Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The city of Luxing had been the Hinata family’s vacation destination most years. His mother started the tradition. Luxing had a lot more matches to attend than the city of Saint Winona, and watching them on TV from a dome or two away simply wasn’t the same.

Shoyo had seen its expansive homes and properties, the theaters and shopping streets and glowing attractions. But in his heart he knew the city by its teams. because Saint Win had so few of its own, which was the worst thing about Saint Win. But Luxing had many: The Blue Stars; the dueling teams the Craters and the Creators; the Black Swans; the Steppers, the Hounds. Dozens more.

There were so many teams, strong and cool and admirable, so many sports and games and things to do. He often jumped between them. His adoration of them all, and his inability to perfect any of them, shaped his entire life. 

When he was very little and still had his baby teeth, he cheered for the Steppers, the basketball team. Their logo was an astronaut’s dark footprint on the pale surface of the moon. They could all jump so high that his little jaw would drop to watch them. He would try to mimic them, leaping high and then falling on the floor—and thus lost a few baby teeth. But he learned to jump, so early in life he could not remember learning it. 

When he was in elementary school, he loved the Creators, the soccer team, because he realized how much he loved running, like they did. Shoyo would run around things, up and down things, onto and into things. He didn’t have the vocabulary to express an admiration for soccer players’ footwork, but his own finesse with it started there.

When he was in middle school, he found the Blue Stars, the city’s volleyball team, his first love. How his heart beat when he saw Justin Yu sail up from the floor and spike the ball down at it, and then smile at the TV camera. Then he hopped onto his hoverboard and zipped away, taking everyone’s hearts and astonishment with him. Shoyo would lie under his covers at night twitching as he mimed those movements in his mind, and occasionally pressing his closed hand to his mouth, so he could pretend to kiss Justin. It didn't really teach him to kiss. 

Not long after high school, he held a baseball bat in one hand and a sports drink in another, wallowing in a post-game loss with Natsu. They stood together by the TV and watched a Swans game. They both stood in place all the way to the seventh inning where the Swans began to falter—because standing in place in itself wasn't tiring to them, not with their muscled legs. And there was only so long they could stand in one place together at all. Natsu had been selected as a youth student at the sports university in Luxing. She would move soon. She would become another exotic thing separate from everyday life that Shoyo could only lay eyes on once a year. Luxing had everything, even his sister.  

Shoyo met Atsumu at a Hounds game, a game that they won. 

The game was at the Skarmory Stadium were his mother worked. The Stadium’s ceiling could turn either opaque or clear on command. Tonight it was clear so spectators and players could through the building's roof. And a matching, circular space in the dome far above it had been cleared as well, so everyone could see straight out of the dome.

Some people didn't bother looking up, including Shoyo. He didn’t even attend the game, or feel much like watching basketball tonight. He felt like going to the stadium’s attached sports center instead to burn some energy. 

There were many corridors leading to the Stadium's stands. Shoyo scuttled through one of them, dodging dozens of people and ignoring huge blankets of crowd and announcer noises blaring above his head. He passed a dozen more people, a dozen stairways and doors to elsewhere in the stadium. Then he only passed one person, one more door, and then the space was empty and blank in front of him. He turned right, then right again. The sound of the game finally started to fade. 

This new corridor opened into a space about half as wide as the actual stadium, with ceilings not even half as high. It was filled with recreational sports arenas. Sometimes important teams like the Hounds practiced here before and after games. Sometimes it was open to the public. Shoyo walked out, hoping it was public hours now. There was a soccer field with authentic grass and one with manufactured turf, a little baseball diamond, a running track, a swimming pool behind a glass wall, and a two volleyball courts, one on wood flooring and one in sand.

He could have picked any of them. Today he picked the sand volleyball court, as it had the most traffic. He approached the crowd of strangers, waving a baseball cap at them. The first ones to see him coming were the ones on the opposite side of the court: two dark-skinned, dark-haired men and one warm blond. 

“Hi! Room for one more?”

He repeated the phrase again in Port just in case, but a man on the nearer side of the court cut him off. 

“Why, you any good?” he shouted in Shoyo's native tongue. 

He wasn't good enough in the eyes of any decent team. But this stranger didn't have to know that. So he just replied, "I think so!” in a modest way he hoped would hold water.

The man immediately gave him the ball to serve as a practice while his side all turned to watch. The opposing side looked much more eager for his participation than Shoyo's own side.   

The serve was simple, functional. One of the dark-haired men on the opposite side made an approving laugh when he bumped it. The men on Shoyo's own side turned their threesome into a square of players to make room for him. Eventually. The man who’d first tossed him the ball looked annoyed about having to move. 

“We’ve been playing since before intermission, so if you’re just waiting around for the Hounds to come back, you should just leav—” the sharp tongue of that first man started up again, but Shoyo cut him off this time. He swerved in front of the stranger, his knee nearly hitting the sand as he leaned down to dig the ball as it came. The hard platform of his arms sent it ferociously back to side it came from. 

“Oh, uh, you did, uh—” sputtered his teammate. Maybe he didn't expect to have a ball taken from him like that, and Shoyo knew that teeth-grinding frustration, so he apologized to the man just in case. The man only looked more embarrassed, not less. 

On the other side, the blond man who had been setting the ball laughed. Shoyo heard, but finished his start-and-go apology with the stuttering, irritated man on his own team. From that point on, he kept mostly quiet. 

From the western hall Shoyo had come from, the cheering and background noise picked up significantly, signaling the end of intermission in the main arena of the facility. The Hounds and the Engines started up their match again, but the sand volleyball came continued with the cheers of thousands upstairs as background noise. No one was using any of the other spaces or equipment in this huge gym but them. 

“That’s the way, that’s the way!” the opposing setter shouted; Shoyo looked over and saw the blond man coming down from a jump, hitting the sand hard with his heels. He could not spare more than a glance at him before returning to the ball, running up for a spike another teammate was setting for him. The blond watched him jump, float, strike, land. 

Each shot the opposing setter set up for his teammates, Shoyo would block from making its landing. All but three or four anyway. The man had a handle on diversionary tactics. When he failed to keep away an enemy spike, a picture of Natsu flashed in Shoyo's mind. She would have seen through more of this man’s techniques than he could. She was an athlete since childhood like him, but she had only ever played volleyball. She was probably playing volleyball right now, at her fancy gym in Luxing.

Another horn sounded to mark the end of the third quarter in the Stadium. The rec center casuals kept playing.

“Chance ball!”

“Goddamn you, Atsumu!”

“Get it, ninja!”

A third teammate on his side cleared the path for Shoyo to once again move, run, dive, save, all in one rally. The point was theirs, then the blond setter's, then his again. The game remained close. Closer. Tied. Winning by one. Tied again.

The blond caught his eye and winked at him. Shoyo had to blink back, because sweat was getting into his eyes. The setter forced him to fall onto his back to dig the ball he'd shot nearly into Shoyo's chest. 

