Archive of Our Own ^beta

It all starts with a series of coincidences.

Actually, it starts with Sakusa coming in late for practice for the third time. Normally, this wouldn’t really be a concern, because while the MSBY Black Jackals are known for a lot of things; unfailingly reliable receives, untouchable serves, Japan’s best set of back muscles (thanks, Bokuto), punctuality is not one of these things. Atsumu thinks half of the grey hairs on Meian’s head are an ode to each time a team member shows up literally minutes before a huge game. Still, Sakusa’s third late arrival is particularly conspicuous, not in the least because this is also his third day on the team.

“Sorry I’m late,” Sakusa says, his voice barely audible. He sits on the floor, a distance from Atsumu, and starts doing his stretches. Out of the corner of his eye, Atsumu catches sight of Coach Foster and Meian exchanging a look.

“Rough morning, Sakusa-kun?” Meian has strolled over to where Sakusa is currently folding his body in half so that his chest is almost perfectly parallel to the floor. Atsumu feels a brief pang of jealousy.

“My bus was caught in a jam,” Sakusa says, barely an inflection in his tone. Atsumu leans forward a little, to tie his shoelaces, not (contrary to what Osamu would have said, had he been here) to eavesdrop. Atsumu does not eavesdrop, because he respects his teammates’ privacy, but honestly, it’s not his fault if he just happens to be there.

“Is your apartment very far from the gym, then?” Meian makes what he thinks is an attempt at a casual conversation, and fails spectacularly with the amount of awkwardness with which he executes this particular segue. Meian is a great captain, and has been capable of some truly inspiring pre-match speeches, but every time Atsumu has the misfortune of watching Meian attempt to engage in small talk, he kind of wants to crawl into a hole and die on his captain’s behalf.

Atsumu snorts a little, but turns it into a cough when he feels Sakusa’s head turn to look at him.

“I haven’t found an apartment yet, actually. I’ve been staying in an Airbnb.”

“Why?” Atsumu pipes up, in spite of himself, and sees Sakusa’s brows lift slightly. Ah, well. It’s better he finds out sooner rather than later about Atsumu’s eavesdropping tendencies, anyway. “Airbnbs are expensive as fuck in the long term, is all I’m sayin’.”

Sakusa looks like he’d rather be run over by a lorry than to have to explain himself any further, but he indulges Atsumu with a reply, probably because his new captain is right there and he doesn’t want to make a bad impression just yet. “… I haven’t found one. Most studio apartments near the city centre aren’t cheap.”

Atsumu gets that. Their pay as professional athletes is more than decent, but no one wants to spend the bulk of their pay on their rent.

“OH,” Meian-san says, loudly enough that some people actually turn to look at them. He claps his hands excitedly, like he’s just discovered gravity, and looks at Atsumu with gleaming eyes that immediately trigger Atsumu’s fight-or-flight instincts. “Atsumu, didn’t your brother just move out of your apartment?”

This is technically not untrue. Osamu, that good-for-nothing squatter, had deserted Atsumu just over a week ago to oversee the opening of a new Onigiri Miya outlet in Tokyo. It’s about time that leeching bastard moved out, he tells Inunaki. Okay, fine, he did pay half the rent.

No, fuck you, I have not been eating convenience store-bought food for a week.

“Um, yeah.” Atsumu’s dense, but he’d have to be blind to not see that Meian’s practically throwing him puppy eyes at this point. He knows Meian has been trying to get the latest batch of rookies more bonded with the team, but Sakusa has proved particularly elusive, always making up convenient excuses to avoid post-practice dinners and weekend hangouts. Where Shouyou, a rookie himself, has already become a darling of the team, to Atsumu’s knowledge, Sakusa hasn’t once had a conversation with his teammates that A, lasts for more than twenty seconds, or B, isn’t initiated by him.

“You could move into ‘Samu’s old room,” Atsumu offers. There it is. Meian owes him dessert at the next team dinner. Besides, he doesn’t think Sakusa is likely to say yes, anyway. He doesn’t seem like a roommate kinda guy. “It’s a ten-minute walk from the gym.”

Sakusa gives Atsumu a once-over. Atsumu squirms a little, feeling like he’s being given an X-ray, except that the nurse administering it is six feet of pure muscle and abnormally flexible joints.

Sakusa wrinkles his nose a little and stands up, effectively and unilaterally deciding to end this ridiculous conversation. “I’ll consider it,” he says, and goes to practice his serves.

Atsumu shrugs at Meian, and mouths, I tried my best. Meian’s glare says, No you didn’t, and Atsumu gives him a sunny, unapologetic smile. So that’s that, he thinks.

Only it isn’t. The next day is overcast and gloomy, and the skies are weeping when Sakusa steps into practice late for the fourth day in a row, sopping wet.

As Atsumu bumps up a ball for a second-string spiker, he watches as Sakusa walks over to Coach Foster’s bench and says something shortly, giving him a stiff bow. Coach Foster waves him off.

“What do you think his deal is, huh?” he asks Shouyou in the middle of a set, and he nearly misses his spike.

The orange-haired spiker shouts, “I’ll get the next one!” and turns his lovely, huge Bambi brown eyes on him. Atsumu briefly fantasises about a world where Shouyou isn’t practically married to Kageyama Tobio.

“I think Sakusa-san is just getting used to us!” Shouyou always manages to put a positive spin to things. “He’s a,” Shouyou pauses as he searches for the right word, “wary person, I think.”

Wary, or arrogant? But Atsumu doesn’t have time to ponder this any further, because then Sakusa finishes his warm ups, and steps up to the court for his spiking practice. A ball is thrown to Atsumu, who bumps it into a beautiful arc. He only has a few milliseconds to admire it, before Sakusa absolutely smashes it into the opposite court with a vicious, tear-your-arms-off line shot.

Theoretically, Atsumu knows he should not be surprised by this. The V League Division 1 is full of monsters, and he himself is on the receiving end of one of Bokuto’s spikes at least five times a day. Still, that was nasty, even for Sakusa. Atsumu’s forearms twinge in sympathy for the hardwood floor.

“Woke up on the wrong side of bed, huh?” he asks Sakusa. Atsumu doesn’t expect him to deign him with so much as a glance in his direction, which is why he starts a little when Sakusa whirls on his heel and stalks towards Atsumu. He resists the urge to take a few steps back, feeling distinctly like a hunted prey.

He stops a mere meter from Atsumu, and looks down at him. It is then that Atsumu realises that, against all odds, Sakusa is actually a few centimeters taller than him, and feels distinctly annoyed. Sakusa’s broad shoulders actually manage to block much of Atsumu’s vision, and his dark eyes very much resemble what Atsumu thinks the deepest pits of hell would look like, when he inevitably ends up there after he’s left this sorry plane of existence.

“I will be following you home tonight,” he informs Atsumu.

Atsumu chokes on his own spit, and not in a sexy way. He whips around to make sure no one had overheard this particularly bizarre proposition (Bokuto definitely did, judging by how he suddenly seems absorbed in his shoelaces), and then turns to face Sakusa. “Huh?”

“To see your apartment,” Sakusa wrinkles his nose. “I can’t stay in that Airbnb anymore.”

“Oh,” Atsumu scratches the back of his head.  “Unless you already found a tenant,” Sakusa continues. He really hasn’t made much progress in that department, and Osamu is getting more annoyed by the day about having to pay for half the rent of an apartment he doesn’t even stay in.

