Work Text:
It’s late in the evening, and Suna should be asleep.
He’s never had a problem maintaining a steady sleep schedule before, especially in the sluggish August heat. Fireflies blink on and off outside his window, and when he rolls over to lie on his back, sighing, the moon is partially obscured by thin, wispy clouds.
His phone dings.
He scrambles to pick it up, squinting at the screen as he gnaws at his lip.
The message isn’t anything special— it’s a My Melody meme, the cute bunny character pouting as her brows slope down, captioned “angy.” It’s cute, probably recycled from Twitter. He pictures the same expression on your face, and even if he successfully suppresses the upturning of his lips, it’s undeniable that his eyes are smiling. His sister made a big deal about that, the other day, insisting that Suna smiles only with his eyes whenever she wants to take a photo.
“I go to Inarizaki,” he’d told her drily. “We don’t need the memories.”
“That’s stupid,” she had huffed. “I need them!!”
He’s not sure how she speaks in double exclamation points.
His attention drifts away from the memory when the three dots indicating that you’re typing pop up.
I’m super sleepy. Goodnight!!
Suna responds immediately, which is unusual for him. Atsumu often complains that it takes him five or more hours to respond to his texts; Osamu nods in agreement, although Suna usually responds to him within only a couple.
gn :)
Suna should be asleep, but he’s developing an unhealthy routine. He can’t go to sleep until you wish him a final goodnight, even when your typing bubble is up for hours. When that happens, he texts you think ur asleep. nite sleepyhead, which always prompts a quick reply of well-wishes for the night, accompanied by the sheepish admission that you passed out with your phone on your face again.
He likes that he’s the last thing on your mind before you sleep each night.
He’s more than a little afraid of what that could mean.
He falls asleep with the taste of your name on his tongue.
He met you when he first moved to the prefecture, before he’d met anyone else.
“Hey,” you said, standing on the sidewalk while he unloads boxes and makes sense of his new surroundings, blowing pink bubbles with your gum so large they distorted your face just a little before they popped. “Who’re you?” You’re fifteen, and apparently, you haven’t yet developed the crushing sense of social shame most twelve-to-sixteen year olds suffer from, or you’ve grown out of it early. Possibly, you’re just like that.
If you are, Suna likes that.
“I’m Suna,” he says, and it’s not friendly. It’s mostly just tired.
“Suna what?”
“Suna Rintarou.”
It’s not friendly, but he offers you a grape chuupet, and you eat yours and he eats his sitting on the curb, only a few feet away from each other.
So maybe it’s something else.
You didn’t actually talk much after that. You’re in the same grade, but different classes, and Suna came to Inako to play volleyball, so he mostly played volleyball, and Suna doesn’t like to go out of his way, so he didn’t.
Then second year rolled around, and he was properly stuck being friends with the Miya twins. They exhaust him, and they annoy him (maybe not as much as they annoy each other), but they’re entertaining.
It’s with the Miya twins in mind that he bumps into you one day, in late autumn, sweeping the floor of the gym.
“Oh, hey,” he says, and is slightly startled at the inadequacy of the greeting. Bizarrely, his mind flashes to Atsumu, who is crass and loud but charming in his plain honesty. He shoves the comparison down, only for a vision of Osamu, who can be really, genuinely charming, as often as he can be a pain in the ass, to pop up. Atsumu’s not the only one with fangirls, after all. Suna shoves that down, too, because seriously, he doesn’t even know you, and it would be useless to try and emulate the twins for— no reason, really. He’s not a Miya; he’s Suna, and he’s not really into that stuff.
“Hi,” you say, eyes flicking up to meet his before refocusing on the floor and your task. The afternoon sun is softening with the advent of the cold season, and its light filters through your eyelashes and streaks your face with something that makes it hard for him to stop looking at you. “Need something?”
“Nah,” he says, casually. You make a quarter turn and his eyes scan your figure, not leering, merely analytical. You’re watching him out of the corner of your eye, and you see it. “Just left my jacket over here.”
“Cool.” You respond, and there’s silence, comfortable as a quilt, as he retrieves the item.
“Why are you here so late?” He asks, and he’s as blunt as you.
“My uncle’s the janitor,” you say, jerking your chin in the direction of the door, outside of which Suna vaguely remembers seeing a man with the same shade of hair. “I help out every so often so he’ll drive me when I don’t feel like walking home.”
“Cool.”
“You’re my neighbor,” you comment, because the conversation just doesn’t feel over. “How do you like Hyōgo?”
“I like it,” he says. “I actually moved here to play volleyball at this school. I wouldn’t have come if I hated it, and it’s grown on me even more.” You nod. Suna’s the type to be neutral and bored with almost everything, but he also doesn’t force it.