He shouted with joy, and so did that setter. 

The ball sailed straight up, to the see-through roof and the see-through dome beyond it. Shoyo focused on the ball and waited for it to come down. 

Through fifteen more minutes of struggle, despite having one less player than the opposite side, the blonde setter's side won. Once again Shoyo was good, but not that good. Not a winner. He swung his arms to stretch them, to distract himself.

He made a circuit on his own side of the sand, meeting eyes and looking for mutual enjoyment. The one who called him a ninja clapped him on the back. He still didn't remember the guy's name, but the guy thanked him both in Xing tongue and Port. The sour man who'd moodily tossed him the ball at the very start had apparently sweated away the remainder of his attitude at some point; he heartily accepted Hinata’s praise for their loss and their hard playing.

The rec area remained empty but for their volleyball court. The Hounds and the Engines were in their fourth quarter now. The cheers and commentating remained a faint noise fluttering in from a far exit. 

The sour man was Bolin and his friendlier Port companion was Paulo. The third man who hadn't contributed too much was either Dalong or Daling. His heaving breath made it hard to tell and he didn't volunteer a second time when Hinata looked confused. But they all gave genuine apologies when they said it was time for them to shower and head to work. The losing side of the court drifted away, leaving Shoyo alone on it. On the other side of the net, two of the men were patting each other's backs and congratulating each other's techniques. The blond setter was apart from them, standing still with hands in his pockets and his eyes expectant, like he anticipated his own congratulations was about to be delivered. Shoyo could not help but meet his eyes.

Undaunted, he dipped under the net and crossed over. “You guys into racquetball at all?” he asked the winners. "I could go for a game."

The setter made a strange grin that only curved up one side of his mouth. The second winner looked blank and the third looked displeased at the idea of racquetball.

“I can’t believe you still have energy,” the blank-faced one said. “That game took every last ounce out of me. No racquetball for me. I was just here because it's my cardio day, so, uh, I'm gonna limp to the showers. Sorry."

The third man watched the blond, while neither said anything. Shoyo talked into their silence. “Then you just got some intense cardio! And please don't limp, it'll hurt your calves if you go without stretching. Your arms, too, from all your spiking, all that bam! Every one of yours was like BAM!” He mimed one and the man chuckled sheepishly. 

“I’ll walk some laps over there, I guess,” the man conceded, as he waved a goodbye. But he swung his arms a little proudly. His large belly swung a little bit, too. The extra weight would make it difficult to maneuver left and right on the racquetball court, but the man had done pretty well moving on sand for this game, which surely was a more daunting task. Shoyo sighed in disappointment that the man was so eager to leave. Him and his silent friend gave one last glace to the blonde setter before they drifted away towards the track together. And the setter didn't follow them or say goodbye to them. He and Shoyo were the last men standing in the sand. 

The blond setter was both taller and stockier than Shoyo, clearly an athlete in his own right. He was a little sweaty but not nearly so tired out as the other two on his side. He looked ready for another game, even. He kept staring. The smile was on both sides of his face now, and his eyes were crinkling. He had the face of a fox in Shoyo's mind, which reminded him of the zoo, which got him smiling. The man reciprocated. Atsumu, he recalled the other players saying.

“Are you leaving too? Or do you want to exercise a little more?”

“You sound like you're up for more," Atsumu commented. He balanced his weight on one leg, crooked his head to the side and appraised Shoyo, not unkindly.

“Almost always,” he replied earnestly.

"For me, it's definitely always."

“Cool. Same for racquetball, too? I’ve been kind of into it lately, but now that I’m saying that, I could totally still do some spikes again. Or, hey, wait, do you like the rock-climbing wall here? I can show you how to climb if you’ve never used it. Could do sprints, too.”

"So you could do literally anything."

"Well, I'm always down to burn some energy. I'm the type that can hardly focus if I'm not active."

This amused Atsumu further for some reason. "Yeah, you look like it. But you're...pretty good at it. I'm perfectly good at rock climbing, but I'd much prefer some spikes and sets. Or I guess sprinting's my second choice, just to see you run and jump. You have a crazy-big jump for a little guy."

Little guy was one of the common phrases in Shoyo’s life that had once grated his nerves but he'd actively tried to tune out starting in high school. Stuffed in the same dusty brain compartment as didn't make the team. It didn't rattle him like it used to, and it didn't rattle him today, coming from this guy who appeared to actually appreciate his accomplishment. He told Atsumu to stay still while he fetched some spare volleyballs for them to keep at their sets and spike practicing. There was a cart made of metal poles wrapped in canvas sitting in the middle of the unused wood-floor court.

When he pulled it towards the sand court, Atsumu caught his attention by bouncing up and mimicking one of Shoyo's jumps from a standing position. Shoyo brought the cart to an appropriate stop, them mimicked it right back (and did it better). But Atsumu made a giddy, goofy face and did it again, jumping higher than before. But that second jump seemed to be his limit. He hit the ground hard and hissed when he did.

Just because he could, Shoyo one-upped him one final time. He fetched a ball from the cart first, tossed it lightly forward and up, and went after his own "set," running towards the sand. With a bit of a running start and time to prepare his arm swing, he jumped higher into the air than before. His ankles reached the height of Atsumu's chest, then his shoulders. He seemed to float in the air, watched by a man on the ground. Atsumu had to look far up to see Shoyo's sun-bright eyes. Behind him, through the Stadium ceiling and the dome ceiling beyond it, he did see the sun. 

BAM went the spike. It stung his palm, soared away, spinning. It flew towards the other two winners from Atsumu's side who were on the edge of the running track. They both jumped up in surprise. 

Shoyo hit the ground with a spray of sand, torso dipped between his knees. He rose up quickly, easily. Atsumu looked at him like he was Justin Yu landing a point-winning spike.

“Okay, Almost-Always Up For More,” Atsumu huffed. He raised his head to look down his nose at Shoyo just a little, but it was playful, not condescending. “Like I said, Definitely Always up for more. And ready to win. So let’s make this a competition.”

“Sure. I can teach you all about losing.” 

“Whoaaa,” Atsumu laughed in a deadpan voice, this time condescendingly. “That’s funny. When you’re ready for sprints on those little legs, I’ll catch you and leave you choking on dust behind me.”

Rather than going straight to sprints, Shoyo nabbed a second ball out of the cart, for Atsumu to set. For now, his new friend seemed happy to oblige. Atsumu set for him three times, five, ten. They did two more jumping competitions, one in sand and one on the wood floor court. Atsumu fell twice. Insisted he only fell once. He could hold a plank position longer than Shoyo, but he could not outrun him in a race around the track.