 “No, no. Yer welcome to take a look, I guess,” Atsumu says, more out of shock than anything else. Sakusa walks off, as abruptly as he had arrived, and Atsumu sees Meian give him two thumbs up, and discreetly sticks his tongue out at him out of spite.

The walk back to his apartment after practice has to be the longest ten minutes of his life. Sakusa is deadly quiet the whole way, leaving Atsumu to fill up the silence with pointless chatter about the neighbourhood and its amenities. He thinks he might have come off as a tad too much like an overenthusiastic estate agent, and thanks the big man up there when they finally, finally arrive at the doorstep of Atsumu’s apartment building.

“Here we are!” He hopes that Sakusa can’t hear the relief evident in his tone.

By all means, his apartment is quite decent. Osamu had picked it out and decided on the furniture, with little to no input from Atsumu, which means that it’s actually pretty lovely, with a pretty sizeable kitchen and a breakfast bar. It also has a pretty nice view of the sunset from the balcony adjoining the living room, and it’s high up enough (on the eighth floor) that the noise of traffic in the street below fades to a hum.

Of course, Osamu’s departure means that Atsumu has added a few elements of interior design that are distinctly him, meaning the stray sock in the middle of the kitchen, and also the stack of dishes in the sink. Atsumu feels, rather than sees, Sakusa wrinkle his nose beneath his white surgical mask at the sight, and feels inexplicably defensive. It’s not like he expected guests, anyway.

“And here’s ‘Samu’s old room, which you’ll be staying in. If you want it, I mean.” Atsumu and Osamu had a near physical fight over who got this room, with Osamu ultimately wining by virtue of him sitting on the bed for twenty-four hours straight until Atsumu had no choice but to leave for practice. Somehow, even when Osamu moved out, it didn’t feel right to just move over, even if it is larger than his room and doesn’t have a view of the neighbouring building’s brick wall.

Sakusa walks over to the window, his socked feet making almost no noise on the parquet floor.

“I like the view.” It’s the first thing he says all evening, so Atsumu starts a little. He follows Sakusa’s gaze, and sees the small cleaning supplies store across the street.

“It’s open twenty-four seven,” he says, and Sakusa stands up a little straighter. “What are the tenancy conditions of the flat?”

Atsumu rattles off a few numbers off the top of his head. “No pets, no smoking, and no loud music after midnight.”

That’ll do it, he thinks. No normal 22-year-old lives like that. It’s just fine for Atsumu, though, who really only needs a place to shit and sleep every day. But Atsumu has forgotten one important fact, which is that Sakusa is, without a doubt, one of the most un-normal-22-year-olds in Japan. Atsumu has seen the guy wipe down cutlery with hand sanitiser before he eats.

Before Atsumu knows what’s happening, he’s whipping a checkbook (which like, who even carries them around? Adults?) from his pocket. “I can pay you three months’ rent upfront,” he says, his pen poised over the check, dark, intense eyes fixed on Atsumu.

Honestly, it’s all going a little too fast for Atsumu to process. One moment the guy was turning his nose up at the haphazard mugs stuffed in the glass cabinet above the sink, and the next, he wants in?

He takes a split second to weigh his choices. On one hand, this guy just sniffed at Atsumu’s Hello Kitty mug collection. On the other hand, legend says that Meian has been known to put disobedient Atsumus who mess with his team dynamics in the same naughty corner he puts his kids in. This is not, strictly speaking, completely a legend. Anyway, since this goes both ways, Sakusa probably wouldn’t murder him in his sleep if he has to go to the trouble of explaining himself to Meian during 7AM practice the next day.

“Done,” he says, and Sakusa signs the check with a sweeping flourish, hands it to Atsumu, and vanishes from the flat within ten seconds.

Atsumu slumps onto the sofa as Sakusa’s footsteps fade down the corridor, and wonders what the fuck he’s signed himself up for.

Sakusa moves in that weekend.

It’s nine in the morning when the intercom in the living room buzzes, but that’s practically the asscrack of dawn by Atsumu’s standards, especially for a Saturday. He stumbles out into the living room, the marble tiles icy under his bare feet, and stabs the ‘answer’ button with an irate finger. “I don’t want to buy any encyclopedias,” he mumbles.

There’s silence at the other end of the line for a beat, and Atsumu thinks he’s scared off whoever the unsuspecting salesman is, and then Sakusa’s unimpressed monotone filters down the line. “This is Sakusa.”

“Oh. Shit, right. Fuck. Forgot yer moving in today.” Atsumu stares blearily at the wall calendar Osamu had insisted they purchase.

“Are you going to let me in, or shall I try again tomorrow?” Sakusa’s snide tone is audible even through the shitty intercom system.

“Yeah, sorry.” He presses a button to let Sakusa through, and makes a mental note to pass him Osamu’s access card.

Sakusa shows up a few minutes later, the doorbell ringing shrilly. Atsumu opens the door to find him carrying a single cardboard box and a medium-sized suitcase. It’s the first time Atsumu sees him out of practice clothes, and he’s dressed pretty smartly for someone moving boxes on a Saturday, in a deep blue turtleneck and a pair of black pants that actually look tailored. A sharp black blazer is thrown over his shoulders. Atsumu feels naked, standing in the doorway in nothing but his SpongeBob boxers and a ratty maroon dressing gown that he hasn’t bothered to tie up.

Sakusa sniffs, and averts his gaze delicately as he toes off his shoes and steps into the apartment. “Ya don’t have a lot of things, Sakusa-kun,” Atsumu notes as the door clicks shut.

“I don’t need a lot of things,” Sakusa says. Atsumu tails after him into Osamu’s old room- Sakusa’s room now, he realises.

“Sakusa-kun feels too long, doncha think? Too formal,” he muses.

“Sakusa works fine,” the man in question says shortly, eyes narrowing above his black mask.

“Nah, it’s a mouthful. Gimme somethin’ to work with here. Kiyoomi-kun? Kiki?”

Sakusa sets his box a little too heavily down on the floor. “I don’t need help unpacking. You can go back to sleep, or whatever.”

“Whatever ya say,” Atsumu yawns. “Goodnight, Omi-kun.”

He pretends not to enjoy Sakusa’s irritated “tch”, and leaves the room before Sakusa can find anything to throw at him.

When Atsumu finally wakes up at his natural timing (3 in the afternoon), he finds Sakusa already in the midst of some deep-cleaning agenda.

“Whatcha doin’ there?” Atsumu asks warily.

He employs such a tone because Sakusa is currently wielding a four-foot-long pole (with rubber gloves of course), with some kind of wiper attached to the end. When he spins around, Atsumu thanks his lucky stars that he’s lucid enough to duck before the pole takes his head off.

“Cleaning the ceiling,” Sakusa says, like it’s obvious. “It’s full of cobwebs.”

His mask is back on, and he has a bucket of water next to him. The balcony windows are gleaming, and there is a spanking new vacuum sitting in the corner of the living room, next to the television. On the balcony, a couple of MSBY practice jerseys are hanging from a new clothes stand, along with a couple more unfamiliar clothes, and a pair of Atsumu’s briefs, this time patterned with bright orange foxes.

“That underwear was only two days old,” Atsumu grumbles. “I wasn’t even on my second wear.”

Sakusa looks horrified. “I have discovered,” he said slowly, “at least five new species of bacteria living in your bathroom. When was the last time you washed it?”

“What do ya mean, wash my toilet? Toilets wash themselves, ya know! Everything in the toilet bowl goes down with a flush, everything in the tub gets washed when ya shower.”

