Work Text:
There will be a time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.
i.
Sharing the walkway with Atsumu has always been a pain in the ass: his gait is laughably uneven, the length of his stride varies with each step, and he crisscrosses around the pavement with little regard to those around him, rarely pulling his eyes away from the ground directly in front of him. Osamu gave up on trying to match his pace years ago, choosing instead to walk alongside another friend or classmate or simply by himself, allowing Atsumu to race ahead or fall behind as he pleases. There was no regularity to his steps, no discernable pattern or cadence, no explicit explanation as to why he insists on walking so strangely: and so Osamu stopped paying attention to it and chalked it up to being just another one of his brother’s bizarre quirks that he’d never fully understand.
So, of course, it’s Kita who figures it out within a mere month of post-practice journeys, walking with the twins and occasionally Aran or Ginjima in the direction of rapidly-receding sunlight. The treetops turn golden as the sun dips towards the hazy boundary between sky and sea, and Atsumu’s elongated shadow sways erratically on the sidewalk in front of Kita, Aran, and Osamu, their eyes squinting against the day’s blinding farewell as they trek further west through the city, and Kita says “Ah.”
Aran, who had been regaling his walking companions with a lively retelling of an unfortunate incident involving Suna’s pathetic attempt at speaking in a British accent, pauses and turns his gaze onto Kita. “‘Ah,’ what?”
In front of them, Atsumu hops from one foot to the other, his silhouette shrinking even further as the distance between himself and his teammates grows. Kita raises his chin slightly to gesture towards Atsumu and then points at the sidewalk in front of them: “He’s avoiding the cracks in the pavement. That’s why he walks like that.”
Aran and Osamu share a look of confusion, and Kita laughs softly through his nose at their apparent perplexity. “Neither of you have ever heard that expression before? ‘Step on a crack, and you break your mother’s back’?” He’s met with two blank stares. “It’s a superstition. People will try to avoid cracks in the sidewalk because they’re worried that their mother will end up with a broken back if they step on one. It’s just an old wives’ tale, I suppose.”
Aran’s eyes grow comically wide as he looks down towards his feet, frantically moving his sneakers away from a small fissure in the aged and sun-bleached cement. Osamu continues staring blankly at Kita. “That doesn’t make any sense, Kita-san.”
Kita hums thoughtfully. He’s never been one for superstitions. His feet move assuredly over the asphalt, unconcerned with cracks and crevices, steps only slowing to retrieve stray pieces of litter that sometimes flutter into his path. “I don’t think it needs to make sense. At least not practically or scientifically. It just has to make sense to the person who believes in it.”
Osamu still doesn’t look entirely convinced - but he’s too tired to argue, and Atsumu’s receding back is no longer visible, so he shrugs and continues walking ahead. Aran keeps his eyes downcast, moving gingerly around each rift in the asphalt until they all part ways. The last few remaining shreds of sunlight peek out over the horizon, drenching wispy clouds in deep shades of pink, and the boys say their goodbyes under the flickering hum of street lamps coming alive.
Nearly half a mile ahead of them, Atsumu’s eyes remain glued to the ground as his toes find purchase in the unbroken and unfractured sections of the sidewalk. His shadow dances on the cement behind him, arrhythmic and unpredictable, melting into the Earth as the daylight disappears.
Maybe he’s looking too hard for indications of superstitious behavior, but Kita thinks he can see it in just about everything Atsumu does.
Kita has never been a superstitious person: that’s not to say he doesn’t believe in luck or chance or coincidence, but he thinks those things have more to do with fortunate timing than anything supernatural or omnipotent. He’s never avoided black cats or ladders, or tossed salt over his left shoulder after knocking over the salt shaker during a meal, or made a wish at exactly 11:11. Luck is created by oneself, cultivated by a series of smart moves, and capitalized on when the moment is right. Kita never goes out of his way to appeal to acts of god: if something is meant to happen, then it will.
Atsumu doesn’t appear to share in this line of thinking. Atsumu knocks on wood and invests in shatter-proof mirrors; he reaches for abandoned pennies on the floors of shops and walkways and gleefully pockets the ones facing heads-up, resolutely ignores the ones facing tails-up. When Osamu opens an umbrella indoors to aid in making his Mary Poppins impression feel “more authentic,” Atsumu almost has a stroke (Kita almost has a stroke, too - primarily because Suna tries to cajole Osamu into leaping off the top bleacher with the umbrella open because “it worked when they did it in the movie!”, but still-).
And it’s not just the well-known wives’ tales that Atsumu abides by. Kita counts five perfectly-spaced smacks of the ball against the court before every one of Atsumu’s serves: if he’s interrupted or one of the bounces feels wrong, he starts over. He always puts on his left shoe before his right and never ever double-knots his laces because the one time he did, his first serve went straight into the net. Atsumu has one reusable water bottle that he only uses at practices and another water bottle exclusive to tournaments. Before matches, he chews two sticks of watermelon-flavored bubblegum because the last time he did that, he scored three service aces in a row.
Kita is not a superstitious person. He places trust in his skills, and he puts trust in his teammates - nothing else is required beyond that. Part of him wants to ask Atsumu if he knows that the only thing he needs to achieve success is himself and five other players on the court; part of him wants to let Atsumu figure that out on his own. Kita is not a superstitious person, and he doesn’t understand why Atsumu is - but he doesn’t push the issue.
Every time Kita thinks he’s figured out all of Atsumu’s rituals, he discovers a new one: Atsumu doesn’t tone his bleached hair because the one time he used toner, he missed two quick sets during a practice match the following day. On nights before a game, Atsumu watches the Japanese dubbed-over version of Parent Trap because he’s pretty sure it gives him eight full hours of dreamless sleep. At the last Inter-High Tournament, Atsumu had worn the same pair of dirty socks for every match of the tournament because he didn’t want to risk breaking their winning streak.
The socks are the last straw.