On their second race, Shoyo even foolishly turned his head back to see how close or far he was. He found Atsumu directly behind him. His eyes were so laser focused, so wide and intense that Shoyo lost his pace for a beat. His whole body twitched in something like panic, while both feet floated in midair. Once his foot hit the ground again, he found his pace immediately again. He took the crazy eyes to mean that Atsumu was focused on the race, and desperate not to be the loser. That had to be the reason, because when he lost in the end, he pouted about it like a little kid. But Shoyo did the same when he couldn't manage as many pull-ups as Atsumu after that.  

In between their miniature competitions, they heard rumbling, muffled chatter coming from the far wall: people exiting the Hounds and Engines game on the other side of the building. Very few dipped their heads in the rec center or tried to walk through it to some other exit. They were almost entirely alone. 

They remained in the room till evening. The sun moved slightly above them, and Atsumu's glimmering watch beeped occasionally. But it was the layers of exhaustion piling up that finally cut off their time together. Shoyo conceded that jumping was a lot harder now than it was an hour ago. 

"You mean you have zero jump left in you. Cuz I drained in all out of ya."

"I didn't say that, just that it's more difficult..."

"It probably is difficult when you're totally helpless like a baby bird. Don't worry, I'll carry you around."

"Maybe if you set more for me I could manage it. Your sets are almost as good as my friend Kageyama. He's at the sports university in Luxing." 

Atsumu ran a towel over his head, then glanced over at Shoyo. "I live in Luxing." 

Shoyo's towel slipped off his head and only coincidentally fell into his hands again. "Y-you do? You. Okay." He grabbed at his towel and busied himself wiping sweat from around his eyes and around his collar. Atsumu didn't volunteer anything else, only watched Shoyo and waited. After a while, Shoyo thought to say, "Stretch?"

Atsumu broke eye contact and agreed: "Stretch." 

They alternated standing stretches and then switched to one lying on the ground. They both lay flat with their left hand pulling their right knee towards the left side of the body. Lying there half-twisted, Atsumu his head a little and said, "Just so ya know. I'll be coming back Saint Win in about two weeks. We should meet up again.”

Shoyo, looking even more twisted and even more confused, repeated, "Two weeks?" But then immediately amended that with "Yeah, yeah I'd like that!" 

Atsumu nodded, pleased with himself. “Well. Can I get your number, Shoyo?” He sat up and stretched out his leg so he looked like less of a sweaty pretzel. From this position, he could look down at Shoyo, who was still a sweaty pretzel. 

“Yeah, totally. My phone is here--OW!" 

"Don't move so fast!"

The exchange took seconds and a singular beep from each of their phones. Shoyo could have input the phone number by hand, but didn't trust his sweating, slow fingers at the moment. And he didn't want to risk being clumsy in that moment. 

After they said their goodbyes, Atsumu was the first to depart, foregoing the showers and heading towards the same corridor to the main Stadium where Shoyo had come from. Shoyo waved him away, then stared at the back of him as he departed. Atsumu had a fancy athletic jacket from some very nice store. He was a little bit envious of those longer legs and calves, if that was the right word. Shoyo didn't didn't feel bitterness over it; it was more like a missed opportunity. If only he'd come here earlier, eaten a more suitable dinner for a lengthy workout with a partner, he could have lasted longer. He and Atsumu could have raced more, and he could have seen what legs like Atsumu's could really do when they weren't doing casual competitions with strangers. He was clearly better than any casual player Shoyo knew from the local courts. He was better than Shoyo was, by far.

Shoyo had to take in a deep breath and sigh. It was a long almost-three hours of exercising, talking while exercising, dunking their heads under fountains, and trying to stay ahead of a taller, larger athlete. Returning to regular roads, people, traffic and conversation after such activity would feel a little bit like entering a different dome. Atsumu was apparently from Luxing, the biggest and most prestigious dome of all. But it felt a little nerve-wracking, plus rude, to be staring at Atsumu for any reason at all, so Shoyo forced his eyes away. 

Instead, he stared straight up. But he didn’t try to fight the goofy grin on his face at what a great night he’d had.

Straight above his head, the Skarmory Stadium’s ceiling was still totally see-through, and so was a large area of the dome directly above it. Both were cleared for people to look up and see through, because the Hounds game was an “outdoor” game in the true sense. In the spirit of embracing infinity and maybe aesthetic appearances that matched the Hounds' color scheme for the home game, some engineers somewhere had made it so that residents could look up and see not just beyond a building ceiling, but beyond the dome to the night sky outside: the infinite deep black of space. In every direction, blackness and unreachable stars. 

It was a beautiful night, he tried to tell himself. Not because there was a view outside the dome today, but because he'd met a great new person. Atsumu was engaging and funny and active and hilarious when talking about his own skills. A lot of the times they were actually just as good as he bragged. He was glad to have met him here. It was cool that he offered his phone number so quickly, although Shoyo would have asked if Atsumu hadn’t.

By the time he looked down from the view through the ceiling and the dome, Atsumu had disappeared into the hall and was gone.

Shoyo looked up one more time through the dome ceiling above his head. He saw a comet in the far distance, with a tiny, icy tail visible. He looked down again, quickly.   

-

Natsu was training to be a star athlete, and even she couldn’t travel between domes much more than a regular citizen. But Atsumu came once a month at the very least, staying in Saint Win for days, going elsewhere seemingly when it was convenient.  

The second time they met was at a Port restaurant. It was not long after Shoyo’s work shift; he’d changed into a new tee shirt while Atsumu wore a nice button-up. Shoyo ate enough rice for two and Atsumu ate enough fish for three. They talked about favorite meals, favorite exercises, favorite ancient movies, about how Shoyo saw a horse on the outskirts of the dome once.

“And the owner said that coat color was called ‘chestnut.’ So how did you get here from Luxing?”

They chose out-of-doors seating at the restaurant to be away from the heavy crowd inside the building. People walked on the sidewalk nearby, the overhead sun and clouds were pleasant, and Atsumu’s manner was relaxed after eating. This question made him perk up.

“I thought you were avoiding asking me,” he commented.

“I thought you didn’t want to say,” Shoyo replied with a shrug. “I forgot for a bit, but it just came to me again suddenly. If you don't wanna say why you're allowed to travel more than most people, you don't have to. I'm not gonna hound you about it."

Instead of accepting the polite offer, Atsumu straightened further and elaborated. “I was waiting for you to ask! Obviously. I thought you’d ask at the rec center. I’m a wiring engineer. I make sure the foundations they build for cities will have energy and air. That means any dome, including any future ones they build, and including outdoors. On the surface of the moon.”  

“Whoa. I deliver mail.” Shoyo pinched a stray bit of rice in his fingers and popped it in his mouth. “Did you go to a university for that? Moon surface…engineering?”

“University of good looks and lying on my resume,” he preened. “I went to the Luxing university. Not the sports one, the boring shitty one. But I was able to get the job. And now I know quite a lot. And if they’re scared some part of a dome is gonna run out of air or electricity, they call me over to look at it and save the day by adjusting wires and things. I spend a lot of time crawling in little tunnels. Like a little bug.”

