Chapter Text
It’s easy, hiding things from people. Sakusa is good at it. Emotions or opinions, Sakusa doesn’t even need a mask to keep things to himself. He knows when to get carried away, when it’s okay to be read through, when he refuses to let anything on; he’s always controlled that fairly easily and now even more than when he was a teenager.
Even his cousin has some trouble reading him at times.
Sakusa feels safe behind the masks he’s used to wear, whether real or metaphorical ones.
There’s one person who’s been throwing him off, though, and who’s doing it more and more. And it doesn’t make Sakusa feel as unsafe as he thought he would after years of peace. Because he feels safe overall when he’s with Miya.
The blunt idiot is selfless and perceptive. Sensible and caring. Probably the only person on the planet Sakusa will let roast him openly on the court for a missed serve in an official game because that same person will silently adjust his plays for him when he’s the only one to notice Sakusa just winced from a bad receive.
Everyone says Atsumu is always loud and obnoxious, Sakusa doesn’t agree with this because while Miya is troublesome openly, it’s only when it doesn’t matter.
Whenever Sakusa needs the silence, the only person on the team that won’t give him hell for it, intentionally or not, is Miya.
Everyone is always so surprised to see Sakusa snap and bark and be noisy, but it’s because it comes easily when you know you won’t have any trouble finding back your peace. It’s easier to be loud with someone when you’re not made fun of for wanting some quietness afterward.
Miya brought a sense of normalcy to something that was always deemed as odd at least, and right out weird as hell in the worst cases by others. Sakusa never cared about these labels, he’s never been ashamed of being a little different. He just learned to build walls.
People are always surprised when they crumble down, Miya the first.
Sakusa doesn’t think he needs to be loud to tell him why. He’ll figure him out. Miya has been figuring him out since day one, since they met again years after that training camp. There’s no mask Sakusa can hide behind when it comes to Miya, and although it’s a little scary… it feels safe. Like falling back into place after never having quite figured out what was wrong to begin with.
It’s comfortable.
Just like it’s comfortable to lean back against the counter of the little kitchen in his quarters, counter that he cleaned this very morning, to look at the crazy mess that’s Miya Atsumu behind the oven over the rim of his glass of beer. He can pretend to hide a smirk there.
Miya seems to know what he’s doing, he’s just clearly not as professional as his twin about it.
“I should record this and send it anonymously to your brother, get you disowned…” Sakusa says, scrunching his nose as bits of scallion get projected around the cutting board.
“So freaking unnecessary, Omi-kun. You know being a professional athlete doesn’t pay that well. What d’ya want me on the streets for?” Miya retorts, gaze focused on the vegetables he’s chopping into irregular pieces.
Sakusa rolls his eyes, sipping more of his beer.
“You don’t pay a rent here,” he points out.
“Yeah, still not a reason to be a bastard and seek my ruin?” Miya says, finally looking up, wiping his forehead with the back of his wrist.
Sakusa eyes the sharp knife his teammate is holding and that moves close to his face, catching a glimpse of his own pretty detailed reflection in the blade. When did they get this close, exactly?
He clears his throat and shifts on his feet to face the counter, reaching for a washcloth mechanically.
“Well, we don’t have any big game coming up this month, things are going to get boring soon,” Sakusa says nonchalantly, pushing the adventurous scallion bits toward the sink.
“Oh right. So you wanna start a Miya family drama special or something?” Miya asks, moving the pan to the immaculate ceramic hob. “That’s shitty of you. You don’t see me going around stirring things up between you and Komori-kun, do you?”
“He wouldn’t listen to you, he knows you’re full of shit, Miya. Your brother would trust me over you,” Sakusa argues, relaxing back against the counter.
Miya lets go of an exaggerated sigh, covering the pan as he wipes his fingers on the apron Sakusa provided earlier.
“That’s what I’m concerned about. Pretty sure you can call ‘Samu without a video now and tell him to ask my parents to disown me and he’ll thank you for the opportunity anyway,” he says, fiddling behind his back to untie it.
