Chapter Text
Miya Atsumu had stopped entertaining the idea of love after high school. Well, it’s not like his idea of love was exactly realistic to begin with.
During his peak at Inarizaki High, he was too busy pining after a guy he had absolutely zero chance with — Sakusa Kiyoomi of Itachiyama Institute.
It was a farfetched dream from the start. Sakusa Kiyoomi went to a completely different school than Atsumu, located in a completely different prefecture of Japan, and he lived a completely different life in a completely different tax bracket. He was a guy who was basically a ghost at Nationals except for when he had to appear on the court, since he always avoided crowds as much as he could. A guy like Miya Atsumu would probably have absolutely have pissed him off.
So, how did Miya Atsumu fall in love with Sakusa, anyways?
It all started one year at Nationals. At first, Atsumu thought Sakusa Kiyoomi’s plays were interesting, so naturally he kept his eyes on him. He chalked every single thought about him up to Sakusa Kiyoomi being a worthy opponent, that he was just trying to study his plays. He thought about how Sakusa Kiyoomi was constantly analyzing the moment he set foot on the court. He noticed how Sakusa’s wrists were incredibly flexible, and how that made his spikes incredibly nasty and unpredictable. He couldn’t take his eyes off Sakusa Kiyoomi whenever he was on the court. He thought about the way he adjusted his foot before a receive. His spikes felt precise and not reckless, and Atsumu thought about how he would really just like to set for him once.
Whenever Atsumu should have been listening to Kita or the coach in between rallies, Atsumu’s eyes would unknowingly move towards a certain someone, and it was nearly impossible to pry them away.
Atsumu tried to focus on his own team, but his gaze would wander whenever Itachiyama would be nearby. Over, and over, and over again, his eyes would somehow find their way back to Sakusa.
Atsumu had only stepped away from his team briefly during a break to splash his face with cold water, so he could reset before the next match. He did not expect to nearly collide with Sakusa Kiyoomi himself.
It was like time had completely frozen in place.
Standing underneath the rough fluorescent ceiling lights in the bathroom, Sakusa looked like he emerged straight out of a romance manga, and all Atsumu could do was stare, gawking at the man. Atsumu did not realize just how pretty Sakusa Kiyoomi was up close. Like, it was unfair how pretty he was.
The black mask covering half of his face should’ve disguised that very fact, but somehow, it only drew attention to those captivating eyes. His eyes were dark, heavy-lidded, intense — it was the kind of face that made people do a double take without meaning to.
And unfortunately for Miya Atsumu, he maybe did a triple take. Maybe more.
“You’re Miya Atsumu,” he said. The way his deep voice spoke Atsumu’s name made him feel like his feet were beginning to float off of the ground.
“Ya know me?” Atsumu asked, watching as Sakusa flicked on the water faucet, scrubbing his hands. He noticed how Sakusa was really scrubbing, as if he were trying to rid away invisible dirt that no one else could see.
“Who doesn’t know of you?” Sakusa asked, his eyes on his own hands. “You’re the best high school setter.”
A slight heat began to wash over Atsumu’s cheeks. Usually, compliments did not tend to phase him. He was used to everyone at Inarizaki singing his praises — he had a dedicated fanclub after all. The Inarizaki High marching band constantly showed up to their games, performing and listening to his rules when he tends to serve. He was known to be the idol boy of the team, and he was used to people buttering him up and putting him on a pedestal.
But for some reason, it hit differently when it came from Sakusa’s mouth.
Atsumu couldn’t describe it.
“Ya like to flatter people, don’t you, Sakusa Kiyoomi?” Atsumu joked, though the delivery was weak.
Sakusa yanked a paper towel from the dispenser, patting his hands dry before using it to turn the faucet off. When he finally turned his gaze to Atsumu, the words caught squarely in his throat.
Sakusa was staring.
Like, really staring.
It was dizzying. It did not feel like Sakusa was just looking at him, it felt like he was being dissected, studied piece by piece under the weight of his stare. It should’ve made him uncomfortable, or make his skin crawl, but instead, it was sending his heart into a spiral.
Sakusa stepped closer — not by much, but it was barely enough for their shoulders to graze once more as he moved past the exit. That simple touch was just enough for Atsumu’s head to start spinning.