Atsumu thinks Sakusa is about to have an aneurysm, and decides to get the hell out of there before he can be held responsible for Sakusa’s early death and has to deal with Coach Foster’s wrath at having to find a replacement on short notice.

Later in the evening, he goes to take a shower, and finds the bathroom thoroughly cleaned. Atsumu didn’t even remember that the tiles used to look like this, a nice bright turquoise instead of a moldy green. (Come to think of it, the colour was probably from the actual mold living in on them.) Sakusa has rearranged the shelves above the toilet bowl, too- the toilet rolls are lined up neatly on the bottom shelf, along with a box labelled “toilet cleaning supplies” in neat, slanting handwriting. Above them is a range of expensive-looking hair products, and then a woven basket full of facial masks and other fancy gimmicks. Atsumu’s own hair gel and deodorant and other knickknacks are on the top shelf, but they are arranged in some kind of bizarre, colour-coordinated rainbow.

Atsumu takes a peek at the shelf next to the tub, and finds his trusty 2-in-1 Head and Shoulders soap positively ostracized at a corner, away from a whole bunch of other foreign brands. He yanks open the bathroom door.

“What have ya done to my toilet, Omi?” he yells.

Sakusa materializes in the doorway, donning a black apron with a spatula in hand. Atsumu vaguely registers a fucking amazing smell wafting through the apartment, and that the thin straps of the apron make Sakusa’s shoulders look insanely broad and muscular, but he chooses to focus on Sakusa’s unfazed look instead.

“I Marie Kondo-ed it,” he says. “And don’t call me that.”

“Okay now you’re just saying words,” Atsumu rubs his temples. “Look, I’m not gonna be able to find my shit if you reorganize everything, dude. I have a system.”

“Was your system to just ransack everything until you find what you need,” Sakusa inquires flatly. “Because it looks like it.”

Atsumu opens his mouth to interrupt, but Sakusa beats him to it. Which is rare, given that Atsumu has years of practice bickering with Osamu under his belt. “Just hurry it up,” Sakusa says. “Dinner’s almost ready.”

Dinner. Atsumu’s mouth waters at the thought of it, and his protesting stomach reminds him that he actually hasn’t eaten anything today, which probably isn’t ideal for any professional athlete. Weekends and off days for him usually consist of waking up to the smell of whatever Osamu is whipping up in the kitchen three times a day. Since his twin moved out, Atsumu has finished every last box of premade food in the Tupperware boxes Osamu left in the fridge, and has resorted to store-bought onigiri at odd hours of the night when his hunger became overwhelming enough to push him out the door to the twenty-four hours convenience store down the road.

The promise of home cooked food waiting for him outside makes him shower at twice his usual speed, and he’s still dripping water from his hair when he sits down at the table, where Sakusa has laid out two steaming bowls of ramen. And to sweeten the deal, Sakusa lays out a plate of what looks like freshly-made gyozas, which means that he must have gone grocery-shopping at some point today, because everything in Atsumu’s fridge is either expired or junk food.

Atsumu takes a slurp of his ramen, and lets out a slow moan. “Fuck, Omi. Where didja learn to cook like that, huh?”

“Don’t talk while chewing your food,” Sakusa admonishes.

He finishes his dinner in record time, polishing every single gyoza too. He sets down the bowl of soup with a satisfied sigh, and that’s when Sakusa slides a piece of paper onto the table, and puts on a pair of round, black-rimmed glasses.

He hadn’t known that Sakusa needed reading glasses. Atsumu will deny this if anyone accuses him of it, but he may or may not have a thing for guys with glasses. All his exes wore glasses. According to Osamu, he’d even tried to fake a prescription once.

Then Sakusa says, “These are my house rules.”

All fantasies that he may or may not have been having about Sakusa in those glasses screech to a squealing halt. Atsumu squints at Sakusa. “Wha’?”

Sakusa clears his throat. “No dirty clothes on the floor. No dishes left in the sink. No house guests without 24 hours advance notice. Complete assigned daily chores: hanging the laundry, wiping breakfast bar and dining table, clean the toilet bowl-”

Atsumu has been listening to him, aghast, but that is when he has to put his foot down. “Stop. No. Omi. I can’t agree to all that.”

Sakusa peers at him from over the top of his glasses. “But you ate my food,” he says, actually looking genuinely perplexed.

Atsumu splutters. “I didn’t know there were terms and conditions at the bottom of the fucking bowl.”

“These are all basic chores.” Sakusa has the audacity to sound affronted. “I’m the one who’s going to deep clean the sofa once a week.”

Atsumu is developing a severe migraine. “But you don’t have to.”

“Then don’t buy a fabric sofa.”

They engage in a vicious stare-off. Sakusa’s eyes, he realises, are framed by a very nice set of thick lashes, long and curly, like his hair, which has currently fallen over one of his eyes. His skin is also perfectly unblemished with nearly invisible pores, which is just unfair to Atsumu, who has had more than his fair share of acne breakouts through high school. His eyebrows are threaded into delicate arcs, which only serve to draw attention back to his deep, soulless eyes.

Then Sakusa blows a puff of air directly in his face, causing Atsumu to blink furiously, breaking eye contact. It suddenly makes so much more sense that Sakusa is blessed with such flawless features, because whoever the Creator is obviously needed to make up for his fucking disastrous personality.

Sakusa stands up victoriously, stacking his bowl on top of the empty gyoza plate. “I win. You have to do the chores.”

“Over my dead body,” Atsumu says mutinously, resolutely folding his arms. In the kitchen, he can hear Sakusa washing the dishes. His empty bowl of ramen is still sitting on the table, Sakusa evidently refusing to touch anything that has the remnants of Atsumu’s breath on it.

Sakusa doesn’t reply for a long while, until Atsumu finally hears the faucet being shut off, and Sakusa walks out of the kitchen. Atsumu thinks he’s going to ignore him for the rest of time, but then Sakusa pivots at the entrance of Osamu’s (his) room and leans against the doorframe in an insanely attractive way that Atsumu definitely will not be attempting to copy at some point.

“How about a wager?” he says.

Atsumu’s personality is full of glaring weaknesses, and Sakusa has picked on yet another one of them. “On what?” He leans forward, in spite of himself.

“The daily 2 on 2 games. For each day I win, you have to do your chores.”

The thrill of a bet sends a zing up Atsumu’s spine. “How do I know you won’t just go back on yer word, huh? Ya just proved yourself to be capable of playing real dirty, Omi-omi.”

“If I go back on my word, you don’t have to toss to me for a whole day.” That seems legitimate enough. Sakusa must be serious about this, then.

He holds out a hand for Sakusa to shake and is met with a withering look. “Don’t bet on that, Miya,” Sakusa says, and shuts the door definitively in his face.

Atsumu’s lip curls up in a grin. I will.

Heroically, Atsumu keeps this up for a whole week.

“Honestly, we didn’t think you were going to last this long,” Meian says, motioning for the bartender to top up Atsumu’s drink. “And it’s paid off, hasn’t it? Sakusa seems a whole lot more comfortable with the team now.”

Atsumu groans from where he’s slumped over the bar, his voice muffled by his cheek pressing into the cold marble. “I’ve done chores for the whole of this week, Cap’n.”

“That doesn’t seem too bad.”

That’s not even half of it. In a series of unprecedented events, Atsumu had managed to lose every single 2 on 2 game he’s had with Sakusa. To make matters worse, he’d foolishly agreed to raising the stakes each time, so now he was about five thousand yen poorer and Sakusa was several bottles of disinfectant richer.

