Chapter Text
It’s an incredibly warm day when Sugawara Koushi moves into his new apartment. The afternoon breeze flows through his hair, and Suga has never felt more alive. A tall building stands in front of him, and Suga feels a type of excitement that he hasn’t felt in a while. Suga slowly begins bringing boxes upstairs, and he tries to not to carry too much. After all, Suga wants to enjoy the moving process.
Suga tightens his hold on a box of kitchen utensils, carefully walking up the stairs. He reaches the tenth floor, and takes a look out of the wide window overlooking the city. There’s an incredible softness that comes with Tokyo in the summer, and Suga can’t get enough of the strawberry sun warming his face and the cherry blossoms covering the ground.
Suga walks down the hallway, before stopping at his apartment—apartment one hundred and two. He sets the box down, and slips his keys out of his pocket. He didn’t get to meet the landlord, because he apparently has more than one job, so Suga just picked up his keys from the front office.
The apartment looks just like the pictures, and hasn’t changed since the day Suga visited. Suga takes a look around, and marvels at the spacious living room, at the walls covered in sage green paint. Suga knows immediately that he wants to grow basil on the windowsill, and plant seedlings just to watch them grow.
Suga hurries back downstairs, and tries to carry as many boxes as he can. Asahi will be here soon, because Suga somehow swindled him into helping him move. Asahi, for his seemingly intimidating stature, actually has a heart of glass. But, he still goes to the gym, and can lift more than Suga could ever dream of.
Asahi is waiting downstairs when Suga makes it to the first floor. He looks slightly disheveled, but Suga knows that Asahi nearly always looks that way. He smiles, and begins taking boxes upstairs.
Before long, there are no more boxes in the parking lot, and the moving van is long gone. Suga wipes a bead of sweat from his brow, and gives Asahi a tired smile. “Thank for helping me,” Suga says.
Asahi sheepishly rubs the back of his neck, “it’s nothing, really. I have to use this strength for something, right?”
Suga laughs, “and what better way to use it then helping me move in?” Asahi nods, and Suga becomes aware of someone walking down the hallway.
Asahi moves away from the large window in the living room, and Suga wonders why Asahi has never mentioned having a fear of heights. A man walks past Suga’s door, and Suga peeks into the hallway to see what’s going on.
Another man is moving in, at least, it seems that way. Maybe he’s like Suga, someone with a fine-paying job, that just so happened to get a raise. Suga didn’t technically happen upon a raise, but he worked hard enough. Hard work may not always pay off, but it did in this case.
Suga considers introducing himself to the man, but he’d rather not bother him. Suga needs to take a nap. Suga says goodbye to Asahi, and the door closes behind him with a click. Suga realizes he left something in the hallway, and he opens the door to get it.
Suga knows that staring is rude, but he does take a look at some of the things sitting in the hallway. There are a lot of books stacked inside of boxes, and a box filled with abstract art. Suga stops looking after a while, because he’s rather not be caught in the act. He finds what he was looking for, a lavender candle, and retreats back into his apartment.
-
The next day, after Suga has slipped into a short coma, he is ready to meet his neighbors. Suga wonders if he should make them something, but then again, he’s the one who just moved in. Besides, maybe the neighbors have allergies, and Suga would rather not send someone to the hospital.
It’s a bright Sunday afternoon, and Suga has mostly recovered from all the heavy lifting he did yesterday, but there are still more things to be done. The landlord will be coming over soon, and Suga needs to tidy up the place. Suga still doesn’t know how the apartment already looks messy when he just moved in yesterday.
Suga pulls on a soft, white t-shirt, and he starts dusting. He waters the plants sitting in the kitchen, and he smiles. The spring sun has been feeding the plants well, and they’re already reaching up toward the sky.
A knock on the door echoes throughout the apartment, and Suga opens the door to see a man standing at the door. Judging by his stoic appearance, he’s probably the landlord. Suga welcomes him in, and the man takes a look around the room. “I love what you’ve done with the place,” he says. “You have a lot of plants.”
Suga smiles, “plants add character.”
The man nods, and he extends a hand. “Ukai Keishin,” he says. “I’m the landlord.”
“I figured that,” Suga replies. “You probably know my name, since you’re the one that sold me the apartment.”
The man nods again, and takes one last look around the apartment. “Sorry I wasn’t there to give you the key, I run the shop down the street.”
Suga waves a hand, “that’s alright, don’t worry about it.” Ukai leaves, and Suga decides that now is the perfect time to meet his neighbors.
Suga first knocks on the door of his next door neighbor. A timid-looking boy opens the door, and he’s quickly joined by a tall boy wearing glasses. “Hi, neighbors! I just moved in next door.” The nervous-looking boy shakes his hand, but the boy wearing glasses doesn’t move an inch. “My name is Sugawara Koushi.”