Just what the hell was wrong with him today?
Kiyoomi paused near the doorway, throwing a slight glance over his shoulder.
“You’re loud,” he replied monotonously.
“Hah?” Atsumu breathed, a bit thrown off by how blunt he was.
“On the court,” Kiyoomi added. “You’re loud.”
“Oh?” Atsumu recovered, finally slipping back into his usual, plotting grin. “Were ya lookin’ at me?”
“I look at everyone.”
“Sure ya do.”
Sakusa stared at him for another long moment, but something about this stare seemed a little different than earlier. It wasn’t judgmental, or one of disgust because he just touched something unsanitary.
It was just… intense.
“You’re different than I expected,” Sakusa said.
“That sounds like an insult,” Atsumu laughed weakly, rubbing at the back of his neck.
“Wasn’t meant to be one.”
Before Atsumu could muster up another response, Sakusa pushed the door open and left. Atsumu was left there, standing in the sudden silence of the bathroom.
“...What the hell was that?” he muttered to himself, staring at his reflection in the mirror.
The face staring back at him was flushed with a slight tinge of red.
He was red. Very, very red. He never got red.
Atsumu slapped both of his hands against his cheeks, as if he were trying to physically force the heat away from his face.
“There’s no way,” he muttered to himself. “Absolutely not.”
Sure, Sakusa Kiyoomi was prettier up close than he ever imagined. Maybe a bit too annoyingly pretty. And yeah, maybe his voice was a bit pleasant. And okay, maybe Atsumu had nearly short-circuited when Sakusa called him the best high school setter.
Big deal. It didn’t mean anything.
Well, he swore it didn’t mean anything.
Probably.
Atsumu groaned dramatically, his hands trailing from his cheeks to the front of his face. Outside, he could already hear his teammates yelling for him.
“Tsumu, if ya don’t hurry up, I’m takin’ your portion of dinner!”
“Shuddup, Samu!”
Still, even as he walked out of the bathroom, even with the noise of the applause of the audience and the Inarizaki marching band cheering him on, Atsumu couldn’t help his eyes drifting towards the crowd. His eyes scanned every individual he could see, sweeping the audience for a hopeful glimpse of that curly hair and sharp eyes hidden underneath that mask.
And every single time, he would spot Sakusa Kiyoomi, and his stomach began to flip violently.
Miya Atsumu chalked his crush up to be nothing more than just a one time fluke — a fleeting crush for a guy he’ll see maybe once or twice a year. It was only meant to be a fleeting moment, destined to disappear with time. He was absolutely sure Sakusa Kiyoomi had already forgotten who he was, forgotten his face, and he was absolutely certain that he was the only one still thinking about that very brief, yet life-altering encounter in the bathroom at Nationals.
He didn’t think much of it, because it’s not like anything could ever come from it.
Atsumu knew better than to hold onto something so ridiculous and delusional, but being realistic had never stopped him from thinking about Sakusa Kiyoomi far more than he should have.
So, when Atsumu stepped through the doors of the Japan Youth Camp months later and immediately collided with someone, his first instinct was pure irritation. His face had planted directly into the front of someone’s jacket, the clean scent of laundry detergent and soap filling his lungs as his nose was buried deep into someone’s chest.
“Jeez, watch where yer—”
The complaint had immediately died when Atsumu’s eyes registered the colors of the jacket.
Yellow, with a black zipper, tapering into a green gradient.
He knew those colors. Those were Itachiyama colors.
Itachiyama — the school that Sakusa went to. He knew that for volleyball research purposes, of course.
Atsumu’s gaze lifted slowly, traveling upward from the jacket he accidentally wrinkled past the broad shoulders with the strap of a duffel bag hanging lazily over one arm.
Higher, and higher…
Until his eyes finally landed on the face he unfortunately knew far too well by now. Or, well, at least the top half of it.
The white mask covering half of his face, the curly dark hair, the sharp eyes already staring down at him with familiar intensity.
Sakusa Kiyoomi, in the flesh, and somehow even prettier up close than Atsumu remembered.
Atsumu’s brain had stopped working immediately. It didn’t just slow down, it had completely stopped.