Sakusa almost misses the next part, eyes locked on the way Miya clearly struggles with the knot.
“As if I hadn't had enough of one dickhead in my life already, had to get stuck with another—” Miya cuts himself shortly, snatching Sakusa’s attention back from the intent observation he was deep into.
They both stare at each other, Sakusa taking a few seconds longer to understand why Miya looks like a deer caught in headlights.
Sakusa doesn’t know how Miya does that. How he always makes it sound like they go together. Like they’re a pair. He paid attention many times. Bokuto, Hinata, Tomas, Inunaki, they’re part of Miya’s team, it’s clear in the way he talks about them. Some are even his friends.
But Sakusa is always something else to Miya.
It’s subtle, it’s a way of phrasing things here, a word there. Sakusa never heard Miya tell Hinata he’ll be stuck with him for the rest of his life.
And he certainly never saw Hinata blushing like a teenager in front of his crush thinking about the perspective…
Ah. There it is, right?
“I think I’m kinda stuck, here,” Miya suddenly drops, averting his gaze and even turning away, hands clasped behind his back over the strings holding the apron. “D’you have a pair of scissors?”
“A pair of what?” Sakusa blurts out, eyes going wide. His voice is a little hoarse, he feels ashamed. “Don’t you dare, Miya!”
“Help me, then,” Miya asks, and his voice is small, shy.
Sakusa feels his throat run dry, despite the beer he just downed.
“Yeah, don’t move idiot,” he mumbles, looking at his hands before actually reaching for the small of Miya’s back.
His breath catches in his throat when the tips of his fingers touch the knot. Miya tenses up, just barely, but it’s there.
Sakusa wonders what they’re doing.
They’ve been following a strange pattern for so long now and helping out Miya as he stands in his kitchen after having cooked for him feels oddly normal. Safe. Another piece falling into place.
Sakusa looks down at the knot. It’s as messy as his cooking, he can’t help but notice, pulling on the end of one of the strings.
“Say, Omi-kun. You wouldn’t leave me rotting in the streets, right?”
Sakusa works on the knot skillfully, careful not to brush Miya's back. He hums interrogatively, focused on the task, trying not to marvel at the stupid situation.
“I mean can’t see our coach dumping the best setter in the country, but if he does, you would—”
“You mean Kageyama-kun?” Sakusa interrupts him, navigating back to the safety of banter. “No, don’t worry, no one would leave him to rot in—”
In a mere second, two hands bats Sakusa’s away and Miya swirls on his feet. “Hey! You take that back!”
There’s a menacing finger under his nose now, and Miya’s face directly in his own, scowling.
He’s blushing a little. It’s hot in the kitchen, after all.
“I’m not done with the knot,” Sakusa groans, rolling his eyes so he has an excuse to look away.
It’s too hot in this damn kitchen.
Miya isn’t done either, apparently, his finger almost brushing Sakusa’s nose now.
“I beat his ass every of the last—”
“We did!” Sakusa fires back, impulsively reaching up to block Miya’s wrist between them.
Miya stiffens under his touch, then starts wildly flailing his arms, forcing Sakusa to let go of him.
“Why are you trying to piss me off?! I cooked for you!” Miya whines with emphasis.
“So what!” Sakusa doesn’t even think before snapping back. “You say that as if it was some kind of marital duty I forced you into!”
With that he grabs Miya by the shoulders and forces him to turn around again, managing to hide his internal panic at what he just blurted out.
He backs him against the counter, pressing Miya there so he can work on the knot again.
The same hands that usually throw him perfect and confident tosses go gripping the edge of the counter and they do not look steady. Sakusa refuses to look at them another second. What are they doing!
“I did it because I wanted to!”
“And I was fine letting you do it,” Sakusa barks, pulling on the tie a little too aggressively. “You think I would have let you turn my kitchen into a battlefield otherwise?”
