Archive of Our Own ^beta

It had started out with a kiss. It was only a kiss. So how did it end up like this?

This is here on the uncomfortable carpeted floor of Rintarou and Atsumu’s shared dorm room at 3:17AM, a godforsaken hour that Rintarou would rather be dead asleep at. The alcohol sloshing through his entire body is urging him to either get to bed or get to the bathroom, but Atsumu has got him pinned beneath his unwavering stare and Rintarou finds that he couldn’t move from this spot even if he wanted to. Though, he would rather attribute that to the alcohol as well.

Let’s rewind just a few hours.

The INZ fraternity house is usually pretty packed on Friday nights. And Saturday nights. And, for that matter, Tuesday nights as well because Akagi likes to have tequila Tuesdays and he makes a pretty compelling argument as to why it should be considered a national holiday. Every week. But, we digress.

The party is loud and rowdy and the living room is sweltering hot with too many bodies packed in and milling about and these are just a few of the numerous reasons Atsumu has used to explain his poor aim every time he misses the cups at the other end of the pong table. Rintarou is two minutes away from throttling him.

Atsumu sways on his feet as he sizes up his next shot, his shoulder bumping gently into Rintarou with the motion. He closes one eye and squints across the table as the ping pong ball trembles between his pinched fingers. He’s already missed both shots from his last turn as well as basically every other toss he has attempted within the last four rounds. Usually, Rintarou would just be taking the piss out of him for being such a terrible shot today, but this game of pong is a little bit different, as Aran has so excitedly reminded them after each of Atsumu’s missed tosses bounce off the table and roll away into the unknown.

No, they aren’t playing any ol’ beer pong: tonight’s house rules have turned this into a game of fear pong. Aran had proposed this little change when he’d grown tired of Atsumu being such a sore winner after winning one (1) game earlier tonight.

Every time you miss a shot, your partner will be given a penalty. Rintarou thinks it’s unfair that the partner and not the team’s weak link — cough, Atsumu, cough — is the one who must suffer, but Aran had only laughed and explained that that was the entire point. What better way to breed bad blood and throw off their teamwork than pushing Rintarou closer and closer to committing a crime against his roommate.

Thankfully, the penalties have been pretty tame so far. Rintarou has just had to shotgun far too many beers than he would ever like to in his entire life, but if it’s not something completely gross, he’ll shut up and drink.

(Rintarou has also pointed out that it can’t accurately be called fear pong if there isn’t really anything to be scared of, but Aran had seemed so excited about the name that he didn’t want to push it. True fear would be hurting Aran’s feelings and living with a lifetime of regret.)

As expected, Atsumu misses his shot. The ball soars in a pretty arc over the triangle of cups and disappears into the crowd, likely to never be seen again. Rintarou cuffs him over the back of the head and then promptly reaches out to grab Atsumu when the force of it makes him lurch forward, horribly off balance.

Sighing, Rintarou looks to the opposite end of the table to ask what he’ll be forced to endure this time around, only to falter when he sees Akagi pulling out a handle of watermelon flavored vodka.

The back of Rintarou’s throat begins to burn at the mere thought of it. “I am dead serious, I will drink anything but that,” he protests. His mind flashes back to the beginning of the semester when he’d become very familiar with his dorm building’s bathrooms, face to face with the third stall’s toilet for the majority of the night. Courtesy of one too many swigs from that very same vodka.

Akagi giggles gleefully as he produces a shot glass seemingly out of nowhere and Aran uncaps the bottle with too much flourish for someone who is supposed to be their responsible vice president.

Atsumu is at least sentient enough to rush to Rintarou’s aid, shaking his head frantically. He had been there the entire time and as the only first hand witness to Rintarou’s unfortunate night, he’s probably got some disturbing memories of his own.

“I’ll drink fer him,” Atsumu announces, both the alcohol and his haste making his dialect a little stronger, fear bursting between his words. Maybe the game is accurately named after all. “I’ll drink twice as much, I swear! Don’t let ‘im smell it!”

For good measure, he smacks a clumsy hand over Rintarou’s face in a poor attempt to protect his friend. The sentiment is nice enough — Rintarou is quite sure just a tiny whiff will make him gag — so he decides not to reprimand Atsumu for the stinging on his cheeks from the way his sweaty palm is smushing down on him.

Aran clicks his tongue and shakes his head, waving the bottle almost threateningly. “I don’t think so. House rules, ya know how it is.”

Rintarou is above begging. Atsumu, apparently, is not.

“Anything but that Aran-kun! Anythin’! I can’t go through that again!”

Rintarou side eyes him, unamused. He had been the one who had actually suffered; if he remembers correctly, all Atsumu had done was bring him water and be a sympathetic gagger, which in turn just made things worse. A lot worse.

A sly grin finds its way across Akagi’s face and Rintarou begins to think he can handle the vodka, anything to avoid whatever it is that’s making Akagi look so happy.

“Anything, you say?” he repeats, sounding much too excited.

It’s too late to stop Atsumu, who immediately bursts out, thumping his fists against the table for maximum emphasis, “Anything!”

Rintarou cuffs him in the head again to get him to stop before throwing a nervous glance over to where Akagi and Aran are whispering to each other with a matching glint in their eyes that makes him think that Atsumu has just sealed their fate.

Aran straightens up and calls across the room to their frat president. “Hey Shinsuke! Are we allowed to embarrass the newbies?”

Rintarou follows his gaze to where Kita is seated on the couch surrounded by way too many people for one piece of furniture, who, if he was sober enough to remember names and faces, he would recognize as the presidents of several other frats on campus.

Kita’s eyes narrow as he appears to consider this. One of the guys beside him shifts closer, slinging an arm around the back of the cushions as whatever conversation they’d been having dies out in favor of turning to glance over at them in curiosity. It’s too many eyes staring back at him and Rintarou suddenly feels like he’s intruding, averting his gaze and instead glaring at Atsumu who looks like he’s engaged in a one-sided staring contest with the handle of vodka.

“As long as there’s no clean up,” Kita’s voice responds.

Rintarou looks up to see that Akagi’s smile has grown even more devious.

“You know what, I’ll just drink the—” Rintarou’s voice dies out immediately when Akagi jabs a finger at the pair of them.

“Kiss him.”

Rintarou’s mouth hangs open. He looks over to find Atsumu in much the same state. He doesn’t really know where to look, meeting Atsumu’s gaze for a split second and blinking back in surprise, unprepared for the dark question burning in them. Unable to stop himself, his gaze falls lower to Atsumu’s mouth, lips parted, tongue darting out to wet them, pink and—

Rintarou whips around and waves his open hand aggressively across the table. “Give me the bottle. Just fuckin’ give it.”

Atsumu yanks his arm back before the bottle can come anywhere close. “I will not let ya put me through that again, Sunarin!”

“You didn’t even help me!”

“I was traumatized! Ya know I’m a sympathetic vomiter!”

Rintarou grasps Atsumu by the shoulders and attempts to shake some sense into him. If the party weren’t so loud, he is sure he would be able to hear Atsumu’s brain rattling around in his huge, empty head. “I don’t wanna be anywhere that close to you.”

Atsumu blinks at him and then down to where Rintarou’s hands are touching him, gripping him up close like this. He shoves him away with a groan, scandalized, as if he burns.

This makes Atsumu laugh, his head thrown back with the force of it. “Ya’d rather make out with the toilet again than just one lil’ kiss?” he sneers. He steps closer, forcing Rintarou to straighten up to his full height in an attempt to— to establish dominance or something. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know anything right now.

“What?” Atsumu continues, growing bolder the longer Rintarou stays quiet. If there’s anything he excels at, it’s riling him up, a practice he has had years to perfect. Atsumu’s eyes are still a little hazy from all that he’s had to drink but there’s a dangerous glint to them that Rintarou recognizes as a challenge. “What is it, Sunarin? Ya scared?”

Nevermind. There’s one thing Rintarou does know, at least. He knows he will never back down when it comes to Atsumu and his shit-eating grin and the cocky way he carries himself. If there’s anything he’s perfected over the years he has been unfortunately exposed to the Miyas, it’s how to knock a certain blonde bitch down a few pegs.

“Fuck you,” he grits out, steeling himself, hands clasped into fists by his side. His lip curls into a sneer of his own as he fixes Atsumu with a flinty gaze, but Atsumu has always known how to read between Rintarou’s lines. He shuffles closer, recognizing the fight in him fizzling away into brusque acceptance, beaming at Rintarou with that smug smile of his. Rintarou can’t wait to find out how satisfying it tastes to kiss it off his face.

Atsumu is well inside his personal bubble now but there is still a little sliver of space left between them, an out if Rintarou still wants it. He meets Rintarou’s eyes for a moment, dark, intense, yet softened around the edges with a wordless question, a silent request for permission. It is this look that makes Rintarou’s body thrum with nerves.

“Come on then,” he whispers and that is all it takes for that space to disappear, replaced in the blink of an eye with just Atsumu.

Rintarou’s eyes squeeze shut as Atsumu’s lips press against his and, above all, more than the rush of anticipation, more than the nervous twist of his stomach, more than the erratic beat of his heart, what he registers the most is the warmth of it. Atsumu’s mouth is warm, his nose where it brushes across his cheek is warm, and the way he crowds closer to Rintarou to kiss him harder makes him feel warm all over. The ground feels like it’s swooped away from his feet and he grips the hem of Atsumu’s shirt in an attempt to find some sort of stability, the sensations of crushing fabric between his fingers and the faint heat of Atsumu’s skin beneath breaking through the misty haze clouding all his senses. He feels drunk— which isn’t significant considering he’s been drinking all night, but something about this feels different. Drunk on something else, something less familiar.

The kiss is nothing to write home about but still, he almost wants to whine in protest when he feels Atsumu beginning to pull away. Something about this new sort of drunken stupor makes time move both too fast and too slow; it feels like it’s only been a heartbeat and a half since his mouth has met Atsumu’s and yet when Atsumu steps back and lets Rintarou breathe again, it feels like hours have slipped by without him realizing. His heart is thundering so hard against his ribs, he can almost feel his entire body tremble with the force of it.

He can barely remember the kiss the more he looks at Atsumu, his glowing face, his mouth spreading into a smile— the same mouth that had felt soft and, despite knocking back a number of foul drinks tonight, had tasted impossibly sweet.

The taste lingers. His lips feel tingly and he can feel the heat rising to his face as he leans away from Atsumu. Rintarou presses the back of his hand to his mouth, wiping at the wetness of it and abruptly turning away. He needs to focus on something else. He finds himself meeting Akagi’s gaze and it is much easier to scowl at the pure delight in his expression than it is to try and process whatever emotion he might find on Atsumu’s face.

“That was barely a kiss!” Aran accuses, and Rintarou can’t agree nor deny the claim because the kiss has felt like it had dragged on, but at the same time he thinks that he might have needed a moment longer for it to feel right.

“Ya didn’t give us a time limit!” Atsumu shoots back, his voice effectively shaking Rintarou out of his thoughts.

“Next time,” Akagi accepts with a sigh after taking a moment to try and find a point to argue with this technicality. He shrugs as he caps the godforsaken bottle of vodka and sets it aside.

There is thankfully no next time, however, because Rintarou takes a shaky step away from the pong table with a faint excuse about needing air. No one questions him, too swept up in the next spectacle erupting from the chaos of the party (Ginjima is standing on the kitchen counter for some reason, but it’s likely he won’t get very far into whatever he’s trying to do because Kita is currently stalking across the living room with his I think the fuck not expression).

Rintarou steps outside for just a few minutes to shake off the unsettling prickle of nerves continuing to skate over his arms and to get rid of the flush still spreading through his whole body. He wipes his palms on his pants, sweaty and clammy for no reason. It’s just Atsumu. It was just a kiss.

Honestly, if he thinks about it (and he does— he thinks and thinks and thinks until someone drags him back inside with a sloshing shot glass), it hadn’t been that big of a deal. He repeats this until it echoes emptily in his head and then a bit more until it’s lost is meaning completely, both the thought and the kiss well on their way out of his mind by the time they’ve returned to their dorm room later that night. It was just a tiny speck of stress, nearly dusted away by more important things, until Atsumu had flopped onto the floor and ruined any chance of normalcy Rintarou could have hoped for.

“Hey. Hey, Sunarin.”

Rintarou drags his sticky shirt off his back and throws it into his closet to deal with in the morning. He grunts in acknowledgement for Atsumu to go on as he rummages for clean clothes.

“Can I kiss ya again?”

