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The thing was, Atsumu was a complete and utter hopeless romantic.
As soon as he’d found out what soulmates were, he’d had his heart set on living his happily ever after with them. He didn’t care what they looked like or who they were. He knew that they would be perfect for him and he would be perfect for them. He knew he could be a lot, but he was prepared to be whatever his soulmate needed.
The thing about the soulmate phenomena was that everyone was born seeing the world in black, white and grey. As soon as you made eye-contact with your soulmate, the world would explode with colour. It was a fortunately obvious indicator – Atsumu couldn’t even begin to imagine what it would be like to live in a world without soulmates like he’d read about in books. These fictional people just went around living their lives without knowing if they’ve met and missed their soulmate or not.
Of course, the system wasn’t perfect. Scientists had yet to be able to decode what exactly caused the phenomena – it still being one of the strongest pieces of evidence towards there being some high power – and as such, it was a very unrelegated process. There were still so many holes in the law. Marriage between same-sex soulmates had only just become legal after all. While soulmates were universally accepted, there were still people who believed that a same-sex soulmate was either meant to be a platonic soulmate or it was a sign that they were cursed to be unhappy due to not being able to have children. Considering the state of overpopulation the world had to deal with, Atsumu wasn’t too heartbroken at the idea that he might not be able to have children. They can always adopt – help out a kid who needed a family to love them.
Atsumu quite liked that idea.
Of course, there were also more complications with the process. Sometimes people only saw half of the colours and that meant that they had a polybond. Most cultures weren’t unfamiliar with polygamy, but there were still some traditionalists who gave polybonds grief over it. They believed that one was intended to be platonic. Sometimes that belief was shared by the polybound soulmates. It was really no one’s business but their own, what they did with their relationship.
Sometimes one’s soulmate died before they even got to meet. Their vision would forever remain black and white, and there was no definitive way to say whether or not their soulmate was even dead. Some claimed they felt a distinct sense of loss, but it wasn’t a guarantee. Sometimes you just didn’t know.
Sometimes soulmates died after meeting each other. This was far more definitive (obviously) and to add grief to the already horrifying fate of losing your soulmate, you also lost the ability to see colour. Unfortunately, those two scenarios were all too common and people were forced to live their entire lives incomplete. Still, to Atsumu, there was still worse fates.
There were two other phenomena that occurred due to the soulmate phenomena. One was rejected bonds. Sometimes people hated their soulmates so much, that they chose to live their lives separately, choosing free will over what fate had planned for them; not even settling with a platonic bond. Atsumu found this incredibly sad, but he understood that there were circumstances. Who’d want to live with the knowledge that their soulmate was a rapist or murderer?
Sometimes soulmates just didn’t fall in love. Sometimes they fell in love with others and left their soulmates behind. Love still took effort and work, even if they got a shortcut to seeing who was meant for them. Atsumu’s own parents were an unfortunate example of this. His father had fallen in love with someone else and left them behind when Atsumu and Osamu had been only 4. They’d still been old enough to understand what it meant when their mother said that daddy wasn’t coming home anymore.
Surprisingly, it’d been Osamu who’d been insistent that their father hadn’t left; surely he’d died and their mother didn’t know how to tell them. A letter from their father accompanied by divorce papers had thoroughly destroyed that illusion.
It had been cruel, to wish their father actually had been dead when they caught their mother sobbing quietly to herself, alone in her room. All the same, Atsumu couldn’t feel guilty even when his mother scolded him for expressing that opinion.
What was truly cruel was that these people didn’t stop seeing colours.
Atsumu didn’t know what he would hate more, seeing colour and constantly being reminded of what you lost, or never seeing colour again and truly knowing that you were alone.
Secondly, there were the mismatches. Sometimes the universe made a mistake, or so doctors claimed. Sometime sonly one person saw colours when making eye contact. This could happen before or after they’d met their own soulmates, but it didn’t really change the outcome on the person who’d found their soulmate only to realize that they weren’t the other person’s soulmate. To Atsumu, that almost felt crueler than rejection. Rejection could be undone, but never being a match was something that the unlucky person would have to live with for the rest of their lives. These people still saw colours too.
Of course, it wasn’t the end of the world if you never met your soulmate or fell into any of the previously mentioned cases. Plenty of people went their entire lives without meeting their soulmates. Some people like Atsumu couldn’t even fathom being in a romantic relationship with someone who wasn’t their soulmate. It would just feel wrong and like he was cheating on his soulmate. But plenty of people gave a big ‘fuck you’ to fate and loved who they pleased. Atsumu couldn’t condemn them even if he couldn’t imagine ever doing the same. They found happiness where they could. They made their own when the world told them to wait, and they couldn’t trust that the wait would ever end. Atsumu could understand that.
Sometimes he wished his mother tried dating again so she wouldn’t be alone They wouldn’t be there forever. Eventually they would grow up and leave Hyogo behind.