“For real, you’re the worst! Just say so, then! The great Sakusa Kiyoomi doesn’t need to be an asshole about everything!”
“I was teasing you, it’s not my fault you’ve been on edge since earlier!”
The knot finally starts giving away, and Sakusa has to get closer for a second, easing one of the strings through the entangled mess. Miya shies away from the touch, leaning over the ceramic hob.
“I’m not on edge!” he retorts heatedly, head dropping low between his shoulders. “I just—Well, yeah! Okay! I’m a little on edge, yeah! But whose fault is that, uh? You make me feel nervous as hell!”
Miya’s voice drops as low as his head did once he’s done and he shuts his mouth, precisely when the knot comes undone and the ties are left hanging from Sakusa’s hands.
They shouldn’t be hovering over the hob, it’s so hot Sakusa can barely breathe.
“I—what?”
No answer comes, and now Sakusa wants to bash Miya’s head in because if someone is feeling nervous, right now? It’s him. Far from the usual comfortable feeling.
“Miya?”
Nothing.
Sakusa manhandles him for the second time, this time to force Miya to face him and he holds him there, firmly. It wouldn’t be that bad if Sakusa couldn’t sense the shift in the atmosphere… How his teammate isn’t actually just getting grumpy over one too many taunts.
They’re not uncomfortable in each other’s presence. They’re not nervous.
They fell into a rhythm that Sakusa can no longer imagine not being a part of his life.
“What did you say?”
“It didn’t mean shit, Omi-kun!”
Sakusa leans in, tilting his head to the side, scanning Miya’s face with a hard, searching gaze. That’s only one of the myriads of reasons nothing can change. He wouldn’t do this with anyone, not as naturally as this ; not without even thinking until Miya’s breath is so close it caresses his cheekbone maddeningly.
Sakusa exhales long and slow. Maybe they didn’t just fall into these many things along the way. Maybe Sakusa could just let the wall crumble entirely, since no one is watching but the person who can see through it anyway.
“You wanna stop contesting for worst personality?” Sakusa offers a truce.
Now if Miya can be perceptive and help him a little, which seems to be on its way, they might get somewhere. It takes a few seconds, and for Sakusa a lot of resolve not to back away from the proximity. He can’t do it now. But when these seconds have passed, there’s a grin slowly twisting Miya’s lips upward, and he’s not as smug as he can get, but it’s there. It’s immediately easier to breathe, even though Sakusa can’t really ignore the wild staccato of his heartbeat anymore.
“Yeah, kinda. Plus you won this round, and I hate to lose.”
“Really should have let you go to the bar and make a fool of yourself in front of the waitress," Sakusa mumbles now, relieved his teammate is back at being himself.
He can't help himself. It's like tasting the waters.
“Will you please fucking let me breathe?” Miya says, unhooking the apron from around his neck slowly.
“When it stops being hilarious. I was still teasing, though," Sakusa comments, watching the movement of Miya's fingers as he fiddles with the piece of fabric between them.
“No one's laughing, not even you.”
“Certainly not her—”
“Jesus Christ! D’you have a problem with that waitress in particular?" Miya suddenly huffs out loudly. "Because it starts to sound like it!”
Sakusa wishes he could blame it on the hob again, but there's no way even him can lie to himself about how suddenly his face heats up at what Miya is implying.
He can still lie. In fact, Sakusa has no choice but to lie. He's confident in many ways Miya isn't, but when it comes to be true to his own feelings, only the blond idiot in front of him, the one who wears his heart on his sleeve, can blurt out the raw feelings he's experiencing.
If Sakusa is lucky, Miya might blurt out his own and Sakusa's in one go.
Be perceptive, he silently begs just as his mouth opens to try and jeopardize it.
“As if! Don’t be a—”
“It’s fine. I don’t care. Be a prick if you want, but it’s kinda cringy the way you’re overlooking the obvious. Thought you were always analysing shit, Omi-kun.”