They are at an izakaya near the MSBY training gym, the whole team sans Sakusa, for Friday night drinks. They are crowded at a tiny table at the back of the izakaya, but from the noise they are making, one would think they’ve rented the whole place for themselves. Inunaki is doing the thing where he’s going around the izakaya challenging strangers to arm wrestling matches, Barnes at his heels, partially for his Instagram stories and more so to rein in any temper tantrums in the event he loses. Shouyou and Tomas are doing some twisted version of the chubby bunny challenge, cramming Maraschino cherries from fancy cocktail glasses into their mouths instead of marshmallows.  Meanwhile, Bokuto is at that stage of drunkenness where he strikes long, utterly nonsensical conversations with the nearest inanimate object, in this case a coat stand.

A bucket hat is thrown on top of it at a jaunty angle, so it looks like it’s giving Bokuto judgmental looks, like, Whipped cream on roast chicken sounds like the most revolting thing ever.

“But hear me out,” Bokuto says empathetically. “Whipped cream with the gravy, dude.”

The coat stand does not reply.

Life imitates art, Atsumu thinks. Then, Wait, who’s the art, now?

“It’s like livin’ in a museum, or sumn,” Atsumu sighs. The bartender puts another beer in front of Atsumu, and he clings to it like a lifeline. “Like, don’t touch the art, an’ all.”

For all Sakusa has managed to assimilate into the team in the past week, he pretty much ignores Atsumu off-court. Sakusa’s always the first to hit the showers, whereas Atsumu likes to hang back and hit a few hundred more jump serves, so by the time he heads for the locker room, Sakusa is long gone. And by the time Atsumu reaches home after a hasty meal outside, Sakusa will have finished dinner and the washing up, and his room door will be firmly shut by nine. This is not what Atsumu meant when he prayed for peace and quiet at the shrine on New Year’s Day.

“Okay, but,” Meian starts, blinking vigorously. “The art can’t move. It’s like, hung on a wall. If you really want to touch the art, you can’t wait for it to come and touch you. You have to step over the stupid little ropes the museum puts up, or some shit.”

Atsumu’s fairly sure his captain has lost the plot and is just saying words at this point, but it is strangely poignant. “You’re a great dad, Cap,” he says, with total sincerity.

Meian starts sobbing at that, and Atsumu yells for the bartender to bring them something stronger.

“Don’t wanna go back,” Atsumu slurs into the crook of someone’s (he thinks it’s Shouyou, judging by the nice, warm smell) neck. “Jus’ leave me here.”

“We’re already at your building, Atsumu-san,” maybe-Shouyou says. “Can you make your way up yourself? Bokuto-san and Inunaki-san are waiting in the cab.”

Atsumu blinks up, and realises he’s right- they are in front of his building. It’s a clear night, and the moon is huge and shiny in the sky. He says as much, and Shouyou laughs.

“That’s the streetlamp. Where are your keys?”

Atsumu clumsily palms his jacket’s pockets, and realises he’s left them in his locker. “Crap,” he mutters. “Guess I’m sleepin’ here tonight.”

“Don’t you live with Omi-san?” Shouyou’s eyes are huge and innocent, and also blissfully naïve. “Can’t you just ring for him to open the door?”

“I’ll be dead by mornin’,” Atsumu says with conviction, but Shouyou’s already punching his unit number into the keypad, and Atsumu should have known it was a lousy idea to put his full name on the telephone directory next to the main door. Stalker fans were one thing, but Sakusa’s rage is a whole other monster altogether.

The dial tone rings for the most torturous thirty seconds of Atsumu’s life. Then it stops, and Atsumu’s knees buckle just as Sakusa’s grumbling voice echoes out of the speaker. “What.”

Shouyou scrambles to prop him up, and yells something unintelligible into the intercom, and Sakusa must have gotten some part of that, because the door swings open, and Shouyou is hauling him into the lift and then across the landing, to where light is spilling out of his apartment door, along with a long, dark shadow. Sakusa’s silhouette is outlined in the doorway, but Atsumu can’t make out the expression on his face at all. He thinks he’s going to shit himself.

Shouyou helps him past the doorway, and then vanishes into thin air. Even he has some sense of self-preservation, then. Atsumu immediately collapses into a heap at Sakusa’s feet once Shouyou’s no longer there to prop him up. He knows that his shoes aren’t off, and he probably reeks of alcohol, not to mention the number of bacteria that must be clinging on to his clothes right now, so he can’t really blame Sakusa for taking a step back as Atsumu lies, sprawled out in front of the door. Then Atsumu somehow manages to fuck things up even further, because his body hates him, and throws up.

Now he’s done it. He really hopes that his family can still identify his body after Sakusa’s done with him.

“Sorry, Omi,” he manages. “Tell ‘Samu not to take any of my shit after I die.” Then he promptly passes out.

When he comes to, the first thing he registers is that his whole body is aching. Is dying supposed to hurt this much? He’d always thought it was going to be peaceful.

The next is that his neighbor must be renovating again, because of the fucking loud noise drilling its way into his skull. He pries his eyelids open, and is immediately blinded by sunlight shining directly onto his face. The sun is high in the sky, so it must be sometime around noon. “What the hell,” he mutters, wincing as his voice comes out in a croak.

He’s lying on the sofa, and his feet are dangling over the armrest. He lifts an arm to block out the sun, and realises he’s still in his going out clothes, and the whole night rushes back to him. The izakaya. Shouyou dragging him back. Having to wake Sakusa Kiyoomi up at some ungodly hour because Atsumu forgot his damn keys. Puking at Sakusa Kiyoomi’s feet.

Puking at Sakusa Kiyoomi’s feet.

Atsumu scrambles into a sitting position, and his eyes immediately find the spot in front of the door, which is sparkling clean. Then he realises that he’s lying on top of a bedsheet thrown over the sofa, and one of his old blankets is slipping down his waist as he props himself up. He feels a twinge of pain on his palm, and remembers that he’d used his hand to break a nasty fall he’d taken after tripping over his own feet outside the izakaya.

There’s a band aid on his palm. It is at this point that Atsumu realises that there is a glass of water on the coffee table next to the sofa, along with an aspirin sitting on a carefully folded piece of tissue. Atsumu gulps it down with the water, and gets off the sofa with no little difficulty. He’s not wearing shoes.

Sakusa emerges out of the kitchen, donning a white surgical mask. His hair is tied up in a bun that should be illegal, and he’s wielding a can of disinfectant in one hand and a handheld vacuum in the other.

“Uh,” Atsumu starts, and then closes his mouth again. His brain can’t reconcile the Sakusa who’s pretty much ignored him outside of practice for the whole of the past week, and this Sakusa who carries him to the sofa while he’s piss-drunk and covers him with a blanket and takes off his shoes for him. He knows that’s no easy feat for Sakusa, too, not only because of his aversion to germs and dirt but also because his hands are currently rubbed red and raw, as if he’d spent all morning scrubbing them clean.

Atsumu feels a swooping in his stomach, and he’s not sure if it’s his hangover or crushing guilt.

“You stink,” Sakusa says, wrinkling his nose, and the spell is broken. “Go and take a shower, please.”

Atsumu makes a face at him, but does so dutifully. At lunch, there’s a bowl of rice set out for Atsumu, along with some unagi and tamagoyaki. That’s actually a pretty sweet gesture, but Atsumu can’t shake the feeling that he was being lured into some kind of trap, especially since this whole situation was eerily similar to the one that started this whole shitshow.

