—” Hinata starts, wrenching Atsumu from his pity party.

“—what was that?” Bokuto finishes for him.

This is it. This is where Atsumu is going to charge full-speed into moving traffic. The idea has flashed through his head several times during history after making asinine comments, but it’s never seemed worth the effort to pursue. It does now. Because if Bokuto Koutarou figured out Atsumu’s feelings for Sakusa the same day Atsumu himself did, he doesn’t deserve to live.

When Atsumu raises his head to accept his fate, he finds a pleasant surprise in Bokuto and Hinata turned toward the general direction Sakusa had left, rather than to his very red face. To them, it seems, Sakusa was the only one who acted out of the ordinary. They must have been oblivious to the clatter of Atsumu’s chopsticks, or too polite to say anything. For once in his egotistical life, Atsumu is thankful not to be the center of attention.

“What was that?” Bokuto had asked. Atsumu isn’t sure whether that was rhetorical, but after seeing the chaos that unfurled when he posed his last question, he isn’t eager to clarify. So he chances that a response was expected. Besides, speaking his mind might be helpful, even if he ends up being the only one listening.

“I’m not sure what it was,” Atsumu says truthfully. He sighs. “Nothing, probably.”

In hindsight, it took a long time for Atsumu to establish he’s nursing the tiniest crush on his tight-lipped teammate. But the whole concept of having a crush is objectively cringeworthy. Crushes happen to high schoolers, to teens who haven’t grown into their facial features and still suffer from voice cracks. They shouldn’t happen to adults. (Osamu attests that Atsumu only narrowly ranks above “manchild” on the maturity scale.)

But either way, Atsumu’s starting to think that maybe his past self was onto something with the whole “ignorance is bliss” strategy because once he recognizes his feelings, things quickly go downhill. He starts to notice the little things about Sakusa, which is so horrible he wants to eat his own fist.

Sakusa starts by applying his leave-in crème on the right side of his hair, then works around his head clockwise. He tosses the ball between his hands six times before he serves. He wipes down flat surfaces left to right. He owns a small UV sanitizer that he incubates his phone in for twenty-minute intervals like it’s an egg waiting to hatch. In the rarest of moments, when the world has fallen into a somber sleep and Atsumu has somehow managed to force Sakusa to stay up and talk, he’s incredibly thoughtful. Even when they’re a meter apart, he often feels kilometers away.

These are things that Atsumu knows, facts he’s worked painstakingly hard to collect. The synthesis part seems to be where he’s lacking. Atsumu can sit down and think about all of the small things that compose the anomaly of Sakusa Kiyoomi, but the image he conjures of him still feels loose and fragmented. So Atsumu keeps searching, and trusts that the cornerstones will eventually be built from the seemingly trivial things he finds.

Right now is one of those occasions where Atsumu has extracted another piece of information to add to his embarrassingly large collection that is taking up an equally embarrassing amount of space in his brain. (“No wonder you’ve been acting like a dipshit lately,” Osamu said last night after Atsumu confided in him. “Oh wait, yer like that all the time.” Cue the cackling.)

Sakusa’s favorite food is umeboshi. Figures, considering how most of the time his face looks like he’s sucking on one.

It shouldn’t be an important discovery, but it is. To make matters worse, Atsumu almost trips over his feet when Sakusa reveals he likes the umeboshi candies best.

“The candy? Really?” and Sakusa gives a grudging nod.

“Didn’t see that coming,” Atsumu says, a little breathlessly because the image of Sakusa having a soft spot for popping sweets makes his stomach do something funny.

But the more Atsumu mulls over it, the more it makes sense. The plums have to be brined for weeks before they’re eaten, but the finished product is worth the wait. Umeboshi are versatile. And they’re enjoyed carefully, one at a time, in bite-sized, digestible pieces. Somehow this all seems fitting. Sakusa is detail-oriented and multitalented, and it takes patience to crack him.

Umeboshi, Atsumu realizes, are rather alluring. In a matter of minutes, they’ve inched their way up his hypothetical food rankings and wedged into the second-place slot, right below fatty tuna. Atsumu manages to maintain a shred of dignity by biting the word back when Sakusa asks him what his favorite foods are.

And Atsumu hates it, really. He hates that he savors finding new things out about Sakusa, hates that he finds some kind of sick pleasure in the vague answers that only prompt further questions. He has to be psychotic for enjoying the lifetimes it takes to unravel a single detail about Sakusa. That’s the only logical explanation as to why he puts himself through this torture. Or maybe he’s more masochistic, in that respect. Atsumu has never been all that keen on labels, but whatever tag he falls under, there’s something decidedly wrong with him.

Lying in bed that night, he begins to text Osamu, because while his brother is a loser, he’s at least a loser who’s obligated to listen to him. Atsumu settles on sending an ambiguous message. Maybe the elusiveness will intrigue Osamu enough that he’ll knock down the temperature of whatever roast he’s about to fire by a few degrees.

To: osamu
[11:19 pm]
bro. i’m not even a clown. like i’m worse than that
[11:19 pm]
i’m like the ringmaster or sumn

From: osamu
[11:26 pm]
more like the whole fuckin circus

After essentially personifying a plum, Atsumu can’t even protest.

Atsumu cuts his post-practice shower routine in half. He’s learned that this is the only way he can leave with Sakusa, who seems to have an affinity for walking like he’s trying to outrun life itself.

“Hey, Omi-kun! Whatcha doin’?”

Sakusa clenches his jaw, but he doesn’t yell at Atsumu to get lost the way he would have a year ago. Atsumu likes to think that this is Sakusa’s idea of an amiable demeanor, a result of their growing friendship. Osamu would probably tell him to get his head out of his ass.

“I’m walking home,” Sakusa answers drily. “And you?”

Well, of course, Sakusa’s walking home. It’s the whole reason Atsumu had taken a lightning-speed shower. He knows the path they’re walking on leads back to their building, and that it’s half past ten after a grueling evening practice, so Sakusa wouldn’t be taking the train to his apartment.

But Atsumu doesn’t like the feeling of being backed into a corner, and with the way Sakusa’s narrowing his eyes at him, he can feel his shoulder blades hitting the walls. So, Atsumu can’t say he’s also going home. Because that’s what Sakusa’s expecting him to say.

“I’m goin’ out to eat,” he says, because that’s the only somewhat probable thing he could be doing at ten-thirty on a Thursday night.

“You’re going out to eat,” Sakusa repeats, skeptical. “What’s even open at this time of night?”

“Why not come along and find out for yerself?” The words tumble out on instinct, swathed in a trademark flirtatious lilt. Atsumu wants to double over.

Oh my god, am I blushin’? Atsumu makes a sorry excuse of prayer for the dark of the night to shroud him.

“Every day you make yourself more contemptible, Miya,” Sakusa says, but his voice is noticeably muffled. He’s trying to talk through a laugh. For some reason, the jab hurts less than it should once Atsumu realizes he made Sakusa smile.

“Only for you, Omi-kun,” Atsumu drawls effortlessly. He’s used to the back-and-forth. He can do back-and-forth.

He ignores the space between them and listens to their footfalls. Even if their distance widens, their steps stay in time. They resound like syncopated metronomes, the long and staid shadows cast by buildings as their only listeners, until Sakusa stops.

“The food shops are that way,” he says, jutting his chin out to the left. “You should probably go. It’s getting late.”

All thoughts of his impromptu dinner have fled Atsumu’s mind, but he nods his head robotically. “Right.”

So this is how it ends. Another evening walk cut short (they always seem to be, for one reason or another), but this time by Atsumu’s own doing. He peels off from Sakusa, silently cursing the fork in the road he stabbed himself.

“Oh, and Miya,” Sakusa calls once Atsumu’s almost lost in the nebulous vibrancy of the marketplace. “Maybe another night.”

Then he leaves, the outline of his ebony hair melting into the sable sky.

Atsumu, for his part, does what he’s best at: he forgets. He settles down at a ramen shop and orders the tonkotsu shio that Osamu likes to go off about. The noodles are blistering hot, and his nose runs as he slurps them down greedily. The heat clouds his mind, letting him pretend he’s erasing the past humiliating hour from existence. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

He remembers Sakusa’s parting comment only as he’s draining the last of the broth. And so with snot dribbling from his nose like a toddler, Miya Atsumu slams his bowl down against the counter. The sound of glass against wood reverberates around the restaurant, earning him several looks from the elderly men drinking their lives away at the table to his right.

But that’s irrelevant right now, because holy shit. He said maybe he’d come with me another night.

Then Atsumu realizes he must have spoken aloud because the woman behind the counter makes a taut face and asks him to please be seated, sir, you’re disrupting the other customers.

It’s probably unreasonable how warm he is walking home, considering he doesn’t have a jacket.

Atsumu isn’t completely delusional. He doesn’t expect that one raincheck to instantly strengthen his entire relationship with Sakusa. But he does hope that it might set a precedent for the near future.

It doesn’t. In fact, in the days following, Sakusa seems even more aloof than usual, like he’s retreated inside himself. The shell of him carries out all the tedious routines with a level of dissociation that’s impressive even for him. The walls that Atsumu has pulled apart brick by brick are back up tenfold. The past eight months have disappeared with a flicker, like Sakusa’s blown out the candle and left him in the dark.

Sakusa remains this unapproachable for two weeks. It doesn’t affect his playing skills, but it’s aggravating, and it does make his personality more irritable. But then one night they chat again, and Sakusa is snickering at Atsumu’s jokes and telling him about the lengths he went to straighten his hair their first year of high school, and Atsumu almost forgets the guy hasn’t so much as looked at him for the past fourteen days.

This becomes the new norm, much to Atsumu’s annoyance. One day, Sakusa will do something that’s borderline flirtatious (but is it really flirty, or has Atsumu’s perception of friendliness just been distorted after pining for someone with all the compassion of a hand towel?), and the next day his soul and social skills will take an extended vacation to Aomori. Slowly they’ll return to their state of equilibrium, only for the same thing to happen within the month. Atsumu begins to label these days of surprising affection and attention as hot days, and the days of detachedness as cold days. The cold days far outnumber the hot.

It’s a continuous cycle, this temperature-mood correlation thing. Atsumu’s positive it could be documented and proved using some intense linear regression and pattern analysis (if those are even real words). A hot day, then a long, cold rest. Rinse and repeat. Now if Atsumu spontaneously texts Osamu about something that happened with Sakusa, his brother will prompt, “Hot or cold day?”

The most depressing part of it all is that Atsumu lives for these hot days, even though they’ll inevitably be followed by a barren period. He likes the high enough that he’ll suffer through the achy sobering up. It’s messed up. He’s messed up.

But every time Sakusa gives that almost-laugh, or in the delightful, scattered moments he smiles without his mask on, Atsumu feels small fireworks explode in his chest. And when this happens, the smallest part of his being will betray him by asking, without fail: don’t you think he might like you too?

It’s a cruel question because Atsumu knows the answer, even if he wishes he didn’t. He hears it in Sakusa’s growls and long-suffering sighs, sees it in the knuckles clenched so hard the white of bone peeks through, smells it in the mornings of hair gel and leave-in crème, and tasted it in that first cup of green tea almost a year ago.