The question startles him so much he knocks his head against the side of the closet’s door in his haste to look at Atsumu, to make sure he’s joking— or serious, or— Rintarou doesn’t know which one is better. He jerks around with only one arm trapped in the shirt he is currently trying to put on.

“What? Why?” he asks, louder than intended, wincing at the smarting in his temple.

“I just wanna see something.” Atsumu leans back on his hands, cocking his head to the side as he looks back at Rintarou from his spot on the floor.

Rintarou puts his shirt on extra slowly to buy himself time, trying not to think too much, afraid the worry will show on his face. When he finally tugs the collar over his head and shakes his hair out of his eyes, Atsumu is still looking at him.

It’s late and Rintarou is tired and he doesn’t know if he can find the energy to deflect Atsumu’s prodding at this hour. It’s just a kiss. Just like how the last one was also just a kiss. Nothing happened then. So nothing will happen now.

That little speck in the back of Rintarou’s mind grows into a shadow of apprehension, like it knows he’s about to plunge into something he isn’t prepared for, but he just pushes it away and moves to sit across from Atsumu, cross-legged on the floor. He squints at him, trying to see past his lazy smile to see if he can find the same restlessness he is feeling.

Atsumu leans forward and rests his hands on his knees, looking at Rintarou like he’s sizing him up, his head tilting to the side like a puppy. Rintarou, in spite of everything, feels something terribly similar to endearment.

He nearly flinches when Atsumu reaches out and gently rubs the pad of his thumb right at the edge of Rintarou’s face, drawing over the spot he’d smacked against his closet. The touch is warm, firm, drawing his focus away from the throb beneath his skull, and it reminds him of their kiss from earlier.

Rintarou still hasn’t responded. Atsumu’s hand doesn’t fall, touch lingering, and he grins, looking like he already knows the answer he’ll be getting.

“C’mon Sunarin. Just one kiss.”

“You already got one,” Rintarou grumbles, eyes flickering away from Atsumu’s face to hide the fact that his mind is already made up.

“That was different!”

Rintarou glances back and arches a brow, unconvinced. “How?”

“Say yes and you’ll find out.”

Rintarou rolls his eyes, taking a deep breath and giving a little shake of his head to dislodge Atsumu’s hand. The throbbing in his head is less from his bump and more from the way the nerves from earlier are creeping up on him, overwhelming, heavy almost. He ignores them, because if he’s being honest with himself, he doesn’t remember as much as he’d like from their kiss and he kind of wants to.

He breathes in again. Deep, slow, stabilizing. “Okay.”

Something mischievous flickers to life in Atsumu’s eyes and he leans even closer, smile growing.

“Okay?” There’s a cheerfulness to Atsumu’s voice, a bright sort of anticipation thrumming beneath his words.

“Okay,” Rintarou repeats his assent again, as if he can’t quite believe he said it in the first place. He meets Atsumu’s gaze with a flat expression on his face, a calm air about him that feels disconnected from the tension swirling in his chest.

Atsumu continues to look, stare almost, unwavering and intent and annoyingly bright-eyed as if they aren’t moments away from stepping over a line most friendships do not even dare to approach.

The silence stretches between them. Rintarou presses his mouth into a thin line and watches the way Atsumu’s eyes hone in on the movement, and yet he still doesn’t make a move.

“I’m going to kiss you now,” Rintarou says plainly, unable to endure the quiet any longer.

Atsumu frowns. “What if I wanted to kiss you?”

“You say that like it matters.”

“Yea, ‘course it does!”

Rintarou reaches out and grabs Atsumu’s shirt collar, effectively shutting down his dramatic tirade on why the order of kissing another person actually matters. “Do you ever shut up,” he snaps, though it’s a pointless question considering he’s known Atsumu for nearly a decade now and he knows — God he knows — that Atsumu has never learned the delicate art of shutting up.

The surprise only remains on Atsumu’s face for a split second, replaced by a dopey smile as he leans in close, easier to do now that Rintarou has got him in his grip. Their noses are nearly brushing. His smile widens, taking on a smug curve that makes Rintarou predictably irritated.

“Make me,” Atsumu whispers.

Rintarou had been this close to just shoving Atsumu away and crawling into bed because his head is starting to feel heavy from their long night and he’s tired and enduring Atsumu and his antics all for a silly little kiss is hardly a worthwhile effort but this. But this.

Atsumu’s words burst into the tiny space between their faces and shoot straight under Rintarou’s skin, settling there like an itch he’ll never reach, a burning challenge that simmers and simmers until it grows into an unbearable heat. His hand tightens on Atsumu’s shirt, cotton wrinkling in his hold, and he jerks Atsumu closer with a sneer that only lasts a fleeting moment before their lips meet and his mind screeches to a stop.

To be quite honest, Rintarou doesn’t remember what that first kiss all those hours ago had felt like. But he’s pretty sure he’ll remember this one.

It’s not soft and it’s not gentle and it feels like they’re still arguing, still bantering back and forth, a push and pull that neither of them want to give up. Rintarou’s hold on Atsumu’s shirt has slackened considerably and Atsumu’s hand is wrapped around his wrist, the touch much too warm on his skin. But Atsumu’s other hand burns even more where it now rests on Rintarou’s shoulder, his fingertips pressing into the nape of his neck. It’s a light touch, not firm, not heavy, but something about it keeps him rooted in place, like he couldn’t move from this spot even if he wanted to.

But— he doesn’t want to. Rintarou finds himself leaning into the kiss even more, his own hand sliding up from Atsumu’s collar to cradle his jaw, using it to angle the kiss just how he likes it. He feels more than hears Atsumu mumble in response, whether in protest or— satisfaction? Are they enjoying this? Are they allowed to?

Rintarou just presses against him harder, kissing him more firmly as if to shush him, and to quiet his own thoughts. The simmering heat burns and burns in the pit of Rintarou’s chest as he feels Atsumu relax beneath him. It’s something like content, pride even, that makes it flare throughout his body, satisfied at the way Atsumu admits to his direction so easily.

They kiss and kiss and Rintarou doesn’t know how they’ve gotten so close, but their knees are brushing and they are breathing the same air now, one’s personal space bleeding into the other’s, exchanging breaths with each slide of their lips. Their mouths slot together so easily, mold against each other so easily, meet and part and meet again so easily, and Rintarou doesn’t remember ever kissing someone like this before. Doesn’t remember it ever feeling so natural, nor this exhilarating.

Atsumu’s tongue slides over the curve of Rintarou’s lower lip and it’s warm and slick and he wants— he wants— his mouth parts for him and his chest rumbles with a deep hum of satisfaction and— he is pushing Atsumu away roughly, a gasp caught in his throat, startled back into awareness by the sound of his own moan. It echoes in the air around them, ringing in Rintarou’s ears like an unsettling reminder. What the fuck?

His chest stutters as he draws in a deep breath, eyes wide as he looks at Atsumu, taking in the state of him. Rintarou is still drunk and Atsumu must be too, because his cheeks are flushed deep from the alcohol and his pupils are blown and he is breathing hard and his mouth is bruised red and— and—

Rintarou’s thoughts are racing away from him. He shakes his head, blinking rapidly and trying to clear his mind. His body feels hot all over but that’s— that’s just the alcohol. It’ll be gone when he wakes up tomorrow. He searches for something to say, something to break the tense quiet filling the room, still reverberating with the sound of his voice, but he’s never been good at that.

But that’s okay because Atsumu has always been an expert at ruining the moment.

A wide grin splits across his face. “I knew it,” he says, and all Rintarou can focus on is how breathy his voice sounds. “I am the better kisser.”

Miraculously, Rintarou’s head clears. His mouth parts with surprise, caught off guard for just a moment before he reaches out and presses the heel of his palm into Atsumu’s forehead and shoves, sending him tumbling backwards into the floor. He ignores Atsumu’s scandalized yelp as he goes down and pushes himself to his feet in a huff.

“Fuck you,” he snaps, but the usual bite to his words is nowhere to be found. It’s probably the alcohol, again. He doesn’t even spare a second glance towards Atsumu before crawling into his bed and slumping into the comfort of his mattress, finally letting the drunk haze in his mind drag him to sleep.

Rintarou is fucked. He wakes up to an empty dorm and a strange stillness draped over their room and immediately drags himself to the shower. The water is scalding, steam rising up and around him, and it’s a poor attempt to conceal himself from the fresh wave of overthinking taking over his head, but he scrubs away at his skin until he is sure that the warmth that lingers all over him is from the shower’s aggressive stream and not from the thought of last night.

He wonders if Atsumu remembers. Maybe he doesn’t, and maybe that’s why he’d already been gone when Rintarou had finally rolled out of bed, simply going about his day as normal. If he’d remembered, surely there would be something to talk about? Or maybe— maybe Atsumu doesn’t want to remember. No, maybe he really just doesn’t recall anything at all. Rintarou remembers. Does Rintarou want to remember? No. Wait. Yes, he does. Wait no—

“Ya look real fucked Rin.” Osamu’s deadpan voice breaks Rintarou out of his thoughts as he drops into the seat across from him. He watches Osamu settle down with a heavy plate, looking like he’d chosen one of everything from the dining hall’s breakfast options. Suddenly remembering that he was also here to eat, he looks down at his soggy bowl of cereal that has now turned into a sad mess, forgotten while he’d been wrapped up in his muddled thoughts.

It’s been happening all morning, the way he’s been spacing out over this. It was supposed to be just a kiss. But his mind keeps returning to that spot on the floor, opposite Atsumu and his pink cheeks and his wet lips— shiny and red and swollen from Rintarou’s lips. His body still shivers with warmth at the thought of it, a contradictory sort of response, but it’s the only way to describe the flush of heat and the prickle in his spine that comes all at once with each flashback to last night. He can’t even attribute his body’s response to the alcohol because there isn’t even a shadow of a hangover bearing down on him, his head surprisingly clear despite how hard he’d gone last night. The world must be playing some sort of cruel trick on him, forcing him to live through an especially strange night and then robbing him of the opportunity to forget all about it.

Across from him, the spitting image of the root of all his problems squints at Rintarou. “I said ya look real fucked,” Osamu repeats, under the impression that he hadn’t heard him. “Aren’t ya gonna say something mean back?”

“I’m a good person,” Rintarou replies, setting his spoon aside and watching it clink against his abandoned bowl. He pauses, screwing his face up in deep consideration before folding his arms on the table in front of him as the light of realization dawns on him. “I’m a good person,” he says again, more seriously this time. “Why is this happening to me?”

Osamu blinks at him and then down at the mush his cereal has turned into. “Breakfast?” he asks, confused.

“Your brother,” Rintarou clarifies, though it’s not much of an explanation. But to Osamu, it’s enough.

With a shrug, Osamu returns his attention to his own plate. “I’d say tell me about it, but he’s my least favorite topic of conversation.”

Rintarou drops his head onto the pillow of his arms in a dramatic display of defeat. “Switch roommates with me,” he groans.

“What, no!” Osamu scoffs, sounding almost offended. Which is understandable, considering he’d shared a room with Atsumu for his entire life and now here Rintarou is, fully aware of that fact, and yet still trying to steal his freedom from him. “I like living with Kiyoomi.”

“Oh?” Rintarou’s head pops up, chin perched on his hands and a smirk perched on his mouth. “You sure like living with Kiyoomi, huh?”

The offense etches deeper into Osamu’s expression. A blush rages across his cheeks as he hisses, “Shut up!” and leans over the table as if to lunge across and silence Rintarou himself.

It’s easier to tease Osamu about his barely concealed affections for his roommate rather than properly delve into the whirlwind of thoughts about his own that Rintarou is suddenly being forced to face. It sure as hell feels better to rile Osamu up than it is to process whatever chain reaction that stupid kiss has triggered in his mind, as if it’s opened up a door to a flood of feelings that Rintarou had kept tightly locked up for good reason.

He’s about to make another sly little jab at Osamu’s crush when his friend beats him to the punch.

“Why’s Tsumu looking so much more alive than you do?” Osamu asks in a blatant attempt to change the subject.

This catches Rintarou’s attention, whatever teasing comment he’d had prepared immediately slipping off the tip of his tongue. “Huh?” He backtracks quickly to try and school his expression, his voice carefully neutral when he clears his throat and asks, “You saw him?”

“He was walking out of the dining hall as I was swiping in,” Osamu explains. “Ya guys didn’t come here together?” He pauses, chewing his bite of waffle in quiet thought. “Makes sense, he was leavin’ with two coffees so I guess the second might’ve been for ya. I thought he was just procrastinating a paper again.”

“And he seemed fine?”

