Chapter Text
"Atsumu, I didn't upload this one anywhere."
His eyes widen in shock at your words, and perhaps he means to offer at least some reassurance, but all that comes out of his mouth is, "Are you serious?"
There's a knock on the door. Both of you still and turn around to stare at it like it's imposing, like some kind of monster is about to come out, and then you spare paranoid glances at each other. Trying to be stealthy, you try to crouch towards the door and Atsumu hovers behind you. Coward.
You look through the peephole. You spot Hoshikawa's dumb face like you're looking at him through a fishbowl. With that knowledge (it's just Hoshikawa, it's just Hoshikawa) you relax your posture and unlock the door and scrape it open.
"What are you doing here?"
Atsumu tries to peer around you, curious.
"I was supposed to pick you up," Hoshikawa drawls.
Atsumu frowns. The voice sounds familiar. "Holy shit, how do you know this tool?" he asks, turning to you, tapping you on the shoulder. You slap his hands away.
"Oh, what the fuck," says Hoshikawa intelligently once it clicks in his head that this is Miya from Inarizaki, the setter. Since there are two of them and all.
You unveil the door so they can have their drama face-to-face, but the catfight makes you raise an eyebrow. Though there are some questions you could ask, you feel like it's not all that pressing at the moment. It never really is. "Hoshikawa, forget about the date."
"Date?" asks Atsumu, incredulous. He almost sounds offended.
"Well, yeah, I see you've got a little friend over here," he says with a sneer. When you look at him again, like really look at him, you notice he's a little wet. Was it raining outside? You need to get a grip, need to get a grip.
Atsumu rolls his eyes at the condescension. "No, seriously, why do you know each other?" But it's just a distraction, isn't it? To keep away from thinking about how his girlfriend isn't just a catfish, but an unhinged cyber criminal or however she'd accessed your photo. This whole thing is turning into a massive headache.
"She went searching for treasure under the rainbow and found me instead." Hoshikawa leans against the doorframe.
"Har, har. Anyway, we're kind of in the middle of something here, so if you could leave."
"No. No, stay," you say, and you finally move out of the way to let him in.
"Why were you morons creeping around, by the way?"
"How do you know?" asks Atsumu, accusatory, like it'll turn out Hoshikawa is Sumireko and it's all a huge prank. Or like he has cameras set up in your house. It'd fit him, the slime ball. And it'd make Atsumu feel better to find out who it is behind this right about now.
With an unamused expression, Hoshikawa presses his feet on the ground lightly and it lets out a loud creak. Atsumu is slightly embarrassed by the blase way in which he'd pointed it out. You ignore all this and turn to Atsumu. "Show him," you say with a vague gesture, a spin of your finger, "the picture."
He does.
Hoshikawa glimpses at Atsumu's screen, then at you. "Okay, that's you and we've now confirmed you can recognize yourself in the mirror. And?"
Oh yeah, you hadn't really given him any exposition on this. You jut your thumb in Atsumu's direction like you're about to present him in front of an audience. "He got catfished." Hoshikawa laughs like this is the funniest thing he's ever heard and Atsumu resolves to cross his arms and glare. That’s as much defiance as he can afford in his disorientation. "But I never... This picture, I never posted it anywhere."
"That's creepy," he says.
"Wow, thanks for the feedback," bites Atsumu.
Hoshikawa assesses him lazily until he doesn't, turning his attention back to you. "So, what? Are you gonna try to find out who did it or what? 'Cause this ain't really an episode of Scooby Doo or some shit."
You snarl, "Well, what do you want us to do, genius?"
"Dunno. People get hurt when they play with fire like that," Hoshikawa says. Then he focuses his attention back on Atsumu and smiles his ugly smile again. "Fine, let's play detective. Why don't you call the bitch?"
"Don't call her that," protests Atsumu, on reflex. This draws out a patronizing lid of your eyes and a taunting snort from Hoshikawa, which you mirror soon after. What's so fucking funny all the goddamn time? Maybe in an attempt to distract you from that nonsense he'd just uttered, he asks, "Why?"
"Oh my god, are you dumb? Wait, don't answer. Give me that." Hoshikawa snatches his phone out of his hands, and it's still unlocked, and he scrolls through the contacts list. You watch with mild curiosity. On one hand, you're kind of curious about what this strange tension is, but you find you don't care too much. There are more important issues at hand. You need to- you need to focus. "Let's put her on speaker and try to see if [Y/n] can recognize the voice."
"Why would I?" you ask. You don't really remember things like that, voices and names and sometimes even faces. Then, what Hoshikawa said about you recognizing yourself in the mirror flashes through your head again. Sometimes you don't know if you can even muster that.
"Anyone could do regular catfishing, but getting personal pictures is kinda different, isn't it? Shouldn't it be someone you know?"
Atsumu wrestles Hoshikawa to take back his phone and call Sumireko himself. Sumireko — he spells it out in his head, the vowels and the sounds and everything. Sumireko isn't real. She wasn't ever the pathetic, pining person he thought she was. No, she's... dangerous.
"I don't know," you say. "I don't really know anyone. Except Haruna." You don't know Haruna, either.
"Is that someone from your old school or something?" asks Atsumu. He sounds more on edge than you do. He thinks about volleyball, how this could be distracting, how it could be detrimental. And he's been talking to her for so long now. What if she could access something of his, too? God, this is so fucked.
"Yeah, she-" There's a fog in your head, stretching, obscuring things. Then you recall it, what she said, so it must've been important. You think it might've been leading up to this moment. It's that kind of thing. "She said Inarizaki has a cool volleyball club when she found out where I'm moving. I thought she was being a stupid bitch, but. I don't know, I don't know."