Still, despite growing up and seeing just how poorly a soulmate relationship could actually turn out, Atsumu was a hopeless romantic. He glorified the idea of having a soulmate and promised to only have eyes for them. He knew there was a chance that he’d never meet them, but he trusted fate to know what was best for him. Osamu thought he was stupid for not even trying to find happiness outside of his soulmate, but all of his statements fell a little flat considering he met his soulmate when they were in middle school.
Suna was perfect for Osamu and it really showed. Don’t get him wrong, he was happy for his brother, but he was also jealous. Osamu was able to get his fairytale ending so easily and here Atsumu was at 16 and still seeing in shades of grey. He shouldn’t be impatient though, his soulmate would be there when they were both ready. It just meant that Atsumu had more time to become the perfect person for his soulmate.
In the middle of his second year of high school, he got a weird feeling. He just knew that that meant something good. He was going to meet his soulmate soon. He didn’t tell his brother because Osamu would just tell him it was all in his head. But if he had an extra pep to his step, it wasn’t like it had to mean something.
He went to the National Youth camp with high spirits.
There, he saw both new faces and old. Sakusa was there, but his soulmate Ushiwaka wasn’t, instead having been replaced by a doe-eyed setter with an oddly similar stoic look on his face. There were some other new people, but Atsumu was really only interested in the setter. He was the infamous ‘King of the Court’ and a genius setter. Considering he would probably be the person most likely to challenge Atsumu for his title of the No. 1 high school setter in the nation, it made sense for Atsumu to be curious.
(No matter how much Ushijima vouched for Oikawa’s skills as a setter, Atsumu couldn’t find it in him to fully believe it. After seeing Kageyama, he couldn’t help but doubt it even more. The kid was good – no doubt about that – but it seemed like he’d done a complete 180 from being a King. Considering he idolized Oikawa, it made him doubt Oikawa’s own ability to truly measure up and be the best setter for his team. A setter wasn’t meant to only cater to the spikers’ whims. They were the control tower – they were the conductor.
What use was a conductor that followed the orchestra and lost the beat?)
Kageyama was intriguing.
He was incredibly skilled but almost entirely socially inept. It was fascinating watching him play.
It was also disappointing, because if he stayed as he was, then he would plateau and he would no longer be interesting. He lacked the fire that Atsumu had expected. Still, that didn’t mean he wasn’t a little shit.
“Atsumu-san, are you aware that your hair is very… yellow?”
Atsumu couldn’t help but laugh uproariously. The cheeky little bugger. “Yeah, my brother tells me it looks like piss, but I can’t see it so I honestly can’t be bothered,” he joked, smirking at the kid. “You can see colour then?”
Kageyama bopped his head up and down, his expression painfully neutral. “I had played a game against him in middle school, but we only made eye-contact when we met in high school. His name is Hinata Shouyou and he’s like Hoshiumi-san but if Hoshiumi-san had no technique.”
Atsumu snorted at the admittedly hilarious imagery. “Sounds like you really love him.”
And then Kageyama’s face actually softened and a small smile appeared. “He trusted me 100% even when he knew who I was. He did it without even second guessing.”
That sobered him up because really, if that wasn’t love, then what was?
Atsumu hadn’t put much more thought into Kageyama or the training camp until he saw Kageyama and his team at Nationals. The little shrimp of a middle blocker really was something else. Atsumu simply had to meet him. It was only a bonus that he got to tease Kageyama. The kid really was too cute.
“Hey, Tobio-kun!” Atsumu called cheerfully. “How are you?”
“I’m good, and you?”
Wasn’t he just adorable? “Doin’ good. You two are mighty impressive, I have to say,” he grins easily. “Aren’t ya gonna introduce me?”
And of course, before Kageyama could open his mouth to say anything, the little shrimp butted his way into their conversation.
“You’re… Miya Atsumu, right?”
Atsumu made eye contact with Karasuno’s number 10 and immediately he knew he was fucked.
Colour flooded Atsumu’s vision. It bled out from Hinata’s large honey-toned eyes. Bright, garish oranges were next and then suddenly everything was so bright and so much Atsumu had to narrow his eyes. It was intended to be a squint, but probably looked more like a condescending glare if what his soulmate’s face was anything to go by.
Karasuno’s little freak middle blocker was beautiful up close. Orange suited the loud kid. He was short and had this odd gleam in his eyes. Even sweaty and jumpy, he looked radiant. Atsumu had never imagined what his soulmate would look like, but he’d always had the impression that they would be something akin to the sun.
“Atsumu-san, this is my soulmate, Hinata Shouyou. Hinata, this is Miya Atsumu-san. We met at the National Youth training camp.”
It was like Kageyama’s voice was a bucket of ice-cold water.
Holy shit. He’d mismatched and his mismatch already had his soulmate.
His tongue felt like sandpaper.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you. Tobio-kun’s told me all about you.”
In all the times he’d fantasized about his future, never once, had he considered that he’d be mismatched.
Suddenly the colours weren’t so beautiful.