Team dinners are commonplace to celebrate a win, especially when the victory is against one of the top teams in the league. While they’ve reserved a room, Atsumu is sure they’re loud enough for the entire restaurant to hear. Bokuto is shouting at the top of his lungs and trying to hop up on the table, and Hinata is blindly encouraging him. Sakusa is fusing with his chair, shoved as far away from Atsumu, who’s seated beside him, as possible.

It’s pathetic that Atsumu still tries for proximity when all of his advances are neatly rejected. But if he’s getting technical, it seems to be less of rejection and more of disregard. Sakusa doesn’t care what’s initiated. He’s innately apathetic.

They don’t have an official photographer for team outings, but it’s an unspoken rule that Atsumu takes the pictures. At least this way, he always gets his good side. He unlocks his phone. “Oi, everyone, look here! We’re takin’ a selfie for Twitter!”

The team squishes together enough to fit in the frame. A few peace signs later, the photo is uploaded. Within minutes there are thousands of likes.

Call him conceited, but Atsumu enjoys the ego boost that is having social media as a professional athlete. Whenever he’s feeling down, he’ll scroll through the hashtags of his name, rewatching his best plays fan accounts have captured. Finding a fancam or two of himself doesn’t harm the mood either. On his absolute worst days, he’ll even indulge by looking up Sakusa’s name (to admire his plays, obviously, not his face or the sliver of stomach that’s exposed when his shirt flies up during spikes).

Atsumu scrolls through his timeline, reposting a Volleyball Monthly article here and a singer’s philosophical bullshit tweet there. His thumb stills when a certain thread catches his eye. It’s a series of polls to determine “who’s the hottest player on the black jackals it’s for science.” There are tens of thousands of retweets and likes. Amused by the name, Atsumu clicks on the lengthy thread. It picks off one teammate at a time, if not a little negligently. The replies on each tweet consist of crying emojis to mourn the players who lost that round. And then Atsumu is at the end of the thread, and—wait, he’s in first place. He’s won.

The comments seem to indicate this result is representative of the population consensus.

“agreeing with the internet for once”

“i literally know nothing about volleyball but i’m ready to risk it all for that miya guy”

“miya could get it”

He stops reading before the replies get too graphic. But dismissing them makes no difference, because the outcome is fixed, all sky blue and bolded. The first droplets of pride collect in the cavity of Atsumu’s chest, a predecessor to the crushing deluge of smugness that washes over him.

“Guys, guess who was just voted most attractive on the team!” He tries his best to smack some believable innocence over his gloating.

The replies range from uninterested to excited, but there’s enough volume to note he has the majority of the team’s attention.

Atsumu brings a hand to his chest, inhaling dramatically. “That’s right, it was yers truly!” he says, like a queen addressing her subjects. The shit-eating grin that splits across his face might dampen his diplomacy. He holds his phone out to his teammates, brandishing the results.

“God, look at him, Thomas, he’s glowing!”

“You know what they say: you shouldn’t always trust the internet.”

“Might have to check to see if the voters were bots on that one!”

The team’s response is to be expected: good-natured, jocular comments.

Sakusa’s voice slices through the chatter. “Why do you seem so proud? Everyone knows you’re pretty.” His tone is even, like he’s reporting on the weather, not as though he’s speaking for one of the first times this evening, and so haphazardly.

Atsumu just about passes out then. He looks around frantically to see if anyone else has heard Sakusa, or whether the words are part of a late-onset hallucination resulting from one too many sleepless nights. But his teammates are immersed in their own worlds. Sakusa looks like he’s back to astral projecting, closing his eyes in an attempt to mute the ruckus around him.

“Omi-kun, didn’t know ya thought so highly of me!” Atsumu decides to say, because the need to respond is suffocating him, and because he’s an idiot who can’t be satiated with the compliment. He moves to nudge Sakusa, who only draws away from him.

“Don’t fucking touch me, Miya.”

A typical response, and one that neatly joins Atsumu’s hot and cold observations.

Atsumu stalks social media until his eyes ache from the blue light of his screen, and then he turns to his meal. It’s subpar at best, at least compared to what his brother can cook (yes, Osamu’s turned him into a food appraising fiend), but it’s something to distract him from the absolute frigidity that Sakusa is emitting from beside him.

It’s not often that Atsumu is awoken by a loud rapping on his door. On the one hand, he hadn’t even realized he’d dozed off, and napping screws over his sleep schedule, so maybe this is a blessing in disguise. One the other hand, who the fuck would be knocking on his door at—Atsumu checks his phone—5:16 PM on a Wednesday? Groaning out gibberish that is only mildly vulgar, he staggers out of bed to open the door.

Sakusa Kiyoomi is standing on the other side. Atsumu can smell the irritation rolling off of him, tinting the negative space between them.

“Hi,” Sakusa says. His words are flat enough to write on.

“Hey, Omi-kun.” Atsumu gives a crooked grin.

And then they’re left in a standstill because Atsumu has no clue why Sakusa is standing there so moodily, acting like a lead pissed off at their co-star for missing a cue for the tenth time. But how can Atsumu flub his lines when he wasn’t given a script?

Sakusa seems unenthusiastic to help clear any of the confusion.

“Can I, uh,” Atsumu coughs, “help you with somethin’?” If there’s any conversation he’s never imagined having, it’s this one. Sakusa Kiyoomi doesn’t require help from other people, and he never requires help from Atsumu.

Terse as ever, Sakusa states, “So you forgot.”

Theoretically, this should make a bell ring in Atsumu’s mind. If it doesn’t unearth the misplaced memory, it should at least trigger some response, considering Atsumu's outstanding, impulsive ability to think with his heart over his head. But it does neither. Atsumu runs his tongue over his bottom lip.

Sakusa has the audacity to sigh. “And here I thought I was going to have my style revamped. How did you describe your prowess in fashion again? ‘I would have modeled if I hadn’t gone into volleyball,’ or something arrogant like that, right?”

Oh, right. Their agreement from last week.

They had both been fiddling with their hair in the morning when Atsumu turned to Sakusa and said, “So what’s up with yer attachment to that ugly ass jacket?” It was a crude question that likely wouldn’t receive a proper answer—overall, a pretty normal conversation starter for Atsumu.

Sakusa’s hand had tightened around his tube of leave-in crème. “What’s it to you?” He eyed Atsumu’s pullover, which sported only two stains that morning. “Besides, you don’t really scream ‘Tokyo Fashion Week’ to me either.”

“Oh, I’ll have ya know that I know a lotta ‘bout fashion, Omi-kun. In fact, I considered goin’ into modelin’ after high school because I got scouted so many times.”

This was a blatant lie. Atsumu had known since he was twelve that he wanted to be a professional volleyball player, but he’d briefly contemplated modeling on the side after getting scouted on the street his second year. The idea fell through once Atsumu realized it made no fucking sense. But Sakusa didn’t need to know that.

“I highly doubt you’re educated in the realm of fashion, Miya,” Sakusa said, and he had already turned back to the mirror to reoccupy himself with his product-covered fingers.

Galvanized by Sakusa’s dismissal, Atsumu snapped, “Fine! I’ll prove it to ya.” He knew he was being egged on and retaliating like a child, but his mental age tends to drop when he’s in the heart of contention.

“Sure, you will. And how do you plan to do that?”

It was a dare.

“Next Wednesday, 5 PM. I’ll show ya,” Atsumu sneered. “We’ll go shoppin’ and give ya the style makeover you deserve.”

Sakusa raised a brow quizzically.

“I mean the, the makeover everyone else around ya deserves, since it’s hard to look at ya when yer dressed like a fuckin’ glowstick!” Smooth, Atsumu. Real smooth.

Atsumu claps a hand to his forehead at the same time Sakusa mutters, “I don’t know why I bother with you.”

“Shit, I’m sorry. Give me like,” Atsumu considers what essentials he’ll need to locate before going out, “one minute and then we’ll leave.”

“You don’t need to apologize. It’s not like it actually matters,” Sakusa shrugs, looking down the hallway for what Atsumu can only assume is a reason to not look at him.

If you ask Atsumu, it’s a great start to probably the only outing he’ll ever get with his crush.

After Sakusa’s impassive comment, Atsumu would have loved to take his sweet, sweet time, but the reality is that it doesn’t take very long to grab your phone, keys, and wallet, and Atsumu’s also a very desperate man. They walk out of the building.

The mental itinerary he’d sketched out was never very thorough to begin with, but now it resembles that of a kindergartner’s drawing tacked to the fridge. So Plan B: improvise. This shouldn’t be difficult since Atsumu is a certified bullshitter, but it's a whole lot more stressful when he can feel Sakusa breathing down his neck, even from half a meter beside him.

“So,” Atsumu starts, trying to expel the hostile air that’s clouding his sinuses, "what’re ya lookin’ for today, Omi-Omi?”

“I thought you were the one taking charge of shopping,” Sakusa remarks. “And apparently my preferences don’t align with yours, so I’m not sure how helpful my input would be.”

Admittedly, this is true. Sakusa, for some traumatic, unbeknownst reason, has been cursed with one of the worst fashion senses Atsumu has ever seen. He dresses like an American middle schooler, suited up in a neon yellow track jacket reminiscent of his high school one half the time, and in an only slightly less ugly zip up the other days. It’s very, very fortunate that Sakusa spends most of his days at practice or huddled alone in his room, where the high beams he emits won’t blind all other drivers on the road.

And the most distasteful part of it all is that he doesn’t look atrocious in his clothing. The entirety of his wardrobe epitomizes unbecoming, but Sakusa is blessed with one of those stupid faces and bodies that looks halfway decent in anything. Most of the time, more than halfway decent.

Atsumu turns his head to look at him, lets his eyes trace the outline of curls he’s sure would be soft to the touch, the white surgical mask that should make him look diseased, but somehow doesn’t.

It’s unfair. It’s so unfair.

“Yer cool with takin’ the train, right? I’m not sure how many stores there are around here.”

It’s likely an unnecessary question, but Atsumu figures it’s better to ask than end up stuck in a moving vehicle with a fuming Sakusa. He knows that Sakusa will take the train back to his apartment if practice gets out early, but he also knows that his teammate doesn’t find the experience very enjoyable.

“It’s fine,” Sakusa says thickly.

Atsumu considers the bottle of hand sanitizer that’s definitely sitting in the bottom of Sakusa’s left jacket pocket. If Sakusa has to put it on before and after touching the handlebar on the train, and they take a train down to the shopping district and then one back, that’s at least four hand sanitizer applications. And Atsumu’s pretty sure they would switch trains once, if not twice. So he decides that they should stay within walking distance to avoid wasting all that hand sanitizer. So as not to squander all of Sakusa’s yen.

(It’s not because Sakusa’s words had sounded like what peering through a pool of water feels like, and it’s not because the noise had grated on Atsumu’s ears.)

“Nah. Actually, I take it back. We’re not gonna take the train. I know some pretty good stores around here,” Atsumu says, mostly to Sakusa but also to himself.

Sakusa’s spine curves, like Atsumu has somehow shone a spotlight on him with the decision, and he’s trying to shy away from it. “We don’t have to skip the train because of me.” He adds, “I don’t know what you’re trying to accomplish by deciding that, but it’s grossing me out.”

A vein bulges in Atsumu’s forehead. “I’m just tryna help ya save money!”

