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Sakusa looks in the mirror and prods at his face. Smooth, rounded cheeks. A clean-cut jaw. Eyes that are maybe too large for his face. A smoothed out cupid’s bow, more moles than freckles. A grey streak already running through his hair.
When he was little, still repulsed by sweat and grime and used locker rooms, Sakusa’s parents tried dance. Ballet lasted a year and a half, hypermobility a gift among mortals even for a four year old. Twice a week for two years, little Kiyoomi donned black cotton pants that clung to his legs and tiny pink slippers made out of supple canvas. Twice a week he twirled and jumped and bathed in the classical woes of Mozart. But what stands out against the memories of développés and pliés are the soft arms of the girls around him and the pride at being the one there to lift them higher. The leading man, his teacher told him, will always be you. He alone was there to play prince to the darlings, the only boy there to take their hands and catch them as they fell. Never was this the case for the girls, whose own chance of standing at his side rested upon their own hard work. Now, standing in the small confines of his bathroom, Sakusa wonders if he didn’t wish for the chance to vie for the role of the prima ballerina instead of being handed a position based on nothing. Nothing at all.
Sakusa isn’t masculine, not in the way the others in the league are. He’s not like Hinata, kind without fault with tanned skin that stretches over muscles honed from the sand. Not like Romero, either— Sakusa hasn’t managed to grow facial hair and neither has his father, and he doubts he ever will. Bokuto is well meaning and a little dense and built like the trunk of the tree; Komori takes up all of the space in the world without a care for what others think about his urge to help; and Atsumu, with his crooked smile and cocksure attitude, would never not expect the world to gravitate around him as if he were a supermassive black hole.
Sakusa compares himself to Atsumu more than he’d like to admit, as both his boyfriend and someone who knows very well how insufferable he can be. What he envies the most is simple— Atsumu knows what he wants and takes it without question. It makes him seem arrogant, makes him seem overly proud, makes Sakusa want to tear out his hair most days. But beyond the surface-level perception of his preening and peacocking is a deeper awareness embedded into Atsumu’s every move, an undoubtable awareness of his presentation at all times.
Atsumu, who spent his first ever V.League paycheque on top surgery the moment the off season started. Atsumu, who walked Sakusa through the cleanliness of his injection kit for both of their sanities. Atsumu, who compromises nothing for the sake of others’ comfort, who exists unapologetically, who poses topless with abs like a washboard, nevermind the scars that run along his chest. It isn’t as if Sakusa lives in insecure self loathing— he is vain and he has never twisted himself to accommodate others. It’s just that Atsumu’s confidence tastes like a kind of freedom that Sakusa isn’t sure he’s ever known, a kind of freedom he craves when he stares at his reflection at night.
Logically, Sakusa knows how he appears. Gangly, six foot four while slouching, broad shoulders and veiny hands. His nails filed down to the quick. His smiles awkward, unused. Everything about him suggests man , even though he himself feels left of centre when compared to the same masculinity of his peers. Sakusa doesn’t have to be an expert in his own presentation to understand that. The discomfort that comes with knowing he exists in every person’s mind as man, as boy, as he is unmistakable. It bubbles up after matches, when he’s clapped on the shoulder and punched in the gut by one of the guys . It returns when his eyes linger on the Other, on a kind of petiteness he craves, on the dainty and the polished and the undoubtedly feminine. It’s a role he was never allowed to perform— prima ballerina , not as a woman, but as himself.
There is one thing Sakusa knows for sure: he can't live like this, in an arbitrary suit of skin, confined by a designation he never consented to.
—
It’s mid evening, after a long day's practice. The sun has moved beyond the horizon, leaving the sky to drift into darkness with the last remnants of light warming their kitchen counter. Atsumu sits across from him, eating the rather bland plate of vegetables recommended by their nutritionist. Neither are skilled enough cooks to do much more than steam and serve alongside a half portion of rice and well cooked protein. Still, they enjoy their meal with a side of each other’s company. Atsumu eats fast, hungry enough to keep quiet for ten minutes, and so they both fall into relative silence. Sakusa takes to watching dusk sweep its sleepy fingers over Atsumu’s hair, gleaming golden and warm. The desire to reach across their tiny table and thread his fingers through the strands overwhelms him, stopped only by the nagging pit of dread swirling in his stomach.
Anxiety is a cage of Sakusa’s own construction. It is both a home made of concrete and a prison made of flowers, comforting him with all of the gentleness of a hurricane. Atsumu lives among all of his worries, his phobias and paranoia, sits in the eye of the storm day after day. He knows the intimacies of Sakusa’s compulsions and has seen him at his most vulnerable, and yet Sakusa hesitates to ask the questions. Atsumu would understand. Atsumu would know what he means when he describes the skin-crawling sense of unbelonging he feels just existing— he has, after all, experienced it before. But no matter how many times Sakusa peels back a new layer of himself for Atsumu to see, the process never grows easier. Uncertainty only pushes him closer to the precipice of burying this secret in the casket of his own discomfort.
“What’s with you?” Atsumu asks, breaking the silence that spans both a mile and the foot of space between them. “Did you pull somethin’ at practice?”
There’s an edge to his voice that always exists, jarring to those who haven’t come to understand that everything Atsumu says is tinged with a healthy dose of skepticism. He’s observant— Sakusa will give him that— and with the intensity of his singular focus, Atsumu might as well just say you can’t keep hidin’ forever. Push and pull, give and take. Their relationship exists in a strange kind of balance of two opposing forces, something like unstoppable forces and immovable objects.