“Ugly an’ loud as ever,” Osamu replies with a roll of his eyes. “Much more alive than ya, at least. Didn’t even look like he’d been out last night.” Osamu squints at him, looking suspicious. He opens his mouth again and Rintarou sees it on his face before he can even continue, the incoming question, the “You’re acting weird” and Rintarou knows that if there’s anything Osamu’s good at, it’s getting the truth out of him.

So instead he buries his face back into his arms and grumbles again, playing it up like he’s got a headache coming on. Thankfully, Osamu takes pity on him and his fake hangover and instead returns to the more important task of tackling his breakfast.

Rintarou is lucky, because he knows that Osamu knows, or at least has an inkling of doubt about the mess of Rintarou’s current state, but he doesn’t push or prod for answers and explanations. He just sits there and lends Rintarou a stable presence to focus on instead of the way his brain spins with thoughts that make no sense and too much sense all at the same time. That is a contradiction too intimidating to ever want to ponder over.

Still, Osamu glances at him sideways as they leave the dining hall later, a searching look in his eyes that Rintarou knows he will have to face eventually. But for now, he declines Osamu’s offer to come over to his room for a bit (it is a promising option compared to returning to his own room where, inevitably, Atsumu awaits but Rintarou isn’t really in the mood to watch Osamu and Sakusa skirt around each other like they hadn’t fallen in love at first sight on move in day) and slowly makes his way up to his floor.

He lingers in the hallway, pacing from the stairs to just a few doors down from his own room and back again. Maybe he would be better off going on a long walk, just to give it a couple more hours. No, but then Atsumu might suspect that something’s wrong. Not that anything’s wrong, it’s just— it’s just weird. This is weird.

As soon as the realization crosses his mind, Rintarou frowns. This is weird, and it’s annoying. It doesn’t need to be like this. He lets out a frustrated sigh and rakes a hand through his hair almost angrily, startling a pair of girls as they come up the stairs behind him. He offers them what he hopes is an apologetic smile in an attempt to seem a little less unhinged, but something tells him it comes off as more of a grimace than anything else. Embarrassed now, he hurries towards his room so they don’t think he is some loitering creep in the middle of the lounge.

He makes sure they are looking when he slides his keycard to unlock his room and then quickly ducks inside before he embarrasses himself further. His haste doesn’t even give him a moment to prepare himself for what awaits him inside.

“There ya are! Was beginnin’ to think you’d passed out somewhere and I’d have to comb the whole campus to find ya.”

Rintarou squints across the room to where Atsumu is seated at his desk, looking for any sign of unease or tension or something that tells him that Atsumu also feels like the air inside this room is too heavy to bear. There is none: just his wide grin and his messy hair and his loud voice, business as usual.

“As if you’d drag your ass anywhere for me,” Rintarou replies, hoping his banter has the same cut it usually does.

Atsumu’s gaze flickers away from his laptop screen to glance at Rintarou and for a second, he looks confused. His head tilts to the side. “Course I would,” he says, like he’s just been asked an obvious question.

Rintarou isn’t sure how to respond to that, taken aback by the way his voice drops, serious almost. He hovers near the door still, fidgeting as if he’ll need to make a quick escape at any moment now.

But then Atsumu carries on like normal, like he doesn’t feel whatever weird energy is prickling between them, and his face brightens again. He gestures to Rintarou’s desk with a wave of his hand.

“I got ya coffee,” he tells him, nodding at the cup set beside a stack of notebooks. “Just straight black, ‘cause that’s what ya have when you’re hungover, right?”

The sentiment hits Rintarou full in the face and he blinks back in quiet surprise. In all the weekends spent recovering with Atsumu, he never would have expected Atsumu to have taken away such a seemingly small detail. There’s a weird swooping feeling in his chest, all the way down into the pit of his stomach, something warm that makes his head feel a bit funny when it spreads up the length of him. It presses against his insides, insistent like it knows he wants nothing more than to ignore it, to forget about it before he can understand it enough to give the feeling a name. He tries to say something, still staring dumbly between Atsumu and the coffee cup, but it feels like the right response hasn’t yet manifested in his mind.

“I’m not hungover,” is all he can reply.

“Just be grateful, ya scrub!”

Okay, this is fine. It is fine actually, he isn’t just convincing himself. Atsumu at least seems fine; there’s nothing about his demeanor that feels stiff or awkward. His usual banter is obnoxious as always, just as it would be any other day. Rintarou feels the tension slowly dissipating from his shoulders and he finally moves towards his desk chair, pushing himself back into normalcy and ignoring the sparks in his chest. He passes behind Atsumu and grinds his knuckles into the crown of his head, snickering at his roommate’s pained wail before relaxing his hand to ruffle Atsumu’s hair and rub the sting away. He takes a seat and reaches for the cup on his desk.

“Thanks for the coffee by the way,” he says sincerely, taking a slow sip. It’s cold by now, but it’s his own fault for dawdling for so long when he could have skipped all the overthinking and just taken a moment to actually think. This is Atsumu of all people; it would take a lot more than one silly kiss to affect their friendship.

It was just a kiss. And what’s a few smooches between friends? Nothing, that’s what. Nothing to talk about at least.

They move on like it never even happened.

Days and days pass with neither of them acknowledging that night, as if neither of them have even given it a second thought (in reality, Rintarou has given it many thoughts). They attend more INZ parties and Rintarou steers clear of any more games with promised penalties and eventually the kiss becomes nothing but a funny party story, soon buried beneath the other chaos that erupts at the INZ house.

Even when it’s just the two of them alone in their room there’s no awkwardness to be found, much to Rintarou’s surprise but more so to his relief. They move forward as it’s always been, their roommate dynamic unchanged: Rintarou’s side of the room is messy and Atsumu’s is even more so. Their organized disorder bleeds into one another. The spot on the floor where they’d sat that night is usually lost beneath loose papers or stray socks or their unzipped gym bags, spilling volleyball uniforms over the shitty carpet.

It should be enough to distract Rintarou, or at least everything should be normal enough to keep him from constantly remembering the short distance they had both crossed that night, that little gap that had been there one moment and gone the next as they’d shuffled into each other’s spaces, hands wandering, mouths warm. But every time he goes to pick up his jersey or check under his bed for a misplaced homework sheet, he finds himself hesitating, feeling his face heat at the memory of that night.

But still— everything is fine. Everything is normal.

Or at least it’s normal until, as expected, Atsumu decides to break their carefully constructed silence.

It’s one of those Saturday nights that come by ever so often when they don’t feel like going out and making the trek to the INZ house would have been a pain anyway, given that it’s raining buckets outside. The window shudders with the force of it, just barely drowned out by the soundtrack of a movie they’re watching. It’s some foreign film Atsumu had found a pirated stream for after reading reviews online, promising Rintarou that it was “really really good!” over and over until he had caved with a resigned sigh and finally agreed to watch with him.

(Spoiler alert: the reviews lied. This movie is not good. The main leads have no chemistry and half the dialogue doesn’t even sound like something real people would ever say. No matter how ‘in love’ they are.)

Rintarou sighs through his nose for the umpteenth time since the movie has started. He chances a quick peek at his phone to check the time, growing mildly irritated when he calculates that they probably aren’t even halfway through the movie yet. Frowning, he burrows further into the pile of blankets he’s dragged from his bed and constructed in the corner against the wall like a squishy, plush nest. Some sort of romantic montage begins to play across the screen and he tries not to yawn.

They had chosen Rintarou’s bed to watch from because Atsumu’s monitor has better resolution and angling it this way gives the least amount of glare from the harsh lights of their dorm. Atsumu’s laying with his head on the opposite end of the bed, the entire length of him spread out like it’s his own. Just to be annoying, he’ll nudge his cold toes into Rintarou every few minutes, trying to bury them beneath the warmth of Rintarou’s thighs and his hoard of pillows.

“Shut up Rin,” Atsumu calls from the other side of the bed. He doesn’t even glance over as he shifts onto his stomach, settling his chin atop his folded arms. His feet wriggle their way against Rintarou’s legs and he glares at the back of Atsumu’s head even as he allows him to steal his meticulously produced body heat.

“I didn’t even say anything.”

“Ya didn’t have to, I can feel ya being all judgemental.”

Rintarou sniffs dismissively, watching with unmasked boredom as the couple on screen embrace passionately, clutching desperately at each other. Predictably, it begins to rain down on them. It’s all terribly cliche. “You said this was going to be a good movie.”

“It is!”

“There’s nothing good about it.” The couple begin to kiss, again, passionately. Or at least, it’s supposed to appear passionate. But instead it makes Rintarou grimace, cringing at the shiver of secondhand embarrassment that crawls up his arms. “That looks awful. Talk about awkward.”

“Oh yeah?” Atsumu’s head whips around and his eyes gleam with something that feels all too familiar. “What do you know about kissing?”

For a second, Rintarou doesn’t know why his words feel so significant, but then his brain slots the pieces into place and the memories resurface all over again, not that they’d been buried too deep in the first place. His mouth presses into a thin line and he silently hopes that Atsumu doesn’t push them back into dangerous territory again, but he is already realizing that they had never really left.

“Don’t start this again,” he says, voice low. He shifts in his seat in an attempt to ignore the nerves beginning to prickle beneath his skin.

Atsumu shrugs, almost nonchalant. “Not startin’ anything,” he replies with a lilt in his voice that makes it sound like he’s speaking to a child. “Just asked a question.”

The silence stretches between them for so long, it grows taught, one slight movement away from snapping. There’s a roaring sound growing in Rintarou’s ears that makes the volume from the movie fade away into something less than background noise. He meets Atsumu’s unwavering gaze and finds a brightness dancing in his eyes that only seems to grow stronger the longer Rintarou remains quiet.

It’s that brightness that steels Rintarou’s resolve; two can play at this game. He ignores his growing nerves, the heat spreading over his skin more insistently, and takes a deep breath. When he responds, he makes sure to keep his expression carefully neutral and his voice level. “If you wanted to kiss me so bad, you could’ve just asked.”

Atsumu’s expression shifts almost imperceptibly but Rintarou recognizes it in an instant. He’s never been on the receiving end of it, this burning determination, that bright mischief hardened into something so intense it makes it hard to look at directly. Yet at the same time, he finds it even more difficult to try and look away. It feels a bit like Rintarou has been caught in the crosshairs, right where Atsumu wants him, nowhere to run to now.

“Maybe I do,” Atsumu shoots back without missing a beat. “So?”

The answer catches Rintarou off guard but he refuses to let it show on his face. His eyes flicker away from Atsumu’s for a quick second, unnerved by their intensity, before raising his chin again with a false bravado that he hopes looks more convincing than it feels. He swallows, searching Atsumu’s gaze for its usual lighthearted warmth, but instead finds the flinty edge of a challenge in the dark of his eyes.

“Atsumu.”

His voice is low, slightly uneven, unable to keep the uncertainty out of it. There’s a split second where Rintarou thinks Atsumu is going to keep going, going to nudge them a little too far to come back from without repercussions. Atsumu isn’t like that; he is taunting and instigating, always pushing but never too far, only so much that he is just flirting with the limit. But there’s something in the hard set of his mouth that makes Rintarou think that today will be the exception. But then the moment passes, the tension diffusing in a heartbeat, just as quick as the emotion that flashes across Atsumu’s face and disappears too fast to be properly identified.

He reclines back against the bed, slipping on an easy smile and folding one arm beneath his head. “All I’m sayin’ is that if you’re gonna be all judgy, ya gotta be able to back it up. Prove ya know what you’re talking about.”

There he goes, just barely toeing the line, smudging it into something a little more flexible, a little less clear-cut. Rintarou’s eyes fall down to Atsumu’s mouth, curved with confidence, and thinks that maybe the line hasn’t been so defined since the other night, that maybe the line faded out of existence as soon as they’d sat down on their dorm’s uncomfortable floor in the dark hours of the morning. He thinks, maybe, fuck the line.

“Come here then.”

“Oh?” Atsumu’s brows rise but there’s only the faintest shadow of surprise in his expression. “Ya gonna kiss me?”

“Yeah? So?” Rintarou throws Atsumu’s words right back at him, hoping it holds even a fraction of his earlier nonchalance.

Rintarou is pretty sure he doesn’t take a single breath in the couple of moments it takes for Atsumu to shift over towards him. It’s like he’s moving impossibly slow, limbs dragging through air that’s too dense, and then all of a sudden he is hovering right in front of him, sitting up on his knees with an expectant look on his face. They’re so close, the proximity feeling intimate in a way that Suna Rintarou and Miya Atsumu have never been intimate — should not be intimate — and yet have found themselves in this position enough times now for it to feel familiar. Comfortable, almost. But only almost.

