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Atsumu thinks the catalyst is when Sakusa gives him a fork.
It happens at a ramen place downtown from the dorms, when the team goes out late one night in search of a potentially unhealthy amount of food. Meian smelled the noodles first and followed his nose, and the rest of the Jackals followed after.
They were seated around like normal. Sakusa somehow ended up beside him, and to his right was Hinata and Bokuto, folding the tissues provided on the stand at the center of the table. Atsumu thinks it’s funny how he and the Jackals look like sardines, all clumped together, but he doesn’t mind. He knows, however, that to some extent, Sakusa does, and so he scoots a little bit away from him but doesn’t address it directly.
Sakusa only mildly fidgets beside him. If he appreciates Atsumu’s gesture he doesn’t show.
The food arrives. When it does, Atsumu’s first instinct is always to check what everyone else got. He does it to know if he’s missed anything on the menu that he should try next time, but since it’s their first here—Ike, Tabemasu! the sign read—he mostly canvasses to see if anyone had deviated from their normal first-time options in favor of something more exotic to their personal tastes.
(It’s a habit he got from Osamu. Don’t ask.)
Atsumu finds that he’d gotten the same sesame soba as Shion, and hums in anticipation of the feedback he’s going to ask for, later. The team claps—a collective, boisterous itadakimasu —and they begin to eat.
Hinata and Bokuto are already happily chomping on their katsudons, seeming to find no problem in the wonky chopsticks the establishment provided. Atsumu doesn’t notice this particular detail, though, until he sees Shion take Tomas’ fork. Tomas was the only one with a fork, and he was halfway through his meal and dating Shion, so that didn’t really matter. Atsumu hears Tomas chuckle as he looks at his own soba.
I also need a fork.
He cringes at the way his chair begins to creak when he pushes it backward to stand, but then the need to leave bubbles away when he sees something shiny in his peripheral, and hears a short grunt and it’s Sakusa, offering him his fork. Atsumu’s first thought is, ‘Oh, he had a fork, too,’ and it’s not followed by much else when it dawns on him what’s happening, and all he can seem to find the capacity to do is blink at the pointy thing.
Sakusa doesn’t like waiting. And even if he secretly did, Atsumu wasn’t going to risk anything, so he utters (unconsciously) a soft Oh, and takes it. After a beat, he mumbles, “Thank you.”
In the back of his mind, Atsumu is vividly aware of the implications of what had just transpired.
Sakusa had been watching Shion and Tomas, too. Or at least saw them; they were seated pretty close—and then he’d given Atsumu his utensil right after. It was a mirroring of the small event—the tiny, affectionate gesture of letting your loved one live with a little more convenience—and Sakusa had done it for Atsumu. Atsumu, whose name he had never once called.
Mindlessly, he finishes the soba and walks home with everyone else. He doesn’t even remember if he’s paid, when finally he lies down after a shower and stares at his dorm room ceiling.
Sakusa isn’t fond of much. He’s irritable and quick to disappoint, but for all of his disgusted sighs and exasperated side-eyeing, Atsumu knew that Sakusa didn’t hate him either. They just didn’t like the same things, so there was never much to talk about. Thus, they communicated by feeling: tip-toeing along the lines of each other’s threshold—How far can I get without doing something drastic?
Atsumu had done a great deal of things which he considers drastic. He’d slapped Sakusa on the arm once, for laughing too hard, and had withdrawn it just as quickly as realization hit. A vocal apology was never needed, but he always minded those things and maybe to Sakusa, that remorse was enough. He’d looked at him too long once, too; Sakusa had caught him staring. The dark-haired man never looks away first.
Sakusa expresses affections sparingly; though Atsumu’s side had been victim once to Sakusa’s idle massaging: circular patterns traced onto his shirt, where his body and Sakusa’s hand met. It helped no one that his arm went around his back in a lightly protective gesture, barely touching Atsumu, but branding itself onto his skin anyway. Atsumu had never questioned it, or dared to bring it up. It was just a thing—one that didn’t go beyond his threshold, and so he let it slide.