His fears are confirmed when Sakusa slides his tenancy agreement across the table at the end of the meal, just as Atsumu is licking up the last of the rice grains from his bowl. “So. This clearly isn’t working out,” he says.

Atsumu’s carefully prepared monologue of an apology goes flying out of the window. “Huh?”

“I don’t blame you,” Sakusa continues. “My university roommates and I also frequently disagreed about our rooming arrangements. I am aware that my requirements are difficult to cope with, and I am sorry for attempting to impose them on you. Thus, effective tomorrow, I will be taking up residency elsewhere while I find a new-”

“Wait, no,” Atsumu is still struggling to wrap his head around this turn of events. “Are you seriously trying to apologise to me when I was the one who literally hurled my guts out on your feet?”

“That wasn’t exactly pleasant,” Sakusa acquiesces, mouth twisting downwards. “I suppose its further proof that I’m cramping your style, or whatever.”

Atsumu massages his temples. First, who the fuck even says ‘cramping your style’? Secondly, it is starting to dawn on him that this “don’t touch the art” situation between them may or may not be partly his fault, too. And for all Atsumu grouses about Sakusa’s list of chores, it’s not strictly a bad thing that he’s finally learnt how to adjust the settings on his washing machine so it doesn’t sound like it’s about to vibrate itself out of the house.

He could have said any of those things, but why would Atsumu risk his fragile pride for honesty, when lying is literally free? So what comes out of his mouth is, “Ya can’t get your money back on the three months’ rent. I already spent it.”

Sakusa gives him the same look of horror one might cast a piece of gum stuck to the bottom of their shoe. “What do you mean, you already spent it.”

“I invested it in a pyramid scheme,” Atsumu says.

Sakusa looks like he’s at a momentary loss for words, like he’s caught between demanding for Atsumu to sell his left leg to get him his money back, and wanting to inquire how the hell Atsumu knows what a pyramid scheme is. (He doesn’t- he saw it on one of Osamu’s notes during some business management course he took at culinary school.)

“Point being,” Atsumu says loudly, going for what he hopes is an adequately flippant tone, “Ya can move out now, but ya ain’t getting yer money back.”

“I,” Sakusa starts, and then closes his mouth again. “I,” he tries again, and Atsumu cocks his chin up at him, daring him to call his bluff. The loss of words becomes not so momentary, and Sakusa finally snaps his jaw shut for good and stands up in a huff, taking his empty bowl with him into the kitchen.

Atsumu leaned back into his chair, grinning in victory. Sakusa pointedly stomps his way from the kitchen to his room later, but the effect is ruined by the fluffy bunny ears quivering on his feet with each stomp. Atsumu rubs his hands together like a cartoon villain.

Step One of Operation “Do Touch the Art”: check. Time for Step Two.

Of course, Step Two is easier said than done.

Atsumu might have bought himself three months to make some sort of effort at salvaging his relationship with the person who might possibly be the best candidate for a co-tenant, but the hard part is making him his actual permanent co-tenant. So Atsumu takes it upon himself to watch Sakusa particularly closely over the next few days, in an attempt to suss out what makes this guy tick.

(“Why the hell are you even so invested in this guy, anyway?” Osamu asks during one of their calls. Atsumu sees Suna palming a few onigiris in the background of the video, and does not tell Osamu about it. He kind of feels like Osamu lets Suna get away with it, anyway. “’M pretty sure you could easily find a decent roommate on Craigslist.”

“Yeah, but would any of them know how to Marie Kondo my mug cabinet?”

“The fuck is a Marie Kondo.”)

Atsumu notes down his observations, and then put his plans into action. They don’t start smoothly- the first time he makes a show out of passing a wet wipe over Sakusa’s chair before a radio interview, Sakusa gives him a five-minute lecture on pros of antibacterial wet wipes over regular wipes. He gets another lecture when Sakusa comes home one day to find Atsumu attempting to bleach the dirt out of their curtains. When Atsumu first tries to help Sakusa take a gift from a fan so he doesn’t have to come into contact with the twenty billion species of germs on it, the fan bursts into tears and their PR team has a field day trying to assure the general public that Atsumu is, in fact, not a bully.

But his efforts pay dividends, and two weeks after Atsumu commences Step Two, Sakusa emerges from his room for the first time during a non-meal hour and walks over to the DVD player and pops in a CD.

“Who uses a CD these days?” Atsumu wonders aloud.

“I don’t know, who owns a CD player?” Sakusa retorts. “Move over,” he says, even though there is plenty of space on the other side of the sofa. Atsumu scoots to one end of the sofa anyway, and Sakusa sits primly on the other side, casually throwing one of his legs over the other. There is a gracious one meter between them.

“What are we watching?” Atsumu asks. Sakusa fiddles with the remote, eyes fixed on the TV, and Atsumu takes the opportunity to give him a once over out of the corner of his eye. He’s in a fluffy grey hoodie with matching pants, and- Is that is a pair of bear ears on the hood? Atsumu officially can’t deal with this guy.

“You don’t have to watch it if you don’t want to,” Sakusa mumbles, but Atsumu didn’t buy ten packs of Sakusa’s favourite antibacterial wipes for him to tap out here. Sakusa clicks around on the remote, and the screen lights up with a familiar opening tune. “This is my favourite movie,” Sakusa says.

“Why are you showing me the Bee Movie.”

“Because no one will ever believe you,” Sakusa smirks, and settles back into the cushions.

After that day, things kind of take its own course. Sakusa drags Atsumu out of bed for breakfast at the crack of dawn every morning, and consequently is forced to be punctual for morning practice every day. Around two months into Step Two, Sakusa bestows upon Atsumu the honour of being the only one who gets to help him with his stretches. Meian gives him a thumbs-up for that, and Atsumu supposes that this technically means that he’s succeeded in touching the art, but he tells himself that one can never be too careful. So he continues to adhere to Sakusa’s military cleaning regime, which isn’t that hard once it becomes routine, and watches DVDs on the sofa with him every other weekend, even if its shitty recordings of old Inarizaki matches so that Sakusa can snicker about his box dye hair.

Of course, that isn’t enough for Atsumu. His senior class at Inarizaki didn’t vote him “Most Extra Person” for nothing.

The opportunity to display this particular trait of his materialises at a Q&A cum fan signing panel, the day before Atsumu’s mental countdown for Step Two of his scheme ends.

Sakusa has been on the professional circuit for a couple of months, and this is by no means his first fan signing. Still, Atsumu can’t help but notice the nervous tick of Sakusa’s fingers as they fiddle with the fabric of his jacket while waiting for the moderator to announce their arrival onstage. Through the flimsy sheet that divides the team and the horde of fans waiting for them, Atsumu can make out the bright flashes of cameras going off, and they aren’t even out yet.

The moderator starts announcing their names one by one, and they start streaming out. Atsumu catches Sakusa’s eye and winces when the crowd starts screaming as Bokuto somersaults out. Sakusa rolls his eyes back, and they step out together, even though only Sakusa’s name has been called.

As they are halfway up the stairs to the stage, a young fan in pigtails (really, can Atsumu be blamed for calling them pigs if they choose to wear those hairstyles?) calls out, enthusiastically waving the glowing lightstick in her hand.

“Sakusa-san! I love you!”

Sakusa startles, and momentarily loses his balance on his next step. Atsumu sees it happening in slow motion- Sakusa’s eyes widening in alarm above his mask, his body pitching backwards slightly as he misses the step, and his figure looming above Atsumu’s. He knows what he has to do. He has to take the fall, for Sakusa.