“Ah, it’s nice to meet you.” The boy replies, “my name is Yamaguchi Tadashi.”
The boy wearing glasses sighs, “my name is Tsukishima Kei.”
“Sorry I disturbed you,” Suga says quickly. Kei just nods, and Suga continues walking down the hallway. He stops at another apartment, but he hesitates before knocking on the door. He hears two boys quarreling inside, and Suga considers walking the other way.
After a moment, Suga knocks on the door. If one of them end up attacking him, at least Suga has achieved enough for now, perhaps dying won’t be so bad? A tall, brooding boy opens the door, and he is joined by a short boy with ginger hair. Suga gives them a small smile, “hi, neighbors!”
The ginger-haired boy now looks excited, “hi!” Suga extends a hand, which he shakes quickly. “My name is Hinata,” he points to the dark-haired boy, “and this is Kageyama.”
“It’s so nice to meet both of you,” Suga says. “I just moved in next door.”
“Ah,” Hinata replies. “We’ve been living here for a while. It’s nice, isn’t it?”
Suga laughs quietly, “yeah. I honestly don’t know how I was able to afford it.” Kageyama doesn’t say anything, and Suga realizes that the sun is already starting to set. Time really flies in the summer, even though the sun sets earlier in winter. “I should be going now,” Suga says. “But it was nice meeting you two!”
He leaves, but not before giving Hinata and Kageyama a wave. It’s already Sunday evening, and Suga has a lot of work to do tomorrow. For now, though, Suga needs to get some sleep. He has had a good weekend, he thinks, and he is sure that the weekend will be even better.
-
Mondays are days when Suga needs to wake up earlier than usual. After all, the beginning of the week brings new challenges, and he needs to be ahead of the game. This morning, Suga needs to go to the craft store, as there are too many birthdays coming up, and Suga needs to give the class things to do.
Suga slips on a light coat, and steps into the elevator. The apartment is quiet, save for the quiet hum of the early crickets outside. Suga loves moments like these, he thinks, as he steps out of the elevator and into the parking lot.
There is only one car running when Suga slips into his car. It’s a cop car, which puzzles Suga, since this is an area of the city without crime. Suga starts his car, and pulls out of the parking lot. He sees the driver of the cop car when he begins driving, and it’s the same man who was moving in a few days ago.
Suga feels oddly safe knowing this, because he’s never known a cop personally. The man looks like someone who knows what he’s doing, as far as Suga is concerned, and it’s nice to know that there’s a trained officer living in the apartment.
The drive to the city is quiet, as Suga has beaten the early morning rush. His school isn’t far from here, and the craft store is only one block away. Suga finds what he’s looking for—a small craft store tucked away on a lonely street. Suga finds a parking spot with ease, before slipping out of his car and walking inside.
The person at the register gives him a small wave, and Suga smiles, waving back. He looks at his phone, and begins checking things off his list. He picks up a basket, and looks around for paper bags. Then, he finds tubes of acrylic, but picks up a few tubes of green. For some odd reason, the class has an obsession with lime green this year.
Lastly, he finds some card stock, which he gently places inside the basket. The sun is beginning to rise, and Suga needs to get going. The person at the register quickly rings him up, and Suga steps outside. Summer may be well underway, but time flies, and Suga could soon be facing winter snow.
He begins driving to school, and arrives there in record time. The receptionist greets him with a smile, and Suga grins. He loves his job.
-
The next day, Suga has consumed too much coffee for one morning. He really isn’t sure what happened, but sleep didn’t come easily to him last night. In fact, he ended up tossing and turning, and how he’s here, struggling through the morning.
However, Suga still has a job to do. But with the bags under his eyes, it’s getting increasingly difficult to help the kids with mixing paint. Suga would rather not mop the floors and scrub clean of bright plaint, but that’s the life of an elementary school teacher.
Suga takes another sip of coffee, and leaves his desk to check on a table of kids. Suga announced earlier in the day that they’d be working on different arts and crafts, and it appears that it’s going well.
One of the children approaches him, with her hands outstretched. She hands Suga a finished drawing, and Suga’s heart grows warm. Two stick figures lie in the drawing, but Suga is pretty sure that one of the figures is supposed to be him. Suga smiles brightly, despite his tired eyes. “Thank you so much,” he says.
“My mommy said that you’re homeless,” the child says. Suga goes bright red. In all his years of working as an elementary school teacher, he’s heard many strange this, but this has to be the most embarrassing.
Suga sheepishly rubs the back of his neck, “well, I live in an apartment. I love my new apartment very much,” he replies.