“Are you insinuating I can’t afford a train ticket?”

It’s at this point that Atsumu remembers Sakusa’s not a mind reader and therefore hasn’t been listening in on his exploration of potential hand sanitizer depletion. “No! It doesn’t matter though. We’re walkin’ today.”

Sakusa’s voice is bizarrely quiet when he mumbles, “I don’t need your pity. Especially over things that can’t be changed.”

“I’m not pityin’ ya,” Atsumu responds, disgusted by the fact that his vocal cords have matched his volume to Sakusa’s. “I could use the exercise anyway.” He says this wholeheartedly, as if his intensity will make Sakusa forget they’re professional athletes who burned over a thousand calories at practice earlier in the day.

Still, Atsumu knows he’s won when Sakusa says, “Fine.” But there’s none of the joy flooding his bloodstream that usually accompanies getting the last word in an argument. Something about the way this friction fizzled out, about Sakusa’s soft voice, doesn’t sit right with Atsumu.

“Especially over things that can’t be changed.”

Atsumu’s always known Sakusa to be a germaphobe, but that was the closest to an acknowledgment of the paranoia he’s ever heard. It’s jarring, probably because Sakusa’s not one to admit his flaws, no matter how indirectly. But, the mysophobia isn't really a flaw. At this point, it’s just another part of Sakusa.

The growing sounds of the city mute their steps. Atsumu has a rough idea of where they’re going, having completed a quick google search while Sakusa rolled his eyes. The store isn’t exactly nearby, but Atsumu’s decision is final. They’re walking.

Half an hour into their walk, another thought crosses his mind. “Wait, yer like, okay with tryin’ on clothes, right?”

“No, Miya, I’m going shopping with you because I’m completely uncomfortable with trying on anything,” Sakusa intones. “You’ll just have to hold up clothing and envision me in it.”

Tragically, Atsumu would still probably go with him if that were true.

The store they end up in front of is busy. It’s somewhat high fashion, based on the four online reviews Atsumu read and the outrageous prices he saw on the front page of their website. He can tell Sakusa’s reluctant to enter, but he must still be frustrated from Atsumu’s pity-that-wasn’t-pity because he kicks the door open with his foot and pushes inside.

“Alright, let’s get ya fixed up!”

“Where to first, Your Highness?”

Atsumu’s screwed. He is so, so screwed.

“Fuck,” he whispers, just low enough that it’s absorbed by the swish of Sakusa messing with the cuffs of the shirt.

Atsumu had plucked clothing from all the racks he could reach after gauging Sakusa’s size. The colorful assortment included trenchcoats to trousers, silk to leather. If Atsumu had known the consequences, he would have chosen the items with more care.

Because Sakusa always looks good, but right now he looks good. There’s a type of attractiveness that is Sakusa glistening at practice, the gym lights casting a highlight on his brow bone that would make anyone else look washed out, but somehow compliments his pale complexion. And then there's a type of attractiveness that is Sakusa wearing a maroon silk button-up, scowling in the mirror and blissfully unaware of the fact that Atsumu’s face is slowly rouging the same hue as his shirt.

“Don’t you think it’s a bit bold?” Sakusa asks, tilting his head to the side, staring at his reflection in the mirror beside where Atsumu is seated. His collarbone is exposed. Atsumu isn’t sure whether to commend himself or condemn himself for telling Sakusa to keep the top two buttons open.

“I am definitely not imaginin’ puttin’ my mouth on yer collarbone,” Atsumu thinks.

“Ya dress like a fuckin’ highlighter half the time, I think it’s fine,” he says aloud. He’s impressed he manages to get the sentence out without a stutter.

“I’m not sure whether I like it,” Sakusa frowns, tugging at the collar. “And I don’t know when I’d even wear it.”

”I bet the red compliments yer lips, which are probably bruised from bein’ bitten, since ya said that’s a nervous habit of yers. That shouldn’t be hot, but it is. God, I wish I could see that up close,” Atsumu thinks.

“It’s good,” he says aloud. “It looks good, I mean.” He clears his throat. “And, uh, maybe you’ll wear it on a date someday.”

There is nothing quite like sitting on a stool outside a fitting room waiting for Sakusa to come and model the clothing Atsumu picked out for him. It feels nice. It feels right. It feels so right that Atsumu almost forgets this isn’t a date, that they aren’t a “thing” in any sense of the word, that he isn’t in a position to give his unfiltered opinion like he just did.

But Sakusa only nods, disappearing back into the fitting room.

“I like the beige,” Atsumu says. He's somewhat regained his composure now that Sakusa’s clavicles are successfully tucked away beneath an oversized sweater.

“I don’t understand why you picked this size. Why would I buy something that doesn’t fit me?” Sakusa pulls at the excess fabric bunched around his upper thighs. “And how do they even sell stuff this big?”

“Because oversized stuff’s comfortable! And it makes ya look smaller!” Atsumu ignores the raised eyebrows Sakusa-I’m-192-centimeters-Kiyoomi gives him. “And they go by international sizes here, so we gotta few more options.”

He’d made sure of this before they arrived. It’s difficult to shop in Japan when you’re tall, something Atsumu learned to deal with when he hit his first growth spurt in middle school. In retrospect, he’s grateful for his mother who patiently dragged Samu and him around in search of stores that carried their sizes, back when they were still clumsy enough to bump their heads on doorways. Online shopping and international sizing have truly been Atsumu’s holy grails since living on his own.

“I think I’ll get this one,” Sakusa announces, and he looks to Atsumu as if for approval. It’s oddly endearing.

Atsumu beams. “I’d say it’s a step up from yer track jacket.”

Sakusa gives him an equivalent of a swat with his eyes.

“Come on, Omi-Omi, it can’t be that bad,” Atsumu calls through the door for the third time. If there were anyone else in the fitting room, he’s sure Sakusa would have told him to shut up by now, but the clerk had disappeared immediately after escorting them.

“It’s bad, I promise,” comes the muffled reply, and Atsumu knows Sakusa is slumped over himself, trying to teleport out of the country.

“Well, I can’t judge that until ya come out, dipshit.”

Atsumu hears a sullen sigh from the other side of the door, and then the unclicking of the lock before Sakusa steps out.

Oh, it’s bad, alright. It’s very, very bad.

“You didn’t tell me the shirt was see-through,” Sakusa seethes, arms wrapped across himself so tightly Atsumu can see his biceps ripple as he adjusts the grip on his shoulders. He’s thrown on a blazer over in a futile attempt to cover the rest of his midsection. And while the ripped black skinny jeans push a try-hard teenager agenda more than a classy adult one, they only serve to make Atsumu’s head feel lighter.

In his defense, Atsumu didn’t notice the black turtleneck was mesh when he tossed it over his arm. At the time, it’d been nothing more than another garment to add to the plethora they’d already accumulated. But now it’s shaped out to be one of the most miraculous accidents to ever occur. Atsumu feels his fingertips yearn to reach out and draw nonsense across Sakusa's chest. (For his own safety, he refrains from acting on this urge.)

He summons all the breath that’s escaped from him and says, “I didn’t know it was mesh.”

Sakusa gives himself a final once over, shakes his head, and then shuffles back into the changing room.

They leave the store each holding a shopping bag, since Atsumu had kindly offered to help carry the purchases. (Alternatively: “Come on, I’m the one who dragged ya all the way out here,” he'd said before wrestling one of the bags out of Sakusa’s grasp.) Atsumu can’t remember the contents of these bags, and in all honesty, he couldn't care less about them. Everything Sakusa walked out in automatically looked like it belonged in the front window display, and since Atsumu had selected the pieces, nothing was objectively offensive.

Instead, what Atsumu had focused on during the past hour was breathing in the experience of existing around Sakusa and Sakusa alone. Losing himself in the privacy that came with being in public. Wading in the moments of propinquity when Sakusa walked up to the mirror to get a better look at himself. Allowing himself to imagine that this was forever, because time has a funny way of dragging on during the lovely moments, and the last hour had felt like decades.

“Wanna go to another store?” Atsumu asks, even though he knows the answer. He sees it in the way Sakusa’s eyes are starting to flit around the busy street, increasingly aware of the people around him. He feels it in the own weight of the bag in his right hand, the slight strain in his arm.

“No, I think I have more than enough. Besides, it’s almost time to eat.”

Atsumu ponders.

Theoretically, it’s the perfect scenario to ask Sakusa out to dinner. They’ve spent the past two hours together without killing each other, without any of the icy silences or hot bursts that can turn the soil of their friendship (or whatever this is) into a minefield. Atsumu has enough cash to even pay for Sakusa’s meal if necessary.

But the problem is that Atsumu doesn’t feel inclined to ask. Maybe it’s because he’s not sure what he’s hungry for, and suggesting dinner without a restaurant in mind seems strange. Maybe it’s because the atmosphere of their outing feels as fragile as the rice paper doors of his childhood home he once punched a hole through when he was eight. Or maybe it’s because of something as arbitrary as the cumulus clouds that are beginning to envelop the periwinkle sky like a cable knit sweater.

Whatever the reason, Atsumu puts on a smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes and says, “Yeah, we should head back to the dorms.”

“Yo.”

“What’s up?”

“I dunno.”

Osamu grinds his teeth into the receiver. “Yer the one who called me, dumbass.”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean I know what I wanna talk ‘bout,” Atsumu counters.

He’s lying on the communal couch with his phone beside his head, charging via a rather impressive arrangement of extension cords he only wasted a few minutes of his life assembling. It’s probably obnoxious to be speaking so loud when it’s a shared living space, but with few people frequenting the dorms, the guilt Atsumu feels is underwhelming. He at least has the decency to put in earbuds, so the strings of curse words he pulls from his brother can’t be overheard if any of his teammates were to walk by.

Osamu is humming, and Atsumu is about to bite out a, “Would ya cut that out!” when his brother asks, “Is it ‘bout Sakusa?”

Those four words should no longer have such a strong effect on Atsumu. Really, they shouldn’t have any effect. One is expected to move on from their crush after it’s clear their feelings aren’t returned. At the very least, they should learn how to keep their breathing steady when said crush is mentioned. Atsumu is good at a lot of things, but following unwritten rules is not one of them. This is no exception.

“I mean, maybe,” he acquiesces, and it’s disappointing how sulky it comes out.

There’s shuffling on the other end of the line, a creak of a door closing, and then the sound of what Atsumu presumes is his brother flopping into bed.

“Okay,” Osamu says slowly. Atsumu can hear him wriggling against his covers. “Was it a hot or cold day?”

“Neither!” Atsumu snaps like fine twine. “It was neither, and I’m still like this!”

And oh how Atsumu from a year ago would be having a splendid little laugh at the record-high level of human disaster his present-day self has become: not freaking out over an advancement or retraction by his crush, but over no change. Atsumu prides himself on his consistency, and here he is bitching about receiving it in turn.

“Woah, what’d ya mean neither? Did ya, like, do somethin’ to him?”

“No, nothin’ even happened! We went shoppin’ the other day and—“

“—You scored yerself a date?” Osamu interrupts. “How the hell did ya manage to pull that one outta yer ass?”