He reaches out his fingers, and in a well-practiced motion not unlike his usual careful setting, pushes Sakusa back onto the step. As he suspected, Sakusa weighs considerably more than a Mikasa volleyball, and the force he exerts to prop Sakusa up sends him tumbling, ass over balls, down the steps into a crumpled heap at the bottom of the stage.

In the distance, he hears shouting, and concerned screams from the fans as some members of their PR team rush to help him up. But for some reason, his eyes are fixed instead on the top of the steps, where Sakusa looks down at him with an unreadable expression. The ceiling lights behind his head flare like a halo, and Atsumu thinks that if he’d hit his head just a little harder, he would have been able to see wings sprouting out of Sakusa’s back, too.

The one minute forty seconds voice recording of Osamu laughing his ass off is worth it, when Sakusa wordlessly slides over a check worth another six months’ rent the next day.

The video someone uploaded on YouTube gets five hundred thousand views in a day. “Miya falls for Sakusa” trends on Twitter for two days straight. As a result, the MSBY PR team reports an overwhelming spike in requests for Sakusa and Atsumu to appear on various talk shows.

Sakusa flatly refuses to appear on any, until the PR team sit the both of them down and politely make a few thinly veiled threats to choose a random talk show for them if they don’t show on at least one. Which is how Atsumu finds himself seated behind a table with Sakusa under the glaring lights of a television studio, grimacing as a makeup artist pats powder onto his cheeks.

“Sorry, Miya-san!” she says. “You have what we call in the industry ‘naturally large pores’, so we’re going to need to cover those up, or you won’t look as nice on camera!”

Atsumu points to Sakusa, lounging in the chair next to him. They’re both dressed in button-up shirts, except Atsumu’s sleeves are rolled artfully up to his elbow, because his stylist “loved the rugged look on him”. Sakusa’s shirt is charcoal grey, which accentuates the inky depths of his eyes, which are currently nervously darting around the hustling studio.

“Ya barely put any on Omi! That ain’t fair.”

“Ah, Sakusa-san’s skin is naturally unblemished! Sakusa-san, if volleyball doesn’t work out for you, I’m sure you’d do great in a modelling career.”

Sakusa leans forward in his seat, completely ignoring the lady’s attempt at flirting as his eyes flit over Atsumu’s face.

“I don’t think you need any makeup,” he says in a matter-of-fact tone. “You’re attractive enough as it is.”

Atsumu barely has time to react to that, before the director is coming over to them and briefing them on the “Who Knows Who Better?” video they’ll be shooting. He barely absorbs any of it, choosing instead to shoot covert looks at Sakusa, who is completely unruffled, as if he hasn’t just emptied a can of worms into Atsumu’s stomach.

The director returns to his seat behind the camera, and starts yelling for the cameras to roll. Atsumu notices Sakusa’s knee bouncing restlessly below the table, and puts his hand over it before he can stop himself.

“Don’t be nervous,” he says quietly. “It’s just me, right? ‘M right here.”

Sakusa looks up from the hand covering his knee, and right into Atsumu’s eyes. Atsumu stops breathing entirely as Sakusa’s pink lips quirk up at the corners.

“Yeah,” Sakusa says. “You’re here.”

Osamu calls him exactly three minutes and twenty seconds after the video is streamed live on YouTube. Atsumu knows this because he, too, watched it live, and then immediately closed the tab and put his head between his knees. Thank goodness that his room door is shut- the last thing he needs right now is Sakusa walking in on Atsumu having the crisis of his life.

“Shitstain,” Osamu says, by way of greeting.

“Ass-wipe,” Atsumu responds, easily, settling into his mountain of pillows.

“Donkey legs.”

“Twig arms.”

“Sakusa Kiyoomi’s husband.”

“Bitchback mountain. Wait, what?”

“At least, that’s what user baddieatsumu thinks. Oh, and about nine-point-five thousand other users seem to agree with her.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Atsumu says, like a liar.

Osamu clears his throat, which is always a sign that shit is about to go down. “When, oh when, will someone look at me the way Miya Atsumu looks at Sakusa Kiyoomi?”

Osamu injects more emotion and passion into reading this particular phrase than Atsumu has ever seen him emote in his life. It’s nice to know that he brings out the best in people. “Miya Atsumu ‘Omi-omi’ counter: 27. We get it you’re in love.”

Atsumu is pretty sure his entire face is red. “Ya know my fans like to joke,” he manages to choke out into the receiver.

Osamu steamrolls on breezily. “Oh my god Sakusa and Miya have a chores list stuck to their fridge and Miya takes out the trash because Sakusa doesn’t like to touch the trash bags? Everyone say it with me- SAKUATSU MAR-”

“FINE,” Atsumu hisses, and then spins around to check if the door is still firmly shut. “I don’t know, okay?”

Osamu hums a little. “Huh. I thought ya were just bein’ nice so he’d continue bein’ yer roomie.”

“I was,” Atsumu says. “I think I may or may not have… conditioned myself into bein’ nice to him all the time now.”

Osamu hums again, infuriatingly. “Didn’t look like ya were just bein’ nice, to me.”

Atsumu promptly hangs up.

He knows, deep down, he didn’t simply Pavlov himself into being nice to Sakusa. And he’s seen the video. Everyone and their mother has seen the video. Atsumu has never been this nice to a person in his life, not even Kita-san or Shouyou.

Was it nice, to instinctively reach for door handles and gifts and pull out chairs so Sakusa doesn’t have to touch them? Was it nice to have Sakusa’s order from their usual takeout place memorised? Was it nice, to find out that he didn’t even mind, having to bend and accommodate the edges and bits of someone else’s personality, someone who was just as willing to do so for him?

Atsumu doesn’t know if he wants to admit that he knows the answer to these questions. In any case, his most recent ex hadn’t called him a pathological liar for nothing.

So he continues to half-heartedly police the superficial boundary of friendship, even as he helps Sakusa deep clean their fabric sofa, and spends an entire evening crouched in front of a laptop with him, browsing through pages of Roombas on Amazon. He avoids Osamu’s smirk when he makes the trip up to Hyogo just to pick up a custom umeboshi onigiri. When he wakes up one morning after falling asleep in front of the TV watching match recordings, he pretends that he is unaffected to find that a blanket has been draped over his shoulders during the course of the night.

He keeps this impressive façade up for another two months, until Sakusa abruptly announces, albeit extremely apologetically, that he has to miss movie night this weekend because he’s meeting a friend who’s in town.

Atsumu smiles and waves it off, as if he hadn’t spent ages picking out a movie, and hadn’t been dying to see Sakusa watch Finding Nemo for the first time. Somewhere along the line, Sunday movie nights had become their thing. Sakusa had never missed one before, and Atsumu’s pathetic excuse of a social life never came in the way, anyway.

He busies himself with attempting to make onigiri from scratch in the evening, and gives up when what comes out instead is a misshapen lump, partly because Sakusa had stepped out of his room smelling vaguely of cologne and wearing a midnight blue shirt with just the right number of buttons unbuttoned to reveal his sharp collarbones, and Atsumu had strangled the life out of his poor onigiri while attempting not to bite down on his lip when Sakusa murmured a soft “Bye, Miya” as he left.

Atsumu settles down into his usual spot on the sofa with his onigiri, and tries not to overanalyse how he automatically leaves a space for Sakusa.

“Please don’t go away,” Dory cries out onscreen. “No one’s ever stuck with me for so long before.”