Rintarou exhales slowly, the sound heavy.

“Geez Rin,” Atsumu laughs under his breath, but there’s a waver to it, like he’s nervous too. “It’s just me.”

“Shut up,” Rintarou replies in a faint whisper. Like this, he has to look up into Atsumu’s face and it feels oddly intimidating. He presses his lips together, wetting them with the tip of his tongue, watching as Atsumu’s gaze catches on the movement.

Atsumu’s eyes flicker back up and they are surprisingly soft, and his voice surprisingly gentle when he murmurs, “Ya don’t have to be nervous. Third time’s the charm, right?”

And just like that Rintarou leans up and closes the space between them, letting their mouths slot together easily. It feels like there’s nothing but pure adrenaline thrumming through his entire body, not a single drop of blood left in his veins, heating up until that familiar warmth is spreading beneath his skin, flaring up when Atsumu brings a hand up to just barely cup his cheek. He almost sighs at the touch, featherlight but searingly hot all the same, and Rintarou doesn’t know what else to do besides kiss Atsumu harder.

His hands curl into the bedsheets by his sides, tight and tense, trying to keep himself from doing something ridiculous like run them through Atsumu’s hair or steady the back of his neck and drag him closer. But then Atsumu whines against his mouth and Rintarou is doing just that, palm flat against Atsumu’s nape, pulling him down so he can draw that noise out of him again.

He is rewarded with a gasp — a tiny, hiccuping little breath — and he hums, satisfied, unable to stop himself.

It’s either mere seconds or entire decades before they pull apart, time careening forward and also staggering to a halt as soon as their eyes blink open to find themselves looking back at mirrored expressions, flushed cheeks and wide eyes and tingling lips.

All Rintarou can hear is the blood rushing in his ears and the way Atsumu’s breaths are stuttering, skipping beats like the thudding in his own chest. He knows he should look away, but he doesn’t want to, doesn’t want to do anything besides admire the pink sheen of Atsumu’s mouth and the matching shade rising high over his cheekbones.

“Did that—” Rintarou stops short, surprised by the raspiness of his own voice. He tries again. “That enough proof for you?”

Atsumu’s lashes are long. They flutter open and brush up against his brow bone, feathery and delicate. After all the years they have spent together, Rintarou had thought that he’d learned everything there is to know about Atsumu, but that he had never noticed before. It’s just a tiny detail, inconsequential in all regards, but something about this observation makes him feel like he’s just been tipped over the edge into a freefall, tumbling into the dizzying depths of Atsumu’s dark eyes towards completely unknown territory. It feels too new, like this is another Atsumu he has yet to understand.

A warm hand slides up Rintarou’s neck and drags him out of his thoughts. Atsumu is shaking his head, just a small, slight movement as his fingers nudge up into Rintarou’s hair. He looks dazed, blinking slowly as if he needs a moment to register Rintarou’s words, but his eyes are sharp, fixed on Rintarou’s mouth with intent focus.

“Gonna need a lil’ more convincing I think,” he whispers, and his hold on him urges Rintarou back in, their faces impossibly close again, eyes meeting briefly before they slip shut and Rintarou obliges easily — so easily, because he’s quickly realizing that nothing feels easier than this.

It becomes a— A Thing. It’s almost natural, the way they fall into this pattern. He doesn’t even blink an eye when Atsumu leans back in his desk chair, stretching out from where he’d been hunched over his laptop for the past two hours, before saying, “Rin. Hey Rin. Wanna make out?” and it just— it works.

Some days, Rintarou will come back from class to find Atsumu splayed over Rintarou’s bed instead of his own, scrolling mindlessly on his phone, clearly waiting for him. And it’s so simple: Rintarou will shrug his backpack off by his desk and stride over to spread out on top of him without a second thought, like they’ve been doing this forever.

“How was class?” Atsumu huffs out, grumbling as he shoves Rintarou over so he isn’t quite suffocating him with all his body weight.

Rintarou dismisses the question with a small shrug. “It was class,” he mumbles before letting his lips trail over Atsumu’s warm cheek to finally kiss him.

And Rintarou likes it. He really does. He likes having a lapful of Atsumu, all warm and solid and heavy, pressed against him and overloading all his senses. He likes climbing into his bed and kissing the snark out of him, catching him mid-sentence and shutting him up in the most effective way possible. He likes hovering over him, pulling back to look down into his flushed face, mouth parted, breaths just a little more audible than normal, his chest rising and falling in rapid succession. Rintarou knows Atsumu is good-looking — and he’d never admit this to his face — but this Atsumu, with a glazed look in his eyes and a wet sheen to his lips, is real fucking hot.

And it’s cute too — god, who is he, talking about Atsumu this way — because Atsumu is quite the reactive kisser. It’s easy to find what he likes because he’ll gasp and whine and whimper into Rintarou’s mouth and each little noise makes something squeeze in his chest, compressing so tight it makes his breath catch. It catches him off guard each time it happens, but then the knot releases and he can let himself shove it aside to consider later or, preferably, never.

But it also makes him know Atsumu differently, understand him differently. It gives him a new perspective to observe him from, somewhere much— closer. Atsumu expresses with his entirety; there’s tells and intricacies all over him, open and honest and expecting to be understood, and Rintarou is a quick learner. It feels like he knows him now on a much deeper level, perhaps too deep. And if he’s being completely honest with himself, it scares him.

Because he’d just done the thing with his tongue and usually that makes Atsumu smile uncontrollably into the kiss but this time, it’d gotten him nothing more than a sharp nibble and a faint sting from Atsumu pressing back against him much too hard to be enjoyable. Something’s not right.

And the fact that he can identify something like that, something small and something that perhaps he should have let himself overlook, scares him; to understand someone’s intricacies and react to them in mere seconds makes a shadow of unease settle in the back of his mind. But what’s even more terrifying is that he doesn’t even give that a second thought, because all he can focus on is that Atsumu is not okay right now, and all he wants is to understand.

Rintarou pulls back and looks down at Atsumu with a careful expression. “Okay. What’s wrong?”

Atsumu blinks at him, brows furrowed, before tugging insistently at the front of his shirt to bring him back in. “Nothing’s wrong,” he responds with a frown. “Hurry up.”

“No.” Rintarou slides off Atsumu’s lap and sits back on his heels, putting a little space between them. He gives Atsumu a searching look. “You’re all worked up.”

“You’re making out with me and ya don’t expect me to get worked up?” Atsumu rolls his eyes and his fingers tighten their grip. Rintarou can feel the tension ripple through his shirt, but something tells him that Atsumu himself isn’t aware of the fact. It tightens still, twists again, and Rintarou reaches out to carefully extract his hand before the hem gets stretched beyond repair.

“Not like that. You know what I mean.” When he doesn’t get a response, Rintarou crosses his arms over his chest and narrows his eyes at Atsumu, still searching for that gap in his composure, the little sign that will point him to the root of his temper. “You’re pissed about something.”

“What? Can’t I have a bad day or something?”

Rintarou’s brow arches. He can feel Atsumu drawing away from him, not physically— yet. But he’s beginning to close himself off to Rintarou’s prying. “Bad day, huh?” he repeats flatly with muted disbelief.

“We can’t all cruise through life not carin’ bout anything like you do,” Atsumu says with a sneer, a harsh undercurrent threading through his words, out to cut Rintarou before he can get too close to Atsumu’s own injury.

“Okay.” Rintarou gives him one last searching look before he shrugs and slides off the bed, socked feet hitting the floor with a muted thump. “Alright then.”

There’s no use poking at Atsumu while he’s got all his defenses up, and he knows a prickly mood when he sees it. And while Rintarou usually won’t skip out on an opportunity to rile Atsumu up, he recognizes this as one of those times when his emotions are much more than just grumpy irritation; there’s something raw, something bitter and broken to the anger in his eyes. He knows this is one of those times where he’ll have to wait it out, whether for it to pass or for him to open up, he doesn’t know.

He can still feel Atsumu’s gaze on him, heavy and unyielding, as he drops into his desk chair and drags his laptop over. He is careful to remain casual in his movements, feigning nonchalance the same way someone would when they don’t want to scare off a jumpy cat. His laptop hums softly and the sound of the keys clicking is sharp in the waiting silence and beneath it all, he hears Atsumu take in a breath. Rough and ragged and frustrated.

“You,” he starts, and his voice wavers with difficulty. “You’re gonna keep playin’ volleyball, aren’t ya?”

Rintarou isn’t sure what he had expected, but something like this wasn’t even on the table of possibilities he’d considered. He glances at Atsumu, confusion only growing when he sees the way his expression flickers, composure faltering as his hold on his seething emotions begins to weaken. He’s too caught up in trying to understand where exactly Atsumu is trying to go with this question that he stays quiet for too long, much too long for Atsumu to wait.

The way Atsumu cracks is anticlimactic almost, there’s no raised voice and no dramatic outburst; there is, instead, a bitter few words thrown out from behind clenched teeth, spat out like he can’t stand the taste of them anymore, like he’d tried to swallow them down but they’d gotten caught in his throat, painful and piercing. “Osamu said he’s quitting.”

Oh. Oh. Rintarou blinks at him, at his fists clenched into the blankets, so tight his knuckles have paled and his fingertips have grown red, and the hard set of his mouth, like he’s expecting Rintarou to challenge him. He’s looking for a fight, that much Rintarou can recognize, but he knows better than to give in to him.

So instead, he gently shuts his laptop and pushes his chair back. His body is moving but his mind is strangely blank because to be honest, he doesn’t know exactly how to deal with something like this. He’s witnessed plenty of the twins’ fights, but he’s always a spectator, never a mediator. And even then, those were trivial things blown out of proportion— a missed spike during practice or a misplaced phone charger or a shirt borrowed and never returned. Right now, the anger rolling off of Atsumu is much more intense than anything he’s seen before and whatever he does next feels like it needs to be considered with great care before being executed.

“Where’re ya going?”

Atsumu’s voice cuts through his worry and Rintarou comes to just as he finishes shrugging on a jacket, suddenly standing by the door. He blinks down at his hands, one reaching for the doorknob, the other sliding his phone into his pocket.

“On a walk,” he responds almost instinctively, looking back to find Atsumu watching him, his expression caught between his earlier anger and confusion at Rintarou’s current actions. His fingers rest on the doorknob. “You coming?”

They are both silent as they head downstairs. Atsumu’s simmering emotions are almost tangible as he follows after Rintarou, a pressing force by his side, so big and looming it fills up the entire stairwell until Rintarou nearly feels claustrophobic. He shoves the door open with too much force once they get downstairs, inhaling deeply like the fresh air will provide him with some clarity to handle this, as if the cool night holds all the solutions to what feels like Atsumu burning down beside him.

There’s a convenience store in the main building of their dorm complex, exactly diagonal across from their building, separated by a small field that students usually scatter over during the warmer weather. Now, with night settled in comfortably, it is empty and the grass is cold with dew where it tickles Rintarou’s ankles as they trek towards the yellow lights of the shop.

He isn’t quite sure why Atsumu hadn’t put up more of a fight, hadn’t pushed for Rintarou to engage him in the yelling match he was looking for, nor why he had instead resigned himself to slinking after him into the quiet night. But when Rintarou takes a quick peek at Atsumu between the aisles of the convenience store, he realizes that he looks small. The Atsumu he is used to likes to take up space, likes to draw attention to himself, likes to be known and recognized, and the Atsumu he is looking at now just looks a little bit lost.

Rintarou had walked to the convenience store upon reflex, but now that they’re here he has no choice but to buy something, just because it looks like the cashier behind the counter needs something to save them from graveyard shift boredom. He decides on a popsicle despite the cold promise in the night breeze outside, the kind with two sticks and the intention to be split in half and shared. Atsumu just hovers over his shoulder as he pays and remains quiet once they’re settled outside on the steps at the front of the building.

Rintarou is already regretting his purchase as he draws his jacket closer to his neck, trying to shake off the creeping chill. He snaps the popsicle in two and offers a half to Atsumu, who takes it without a word, only a puzzled frown.

By the time Atsumu decides to speak, Rintarou has made significant progress through his own half. Atsumu’s is still untouched, condensation lining the softening edges.

“Ya didn’t answer my question. Are ya gonna quit too?”

Rintarou reclines against the step behind him, resting his elbow on the concrete as he looks up at the sky. “What does it matter?”

Atsumu bristles beside him. “Course it matters—!”

“Why?” Atsumu blinks at him, stunned into a moment of silence. Rintarou continues before he can regain steam and cut him off. “Why does it matter?”