Now Miya is the one leaning into him, and he's shorter by a few centimeters and looking up at him through his stupidly long pretty lashes.
They're so dark, Miya was never going to have anyone convinced he's naturally blond, was he—
"You can dissect my plays but I'm starting to think you're the dense type when it comes to—"
“I have. Analysed it.”
Sakusa interrupts him, trying not to look too nervous. He ends up looking gloomy, he's aware of that. But damn, having Miya pushing him in the right direction also means he has to let him be an insufferable ass.
Well, at least that fell right back into the perfect place.
“You're not gonna make it easy, are you? Let's put it that way then," Miya says, clearing his throat.
He's not as confident as he looks like, Sakusa can tell because the faint blush on his cheekbones is slowly spreading to his nose. He'd observe that for days but Miya moves, leaning so his mouth is now just against Sakusa's ear.
There's no way he won't hear Sakusa gulp down miserably. In fact, it's like it eggs him on. As if Sakusa is sending the last signal he decently can without combusting for Miya to lead them somewhere.
If only the alcohol made him bolder…
Miya barely drank, he's still the one whose breath tickles Sakusa's earlobe when he drawls:
"What does it say that I’m here, drinking fancy beer in your 'lil kitchen, wearing a stupid apron cooking for us to have a nice 'lil dinner, instead of tumbling out of a bar?"
Sakusa closes his eyes.
There are so many reasons, had it been two entire other persons, for the answer to simply be: because we're friends. We're teammates.
We're partners.
"And Omi? One joke about me just being a decent human being for once and I quit trying.”
That’s more than a push. Miya’s lips are right there. If his breathing wasn’t a little erratic and unsteady, Sakusa would doubt they're on the same wavelength, but it is.
He worries at his lips, wondering what will happen once there’s no turning back. When there’s no pretense to hide behind anymore, when the next thing to fall are their masks.
“I can’t really joke about you being a clingy idiot who can’t live without me either, can I?” he asks, looking resolutely at the cooker hood in front of him.
His left hand that was hanging at his side twitches, he brings it up, hovering near Miya’s elbow. His fingertips brush his forearm as Sakusa keeps moving, they feel like burning, until he’s closing his hand over the apron crumpled between them.
“I mean… that’s missing the point of a joke, right? Can’t spew the truth and call it a prank, Omi-omi.”
Sakusa pries the apron away from Miya hands, reaching behind him to throw it on the counter. It’s another miss, the piece slides on the floor. Sakusa cranes his head a little to look at it, realizing too late he’s offering a piece of his neck to Miya.
He suppresses a shudder, shoulders stiffening as the hot breath that was tickling his ear teases the side of his throat instead.
Sakusa feels like he’s falling from a ten stories building.
“Now, say, Kiyoomi. Is there anything else you’d rather see me do than go to the bar, when we hang out together like this?”
Sakusa is jealous. How Miya can sound tentative and shy despite the evident smugness is beyond him. Sakusa is jealous because it’s endearing, he’s standing there, knees weak and heart racing, and wondering how he could tick Miya off just so he can feel the same way for one second.
They should play fair and square.
“You could do something bold enough for me to call you by your first name without asking.”
“I’m thinking about something that would leave you too speechless for that,” Miya says, finally moving away, but it’s to get directly in the spiker’s face.
Their noses brush, Miya tilts his head to the side. Sakusa isn’t sure he’s hearing that correctly, but as deafening as it is, his heartbeat can’t be the only one going at a dangerous speed.
“Try me,” he breathes out.
Looking back he should have breathed in, because the dive when Miya kisses him is fierce and dizzying.
They slowly drift down, ending up falling on the kitchen floor in a tangled mess of limbs, unable to part away. Certainly not looking forward to when they’ll be back on their feet.
In the end, it doesn’t matter if they fall on the ground, into a pattern... if they fall back into place, if it happens more and more often.
It’s not something they need to pay attention to...
I just think I might be falling in love with you.