Kita is not a superstitious person: he knows that there is no correlation between the socks on his feet and the outcome of a match and knows that the flavor of gum he chews bears no consequence on how well he plays that day. And when Kita asks Atsumu if he understands that luck is nothing more than the product of hard work and fortunate timing, if he knows that the way he ties his shoes doesn’t factor into a match’s final score, Atsumu’s eyes grow tight around the corners. Kita waits patiently as Atsumu chews the inside of his cheek, opens his mouth to explain, and closes it back when he can’t find the words. They sit and stare at one another, and finally, Atsumu shrugs, unable to give him an answer. A hand reaches out to gently ruffle the bleached strands atop Atsumu’s head, and Atsumu is grateful that at this moment, Kita can accept his silence.
Kita is not a superstitious person, but Atsumu is. For now, that will have to be good enough for both of them.
The small hand on the other side of the net reaches up to block the spike, and as the ball falls onto Inzarizaki’s side of the court, Atsumu wonders if maybe he’d forgotten something:
He’d watched Parent Trap. He’d bounced the ball five times before each serve. He’d chewed two sticks of watermelon flavored gum - the ball thuds against their side of the court not with a bang but with a whimper - he’d brought the right water bottle. He’d worn his lucky socks - Karasuno’s point total ticks up once, making the final score 30-32 - and he’d put on his left shoe before his right.
The whistle blows once, twice - and the match is over. He hadn’t forgotten anything; yet, the team on the opposite court gets to play another game, and Atsumu doesn’t. He hadn’t forgotten anything, hadn’t forsaken any of the rituals so dear to him, hadn’t left an opening for bad luck to stick its unwelcome foot through the door and let itself in: and next to him, Aran heaves a shaking breath, Akagi blinks back unshed tears, Omimi buries his face in his hands, Kita closes his eyes and lets out a sigh, and none of it makes any sense.
He hadn’t forgotten anything - so what happened?
Sweat glistens on the court beneath where Hinata Shouyou stands, the beads of perspiration carving riverbeds from his hairline to the softened angle of his jaw before gravity delivers them to the earth below. Obnoxious orange hair plasters itself to his sweat-slicked forehead, and his eyes haven’t lost their hyper-focused glimmer, as though his on-switch is still activated like he’s still ready for the next play. Hinata Shouyou’s exhaustion is evident to anyone as the blinding lights of the arena catch the high flush of his cheeks: and yet he looks like he’s hungry to play a fourth set, just for the hell of it.
Miya Atsumu is a creature of habit. He finds good fortune tucked away in places no one ever thinks to look, saves these fragments of favorability for when he needs them most. He believes that his own two hands are capable of crafting marvels that can bring his team to victory: but for the moments where he falls short, he summons the good luck he stashed in hiding places and cultivates miracles.
Atsumu is a creature of habit. Sure, he tries new things when the pressure is on, and he pulls off gutsy plays without a second thought - but if Atsumu is a creature of habit, then Hinata is an agent of chaos. Atsumu can tell from here that for Hinata, there are no pre-game rituals executed religiously, no neurotic hard-to-break habits, no watermelon gum or forbidden double-knotted shoelaces: to Hinata, there’s only the split-second between his feet leaving the ground and the ball whizzing past his opponent to score the point - nothing matters but that fraction of a second.
And isn’t that sort of spectacular? That Atsumu spends his every spare moment siphoning good luck from heads-up-facing pennies and knuckles rapped against hollow wood? That he walks with his chin tucked into his chest because god forbid his foot pass over rifted concrete? That while Atsumu clings to every last thing he has control over, piecing together miracles with lucky pennies and trembling fingers, Hinata Shouyou laughs at the idea of gravity and creates opportunities from absurdities?
Atsumu can tell that Hinata Shouyou doesn’t believe in miracles, and it terrifies him. Hinata Shouyou never bounces the ball the same way twice before he serves, and it makes Atsumu’s skin feel like it might break out in hives. “Shouyou-kun.”
Hinata meets Atsumu’s gaze, amber eyes still glassy and keyed-up. Hinata Shouyou doesn’t think about which socks are luckiest to wear in a match, doesn’t chew gum he hates the taste of just to get a service ace, doesn’t dance along the busted sidewalks of Miyagi with his heart in his throat. Atsumu feels dizzy as he points a long finger right between Hinata’s eyes.
“I’m gonna toss to ya one of these days.”
For I have known them all already, known them all-
Have known the evenings, morning, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
So how should I presume?
ii.
February thaws into March as melting snow trickles down sloping rooftops and coalesces into frigid puddles in front of doorways. Powdery fresh snow has long since stopped floating down from the clouds, and the plush and pure snowbanks have transformed into a dirty gray slush that blankets the sidewalks of Hyogo. Kita suppresses a shudder as a water droplet rolls off of the roof above and catches him between his collar and the back of his neck and slides down his spine. “‘guess I thought maybe ya were done with this ‘ole sidewalk thing.”
In front of him, Atsumu struggles to see the sidewalk’s features beneath the blackening winter sludge. Finally, he finds a section of the walkway that he deems acceptable and swings his right leg forward in a lengthy stride. “What made ya think that?”
It’s just the two of them today, and Kita has made a considerable effort to match Atsumu’s pace. Usually, Atsumu is rather adept at managing to avoid all of the cracks in the sidewalk: but since the snowmelt is obscuring much of the ground, it’s taken them far longer than usual to walk this distance. Atsumu prepares himself for another massive step and nearly collides with a woman walking from the opposite direction, and Kita sighs somewhat regretfully. He had wanted to spend extra time with all of his juniors before he graduates in less than a month - but Atsumu, as per usual, was testing his patience. “I s’pose maybe I thought losin’ would change somethin’ for ya.” Atsumu stops moving, but his gaze continues searching for his next foothold. Kita waits patiently.
Maybe he can’t find the right spot to step, because he brings his hand up to scratch the back of his neck in frustration. “Ya know, winter’s my favorite time for walkin’ home. I really prefer it immediately after fresh snow.”
Kita realizes that they’re across the street from a park, so he heads to the crosswalk, Atsumu following closely behind with two huge strides. Kita leads them to a cold and wet metal bench, plopping onto it with a grimace. “Why’s that?”
“‘Cause I don’t have to look as hard.” He tips his head back to look at the endless gray sky above them, ears and nose red from the chill. “Can’t see any cracks when there’s a layer of snow covering the entire street. Feels like I can actually look forward for once.”