Shoyo’s hands remained on his tray, pinched around another tiny ball of rice. His brow pinched, too. “Oh, that’s…that sounds, um, terrifying? Is that a problem that happens a lot?”

“A lot of false alarms. And there’s always spare air and electricity generators if one dies. The job is mostly crawling. Tinkering with things sometimes. It really makes me appreciate being outdoors, standing and running, climbing…and volleyball. It’s my favorite sport But above all. I love a good meal after a hard day's work.” He took another bite of his meal. And another. And a third, huge one.

Shoyo stared, thinking more about sports than food. "What about biking?” Shoyo asked. “I bike sometimes for deliveries. Just once in a while. Mostly I use my hoverboard to travel around town.”   

This stopped Atsumu’s fork on its way to his mouth. He had pulled backwards in his seat a bit. “You use a hoverboard? You have one?”

“The company, um. Let me have it. Since nobody else could ride it. And it’s much faster than a bike, of course. So…” He trailed off, watching Atsumu’s open mouth, and grinning at him in turn.

“You can hover? Seriously? Like Justin Yu?”

“Yup!”

"What, you're like...not afraid it's gonna...?"

"Nope. Hoverboards are safe as long as they register you as the rider."

"Bro, come on. They are fuckin' dangerous. Not a lot of vehicles out there that can kill you quite like that."

"Well, I'm not stopping," Shoyo declared brightly. He regretted no part of the process of obtaining his hoverboard, and risking death to make it his. Hundreds of riders did.

Atsumu shook his head slightly at him, in his condescending but cute way. "You're playing with some creepy ancient tech there. Serious daredevil. Dunno if I can compete with that...except by crawling around under cities and inside the dome walls. Preeeeeeetty scary, if you ask me."

"And the traveling thing," Shoyo put in generously.

"The traveling thing," Atsumu conceded, putting a hand on his chest. But it fell dramatically to the table. "And yet. Here I've met a guy who can fucking hover. Like Justin Yu. A real, live boarder. You might be cooler than me."

Shoyo blushed and basked in that. "Hehe, probably! When it comes to boarding, anyway."

“Probably! You ass! I was proud of my life accomplishments up until one minute ago!”

Shoyo giggled at Atsumu’s fist half-heartedly bashing on the table. But the sound of his own laugh brought out one in Atsumu too. And then he was back to staring like a race or competition was about to break out. Shoyo could not help but respond. “Do you have to be on your way soon?”

“No.”

That left them staring at each other across a restaurant table, each of them looking and feeling expectant. “So…” Shoyo tried to begin, while his companion leaned in almost comically. “Do you want to go biking somewhere? If you’re into that too. There’s some rental ones 30 minutes’ walk from here. We’ll go past that aquarium place! And if we start riding around then, you shouldn’t have any digestion cramps by the time we get on and go.”

He had to cut himself off there or he’d keep chattering. There was something more important that needed to be said first. His casual tone cut off; the last bit came out drenched in honesty. “And I’d really love it if you could go.”

Atsumu drank him in. “I was waiting for you to say that. Yes. I’d love to go.”

That he was pleased to be invited was blatant even to Shoyo. He started bouncing his foot under the table, needing some part of his body to wriggle or fidget while under the other man’s eyes. “That’s great!” he said compulsively, folding his hands together. “Totally great! We should, um, should go. Right?”

“Let’s go, Shoyo.”

Shoyo, he said, skipping Hinata entirely, but Shoyo liked it that way. Even the sound of his own name gave him an extra burst of energy when he needed it. They went through shopping streets, residential streets and two parks. Up hills, down hills, occasionally fighting to be ahead of the other. It was clear by now that Atsumu pouted like a child when he lost.

Their second meeting, like the first, ended with both drenched in sweat from hard exercise. They stopped riding when the sun was going down on the dome, light piercing through projected clouds on its surface.

They were on a hill in a residential area of Upper Win, at a grassy spot on the side of the road where there was a picnic table and a railing to keep people from walking off the sheer cliff. They stood against that railing admiring the nearly bird’s eye view: more homes were below them, and the edge of the crop sector and the university beyond that. If they could fly, they could turn right around and go higher up the hills to the highest homes, the richest, though they weren’t here for that. Shoyo mostly knew the area because it had the best hills to enjoy for biking or boarding.

Exercise had always steadied and emboldened him, even on days where he struggled with it. He felt no fear at all turning to Atsumu, standing by his bike against the railing, and inviting him to something a second time.

“Do you wanna go somewhere next weekend? I’m off most Sundays and Mondays.”

While Shoyo faced the city below, Atsumu had his back on the railing, and his arms spread out lazily along the top of it. He craned his head to the side to eye Shoyo. “Where’s somewhere?” he asked quietly.

“I don’t know,” Shoyo shrugged. “Somewhere. I’ll think about some places during the week.”

“Hm. Well, I’d like ta go if I’m invited somewhere,” Atsumu said airily. His shirt was drenched in sweat around the back and underarms. It wasn’t exactly a shirt suited for bike riding. He'd come dressed for a visit to a nice restaurant while Shoyo had shown up in workout clothes.

Atsumu tossed his head, which flopped a strand of almost equally sweaty hair up his forehead. It slid slowly down again. Shoyo leaned against the railing, too, although with his chest to it and not his back.

He watched Atsumu instead of the city.

The view of Saint Winona was familiar, and that steadied him too. Many of the visible neighborhoods were routes Shoyo had traveled for work, even the road they’d just come off of to get to this rest spot. It was another experience, catching his breath with him, attending the sight of sundown together. Kenma and Kei wouldn’t care to do such a thing unless it was his birthday or something. Atsumu was not only not dragged up here, but bolted up the mountain with him. He was actually pretty hard to keep up with.

No cars went by on the road their rest stop was next to. The stars were numerous and uncovered tonight. Nothing but the trees along the road and faraway lights of houses up the hill. They were alone.

A sound clip of a cawing crow echoed through the empty air and made it seem not so alone anymore. Shoyo used one shaky, sweaty hand to pull his little phone from his pants pocket. He leaned back down on the railing, glanced up once at Atsumu, who stood with his eyes closed, and then back to the phone.

He gasped energetically, prompting his sweaty companion to blearily look over at him. “My sister got tickets to see a Blue Stars game. Oh, she’ll see Justin Yu. Man, she’s lucky. You…lucky…”

Shoyo typed out a congratulatory message with quick, twitchy thumbs while his companion watched. If he dropped his phone now, it might fall clear down to the mountainside, to some street he couldn’t even see from here. He held it very carefully and typed very slowly.  

Eyes still down at his phone, he thought to ask, “Do you have siblings?”

“No," Atsumu said.

“Oh. Well, I’ve got Natsu. She’s six years younger,” Shoyo went on as he typed. “She got picked for sports university in Luxing. Hey, maybe you’ve seen her on the street there and never even knew it. Oh! And she’s specializing in volleyball! She would have kicked your ass at the rec center. She does better defense than I do.”