Because standing right in front of him was the very same guy that had completely hijacked Atsumu’s mind for the past several months at the worst times. He thought about him during practice, during class, before bed — sometimes, in the middle of conversations where he’d remember the way Sakusa looked at him in that bathroom and completely lost his train of thought.
It was embarrassing, and he would never admit that to anyone.
To make it even worse, Atsumu had replayed that brief interaction in his head so many times that it was basically etched into his memory now. He remembered the sound of running water, the lights reflecting against the bathroom mirror, the way Sakusa’s shoulder brushed against his own when he walked past him. And God, he could never forget the feeling of his own stomach flipping so violently afterward that he thought that maybe he should visit the hospital.
And now, that same man was standing right in front of him again, close enough for Atsumu to take mental note of what he smelled like. Close enough for him to see how absurdly long his eyelashes were, and close enough that Atsumu suddenly became horrifyingly aware that his face was still half buried in Sakusa’s chest like an absolute idiot.
“Are you planning on staying there?” Sakusa asked, and Atsumu snapped back into reality.
“Hah?” Atsumu asked, his voice slightly muffled against Sakusa’s jacket.
Sakusa stared down at him, one eyebrow arched. Though most of his face was covered, the amusement in his voice was unmistakable.
It was mortifying. Never once in his life had Atsumu ever felt this sort of humiliation before.
Atsumu scrambled backward, pushing himself away from Sakusa. He cleared his throat, crossing his arms and throwing a pout at the slightly taller man.
“Nope! Obviously not,” he began to ramble, the words tangling together into an incoherent mess. “Yer just like… weirdly solid.”
The second those words left his mouth, Atsumu wanted to launch himself directly into the traffic outside of the gymnasium. What the hell does that even mean?
Apparently, Sakusa was wondering the same exact thing.
“...Solid,” Sakusa repeated.
Atsumu could feel that oh, so familiar heat rising back up in his cheeks. “Forget I said anythin’.”
Kiyoomi continued to stare at him, the heavy silence making Atsumu want to melt into the floorboards beneath his feet. Surely, anything would be better than this. He finally got to see Sakusa again, and yet, here he was, fumbling every single word that came out of his mouth.
“Miya Atsumu,” Sakusa finally spoke.
Oh, he remembered Atsumu. And for some reason, that affected Atsumu way more than it should’ve.
“Ya remember me?” Atsumu blurted out before his brain could catch up and intercept his mouth.
Real smooth, Atsumu, he thought, mentally slapping himself across his face.
“You’re hard to forget,” Sakusa replied.
Atsumu’s soul nearly ascended straight out of his body. What kind of answer was that — what the hell was he supposed to do with that?
“Oh,” Atsumu replied, oh, so intelligently.
What the hell was wrong with his conversational skills lately? The Miya Atsumu suddenly forgot how to talk?
Sakusa kept his eyes on Atsumu, not looking away or seeming to be bothered by the silence between the two. He just looked at Atsumu, and his gaze, well, it was…
Just… a bit too focused on him.
Atsumu suddenly became painfully aware of everything about himself all at once. His posture, his hair, the fact that he was probably still blushing like an idiot over some guy he met once.
If Osamu and Suna saw him right now, he would’ve never heard the end of it.
“You’re loud on the court,” Sakusa said finally, those familiar words echoing in Atsumu’s ears.
Atsumu blinked. “Hah?”
“It’s different now, though,” Kiyoomi continued calmly, like he hadn’t just short-circuited every functioning thought in Atsumu’s brain. “You’re quieter in person.”
Atsumu stared at him for a second before letting out an offended gasp.
“That’s because yer scary in person.”
Kiyoomi tilted his head slightly. “Scary.”
“Ya stare too much.”
“You were staring first.”
Atsumu cleared his throat. He opened his mouth to defend himself before immediately closing it again, because there was absolutely no defense he could come up with on the spot. Kiyoomi caught him red-handed with his face practically buried in his chest not even two minutes ago.
Kiyoomi’s eyes narrowed slightly again, and there it was — that weird, almost-amused expression he remembered from the first day he ran into Sakusa. It wasn’t a smile, but there was humor in his eyes.