Kita hums and lets the silence linger for a while longer. The sun is low in the sky at this point, but the cloud cover is thick enough to dilute the typically brilliant colors of the setting sun into a sickly yellow. “But there’s still cracks under the snow. Just ‘cause ya don’t see ‘em doesn’t mean they’re not there.”
Atsumu’s eyes squeeze shut. “I know.”
“And there’s cracks underneath the sidewalk, too. There are cracks in the cement foundations under buildings. There are cracks in the Earth’s crust.” He pauses and laughs, just a small huff of air through his nose. “Hell, I mean, Japan is literally on a crack in the Earth’s crust. ‘S’why we get so many earthquakes.” Beside him, Atsumu’s eyes haven’t opened yet, and Kita is a little worried he might be pushing this too far - but he feels like he has to keep going. “Point is: where do ya draw the line? ‘Cause it sounds to me like yer already making up rules for yerself.”
Atsumu doesn’t say anything for a while. The silence stretches and stretches, the sky shifting from sickly yellow to darkening purple, the street lights flickering to life and filling the silence with the hum of fluorescence when Atsumu finally says, “I don’t think it’s quite that easy, Kita-san.”
Atsumu feels something warm on his shoulder and opens his eyes to the steady and dependable hand of his captain squeezing his arm and looking at him with eyes that are both pitiful and proud, and he’s afraid he might cry. Kita squeezes harder and offers him a wobbly smile. “Never said it was.”
They part beneath the interminable buzz of a city streetlight. Atsumu keeps his chin tucked to his chest and toes his way around the split cement that leads away from the heart of town and towards his neighborhood. The crisp night air blows sharply in his ears as he climbs the steady incline of streets he knows like the back of his hand, breath materializing in clouds in front of him before vanishing into nothing. He tilts his head skyward to marvel at the heavens and is surprised to see that there is no moon tonight. There is no moon tonight, and Atsumu realizes that this is a problem when he reaches the incline’s crest where the city turns to the suburb, where there are no street lamps to guide him home.
There are no street lamps, there is no moon, and the stars are shrouded by foggy gray clouds that dilute their shine, and Atsumu can’t see the ground beneath him. His pulse thunders in his ears. What if, what if, what if. There’s about half-a-mile’s worth of sidewalk between where he stands rooted to the ground and his home, where his mother waits for him with an unbroken backbone. What if, what if, what if.
Just ‘cause ya don’t see ‘em doesn’t mean they’re not there.
Atsumu runs home at a dead sprint; he doesn’t look down at the ground once.
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.
iii.
For all of Atsumu’s reliance on good luck, he doesn’t believe in magic - but sometimes, when he’s desperate, Atsumu wastes a lucky penny on a wish.
He’s done it since he was young: in a fit of selfishness or spite, he’d find a penny in a doorway or hidden under a couch cushion, and rather than save it for a rainy day, he’d ask the higher-ups for something meant for him and him alone. The guilt would always eat away at him, and still does, the knowledge that he’d taken one of the few scraps of fortune that graciously fall in his lap and used it on a wish of his own rather than using it to help his team earn victories - but it can’t be helped.
It’s been happening more and more since moving away from home and joining the V League, when, arguably, he should be accumulating luck rather than wasting it on stupid wishes that have no chance of coming to fruition - but it can’t be helped. He walks out of a store and onto the street, his eye catching the heads-up penny glinting in the afternoon sun, leans down to pick it up, his mind racing ahead and wishing that Osamu wasn’t so bad at keeping promises.
And it’s a stupid wish because Osamu is happy with his life and Atsumu might be selfish but not selfish enough to drag his twin back into his orbit, not enough to ask that they both self-destruct, continue this parasitic symbiosis, rather than learn to exist as self-determining stars in separate solar systems. But he makes the wish anyway because there’s a chunk of himself missing, because the cracks on the sidewalk look an awful lot like the chinks in his armor, because Osamu never actually promised him that he’d be by his side forever, and Atsumu never expected him to: he’d thought it was just a given, something that would be true even if never spoken aloud.
Part of him wants to let go of the penny, pretend like the thought never crossed his mind to begin with: but the thin copper is already caught between his thumb and forefinger, already slipping into his pocket, burning against the outside of his thigh like a dirty secret.
He resents the penny, and he resents the wish, and he resents Osamu, but it can’t be helped because he’s alone, and he hasn’t been alone since he came into the world 56 minutes before Osamu did, and it makes him dizzy.
Indebtedness is not a feeling many people are fond of, Atsumu included. Maybe growing up with a brother like Osamu, who kept a literal ledger of something he called ‘Atsumu expenses,’ had tainted his opinion towards the idea of owing someone. As such, Atsumu has only ever genuinely asked Sakusa (who probably also keeps a ledger) for a favor twice: the first had been to take Atsumu to the airport at 4:00 in the morning for a 6:00 A.M. flight (Sakusa agreed on the condition that Atsumu grant Sakusa complete and total control over his Twitter account for three (3) entire days. Had Atsumu known what the outcome of this deal would be, he would have happily walked to the airport rather than ask Sakusa to drive); the second had been to switch jersey numbers with him.
“Why the hell do you want to switch numbers?”
Dropping his forehead to his hands, Atsumu sighs once more. He’d already gone over this with his other teammates, but no one had been willing to budge. Some coaches for other teams in the league allowed first-string players to pick their jersey number, but generally speaking, numbers were randomly assigned to players. Coach Foster’s players draw numbers from a hat each season to keep it purely based on chance. While the expectation was that players stuck with the number they initially drew, he’d allow a player to change their jersey number if another player was willing to swap. Atsumu had already tried asking every other player on the team, but none of them thought it was really worth the trouble: Sakusa was, disturbingly, Atsumu’s last hope. “Because,” he says through clenched teeth, “13 is a very unlucky number.”
Sakusa’s face is a mixture of amused and disgusted when he finally turns to look at Atsumu. “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“It’s not dumb; everyone knows 13 is a cursed number!”
When Sakusa crosses his arms and squints, Atsumu is pretty sure his plan is dead in the water. “So what, you want to give me your stupid cursed number and steal mine? That’s a dick move, even for you.”
Atsumu shouts over him: “It’s not stealing if you agree to swap, dumbshit!” Behind him, Meian clears his throat as a subtle warning. Atsumu decides to cut his losses and shoves his #13 jersey into the very back of his locker. Sakusa smirks as he leaves the locker room because he’s an immature dickhead.
