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Miya Atsumu couldn’t catch a break.
It’d started with the beginning of the zombie apocalypse approximately twenty years ago. He’d just turned five, was in the middle of the corner store trying to decide what flavor of chips he wanted, when his father had turned to the cashier and gobbled her up.
It was kinda a bummer, to say the least. Especially since everything had unceremoniously gone downhill from there—down and down and down. All the way to the very bottom of whatever Hell existed. Which was where Atsumu currently found himself:
Freezing fucking cold in the metaphorical lowest circle of Hell (i.e out on patrol). Abandoned by a brother who was too busy sucking face with his boyfriend to go on said patrol with him. Holed up in a little house on the outskirts of town, back against the door, breathing hard after running from an unexpected hoard of the undead (god dammit, they’d just cleared this area out), and next to one very pissed off Sakusa Kiyoomi.
Ah, Sakusa Kiyoomi.
The one, the only, the infamous Sakusa Kiyoomi, who was both the sexiest and most mysterious person in all of Japan’s northern encampment. Who, tragically, could not give less of a fuck about Atsumu despite Atsumu’s own massive, six-year-long crush on him.
It was embarrassing, really. All the one-sided pining; the yearning, lingering looks Atsumu would cast across snow-covered tents when, in truth, they were practically strangers. Atsumu didn’t actually know much about Sakusa apart from the fact that he’d transferred up north when he was eighteen and had a wicked way with a bow.
But even more embarrassing than all of that was the fact that when Atsumu had finally got the chance to get to know the guy (having been assigned him as a patrol partner after Osamu’s abandonment) he'd gone and fucked it all up.
Hence Sakusa being so very pissed off.
“I’d say I’m sorry about that,” Atsumu said, centering himself back into the present, figuring he didn’t have much else to lose, so might as well be his asshole self, “but I’m pretty sure I just won our bet.”
Sunlight slit its way through the blinds of a window up in the corner, bathing the two in stripes of gold. Atsumu glanced over as Sakusa exhaled a cloud of frost and sent him a look that was somehow much colder.
“Run that by me again?” Sakusa said.
“I took down more zombies than ya!” Atsumu said, as if it were obvious. “I toldja I would. Y’know, at the beginning of patrol, when I called ya a pretty boy and said I could kill more than ya?”
The look on Sakusa’s face was turning into something priceless. He pushed away from the door, eyes alight with bewilderment as he turned to face Atsumu. “I don’t need a recap, Miya. I’d say the competition is fucking void because you all but asked for a roll call of every remaining zombie in Japan when you messed with my shot.”
“Well—“
“And I should kill you for that,” he snapped, “But I won’t. Because even though you’re a goddamn cheater, I still downed twenty-three infected compared to your measly nineteen.”
A smirk crept up the corners of Atsumu’s mouth. Maybe he hadn’t botched his chance with Sakusa entirely. In fact, in this light, Sakusa didn’t look that pissed off.
“Noooo,” Atsumu elongates, “I know I took down more than you did. Ya wanna know how I know?”
Sakusa rolls his eyes. “I don’t need your—“
“Because I’m the one covered in more blood and guts.”
Atsumu proudly pinched the end of his thickest jacket, stretching it out for Sakusa to marvel at. Sakusa did not marvel. Instead, he wrinkled his nose.
“Getting splattered in the most blood I’ve ever seen anyone get splattered in isn’t an achievement, Miya. It just means you’re messy.”
And with that Sakusa Kiyoomi took out a tide pen and began dabbing at the blood that’d gotten on his shirt.
“Oh my god, you’ve got to be—“
But Atsumu doesn’t get to finish his sentence. He’s cut off by a “fuck” so sharp and mangled he would’ve thought a weasel had come crashing through the window if not for A.) him being pretty sure weasels weren’t strong enough to break glass and B.) actually witnessing the noise come from Sakusa himself.
“Fuck!” Sakusa repeated. He’d dropped his tide pen and was stumbling backward, cursing more colorfully by the second. He blocked the sunlight and for a moment he was outlined in a perfect glow, like an angel, or something, if an angel could look that mortified and also, well, he did kinda have a weasel quality to him—
“What? What is it?” Atsumu yelled, pivoting back toward the door. He raised his crossbow. Infected must’ve gotten through—Sakusa and him didn’t get away—they’d attracted attention through too much noise or definitely would after that and—and maybe this was actually a serious offense he’d committed—
But the door was as solid as a twenty year old door could be. A distinct amount of no zombies were bursting through.