The child nods, before walking away to join her friends. Suga wonders if the parents have been spreading rumors about him. He seriously hopes not, after all, he isn’t the first teacher to have worked at this school, and many teachers have been driven away. “Let’s sit down on the floor, kids,” Suga says. “It’s story time.”
The kids rush to find their places on the center rug, and Suga joins them after finding a new book. He sits down on the rocking chair, flipping to the first page. He begins reading the story, but he is interrupted by one of the children. “Mr. Suga, do you have a boyfriend?”
Suga nearly chokes on his own spit, and he quickly shakes his head. As wonderful as a boyfriend would be, Suga is far too busy with work to even think about dating. Suga loves his job, and he’d rather not fall behind while worrying about personal affairs. Still, having a boyfriend would be nice.
The child goes quiet, and Suga continues reading from the book. Suga may love his students, and he sometimes feels like more of a parent to them than their biological parents, but there are times when kids have no shame. Suga has heard many things during his time as a teacher, and this is just the cherry on top, however, it never fails to put a smile on his face.
-
Suga wakes up to an alarming discovery—he’s out of coffee. After looking through the cabinets, Suga finds that he doesn’t even have instant coffee lying around. These are especially trying times, considering that Suga has twice the amount of work to do today.
It’s high time to go shopping, and Suga needs to do it right now. He yawns for the fifth time today, and slips on a light jacket and shoes. He steps out of the apartment, slowly walking down the hallway.
The air is thick with the smell of cinnamon and pine, and Suga knows that summer is gradually coming to an end. He doesn’t mind, after all, fall brings colorful trees and warm sweaters. Suga would like to say that he’s a summer person, but he’s always preferred colder months.
Fallen leaves crunch under Suga’s feet as he slips in his car. The early morning sun warms his face, even though the wind has started to pick up. Suga begins his route to the grocery store, but he knows that he won’t have much time. The small store that Suga frequents, a quaint, organic store far from the apartment, always warrants a longer drive.
The drive to the grocery store is quiet, with the silent spaces being filled by soft jazz. Suga quietly hums along to the music, and marvels at the clean, quiet streets in front of him. Suga feels a little fatigued, but that’s just because it’s much too early to be outside, evident by the small rays of sun obscured by thick clouds.
Suga arrives at the store just in time for the opening hours. The elderly woman at the counter gives him a kind smile, and Suga gives her a small wave. Suga is running against the clock, so he hurries to collect his things. He grabs coffee first, of course, and the rest follows.
Suga manages to make it out of the store with time to spare, and he finds himself driving back home. Even though Suga loves fun and parties as much as the next young adult, he prefers to stay in the comfort of his home. When Suga arrives back at his apartment, he steps out of the car, attempting to carry all of his groceries at once.
When he’s safely inside the apartment, and after narrowly avoiding a group of college kids stumbling through the hallway, Suga sits down to get some work done. The sun is now high in the sky, and the trees whisper secrets from the high floors of the apartment. Suga gets to work on a newsletter he was supposed to send out last week. He doesn’t know how many of the parents truly read his newsletter, but then again, there are some who do.
Suga hears someone from his place on the tenth floor of the apartment, and he peers down at the ground. The man from before is on the ground, playing volleyball with a short, red-haired boy. Suga has already seen the older man before, but this is his first time seeing the red-haired boy. After a moment, Suga feels dumb after realizing that the red-haired boy is Hinata.
They seem to be practicing receives, evident by their outstretched arms and wide smiles. Hinata appears to be less experienced, as he consumes to fall on the ground, but he gets up immediately. Suga smiles to himself, he hasn’t played volleyball much since he left high school, but he would love to play again.
The police officer seems like a nice man, Suga thinks, and he’s probably here to stay. It’s about time that Suga come down and say hello, but for some reason, there’s some invisible force stopping him from knocking on the man’s door.
Suga has no problem with meeting new people, in fact, he welcomes it. On the ground, Kageyama joins the other two in practicing receives. He’s an excellent setter, by the looks of it, and he appears to be close to the Hinata. Suga doesn’t want to be nosy, but they seem like more than friends.
Logically, Kageyama could just be visiting, but judging by the fond smile on his lips, Suga feels silly for wondering.
The clock ticks by, and Suga realizes that he needs to leave. Class will start soon, and Suga has somehow lost track of time. He gathers his things and slings his back over his shoulder, before heading out the door. The boys are still downstairs when Suga steps out of the elevator, and after some careful consideration, he manages to give them a small wave.
Hinata smiles widely, waving back at Suga. Suga somehow manages to avoid the other man’s gaze, but he smiles at him as Suga slips into his car. Suga smiles back, and pulls out of the parking lot. A strange feeling settles in his chest, but it isn’t a bad one, rather, a feeling of indescribable warmth.
Suga is going to have a great day.