Atsumu flips him off because he’s also an immature dickhead.
The sidewalks in Hyogo were never well-maintained. Newly-laid asphalt only exhibits its near-perfect smoothness for so long before being trampled beneath leather-toed loafers and knifelike stilettos. Summer spins towering black storm clouds from the oppressive humidity and then drowns the parched earth with bottomless gallons of rain. Rivers of raindrops infiltrate the minuscule gaps in the cement and build homes there, creating tiny oceans in the crevices as millions of pairs of shoes pass overhead, blissfully unaware of the new life that seeps into the ground. Winter exhales its icy breath over empty streets at daybreak, chills the forgotten rain of summer, and freezes it solid: and when the ice melts, the gap it once filled is just the smallest bit wider.
This daily cycle of freeze and thaw, taking place year after year, turns razor-thin fissures into gaping chasms, births concrete canyons from unmarred asphalt: and soon enough, the picturesque smoothness of fresh cement is a memory from decades ago, and the sidewalk is adorned in a mosaic of cracks and crevices. Mayors and businessmen rub their chins and scratch their heads, pull at their pockets to see if the town can spare a dime or two to nurse the pavement back to health: but no one wants to waste time trying to cure an affliction that will return before the year is over.
The sidewalks in Osaka aren’t any better, much to Atsumu’s dismay. The mayors and businessmen here have spare change to spend on replacing a few slabs of concrete here and there, but it’s no time at all before the loving soles of a million pairs of shoes have chipped away at its perfection. There are more people to bump into in Osaka, as well. In Hyogo, Atsumu could walk miles and miles without ever lifting his gaze from his shoes and never pass a single person; in Osaka, the streets are brimming with people at every hour of the day. Atsumu has stumbled into more pedestrians than he’s willing to count, and his neck aches from ceaselessly raising his eyes and lowering them back down.
He has no walking companions here in Osaka: in the beginning, both Meian and Bokuto had tried convincing Atsumu to walk with them to the subway station, but Atsumu only waved them off and said he wanted to get a few more jump serves in before heading out. He’s sure his teammates would understand his deal with the sidewalks, sure they wouldn’t point and laugh and ostracize him: but he’s never had to explain this to anyone before, and he’s not even sure what there is to explain in the first place, so he says nothing at all and waits for the locker room to empty and for the stars to come out before leaving the practice gym each evening.
Sometimes, when his eyes are glued to the ground, and he bumps into another pedestrian and loses his balance, his foot comes into contact with a crack- and he gets so scared that he worries his heart might get lodged in his throat. He walks the rest of the way home with clenched fists and quivering thighs, hears his knees knock together in the endless elevator ride to his floor, unlocks his apartment door on the fifth or sixth try, dials his mother’s phone number with trembling fingers, and doesn’t feel the knot in his stomach loosen until she picks up: Atsumu, sweetheart, I’m so glad ya called.
For all his irritation at Osamu’s oathbreaking, keeping promises has never been an easy feat for Atsumu. He hooks his pinky finger around someone else’s, crosses his heart and hopes to die, swears up and down: and sometimes, it just doesn’t pan out. Words and partially-formed commitments never build steady homes in the memory lobes of Atsumu’s addled brain; oaths dry up like puddles of rainwater on asphalt in the middle of July. It’s not that he makes promises with no intention of following through - it’s just that he’s mastered the art of forgetting things, perfected the craft of evading follow-throughs. Words painted onto a banner that hangs from the rafters of a high school gym remain etched in the forefront of Atsumu’s brain long after he’s walked across the graduation stage with a diploma in his hand: We don’t need memories.
He’s used to the accusations of flakiness, of purposeful deception, of pure and uninhibited selfishness. He’s well acquainted with silent treatments and looks of betrayal because a lot of the time, he’s done something to warrant that kind of behavior (like the time he’d forgotten about the grand opening of Osamu’s second restaurant and was on the receiving end of two weeks of radio silence; or the time he’d promised Sakusa that the living room would be clean when he returned from his short vacation; and so on, and so on). He didn’t void his promises out of malice or pettiness or anything else: he just forgot.
There were some promises Atsumu remembered, though: he’d promised Osamu he’d never forget his birthday; he’d promised his dentist that he’d always remember to floss; he’d promised Akaashi that he’d take care of Bokuto on the court.
There were some promises worth keeping: after all, he’d promised Hinata Shouyou that he’d toss for him someday.
When he walks home with Sakusa for the first time, it’s an accident. They’d stayed late to practice some more, and they both managed to completely lose track of time as they worked towards perfecting a specific attack. By the time Atsumu looks at his phone during a water break, it’s far past a reasonable hour to still be practicing. Still, Atsumu is nothing if not obstinate, so he tries to talk Sakusa into leaving ahead of him, making up some excuse about jump floaters - but Sakusa has his moments where he can’t help but show that he cares. Unfortunately for Atsumu, this is one of those moments. “I’m not leaving until you do, and if I’m not at my home, showered, and in bed within the next 60 minutes, I swear to everything holy I will make your life a living hell- .”
Atsumu holds his hands up in defeat. “Alright, Omi-omi, jeee sus. Didn’t know ya cared that much.”
Sakusa glares. “59 minutes.”
Outside, the evergreen mint of winter’s sharp breath tickles Atsumu’s nostrils as Sakusa locks the door behind them. They both travel from the same subway station, so they’re going to be walking in the same direction for quite a while, and Atsumu wishes he didn’t have to try this for the first time with Sakusa of all people. Atsumu has never had to explain this to anyone before, this whole thing with the sidewalk cracks and the cracked glass mirrors and the watermelon gum - so instead of explaining, he starts walking.
Sakusa is quietly perplexed at first. Atsumu’s steps are so horrendously uneven that Sakusa wonders if he’s limping and prepares to yell at him for not saying anything about being hurt - but then, Atsumu takes a leap across the cement, all the way from the back left corner of one slab to the upper right corner of another - and Sakusa stops walking and stares at Atsumu’s receding form. “What are you doing?”