“Yer messin’ with me,” Atsumu accused weakly.
“No,” Kiyoomi replied immediately.
A brief pause.
“Maybe a little.”
Atsumu could physically feel his heart malfunctioning.
What the hell. What the actual hell.
Was Sakusa Kiyoomi always like this? Quiet and weirdly funny? Was Atsumu just losing his mind? It was probably both.
A group of players passed them toward the gym entrance, their conversation echoing loudly through the hallway. Atsumu instinctively stepped aside to let them through, only to accidentally brush shoulders with Sakusa again in the process. The contact had barely lasted a second, but the heat shot straight through his body once again, causing Atsumu to immediately stiffen.
This was bad. It was really, really bad.
It was bad because Sakusa smelled entirely too nice up close. He smelled like clean laundry and soap and something sharp and fresh underneath it all. Atsumu felt insane for even noticing his smell. He began to wonder if this was what it was like for the students back at Inarizaki who were in his fanclub if he even looked their way — he suddenly understood it all.
To make it worse, Sakusa didn’t move away immediately. Atsumu slowly looked up, and Sakusa was already staring straight at him.
Once again, his stare was too focused, as if he were trying to get a read on Miya Atsumu, as if he were trying to understand Miya Atsumu.
Atsumu suddenly became aware of every single thing about himself all over again. His heart beating wildly in his chest, his own breathing, the embarrassing warmth in his cheeks, as if Sakusa could see it all.
Then Sakusa’s gaze flickered downward briefly, toward Atsumu’s mouth. Atsumu’s heartbeat stumbled violently.
No. No way.
Surely not.
Before Atsumu could spiral any further, Kiyoomi stepped back smoothly, adjusting the strap of his bag higher onto his shoulder.
“You should probably learn how to breathe,” he said.
Atsumu realized in pure horror that he’d been unconsciously holding his breath. He let out a shaky exhale, the humiliation painted on his face.
Mortifying. Absolutely mortifying.
Sakusa watched him struggle for a second in silence. Then, somehow, Atsumu caught it again — the slightest crinkle near his eyes.
He was definitely amused.
“Oh my god,” Atsumu groaned, covering his face with one hand. “Yer definitely makin’ fun of me now.”
“You make it easy, Miya,” Sakusa replied.
That… That was flirting. That had to be flirting, right?
Right?
No, Atsumu was probably delusional. He didn’t know a single thing about flirting, how could it possibly be flirting? He never dated someone in his life, but he saw the way Suna talks to Osamu, and it felt insanely similar.
But maybe, just maybe, Atsumu really wasn’t delusional.
Because despite the whole embarrassing schtick Atsumu had just unfortunately pulled, Sakusa Kiyoomi was still standing there, still letting Miya Atsumu lean against him, when he’d normally find his way across the stadium to be away from someone else’s germs. He was just standing there, talking to Atsumu, as if he genuinely wanted to.
Sakusa finally turned toward the gym doors.
“Practice starts soon,” he said.
Atsumu nodded quickly. “Right.”
Sakusa took a few steps forward before pausing. Without looking back, he added quietly, “Try not to run into me a third time, Miya Atsumu. I don’t like germs.”
Atsumu grinned, as if he were never embarrassed in the first place. “No promises, Omi-kun.”
Sakusa glanced over his shoulder. “…Don’t call me that.”
There was no bite to his words, and that alone was enough to keep Atsumu smiling like an idiot for the rest of the day.
The small interactions they shared between each other at the Japan Youth Camp were just that — small, nothing substantial. It was a few conversations in the hallway, a few snarky comments about each other's plays, a couple of shared looks across the gym during practice. There was one particular moment that kept Atsumu awake at night, tossing and turning in his bed, replaying over again in his head.
Sakusa called him “Atsumu.”
Not Miya Atsumu. Not Miya.
Atsumu.
Lying awake in the quiet room, a horrifying realization washed over him. It wasn’t a stupid little crush anymore. It wasn't just admiration for a rival's talent, or plain curiosity.
He was straight-up in love with Sakusa Kiyoomi.
It was straight up love, which was probably ridiculous seeing how Sakusa Kiyoomi only viewed him as the setter from Inarizaki that kept bumping into him (and buried his face in his solid chest). Atsumu hated the idea of falling in love, especially because there was nothing he could do about it.