Atsumu scoffs, looking at him from the corner of his eye before turning away to glare at the night sky. The popsicle stick shakes in his hand. “So you’re gonna quit like Samu, huh?”

“How, exactly, does me playing volleyball affect you? What does it change in your life and your plans?” Rintarou finally turns to face him fully, waiting until Atsumu notices and returns his gaze, calm and serious.

“Fine,” Atsumu spits, anger flaring in the darks of his eyes again. “Fine, maybe it doesn’t matter if you aren’t playing, but ya better not try an’ say it doesn’t matter if Osamu isn’t.”

“It doesn’t, Atsumu.” Rintarou says it quietly, soft almost, like he isn’t sure it’s even his place to say this. He watches the wave of emotions shuttering across Atsumu’s face— frustration, shock, hurt, and finally — what Rintarou had expected — fear. It is quickly replaced with defiance, but he’d seen it all the same, plain and clear.

“How can you say that?” There’s a small quiver of desperation to Atsumu’s response, like a child who just wants to be told that they’ll get their way.

“The only thing it changes about Osamu,” Rintarou continues in that same quiet voice, “is whether he wears a jersey or not.” He squares his shoulders and looks Atsumu in the eyes— really looks at him, unwavering when he holds his gaze. His voice is firmer, the words slower, when he says, “Nothing else changes.”

Atsumu looks like there’s more fight in him, eyes burning, fists clenched, mouth pressed thin like he’s holding something back. He jerks away from Rintarou, glaring into his lap. “You wouldn’t get it.”

“Oh, is that so? Or is it just because you refuse to explain it?”

Despite the fact that they are sitting out in the open, the silence around them feels like it’s pressing down, enclosing them into this tense moment. Atsumu refuses to look at him and Rintarou thinks that this conversation must be over, given the way he seems to have retreated into himself, shoulders hunched and jaw tensed.

When Atsumu speaks up it takes Rintarou by surprise, both because he’d expected Atsumu to give him the silent treatment for the rest of the night and also because he’s never heard Atsumu sound so small. He directs his words to the ground.

“It’s always been— us. Always been the Miyas.” He sucks in a breath, a hoarse inhale that catches in the back of his throat. He waves a hand around them, gesturing carelessly. “We both came to play here. That’s just how it is, that’s how it works.” And then, in a voice even smaller than before, “I’ve never played without him.”

Rintarou stares at his profile, takes in the downcast of his eyes and the gloom in his expression. “Atsumu,” he starts slowly. “He’s not leaving you.”

“It’s the same thing!” Atsumu scoffs, voice rising before he decides it’s not worth it. He looks away with a small noise of annoyance. “See? I knew ya wouldn’t understand.”

“And I’m asking you to make me understand.” It comes out harsher than he’d intended and the frustration in his tone makes Atsumu’s eyes flash at him. Rintarou looks back, afraid he has pushed too much when he shouldn’t have as he watches Atsumu’s face darken and his mouth twist, posture stiffening with an impending burst of anger. He braces himself for the retaliation, and then suddenly it is gone.

Atsumu slumps in on himself and he becomes small again, childlike once more. “What if,” he whispers, and his voice is even smaller than he appears, “What if I’m no good without him? What if no one wants to put up with me without the— the better twin? The easier twin?”

Rintarou stares, wide-eyed and struck silent, trying to make sense of where this has all been hidden before now because he’s never heard Atsumu speak about himself like this. Atsumu is confident— in a way that gets on his nerves sometimes, sure, but he is confident in a way that makes sense, in a way that fits because he is Atsumu. And Atsumu is pretty damn great.

“Why,” he asks in a hushed voice, “Why would you think that?”

“That’s how it is,” Atsumu responds bitterly. “That’s how it’s been. People like Osamu, and they deal with me.”

“That’s not true Atsumu.”

“Oh yeah?” Atsumu rounds on him, jaw clenched, challenging. “Ya really think we’d be friends if not for Osamu? If not for volleyball?”

Understanding dawns on Rintarou slowly, the way Atsumu looks lost, small, like he doesn’t know the way back home. The emotion between his words isn’t just anger, it’s loss. It’s fear. It’s lonely. Osamu is his constant, his bridge, the only thing that’s stuck with him the same way he has stuck with volleyball, the only thing he has learned to fall back on, to feel comfortable enough to rely on. He remembers, years ago, that Osamu had offhandedly mentioned that Atsumu hadn’t gotten along with their middle school team, but according to Atsumu it hadn’t mattered. Looking at him now, Rintarou thinks that maybe it hadn’t mattered then, but it had still left a mark all the same.

“Your relationships don’t start and end with volleyball.” Atsumu’s head snaps towards him, jerky like he’s been startled. “You’re not just what happens on that court. And your value doesn’t stop there either. What, you think I’m here because Osamu told me to?” He waves his hand loosely, gesturing to this moment. “You think I’m your friend just because I happen to hit your sets five times a week? Because we share a locker room and our jerseys are the same color? You think I’d stick around all this time just because you’re my setter?”

He hadn’t realized his voice had risen so much, resonating in the emptiness around them, nor that he’d sat up properly, straightened up to his full height like it’ll drive home his point a little better. “I don’t know if you realize Atsumu, but we are friends. Pretty great friends, if I’m being completely honest. And yeah, maybe that started with volleyball, but it doesn’t end if one day I change my mind about playing or not. As much as I’m stuck with you, you’re stuck with me.”

Atsumu looks at him in quiet surprise, a soft sort of wonder in his eyes. Rintarou blinks back, not expecting such an expression after all he’d said, unused to that sort of gentleness from Atsumu.

“What?”

“Dunno,” Atsumu shrugs, and he’s still looking at Rintarou like that, like he can’t quite believe what he’s seeing, “Just surprised at how ya know me so well.”

“Course I do,” Rintarou scoffs. His voice wavers in his throat as he meets Atsumu’s gaze and finds that it’s hard to stare for too long at the warmth glowing back at him. He hurries on, unsure how to handle the gravity of the moment for much longer. “After all these years, I’ve got no choice but to know you.”

“Hey!”

“And for what it’s worth, since we’re being honest and all,” Rintarou plows on, resting against the steps behind him again and looking up to the sky, “You’re a great player, with or without Osamu. Osamu’s great too, so of course you guys are great together. But just because it’s like that right now doesn’t mean it’s the only way it works.”

The usual spark is beginning to return to Atsumu’s eyes, and there’s a hint of that signature smile of his hanging on the corner of his mouth when he nudges Rintarou with his shoulder. “Yeah? Ya think I’m great?”

Rintarou glances at him and thinks hey, there’s no use holding back now, not when he’s seen Atsumu’s lowest and realized that he’d do a lot of things he’s never done before just to help him back up.

“I do,” he tells him, more sincere than he’s ever been in his life, gazing at him and wondering if his own expression has that same awe Atsumu had directed at him before. “And even if everyone else stops playing volleyball, I know you won’t. I know there’s things most people wouldn’t even dream of, that you already have plans on achieving. Yeah, I think you’re great now but I know you’re gonna go out there and do even greater things.”

“Careful, Rin,” Atsumu teases, and his voice is soft, light, weightless, and his eyes are curving at the edges like he’s about to smile for real, finally. “Ya sound like you’re gonna be proud of me.”

Rintarou huffs through his nose, a shadow of a laugh. “I am,” he replies easily. “But it doesn’t even come close to how proud Osamu’s going to be.”

At the mention of his brother, Atsumu’s eyes widen and he hesitates, a trace of guilt touching his expression. “I should probably apologize to him, huh.”

Rintarou shrugs. “I’m not your mom, I’m not gonna tell you what to do. But the way I see it, as much as everything changes for you, it changes for him too. You’re still going to play volleyball— and that’s something you’ve been doing forever. But Osamu? He’s about to do something he’s never tried before. And I think that’s pretty damn scary too.”

Atsumu’s frown deepens.

“Probably kinda lonely too.”

“Okay I get it, I get it!” Atsumu bursts, throwing him a woeful expression. There’s a sheen to his eyes that’s a bit too bright for Rintarou to ignore and he dutifully looks away so they can both pretend he hadn’t noticed. It’s several long moments before Atsumu pushes himself to his feet and goes to toss his uneaten popsicle, his sniffles a little too pronounced to be attributed to the chilly night weather.

Rintarou follows him back to their building and all the way upstairs, walking in silence just as they had before, but this one is less heavy and more thoughtful, like they are both carefully thinking about all that they had said. Rintarou wonders if he’s said too much, been a little too honest, but there isn’t much to gain from mulling over something like that. What matters is that he’d said it and — when he glances at Atsumu, taking in his relaxed shoulders and the easy way he smiles back at Rintarou — that it had seemed to help.

And really, that’s all he had wanted to do.

“Rin. Sunarin, are ya asleep?”

Rintarou starts at Atsumu’s hushed whisper. He hadn’t been asleep, just on the brink of it. He turns his head towards Atsumu’s bed where he can make out his roommate’s wide eyes blinking at him.

“I’m asleep,” he responds just to be difficult. He smirks when he sees Atsumu’s mouth twist into a scowl.

“Fine, I don’t wanna tell ya anymore.” Atsumu’s grumble is half-muffled by his pillows.

“Goodnight then.”

“Hey!”

Rintarou laughs out loud this time when he sees Atsumu spring up from his bed, blanket falling into his lap. “Okay, okay,” he says mildly. “Tell me.”

Atsumu huffs, irritated, before dropping back down into his sheets. He drags his messed up blankets back into place, looking like he is just buying himself time. “I just wanted to say thanks,” he finally murmurs, staring resolutely up at the ceiling. “For listening to me.”

The sincerity in his voice takes Rintarou by surprise. He squints to see Atsumu more clearly, noticing how he can see the way he’s blinking much more than normal, a sign that he’s embarrassed, or maybe even shy. Something warm spreads across Rintarou’s chest and he can’t help the smile threatening to curve at the edge of his lips.

“I’ve spent nearly my whole life having to listen to you. Why would I stop now?”

Atsumu pauses and then Rintarou sees his grin flash in the darkness of their room. “Ya really can’t stand to have one serious moment, can ya?”

“No. Now goodnight.”

Given how badly Atsumu had reacted to Osamu’s decision, Rintarou had expected it to take a few days for them to make up, or at least talk to each other. But he’d been wrong — pleasantly so, because he hates how moody the both of them are when they’re giving each other the silent treatment — because they are both currently in the loudest corner of the house, due to the fact that they are shouting obscenities at each other as they battle it out in a messy game of rage cage.

Atsumu is losing but that’s no surprise since it’s already been established that his aim is piss poor at best after he’s started drinking.

Rintarou contemplates heading over to join the onlookers so he can rile Atsumu up even more, but a heavy arm slung over his shoulder guides him into the kitchen, Aran’s voice loud in his ear. He gets roped into slicing limes for a round of shots he also somehow gets dragged into, but it’s hard to say no when the invitation is from Kita Shinsuke himself.

Kita’s heels gently bump against the cabinets where he is sitting on the counter. If Rintarou turned just slightly, he’d find himself face to face with those perceptive eyes of his, much too close and much too intimidating, so he pretends to be incredibly invested in the sticker on the lime in his hands.

“Careful with the knife,” is all Kita says as Rintarou finally pulls the chopping board towards him, his voice level and even, distinctive despite the rush of the party spilling through the doorway.

“Yes Kita-san.” Rintarou isn’t sure if it’s because Kita thinks he’s terrible with sharp objects or because he has something to say, but Kita’s watchful eyes never leave him as he carefully sets lime wedges on a paper plate and nudges them across the counter towards Aran, who grins and whoops for everyone to grab a cup.

There’s something incredibly stereotypical about a bunch of rowdy guys with too many red solo cups in a dingy little kitchen on a Friday night. It makes Rintarou snicker as he bites the edge of his cup, trying to distract himself from the pungent smell of liquor beneath his nose.

“C’mon Shinsuke, ya too fancy for us or somethin’?” Aran teases, nudging Kita in the shoulder as they all gather round.

Rintarou looks to where Kita is still seated on the counter, now with a slender glass in his hands. It gleams in the yellow light of the kitchen, shiny and new and elegant somehow, though Rintarou isn’t sure if that’s because the shot glass itself is pretty, or if it’s because everything Kita touches seems to adopt the same grace he carries himself.

“It was a gift,” Kita replies and a soft smile begins to slip across his face. “I should make good use of it.”

“Oh yeah?” Akagi joins in with a giggle. “Is that how they profess love in Argentina?”

“A vacation souvenir is not a confession,” Kita replies, a hint of laughter in his words. Rintarou has never seen him this expressive before, he notes, as Kita’s mouth curves a little more into a pleased smile. He pauses and Rintarou feels the rest of the room pause with him, anticipating, hanging onto every last bit of his attention they have been given.