There’s no judgment in his voice- just bewilderment. Atsumu pauses, balancing on one foot between two cracks, and looks for his next foothold. He finds it and slowly extends his right foot towards it, toes safely finding purchase in another region of faultless asphalt. Once his stance is stable, he turns to look at Sakusa, whose eyes seem concerned and whose downturned-mouth is concealed by his face mask. “I’m, uh. I don’t step on the cracks.” Sakusa’s increasingly mystified expression indicates that this statement hasn’t clarified anything. The neon ‘CLOSED’ sign drenches half of Atsumu’s face in hazy red, casts the other half in muted shadow, and Sakusa doesn’t see any signs of amusement in Atsumu’s lambent eyes in the moments before he casts them back down to look at his feet. “It’s- I guess it’s a superstition thing, ya know? I know it sounds crazy, but uh-.”
“It doesn’t sound crazy.”
Atsumu’s gaze snaps back up and zeroes in on Sakusa, searching for any signs of some mean-spirited curve of his mouth beneath the mask - and finds only something resembling empathy in his friend’s eyes. “No?”
Sakusa, who washes his hands upwards of 85 times per day, and who wears a mask at all times other than when he’s on the court or in his bed, and who hasn’t shaken hands with anyone since his mother’s funeral when he was six years old, and she’d died from the flu and who’s been called crazy more times than he can count, smiles and shakes his head. “No. I mean, it’s definitely weird, but-”
“Hey-!”
“ But, that doesn’t make you crazy,” he starts walking forward again, craning his neck to gaze at the few stars whose shine permeates the smog and light pollution. “Take it from someone who knows: there are some things that cling to you so tightly it seems like nothing could ever shake them off.”
He walks ahead of Atsumu, feet passing brazenly over fractured concrete, and Atsumu lets out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.
He stops haunting the gym for hours after practice ends. He’s still the last one out, sometimes, on days where he feels like the world is tilted wrong on its axis or like his lungs have started breathing carbon dioxide and have forsaken oxygen - but it’s no longer by his own design. He walks with Bokuto, with Sakusa, with Meian and Inunaki and Thomas and Barnes: and all of them cock their heads to the side in question, and Atsumu tries to give them some sort of an answer because years ago, Kita had asked him the same question and Atsumu couldn’t do anything more than shrug his shoulders. So he tells them that he collects good luck in jars like lightning bugs, that the #13 on his jersey itches against the skin of his back and burns his spine, and that he twirls himself dizzy when he walks through the streets because he’s afraid of the cracks in the sidewalk. And his teammates are kind, nodding and shrugging their shoulders and knowing better than to make a big deal out of it. They allow him to surge ahead or fall behind, not knowing how to fall into step with him, not knowing if the perfect sections of the sidewalk could handle more than one set of shoes at a time, anyhow.
They don’t understand it, but Atsumu doesn’t need them to because he doesn’t understand it, either.
And indeed there will be time
To wonder, ‘Do I dare?’ and, ‘Do I dare?’
I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.
iv.
The wishes are still wasteful, still pointless: but at least they’re no longer about Osamu.
Instead, Atsumu pockets lucky pennies and wishes for that nameless feeling again, that nauseating vertigo he’d felt as he craned his neck and watched a boy leap into the air, his grin sharp enough to draw blood. Atsumu has always taken care to plant his feet firmly, to let roots creep up his calves, cage his shins, tether him to the ground so that nothing can sweep him away; and yet Hinata Shouyou had pulled the rug from beneath Atsumu’s feet and sent him into a tailspin.
And it wasn’t the height of the jump or the ever-evolving quality of his receives or the way he believed that Tobio would give him the ball every single time that made Atsumu feel sick to his stomach. It wasn’t that 2 matches after theirs, Hinata collapsed in a heap, feverish and exhausted: instead, it was that Hinata didn’t believe in luck or miracles. Not in the same way Kita doesn’t believe in miracles, but in a way that dared the universe to underestimate him, dared the world to think for an instant that he couldn’t do the thing loved. Hinata Shouyou never leaped in the air and wondered what if?
Atsumu had been 17 years old, and he’d pointed his finger through the net and proclaimed that one day, he’d set the ball for Hinata Shouyou: and when he said it, he’d planned on making Hinata believe in miracles, making him see that the five bounces of the ball before the serve and the watermelon gum and the cracks in the sidewalk had a place in the universe alongside things like gravity. He’d felt weightless and angry, like the tether grounding him had been sliced in half by Hinata’s knifelike grin.
But now, at 21 years old, Atsumu wants to believe in something new, something other than the habitual behaviors he’d nestled deep into his bones, something different than the rituals he clung to like a wet shirt on skin: and when he finds lucky pennies in food courts and airport terminals, he wishes that maybe, just this once, he can make good on a promise.
When Hinata Shouyou walks through the doors leading into the Black Jackals’ practice gym for tryouts, Atsumu recalls that exercises in commitment have never been his strong suit. Indecision doesn’t make great friends with foresight: words with the weight of elephants make Atsumu’s tongue stick to the backs of his teeth, transform his voice into grains of sand in the hollow of his throat that demand to be coughed up or swallowed down, and both routes are guaranteed to burn.
Bokuto is on Shouyou in a flash, gathering him in his arms and swinging him around, wailing like he can’t believe Shouyou is here, and maybe he really can’t believe it because it doesn’t seem possible. Perhaps it’s nothing more than a mirage, a glimmer of something so impossible and so coveted it must only exist in the realm of blissful dreams - but Atsumu blinks and rubs at his eyes, and Shouyou hasn’t vanished into thin air, and for once he dares to hope.
For three years, Atsumu had bloomed under the watchful eyes of a banner rippling in the exhales of an air conditioner, and its painted words had been a comfort, a validation of his voracity, of his compulsion to move forward. Now, in the presence of something so unapologetically enduring in Atsumu’s mind, the words ring between his ears and feel more like an accusation: who needs memories?
Shouyou laughs at something Bokuto says, and his eyes catch Atsumu’s- and Atsumu swears there’s a glimmer of recognition in the moments before Shouyou’s face breaks into a ferocious grin. And Atsumu is terrible at keeping promises, and his memory is full of holes- but he’d found pennies lying face-up in the alley behind his apartment, and instead of rain checking this scrap of good luck, he’d closed his eyes and pondered the validity of miracles, had hoped that one would find its way to him and help him start filling the cracks in the concrete that he’d plastered onto his skin.