“It wasn’t a date though,” Atsumu says, and his tone is more confused than it is explanatory. “I was just followin’ through with a joke I made ‘bout fixin’ up his lousy wardrobe. I’d kinda forgotten ‘bout it until he came knockin’ on my door last week expectin’ us to go out.”

Even when Atsumu recalls them aloud, the events of that evening don’t feel real. They’re fey and luminous, blurring at the edges like paint in sfumato, too good to be true.

“Wait, pause again. He asked you to go out?” Osamu clarifies, and Atsumu can see his brother’s eyes widening across prefectures.

“Were ya even listenin’? No, I made a joke ‘bout how I’d take him out and then he just followed through with it.”

“Sounds like a date to me.”

“There’s a difference, and ya know it,” Atsumu says. “Don’t get my hopes up, loser,” is what he means.

“Well, either way, what’s the issue? Shouldn’t that have been, like, the dream?”

“It was!” Atsumu claps a hand over his mouth. He squishes his cheeks between his ring finger and thumb, effectively dissolving the smile forming on his face. Yuck. “I mean, it was a good time, yeah. And I had the chance to ask him to dinner too, but I didn’t take it.”

“Why the hell did ya do that?”

“I dunno! I guess I didn’t wanna kill the mood?”

Nothing made sense when it came to Sakusa Kiyoomi, but Atsumu had strung this theory together a long time ago and expected to have learned from it by now. Fool me once, shame on you. But fool me twice, thrice, and too many times to keep a mental tally on—well, there’s no one to blame but himself.

Osamu snorts. “How’re ya goin’ to ruin somethin’ that doesn't exist?”

Siblings are truly something remarkable. No one can uplift you the way they can. Praise from a sibling is an earth-shattering experience, and Atsumu ascends from the cracked ground to walk on clouds for days after Osamu compliments him. Likewise, hearing an insult from a sibling can decimate confidence. Again, this holds true for Atsumu.

“Fuck you, Samu!”

He's met with the very mature reply of snickering. Quite a lot of it, actually. Perhaps a suspicious amount.

Atsumu’s mouth slackens. “Yer alone right now, right?”

“Uh,” his brother manages, which means he’s not. “I mean, Rin’s in the room with me.”

Atsumu closes his eyes and breathes, trying to let the moment of darkness cocoon and kill the rage that's simmering in his spleen. “But yer not on speakerphone, right?”

What follows is an unbearable quiet, punctuated by moments of what is clearly Suna Rintarou trying to suppress laughter.

“I’m gonna fuckin’ kill you.” Atsumu picks up his phone, bringing it unnecessarily close to his face. He hopes his brother can feel his breath. “I’m gonna fuckin’ kill you,” he repeats, again and again, until the chant has engraved itself into the enamel of his teeth.

“Ya gotta admit it’s a little funny, Tsumu,” Osamu starts in between hiccupy laughs. “You’ve been caught up on that poor guy for, what, a year now?”

“I’m serious, I won’t hesitate to murder ya, Samu,” Atsumu says, trying to sound solemn, but his vision is starting to leak red at the edges. He increases the distance between his phone and face just enough to jab his finger at the screen. “I’ll break into yer stupid little apartment in the middle of the night, kidnap ya, and strangle ya with my bare hands behind a dumpster in some sketchy alley. Suna won’t even know what happened!”

“Ya just told him, dumbass!” Osamu howls.

It’s at this point that Atsumu considers jumping out the living room window. It’s open, in either invitation or mockery, or perhaps a combination of both. He’s only on the fourth floor, but the height would still do the trick. If he left his earbuds in during the jump and screamed, Osamu might even feel an ounce of remorse for his words.

“What the hell are you going off about?” Sakusa’s voice is startling, even more so than usual.

“Nothin’, Omi-kun!” Atsumu rushes to say. His brain is working at five-hundred kilometers an hour (though “working” might be an embellishment), trying to replay his conversation with Osamu and recall if he’s explicitly mentioned Sakusa’s name. He can’t remember.

But if Atsumu did say it, the window can't be more than three strides away. He’s also pretty sure that if he got cold feet, Sakusa would graciously assist him. That would make for a real classy death. The headlines for it would guarantee Atsumu gets his own magazine cover: “Twenty-Four-Year-Old Professional Volleyball Player Thrown Out Of Window By Teammate?!”

“Oooooh, is that yer lover boy, Tsumu?” Osamu trills. “Shouldn’t ya tend to him now?”

“Shut the fuck up,” Atsumu curses into the phone before hanging up. He yanks out his earbuds before throwing the device away from him. It hits the ground with a dull smack, at just about the same time Atsumu’s self-esteem plummets to rock bottom.

It’s not often that Atsumu feels insecure. For better or for worse (he’ll concede it’s often for worse), he’s more confident than the average person. He has to be. After all, what else is one supposed to do when they’re assigned a competitor at birth?

At surface level, twins seem similar. Equals, maybe. But Atsumu knows better. Osamu probably does too, though he has the mind not to mention it. Because since they were seven years old, Osamu’s been the “less intolerable” twin. Objectively, that’s one of the best back-handed compliments Atsumu’s ever heard. Subjectively, it boils his blood.

For Atsumu, this distinction has resulted in skin thickened over countless years and a perfect, gilded pride. But doubts are persistent things. They always figure out how to crawl into his prefrontal cortex, and they’re always based on personality.

You see, Atsumu's fine with being called a jerk. (Osamu’s used the loving endearment since they were four years old.) Atsumu constructs his approach to life around the principle that it's less of a hassle to push people away than it is to form superficial friendships. But the thing about constantly acting like an asshole means that every so often, you have to pause and ask yourself, “Wait, am I actually an asshole?”

It’s not often that diffidence strikes, but it’s still more nights than Atsumu cares to admit. And every once in a while, it’ll happen before the sky has bled to black.

Though the sun is setting, it’s still bright enough out to illuminate the humiliation Atsumu feels. Because of all people, Sakusa Kiyoomi overheard his conversation. And that’s not fair, because Sakusa’s the one person whose opinion Atsumu actually gives a damn about. There’s a small chance of the miracle that he didn't hear Atsumu’s elaborate murder scheme, but Atsumu has learned miracles are few and far between. There’s no use betting on minuscule probabilities. The only thing he can trust is the moment he’s living in. And judging by Sakusa’s current monstrous grin, the odds are not in Atsumu’s favor.

Sakusa seats himself in his usual armchair, crossing his legs and angling his body towards Atsumu. The direct attention catches Atsumu off guard, but what’s more unnerving is that Sakusa still has that stupid smirk on his face. That’s my thing, Atsumu thinks, but he decides to let it go because Sakusa looks only a little bit hot like that.

“So,” Sakusa says, the amusement never leaving his eyes, “what was that about?”

While they’re on cordial speaking terms, Sakusa isn’t one to regularly prompt conversations. He’s definitely overheard the argument with Osamu.

“Oh, ya know,” Atsumu says, trying to mask his sore confidence by grabbing a hand to the back of his neck, “just Samu bein’ Samu. Makin’ fun of me and all that.”

And that’s all it was, after all. It’s not like Osamu did anything particularly egregious this time around; he’s been a little shit since he exited the womb. The antipathy Atsumu felt was normal, it just reared its head in an uglier way this time because he couldn’t control his feelings.

But if it serves as any justification, it’s hard to control his feelings when the cause of Atsumu’s problems walks in on him falling apart and then sits across from the pieces he’s shattered into, unbothered.

“You want to talk about it?” Sakusa asks, and Atsumu waits for someone to cut the cameras or jump out from behind the counter and tell him he’s being pranked. Because Sakusa Kiyoomi doesn’t ask about peoples’ personal lives, and he surely does not ask Atsumu, whose top strength—aside from his pinpoint sets and killer serves—is his lethal whining.

Sakusa doesn’t seem to be on the same wavelength as Atsumu, because he rolls his eyes and says, “Okay, if you’re just going to act all silent, forget I asked.” He uncrosses his legs to exit the room as swiftly as he entered.

“Wait, no!” Atsumu protests, reaching his hand out in objection. When he realizes how impassioned the gesture is, he lowers the hand and occupies it with the drawstring of his sweats. “It’s just—it’s weird talkin’ ‘bout yer siblings, ya know?” With you, of all people.

Sakusa blinks. “I don’t really feel that way, no,” comes the steady response, but there’s a hint of empathy in his voice underneath the sternness.

“Right, I knew that,” Atsumu says.

And he did. He’s spent almost a year collecting facts about Sakusa and sticking them to the front of his brain like post-it notes. Sakusa’s siblings are six and eight years older than him. He has no reason to feel awkward talking about his siblings because he never grew up with them in the first place. Atsumu knows this. But with a single taunt from Osamu and one moment of warmth from Sakusa, his memory is flagging.

“I guess it just feels weird talkin’ ‘bout Samu since I can’t do anythin’ ‘bout it.”

Sakusa does that breathy exhale, just short of a laugh. “You complain about things you can’t change all the time, so why is this any different?”

Atsumu doesn’t need him to elaborate. The weather, the skills of players on opposing teams, and the way lemonade leaves him more parched than refreshed are all things he’s complained about on separate occasions.

“Yeah, yeah, Omi-kun, I complain a lot,” he responds, and he has to withhold a sigh of relief that his attitude has returned, because that’s a good sign he’s regaining his composure. “But it’s different when it’s ‘bout Samu. He’s kinda always been there.”

“Well, of course. He’s your twin.”

“Yeah, no shit. Ya must be a real detective for figurin’ that one out.”

“Asshole.”

“Prick,” Atsumu growls back, and it’s dangerous how he has heart palpitations from their miniature volley. “Anyways, what I was sayin’ is that I try to avoid talkin’ ‘bout him because he’s my brother. He’s a loser for sure, but sometimes when I talk ‘bout him I just get . . .”

“Numb?” Sakusa supplies, and Atsumu finds himself nodding.

“Yeah. Osamu was always with me, and now he’s gone off to do his own shit and live his best life.” The words feel taboo to admit out loud. “And he always has to rub it in my face. His entrepreneurial bullshit, his stupid boyfriend, all that good stuff. It just kinda serves as a reminder of what he’s got that I don’t.” The frown on Atsumu’s face melts away as his pupils begin to smoke. “Not sayin’ that Samu’s more successful than me! I promised him before we graduated high school that I’d be the happier one, so I’m not backin’ down on that.”

Perhaps it should embarrass Atsumu, bringing up a bet he made with his brother when he was eighteen, revealing how childish experiences have become his motivations. But it doesn't, because this is who he is. People can take it or leave it, and he couldn't care less if they choose the latter, because this is him in all his entirety.

But it’s interesting (and a little frightening) how a few questions from Sakusa have peeled back Atsumu's layers like they’re as thin as tissue paper. It’s interesting (and a little frightening) how Sakusa’s the first person Atsumu might miss if he chooses to leave.

Atsumu hugs one of the decorative couch pillows to his chest and lets his fingers play with the gossamer trim.

“Do you ever wonder,” Sakusa starts, his usual bluntness replaced with something that sounds like an attempt at caution, “if all of these angry, reluctant, and numb feelings are just because you miss him? Your brother?”