If Atsumu buries his nose in a bunch of tissues at that, he tells himself it’s just the childhood nostalgia. That, and the flu season. He calls his Ma after, who knows something is up right away and asks him to come home for dinner next weekend. On a completely unrelated note, she also asks about “the sweet boy you did that funny interview with”.

“Ya think he’s sweet?” Atsumu says, before he can stop himself. “Most people don’t.”

“Well,” his mother muses. “If he weren’t sweet, would he know that my son’s ideal dog breed is a- what was that- German Shepherd? See, even your own Ma doesn’t know that.”

“Arghh,” Atsumu groans. “I don’t know.”

His mother tuts, and Atsumu can almost feel her rolling her eyes fondly at him in a way that is not entirely unlike Sakusa. “All I gotta say is that handsome boys are a dime a dozen, but handsome and sweet boys? Better grab on tight before someone else jumps in.”

Atsumu still doesn’t know exactly what to do, but he falls asleep on the sofa with his chest feeling ten times lighter. He only stirs when the moon is high in the sky, as he hears the front door unlock, and makes out Sakusa’s figure edging past the entryway.

“Omi?” he sits up in his blanket pile, blinking blearily in the dark. “’S that you?”

Sakusa pauses, and then giggles. He sways slightly on the spot, and Atsumu darts out of his blanket pile to catch him as he stumbles. He smells like wine, and his shirt is rumpled.

“Of course it’s me, silly,” Sakusa says, and Atsumu is suddenly very aware that they are nose to nose, and Sakusa is practically cradled in his arms. Sakusa’s eyes shine in the dark. “Who else would it be?”

“I don’t know, Omi,” Atsumu huffs. He steadies Sakusa with a hand on his arm, gently disentangling his arms from around him. “Can you stand? Sorry, didn’t mean to touch you like that.”

Sakusa pouts at him. “Nooo,” he says, and drapes himself over Atsumu’s shoulders. “It’s nice. Why don’t we do this more often?”

Be still, Atsumu tells his furiously beating heart. “Because you don’t like people touching you?”

“Not if it’s you,” Sakusa says.

He’s still struggling to come up with a response to that, when Sakusa gives a soft snore from where his head rests on Atsumu’s shoulder, and Atsumu realises that, against all odds, he’s fallen asleep standing up. Sakusa lets out a tiny huff of air through his mouth, and it tickles the side of Atsumu’s neck as they stand, toe to toe, in the middle of their living room. As the soft moonlight illuminates Atsumu’s hands resting gently on Sakusa’s waist, Sakusa becomes Kiyoomi.

“Fuck,” Atsumu breathes.

In a strange throwback to the week Kiyoomi- ugh- moved in with him (albeit with a role reversal), Atsumu comes back from getting lunch at noon to find Sakusa stirring awake on the couch.

Atsumu puts down the ramen on the counter, and turns to Sakusa warily. “Hey,” he says.

Kiyoomi presses the heels of his palms to his eyes. “What time is it?”

“Uh,” Atsumu looks at his phone, “you have an hour until we have to leave for afternoon practice.”

“Shit,” Kiyoomi swears, for the first time since Atsumu has known him. He pushes himself up from the sofa, still in his rumpled evening wear, and heads for the bathroom. He passes Atsumu without a glance at him, giving no indication that he’d remembered anything from the previous night.

Which is, like, fine. Atsumu can totally deal with that.

He hears the faucets turn on in the shower, and busies himself with retrieving the bowls of ramen from their plastic bags, when their doorbell rings. Atsumu goes to answer it, expecting to see a deliveryman with a parcel or something, and very much not expecting to see Ushijima Wakatoshi.

Atsumu blinks at him. Ushijima smiles back, serenely. “Good afternoon, Miya.” His voice is a deep rumble, and Atsumu is suddenly acutely aware that he is taller than him. “Is Kiyoomi home?”

Kiyoomi?

No, he wants to say, childishly, but then Ushijima is drawing out a neatly folded pile of fabric from the brown paper bag at his side.

“Kiyoomi left this at my hotel yesterday night,” he says, and suddenly there’s a loud ringing blaring in Atsumu’s ears, and he feels his heart in his throat. Ushijima places a familiar emerald scarf in his hands. “I hope I didn’t impose on you, by coming. I had simply wanted to return Kiyoomi’s scarf, which I’m sure you know that he is very attached to it because his grandmother knitted it for him before she passed. I remembered his address from where I dropped him off last night, and saw that it was on my way to my lunch destination.”

This mini monologue feels like someone is repeatedly slapping him in the face. With a burning metal rod. “Right,” he forces out, after an eternity. “I’ll let him know. Thanks.” Yes. Good. One syllable words are fine.

Ushijima nods at him, and turns smartly on his heel. Atsumu stares at his retreating figure for a beat, before letting the door shut. He turns, and stares at the spot where he and Kiyoomi had stood, embracing, just hours before.

Then he feels a burning pain tearing through his chest, and hastily drops Kiyoomi’s scarf on the dining table, blinking away hot tears from his eyes. He gulps down his ramen, heedless of the hot soup scorching his throat, and quickly changes into his practice clothes and books it out of the door before Kiyoomi finishes his shower.

If his teammates wonder why he arrives separately from Kiyoomi, they don’t say anything. Atsumu dunks his face in cold water in the bathroom, and stares at his red-rimmed eyes in the grimy mirror. Get it together, he tells himself.

He starts his stretches on his own first, and makes sure he’s sitting in a far corner when Kiyoomi walks into the gym right before practice starts. He feels his eyes on him, and determinedly avoids his gaze. Coach Foster calls for them to divide up for spiking practice before Kiyoomi can head over, and it’s a small mercy that Kiyoomi gets sent to practice with the second-string setter.

He makes riskier sets that day, some even more dangerous than he would do in a real match. Every blow on his body has a name.

The resounding smack of the ball against the tender skin of his inner wrists. Kiyoomi left this at my hotel yesterday night.

The shockwave that goes through his knees, as he drops to the ground to push the ball into the air. I’m sure you know that he is very attached to it.

The thud of his palms on the floor as he breaks his fall after a brutal receive. I dropped him off last night.

After he takes a particularly hard fall on his back while pulling off a low, backwards toss, Meian pulls him to the side, calls another second-string setter to take over, and sits him down on the bench none too gently.

“Kid,” he says, “I don’t know what you’ve got on your mind, but try not to injure yourself right before the league starts. You’re the best we got.”

Am I? He watches the line of Kiyoomi’s back curve into a perfect C as the ball comes into contact with his palm for the briefest of seconds and then veers off Inunaki’s arms. Inunaki curses, and Atsumu sees Kiyoomi’s lips lift upwards, and then he looks straight at the bench where Atsumu and Meian are sitting. Atsumu hates that he’s unable to look away as their gazes lock onto each other, and suddenly he’s back in their living room, nose to nose with those sharp features and soft eyes.

Kiyoomi looks away first, and Atsumu lets out a breath he didn’t even know he was holding. Meian claps him on the back, and Atsumu knows he’s seen that little interaction.

“Take the rest of the day off, kid,” he says. “Come back tomorrow when you get yourself out of your head.”

Atsumu wants to protest, but then Meian is striding over to inform Coach Foster, who waves him off immediately, and there’s nothing much he can do after that but pick up his towel and bottle and head for the showers.

At home, he zones out in the bath while scalding water beats down on the back of his neck, and tries not to think about how it’s become second nature for him to shower the moment he gets home even though he’s already showered at the gym. He wipes down the shower on autopilot, and then collapses in his bed. He pulls the sheets up above his head to block out the last rays of sun streaming into his room, and tries to think.

