Chapter Text
With the COVID outbreak and delay of the 2020 Olympics, there were many competitions that needed to also be rescheduled. Initially, the 2021 Asian Games were included in this category, until the federations decided to maintain their original plans and dates.
As a result, many athletes had to fly out suddenly to Russia to compete in their disciplines –which also meant many couldn’t do it. For instance, half of the Japanese volleyball team was absent due to travel restrictions and/or other inconveniences.
This wasn’t the case for Bokuto, Hinata, Atsumu and Sakusa, who were playing for the MSBY, had gotten all vaccinated, and could easily fly from Japan to Russia. They were the first to arrive and, as of today, the only ones that had gotten some practice before the competition that was to start in just a few days.
Since the majority –Sakusa not included– decided to walk their way back to the hotel after practice, they took their time sightseeing the surrounding areas. At some point, they found a group of kids playing volleyball nearby and it was a matter of time until three enthusiastic Japanese men tried to start a game with some innocent Russian kiddos.
Sakusa observed from the sidelines, getting surprised at how fast they began picking teams given the language barrier, among other things (was his mother the only one who insisted on ‘never talking to strange older men’?)
He spoke up. “Oi, it’s a bad idea, look at the state of the ‘court’. One of you it’s going to trip and fall.”
And he wasn’t exaggerating. The cement had clearly not received maintenance in years and the lights were barely helpful for anybody to notice where they were going to step. This ‘match’ was an accident waiting to happen.
“Ya’ worried about us, Omi-Omi?”
“Don’t come crying when you break your leg, Miya.”
Atsumu stuck his tongue at him an d proceeded to join Bokuto on one side of the court. Of course he would, those three shared one brain cell and that one was set on playing with these boys. He had to admit it could be considered quite endearing, like in a PR stunt, but not under these conditions.
The game started and eventually some rules were set to even out the field. For instance, there weren’t going to be any jump serves, blocks or spikes by the grownups. The first set went really in favour of the team that had two MSBY players on it, so Bokuto left Atsumu and switched to the other team.
The next set turned in favour of Hinata’s team, obviously. However, their setter was too competitive for his own good, and he left his position to act as a libero –which actually helped to equalise the game. Sakusa found it amusing, he almost felt tempted to join in.
That almost could have been a big mistake, as proven a few points later.
They were 21-24, and after a rather powerful spike by one of the kids, Bokuto passed the ball rather awkwardly. This led to it being tossed with barely any precision by another kid and Shoyo impulsed it as best as he could from a terrible angle in the sidelines.
For a second there, it seemed like the ball was going to hit the net and they were going to find themselves 21-25. But volleyball was never a predictable sport, and the ball was able to dunk to the other court.
The kids weren’t going to react in time, and Atsumu –who was in the fifth position– lunged for it. Before the ball could hit his platform, an unnatural ’crack’ was heard, followed by a muffled whimper by Japan's main setter.
Shit .
Only once in a while Sakusa didn’t like to be right, this time being one great example. He would have rather had Atsumu rambling about how lame he was after nothing had gone wrong, than seeing his injury happening right in front of him.
The lunge he took to reach the ball had been quick and long, with not much thought into it but ‘save it’. This meant that his body had moved on its own and that his mind couldn’t calculate that this big step meant less stability –which, added up to the terrible state of the court, ended up in his right foot stepping into a rift.
With the added momentum, he missed his footing and his ankle paid for it, resulting in the terrible sound and the sudden fall.
A twisted ankle wasn’t abnormal at volleyball, but one usually had precautions at court like high top trainers or anklets to reduce the possible damage. On top of that, Atsumu’s legs and palms had scraped badly with the uneven court as he was only wearing shorts.
In other words: this was literally the worst case scenario.
Sakusa began approaching him –since Bokuto and Hinata had frozen in place. The blond let out a shaky laugh. “Oof, rough fall, innit?”
“ Are you okay, mister? ” One of the kids in his team asked in English.
“ Me? ‘Course! If ya wanna play volleyball, ya deal with many falls ,” he said that with a big smile, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “But I guess I should rest, and I don’t want to leave a team with less players, shall we call it a tie ?”
They all agreed and the kids went to get their stuff ready to go home. As Sakusa got closer, he noticed all the red spots in Atsumu’s legs that appeared in between the dust and gravel. Before he could reach him, the blond stood up on his own. His posture was all wrong as he was flexing his knees to mitigate the pain and distributing his weight on his left side. He is not okay .