“Than you? Oh, I just doubt that.”

"She does. The university people agree on that."

"What's that mean?"

With his eyes on his phone, Shoyo replied, "I applied to the sports university once. They didn't pick me. But they picked a friend of mine. And later, they asked for Natsu specifically. They really wanted her."

"Then they missed out on you. You're talented."

Shoyo almost spat at him, threw his phone over a cliff, biked away and left him there. The anger dissolved as soon as it came. He said something placating instead. He tried to think of Atsumu, and some free Sunday and Monday, instead of the sports university. Or a friend of his.

They stayed reclining on that railing for longer than they had spent biking. Sunset exited quietly and night came without their notice.

Around 11pm, Shoyo’s longest date of his life ended. Or that is how Natsu framed it for him when he told her about it on the phone the following week.

The weeks marched on.

-

Shoyo stood on his Silver Crow X, floating ten inches off the ground, watching TV through a shop window. Luxing was losing the Creators because some businessman from Saint Win had bought the team. The Creators were coming to Saint Win.

The farewell ceremony was in in Luxing, of course, but being broadcast on many TV channels, including on this one shop display TV here in Lower Win, where Shoyo stood on his Crow looking in the display window. Even without it, he would have felt like floating in place. With astonishment. With dread.

The thought of a team he knew moving towns made him think about the topic of moving as well. Saint Win didn’t have many of its own teams, so there’d be more excitement here as the Creators made their home here and were present for home games, instead of arriving here as guests or away players. With university connections, or some official sports-academia-whatever excuse, maybe Kageyama or Natsu could squeeze an extra visit here per year, too. All these moving parts and people nowadays. And then himself, stuck. By choice. Probably.

In middle school he had dreams of playing something, anything, professionally, but it was Natsu who actually pursued those visions. She honed in on volleyball and had been handpicked to achieve those athlete dreams. And Shoyo had not. He had stayed a hobbyist. He had stayed still. Why, when he liked to move, and run, and practice, and go?

Natsu went to some other dome every two or three months. Atsumu sometimes did it two or three times in a single month for his weird engineer job. Kenma had been to Felicity on the other side of the moon eight times in four years for business junk. Most people had only the yearly roundtrip travel pass, and some never used theirs. Some people were born in one dome and never left once. They walked in an endless circle and died.

The most Shoyo could move was that same endless circle, just on a hoverboard. It was a stroke of good luck and that the company owners let him have it instead of turning it in to some authority. It kept him alive and breathing. He needed his board so he could just go somewhere, and it didn't deter him at all that the board might one day throw him off or catch fire or worse. As long as he could go in the circle.

Shoyo stood on his board on the sidewalk with men and women parting around him while his mind still stood in a chasm. He did not notice their jaws dropped in awe and fear and envy. Today it felt like he noticed nothing at all. Knew nothing at all except his workplace obligation and personal desire to board in a circle. Until death.

His phone chirped a message notification. He flipped it out of his jacket pocket and hardly looked as he punched his birthday into the passcode box. The message showed on the home screen.

FROM: ACTUALLY ATSUMU

Attachment: RestaurantMenu.pic

9:35 I got to Felicity. Down the street from my hotel there’s this restaurant and look at this menu holy shit. I’ll eat it all

9:36: I want to bring you with me when I travel, Sho

That shocked him awake from his numb state. Take him with him while traveling? Was that even allowed?

Did Atsumu ever tire of that crawling-in-tunnels engineer work? Traveling to all places in the domes, all the hidden corners of all the cities, knowing there was a finite number of places to go and one day there would be none?  

Shoyo made minute adjustments to his feet and posture on the board to get the hell away from these thoughts. He knew which adjustments would tweak the board to his needs and which would cause the wild technology to burst into shrapnel and fire. A few onlookers jumped away, a few leaned in closer with open mouths and blinking phone cameras. Shoyo still knew, heard, felt nothing but the circle. And Atsumu's voice in his head, chuckling in his silly, smug way.

In a heartbeat his own phone was returned to his pocket and his knees were bent again in a new adjustment, preparing for motion—then he was the motion, a blur of orange and black.

He was gone from the sidewalk and all his thoughts were too slow to catch him. The ‘ooh’s’ and gasps from passersby were too far away for him to hear already. He disappeared from the view of their phone cameras.

Now came the parts he liked and practiced. The Crow sped up as he bid it with his weight and posture: enough weight to manage speed but not enough to send the engine spearing through the top of the board. He pressed with his toes to slow it down a little, but not enough to cause any...damage. There were historical incidents of hoverboards exploding, sure, but he knew his Crow well enough to avoid anything crazy. He distributed his weight by moving his arms up, but not so high that the board would read the moving limbs as debris and shoot infinitely small bullets through them. He balanced the Crow perfectly, naturally.

When the board veered too far to one side of the road he corrected by leaning his hips the opposite way, speeding up at the same time. In this way he could pass a truck on a highway—and did—and could float above the railing of a bridge where there was no sidewalk to accommodate him—so he did. He heard cars honking at him on at least one of those tricks, but sped away from them too. There was no catching a practiced hoverboard rider.

He flew and he fled--from one highway to another via an empty field, past a Port district smelling like wine and bakeries, past dozens and dozens and dozens of people.

He pressed one heel down and the Crow arced up into the air, the height of a strong jump to spike for a volleyball. Shoyo soared over a river. The wind rippling over water rippled over him, too. It urged him forward. Fly, fly, fly. Go.

The Crow spat fire out of its rear engine pipe: a turbo boost of speed. He tore through the wind like a knife.

Shoyo bent his knees just in time to keep from falling off. He stayed with the Crow as it burst forward fast as a fleeing car. He flicked off the extra speed with a tap of his hand against the side of the board and avoided its defective action of attempting to split itself into two halves.

Shoyo flew over a barn two stories high. The farmer and some workers shouted in alarm at the sight of him. The turbo jet snuffed out entirely, lowering him down. Soon he floated only slightly above the heads of the crops in the field instead of ten meters above them. He kicked the board up a little higher still to keep from cutting or burning the tops off any of the corn cobs and wheat stalks.

He screamed, "YEEAAAAAHHHHH!" because he could. Because he was fucking unstoppable.

Then the crop fields ended. A wide paved road made a perimeter around the field. The scent of vegetables and grains was immediately smothered by rubber and oil. Far ahead of him, clouds were approaching from the horizon to bring rain. At the edge of the horizon and the end of the curving road lay a group of pale concrete buildings and vehicles parked all around them.

Shoyo slowed the Crow at last. There'd be people and things to run into in seconds now. He slowed to the pace of a casual driving car, then a slow car. Then he passed a few cars on his way through the factory's main gate and slowed to merely the pace of a man sprinting. Past this point was bulldozers and trucks and men walking around with clipboards and barrels of goods. The kind of job where you had to keep showing up to the same place every single day. A job he'd almost been forced to take before he found a delivery opening at the mailing center. He chuckled a little, danced on his board a little, things he'd never be able to do at a workplace like this one. Thank goodness he only had to be in a place like this for ten minutes.

