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When the first petals come, Kourai isn't surprised.
Bright gold and orange flow out from his mouth and there’s a sun in his sink. He scoops them all into a garbage bag and drains the water. He reaches for his toothbrush. There’s barely any toothpaste left; he will have to drop by the konbini after practice.
Before leaving, he texts Sachirou with more exclamation marks than needed to confirm that this is not going to kill him or, worse, affect his performance. There’s an Olympics on the horizon for god’s sake.
But he has seen this coming. He has seen this coming from a mile away on the day when he swallowed at the sight of Miya Atsumu pulling off his signature set, with his torso straight his hips steady his quadriceps bulging, and felt his heart sink a little when it was Hinata Shouyou who spiked it home.
That explains the sunflowers.
Kourai puts on his jacket and heads towards the door. If he aims his spikes at Miya Atsumu's face during the National Team training session today, it's not his fault.
---
They started out less like friends and more like mortal enemies.
“You scrub, how did you miss that set?” Atsumu growled, his face a crumpled piece of newspaper.
It was Kourai’s first All-Japan Youth training camp, and everything was new and shiny. The Ajinomoto Training Centre was brightly lit, the court was linoleum and not wooden boards, his fellow players jumped high and spiked hard, and Kourai thought he could fly. It was everything he had dreamt about.
Everything but Miya Atsumu and his straw-like hair, incendiary attitudes, and punchable smirks.
The set was good, Kourai grudgingly admitted. But it was a set meant for someone else. The tempo was off. The height couldn’t meet his jump. If Miya was as great a setter as he claimed to be, he should have seen it coming.
“You arsehole, who are you calling a scrub?” Kourai almost bellowed. “That wasn’t my fault.” Wasn’t just his fault. “Your set was bad.” It wasn’t, but it wasn’t good for Kourai either.
“Bad?” Atsumu matched Kourai’s volume, his eyes wide with indignation. “Whose set was bad you little —?”
Kourai could have lunged at him right there and then if he wasn’t raised by his mum and the coaches hadn’t looked their way.
Atsumu lowered his voice and it took on a dark timbre. “If you think you are too good for my sets then fucking prove it, scrub.”
A threat. A challenge. Kourai’s language. Now they were talking. Oh just you wait, cocky bastard with the Kansai accent, Hoshiumi Kourai would show him how to conquer the world.
Their team won all the practice matches that day. The next day, Miya’s sets were perfect for Kourai.
---
"You can't cure it by murdering him, Kourai-kun," Sachirou sounds a bit amused. Kourai chalks it up to the crackling noise on his phone. He's dying here, so Sachirou can't be laughing.
"You are not dying. It’s not deadly,” Sachirou puts enough emphasis on the not’s to override the phone static. Kourai sighs louder than he intended.
"Are you sure?"
"I may not be a human doctor, but I do know a bit about human diseases. Treat it like a cold."
But it's not like a cold. A cold doesn't make you cough up flowers as big as a saucer when you reads Miya's interviews on the monthly magazine. Nor does it make your stomach coil up when Miya high fives Hinata, your lungs contract when you hear "Shouyou-kun" in all kinds of intonation coming from Miya's mouth, your heart drop to the bottom of the ocean and languish there when Miya gazes at Hinata's spiking form. A cold doesn't not have a cure and doesn't last weeks and months and years and maybe a lifetime.
"It will pass," Sachirou continues to read his sighs and whines in the way only Sachirou can.
"Are you sure sure?"
"Just give it time," Sachirou really laughs, and Kourai hears nostalgia. It’s the “been there, done that, it’s not that bad” kind of laugh tinted with sadness so fond that it hurts. The kind of laugh awash with feelings of youth lost to time.
"Have you ever had it?” He can’t quite believe that there’s something about Sachirou he doesn’t know.
"Once upon a time, yes."
Kourai thinks there's sunset in Sachirou's voice. Gold turning into pink transitioning to purple. Two kids on their way back from school spending a few moments together in the last lights of the day.
There might be things Sachirou would never tell him.
---
Kourai almost died because of Miya Atsumu.
Adlers and MSBY ended up in Osaka for V.League, and Miya insisted that everyone came back to his hometown. Kourai was not the most enthusiastic, but his ears perked up when Miya mentioned Takeno beach.
The sea had never been a big part of Kourai's childhood, growing up in landlocked Nagano. His summers were devoted to volleyball, and no one sane would go on a family trip to the beach in winter. So he was very very very excited when they stepped onto white sand and infinite blue stretched out in front of them.