“I guess that’s why you aren’t a libero.”
Even before Sakusa started that sentence, he knew that it was wrong. He knew that he should be offering help instead of a snarky remark, but he just didn’t find the words that he did want to say. It was easier to let his smartass tongue do the job.
“Yeah, yeah, Omi-Omi. ‘Ya told me so’, I know.”
Before he could correct his behaviour, Bokuto and Hinata appeared at their sides. The redhead spoke. “Tsumu, are you really okay? I didn’t even see how you fell."
“Nothing to worry your pretty head about. A nice bath and some awful, oxygenated water are all I need, we should go to the hotel.” Atsumu answered, reusing that fake smile.
Sakusa frowned. “None of that will help you with the sprained ankle.”
“That’s at least two weeks off!” Bokuto looked worried. “And you will need crutches, I remember that Akaashi once sprained his ankle in highschool.”
“It’s not the first time it has happened to me, don’t worry. After a while it’s just ice, elevation and 24 hours rest before I’m back to normal. I won’t let you have all the fun.”
These seemed to calm Bokuto and Hinata, however, Sakusa wasn’t convinced at all. He hadn’t had a big amount of injuries in his life as he was fairly careful with preventive care, but he had seen the angle in which that ankle had twisted –that wasn’t going to get fixed in 24 hours.
He didn’t say anything for now, deciding that he would later consult Komori, who had more experience with this sort of stuff. In the meantime, he called a cab for the four of them. As much as he hated public taxis and Atsumu’s insistence that he could walk perfectly fine, the situation demanded it.
On their ride to the hotel, Atsumu begged them to not talk about his injury with anyone else. He insisted that he knew his body and that there was no need to worry anyone. Just like a few months ago he had insisted that he was able to eat all those onigiris that Osamu had sent him.
Spoiler alert: he couldn’t, and spent a whole day complaining about his stomachache.
“You can barely walk, Miya. The team needs to know, we cannot spare a setter when Kageyama is not here-”
“Ya sure know how to make a guy feel special Omi-Omi,” Atsumu rolled his eyes. “Look, at most I will miss one or two matches of the group stage. Even if y’all somehow choke or something, I’ll be back to secure knockouts.”
Hinata looked unsure. “I think that Sakusa-san meant that we should… tell the staff because not only are they going to be able to rearrange the team, but they can also help you out, you surely wouldn’t want to miss the Olympics, right?”
It took him an insane amount of effort to not cringe at Hinata’s words. He wasn’t close to this guy and he had read him like a book: that was exactly what he had meant. His mouth was the traitor who spoke before his brain could add that the first priority was making sure Atsumu’s ankle was alright.
Why was he messing up so badly? Why was it so easy to be mean towards Atsumu lately?
“Come on! That’s in two months! I’ll be fine, Sho-kun.”
“If Tsum-Tsum says it’s going to be fine, I believe him!” Bokuto proclaimed.
Sakusa didn’t, but he didn’t want to shove a shoe into his mouth yet again.
[…]
When they arrived at the hotel, Atsumu had preferred limping over the piggy rides that both Hinata and Bokuto offered. Now, Sakusa was keeping their door open as he waited for the blond to limp his way into their room.
Even when they went to national training camps and played in the youth international cups, they had this same (bad?) luck: sharing rooms. It didn’t matter if they were chosen by alphabetical order or just pure randomness, he was always assigned as his roommate.
In all honesty, it wasn’t that bad. Sakusa was the kind of person who loved a routine, hence he would rather keep tolerating Atsumu and all of his quirks rather than getting used to a different person on each trip.
That being said, they had decided to stop seeing each other just a few weeks ago, which could mean that their time together now wouldn’t be as tolerable.
In theory, they were supposed to remain ‘friends’, or at least that’s what Sakusa originally proposed when he decided to cut everything off. But then Atsumu had asked if it was okay for him to ask Hinata out and he had just cut him off with a: 'It's not like we were dating, I don't care.'
So things between them weren’t quite alright. They weren’t bad, sure, but they were back to their highschool ways, that never ending taunting and banter that ended up with both of them worked up. It was a matter of time until someone from the team pointed it out.
Sakusa knew that he could remain stoic as if his ‘truce offer’ was the last thing they talked about. Atsumu? It was impossible to tell for certain with someone as petty and prone to tantrums as him.