And maybe there was such a thing as a promise that didn’t need keeping; maybe there were oaths that fulfilled themselves without anyone holding up their end of the deal, words inevitable simply because they’d been said aloud. There exist promises etched in the genome of time and space, rooted in reality before reality exploded into being. Because nearly six and a half years ago, Atsumu had made a promise: Atsumu, whose indecision and apprehension is nothing more than the muscle memory guiding him along the unbroken pavement; Atsumu, whose pulse sings the bounce of the ball before his serve; Atsumu, whose measured his life in lucky pennies and black cats, in rituals and routines; Atsumu, who had pointed his shaking finger at a boy who was a miracle, a boy who didn’t believe in miracles, and promised him that he’d toss for him someday; Atsumu, six and a half years later, who is finally, inevitably, following through.
Maybe it shouldn’t be so surprising considering that Shouyou had synced up with Atsumu for a super-quick set within just a few weeks of practice: but somehow, Shouyou manages to match Atsumu’s pace and cadence as they walk towards the subway station after practice each night. He doesn’t comment on the awkward gait Atsumu adopts when he walks along walkways, choosing instead to mirror his movements or follow in his footsteps. It must look silly to the unlucky pedestrians who share their slices of pavement, this odd ritualistic tightrope dance through crosswalks and down flights of stairs and into half-empty train cars.
Not only does he match his pace, staying within a few meters of Atsumu the entire time, but he also talks his ear off from the moment they leave the gym. Atsumu hasn’t held a conversation while walking in years: he’d always ended up too far ahead or too far behind his friends to really contribute anything to the discussion, so he grew used to piecing together bits and pieces he’d heard clearly, learned how to love the unmarred silences a half a mile ahead of his brother. In the gym, he’d never broken eye contact with Shouyou, had laughed and joked with him the entire time - but once outside, Atsumu’s eyes never leave the ground in front of him. He speeds up and slows down without warning; he takes massive strides and then tip-toes; he shifts from the right side to the left side, an acrobat on a tightrope balancing above a pit of lions.
And maybe it shouldn’t be surprising given that Shouyou is something of an oddball himself, but Atsumu’s a little taken aback by the fact that Shouyou didn’t ask about the sidewalk a single time. He feels awkward bringing it up on his own terms, but it feels even worse to keep a lid on the matter altogether, so he blurts, “I sorta believe in the superstition about stepping on cracks. If yer curious about the whole uh. Sidewalk thing.”
Instead of bewilderment or overly reassuring platitudes, Shouyou brightens, the lightbulb in his head coming to life. “Ah! That makes sense. Thanks for telling me, Atsumu-san!” And that’s all there is to it because Shouyou is already spilling into another story, into another laugh, into another vertigo-inducing smile.
Atsumu’s not sure if he’s breathless from the simultaneous walking and talking or from something else entirely, but when he parts with Shouyou at the subway station, and he leaves the train car and meanders up the stairwell to the street, he thinks he feels it: that thing he was looking for. The tailspin into something that contains multitudes, something infinite, something endless.
His chest burns, and he feels like he might be sick, right then and there, on a cracked sidewalk in an empty block in a suburb just east of Osaka, and it’s both the best and worst he’s felt in years.
No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous-
Almost, at times, the Fool.
v.
The first time it happens, it’s a mistake: it had been the middle of a match against EJP Raijin, and Atsumu had just rotated to the backline. He’s bouncing the ball as he always does, focused and intense, one, two, three-
And Shouyou, whose lined up directly in front of him, laces his fingers behind his head. Atsumu pauses on the fourth bounce. Surely, Shouyou has done this a thousand times, this easy motion; surely, Atsumu has seen the sleeves of his jersey strain against the flex of his biceps, the bend of his shoulder; surely, Atsumu has watched those fingers find purchase in the valleys between his knuckles, tufts of orange hair peeking through the gaps. The whistle blows, and Atsumu doesn’t bounce the ball four, five - but launches the ball into the air, takes six purposeful and heavy steps, and delivers a service ace.
Shouyou’s fingers unlink as he turns a dazzling grin onto Atsumu, surging towards him to slap his hands in celebration, and Atsumu’s heart is beating a billion times per minute because for the first time since he was 15 years old, he’s forgone the ritual, jumped headfirst into the unknown- and come out unscathed.
He returns Shoutou’s smile and high-five, and it feels like he’s just broken character or blown his cover, like he’s undone a careful facade with nothing more than the absence of two bounces. He feels dizzy, but he thinks it might be the right kind of dizzy because the smile refuses to melt off of his face.
The second time it happens, it’s not an accident. And the third. And the fourth.
I am no prophet- and here’s no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
And in short, I was afraid.
vi.
Atsumu had always known it was a silly thing: it was clear to him that there was no logical basis for these superstitions. Osamu had never worked to avoid the cracks in the sidewalk, and yet when they walked through their front door after school each day, it was never to a mother with a broken back. Aran once picked up a penny facing tails-up, and his luck never turned sour. Suna had walked underneath a ladder on Friday the 13th during a full moon - and still, nothing.
Kita had asked Atsumu years ago why he believes in these silly superstitions, why he adheres to such foolish rituals when he knows his fears and anxieties have no foundation to rest upon. At the time, Atsumu hadn’t been able to give him an answer; even now, he doubts he could actually put words to the feeling that compels him to always, always bounce the ball five times before his serve, or to knock on wood so often that the default shade of his knuckles is red, or to chew a flavor of gum that he doesn’t even like before every match - but if he was pressed to provide his reasoning:
He’d probably blame it on the fact that he’s a worrier, that he’s cursed to always wonder what if? Because when Atsumu was ten years old, he’d walked across the outdoor basketball court with a classmate and stepped on a spot where the concrete had split apart, and his classmate had pointed his finger at the contact point between the earth and Atsumu’s shoe and joyfully informed him that his mother’s back was broken now. And when Atsumu had burst into confused tears, and his classmate ran away laughing, and when Osamu had come jogging over with a concerned look on his face, and when his teacher had knelt down in front of Atsumu and brushed the tears from his splotchy cheeks with kind and calloused thumbs and explained that everything was fine, it was just a superstition, Atsumu couldn’t help but worry and wonder: what if? What if everyone was wrong, and Atsumu’s careless footsteps resulted in his mother’s pain? What if everyone was wrong and something as minor as spilled salt caused Atsumu’s life to become one misfortune after another? What if he shrugged his shoulders and walked across ruptured cement like it had no consequence only to return home to a mother with a fractured spine?