Atsumu’s tempted to avert his gaze. This isn’t all that new, since he usually gets a little weak in the knees when they make direct eye contact, but there’s something unfamiliar littering Sakusa’s eyes that doubles their intensity. It starts to seep out of Sakusa, whisks and whirls through the room until it tucks itself into the pockets of Atsumu’s jacket, where he opens and closes his fists to try and catch hold of this mysterious thing. Between his fingers, it feels a lot like sympathy. It quivers in Atsumu’s hands.

What the hell is he supposed to do with this information? He knew Sakusa wasn’t as stoic as he came off, but being the recipient of this emotion is hurting his head. The pity he’s getting is hurting his head. He thinks back to a few weeks ago when he’d decided on walking to stores rather than taking the train, that look of discomfort on Sakusa’s face, that rise in his voice followed by the abrupt drop.

It makes much more sense now, because Atsumu wants to grab Sakusa in a chokehold or knock himself out, just so he can stop the smell of pity fouling the space. Being hated or feared is one thing. Being discredited or pitied is another.

And Atsumu wants to grab Sakusa in a chokehold or knock himself out, but he does neither. Instead, he says, “I dunno. I try not to think ‘bout missin’ Samu.”

“Why’s that?” comes the reply, unfazed by the massive gap that had occurred between the question and the feeble response given.

“Cus if I miss him, I’m lonely. And if I’m lonely, he wins.” The logic is straightforward enough to Atsumu, but Sakusa is hollowing his cheeks in deep thought.

“Don’t you think he misses you too?”

“Nah, he’s all set. He’s got Suna now, so he doesn’t have time to miss me,” Atsumu says, as if this is obvious, because it is.

Sakusa tilts his head to the side in what Atsumu knows is disagreement. “I think you can still love someone and miss your brother,” he says thoughtfully.

Atsumu’s facade of control cracks. The only response he can manage is, “He's still an ass either way.”

Shock is a rare expression for Sakusa. He’s either unsatisfied with Atsumu’s childish retort or unaware of how to respond to it.

“S’okay. I don’t expect ya to indulge all of my complainin’ ‘bout Samu,” Atsumu laughs, and his lungs feel empty. “I know you’d rather be holed up in yer bedroom right now than talkin’ to me anyways.”

“And why would you say that?” The challenge is back in Sakusa’s voice, but it seems a bit pointless to Atsumu in this case.

“Cus ya hate doin’ stuff ya don’t like.”

This is something Atsumu is confident in after months upon months pining for Sakusa, years and years of trying to understand his hardwiring. He thinks about the professional team photos taken two months ago. They’d gone semi-viral on Twitter because, in every single one, Sakusa looked completely bored. He’d been photoshopped into lecture halls, the DMV, even into an image of Atsumu talking (ouch).

“Actually, half the time ya don’t even seem to enjoy doin’ the stuff I know ya like.”

And besides, I get it. Ya don’t really like me.

“How do you know what I like?” Sakusa is staring at Atsumu’s ear, or maybe above his cheekbone, and Atsumu knows he’s far from being present. The distancing has taken over.

Atsumu heaves a sigh. “Cus yer not exactly subtle ‘bout yer likes and dislikes, Omi-kun.”

Suddenly Sakusa’s eyes refocus, like the stylus of a turntable sliding into the groove of a record. “Don’t assume you’re privy with all of my thoughts, Miya,” he warns.

Then he walks out of the room, leaving Atsumu with a perplexed conscience and music ringing in his ears.

Atsumu retires to his room soon after but heads to the restrooms early to prepare for bed. He could use the extra sleep tonight.

He wills himself not to think of Sakusa during his nighttime routine, but his attempts are foiled. Sakusa is in every step, in some way or another. Brushing his teeth. (Sakusa smells like mint toothpaste in the mornings.) Changing his clothes. (Sakusa would approve since Atsumu has worn these in public today.) The list is as detailed as it is interminable. It continues even once Atsumu’s back in his room.

And then a new thought overshadows it: Why am I in love with him of all people?

Atsumu doesn’t use the word “love.” He uses the words “liking” and “friendliness” and “intrigue” and all the other words that google would probably identify as synonymous to the four-letter feeling. But he doesn’t use the word “love.” Until now, he’s never had the reason to.

“I think you can still love someone and miss your brother,” Sakusa had said an hour earlier. Atsumu wonders if he knew the statement applied to both twins.

Admitting that this crush has spiraled into something resembling love isn’t an immense decision that’s going to alter the trajectory of Atsumu’s life. It can’t be, not if it only took a single sentence from Sakusa for him to realize it. It’s more of an affirmation of something that’s always been there, just nestled within the ventricle of his heart.

But still, can this pain be categorized as love? Does love make you want to punch something? Does love make you want to ram your head into the wall?

Love, in Atsumu’s mind, is supposed to be like a rollercoaster: fun and thrilling, with its ups and downs and its passengers strapped in securely. His feelings for Sakusa are more like riding the rollercoaster with jet boosters attached and without a seatbelt, and instead of a pleasant variation of climbs and drops, it's a never-ending vertical loop.

But even though riding this roller coaster is a deathwish, it still leaves Atsumu breathless, stupid happy, and eager for more. The wanting, probably, is what makes it love. That ardent desire, regardless of the contusions he’ll accumulate, is what makes it love.

Well, at least unrequited love.

Fuck you, Atsumu thinks, pointing at Sakusa in the framed team photo on his bedside table.

They’d taken the picture after their first game of the season, which had also been their first win. They’re all sweating buckets but are wrapped around each other anyway, forming a misshapen semicircle. Sakusa’s the only one outside of the poor attempt at an arc, standing a meter behind Inunaki, with his back straight as an arrow. It’s a terrible representation of his real posture. God, what a fucking loser. Atsumu all but snarls at the pixelated Sakusa as he picks up the frame.

Fuck you for bein’ so attractive and witty and more insightful than ya realize. Ya have no idea how much anguish you’ve caused me.

It’s easier than you’d think to ignore loving your teammate. Way easier. Most of the time, that love is just a muted hum, barely perceptible beneath the din of all the other thoughts you think in a day. It’s an itch, the type of inkling that almost goes away if it’s neglected for long enough. But every once in a while, the clamor of your mind becomes muted, and that hum amplifies until it’s coursing through your veins, and you can’t help the comments and smiles that escape. And it sucks. It fucking sucks, because there’s nothing you can do about it. It’s automatic, a process Atsumu has established he has no control over.

Sakusa’s comment from that one team dinner echoes in his mind: ”Why do you seem so proud? Everyone knows you're pretty.”

He’d said it in the same monotone one would use to read a textbook passage, a factual statement. There had been no taunt in his voice. But his words had fit the predicted hot and cold pattern, so there was nothing special about them at all, really.

It’s been months, and Atsumu still can’t get those two sentences to leave his brain.

He sets the picture frame back down, for fear he’ll throw it against the wall in another second or two. His life sucks.

It sucks because Atsumu knows for a fact that Sakusa thinks he’s pretty, but still doesn’t like him. That means looks are off the table as a severing factor in their relationship development (or lack thereof). It’s not because Atsumu’s dumb either, because even if he says stuff offhandedly, Sakusa has chided him before to stop calling himself stupid when he’s not.

So it’s just Atsumu’s personality. Him. His consciousness, his humor, his presentation. It’s Atsumu that Sakusa doesn’t like—the fundamentals of him that aren’t so pliable. The intrinsic parts of his character that he knows shouldn’t be compromised for anyone else, especially when he, himself, thinks he’s a half-decent person, for the most part. And yet, Atsumu is wasting another potential hour of rest to stay up and wish he could be different to fill the obscure mold Sakusa Kiyoomi desires.

That’s the worst part of it, Atsumu realizes: loving someone so much you want to change yourself to fit into their arms.

Atsumu recalls his day. Why was his chest light when he sauntered into the bathroom to gel his hair? Why did he wipe down his phone before handing it to Sakusa to look at an article that morning? Why was he even carrying disinfecting wipes on him at the time? Why did he fumble a toss because his brain was anywhere but on the court? Why did he open up about Osamu to Sakus—

That’s when it hits him. He fumbled a toss at practice.

He fumbled a toss.

This disturbing love has gotten so bad that Atsumu has compromised volleyball. Glorious, cherished volleyball.

Volleyball is the one thing in life that is truly Atsumu’s. It’s a global sport, yeah, and mind the fact that he shares the court with five other dudes at any given time, but it’s his. Really his. It’s a safe space. It’s the only thing in this world that won’t leave him behind, that can’t. He learned this the hard way after the only other constant he thought would always be by his side left him after high school. (Atsumu doesn’t miss his brother, no matter what Sakusa will suggest.)

The revelation knocks the wind out of Atsumu. He collapses in his bed and lets guilt settle on top of him like a warm blanket.

This sucks.

“Oh, oh, oh, fuck,” Atsumu grits out. The ice pack should feel soothing against the swelling of his wrist, but the skin must still be tender from the heat of the shower because it stings like a thousand wasps. “My god, that hurts.”

Since childhood, Atsumu has injured himself more than the general population, he’d say. (He broke so many bones as a kid roughhousing with Osamu that when they graduated high school, they left behind four pairs of crutches in the family home.) He’s used to the cuts, burns, and breaks, and he knows how to treat them accordingly. Volleyball has contributed significantly to this total injury tally, and in return, it hasn’t increased his pain tolerance in the slightest. Ain’t he lucky.

Only by pure resolve does Atsumu manage to close his eyes and sink into the couch. He knows it’ll pay off tomorrow when he’s able to set without the dull pain in his hand, the sensation of pressing on a bruise over and over again.

“You’re icing that wrong.”

The voice causes Atsumu’s eyes to flutter open. It always does.

“I think I’d know if I were icin’ it wrong since I’m, ya know, a pro athlete who’s been doin’ this awhile.” Atsumu offers a smile, but there’s resignation in his eyes. It’s been like this lately. “Hey, Omi-kun.”

Sakusa sits down on the opposite end of the couch, rather than in his usual armchair. “Hi, Miya.”

If Atsumu had the energy, he’d be proudly preening over this proximity. But he doesn’t. Sakusa’s mere presence makes Atsumu face feelings he can’t even identify, but tonight he feels tired. He wishes he could attribute this tiredness to his throbbing wrist, but it exists even when he’s in peak condition. The root cause is the fixed presence that remains while the other variables in his life fluctuate. The root cause is Sakusa Kiyoomi.

And Atsumu is tired of it all. He's tired of meaningless pain, meaningless love. The exhaustion he feels is the kind that makes him want to stare up at the ceiling for four hours rather than curl up in a ball and sleep. The kind that makes him feel like he’s floating in the Dead Sea, the salt concentration alone keeping him up. It’s the kind that’s a byproduct of tolerance, tolerance to his feelings being unreciprocated.

“How did you hurt your wrist?” Sakusa asks, and Atsumu must be imagining that he scoots closer to see it.

“Settin’, dumbass.” Ah, leave it to Atsumu to bite out an insult when Sakusa’s the closest to tender he’ll ever be.

Sakusa doesn’t bat an eye.“Yeah, no shit. One toss or cumulative?”

“Cumulative, I think. Sometimes it just hurts when I do too much. Ya know how it goes.” Atsumu’s grateful he’s complaining to a fellow athlete who does understand, rather than someone from outside the sports realm, like his mother.