Sakusa lived far away. They went to different schools, and they were supposed to be rivals at Nationals.
His feelings for Sakusa had only grown more intense after graduation.
While everyone around him was moving forward with their lives, as if they all had silently agreed with each other to cross some invisible line into adulthood, Atsumu was left behind carrying his useless, helpless high school crush.
Osamu had opened up Onigiri Miya not that much longer after they had graduated — in which he and Osamu got into a bit of a heated argument over because he did not want to stop playing with Osamu – and Osamu was doing well for himself, and Atsumu was just happy that Osamu was happy. Kita was working back home in the rice fields, living a calm life that only someone like Kita could appreciate. Suna had signed with a Division One team and continued to be annoyingly good at volleyball with minimal effort.
And Atsumu? Well, he signed with the MSBY Black Jackals. The MSBY Black Jackals.
Even just saying it still sent excitement sparking through him. Professional volleyball was always his dream. Ever since he was a kid, Atsumu had wanted to stand on the biggest stage with all eyes on him. He wanted packed arenas, roaring crowds, cameras following every toss of the ball from his fingertips.
He got to play with athletes he admired, got to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with monsters of the court. He finally got to toss to Shoyo, exactly like he promised back in high school. Everything was happening exactly the way he wanted it.
He had his dreams in his grasp. He really did it — he was going to make Osamu and their mom proud.
But somehow, there was still one embarrassing thing that Atsumu held on from his high school years, and that was the fact that he couldn’t stop thinking about Sakusa Kiyoomi. No matter what he did, his mind would go back to that disgustingly pretty man, still reminiscing about the way they kept colliding, as if it were fate.
Suna and Atsumu had finally carved spare time out of their chaotic, busy schedules to catch up, ending up at a quiet restaurant near the subway station. The murmur of conversations blended together with the clinking of dishes around them, a calming white noise a respite in the whirlwind that was their volleyball careers. Atsumu had been rambling about the past aimlessly, recalling old matches, their old teammates, past rivals, while Suna scrolled through his phone between bites of food.
Somehow, the conversation moved towards Nationals. Atsumu mentioned Karasuno, and how he gets to play with that funny number 10 in his current team. He mentioned other old competitors, old powerhouses.
Itachiyama slipped out, but Atsumu couldn’t stop himself.
“What happened to Sakusa anyways?” Atsumu asked, taking a bite of food while trying to keep his tone casual.
Suna glanced up from his phone lazily. “Hm?” he hummed, his tongue sticking out as he shamelessly reached for the extra onigiri on Atsumu’s place.
“Oi,” the blonde frowned as he watched Suna take a big chomp.
“I think he went to university,” Suna replied after swallowing his bite. “I heard his team is getting ready to play against the Adlers.”
For some reason, Atsumu suddenly felt very hollow. University.
Of course Sakusa would go to university.
Atsumu had never really imagined what Sakusa’s life looked like outside the brief moments their paths crossed. He began to wonder how little he actually knew about him, which made his lingering crush even more silly.
“Oh,” he muttered, his eyes dropping to the table. Suna’s eyebrows rose, setting his phone down on the table before leaning back in his seat, as if he felt a shift in the environment.
“You still hung up on him?” Suna asked.
Atsumu scowled, shaking his head furiously.
“I was never hung up on him!” Atsumu bit back defensively. “The hell are ya sayin’, Suna?”
“Riiiight, sure you weren’t.”
“Shuddup.”
Suna snorted quietly, clearly unconvinced, before returning to his phone.
Atsumu couldn’t shake that conversation afterward.
Later that night, Atsumu sat at the edge of his bed, elbows resting on his knees as he stared blankly at the floor of his apartment. He began realizing something about himself as he listened to the hum of the air conditioner fill the room.
This absolutely had to stop.
Seriously, it was embarrassing. He was heading into adulthood, and he was on the road to becoming a professional athlete. He could not go around carrying a years-long infatuation on a guy who he barely spoke to.
The realization stung more than he expected it to.
With a frustrated groan, Atsumu threw himself backward onto his mattress, grabbing the nearest pillow and burying his face deep into it.