Rintarou watches him roll the glass between his fingers, and he sees there, on its side, a delicate outline of some foreign country he wouldn’t have been able to recognize if not for Akagi mentioning it by name. The glass shifts again, catching the light and making him blink stars out of his eyes. He glances back up at Kita’s face.

His smile grows, the curve of it harder now, more of a smirk than anything else. “Everything else, however,” Kita sounds like he’s about to continue but he doesn’t offer any more, only lifts his glass and takes the shot in a way that could only be described as graceful.

Aran groans as soon as he does it, throwing his hands up in the air. “C’mon, what ya gotta be so cryptic for!”

Kita simply gestures for them all to follow and, with a resounding cheer, everyone’s cups are emptied and Rintarou is cringing at the burn sliding down his throat. He squeezes the lime wedge between his lips and sucks, face screwed up in protest as he drowns his taste buds in sharp citrus. He is too busy wiping the remnants of the salt from the back of his hand to realize that the center of everyone’s attention has shifted towards him.

“Hey Suna. How many shots for ya to kiss Atsumu again?” Akagi snickers.

Rintarou hates how everyone turns to look at him, their expressions alight with mischief. It’s been weeks since anyone has brought it up and he had honestly thought they’d forgotten about it completely. But what he hates the most is the weight of Kita’s gaze, piercing and sharp, like he already knows the words bubbling up inside Rintarou’s chest before he can even form them himself.

He opens his mouth to respond, brows drawn in confusion, and almost says none, almost tells them that he’d kissed Atsumu the entire time they’d been in their dorm waiting for Osamu and Sakusa to swing by so they could all walk over together. He can feel the words on the tip of his tongue, a flat retort about how it feels so much better to kiss Atsumu while he’s stone cold sober, that he doesn’t need a single drop of alcohol in him to feel completely comfortable with dragging Atsumu in and slotting their mouths together.

He almost says it, but he doesn’t. Instead he shrugs, as casual as he can possibly be when he’s this many drinks in, and reaches to open up a beer, knocking back a third of it so his mouth will be too preoccupied to betray him. When the can hits the table again, he is relieved to find that the subject of conversation has moved on to something he doesn’t care about, something that doesn’t strike a little too close to the tightness in his chest that comes from the thought of kissing Atsumu.

Kita is still looking at him and Rintarou looks back and wonders what it must be like, to feel so steady and sure about the things you feel, to be calm in the face of a confession, to be brave enough to receive and return one yourself. He wonders if Kita has ever felt how heavy the fear of your own feelings are, or if he’s ever experienced something like the weight that sinks into the pit of his own stomach everytime he lets himself stay too close to Atsumu for too long.

He wonders all of this, and he thinks that Kita must know, because his eyes soften and his smile turns downwards just a little— unnoticed by anyone else in the room because, Rintarou realizes, this smile is only for him. And it’s that smile that makes Rintarou think that, maybe, Kita might even understand better the things that Rintarou himself won’t let himself pause to think about.

The shot seems to hit him faster than he thought possible, or maybe it’s because he’d drained his beer much too quickly, amplifying the haze creeping into the edges of his vision. He shakes his head, finally breaking away from Kita’s observant eyes and turning to slip out of the kitchen in the hopes to find something else to focus on.

He wants to find Atsumu.

As soon as the thought drifts through his mind, it’s the only thing his brain echoes until he finds himself striding through the crowds in the living room trying to do just that. There’s so many faces passing by him, none of them recognizable nor the one he wants to see. He doesn’t know how long he spends wandering, his limbs growing tired like he’s been wading through water this entire time.

“Rin!”

Osamu’s like a beacon of hope, so close to what he wants but not quite exactly what he needs. He totters towards him, reaching out to steady himself with a hand on Osamu’s shoulder once he approaches.

“Where ya tryna go?” Osamu laughs, stepping closer to bear more of his weight. “We just watched ya walkin’ around in circles for a good ten minutes.”

Rintarou looks at him with pleading eyes, wishing he was looking up at a blinding grin instead of Osamu’s expression of patient curiosity. If he closes his eyes and rests here, just for a little bit, he can pretend these broad shoulders belong to a certain roommate of his and not his carbon copy.

“Oi, Rin wake up.” Osamu’s nudging the side of his head with the shoulder Rintarou is pressed into. “We’ll take ya home and then ya sleep.”

“No,” Rintarou whines, jolting upright and nearly taking Sakusa out when he tries to regain his balance. He feels him place a solid hand on the small of his back to hold him upright. “Where’s Tsumu?”

Something bright and knowing glints back at him from Osamu’s grey eyes, shiny and sparkling the same way Atsumu’s eyes do before he leans in and kisses Rintarou. He really wants to find Atsumu.

“Oh? Lost your boyfriend, did ya?”

Rintarou frowns, expression pinched with confusion. “No,” he says seriously, looking at Osamu like he’s an idiot. Which, he is. “I lost my Tsumu.”

Osamu’s eyes gleam even brighter and his face splits into a smirk that would — if Rintarou were sober — strike fear in his heart. But right now, it’s not at all helpful to the situation at hand.

“Your what? Say that again for me, slower though, so we all hear it,” Osamu laughs again.

Rintarou glances from Osamu to Sakusa’s sharp eyes, surprised to find the same amusement there. This is so confusing. He hadn’t said anything funny. He hadn’t said anything at all. He wasn’t getting anywhere with these two. He needs to find Atsumu.

He tries to say bye but it comes out sounding a lot like ‘Atsumu’ but he doesn’t have the time to rectify it because he’s already wheeled around and staggered towards the door to the backyard. Sometimes, when it gets really hot in here, Atsumu slips outside because he says the humidity doesn’t do so well with his hair.

He doesn’t even have a hand on the sliding door before it opens of its own accord and from the dark comes a bright smile and sunkissed hair and Rintarou trips forward in the burst of sudden relief.

“I’ve been lookin’ all over for ya!” Atsumu’s voice crowds close to his ear when he catches him by the arm. “Where’d ya run off to?”

Rintarou looks at him and screws his face up at their proximity. He’s so bright, up close like this. “I was cutting limes,” he responds seriously.

“The hell?”

“In the kitchen,” Rintarou clarifies, like that piece of information is supposed to help. It doesn’t, at all, but he adds more anyway. “You weren’t there.”

Atsumu laughs and Rintarou feels like he’s getting drunker. “Yeah, that’s why I was looking for ya!”

“Found you.” Rintarou grins.

“Sure did.” Atsumu’s smile flashes back at him, dazzling, warm. “Didja see me beat Samu earlier?”

Rintarou shakes his head, his eyes slowly tracing Atsumu’s face as he immediately launches into a lengthy recap of how exactly he beat Osamu. He’s listening, but not really, because none of the words stick in his brain. It’s okay though, because he found Atsumu.

“I really wanna kiss you right now,” he blurts out. It makes Atsumu stop mid-sentence, his expression stilling for just a moment before it glows brighter than before.

“Okay?” he chuckles. “So do it then.”

Rintarou blinks at him and then at the numerous people filling the living room. “Here?”

Atsumu’s brows furrow and he laughs again. He shrugs as his fingers tighten on Rintarou’s arm, tugging him the tiniest bit closer. “Why not? I’ve kissed people out here before.”

The words leave a bitter taste in Rintarou’s mouth, a lingering burn in the back of his throat far more unpleasant than any hard liquor he’s ever tasted. He gives Atsumu a tiny shake of his head, trying to find the right way to tell him that something about that makes him incredibly uneasy.

It’s alright though, because Atsumu must see the shift in his mood and he immediately looks apologetic. His hand slides down Rintarou’s wrist to lock their fingers together. “Alright, c’mon.”

Getting upstairs is a little bit of a hassle because as soon as they’ve rounded the landing and there’s a wall separating them from the party downstairs, Rintarou is cupping Atsumu’s cheeks and kissing him, hard. He receives the same enthusiasm in return, soft hands cradling his hips and holding him close, leaning him against the wall so they don’t trip and tumble back down the way they came.

Their steps are clumsy all the way into one of the bedrooms, the door left ajar in their wake. Rintarou clings onto Atsumu as best as he can but he can’t really see where he’s going when all he’s focused on is Atsumu in his arms and Atsumu isn’t much help either because, well, Rintarou’s got him preoccupied. He curses against Atsumu’s mouth when his foot catches on the corner of a rug and he takes them both tumbling down to the floor with muted thuds.

Rintarou doesn’t realize he’s laughing until he’s out of breath, laying on his back staring up at the ceiling with a wide smile frozen across his face. Beside him, Atsumu is breathing heavily too, his own laugh echoing in the room they’ve wandered into.

“Where are we, by the way?” Rintarou hears Atsumu’s head shifting against the carpet as he looks around for an answer.

“I think Kita-san’s room,” Atsumu finally decides. “It’s too neat to be anyone else’s.”

Rintarou rolls onto his side to look at him. “We should probably go home.”

“Nah,” Atsumu turns to him as well. “I’m Kita-san’s favorite. He won’t mind.”

With a snort, Rintarou reaches out and flicks him in the nose. “You’ve got such a big head. You’re not his favorite.”

“Ya got no proof I’m not.”

Rintarou sits up too fast and the room sways around him, making his head swim. He presses his hands into his forehead, trying to get everything to stop moving for just a second so he can think straight.

“Woah,” Atsumu’s voice is close again. “Sunarin, yer so gone.” Gentle fingers pry Rintarou’s hands away from his face and he blinks his eyes open to find Atsumu leaning into him.

“Am not,” Rintarou can’t help the way it comes out a little petulant, a little childish.

“Yes ya are!” Atsumu chuckles and brings their joined hands into his lap. “How’d ya drink so much more than me? Wait, don’t tell me ya didn’t eat dinner.”

A frown tugs down at the corners of Rintarou’s mouth. “I was going to eat my fried rice,” he recalls, flashing back to earlier this evening when he’d returned to their dorm. “But I couldn’t find it in the fridge.”

Atsumu’s head tilts to the side and a sheepish smile crosses his face. “I think that might’ve been my dinner.”

Rintarou shakes his hands off and punches him in the shoulder. “You’re such an ass, Tsumu.”

Atsumu gasps, dramatically, the breath hiccuping in his chest. “Ya called me Tsumu! Ya never call me that.”

A pause. “Do you not want me to?”

“No!” Atsumu shakes his head so fast, Rintarou swears he feels a breeze brush past them. “Ya can call me whatever ya want.”

“Okay.” Another pause, and then Rintarou flashes him a sly grin. “Bitch.”

Atsumu gasps again and he shoves at him, half laughing, half complaining. “Not like that!”

A new feeling hits him then, in that moment, watching Atsumu throw his head back with a new bout of laughter, one hand barely clinging onto Rintarou, a light warmth circling his wrist. He wants to kiss him, wants to taste the brightness spilling from his lips, wants to memorize every little detail of Atsumu this way. He tugs him closer and kisses him softly, feeling the last huffs of his laugh on his tongue before Atsumu hums like he’s pleased, content, and leans into him easily. His lips press back against him and Rintarou feels like his heart is in his throat, so close to Atsumu, just within his reach, close enough that he might realize— that he might know—

He pulls back, startled at the way his thoughts are snowballing, rapidly approaching a conclusion he would rather be sober to face. He stares at Atsumu.

“What?” Atsumu’s fingers are gentle where they stroke over Rintarou’s cheeks.

“I like—” you, his mouth wants to say, the word already fully formed on the tip of his tongue and pressing against the seam of his lips. But he swallows it down, unable to find the courage to push it out into the open air between them. “I like kissing you.”

Atsumu scoffs, but there’s no edge to it. “Well I would hope so, ‘cause ya sure do it a lot.”

“Shut up,” Rintarou shoots back, but just like Atsumu, there isn’t even a hint of sharpness to his words, only traces of amusement.

“And I mean, duh, I’m pretty damn good at it too,” Atsumu continues like Rintarou hadn’t even spoken.

“Shut up,” he repeats, laughing properly now. “You said that once and literally no one agreed with you.”

“Well c’mere then and I’ll make ya agree with me.”

Rintarou snorts at his lack of tact, and Atsumu snorts at Rintarou’s snort and then they dissolve into fresh peals of laughter. The room continues to sway around them but this time, it feels less like the ground is rolling out from beneath them and more like they’re floating, somewhere only they can reach. They’re too absorbed in each other to hear the door swing open fully behind them.

“Suna? Atsumu?”