He could, of course, ask Kiyoomi to move out. He knows he would do it in a heartbeat if he ever voiced any kind of discomfort with their living arrangements. But the very fact that he would do so doesn’t sit right with Atsumu.

He remains curled in fetal position, eyes wide open, until he hears the front door creak open and hears Kiyoomi’s quiet steps down the hallway. The line of his shoulders relaxes slightly (in disappointment? He doesn’t know) when the steps don’t pause outside his room, and he hears Kiyoomi start going about his usual evening routine.

He’s almost about to drift off when his bedroom door swings open, light from corridor spilling in. Through his thin blanket, he can make out Kiyoomi’s figure in the entryway.

“Miya?” Atsumu never knew Kiyoomi could sound this soft. “Are you awake?”

Atsumu stiffens, and wills every inch of his body to remain still. “I can see your foot twitching,” Kiyoomi says.

Damn it. He’d forgotten his foot was sticking out from the bottom of the blanket.

Well, ruse over. He sits up and lets the blankets pool around his waist, plastering a fake smile on his face. “Hey, Omi.”

His voice wobbles on its way out, and he mentally berates himself. Couldja sound any lamer?

Kiyoomi treads in, and sets the tray in his hands down on the bedside table. There’s a bowl of porridge placed carefully in the middle, with a ceramic spoon resting beside it. Their placements are careful and deliberate and so very Kiyoomi. The word swirls around Atsumu’s head like a spinning record, threatening to spill past the tip of his tongue. Kiyoomi, Kiyoomi, Kiyoomi.

“Are ya babying me now, Omi?” he tries. “Wouldn’t have pegged ya as the wifey type.”

“Cut the crap,” Kiyoomi says. “What the hell is up with you?”

Atsumu feels a tidal wave of anger looming over his head, and digs his fingernails into his palms. How dare he, when he is the cause of all of this, and has the fucking nerve to say shit that turns his stomach inside out while evidently not meaning a single bit of it?

The wave recedes just as quickly when he sees the little line in between Kiyoomi’s eyebrows and the slight wobble of his lip, telltale signs he’d seen when they watched Up and Kiyoomi hid his face in his hoodie the whole time. He loosens his fists with a sigh, shoulders collapsing into themselves as he runs a hand through his hair.

“I don’t know,” he says. Kiyoomi’s gaze follows the path of his hand through his hair, and turns on his heel. Atsumu only has enough time to wonder if Kiyoomi is about to pack up his belongings on the spot when he returns, holding the large first aid box he’d insisted on buying when he’d first moved in.

Atsumu doesn’t dare to move as Kiyoomi drops to his knees on the floor right beside his bed, and watches the crown of curls on his head bounce slightly as he busies himself with setting down the first aid box and opening it. The next thing he knows, Kiyoomi is taking his hands in his and turning them over carefully, as if they are something precious and dear to him.

He tears his eyes away from Kiyoomi and looks down at his hands, only realising now that the tips of his fingers are rubbed red and raw from the sets he pulled off earlier. As Kiyoomi brushes his hand over the tips of his fingers, Atsumu lets an involuntary hiss of pain escape from between his clenched teeth.

Kiyoomi finally looks up, right at him, and doesn’t break eye contact as he cradles Atsumu’s hands, and brushes his lips right over his knuckles in the ghost of a kiss. Atsumu feels a shuddering exhale go through his whole body, as he continues to be pulled helplessly towards the singularity of Kiyoomi’s eyes.

“You only have one pair of hands,” Kiyoomi says. “Nothing can be worth ruining them.”

“Not even you?” Atsumu asks.

Kiyoomi’s brows furrow together. “I wouldn’t ever let you hurt yourself for-”

“Stop,” Atsumu blurts. “Ya- ya can’t just say shit like that, Omi. ‘Specially if ya don’t mean it.”

Kiyoomi’s lips pinch together, tightly. “But I do. Mean it, that is.”

“Ya don’t,” Atsumu exhales. “Even if ya did, it- it wouldn’t be fair. To Ushiwaka.”

“What does Wakatoshi-kun have to do with any of this?”

“Ya can stop pretending,” Atsumu snaps. “I know ya slept with him yesterday night. He came to return ya scarf this morning. Said ya left it in his hotel room.”

If possible, Kiyoomi’s frown deepens. “Yes,” he says slowly. “Where we were having our book club meeting.”

The gears in Atsumu’s whirring mind screech to a halt. “Book club?” he parrots.

“Yes,” Kiyoomi says again. “I asked for my usual book club meeting to be shifted to Sunday night, because Wakatoshi-kun happened to be in town and had expressed interest in joining a session. We were discussing Like Water for Chocolate. Which he read so that he can romance his boyfriend on their anniversary.”

“Boyfriend?”

“Middle blocker from Shiratorizawa? He’s a chocolatier in Paris now. Wakatoshi-kun assumed the book would be less… tragic. He offered to host our meeting at his hotel room, since our usual café doesn’t open on Sunday evenings.”

“Middle blocker from Shiratorizawa?”

“Tendou Satori,” Kiyoomi frowns at him again, but this time it’s less strained. “Are you going to repeat everything I say?”

“Oh my god,” Atsumu draws his hands from Kiyoomi’s to press them to his eyes. “I- I thought- never mind.”

Kiyoomi’s fingers circle Atsumu’s wrists and gently pulls his hands away from his face. “Now you stop pretending,” he says.

Atsumu takes a painful breath. Kiyoomi waits patiently, as the second hand on his clock makes a full orbit.

“Do ya remember what ya said last night?” he finally chokes out.

Kiyoomi nods. “After I took a cold shower, yes.”

“I wanted to believe ya meant it.”

There it is. The truth flits out from his chest like a butterfly which has been painfully beating its wings in his lungs, and while his throat may still feel raw, the knot in his heart has loosened.

“I do,” Kiyoomi says. “I’ll keep saying it, until you believe it.”

Atsumu only realises he’s crying when Kiyoomi reaches up and cups his face in his hands, and brushes his lips over the tear tracks on his cheeks.

“I don’t mind anything,” he says. “As long as it’s with you.”

“Omiiiiii,” Atsumu complains. “Yer aroma diffuser is clogging up my nose.”

Kiyoomi pauses from where he’s waving his little white ceramic jar crammed with its twigs around the living room, and fixes Atsumu with an unimpressed look.

“Then don’t leave the window open for birds to come in and shit on our floor.”

Atsumu balefully eyes the scratches up and down his arm from when he’d chased said bird out through their front door. “Fucking ow,” he says. “Who knew sparrows were tiny gremlins with wings? I’m gonna get rabies.” Then a thought occurs to him. “Wait, would you still love me if I had rabies?”

“Rabies are rare in birds,” Kiyoomi says, looking like he’s actually considering it. “And who said anything about love?”

“You,” Atsumu says, puffing his chest out. Hesitation is a foe of the past, and confidence is an old friend. “You love me.”

Kiyoomi puts down his stupid little jar, and makes his way over to where Atsumu is sitting. Atsumu smiles as Kiyoomi’s lips meet the birthmark on his forehead, and yanks him down by his hoodie strings so he can return the favour by pressing two quick kisses on the little moles above his eyebrows.

Sakusa smiles at him, the special one that shows a hint of teeth that he reserves just for Atsumu. “So much,” he says.

“Good,” Atsumu ignores the rising blush on his cheeks. “Then ya won’t mind the rat I let into the bathroom.”