“What the hell, Sakusa?” Atsumu snapped, heart still thundering in his chest. He rounded back to look at his partner, a scowl painted red across his face, but was immediately rendered dumbstruck.
Sakusa Kiyoomi was standing on top of the coffee table in the decrepit house’s living room. His face was pinched. His shoulders came up to his ears and, no, actually, he wasn’t standing on the table. Sakusa Kiyoomi was cowering.
Atsumu stared at him in disbelief.
“I—“ Sakusa sucked in a deep breath, looking everywhere but at Atsumu. Or at least everywhere but at Atsumu and the ceiling. Rather, he was scanning the floor and walls as if they might come alive at any second. “I…it’s nothing.”
Atsumu’s finger fell from the trigger of his crossbow. “You telling me that that was nothing?”
“…Yes,” Sakusa sniffed, before jumping nearly ten feet into the air and cursing again.
“FUCK.”
“FUCK!”
Both boys were sprouting profanities and yelling, coming to a crescendo, until:
“It’s a fucking cockroach, okay?” Sakusa shouts. “I saw a fucking cockroach and—there it is again!”
Atsumu whirled around and found exactly nothing moving—well, unless you counted the door to the kitchenette, swinging back and forth.
“Oh, fuck,” he whispered as a zombie burst through the entrance like the world’s worst surprise.
It swooped toward him in a wave of terror. Big, bulging eyes, one dangling out of a socket, with a thick cut across its forehead. The corpse wasn't wearing much, having been rotting for so long, but before Atsumu could even say “ew,” an arrow shot directly through the zombie’s temple. Its body collapsed to the floor in a flurry of old, coagulated blood and guts.
He glanced back at Sakusa. He was holding his bow, void of an arrow after having just shot that insane, perfect shot, the anxiety on his face having not unsteadied his hands.
“Is it dead?” he whispered.
“Yeah, Omi, I’m pretty sure our friend here is dead.”
“Not the zombie, you idiot. The cockroach.”
At this point, Atsumu was too dumbfounded to even laugh. Sakusa Kiyoomi—the same Sakusa Kiyoomi who’d once brained a zombie’s head so hard in training it blew clean through a wall—was afraid of bugs?
“Look,” Sakusa hisses, “I need you to find that roach and kill it. You have to. Or else I’m going to shove you back outside with the hoard and tell your brother you tripped on your own feet and had to be left behind.”
“Harsh, Omi-Omi. Why can’t we just--”
“Leave? So it can multiply and come back with a hoard of its own? Go upstairs, I saw it go upstairs, you need to go up there.”
“I don’t think bugs work like--”
But Atsumu, once again, didn't finish his sentence. He was stopped by another look from Sakusa. A look he’d seen before, he thought, whenever he actually, accidentally made eye contact with Sakusa in the mess hall.
So he let the words die on his lips. Instead, he motioned for Sakusa to follow. But his partner shook his head, hard enough for his curls to spill forward. “No way, Miya, I’m not going—“
With a sickening crack, the table collapsed under his weight.
-
They were at the top of the stairs when Atsumu heaved a sigh heavy enough to compete with his massive crush on Sakusa Kiyoomi—which, despite everything, he still, absolutely, 100% maintained.
It was funny, really. Atsumu had always liked Sakusa for his icy demeanor; he’d always been capable, competent, and--as he’d shown by taking up their bet--at least somewhat competitive. He was like the constant snow around them, draping over the encampment like a dream. A dream match for Atsumu, at least.
But this was a curveball. This was different. This was, some might say, a whole new side to Sakusa Kiyoomi. One that Atsumu suspected might be something only he’d seen in a long, long time.
Atsumu smirked.
“Omi-omi, y’can’t really be that scared of the cockroach, can ya?” he asked.
He didn’t have to see Sakusa to know that he was glaring daggers into the back of his head. Atsumu could feel the weight of his gaze, and it made him shiver.
“Don’t call me that.”
“I’m curious. It’s justa bug. It can’t hurt ya, y’know?”
They were creeping around the landing, maneuvering as they’d been taught in training, footsteps totally silent despite the volume of their conversation. Atsumu sucked frigid air into his lungs as he stepped delicately over a pile of snow that’d been falling through a hole in the roof.
Sakusa cleared his throat. “I know that. It doesn’t make them any less…disturbing.”