After some more waiting, the blond entered the room and practically jumped into his bed. Sakusa closed the door behind them and asked. “Aren’t you going to treat your injuries?”
“Gimme a sec, I’m too tired to function.”
“By choice. You declined the help of two different people.”
Instead of answering, Atsumu just sighed deeply and reached for the telephone on their shared nightstand. He spoke for a while, asking room service to bring him some ice and extra towels in English. When he finished, he limped towards the bathroom and came back with a roll of toilet paper, a jar of water and the first aid kit.
With no second thought, he started the process of cleaning first the injuries on his left leg with the toilet paper and the water. When most of the dust and gravel were off, he proceeded to damp some cotton in oxygenated water, to then pat it all over the scrapes on his leg.
Atsumu tried to not vocalise his pain, to which Sakusa was thankful for, but it was clear from his expression and the way he was biting his lip and grabbing the sheets with his other hand that it wasn’t a pleasant sensation. Sakusa remained as a quiet bystander of the situation until he opened the door to receive the stuff from room service.
“Thanks.” Atsumu told him as he placed the bucket of ice and the towels near his bed.
“No need… do you want any hel-?”
“Nah, I got it, it’s not my first, remember?”
“How many have you had?” Sakusa asked with truthful curiosity.
“I lost the count,” he answered with a sigh, as he scooped some ice into a towel to create a compress. “I don’t even remember which ankle they started in, I only know that I have had at least one yearly since 2008 or so. 2020 was my only injury free year, and 2021 was going in that direction too.”
“Until today.”
“Well… until a week ago.”
At Sakusa’s baffled expression, Atsumu explained that on last week’s Saturday he sprained his ankle in one of the dumbest ways possible: dancing. Back in Tokyo he had gone to a ballet studio –ballet helped with his balance– and, while practicing some choreo that wasn’t his, he had misstepped and sprained it.
“That one wasn’t a big deal, really. It hurt on that day and it was uncomfortable on the second day, but I barely felt it on the third and by the fourth-”
“We had practice on that Monday. You trained with a recently sprained ankle with no care in the world.” Sakusa interrupted.
“I trained with an already healed ankle.” Atsumu shrugged, positioned his ankle on top of a few pillows and placed his diy compress against it.
Sakusa was in disbelief. “A ‘healed’ ankle that got sprained again only four days after, that doesn’t sound healed at all.”
“I know my body. I don’t care that much, why won’t you drop it?”
It was a fairly good question to which Sakusa had no immediate answer. If Atsumu wanted to self-destruct, why did he care? Both the national and the MSBY team had other setters that could do his job just fine –and who weren’t as chatty or annoying. They weren’t even that close now and he had better things to worry about.
Yet, Sakusa couldn’t bring himself to believe any of this.
Whilst it was true that he was technically replaceable, Sakusa had to admit that he spiked his best when it was Atsumu on court with him. He had encountered many setters throughout his life but no one was as proficient as him. Plus, his goofy remarks during the games helped to balance the overall mood of the team.
Atsumu was a great asset to the team, and his health was vital for them. That’s why he cared, yeah.
It wasn’t because he had known him ever since his first national training camp and he had seen all the effort he put on his skills to achieve his dreams. It wasn’t because he wanted him to get everything that he dreamt of because they were much closer than he admitted.
And it definitely wasn’t because he cared deeply for him and he was already regretting his decision of leaving what they had behind.
“Because someone has to act like an adult here,” he said, instead of his real feelings. It was easier to do it, anyways. “If you don’t recover as fast as you think you will, I’m telling the team staff.”
The blond murmured something, probably a profanity given his exasperation regarding the topic. It was difficult to help someone that didn’t want any assistance, but Sakusa knew that he needed to try.
Maybe Atsumu had gotten used to these injuries and he knew how to treat them at home, but they were far from home. He wasn’t going to be able to treat his ankle as he usually did, which could definitely affect his outcome.
So Sakusa made a choice for Atsumu that he knew he wouldn’t by himself. Whilst his roommate was turning around his compress, he texted a certain someone with the news in the hopes that they could bring whatever was needed for that ankle –and perhaps reason with Atsumu so that he would do the responsible thing and visit a doctor.
The Asian Games were going to take place in Magadan, which wasn’t as far away from Japan as the rest of Russia. Sakusa calculated that his surprise guest was going to meet them by tomorrow afternoon.
And Atsumu would hate it, but it was clear that he needed it.