As they scattered about admiring the sea in their own ways, Kourai heard squawks loud enough to crack the sky. He looked up and saw clouds of white wings moving faster than the wind.
"Are those seagulls?" He wondered in amazement. He had ever only seen them in photos or on televisions, and nothing came close to seeing them in real life. There was a certain majesty to the way these seagulls carried themselves, all free all aloof on top of the wind. Their wings span the sky; their sounds threatened to drown out even the crashing waves. It was mesmerising.
But moments worth losing yourself in were always too short.
"Of course they are seagulls you doofus. Have you never seen them before? Your high school has "seagulls" in its name," Miya's voice immediately spoiled his mood.
"No. Have you seen a fox before?"
Kourai knew that it was a weak comeback. Foxes were more common here than seagulls in a landlocked prefecture. But, to his surprise and delight, Miya went still, and Kourai claimed the victory anyway.
Miya huffed while Kourai gloated. Then, rather suddenly, a smile appeared on Miya's face. He now looked a bit like his high school mascot, all ear-to-ear grin swallowing the eyes and just a bit on the wrong side of mischief. It should have been a warning.
"Do you want to call them down?"
"You can?" Kourai wouldn't mind seeing these grand creatures from up close.
"Yeah, just put some crisps in your hands. They are really friendly." He held out a bag of crisps.
In a fit of excitement, Kourai forgot who he was and who Miya Atsumu was and took the crisps and poured some into his hands.
A squawk tore the sky open, and faster than a blink of an eye, faster than a flap of the wings, Kourai stared death in the eyes.
If death was too many seagulls diving down from heavens aiming at him and the crisps in his hands.
How vicious these creatures were Kourai could have never fathomed. Their eyes were wide open, crazed with what was undoubtedly bloodlust. Their squawks in his ears sounded like the most horrible hymn heralding death's arrival. Their red-tipped yellow beaks came for him like arrows shot to kill, and Kourai was sure he was only 5 seconds away from meeting his maker.
A shriek escaped him but he didn't have the mind to be embarrassed. He threw the crisps as far away as he could before diving for cover behind Miya, who was doubled over in laughter. The seagulls attacked the crisps like they were live prey, the most horrifying, most ominous sounds coming from their beaks. Then, as if everything was just a nightmare, the mad birds ceased their assault and flew back to the sky.
It took Kourai a minute to gather himself and realise that he was still grabbing onto Miya's shirt. It took him another minute to register that Miya Atsumu almost fucking killed him.
"You almost fucking killed me," he half roared, half yelped.
"It's an experience every one should have once in their life," Miya sounded breathless from laughing too much. Kourai would have punched him if he wasn't still trying to gulf down air himself.
"I could have died," the thought of never seeing his mum again scared him.
"You haven't died yet," Miya wiped tears from his eyes.
"I could have died. Look at those monsters." Those ferocious, unhinged man-eating monsters.
"Who are you kidding, you are the fiercest seagull out there."
"Are you saying I'm a voracious crazy bird?" Kourai screeched, not unlike a seagull. Miya's insult might actually have improved.
"You freaking are! You fly head straight into volleyball without care, knowing that it's the harshest place for you to be. But you still do, because you are crazy, and tenacious, and hungry for those glorious moments when you look down at the rest of us from the sky because only you and your fellow crazy birds can fly that high."
Before he knew it Miya's insult wasn't an insult anymore.
Being appreciated in the most roundabout way by someone who had just planned your assassination brought about a strange feeling. It unnerved him, since Miya never really praised anyone. But it also pleased him, knowing that Miya valued his choice of pursuing volleyball for what it really was.
When he became pro, people either thought that it was inevitable, given how good he was, how big of a name he had made for himself in his last two years of high school, or that it was mad, he wouldn't be able to do it, high school was light years away from the professional circuit.
But here Miya was, acknowledging that Kourai's choice was, and always would be, difficult. Nonetheless, he knew Kourai could do it, because Kourai is crazy, and tenacious, and hungry, and the sky was his to rule.
Kourai didn't know what to do, so he dumped the rest of the crisps on Miya's head.
---
Wherever there are steps bathed in the gold and pink and purple of twilight, there are Kourai and Sachirou.
“How long does it last Sachirou?” Coughing up a field of sunflowers every other morning is getting irritating.
“I’m a vet, Kourai-kun. I’m not a relationship counsellor.”
“But you are my best friend.” And you have been here before, by yourself, your lungs a garden.