They both startle, Atsumu yelping in surprise as their heads snap towards the source of the voice. Kita stands in the doorway, someone else hovering behind him. He looks at them with open concern, a tiny frown on his face.

“Are you guys alright?”

“Yes Kita-san,” they chorus, twisting in unison to stare at each other, surprising themselves with their synchronization. Rintarou can see that Atsumu wants to start laughing again, so he pinches the thin skin of his wrist as he turns back to Kita and offers an apologetic smile.

“Sorry we intruded,” he says. “We’ll get out of your hair.”

“It’s not a problem.” Kita doesn’t move from the doorway, watching the two of them get to their feet. His eyes narrow at the way Rintarou staggers into Atsumu’s side.

“You two need a ride home?” He crosses his arms over his chest and Rintarou suddenly gets the feeling like they’re about to be lectured.

“Don’t worry Kita-san, the walk will sober him up,” Atsumu interjects before Rintarou can reply. “We always walk home anyway.”

Rintarou hears more than sees the hushed conversation Kita has with whoever is with him, his head feeling fuzzy all over again, much worse than before now that he’s standing upright.

“Daichi will drive you,” Kita states, no room for argument. “Let’s go.”

“It’s okay—” Atsumu’s protest dies as soon as Kita glances sharply over his shoulder at him.

They trail after Kita and his companion— Daichi— all the way downstairs.

“He doesn’t drink on weekdays,” Kita offers without prompt once they’re outside, the night air creeping beneath their collars. Daichi’s car keys jingle loudly in the late night silence.

“But it’s Friday,” Atsumu sputters.

“Still a weekday,” both Kita and Daichi reply in unison, like they’d expected Atsumu to say that. Rintarou snickers, earning him a sharp elbow to the ribs.

They are ushered into the backseat without preamble. Rintarou doesn’t remember much of the drive because the hum of the engine and the motion of the vehicle and the warmth of Atsumu’s shoulder against his cheek lulls him somewhere right on the edge of sleep. It’s like he blinks once and when his eyes open the door is being tugged open again and Kita is gently taking his arm to help him out of the car and back onto the sidewalk.

“I should walk ya to your building,” Kita insists, worrying his bottom lip between his teeth.

“Kita-san, I promise I got it from here,” Rintarou hears Atsumu assure him just as he feels his arm circle around him. “The building’s literally right there, don’t worry.”

They thank both Kita and Daichi profusely before Atsumu leads Rintarou back to their dorm, throwing assurances over his shoulder until Kita is out of sight. Rintarou leans into Atsumu’s hold, trying to stay awake but just barely succeeding. His head feels heavy and his legs are dragging, that first taste of sleep from the car beginning to latch onto his limbs and slow him down.

“Ah shit.” Atsumu curses just as their building comes into view. “Rin, ya got your keycard? I left mine with Samu.”

Rintarou pats his pockets but ultimately comes up empty. He must have dropped it somewhere at the party or it’s in Daichi’s car. Either way, it’s past midnight and their dorm building is locked and there’s no way inside without their keycards.

Atsumu curses again and adjusts his hold around Rintarou so he can more easily extract his phone from his pants. “This bitch better wake up,” he mutters to himself as he presses it to his ear.

The distant ring of the dial tone makes Rintarou scowl, the sound much too shrill for his ears right now. He leans away from Atsumu and stumbles off, trying to regain even footing before setting off to find somewhere to sit down. He just wants to rest, wants to put his head down and close his eyes for a quick second so his surroundings will stop shapeshifting so much.

He doesn’t get very far.

“What the fuck Rin!” Atsumu’s footsteps are loud, echoing off the building around them, but his hand is a welcome warmth when it encloses around him. Their fingers thread together almost automatically. Atsumu tugs him back towards their dorm building, still on the phone.

“Yeah, sorry, he ran off— Samu can ya hurry? Please? See I even said please!”

“I’m right here!” Osamu’s voice doesn’t come through the phone but from the door to their building. “Get yer asses inside.”

The heater is on full blast when they step inside, but the warmest part of Rintarou’s body is the hand wrapped in Atsumu’s. He stumbles after the twins and into the elevator, pressing his free hand to the pounding in the center of his forehead.

“Is he gonna be okay?” Rintarou gets the feeling Osamu’s trying to speak softly, but his voice bounces off the elevator’s walls, each word reverberating like a gong.

He feels Atsumu’s arm shift as he shrugs. “He’ll be miserable in the mornin’, probably.”

The elevator dings— a sharp, piercing noise that feels like needles in the back of Rintarou’s skull— and then he is being tugged down the hall to his room. Atsumu’s hand stays clasped in his the entire time, all the way until Osamu’s bid them goodnight and their door shuts, and Rintarou is finally being tipped into the soft embrace of his bed.

“Fuck,” he groans as soon as his back hits his mattress. “My head hurts.”

“I’ll bet.” Atsumu’s snicker sounds distant. Rintarou cracks an eye open to see him shrugging on his sleep shirt across the room. He realizes he should do the same, slowly trying to tug his shirt off while still laying down. It takes some effort, but it works.

Atsumu’s footsteps are light as he approaches to force a clean shirt over Rintarou’s spinning head. He finally lets Rintarou lay back and sink into his blankets after he’s pulled his uncooperative arms through the sleeves. His footsteps recede again and then the lightswitch clicks off, making Rintarou breathe a long sigh of relief now that the lamps are no longer burning into the backs of his eyelids.

“Tsumu. C’mere.”

“What?” Atsumu whispers it besides his ear and he fights against his drooping eyes to look him in the face. He scoots over in his bed.

“Come here.”

Atsumu looks confused for a moment, unsure and hesitant. “Are ya sure?”

Rintarou nods jerkily, already half-asleep. “Mm. Hurry up.”

The mattress dips as Atsumu climbs in and Rintarou abandons his blanket in favor of his warmth, clinging to his side and burying his face into the crook of Atsumu’s shoulder.

“This okay?”

Rintarou wants to tell him it’s more than okay, wants to tell him that he’s pretty sure this will ruin sleep for him forever, because he’s never felt so warm and cozy before in his life. But instead he burrows closer and nods against Atsumu’s neck, speaking his response into the sensitive skin there.

“S’okay. I like this.”

A hand slides up into Rintarou’s hair, a welcome weight that nudges him further towards sleep. The last thing he feels is Atsumu relaxing against him, his body curling around him, and several soft words murmured against his forehead.

He wishes he’d stayed awake for a few seconds longer, just so he could remember properly what had been said because when he wakes up, he cannot recall Atsumu’s exact words, just that they had felt warm and affectionate, and that he wanted to hear them over and over again.

“So. What’s going on with ya and Atsumu?”

Osamu has found him tucked into a quiet corner of campus trying to sneak in a quick nap between classes. The weather’s quite nice today, a calm little breeze and the kind of sunshine that’s not too warm, peeking past fluffy clouds gliding through an open sky. And yet, despite all of that, once Rintarou sees Osamu stalking towards him, he feels a bit like he’s watching a storm bearing down on him.

Okay, first plan of action: feign ignorance. Maybe Osamu doesn’t really have any idea what’s actually going on.

Rintarou lifts his head from where it’s pillowed on his arms, folded upon the table. “What’s going on with me and my roommate?”

Osamu arches a brow at him, expression flat. “You’re gonna give me that? Ya really want me to embarrass ya an’ list out everything I’ve noticed between you two? I’ll start with what happened at the party, if ya’d like.”

Rintarou winces and burrows his face in the sleeves of his hoodie. He doesn’t want to hear about the party and he certainly doesn’t need it to be recounted from Osamu’s point of view. He’s still replaying it in his head, wondering if Atsumu found his behavior as strange as Rintarou finds it embarrassing. “Please don’t.”

The table wobbles as Osamu drops down onto the bench across from him. “Let’s hear it then. What’s going on?”

Time for plan B: give as little information as possible. Osamu only needs the crash course, not the entire program.

Rintarou looks away from Osamu’s all-knowing gaze and speaks to the bushes to their left when he mumbles, “We kissed.”

There’s a long moment of silence. “Why?” Osamu sounds both offended and horrified.

Rintarou honestly thinks that’s a strange initial reaction, but he also gets that Osamu wouldn’t take well to any teasing at the moment. He tries to explain in the simplest way possible, providing only the bare bones of the story. “The first time it was because of some stupid game—”

“First time? Wait— a game— no I mean— first time?!” Osamu’s words stumble and trip their way out of his mouth, each one sounding more scandalized than the last. His voice drops low and he looks at Rintarou with wide eyes. “When ya say first time, that implies a second.”

“Samu if you’re like this already, I’m not so sure you’re going to like how the rest of this story goes.”

Rintarou watches Osamu tilt his head back and look at the sky like he’s watching his sanity fly away into the wide blue expanse. He sucks in a deep breath through his nose, eyes squeezed shut, before looking back at Rintarou.

“Rin— no, Suna,” Rintarou winces again at the loss of his nickname, “how many times have ya kissed my brother?”

If he were facing anyone else at the moment, Rintarou would have laughed because it’s almost comical how he looks down at his hands like he’s about to start counting off his fingers, as if he had enough to begin with, as if he had kept track after that night with Atsumu and the movie in their dorm room. He flutters his fingers like he’s actually thinking about it before curling them in and looking back up.

“Um,” he replies unhelpfully.

“You’re joking,” Osamu groans. He scrubs a hand over his face and up into his hair, taking another deep breath. “Fine, fine. How long have ya been kissing him?”

“You remember that day in the dining hall?”

“Ever since that—?!” Osamu’s fists clench and unclench on the tabletop. He gives Rintarou an imploring look, distress written across his face. “Say sike right now, Rin I’m begging ya.”

“I thought you wanted me to be honest,” Rintarou responds drily. Whoever says Atsumu’s the more dramatic twin has obviously overlooked the fact that they both share the very same DNA.

“Oh my god.” Osamu steeples his fingers and presses his face into them, closing his eyes and taking several slow breaths that Rintarou is pretty sure he learned in his elective yoga class. “Why? What does this mean?”

Rintarou stares at him, confused. Are they supposed to need a reason to kiss someone? Is it supposed to mean something? It can be just that— kissing. Right? Yeah. Definitely.

Osamu groans and throws his hands up in the air at his lack of response. “What does Atsumu have ta say about this?”

Rintarou turns to the bushes again, staring them down like they’ll provide him with an escape from Osamu’s incoming tirade. “We didn’t really… talk about it.” He glances quickly back at Osamu and offers him an innocent smile as he watches his expression darken.

“You didn’t talk about it,” Osamu repeats, deadpan. “You. Didn’t. Talk about it.”

The bushes quiver as a squirrel scurries away. A bird calls in the distance, a crow with its foreboding caw. Is Rintarou imagining things, or did the sky just get darker? And is anyone else feeling that chill sweep through?

“There’s nothing to talk about!” he bursts out, grasping at straws here, trying to convince himself just as much as he’s trying to convince Osamu. Plan B has been scrapped; he’s just saying shit at this point.

“No,” snaps Osamu, his brows drawn so close in anger that Rintarou fears they will get stuck permanently in their furious expression. “There is very clearly something to talk about. And it’s ‘bout time ya stop and actually think instead of pretendin’ like everything’s fine and everything’s gonna be fine.”

Rintarou shrinks back from him, shoulder slouching as he retreats away from Osamu’s words. He knows— always has known that this wasn’t a sustainable arrangement. And he’s always known that there was something in the back of his mind, hovering, waiting, looming, until he stopped feigning ignorance and actually took a second to face the emotions all of this has kicked up inside of him. But it still isn’t very fun to hear.

“Ya hear me Rin?” Osamu growls, still glaring, taking Rintarou’s silence for indifference. “I can’t believe you’re making me say this but.” He pauses and rubs his forehead as he takes a moment to think over his next words. “You’re one of my best friends, kay? But Atsumu, he’s— I’m not gonna let ya hurt him. And if it comes down to it, I’m always gonna be on his side and that means, if necessary, I will kick yer ass.”

“Okay, okay,” Rintarou mumbles, pressing his hands to his face. “I’ll fix it. I’ll— I’ll talk to him.”

“Damn right ya will.” With one last grumble, Osamu pushes himself up and shrugs his backpack back one. He smooths his hair down where it’s sticking up from all the times he ran a hand through it in frustration before he asks, “We still on for dinner later?”

Rintarou huffs a laugh at the complete switch in mood, but he knows Osamu meant everything he said despite the way his eyes have softened and his shoulders have lost their stiffness. He nods. “Yeah, of course. The udon cart near the park?”

“If class ends early, I’ll text ya. We can walk to the station together.”