“So stupid,” he muttered, squeezing his eyes shut.
Maybe it was, because Sakusa Kiyoomi probably had never given a single thought about Atsumu the same way he thought about him daily, and Atsumu remembered every little thing about him.
“You’re hard to forget,”
Yeah, right.
Lying in the dark, Atsumu swore a promise with himself from that moment moving forward.
As of that moment, Sakusa Kiyoomi no longer exists in his heart. Miya Atsumu is one hundred and thirty percent over Sakusa Kiyoomi, and no longer dreaming up fake scenarios that made everything more vibrant than what it should have been to feed a dead, one-sided crush. No more replaying old conversations in his head, no more imagining the way he called his name.
He was done. He really was.
He definitely wasn't trying to convince himself.
He really was.
Really.
Years had passed, and honestly, Atsumu was genuinely proud of himself. The fast pace of professional volleyball kept him busy enough that it begun to drown out any thoughts of an old crush — in fact, he never thought about Sakusa at all. There were endless practices, matches, interviews, sponsorships, endless travel schedules packed so tightly he barely had time to eat and sleep properly.
Life was moving forward, and fast, and Atsumu was having a blast. He loved his teammates, and he made new friends. The matches were fun, and he was only getting better at volleyball.
For the first time in a while, Atsumu felt content. He felt like he was finally maturing.
Atsumu was doing really great, and he was happy, so the universe decided to ruin his life again.
“Alright, bring it in!” Coach Samson announced one afternoon during practice. He clapped his hands together loudly, getting the attention from the players. They all began to trot over, some wiping the sweat from their faces with towels, others still taking heavy gulps of water. Bokuto and Hinata bounced over with neverending energy, despite the fact they were jumping around and running for the past five hours, as they eagerly awaited what the coach wanted to say.
“Management has been working together behind the scenes, and we’re officially adding a new outside hitter to the starting roster,” the coach announced.
Bokuto perked up immediately.
“Woah, a new teammate?!” he exclaimed, and Hinata followed suit.
“Amazing!”
Atsumu was only half listening, absentmindedly attempting to spin a volleyball on his index finger.
“He’s a promising new rookie, straight out of university, and I trust you idiots to take care of him and not scare him off,” the coach continued. “He should be here any second now. He just finished signing the paperwork and he’s getting changed to practice.”
“Who’d we snag?” Meian asked. “Sounds like a bigshot.”
Right on cue, the gym doors flung open, the clicking sound echoing throughout the large gym. Atsumu’s attention redirected from the ball in his hands towards the door, blinking once, his fingers stalling against the leather of the volleyball. Suddenly, his chest tightened.
“His name is Sakusa Kiyoomi,” Coach Samson said.
For one long, terrible, endless second, Atsumu suddenly felt like he was lurched backward in time, back in that Nationals Stadium. He felt like he was back in that bathroom under the lights, as if his shoulder had once again brushed against Sakusa’s. He felt like his face had planted again into his chest, like how he forgot every single communication skill he had when he realized that Sakusa was pretty.
He felt like he was seventeen again.
The years of no contact, the pain of not being in each other’s world suddenly vanished.
Sakusa was older now, taller, more built and broadened shoulders, the MSBY jersey matching him too well — but those eyes were exactly the same. They were sharp, observant, sweeping through the room.
Before they locked directly onto Atsumu.
Atsumu felt his fingers go numb. The volleyball slipped from his hand, dribbling across the floor with a loud thud before trickling slowly towards the bleachers. Nobody noticed the stray ball, or well, Atsumu wasn’t sure if anyone noticed, because his heart was banging so violently he could hear it in his eardrums.
Oh, no.
No, no, no.
There’s no way. There’s absolutely no fucking way.
Sakusa reached up, hooking his fingers around the loops of his black mask, pulling it down to greet the team properly.
“Hello, I’m Sakusa Kiyoomi.”
As soon as his face was uncovered and his voice left his throat, the last brick of Atsumu’s operation of forgetting his past crush had completely crumbled. The past few years of rebuilding his dignity, his pride, his sanity — he was back at square one.
Atsumu realized that he was absolutely still in love with Sakusa Kiyoomi.