Ducking under the bill of a passing bulldozer, Shoyo sailed inside the huge open door of the factory's shipping center. Its workers shouted at him, pointed at him, waved at him, and he did all of these things back. He also remembered to slow his speed one more time now that he was inside a building. Now the board moved slower than a sprint, but not as lazy as a jog. A speed that felt non-lethal, to him anyway.

After floating through two empty hallways and losing the remains of his sense of direction, Shoyo entered a rectangular room, very long but narrow. Its entry way was wider than any garage door he'd seen so far in this place. Past that arching entry, he finally pressed his heels to signal a stop to the board. He swung to the side just in time, stopping the board just a few meters in front of and parallel to an unbreakable wall.

He stared out into open space. True space. Outdoors.

Not just the night sky that they let become visible through the dome sometimes. The rest of the outside world was what made up outdoors: not just blackness and stars, but the surface of the moon where men walked and there was no air.

And another sight the domes always hid: the old planet Earth. 

For some reason, this wall of this factory shared a wall with the very dome of Saint Winona. Maybe it had been built against it so that they would only have to build three walls for the place and not four. And they'd made this room to have a huge doorless entry so there would always be a massive view of it. That crawling thought of moving from earlier that afternoon was utterly melted now, replaced by a new and deeper fear.

A few inches beyond his toes, the concrete floor stopped and melded with the dome itself. It was several feet of special glass, or something glass-like that withstood human hands and metal and bombs. He didn't remember what his school textbooks had said it was made of. And beyond the dome's protection, the pale-ash bare ground of the moon’s surface began. There were no clouds beyond this point. The coming rain he saw from the service road on the way here was only a projection and the clouds within the dome were manufactured, but sometimes he forgot. Sometimes he forgot about the earth.

Earth was as he remembered it from pictures and TV: brownish-green and a lot of blue, and smears of of white on top of everything from asteroid-wide spans of clouds all over. Its lower half appeared drenched in darkness, because light reflected off the moon did not reach there. He didn't remember what class or internet post told him that, either. It seemed motionless. It seemed like nothing was there anymore. Even though that probably wasn’t true. They were just too far away to see.

But were the moon's cities visible to them, from down there? ‘Can they see me?’ Shoyo wondered in his forced silence, on his silent hoverboard, with his pounding heart. ‘Can they see—'

His body pulsed with adrenaline, with focus. The way he saw the world when he boarded in the thin space between two trucks or over a height that could take his life. Something demanded his attention. He whipped around to face it.

There was something in the room. A thing. A stranger. A...man.

Shoyo’s mind reeled back from planet Earth enough that he could recognize the shape of Atsumu Miya in the doorway. His silhouette seemed massive.

“Shoyo,” Atsumu said; the room echoed that pleasant sound. But it did not melt Shoyo's numbness. He could not react to this sudden appearance. He remained on the hoverboard.

Unable to speak, he turned around again, moving his feet atop the board, to simply face the earth again. His mind sank down there again, to that place he had never been and hardly ever thought about. He wondered how many years it had been since anybody had been down there. Maybe never, because he didn't remember anything about trips to Earth in school, the only time he really had to hear about what happened to Earth.

Dimly he heard Atsumu’s footsteps coming ever closer. Approaching him from behind.

Stopping.

Atsumu was here at the edge of the dome, but he’d been so many other places, too.

“Sho?” asked his friend. A little more than friend. No one else called him that.

“It’s spooky to look at it,” Sho said, mostly to himself. A sudden social impulse suddenly compelled him to belatedly include Atsumu in his thoughts too. “Don't you think it is? You said before you have to go outdoors sometimes for work stuff.”

“No. Not after a while anyway,” Atsumu answered quietly. “Plus, jumping up and down in the low gravity is fun. I can jump like you out there, ya know.”

That playful jibe hung in the air and quietly died there. Shoyo talked over it. “I was thinking they might be able to see us from down there. I never realized.”

“They got their own worries down there. I doubt they’re concerned with looking up at us.”

Worries. Earth people had more than that. They had, they had—

“They really have monsters down there?”

“Yes.”

“…Can you see them at all when you’re...outside?”

Shoyo heard a cold hum. “In the dome or out doesn’t make a difference. There’s no telescope strong enough to see that far. So no.”  

“Then how do you know they’re still there? Maybe the Earth people have killed them all and they’re okay now—”

“I know those things are still there ‘cause the planet is always totally dark," Atsumu explained quietly. "If they wiped the monsters out, they'd start to rebuild things, they'd get electricity going again in a big way. But they haven't. Or they have only little pockets of it that are so tiny that we can't see them glowing from up here."

“But there’s...there's people living there still," Shoyo said incredulously.

“Course. Probably always will be some, just in small groups. They can’t risk having big groups or towns anymore.”

They can’t have towns. Of course not. There’s no way. They could only live in families or small, close-knit units where everyone could easily keep eyes on everyone. Because anything living but unfamiliar could be a predator. A cow. Any plant  or tree on the ground. An animal they were hunting. A stranger, a sibling. Or something wearing your sibling’s face. There could be no society in a place where any living thing might be a mimicking, skin-changing beast.

The creatures would take the form of a living thing, or many living things. Any living thing that they had eaten. And they would eat and eat and eat. They had eaten most of the earth.

The moon would never know the intimate familiarity with plague and terror and death that Earth now had. They would never know exactly from whence it came, but nor would they ever have to touch it. The monsters on Earth were as far from the domes’ civilization as polio or starvation or hunting with spears, as far away as ancient neanderthals who had lived in caves.   

“Caves,” Shoyo thought aloud, and then froze. “No power or cities. They can't really farm or grow crops, 'cause those might...turn into something. They can't even have friends. They must, I mean they might...live in caves." 

Atsumu said, “Yes. You’re right.”

Earth had its caves, and its people huddling within them like mice hiding in grass. The moon had plentiful food, shelter, peace, and a lot of sports teams to keep everyone entertained. It had these things because it took them from Earth, long ago. Before the shape-changing monsters had proliferated everywhere, men and women with rockets fled into those rockets and took them to the moon. With a wealth of knowledge and a replicator on each ship that could slowly spit out steel and dirt and the bones of a domed city, they made a new home. Slowly. Over years, they built Luxing. Then Felicity. Then Janeiro. Then Saint Winona. The replicators hardly worked now, but they didn't need them as much anymore. The cities were built, the moon was safe.

Earth would never build anything ever again, because it would require organizing, cooperating, time in the wilderness gathering and working the resources. Anyone would be caught and consumed before any progress was made. A group of people standing in one spot even talking about building a rocket was itself a risk, to say nothing of gathering in groups to mine the materials and shape them and build engines and somehow learn electrical engineering. It was all too much for a people like Earth's to manage. They would never have a way to reach the moon.