Osamu waves over his shoulder as he strides off and Rintarou is left with a thunderstorm of complicated thoughts brewing in his mind. With a heavy sigh, he drops his head into his arms, his misery amplified when he realizes that now he doesn’t even have time for that nap he’d been planning.

Fuck.

He planned on talking to Atsumu. Suna Rintarou has only a few fears and a pissed off Osamu is definitely at the top of that short list. But he had just gotten a bit distracted when Atsumu had shown up, a little breathless from rushing from his last class since Rintarou still didn’t have his keycard to get into their room. The flush of his cheeks and the tousled state of his hair and his easy grin made Rintarou forget everything else as soon as they were inside, crowding Atsumu up against his desk and kissing him over and over again until there was no space in his mind for anything else.

Maybe they can talk another day. Maybe next week. Maybe not at all. What’s there to talk about again? He likes kissing Atsumu and he likes holding Atsumu and he likes the way Atsumu’s hands feel when they’re gripping the front of his shirt like this and when Atsumu is smiling against his mouth, so hard it makes it near impossible to keep kissing him, forcing Rintarou to lean back and narrow his eyes at him.

“Sorry, sorry,” Atsumu mutters, pressing their foreheads together. He’s still beaming so wide his cheeks are all rounded, eyes crinkling at the corners. “Come back.”

“I’m trying,” Rintarou responds, exasperated, lips trailing from the edge of Atsumu’s mouth to the slope of his jaw. He feels it tremble beneath his touch as Atsumu laughs gently and he can’t help but join in as well, unable to keep himself from getting swept up in Atsumu’s rush.

Atsumu has just barely composed his face enough for Rintarou to kiss him properly before they’re interrupted again. The door echoes with a series of knocks.

Atsumu glances at it sideways before shrugging and pulling Rintarou back in. “If we’re quiet, they’ll go away.”

They do not go away, because they is Osamu, and an Osamu trying to get his hands on Atsumu is nothing if not persistent.

“Tsumu, I know you’re in there!” The door shudders in response to Osamu’s heavy fists. “I saw ya walkin’ up! Give me my Switch back.”

Rintarou gives up trying to kiss Atsumu because having his twin brother on the other side of their door is a real mood killer, who would’ve thought.

“I didn’t take it,” Atsumu whispers in response to the flat look he gives him.

“I know ya got my copy of Animal Crossing too! Ya better not be chasing my villagers away or else, I swear—!”

Rintarou narrows his eyes at Atsumu.

“Okay, okay!” he caves, beginning to pout. “It’s just real funny to dig holes around their houses and push ‘em in.”

“You’re a menace,” Rintarou hisses. The knocks continue, more insistent now. They both ignore it. “Do they cry?”

Atsumu’s face splits into a wicked grin. “Hell yea they do. And sometimes it makes them sick.”

They dissolve into hushed snickers, trying to keep quiet so Osamu doesn’t hear them but they are largely unsuccessful. Rintarou thought Osamu had reached his maximum volume potential, but somehow, he gets even louder.

“Fine!” Atsumu finally shouts back, slipping away and trudging to open the door. “Whaddaya want?”

“You just heard me tell ya what I want,” is the first thing Osamu snaps as soon as the door swings open to reveal him in all his irritated glory, arms crossed over his chest and brows scrunched. “Now give me—” He stops short as soon as his gaze drifts past Atsumu to see Rintarou.

“What were ya guys doing?” His question is sharp, cutting through the air and pinning Rintarou into place. His eyes darken.

“None of yer business,” Atsumu responds with a sniff but Osamu doesn’t even glance at him.

“Rin. Didn’t I tell ya—”

“I was actually just heading out.” Rintarou watches Osamu’s expression turn thunderous but he doesn’t stick around a moment longer to find out what happens when his patience finally snaps. He brushes past the both of them and out into the hall. “I forgot I have to go somewhere.”

“What? Where’re ya—?”

“I think the fuck not—”

Rintarou doesn’t hear the tail-end of either twin’s statements because he’s already rounded the corner and ducked into the stairwell, the door slamming shut behind him. He just moves and stumbles and runs and hopes he’s not making a big mistake.

He ends up at the INZ house. He is ringing the doorbell before his mind has even caught up with him and the front door opens to a sleepy Oomimi rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand.

“Suna?” he yawns.

“I uh, I left my keycard here I think,” he mumbles, sounding apologetic for turning up without notice. “Can I look for it?”

Oomimi tilts his head at him, looking thoughtful. “I think Shinsuke got it. He should be upstairs.”

Kita is the last person Rintarou wants to face right now (actually no, that honor belongs to Osamu) but he has no choice but to head up and knock on their president’s closed door. It only takes a moment for Kita to answer, looking as alert and well-kept as ever.

“Hi,” Rintarou says, shifting awkwardly in place. “Oomimi-san said you might have my keycard.”

Kita opens the door wider and gestures him inside, nodding in understanding. Rintarou’s card is sitting on his desk and he could just take it and leave, but something keeps him rooted in the doorway even after he’s slipped it into his pocket. There isn’t anything left for him to stick around for, but he gets the feeling like there’s something more that he needs to take from here.

“Did ya want to talk about something Suna?” Kita asks in that omniscient way of his, eyes soft, smile small.

“I,” Rintarou starts but doesn’t finish. He doesn’t know exactly what he’s supposed to say and something about Kita’s sharp eyes make it both easy and difficult to find the right words. He takes a deep breath and prepares to try again. “I think there’s something I need to do. But I don’t know how.”

Thankfully, Kita doesn’t mention anything about the purposefully ambiguous way he goes about asking. Instead he just smiles like he understands. “And why is that?”

“Because I’m scared.” The words slip out of Rintarou’s mouth before he even realizes they exist, before he even realizes that they are the root of the messy feelings swirling around his mind. He is scared, because this is him and this is Atsumu and this is the potential of him and Atsumu, a different sort of togetherness he doesn’t know if they can stick with the way they’ve stuck together this entire time.

Kita just looks at him, the same way he looked at him that night in the kitchen. “If you’ve done it before, then there’s no reason to be afraid.”

“I’ve never…” Rintarou’s voice falters at the way Kita’s eyes gleam, like he knows something that Rintarou is a little slower on the uptake for.

“Are ya sure about that?” Kita’s head cocks to the side, his face expectant, waiting. “Have ya really never done it before?”

Rintarou looks away from him, his gaze falling to the corner of the floor rug, right where he’d tripped and taken Atsumu down with him the last time he was here. He remembers how they laid there, in that suspended moment with the confession readily poised on his lips. He remembers how quickly it had crossed his mind, how there had been a split second where he’d felt like it would be so easy to just be honest. But perhaps that bravery had come only from the alcohol soaking into his bones.

And then he remembers that night in front of the convenience store when he’d laid the truth out for Atsumu to hear and to feel and to understand, the both of them sober as a judge, and the way his words had made Atsumu’s eyes glow, fixed on Rintarou like he was something special.

And Rintarou thinks back even further, to the first time he’d kissed Atsumu, and realizes that maybe that was the only time he hadn’t actually been honest when it mattered. Because, if he had let himself be honest with himself, the truth was that he wanted to be close to Atsumu, now, then, and for as long as he could.

He curls his hands into fists at his side. “I think I have to go,” he says, sounding breathless.

Kita smiles like he knew this all along. “I’d say good luck but I’m pretty sure ya don’t need it.”

Something about Kita saying he is sure of him, confident in him, makes courage bloom in Rintarou’s chest. He shakes his head, already halfway into the hall. He throws a quick but sincere thanks over his shoulder before he is off, taking the steps two at a time and nearly leaving the front door open in his haste.

His nerves don’t catch up to him until he finds himself striding towards his room, breathing heavy from speed walking the entire way back home. His hands shake when he reaches for the doorknob, finding it hard to slide his keycard properly. It swings open before he can get it in and he nearly tumbles into Osamu storming his way out.

“Osamu—”

He glares at him and jabs a finger into his chest. “I can’t believe I gotta do everything ‘round here. Go deal with your dumbass.” And then he is grumbling away back to his own room without a second glance.

Atsumu turns towards him in his desk chair once the door shuts behind Rintarou, an unspoken question on his face. Rintarou holds up his procured keycard as an explanation before he faceplants into his bed, unable to look at him for too long.

Now that he’s here, he isn’t quite sure where to start. There’s that heaviness in the air that he remembers from all those weeks ago, the first time they’d crossed lines, and he wishes Atsumu would cast it away easily like he had before.

“Rin.”

Rintarou sits up and looks at him. He watches his hands fumble in his lap before he continues.

“Rin,” he says again. His face screws up like he’s cringing at the sound of his own voice. “You said we’re best friends, right?”

Rintarou gets the feeling like he’s stalling. He gives him a funny look when Atsumu doesn’t say anything else.

“Sure,” Rintarou returns, and it makes Atsumu twitch in his seat like he’s been taken by surprise. “And you’re also a pain in my ass.”

Atsumu runs his hands through his hair and groans, scowling at him. “No— shut up for a second. I’m tryna think.”

“You take your time with that.”

The chair squeaks when Atsumu spins to fully face him, his hands clapping together with finality as he takes a deep breath. He meets Rintarou’s gaze with a familiar determination blazing in his eyes.

“Osamu pointed something out to me when ya were gone,” he begins, his voice firm, unwavering. “And much as I hate ta say it, I think he was kinda right.” He doesn’t wait for Rintarou to ask what, exactly, Osamu had said, just plowing forward like he’s afraid he’ll lose steam.

“He asked me if this—” Atsumu flips his hand between the two of them, gesturing sloppily, “—is something and I. I realized it might be?”

The air doesn’t feel heavy anymore. In fact, Rintarou can’t feel it at all, can’t take in a breath without it scratching at his insides. He doesn’t look away from Atsumu when he asks, in a thin voice, “Might be what?”

Atsumu chews on his lip, looking like he isn’t quite sure how to answer him. He thinks for a moment and seems to settle on a different approach. “I don’t. I don’t wanna kiss anyone besides you.”

The admission catches Rintarou off guard but at the same time, something warm fizzles between his ribs.

“How… how does that make you feel?”

Rintarou almost laughs at the stiff way he asks the question. This is so unlike them, the hesitation, the tiptoeing, the roundabout way in which they’re steering this conversation when the direction it’s heading towards is so glaringly obvious. But he knows it’s a destination they must reach in order to clear this awkward air, so he keeps his expression neutral and attentive, not wanting to discourage Atsumu nor give him the wrong idea.

He thinks of Kita’s encouraging smile and how easy it had been to be honest, multiple times before, and understands that this moment right now is no different. “I don’t want to kiss anyone else either.”

“So what does that mean?” Atsumu sounds breathless. “Do you. Do you like me?”

Rintarou blinks at him. He hadn’t realized Atsumu would just come out and say it. He opens his mouth to respond but fuck, this whole feelings thing is really hard. He tries to be as sincere as he can be, but his throat feels like a desert when he tries to say something overtly affectionate like “I like you so much it makes my chest hurt.” So he goes with what comes easiest.

“I mean. I don’t not like you.” He winces even as he says it himself.

But Rintarou is lucky, because Atsumu’s brain is wired just like his and he sees clearly between the lines of his very honest Not Confession. He grins, easy and wide and familiar. So, so familiar. “Me too. I don’t not like you too.”

“Thanks,” Rintarou replies dumbly after a very pregnant pause.

“This is stupid,” Atsumu sighs. “Can I just kiss ya?”

“Oh God, please,” Rintarou answers immediately, eager to be put out of this misery. Atsumu doesn’t waste a single second, crossing the room in two steps and clambering into Rintarou’s lap like an excited puppy, gripping the front of his shirt. Rintarou catches him easily, wrapping arms around his familiar weight, keeping him close, tasting the laughter catching on his lips and finding it hard to do anything more than match the beaming smile on his face.

“So what does this mean?” Rintarou asks the dreaded question when Atsumu leans back, looking up into his bright face and wondering why he had ever been afraid of this in the first place.

“This means,” Atsumu replies, his arms circling Rintarou’s neck and fingers playing with his hair, “I will allow ya to kiss me all the time. And if you’re cute enough, I’ll even let ya hold my hand when we walk to the dining hall for dinner.”

Rintarou rolls his eyes even as he tips Atsumu’s chin with his fingers to guide him back in. “Gross,” he whispers against his lips, pecking him one more time before pulling away. But not too far, because, as Atsumu cups his cheeks and presses their foreheads together, he knows this is right where he likes to be. Here, up close, right beside, not too far— anywhere within reach of Atsumu.

It’s what comes easiest to him.