But the fork. The blatant, blasphemous reference to something vaguely romantic, almost too close to fond. What was Sakusa thinking?
There’s a knock on the door that jolts Atsumu from his thoughts, and the images of the past few days fly haphazardly into the back door of his mind.
He opens the entrance to his living space and comes face-to-face with Sakusa Kiyoomi.
“Miya,” he says very plainly, and Atsumu emits a half-hum, half-grunt in response. He doesn’t watch Sakusa’s face nor take in the obvious hunch of his shoulders, but he feels it, and immediately feels a little bad. Whatever had prompted him to come here had definitely been a good reason, although Atsumu would never have questioned it either way.
“Come in,” he says almost immediately. Accommodating instead of desperate; the answer not only to a question, but an unspoken exchange.
What happened?
(Something bad, probably.)
Are you okay?
(The obvious answer is ‘no.’)
Why are you here?
(Sakusa never would have answered that.)
Atsumu closes the door swiftly and dashes to make a nest in his mess of a bed for his visitor; because if by chance he came for comfort, it would be nothing short of solace to have someplace and simply share it with another. He’d sleep and Atsumu would either stay up, or commandeer the couch. Compromise had always been their thing, and this wasn’t beyond Atsumu’s threshold level yet. He doesn’t talk—just moves—and Sakusa does not engage with him.
Only when he is nestled comfortably in Atsumu’s meticulously arranged sheets does Sakusa shoot a hand out to grab him.
“What’s up?” Atsumu says. Sakusa doesn’t reply or face him, but there is a barely-there tug on Atsumu’s wrist and so he complies and lays down next to him. It’s not a foreign practice to the two of them, or a foreign practice at all, within the MSBY Black Jackals. Everyone is close, confident in themselves, and trusting of each other. There have often been days where they all camped out in Barnes’ room, and slept like fish in a bucket.
Atsumu folds himself over Sakusa’s back like complementary sashimi, served to them at Ike, Tabemasu! The chin he rests on Sakusa’s shoulder is as apprehensive as the arm he slithers over his waist, and he freezes a while before bringing himself to settle, gauging if it is okay to be relaxed. Atsumu and the rest of the Jackals cuddled, but with them he didn’t have to tread.
“Omi,” Atsumu mumbles onto the back of Sakusa’s neck. It serves no purpose except the vocal confirmation of another conscious presence; carefully made not to sound as though a whisper. Atsumu is mindful of Sakusa’s threshold the way Sakusa did not need to be.
He doesn’t expect an answer, so he closes his eyes in favor of sleep. Atsumu doesn’t really believe he’ll get any, but if his thoughts weigh heavily on him enough then he might just get tired.
It takes a total of fifteen minutes for Atsumu to find out he will not be visited by sleep tonight.
“Omae,” Sakusa says without venom, his words muffled on the pillow his face is mashed into. Atsumu snaps awake. “Sorry for intruding.”
Sakusa’s curls don’t move except by the wind from Atsumu’s breathing. It makes Atsumu feel naked, suddenly. He shrinks back and moves so that he isn’t touching Sakusa, and then turns his back to him. “S’fine,” he says, just as Sakusa wrinkles the sheets, and leaves an indentation in the shape of his body on the other side of the bed. He moves into Atsumu’s space and holds him without permission. Atsumu will take advantage of it just this once, and he huffs, feigning amusement.
“I was detached from ya fer two seconds, Omi-omi.”
Silence—just enough for Atsumu to nearly fall asleep again. His back, against Sakusa, is warm—and curls tickle his face. Sakusa nuzzles into his neck chastely, and whispers.
A violent tingle racks Atsumu’s body from his nape down to his tailbone. Sakusa feels it too, but doesn’t comment on it, opting instead to hold Atsumu closer as he blinks at the implication of his words—less an implication and more a truth; hidden where he knows only Atsumu can find it. If he does, Sakusa doesn’t know, because Atsumu makes no move to acknowledge his admission.
“Did you hear what I said?” is answered with a lazy, low hum. “If you didn’t hear that, I’m not repeating it.”