“It’s…I feel so bad for them. I don’t know what I would do. Down there.”

Together, they watched the quiet planet. No matter its parasites, it would never cease to turn.  

Shoyo left Earth and turned his head to finally look at Atsumu. Standing on the Crow afforded him some extra height, so for once he had to look down a bit to make eye contact. Atsumu's hair and uniform were pristine; even his dye was freshly applied. He was dressed like he worked in this factory, maybe as one of the managers who didn’t have to get oil and sweat all over them.

“Felicity, huh?” Shoyo said coolly.

“Huh?”

“You were at a hotel in Felicity, two hours ago? Four hundred miles from here? Now you’re on my work route.”

“I was in Felicity three days ago,” Atsumu said with his brows pinched together. But he sounded nervous, not confused, which had Shoyo tilting his head. “Ya didn’t answer my messages. I thought ya were busy with work, or visiting yer mom or something. Or ya just…didn’t want to answer?”

Rarely did Atsumu wear a look of worry like he suddenly did now. It didn’t suit his face.

“So you got from Felicity to here in three days?”

Atsumu blinked and deadpanned, “Yes?”

Maybe it was possible. Felicity was even farther away from Saint Win than Atsumu's hometown of Luxing. It was so far that Shoyo had never been there and didn’t remember offhand how long a trip from here to there would take. And thinking of the terrible weight of the doomed human population on the planet Earth, he just didn't care right now.

“…Then maybe it was some space dust interference. Your text came late, I didn't get it until two hours ago,” he muttered and averted his eyes again. “I didn’t answer because I was thinking about...stuff. Like, traveling. And moving. The Creators are coming here, if you didn't hear. And I thought my best friend might come more often, and the Creators don't have to travel now, but like, they can. Natsu can and you can. And I just. Don't. And I feel like...I have to go somewhere. And I don't know why. Saint Win is nice. It is. There's no reason to leave. And I don't know why I feel like, I have to go somewhere. People on earth can't go a single step without worrying a predator might get them. It's stupid to feel like i have to go somewhere."

The Silver Crow drifted just a bit away from Atsumu, as though its rider had bid it to flee, as though it sensed his emotions whirling same as his words were out of his mouth. He could have told Atsumu a deeper fear than all of this, one even uglier than a fear of nowhere to go. There was a fear that drove him to his Crow in the first place. Only by conquering it did he graduate to a new headspace where he wanted to live. But feared the meaninglessness of it.

Shoyo worried that, somehow, Atsumu would sense there was more than one thing on his mind. It wasn't just about Earth and it wasn't just about Saint Win. The real problem orbited much closer than either of those. It was under his feet, keeping him afloat a few inches in midair.

For a moment, Atsumu's silence was worrying. What was he thinking just over there, watching Shoyo float in silence? Soon he ventured, "Are you saying...you feel trapped in the domes?" and Shoyo closed his eyes, happy that that remained the main conversation. “Cause lots of people feel that way. I mean, I’m a shit example because I don’t feel like that, really. But, I mean, you should talk to me about that if you’re feeling bad about it. Or I can, um, can find you somebody to talk to about it. Or both. We, we can talk about that, Sho, I--”

While Atsumu had one of his charisma-fumbling moments, Shoyo pondered some more. He'd talked to another hoverboard rider about it, Keishin Ukai, a long while ago. He understood. Maybe Atsumu didn't understand anxieties like this. Since he was so darn cool and fearless. Like most other people on the moon, like most normal people, he just couldn't relate. Suddenly Shoyo felt sour.

“Are you even allowed to take me to Felicity?” he interrupted. "I've never heard of people getting an extra travel pass because you're dating someone."

“I could take you wherever I want,” Atsumu said with a chuckle. He sounded like he had collected himself again; his answer echoed in the concrete room. “If you want to go, then yes I can take you. My job is essential for the whole city network, and that's a perk I get. And I want to take you. If you're feeling trapped and you wanna go somewhere, then I’ll find new places to us to go. There's all kinds of cool shit to do in Felicity, and Janeiro! You could move there, or move to Luxing. Near me. Or with me. Someday, I mean! If you wanted. There’s lots to do. I already said that...lots to eat? I could cook for you. My cooking's not that shit.”

What started as a confident assurance dribbled away to another awkward ramble by the end. Atsumu tended to exude admirable confidence in his speech or he noticeably tripped, with rarely any middle ground. In the face of his his silly stumbling, the dreadful atmosphere finally started to melt away. It was not as terrible in the moment anymore to know the world of the moon was finite. At least Atsumu was in it.

After another beat of silence, Atsumu held out his hand. “Are you gonna come here or do I have to chase you around the room on that thing?” he said.

“That sounds fun. Maybe we’ll do that sometime.” Shoyo chuckled back.

"Can I chase you into a Port restaurant in Felicity sometime?"

Can I take you with me?  was the perfect remedy to soothe that fear of existing in the endless circle of Saint Winona: the opportunity to see a different endless circle, at will. It was a remarkable, even life-changing gift. A strange gift. Almost as strange as finding a hoverboard.

Shoyo couldn't hide his open-mouthed shock. But he stayed standing on the Crow. 

"Are you serious? There's definitely no other, like, gym buddies you could take?"

"No," Atsumu said flatly. "You're the only person I would want to bring with me. Will you come, Sho?"

Thinking before he acted was a strange thing for Shoyo. He tried to comb through his feelings of Atsumu, searching for a reason to doubt him or his gift. Or why he foolishly called them gym buddies when he knew damn well they were more than that. But instead of reasons to doubt, there were only feelings and colors and textures that he loved and wanted to experience again. Atsumu moving up and down like a piston a dozen times as he jumped up, sent a crushing spike, fell down, "falling" again as Shoyo jumped up to counter it. The furious panting of Atsumu speeding after him on a bike and the sound getting lost in the wind. The cringeworthy "hell-oooooooo, Natsu!" he did when he first said hi to his sister over a video phone. The sight of the pristine, false-blond hair was fast becoming a constant.

It was all so good. So worth chasing. He was so, so glad that the Crow hadn't killed him when he first stepped onto it, and he was here now to experience this.

The touch of doubt he feared did not manifest. Shoyo gave his real answer by stepping off the Crow, leaving it hovering soundlessly in place. He stepped towards Atsumu and his outstretched hand. Instead of taking it, he walked past it so that it settled on his shoulder and pulled Shoyo in to an embrace. He fell forward to the taller man’s collarbone and rested in that space with sigh.

Atsumu trapped him there with an arm on his neck and one around his back. Secure and good. Not wrong. Not trapped on the moon or in Saint Win or anywhere else. Being here was good.

He tried to communicate this by squeezing Atsumu back just as hard, then letting up in case that was too much or too dramatic. “I’m…really glad to have you.”

“Good. You do have me. And I have you.” Atsumu’s face pressed lightly into his hair, breathing into it.