“You have been working hard lately,” Sakusa nods.

Well, that’s not the reaction Atsumu was expecting.

He wishes he could beam himself out of the living room because this time, he knows he’s not imagining the color blooming in his cheeks. It’s embarrassing. It’s embarrassing that he can still be so responsive to the plainest of comments from Sakusa, the ones that are a dozen paces away from the territory of romantic. The longing in Atsumu’s chest seems to have shit depth perception, though.

“I haven’t really been doin’ anythin’ special,” he mumbles, which is gross, because Atsumu doesn’t mumble.

“You’re going to want to tape that.” Sakusa’s recommendation feels so out of place that Atsumu momentarily forgets what they’re talking about.

“Oh, uh, yeah.” He clears his throat. “I needa stock up on more tape, though.”

“I have some in my room.” When Atsumu remains lounging on the couch, Sakusa beckons to him. “Come on.”

No matter how much Atsumu has resigned himself to the reality of unrequited love, the bubbly feelings cease to disappear. In fact, seltzer water is being shaken in his stomach as he follows Sakusa.

This is weird. This is so fuckin’ weird, Atsumu thinks when the door is opened.

He’s never been inside Sakusa’s room. He always figured he’d be too contaminated to be let in. After all, Sakusa seems like the type to torch his whole place if there were a roach in it, and sometimes Atsumu thinks he isn’t viewed as much higher up on the evolutionary scale than one.

“Your hair is wet,” Sakusa calls from over his shoulder. He’s already busied himself in front of a dresser.

“Uh, yeah?” Atsumu answers dubiously from the doorway because he’s not sure where he’s supposed to stand, or whether Sakusa expected confirmation.

“So I know you showered recently,” Sakusa says matter-of-factly, turning around with a few rolls of tape in his hand. “I figured you were curious why I let you in.”

“Oh. Smart thinkin’.” But maybe it’s just thinking in general for Sakusa.

Atsumu takes care to slip off his shoes rather than kick them off the way he’s used to doing.

Sakusa’s room is both everything and nothing like what Atsumu thought it’d be. The bedding is white, the edges tucked into the mattress at the foot of the bed, and under the pillows at the head. The drawers of the dresser and desk are aligned perfectly, having none of the crookedness that Atsumu’s insist on whenever he so much as looks at them. There are no posters on the wall, no cork boards or pictures, save for what looks like a framed family photo. Even that can’t be larger than Atsumu’s palm. The wooden floor beneath his feet has no scratches, as if the furniture has never been rearranged. (He knows it has because all the rooms come furnished identically, and the layout of Sakusa’s room is different from his own, which he hasn't touched since moving in.)

It’s eerie—it is—because it looks like no one’s lived here a day. For some reason, it makes Atsumu feel rather lonely.

He wonders how an entire life force can occupy a room, even if only part-time, and not leave a trace. It’s both fascinating and chilling the way the emptiness is what seems to take up the space.

There’s a scent wafting, a mixture of tea tree oil and lemon and mint. It smells a little like clean and a lot like comfort, Atsumu thinks. It may be the only indication someone lives here.

“Here, sit down,” Sakusa instructs.

Atsumu is weary as he sits down on the side of the bed, acutely aware of the way the blanket crinkles and sags beneath his weight. He’d expected to stand in the doorway of Sakusa’s room and be tossed a roll of tape from a distance. If he’d known he’d end up on Sakusa Kiyoomi’s bed, he might have been more hesitant to follow him.

Sakusa carries his desk chair under one arm, holds the tape in the other, and settles himself in front of Atsumu. He reaches for the bottle of hand sanitizer on his nightstand. Atsumu holds his palms out expectantly. Then they sit across from each other, coating their hands without a word.

This is it. This is the weirdest moment of my life, Atsumu thinks as he rubs his hands raw. I’ve gone through a lotta strange shit, but this definitely takes the cake.

His hands are starting to feel like pulp as he keeps kneading them together, but he’s determined to stop only when Sakusa does. In situations like this, where one person is a stickler, it’s better to follow their lead. (As a child he learned to brush his teeth for as long as Osamu did unless he wanted his ear pinched.) But Atsumu’s mind tends to wander during tedious tasks, so the zoning out is inevitable.

“Cold” is the first feeling he registers, and for a brief moment, he considers the idea that his ice pack has materialized in front of him. But then that dense cold defines itself as two fingers pressing on his wrist, splitting the delicate bone that juts out, and Oh my god Sakusa Kiyoomi is touching him.

Sakusa doesn’t seem to understand how his minimal touch is stealing the words from Atsumu’s throat and hoarding them like they’re royal jewels, because he asks, “Is this where it hurts?” as if he expects a response can be given.

Atsumu gives a sharp inhale. Sakusa must take that as an expression of pain and therefore an expression of confirmation, because he begins pre-wrapping Atsumu’s wrist. The gauze is soft against his skin, but Sakusa’s touch feels softer. It's entirely bizarre.

“It’s bad to tape it before you’re about to go to bed, but if you plan to stay up for a couple more hours the way you usually do,” Sakusa narrows his eyes in disapproval at that, “then we should tape it.” He says this as if Atsumu isn’t a professional in injury care just as much as he is in volleyball. As if the pre-wrap isn’t already around Atsumu’s wrist. As if Atsumu still has some semblance of control while sitting on Sakusa’s bed.

“We both know I’m not goin’ to bed until at least two am.” This is true, but it’s also true that Atsumu would have his whole forearm taped if it meant prolonging Sakusa's touch.

The sound of tape ripping from the roll drowns out Sakusa’s words. “You’re an idiot. What kind of professional athlete, as you love to remind us, has such a shitty sleep schedule?” He’s chastising, no doubt about it, but there’s something else sewn into the seams.

It’s one of the hot days again, the sun coloring the sky after a chalky, freezing winter.

Sakusa’s fingers drag along Atsumu’s hand.

It’s definitely a hot day.

It must be a trick of the light the way Sakusa’s bony fingers are lingering a split second too long on the tendons of Atsumu's wrist, traveling a centimeter too high up on his arm. Atsumu’s never been one to sit still, but right now, he’s rendered immobile, digging his heels into the ground and hoping the hair on his arms isn’t rising too much. This is the best and the worst night of his life, a feverish nightmare and high-strung fantasy rolled into what feels more like a faded dream than a real occurrence.

It’s good. Too good.

“I’m done.” Sakusa fingertips press the tape into Atsumu’s wrist in a gentle action that feels like a goodbye.

And Atsumu’s only a little disappointed, really. He’s used to this, the tenderness of a hot moment followed by a cool down. That wave of weariness comes back to him, having been kept at bay by the traces of skin against skin the last few minutes.

“Alright, thanks,” Atsumu says, giving a smile that’s small but real, which is what matters anyway.

It slides from his face when Sakusa doesn’t pull away. He keeps his hand loosely encircling Atsumu’s wrist, a weight with no force behind it. They say the eyes are the windows to the soul, and as Atsumu watches Sakusa’s glossy, unfocused gaze looking down at their hands, it’s quite evident that no one is home.

And it pisses Atsumu off. Wow, it fucking pisses him off. Because here he is, stuck somewhere between heaven and hell and feeling bare as ever, while Sakusa retreats into himself. And Atsumu knows that this is the way Sakusa is: he gets distant. Most days, this is something Atsumu accepts. But today is not one of those days. Whether it’s embarrassment from his argument with Osamu bleeding into his forbearance, or his perpetual tiredness morphing into something nastier, Atsumu is becoming furious at an alarming rate.

Sakusa’s thumb glides across the column of his wrist.

Atsumu’s nostrils flare. “Fuck you!”

Wait. That’s not what he meant to say.

(Sure it’s been on infinite loop in Atsumu’s brain for the past month, but the interjection has showcased how little self-restraint he has.)

Sakusa’s eyes widen. His pitch irises seem to be swimming. It’s disconcerting, almost as much as the feeling of the hand still holding Atsumu’s wrist.

“I, I mean,” Atsumu stammers, “I can’t take it anymore!” He jerks his hand away from Sakusa and immediately regrets the loss. But Atsumu is obstinate, so he continues with his dogged pursuit. “The hell is yer deal, man?”

The broad question is clear to Atsumu, but Sakusa only gives a blank stare. His hands have folded themselves in his lap since being shoved off, and the image of a recoiling wounded animal comes to Atsumu's mind. He looks like he has no desire to respond, but then he hisses, “What the hell is your deal?” The words are as cool as they are calculated, and they drive a stake right through the center of Atsumu’s confidence.

With his newly perforated ego calling the shots, Atsumu scrambles. “Ya always do shit like this! One day yer like, actually talkin’ to me, and the next day yer stone cold!”

It’s not the best analogy because Sakusa generally acts like a walking marble statue, but Atsumu thinks it gets his intention across. Actually, he knows it does, because Sakusa’s right eye twitches. The spasm lasts half a beat, but Atsumu has paid enough attention to Sakusa to know that nothing he does is as frivolous as it seems. Body language included.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Sakusa replies, in a voice that indicates he knows exactly what Atsumu’s talking about.

“Oh, yeah, sure, Omi-kun. As if ya don’t notice it!” Atsumu barks out a disbelieving laugh. “I know ya know whatcha do. Ya tap my shoulder, and then ya can’t look me in the eye. Ya tell me a tiny bit ‘bout yerself, and then ya glare at me for the rest of the day. Ya tape my hand, and then ya disappear!”

Sakusa’s mouth pulls into a tight line. “So let me get this straight. You swore at me because I touch you occasionally, talk about myself, and offer to tape your wrist? That makes sense.” He scoffs, leans back in his chair, and crosses his legs as if he feels the need to impose a barrier between them. “Don’t you think it’s a bit hypocritical for you to hate me for talking? You never shut up.”

Atsumu grimaces.

“And also,” Sakusa continues, “what did you mean I ‘disappeared’ after taping your wrist? I’m still seated in front of you, aren’t I? Unless I’ve somehow forgotten another time that I taped your sorry ass."

None of this is what Atsumu had meant, and he’s sure Sakusa is well aware of that. But the bastard is good at twisting words, the same way he plucks Atsumu’s heartstrings and leaves them in a flimsy, knotted mess.

“Well, if ya say it like that, it sounds stupid,” Atsumu sneers, leaning forward to close the new distance Sakusa has created.

“It does sound stupid.”

But it’s not, and all at once, Atsumu remembers why.

“No, no, it doesn’t sound stupid,” Atsumu argues, his scowl screwing into a wicked grin, “cus you called me pretty!” He spits out the last word like it’ll burn the roof of his mouth if he lets it linger too long, and then he runs his tongue across his top teeth triumphantly. It feels way better than it should to give Sakusa a taste of his own medicine.

Sakusa’s neck flexes at the word “pretty.” If it hadn’t, maybe Atsumu would have thought he conjured up the memory of the compliment himself. But he sees all he needs in Sakusa’s jugular: the asshole knows he’s guilty, and he’s scrounging for a crack to slip through.

“I don’t recall,” Sakusa says, like the liar he is.

“At the team dinner, ya said it in front of the entire group!”

“We have a lot of team dinners, Miya.”

Oh, Sakusa’s not getting off that easily.