Atsumu is a worrier: he knows that brief inattention and momentary distractions can catalyze calamity; ancient rocks in earth’s interior brush against one another, shift a few centimeters apart, and birth earthquakes that level entire civilizations. Every significant consequence in human history is precipitated by a series of small mistakes or mishaps, a culmination of arrogance or complacency that leads to tragedy. Atsumu wonders how many kings and leaders, aristocrats and working-class, men and women watched catastrophes play out before their very eyes and thought of all the things they could have done differently, wondering: what if?
His teacher had given him a shaky yet reassuring smile before rising from where he had knelt before Atsumu and calling out to the other children, becking them to form a single-file line and return to their classroom. And as the line of children funneled into the building, their melodious laughter filling the hallways, bright-eyes looking skyward - Atsumu’s eyes had glued themselves to the ground, suddenly incapable of carelessness, abruptly unwilling to make a mistake.
Right now, Atsumu’s neck strains from the angle he’s tilting it at, his head arching backward and upwards to lock his eyes not onto the ground but onto the ceiling. The overhead lights cast a halo around Shouyou’s airborne figure, the same way the moon eclipses the sun, and Atsumu’s breath catches in his throat. Splotches of megawatt light shine between the gaps in Shouyou’s outstretched fingers, the corona of the sun stretches its wily fingers towards every object caught in its orbit: and Atsumu is grateful that the sun learned to love every floating rock, every billion-ton Jovian giant, and every last speck of dust suspended in vacuous oblivion. Because even from billions and billions of miles away, he can feel the light on his face and feels in his very bones that it's meant for him and him alone.
As they step onto the subway car that same night, Atsumu spots a penny facing heads-up. He stares at the copper resting in his palm as Shouyou’s head drops onto his shoulder, eyes closed and half-asleep, his fiery hair burning against Atsumu’s jugular, and he wishes for something to stop him from flying off the edge, anything to disprove perpetual motion- because he’s infatuated with something intangible and vast and he’s terrified.
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?
And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
Would it have been worth while,
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it towards some overwhelming question-
vii.
It’s ultimately unsurprising that Atsumu would fall in love with something that defied every convention, something that he couldn’t puzzle out in a million lifetimes. He’s always been difficult, and since like attracts like, of course he’d find bliss in challenge, find peacefulness in turbulence, find love in the unfathomable. Hinata Shouyou breaks his brain, gleefully turning it to mush, and Atsumu lets him.
And maybe it was never that hard to convince Atsumu to become sacrilegious, to abandon the rituals he’d nestled just beneath his skin because he finds new traditions in privately loving Hinata Shouyou. When he forgets to grab the pack of watermelon gum out of his overnight bag, starts feeling the panic settle around the edges of his eyes, Shouyou offers him the piece of citrus-flavored gum he’s been chewing between his teeth. Atsumu is certain Sakusa will kill him later, but he doesn’t particularly care because Shouyou plucks the gum from his mouth without preface, places it gingerly in Atsumu’s palm. “I know it’s not the same, but it’s better than nothing!”
The gum tastes nothing like citrus on Atsumu’s tongue, and it’s the best game he’s played this entire season.
And sure, it was foolish to think that Atsumu is capable of doing anything quietly, of loving anything privately, because he’s always been the loud one on every team, in every class, and in every group of friends of strangers. His anger is loud, and his excitement is loud, and his love is the loudest of all if in actions instead of words. And he’d tried, really, he had, to keep this love from escaping the confines of his body, tried to cage it within his heart or his bones or his stomach or anywhere that had room to spare because this love seems to have no intention of slowing down, no plans to stop expanding and expanding. And so yes, it was foolish to think he’d be able to keep this love from permeating beyond his borders, because:
Coach Foster’s pencil taps the clipboard, announcing the names of the two new recruits who would be joining them officially in a week, and Atsumu thinks he might finally have a chance to change this godforsaken jersey number, and he says as much to Shouyou later that evening. He dances around the cracked sidewalk, and pushes down the realization that his footsteps have gotten sloppier, have become more daring in their proximity to split cement, his toes a curious onlooker who stands at the edge of a canyon, terrified and amazed- but pauses his forward motion when he realizes Shouyou isn’t behind him anymore.
He turns, sees Shouyou standing several meters back, a bewildered expression on his face. The city’s swirling lights cast a neon halo around his head, and Atsumu feels like he’s leaning fully over the chasm, waiting for a gust of wind to write the story’s end. “You still want a different number?”
“Well yeah, don’t see why not. Thirteen is still an unlucky number, ya know!” He spins on his heel, but Shouyou grabs at the fabric on his elbow and maneuvers himself so that he’s in front of Atsumu- and he looks the way he does in a fourth set sometimes, like he wants to play one more, just for the hell of it, and Atsumu is in love, and he’s terrified.
“Did you have an unlucky past season, Atsumu-san?”
Atsumu’s eyes widen at the implication. “No! No. I just-” and he’s not sure what he’s still clinging to, because every court ritual else has been chucked out the window, anxious precision replaced with messy love, dirty winning-streak socks substituted with socks Shouyou bought him when he was sick, watermelon switched out for citrus- “wouldn’t it be a safer bet?” he looks down at his feet. How easy it would be to let his toes brush against the fissured pavement; how easy it would be to let himself fall headfirst into the ravine.
Shouyou’s hand reaches to grasp Atsumu’s jaw, thumb and forefinger coming to grip his chin and forcing him to meet Shouyou’s amber eyes. “When have you ever gone with the safer bet?”