Shoyo’s vision was taken up almost entirely by the red cloth of Atsumu’s jacket and his own hand resting on that red-clad shoulder. “I know Luxing probably has a cooler aquarium, but we never went to mine…they got great white sharks and I wanna see them.” Shoyo came out of the comfortable red cloth nest and stood on his toes. Up there, Atsumu was waiting. Shoyo dropped a playful kiss on his chin, just barely brushing the lower lip. He pulled away looking mightily satisfied. “If you ever feel like anything bad like this, I’ll help you, too.”

“Help me?” Atsumu said with a little laugh. His expression turned giddy, but his voice quiet. “Oh, lord, Shoyo, help me. Help me now.”

His large hands held the sides of Shoyo’s head, helping to secure him in place. Shoyo laughed a little when he was kissed. It made it easy for Atsumu’s warm tongue to lap at his mouth, and then into his mouth. He bit gently at his lip; Shoyo waited his turn to nip back. It made everything feel better, to be with him.

“Ohh—” Shoyo sighed when their tongues touched, and he tried to reciprocate past the lovely, lazy fog in his head.

He was getting better at this, and worse, because despite becoming familiar, the more Atsumu kissed, the less focused he could be in responding. When he tried to talk again, Atsumu silenced him with a long stroke of his velvet tongue. Shoyo shivered as he reveled in it. He tried to give him just the same treatment, but Atsumu had pulled away. They were still close enough to breathe each other’s breath.

Atsumu sighed Shoyo’s name into his mouth. His hand stroked through the orange, loosed strands of his hair, down his nape and back. He said a name, or an expletive, something strange and indecipherable.

“Let me take you to Luxing,” he added with a harsh little breath. “Sometime. When you’re ready. I mean it. I want you to be with me more. I can take you with me, and I will.”

“Okay," Shoyo gasped. He tried to steady himself, but he shook a little anyway. "We should never kiss when I’m standing on the Crow or I’ll fall and die, okay.” Atsumu laughed one second, and in the next looked straight down to a blatant cloth bulge pressing into his thigh. He laughed at that, too. He gave a pleased smirk when Shoyo fruitlessly tried to heave himself out of the larger man’s grip.

“Sorry! So sorry, excuse me. God that's so embarrassing! You’re just—” He stopped when Atsumu bowed his head a little, so the fringes of their hair touched and blended. Pale light from outside the wall lit them both.

“Just what.” 

They were too close for anything but honesty. “You’re…a lot like flying on the Crow,” he admitted clumsily. And he kept going. “I really like you. I don’t want to hold you down in your fancy job. But every time we stop texting or calling, except today obviously, I just get sad about it. And I hope you miss me. I can’t help it. You’re gorgeous and cool. I’m lucky you’re in my life.”

“Shoyo. I’m flattered," Atsumu murmured back. "But I’m the lucky one. To have you dropped into my lap at a random night at the gym. To have you wanting me,” The room didn’t echo him anymore, so quietly did he speak: “When I'm in the other cities, I miss you. I dream about you,” and Shoyo had to sigh as his breath was taken away from him.

A sound broke rudely into their intimate space. Something metal fell to the ground outside the room and footsteps came swiftly after.

“Stupid thing--hey, Yuzuru?” called a voice from outside the hall. A man appeared in the doorway to the wide room. He wore a similar outfit as Atsumu did, though the shirt beneath his jacket was crisply ironed and bore a managerial badge. His face had a managerial look of disapproval. “And who are you?”

There was another beat of silence like the two young men had been caught in inappropriate fraternizing on work hours, which was true.

“I’ve got a delivery of particle caddies for Warehouse 2!” Shoyo all but shouted from within the romantic embrace.

Rather than parting, or even pulling back from the loud shout, Atsumu kept Shoyo locked in that position. He had his eyes locked on the manager. “Do you work here?” he asked the strange man.

“Obviously. Are you new? Where’s your badge?”

“I’m with the engineering department.”

“Then go there!” the man snapped. “Like I have time to file an incident report for somebody fucking the delivery guy. Engineering department’s problem to file that. Get out of here, the cleaning crew’s coming in. You, have the day manager sign for the caddies, he’s back in the shipping room—oh.” The irritable tirade slowed when he saw the hoverboard floating innocently a few steps from the two embracing men.

This manager was far from the first to give this sort of flustered pause upon seeing a hoverboard. Speedy, scary and occasionally explode-y as  they were, they were Shoyo’s ace in the hole for both getting in and out of social situations. He used that pause to address Atsumu again. “So you gonna be in town long enough for the aquarium? ‘Cause I’ll go without you.”

“Not tomorrow, but the next day’s good,” he agreed. But then his grip on Shoyo’s shoulder tightened. The other hand pointed one dramatic, accusing finger at him. “Only if you call me tonight and stop ignoring my texts. Call me, Sho…or I will hunt you down and that board won’t save you.”

That humor erased the last traces of Earth’s ominous weight from Shoyo’s shoulders. “Okay, promise," he grinned.

"Okay, beautiful. Now you better go, I'm gettin' hungry."

Finally Atsumu deigned to let Shoyo escape him. His arms were only partway removed when Shoyo ducked out from underneath them like a child eager to run back to playing. He took three artful steps back, and on the fourth, airily alighted on the Crow that was waiting for him. Once there, he tightened the chest straps of his backpack. He let the board read some movements from heel pressure and his straightened posture, and a little tap from his foot. It could have fried his body to a crisp. But instead it made ready for a speedy getaway.

Within a second the board rose several feet in the air and Shoyo hung upside down with his feet still on it, suspended by some unseen magnetism, or by nothing. It was fun to let onlookers imagine what it was, or imagine that Shoyo himself actually knew.

"Wow," the manager couldn't help but gasp.

“Little show-off making me look bad,” Atsumu grumbled at him, but it was said through a fond smile.

“I’m learning from you,” Shoyo grinned back. When he pointed one foot forward, the board began to move in a half-circle around the back of the room, taking its upside-down passenger with it. The manager immediately stepped out of the way.

The board zoomed towards Atsumu, who stood unblinking and still in the face of the coming impact. But none came. The board tilted its nose up to rise towards the ceiling and so did its passenger, soaring over Atsumu’s head, but for his arm that hung down. Shoyo’s right hand swept along Atsumu’s cheek and brushed his lip with his thumb as he soared over him. Atsumu never blinked. He watched him as a hawk watched prey.

He followed Shoyo throughout the acrobatic movement with his eyes and with a content grin. Shoyo whirled his position to bring himself right side-up once more, once he was on the other side of the room. From there he kicked up a sudden burst of speed and zoomed out the open doorway and down the hall.

The hall outside the room was empty of other workers or any passersby. There was nothing left in this quadrant of the building to make a sound. The room was left in earthly quiet without him. 

It left the manager alone in the room with Atsumu, who was hungry.

-