Work Text:
They have a quick break from the photoshoot as the set is being fixed, props relocated and makeup retouched, team jackets thrown over chairs to fight the heat. Atsumu sighs, sits on a plastic chair at the back of the studio and lights a cigarette.
A nasty, nasty habit he's picked up, he knows – and for a professional athlete (in the Olympic lineup no less) who relies on his lungs and stamina too much, it might as well be a death sentence. Iwaizumi and Yukie-san will definitely team up to kill him in his sleep if they find out. Hoshiumi will gleefully help them hide the body as Omi-kun laughs on, and headlines will tell the tragic tale of Team Japan's setter dying just six months before the opening ceremony.
But it's getting late, the sun dipping low in the sky, and the air is too dry. The first huff feels too much like a reprieve, like he's been wading underwater for so long and is only learning to breathe again. Atsumu's back aches from contorting his body in model-like positions and standing in front of a camera for hours, muscles bunched from the strain. Not like the satisfactory stretch he feels after a good practice at all. He feels grimy and probably needs to get his own makeup fixed, too. Instead of doing anything sensible like that, Atsumu stares straight ahead and makes a game of counting the cars as they go by.
He's at seven when Shouyou shows up, still done up in red with his national team jersey, a light sheen of sweat on his forehead. (He looks awfully beautiful even when he's tired.) He catches a glimpse of the thing burning between Atsumu's fingers. Pauses, like he's about to dole out a grave lecture, but he bums the cigarette off of Atsumu, and Atsumu's almost afraid that he'll need to make small talk but Shouyou just stands there, quiet. He doesn't ask what's bothering Atsumu, or ask just exactly when he started smoking. Just leans the weight of his thigh against Atsumu's rickety chair and takes a drag of the cigarette, blowing smoke into the air along with the things they lack the fortitude to say.
Atsumu watches Shouyou's breath catch in the evening light, and something painful in his chest twists.
*
It's been a year since he's seen Shouyou in the flesh, since that day they separated ways at the airport, and sometimes, Atsumu tenses up more than is perfectly reasonable when Shouyou has to get in close for a receive during practice drills. When he plants himself beside Atsumu for interviews, when he bumps knees with him during team dinners or accidentally brushes Atsumu's face or neck or shoulder.
It's almost reminiscent of the time they were newly minted teammates, dancing around an old promise one Spring Tournament of their high school, tending a friendship as tentative and delicate as a forest fire. Sometimes, Atsumu makes excuses to pass on when Shouyou wreaks havoc in the quiet of Olympic village, initiating movie nights and card games with every player from every country he seems to know.
And sometimes, Atsumu glances at the line of Shouyou's neck, now perpetually tanned from living under the scorching hot sun some thousands of miles away, as he's bent over whispering to Tobio and Atsumu thinks to himself, What if. What if?
*
After everything's said and done and they've finally, finally painstakingly cut gold between their teeth, Shouyou has about a month before he goes back to Brazil. Shouyou surprises Atsumu by sending him a text and an invitation to get drunk in Shouyou's old living room. They sit on the familiar ratty old couch that sinks in the middle and down drink after drink until Atsumu's pretty sure he'll still feel the hangover next week. Shouyou, as always, has really great booze and a really great shoulder to lean on if you're feeling a little woozy and an insane tolerance for a man his size.
The room is quiet, and an empty bottle of vodka sits on Shouyou's dusty coffee table. It was half-full when they started, Atsumu vaguely remembers. It's empty right now.
Atsumu's pretty out of it at the moment, so he doesn't really think much of poking his nose into Shouyou's neck and just basking there for a while. Shouyou's skin is soft and warm, and his neck smells like honey and strawberries. Pleasantly numbed by the alcohol, Atsumu could open his mouth and let everything spill out. It would be easy. And then maybe, just maybe –
Shouyou says, "Let me get us some snacks, Atsumu-san," and stands up, a little unsteady on his feet, knocking Atsumu back so that all he can do is fall away.
*
Years and years and a lifetime later, Atsumu sits across from Shouyou in the back corner of a hipster coffee house. It's Tokyo, which never seems to run out of those. He tells Shouyou about coaching the new blood at MSBY, dominating this year's V League, which Shouyou heartily cheers on, and Shouyou tells him about filming some sort of documentary in Tokyo with Kenma.
Shouyou's eyes are bright and warm as he smiles. He leans back in his chair and holds his cup to his lips, and Atsumu sees the ring he's been sporting for a while. Watches as the steam covers the front of Shouyou's face, rapt. Atsumu's heart twists in his chest, remembering that time Shouyou caught him smoking, and it's like an echo of his past aches, but it doesn't hurt the way it used to.
He gathers this feeling up and tucks it oh so carefully somewhere deep inside himself, where it's never seen the light of day. Where no one else can see.
His coffee has so much sugar in it that it's turned tooth-rottingly sweet. As he takes a sip, he tells Shouyou he's decided to take a vacation somewhere warmer, somewhere like São Paulo, maybe? Predictably, it makes Shouyou laugh in excitement, and the sound of it brings back the ache, just a little.
Atsumu grins in response and lets the coffee warm him up. The ceiling fan whirrs quietly overhead, some college students noisily arguing behind him, and Shouyou's already talking a mile away about so many things I can show you, there's a really great spot on the beach where we play all the time...
Atsumu takes all these things in, and he knows he wouldn't trade this for anything else in the entire world.