They might never talk about it, despite Kourai's confrontational nature. There are things that even the closet bonds should let lie. But, sometimes, when Kourai is painting the floor of his bedroom golden with the sunflowers in his lungs, he can't but wonder what kind of flowers sprang from Sachirou.
Sachirou laughs, but he doesn't answer. They stand in silence for a while, chasing the sunsets in their own thoughts.
“Have you told your mum?” Sachirou asks the one question Kourai doesn't want him to.
He flinches on instinct. “I don’t want her to worry.”
---
Love is not a word normally associated with Miya Atsumu, but love is all he ever does.
There’s love in the way he drops to his knees so that Kourai can spike the best possible set. Love is evident in how he spends hours in the gym just to perfect his serves, polish his skills. He speaks love when he snarls at hitters for missing his set; he screams love when hitters score and unbridled, unabashed pride glows on his face.
Love is in Miya’s eyes too when he brings the entire National Team to his twin's pop-up store in Tokyo. The brothers bickered for old times’ sake, for bonds unbreakable, and Kourai lets their love seep into his rice, his tea, his blood. Love brightens his face when he gushes at length about his high school captain, about memories that have already become habits. Love laces his squabbles with Ojiro-san, a love reciprocated in fake punches and faux slaps and a willingness to stick together, no matter how bad Miya can be for your blood pressure.
And the grin Miya wears when he sees Hinata in Japan red, the fist bumps they share, the laughs that shake both their bodies, the touches, the glances, the whispers under the sun. They must be love too. The same kind of love that makes sunflowers take roots in Kourai’s lungs and bloom in his mouth.
The sun is in his eyes. He spits out another yellow petal.
---
Mum calls, and Kourai tells her everything.
“Why don’t you tell him? You are a wonderful man. How could anyone turn you down?" Mum turns on her doting voice.
"He has someone else, mum." Life isn't fair, and unlike volleyball, there's no competing in love.
Mum sighs softly, and Kourai can feel the warmth of her embrace all the way from Nagano that has never left him. "Then at worst, he will reject you, and you can recover sooner that way.” Mum always knows best.
Kourai knows she's right. The sooner he recovers, the better it is for him, his health, his career, and probably the sanity of the everyone around him. But the thought of actively putting an end to this disease, this crush, this love, whatever you call it, doesn't sit right with him.
“Are you afraid?” mum simply asks. There isn't a hint of accusation in her voice, just infinite love and care for her youngest child.
Of Miya Atsumu? Never. He scowls at the mere suggestion. The sunflowers in his lungs murmur in agreement.
Of rejection? He's no stranger to rejection. For someone of his stature in his profession, rejection is a constant. He battles rejection everyday on the court, with every spike, serve, and receive. He knows rejection inside out.
“It’s just —," he thinks of Miya's infuriating grins when his serves go well. "I just —," he thinks of all the snarls imbued with impossible expectations because he wants, no, demands you to do better, to fly higher, all the way to the sky because that's where you belong, he knows you can do it and he will do everything to get you there, so it's on you to fly, and fly, and fly. And when you land, he's there to smile at you, so pleased, so proud, so passionate.
"I just want to hold on to this a little while longer,” he thinks of their quarrels, more catty than warranted, but there's familiarity in the way they claw at each other with bad names and bad words. There are the good moments too, when they complete a killer combo, when they stay back late to practice serve and receive, when they join forces to bring down Gao or annoy the hell out of Sakusa, when Miya tells him how he has to rise up to meet his sets, and he replies bring it on. He laughs at all the memories and at himself.
The sunflowers inside him sting a little, but he thinks he will be fine for a while longer.
---
When Atsumu wakes up in the middle of the night with his lungs and windpipes and throats and mouth dyed bright gold and orange, he knows who to blame.
In the dark he thumbs a woeful message to Osamu, before realising that it's midnight, and Osamu will either ignore him or ring him up to laugh in his face.
He rolls onto his back and curses the man with the seagull screech who has been receiving his serves perfectly day after day after day until his heart skips a beat whenever he sees him there, on the court, waiting with a smirk on his face.
But a smirk is nothing. On the court, a smirk is a challenge, a provocation, a declaration of war, something they wear always as their trademark, something too common, too ordinary.
And there's someone else Hoshiumi Kourai has waited for years, has declared to an entire gymnasium that he would wait, no matter how long it takes.
That explains the sunflowers.
Atsumu groans. Osamu will definitely absolutely laugh in his face.
He turns onto his side, trying to ignore the flowers growing in his lungs and the despair bubbling in his stomach.
If his serves hit Hoshiumi Kourai a little bit too hard during the National Team training session today, he’s not taking any responsibility.