And sure, it was an inevitability from the moment Hinata Shouyou, age 16, locked eyes with 17-year-old Miya Atsumu from across the net and dared him to underestimate him. Atsumu’s had a nasty case of vertigo for nearly eight years now, and he’s only just realized that the vertigo was merely the red needle of Atsumu’s compass spinning in circles, searching for that magnetic force, spinning and spinning as true north ran in circles around Atsumu’d perimeter, from Miyagi to Rio to Osaka to here, now, centimeters from Atsumu’s face: and it was foolish to think he could stop his love from metastasizing, but at least he’d tried.
He grabs fistfuls of fabric at Shouyou’s shoulders, hauls him impossibly close: “Never?” a final inquiry before he lets himself fall or leap or fly, and Shouyou smiles so sharply that Atsumu worries his mouth might bleed, but it doesn’t because Shouyou loves tenderly and kindly and unapologetically, and Atsumu loves him, and loves him, and loves him.
And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while,
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail
along the floor-
And this, and so much more?-
viii.
It’s when Shouyou tells him about a nickname he’d given himself in high school that he rethinks this whole sidewalk thing.
He’s outside of his apartment building in the early morning’s gray mist, pulling at his left foot so that the heel connects with his rear to stretch his quads for his morning run. He’s bending down to tie one of his shoes when he sees the tiny green stem protruding from the crack in the pavement. He reaches out a finger, calloused and pale and trembling, stroking the tiny leaves: and if Ushiwaka ever got one thing right, it was comparing Hinata Shouyou to the resilient stems that burst forth from inorganic rock, that take root in the spaces split open by heeled shoes and hail and endless rain- spaces that Atsumu has skirted around for nearly a decade and a half.
And maybe he would have avoided the cracks if he’d known about the life that can exist there - maybe it didn’t matter if the reason he danced across split-open cement was due to superstition or reverence, out of fear or awe. But he feels the life thrumming through the veiny stem of this weed, feels it stand a bit taller in the center of a busy sidewalk in a busy district in a busy city, daring the businessmen and children and councilwomen to trample it - it’ll just grow back in the fractured pavement; resilient, and vigorous, and enduring.
He feels a tug on the wire of his earbuds: “What are you doing down there, Atsumu-san?”
Shouyou smiles above him, and Atsumu loves him. “Nothin’, Shouyou-kun! Just tyin’ my shoe.” He strokes the leaves in the sidewalk once more and rises from where he had been kneeling. “Ya ready, Shouyou-kun?”
The sun peeks above the horizon, inundating the skyline with golden-orange light, turning the strands of Shouyou’s hair to liquid fire, transforming his eyes into pits of lava, and Atsumu thinks he would happily jump in if it meant existing in that divinity, even if for just a moment. Shouyou gives him a smile and a thumbs up and a cheery “let’s go!” and Atsumu thinks he could love him forever.
On an old and worn-down sidewalk in a small suburb just east of Osaka, Atsumu goes on a morning jog with the love of his life and he doesn’t glance at the pavement a single time.
Osamu swipes his hands across the thick fabric of his apron, flecks of rice unsticking themselves from his fingers and bouncing onto the floor. “Interestin’ to know that ya waste the rice I so tenderly care for and sell to ya at a discounted price,” Kita says as he slides into a seat at the bar. Confused, Osamu sticks his fingers in his mouth and eats the remaining rice. “Well, now yer just breaking health codes.”
“Sheesh, I can’t win, can I?” Osamu starts to prepare a fresh onigiri, but not before washing his hands. He doubts Kita wants Osamu’s saliva in his onigiri.
Kita smiles gently as he glances at the television, which is currently playing a commercial. “Have they started playin’ yet?”
Osamu shakes his head, moving on to prepare another sample for Kita, this one containing spicy tuna and mustard seed. “Not yet. Ya want a drink?”
They spend a few minutes catching up, Osamu dealing with a few stray customers that wander in during the moments before the game starts (“Why the hell are they even playin’ around dinner time, anyway?”) when finally, the channel switches to live coverage of the Black Jackals season-opener match against the Green Rockets. Osamu flips the sign on the door to read ‘closed’ instead of open, and settles down into the seat next to Kita’s.
Neither Kita nor Osamu have had the chance to see Atsumu in action during the off-season: so when Atsumu goes to the backline and prepares to serve and Kita doesn’t hear the five tell-tale thumps of ball meeting court, he’s a little worried- but Hinata Shouyou looks over his shoulder at Atsumu and says something that makes Atsumu smile, and then the ball is in the air and Atsumu’s palm is colliding with it and-
“Kita-san! Why are you crying? Oh god, was the spicy mustard too much?”
Kita snorts, which would usually make Osamu laugh until his sides hurt, but the snort causes grains of rice to strike the back of Kita’s throat and now he’s hacking up bits of rice and Osamu is frantically smacking Kita on the back and if Kita dies here everyone he knows is going to kill him and honestly, he’d be okay with that, and-
Kita breathes in shakily, still laughing as he swipes at tears with the backs of his hand. “No, no, ‘m fine - sorry ‘bout that.” Through his bleary eyes, he sees Atsumu score on another serve.
Osamu sighs in relief next to him, and turns his attention back to the screen as well. “You notice it too, hm? That ‘Tsumu seems different?”
Kita nods. He can’t tell through the screen as well as he could in person, but the weight on Atsumu’s shoulders seems to have disappeared, the tension he held between his shoulder blades melted into something far kinder than the things he held there before. And maybe it’s just the way the cameras are angled, or the lighting in the gymnasium, or the color gradient on the outdated television, but Kita gets the feeling-
“I think he’s happy, now.”
On the screen, Hinata Shouyou leaps or jumps or flies into the air, above the net, his hand connecting with the fastest set Kita’s seen in his entire life, slamming the ball over the blockers for yet another point. He whirls on his heels and meets Atsumu’s eyes before breaking into a grin and clambering over to him to sling an arm around his shoulders in pure, unadulterated joy. And Atsumu-
Atsumu looks at Hinata like he’s forgotten the meaning of lucky pennies and practice-specific water bottles, like he’s never even seen the movie Parent Trap , like opening umbrellas indoors is perfectly fine, like cracks in the sidewalk mean nothing at all - and if Kita were there, in the flesh, he’d be able to smell citrus on Atsumu’s breath instead of watermelon.
Kita lets out the sigh of relief he’d been holding for nearly eight years. “Yeah, I think he’s happy, too.”