“Ya know exactly which one I’m talkin’ ‘bout, Omi-Omi,” Atsumu coos. He’s annoyed, sure, but he’s enjoying rubbing this in Sakusa’s face. It’s only true to his character. “I could walk outta here and go knock on Shouyou’s door, and he’d confirm for me.”

“Shouyou isn’t here tonight. He’s out with Kageyama-san.”

If Atsumu were a bystander observing this conversation, he’d be laughing at himself and applauding Sakusa for the superb acting skills. Because The Point of Atsumu’s entire go-get-Hinata proposition is scrawled across his forehead in capitals, and Sakusa is feigning illiteracy.

So, of course Atsumu shouts, “Stop pretendin’ ya can’t read!” before he can stop himself.

“What?” Sakusa shouts back in an equally aggressive tone. He’s more composed than Atsumu but shedding a layer of his sensibility with every retort.

Atsumu has never had the tightest rein on his temper. In elementary school, he was “easily excitable.” By junior high, the term had depreciated to “troublemaker,” almost plunging down the ravine of “bully” if it hadn’t been for Osamu putting him in a headlock after he threatened to push a classmate down the stairs. Somewhere between his first and second year of high school, his teachers just took to referring to him as “capricious.” Atsumu has heard all the terms, knows that all they really do is dress up the word “moody” in a thousand different garbs with varying degrees of pretentiousness.

But he also knows he’s not going to get anywhere if he loses himself this time. Sakusa’s too smart, too conniving to give him any leeway to reform his talking points if he messes up. There’s nowhere to run to; Atsumu has started the beginning of the end, and he’s got one shot at getting closure.

“Just—ignore that last part.” He takes a breath. “Why did ya say it?”

The question hangs in the air, drooping between them by its sheer weight.

“Say what?”

“Ya already know what I’m talkin’ ‘bout, shithead,” is a centimeter away from leaving Atsumu’s mouth, but at the last instant he replaces it with, “‘Everyone knows yer pretty.’” He uses his best, most cursive accent to mimic Sakusa’s annoyingly pleasing voice.

There’s a sharp part of Atsumu that's been sticking out lately, one that’s normally buried beneath soft busywork and elevator music. It’s the part of him prepared for rejection. Because rejection means he has a definitive reason to move on, to stop the pining, to end the residual pain. This part crowds his rib cage as he continues.

“When I told the team that I won that poll, ya said that I ‘shouldn’t act so proud’ cus ‘everyone knows I’m pretty.’ So why’d ya say it?”

Sakusa’s gaze is passive, but when he speaks, his words sound like molasses trying to be strained through a colander. “Because it’s true.”

“What?”

During their typical arguments, Sakusa is smug when Atsumu has to ask clarifying questions. But now his shoulders curl and his legs uncross. It creates the impression that he’s given up, but on what, Atsumu’s not sure.

“You heard me the first time,” Sakusa says dully. His anger has waned, a peculiar, hushed irritation waxing in its place.

“Yeah, I heard ya," Atsumu says slowly, "but I don’t get it." He squints to try and grasp what he’s seeing: Sakusa Kiyoomi calling him pretty, and rather carelessly, too, after making a whole show of forgetting ever having said so. Atsumu’s vision starts to run thin, and he still comprehends nothing.

“You’re pretty, Miya,” Sakusa reiterates. “Does that satisfy your vanity?”

It should. By all laws of the universe and the molecules Atsumu is made of, it should. But it doesn’t. It’s actually making it a lot harder for him to breathe, because what the hell does that mean? Sakusa has never called anyone else on the team attractive, let alone classified them as “pretty.” And Atsumu’s too narcissistic for his own good, but he’s not blind: he knows his teammates are good-looking guys.

“No,” Atsumu says once, then a second time, firmer. “No, it doesn’t satisfy nothin.’” The part of him seeking closure stabs at his aorta.

“I’ve said what I said. There’s nothing else I can give you.” Sakusa sounds almost rueful.

“Oh, you can give a whole lot more.” Sakusa’s face contorts into something along the lines of offense, and a blush creeps up Atsumu's neck. “I didn’t mean it like that!”

Did he?

Then, in what only adds to the otherworldliness of the evening, Sakusa does another one-eighty. He doesn’t fix his slouch, but he does lean forward into Atsumu's space. It's the most attentive he's ever appeared. “What did you mean?”

Honesty seems like the only route to take now that Atsumu’s already dug his grave. “I wanna know what’s goin’ on in that head of yers. Why do ya start off being nice and then go cold? And why do ya only do it to me? I’ve seen ya with other people, and ya don’t do it with them . . .”

(”Is there something wrong with me?” It’s not said, and Atsumu will deny it was ever even thought, but it happens all the same.)

“. . . So I just want ya to be blunt with me,” Atsumu finishes, and it’s been only a fraction of the length of one of his tangents, but it expends the energy from him just the same. “I mean, that’s what yer good at, right?”

Sakusa stares at him, Atsumu stares back, and time slows its leaps and bounds to meandering. Atsumu can imagine the internal battle that’s probably going on inside his teammate’s head: “Is it worth it to get my fingers dirty by flicking Miya Atsumu in the forehead?” Or maybe it sounds more like: “Should I physically haul him out of my room to make it clearer, or would he still be too dense to get a clue?”

In the end, Atsumu breaks eye contact first and lets Sakusa have that small victory. It doesn’t matter that Sakusa’s silence speaks volumes because Atsumu got the last word, so he’s the real winner. (He ignores the fact that his bones feel like jelly and the crisp, lemon air has soured, because this is just the way things go.)

So when Sakusa leans forward and presses a kiss to Atsumu’s mouth, right through that stupid surgical mask, it feels wrong. Wrong like saying up is down, or right is left, or Osamu’s the more attractive twin. Atsumu freezes and then pulls away instinctively. He doesn’t bother to assess the repercussions.

When his racing heart finally calms, Atsumu notes the damage. The panic is apparent in Sakusa's eyes, next to the speckles of silver reflected from ambient light. He’s gone as pale as a sheet, though his ears are dusted the faintest pink.

It feels like getting decked. Atsumu had his one shot, he fired, and it completely ricocheted. Of course, Sakusa’s freaking out that Atsumu pulled away. Atsumu would be freaking out, too, if the same thing happened to him. And that’s aside from the whole germaphobia factor, which Atsumu tries to be cautious about. All those hours observing Sakusa’s habits have vanished with one reckless action that’s probably cost him everything.

So Atsumu tries to come off gentle. “Hey, Omi-kun.”

Sakusa’s not looking at him. It seems like he’s almost left again, but the way his jaw tenses at the sound of the nickname shows he is, regrettably, still here.

“Omi-kun,” Atsumu says once more, to no avail. If Sakusa’s not going to respond to sincerity, Atsumu might as well do what’s comfortable. He exhales dramatically. “Omi-omi-omi-omi-omi—”

“—Did I misread that?” The edge in Sakusa’s voice is thinly veiled. He stares intently at the wall behind Atsumu’s head. Atsumu’s betting ten thousand yen there’s nothing on it.

He wants to call Sakusa out on this but stops when he remembers that he’s the reason Sakusa retreated in the first place. Maybe he always has been.

But if Atsumu isn’t going to ridicule Sakusa, he should at least attempt to answer his question. So he tries to make sense of why he’d pulled away from the kiss.

Kissing Sakusa Kiyoomi has been something Atsumu’s dreamed about for the past year. It might have even been multiple years, if he were to analyze what his mangled, pubescent feelings had been. He’s spent a disturbingly long time imagining what it’d be like to feel Sakusa’s mouth against his, or at least feel the curve of his mask. This thought has come to Atsumu anywhere and everywhere, including practices, where he has to resort to five-starring himself to regain focus.

And yet, when the cosmos had conspired in Atsumu’s favor, he pulled away from the kiss.

“No, you didn’t misread nothin’,” Atsumu begins, trying to sound kind, but the furrow in his brow prevents his words from being convincing. “It’s just . . . weird.”

“It’s weird that I kissed you?” Sakusa asks, and he’s snapping one of the loops of his mask.

“No,” Atsumu says again before his brows somehow knit together further. “Well, yeah, kinda. But it’s not really that.”

It’s weird to have Sakusa like him. Atsumu had grown accustomed to the fact that his feelings would never be reciprocated. He’d accepted that he’d always be pining for someone who would sell his soul for a clean pair of latex gloves. This wasn’t an ideal reality, but it was stable. And then Sakusa, in all his blunt glory, had kissed him and demolished that stability.

“Well, what is it then?” Sakusa says through gritted teeth.

How does one explain that they’d never expected their crush to return their feelings, right after their crush kisses them?

“It’s weird that ya like me,” Atsumu admits. “I spent so long acceptin’ that my feelings would just be unrequited for the rest of my life.”

Sakusa is quiet for some time. “That’s a bit extreme, don’t you think?”

The corners of Atsumu’s mouth quirk upward. “I mean, not really. Ya kinda pulled away from me for years, and every time I’d try to talk to ya, you’d just scowl. Unrequited love sucks, but at least it’s stable.” He looks over at a pensive Sakusa. “I mean, ya get that right? With yer whole thing ‘bout routine and stuff.”

“I suppose,” Sakusa says, steadily enough that Atsumu knows he doesn’t. But he seems to be making the conscious effort to try and understand, and maybe that’s enough for now.

“Look,” Atsumu says, wringing his hands in his lap, “I didn’t mean to freak out and pull away like that.”

“You didn’t mind the—” Sakusa purses his lips in apprehension. He doesn’t finish the sentence. He doesn’t need to.

Atsumu laughs, and the sound feels strident and amiss. “Trust me, Omi-kun, I would’ve smacked ya if I minded.”

“I’m sure that mentality gets you lots of attention.” Sakusa’s voice has rebounded to its dry, flat timbre.

Atsumu never expected he could miss such a coarse sound. But he still huffs back, “For yer information, I get plenty of attention!”

He thinks about the confessions beginning in middle school, the countless Twitter polls, and the gaping from strangers in public (Atsumu is sure it’s not just because he’s fifteen centimeters taller than the average male). If he were less egocentric, he’s sure all of this attention would make him uneasy, but it’s distracting more than anything.

Atsumu can envision Sakusa’s irritated gaze if he were to tell him this. “Wow, people think you’re hot? You have such a hard life,” he’d lament with jaded eyes.

But that’s what makes this all so strange. It’s different when Atsumu receives attention from Sakusa. Sakusa is special.

There is an instant, addicting serotonin boost when Atsumu catches Sakusa stealing a glimpse at him. His temperature skyrockets when Sakusa touches him. Profanity spills from his mouth when they get into a heated discussion. None of this can be healthy, which is what makes it the most backward bullshit. Because Atsumu likes it.

He likes the arguing, likes being called on his bluffs, and likes being looked at. Atsumu craves these moments with Sakusa because they feel a lot like receiving his undivided attention. This is something Atsumu doesn’t think he’s ever truly accomplished until tonight, and even now, Sakusa is beginning to roll his eyes and slip away to wherever he goes in his head.

“But!” Atsumu starts, much louder than he’d intended, “I don’t care ‘bout the attention from other people.”

Sakusa snorts. “You’re such a fucking liar, Miya.”