“No, my shoulder is fine,” Sakusa says after a weighty pause. “I just…”
The words escape him, and Atsumu cocks his head. Shadows shift across his face, deepening hooded eyes that soften as they look him up and down. “You don’t have to tell me, y’know.”
Sakusa rolls his eyes and stands, abruptly. His chair screeches and their plates clatter in a moment of aggressive avoidance of his own feelings. With a deep breath, he pushes his chair back in, quieter this time. “After we do the dishes,” he tells him, cementing his fate.
They take their time going through the motions— cleaning dishes, cleaning counters, cleaning pots and pans and setting them to dry. Sakusa is thorough in everything he does, which quells the part of him that wants to spiral for the time being. As long as his hands move, he can still his mind long enough to stop himself from shutting down. Atsumu doesn’t rush him, and has long since memorized the exact way Sakusa likes to be done. All of his routines include a space for him now, shaped with a smirk or a well meaning smile.
Sakusa sinks into the couch as Atsumu puts the last mug away, humming some tune that he heard on the speakers that afternoon at practice. It calms him, if only enough that he doesn’t start bouncing his leg in the time it takes for Atsumu to cross the distance of their living room and sit down next to him. It’s a testament to how close they’ve gotten that Sakusa allows himself to curl into Atsumu’s side, stiffness leaching out of his shoulders the moment he can feel Atsumu breathe.
“You’ve been off all day,” Atsumu murmurs. “Didn’t wanna say anythin’ earlier, in case it made it worse.”
“No, it’s okay.” Sakusa stops himself before saying anything else, taking in the warmth radiating from Atsumu’s bare shoulder. His tongue lulls uselessly in his mouth, refusing to form words until he feels Atsumu’s arm wrap around his waist. He takes one more deep breath, and then speaks. “Do you think I could be seen as anything other than… a man?”
Atsumu sits up, his lax posture seizing in a way that lets Sakusa know he’s been thrown for a loop. “That depends,” he says, each syllable chosen slow, heavy on his tongue. “Do you want to be seen as somethin’ else? As… a girl?”
Sakusa wrinkles his nose, “No, not a girl, but…” he trails off. Something weighs in his chest, making it so that even breathing is a laborious task. He averts his eyes, and pulls his arms closer to himself. “I want to be something else. Something that being a guy… isn’t.”
The smile that Atsumu offers him is a rare one, catalogued away with his real laugh, ugly and as hideous as his face in the morning. “Well, what does that mean for you?” Atsumu asks him.
Anxiety fades to exhaustion, fades to annoyance in a wave of emotions that overwhelm Sakusa. “I don't know,” he says, trying not to snap at Atsumu who just wants to help. “Have you seen me?”
Guilt pools in Sakusa’s stomach as Atsumu runs a hand up Sakusa’s spine, curling his fingers at the base of his neck. He cranes his head and stoops lower, all in an attempt to meet Sakusa’s gaze. “Sure I have, ‘nd I love this you, but it ain’t permanent. You think I always looked the way I wanted to?”
Sakusa averts his eyes, ears burning. He’s seen the pictures of little Atsumu and Osamu, their pigtails as crooked as their smiles, back before the pair had tuned their bodies to the ways they were supposed to be. Sakusa knows this. He knows this, and yet changing still seems an impossible task. The storm seems to grow closer, held inside of his ribcage as the shame begins to vanish. All that’s left is him and Atsumu and the brutally honest truth that is the mirror held to Sakusa’s face.
Atsumu cups his cheek, finally making Sakusa meet his eyes. “Kiyoomi, you can do anything. What do you want to change? You gotta work to create the self you wanna see— and I can’t do that. That starts with you.”
“You think so?” Sakusa says, Sakusa whispers, Sakusa rasps. He can feel the pain and pressure begin to retract, leaving him to swell in the space where anxiety once was.
Swiping his thumb under Sakusa’s eye, Atsumu smiles. “‘Course I do. If there's somethin’ you want, then take it. I know you can do that.”
And with a deep breath, Sakusa falls into Atsumu. Too long has he refused to indulge in beauty, in the ballerina inside of him, in the Other. Too long has he held himself back from his own metamorphosis. Sakusa leans in, presses their lips together, and takes.
—
Sakusa looks in the mirror and prods at his face. His too-short fingernails painted pink. His lips, half parted, coated with a deep red stain. Curls held back with pins, a soft cotton sundress stretched over his shoulders. He looks at his own reflection and chances a smile at the figure standing behind him, makeup still smudged across his hands.
“Do you like it? Does it feel better?” Atsumu asks. “M’not good with this stuff. Your eyeliner is a little smudged. Sunarin would be much more help.”
Sakusa hums, running his own fingers through his hair. The eyeliner isn’t bad— messy, but soft. “It’s… different,” he says, cautious in his tone. But his entire body feels light, and Sakusa can’t help but crack the barest hint of a smile at the version of himself staring back at him. “I like it.”
Cotton rubs soft against Sakusa’s sides as he turns around in his chair, reaching up to grab Atsumu’s hands. “Yeah?” Atsumu asks, and the warmth spreads from Sakusa’s heart to his fingertips and farther still.
“Yeah,” Sakusa replies, and grins just left of centre.
—