Atsumu rasps, "That seems kinda important, don't you think?" And he's looking at you kind of scornfully. With all the insulting things you've said to him, it surprises you that this is the first time.
"Hey, chill out," Hoshikawa says.
"Oh, yeah, sure. Like I'm gonna let you tell me that." Atsumu taps the call button. The dial tone rings for a while and you all listen, apprehensive, but nothing. She didn't pick up, and it makes him furrow his brows. "There goes your great idea."
Hoshikawa shrugs. "She never sent you a voice mail or anything?"
While he digs through his messages, Atsumu's pout returns. He can't think like this, but he finds one, anyway, and you try to focus on the pitch of her tone, to discern if Haruna had been like this.
"Hi, 'Tsumu! I know you're gonna do great in the tournament, but, you know, I'm gonna say good luck, anyway. I hope luck never leaves your side."
Your nose crinkles. You think you might vomit. Hoshikawa seems to share similar sentiments because he says, "Well, isn't she a ray of sunshine?" all sardonic.
"Haruna doesn't shrill like this," you say. The pitch is wrong, it's too high. She could fake it, you suppose, but you feel like it's not her. Pinpricks of doubt about your previous assumption eat at you.
At this, Atsumu slouches. There went his hope you could solve this as soon as possible.
"I'm going to the toilet," you announce.
When you leave, Atsumu seizes the opportunity to narrow his eyes at Hoshikawa again like he's some fungus growing in the corner of your walls. "I don't know how you two met or anything, but you better leave her alone, douchebag."
"I didn't even do anything. Why are you telling me that?" Hoshikawa grins when realization strikes and he levels Atsumu's phone with a look of amusement. "It's not real," he says. "[L/n]'s not your girlfriend. You know that, right? Are you getting confused between the two of them?"
He flounders at the accusation, but just a little, when red creeps up on his cheeks and his ears, and he stammers, "Wh- of course not! How stupid do you think I am?"
Hoshikawa shakes his head in exaggerated pity. "Very." Then he jerks it in the direction where you'd walked off. "She's a model."
"What? No, no, what?"
"I've seen her on a poster or two. Maybe a billboard, once. For clothes," he explains, like he's talking to a very stupid child. Then Hoshikawa laughs again. "I think you kinda deserved it, falling for that. I mean, shit. That's so funny."
Atsumu ignores the quips because now he's thinking about that talk he had in the locker room, when Suna said he thought you seemed kind of familiar, when he was showing everyone what Sumireko looks like. Ice water floods his veins. How could he be so stupid? "Don't victim blame me," he mumbles, but he's not really into it. Humiliation hangs over him like a rainy cloud.
"Aw, don't cry," he says with a snicker.
Atsumu sits down and folds his figure in two, running his hands down his heads. When you reappear, Hoshikawa salutes you and says,
"This is all very interesting and all, but I think I'm gonna go. Ole buddy over here isn't doing too hot."
"Alright." You send him off to the door and you figure it might be for the best. Cleary they have some kind of beef. Atsumu listens to the shuffle of your footsteps and the sound the door makes when you smack it closed. You crane your neck to examine him like he's your test subject. You're not good at this sympathy thing. "Are you good?"
Atsumu tries to recompose himself, but it's obvious he's clammed up. The idea of being vulnerable doesn't sound good right now. Besides, you'll just make fun of him for his idiocy again, or at least he assumes so. "That guy, Hoshikawa, he's bad news. He's off his head." He makes a meaningless gesture. "You just came here, you shouldn't get mixed up in that crowd."
Your lips settle into a straight line while you scrutinize him. Atsumu feels like he picked the wrong dialogue option in a video game. "Oh, he's sick in the head, alright," you spit. "We met in therapy, after all."
"I didn't mean it like that," he says. "He's... violent."
Atsumu can feel your stare boring into him, like you're trying to tear him apart with your gaze and then dissect and reassemble him. That wasn't the right thing to say, was it? Because you got expelled because you're aggressive. Or at least used to be. You haven’t gotten in any scuffles during your time here, so it’s tough for him to say.
You're not really buying what he's saying, either. After all, when you curbed Hoshikawa's head in, he didn't retaliate at all. What's between these two?
"Listen," bargains Atsumu again. "I don't wanna fight. I'm just- stressed about all this." He claws at the back of his phone, then considers trashing it and trying to extort a new one out of his mom with puppy eyes. Then it'd be over with.
"And I'm not?"
"You don't seem like it."
You glower at him, but you get it. You're selfish like this, too — inconsiderate and ignorant of what people around you think and feel. "Why do you hate each other?"
"Volleyball."
"You've gotta be kidding me," you say, but Atsumu has never looked more serious the entire time you've known him. All this, over volleyball. Does Hoshikawa play a sport? You remember wondering about that once while you stared at him. But it wasn't a lecherous kind of curiosity, it was clinical.
He groans. "I mean, it's important to me. And it's more than that, kinda."
"Whatever." You dismiss him with a wave of your hand. "Are we gonna finish this biology thing or what?"
With a purse of his lips, he says, "If you're up to it."
This would be the most uncomfortable project of all time. You reach out to circle another day on your calendar, even though you know you won't consult it after this. "Let's reschedule."
"Are you mad at me?"
"I don't care what you say." You grin and it's soulless, with more teeth than what Hoshikawa shows. It strikes Atsumu that the two of you are similar. But as much of an asshole as he is, Hoshikawa was right. He needs to really rein in the distinction between you and Sumireko in his head before he gets in trouble. "It's just, well. You might not, but I do like to fight."