“First off, ya say that like it’s a bad thing.” Atsumu cards a hand through his hair, sticking his chin upward indignantly as he does so. “Lyin’, for yer information, Omi-kun, is an art form.” But then Atsumu remembers why he even made that first comment, and he lowers his chin back to an almost respectable height. “Second of all, I’m not lyin’. The only attention I really care ‘bout is from you.” The last sentence comes out garbled, consonants and vowels and embarrassment stitching into the loud and rushed and incomprehensible.

By this point, though, Sakusa might be accustomed to carving out the meaning of Atsumu’s less than articulate words, undercutting the unintelligible like its excess clay.

“Oh,” says Sakusa, and Atsumu's pride flourishes for having rendered him speechless. It shouldn’t, since Sakusa is sparse on a good day, but it still does.

And then Atsumu reflects on everything that’s happened tonight, all the wrist stroking and confessions patched together from shaky words and the quiet that transcended them, and he finds himself asking, “So, what the hell do we do now?”

“You could leave my room, and we could pretend this night never happened,” Sakusa supplies helpfully.

“Oh, no, no, no, Omi-kun. We gotta deal with this like adults,” Atsumu says, even though this entire evening has felt like something out of one of those teenage romcoms he hasn’t thrown a sidelong glance at since high school. He knows he’s been channeling the energy of all the protagonists in the shitty, coming-of-age films.

“You, an adult? You had a temper tantrum like a four-year-old, Miya.”

“Oh, like yer any better! Ya denied callin’ me pretty!”

“I didn’t deny calling you pretty,” Sakusa frowns. “I literally said it to you after, like, three minutes.”

“Maybe, but the three minutes was enough time for me to start thinkin’ ya hated me.”

“I do hate you.”

“Nah, ya don’t,” Atsumu amends, reaching forward to swipe at Sakusa’s hand. “Ya willingly touched me and everythin’.”

Sakusa pulls his hand back, just out of Atsumu’s reach. “I still hate you.”

Even if Sakusa does return his feelings, the guy is still an asshole, so Atsumu bites back a smile that falls somewhere between fond and foolish. “Nah, ya don’t hate me, Omi-kun. But, even if ya did, ya can’t hate it unless ya love it.” He tops off the proclamation by wiggling his eyebrows.

Atsumu makes a lot of useless comments in a day, lines upon lines of throwaway schtick to try and prove whatever subject he’s on that hour. His words to Sakusa had been of that sort, the kind of vaguely jumbled sentence that cascaded out on impulse.

But, as either a divine intervention or karma for cussing out Osamu, Sakusa seems to be struck by them. He blinks, once, twice, achingly slow, as if the milliseconds of darkness behind closed eyes will help him understand what he sees when he opens them. When Atsumu tries to smack Sakusa’s hand again, he’s stopped mid-swat. The grip on his wrist is firm. It maneuvers their hands until they interlace, like the spring-loaded pins of a lock clicking into place.

Sakusa looks down at their hands, then flicks his gaze up to Atsumu. He does three more of those slow blinks, but on the last one, he keeps his eyes shut. At first, Atsumu considers the prospects of Sakusa falling asleep at nine o'clock in a desk chair that doesn’t look all that comfortable, and while he’s seated in front of company. It wouldn’t be the weirdest thing he’s done. But then nails start digging into Atsumu’s hand, the faint crescent-shaped marks they leave spelling out impatience loud and clear, and Atsumu gets a clue at what he’s supposed to do.

Or, at least he thinks he understands what he’s supposed to do. But a bit of uncertainty hasn’t impeded Atsumu for the past twenty-four years of his life, and it’d be a shame to start letting it now.

It’s impressive that Sakusa doesn’t open his eyes the whole while. When Atsumu tries to keep his eyes shut for more than five seconds, the colors he sees shooting past one another are enough to make him squirm. But Sakusa is as still as ice, aside from the claw marks he's leaving on Atsumu’s good hand.

Atsumu tries to calm himself by doing the breathing techniques he sees in the ads before YouTube videos. Close your eyes. In through the nose, out through the mouth. Inhale, exhale. Let your eyelids grow heavy and your head clear. Wallow in the weight of consciousness you so often forget to embrace.

“Are you going to kiss me, or am I just going to stay here watching you listen to the world?”

Atsumu rouses from his reverie to meet a murky, restless gaze.

He’s never been all that enamored with eloquence, but something about Sakusa's question resonates as rather beautiful to him. Maybe, a small part of Atsumu whispers, it’s just Sakusa that’s beautiful. The thought travels in through one ear out and out the other, but a part of it must splinter off during its passage because he feels it in his outstretching fingers. “Yeesh, have some patience, Omi-kun! But, if we’re doin’ this, we’re doin’ it properly.”

“Nothing about you is proper.”

“And everything ‘bout you is. Excessively so. So shut yer mouth.”

“Why don’t you make me?”

“I’m gettin’ to that!” And Atsumu is, very, very slowly. But it’s not his fault that he’s feeling like a radio dial stuck on the static between stations right now.

His hand stops within centimeters of Sakusa’s face. “This is, this is okay, right?”

It’s stupid, probably, to ask a question like this so late in the game, when he could skim Sakusa’s long lashes if he tweaked his thumb to the left. But Atsumu doesn’t fully understand how Sakusa works, and he’s not trying to burn him out. And while the prospect of burning out after only some mildly aggressive hand holding seems drastic, it's not inconceivable considering Sakusa's propensity for interacting with the world from an arms-length distance.

“I’d tell you if it wasn’t okay,” Sakusa mumbles.

Atsumu’s hand remains motionless, a snapshot of a suspended connection.

Sakusa grabs the hand and brings it to cup his face. “You’re fine,” he grits out. “You can kiss me. I don’t know why I want you to, but it’s something I’ve come to live with.”

Sakusa’s got a funny look on his face. Atsumu places it as “acceptance” after a beat, and he wonders if they’ve both been harboring resignation in their own ways. He brushes his thumb over Sakusa's cheekbone experimentally.

Sakusa flinches as if the action is desecrating. He says, "Keep going."

It’s difficult for Atsumu to wrap his head around the fact that a guy who cut the tag out of his team jacket because it tickled the back of his neck can deal with the constant feeling of weight behind his ears. But it’s a tradeoff, Atsumu figures as he removes the first loop of Sakusa’s mask. Blanching masks for improved hygiene. Discomfort for security. Letting Atsumu touch him for . . . what?

Atsumu’s not sure he wants to know the answer. He’s not sure Sakusa has one, to begin with.

The second loop unhooks quicker without the tension of the first. Atsumu sets the mask down beside him with care, though he knows it’ll be tossed in the trash once he leaves.

Sakusa’s face is uncovered at practice for hours, but this feels so exposed. His mouth is rosy and irritated, the nervous tic of lip biting making itself known. He shouldn’t be attractive like this, almost pouting and with stray curls dangling in front of his eyes, but he is.

Atsumu reaches his hand up to rest in Sakusa’s hair, and even in his trance-like state, he doesn’t forget how he’s fantasized about touching these loose, inky coils for ages now. Upon close inspection, the curls aren’t a single wash of jet black. There are strands of silver woven in, dots of white on individual hairs. Probably a result of being paranoid about sixteen out of twenty-four hours a day, or maybe more, since Atsumu isn’t sure if Sakusa’s anxieties sleep even when his body falls into slumber.

“That’s creepy,” Sakusa interrupts pointedly. “And I’m not paranoid twenty-four seven.”

The tendency to talk to himself when he gets absorbed in his thoughts is going to cost Atsumu something more than his pride one day. “Only twenty-three seven, right, Omi-Omi?”

And then Sakusa is laughing at Atsumu’s awful attempt to save face, but it’s nothing like anything Atsumu has heard before. He’s used to that muffled laughter, the kind that makes it sound like Sakusa’s choking more than he is giving a physical reaction of amusement. This time, the sound is full, occupying the room. It’s warm. Atsumu likens it to sunshine until he glances at the window and remembers it’s nighttime. Moonlight then, maybe. That seems more fitting, anyways.

So with starlight in his veins, Atsumu leans forward to press his mouth against Sakusa’s. Properly. Sakusa’s lips are soft. Of course he’d manage to have moisturized lips, even if he bites them like they stole his money. Bastard probably uses chapstick twenty times a day, knowing his self-care tendencies. Atsumu wonders how he hasn’t seen the application process. He’s positive he would have taken note of it.

All speculation is lost when Sakusa starts kissing him back, and every fuse in Atsumu’s body simultaneously blows out. Because Sakusa was stiff when Atsumu first leaned in, but for someone who almost committed a double homicide last year after Atsumu accidentally drank from his water bottle and then passed it to Hinata, he’s surprisingly intuitive. He knows just the right way to work his mouth, and Atsumu thinks it’s criminal for someone who kisses this good to wear a mask every day.

Atsumu begins to return Sakusa’s fervor, but he’s worried about losing himself in the heat of the moment, so he decides to let Sakusa set the pace. That is, until he effectively loses himself in the heat of the moment and swipes his tongue against Sakusa’s bottom lip. Sakusa makes a warbled, whimsical sound that Atsumu’s pretty sure can be interpreted as a suppressed groan. He won’t lie: he’s smug about eliciting the reaction.

The kissing is wonderful, but it’s making Atsumu feel gooey on the inside. He pulls back to catch his breath, relinquishing Sakusa’s curls from his (needy) clutch. Sakusa looks more unkempt than Atsumu has seen in the past eight years, and Atsumu’s the cause of it.

It’s hot. Sakusa Kiyoomi looks fucking hot.

“Glad to hear that, considering you just made out with me,” Sakusa deadpans, but something reminiscent of a smile ghosts past his face.

Atsumu slaps his hands to his cheeks.“I gotta stop sayin’ stuff out loud.”

“I don’t know. It’s funny to watch,” Sakusa says. “You get all flustered. It’s almost cute.”

Atsumu splutters. “Did, did you just call me cute?”

“If you’re going to act like you're short-circuiting every time I compliment you,” Sakusa scowls, “I’ll refrain from doing so. And I said almost cute, Atsumu. One word makes all the difference.”

There are many things Atsumu will disagree with Sakusa on. The shade of gold on their jersey. The length of the walk from the gym to the dorms. The correct way to ice a wrist. But this time he agrees. He knows one word has made all the difference. And when he gives a devilish grin of far too many pearly whites, he knows Sakusa knows, too.

“Ya called me Atsumu. You’ve never done that before.”

Without the mask, Atsumu is full witness to the pink that stains Sakusa’s nose when he’s flustered.

“I figured it was appropriate,” Sakusa replies, but Atsumu knows he’s thinking I’ve given you too much power with one word.

But maybe it doesn’t matter that Atsumu’s insides are runny because of Sakusa’s blush. Maybe what matters is that something mysterious and lovely drove Sakusa to say Atsumu’s given name in the first place. Maybe what matters is that even though Sakusa’s dawning an unimpressed stare, he’s really, truly with Atsumu. And beneath his shallow resignation, the kind that makes Atsumu feel like he’s gazing into a warped mirror, it doesn’t seem like Sakusa would take that one word back.

“This appropriate?” Atsumu innocently murmurs before he kisses Sakusa on the corner of the mouth.

The breath against his cheek is soft and unimaginable.

“Unfortunately, yes.”