“That’s good. It’d suck to move somewhere you hate. You still have an accent, though.”
“Or you do,” he points out.
“Yeah,” you consider, looking utterly at home in the gym, and he feels, weirdly, a similar sense of belonging. “Maybe it’s me.”
He bumped into you a couple more times, and he gave you his number because he went out of town for the weekend once, back to Tokyo, and he trusted you to housesit.
Texting is dangerous, when you’re funny, and he’s bored often, and you don’t bombard him with messages nor do you let him ghost you for weeks on end before coming back with a dry-ass message (as he is prone to do to acquaintances). He realizes that it’s relaxing, natural as breathing to talk to you, and the conversations spiral.
“Let me walk you home,” he says, eyes half-lidded and lips curled up at the edges, and you don’t say no. You laugh with him, on the way home, and you’re waiting at the gates for him the next day. You don’t need to discuss things with him. It’s just how they are, a natural progression from a to b to c, and things have always been easy for you two. You drift apart, but you’re still close, and you come together, and it’s just the way the world works. You suspect it will always work this way.
Winter was easier, though. The cold air and busy spring semester make being friends easier on him, but now it’s ninety degrees Fahrenheit in August.
Now it’s late in the evening, and Suna should be asleep, but he’s falling for you in his quiet, unhurried way.
Unfortunately for you, he’s never fallen for anyone before, and the butterflies in his stomach are making him nauseous.
“Suna,” you say, shaking him awake, and he frowns up at you from the bench he’s been napping on. In his dreams, you call him Rintarō. Lately, dream-you says it more and more often, while real-you speaks to him less and less. “Why have you been avoiding me?”
“I haven’t,” he croaks, and blames it on his nap rather than your eyes, intense and focused on him, or your lips, set in a pout.
“You have,” you retort. “And it’s not like normal, it’s weird. Why are you being weird, Suna?” He throws an arm over his eyes.
“You’re weird,” he argues, “let me go back to sleep.”
“You’re going to give yourself back problems, so no. Also, I want answers.”
“Let me suffer for it in twenty years.”
“Did I do something wrong?” You ask, and his heart beats once, straining in his chest before shattering. You’re quiet in a way you’re not usually, and your face is— a restrained kind of angry, but your eyes are deeply, deeply worried. Your lower lip trembles, and he blinks. It’s gone.
“No,” he says shortly. “Bye.” He slings his backpack over his shoulder and walks into the rusting September flora. You roll your eyes, hard, and follow after him.
Not talking to you sucked before, and it sucks more now, because you won’t fucking leave him alone.
“Hey, Y/N,” Atsumu waves at you. You sit down and wave back, aiming a smile at him. Suna closes his eyes and pretends to go to sleep, using his backpack as a pillow. It’s been a few days of this, and you don’t really speak to him, but you follow him to lunch, walk with him home. You talk animatedly to his friends, and give condensed replies to him when you have to, and you leave his texts on delivered. Everyone’s pretty much accepted the strange dynamic. Pretty much.
Suna sleeps mostly at lunch, letting your conversations with the twins settle over him like a blanket. Childish, he chides himself, but trying to be grown-up isn’t helping him at night anyway.
“You look tired,” you tell him frankly on your walk home that day. He looks at you, wide-eyed. You’re initiating a conversation for the first time in days.
“I am,” he mumbles, and again, the response, so normal for him, feels inadequate. He feels inadequate, all because you have pretty hands and nice legs and a face he could love, and something about love, to seventeen year old Suna Rintarō makes him worry that he won’t be any good at it.
“I’m sorry for being so petty,” you say. “But I really thought it would help.”
“Did you?” He side-eyes you. Mostly, it’s been weird. He’s not sure what your goal was. “Weirdo.”
“Yeah,” you sigh contentedly. It’s warm out— your favorite kind of weather. “I figured you just needed to realize that I’m not going away. I mean, I’m not clingy, not really, but if you didn’t want to talk to me, I’d still be there, you know?”
“…Huh.” Looking at it that way, it’s not as strange as it could be, but he still doesn’t understand why. You stop in front of his place, standing squarely in front of him.
“And you’re still scared of your feelings?” You ask, and he grimaces away from your bluntness for the first time.
“What feelings?” He grits out.
“Oh, don’t be an idiot,” you pat his cheek condescendingly, and he likes the feel of your palm, even though he also wants to slap it away. “I know you, Rintarō.”
His lips part, and that’s when you fist your hands in his shirt and kiss him.
A heat wave rolls through his body, toes to flushing face, and he pulls you closer, vision wiggling in the startled second before his eyes flutter shut.