“But they’re just—“
“They’re not “just” anything to me, Miya. I can’t…I can’t do them.”
The two stopped in front of a door that had buckled in on itself. The room beyond had likely belonged to a child, the race-car bed within unmade and decaying. Atsumu turned to Sakusa.
“I guess it just seems a little funny that the best bowman in the whole north is afraid of a few creepy crawlies. C’mon, you’ve gotta admit it’s a little ironic.”
Atsumu expected another scowl. But when he met Sakusa’s pitch-colored eyes, he found a kind of defeat in them instead. With red-tipped fingers, Sakusa reached up and pinched the bridge of his nose, a frustrated noise making its way from the back of his throat.
“Objectively ironic? Sure. But it doesn’t feel ironic when you’re living like this,” he sighed. “I mean…why do you think I asked to be stationed up in the north? Because I like frostbite and dry skin? This hellhole is the only encampment I could think of too cold for most bugs. It doesn’t eliminate them all, of course, but fuck is it a lot better than working in southern territory.”
This brought Atsumu up short. “Oh. Oh, so, it’s like, serious?”
Sakusa does muster a scowl this time; but with it is a tiredness Atsumu hadn’t seen on Sakusa’s face before, no matter how long he’d been looking. “Yes, Miya. It’s serious. As serious as your fear of small spaces.”
“Ah, makes sense. I really don’t…” Atsumu trailed off. “How do ya know about that?”
“The same way I know lots of things. From watching.”
Atsumu could linger on that. He could think it through. He could remember the time Sakusa had seen him panicking behind the bleachers of a blown apart football field, face flushed and eyes burning from his time curled up inside one of the manholes they were practicing in. But instead, Atsumu does what he does best and doesn’t use his brain, choosing to go with the feeling of what he was supposed to say instead.
“Well, in any case,” Atsumu continued, “I’ll kill it. I promise. ‘M sorry I kinda made fun of ya there—I mean, really, I think I get it. We all got things that aren’t easy to handle. Samu once cried because a bat flew into our room and he was convinced he was bitten and gonna be turned into a vampire—but he wasn’t, like, funny-afraid. He was serious afraid.”
“You’ve such a way with words.”
“Yeah, yeah. But I’m being serious now. I’ll kill it. I’ll get the damn roach for ya and then we can go back home.”
Atsumu finds Sakusa peering down at him. It was a little unnerving, since there weren’t many people taller than Atsumu, and it seemed that the single inch Sakusa had over him made all the difference in that moment. It felt a little like being looked back at.
“Great,” Sakusa said. “What’s the caveat, then?”
“I—caveat?”
“The catch. The trick. What do you want in return?”
Atsumu stared blankly, tilting his head. “Why would I want anything—“
“I don’t like being in debt. Besides, now is your opportunity.”
Atsumu laughed, breathy. He’d always wanted something from Sakusa. Anything, really. And now he’d gotten so much—the competition, the honesty, the time—and still he was going to ask for more?
Well, fuck. Who was he to look at a horse gift in his mouth or whatever?
“Cool,” Atsumu said toothily, batting his eyelashes. “Howsabout ya give me a kiss, then, hm?”
Sakusa didn’t even blink.
“Deal.”
“Oh, Omi, y’don’t gotta if you don’t wanna—“
He’s silenced with the asked-after kiss. A soft kiss; light, sweet, but surprising all the same. He hadn’t meant now. In fact, he hadn’t even meant it at all. It was a joke, a throw away, because Sakusa doesn’t know him, doesn’t like him, doesn’t—
“But you don’t even like me like that?” Atsumu said suddenly, breaking away.
Kiyoomi pulled back, wearing almost no expression on his face save for the rise of a single, quizzical eyebrow, and a tinge of rose high on his cheeks. “Atsumu, we’ve been in the encampment together for six years. I’ve seen you crush a zombie’s head into pulp with your bare hands. Of course I like you like that. Have we not been…oh, god, did I—“
Kiyoomi began to step back, but Atsumu wouldn't let him.
“You were looking too?” Atsumu asked, grabbing his hand, lurching forward in some kind of awe.
Kiyoomi’s face was, this time, truly priceless.
“Oh my god, I guess, yeah—“
Again, a kiss. Much like the last, right up until Kiyoomi tilted his head to the side and opened his mouth a little more. Atsumu’s eyes flew open, wanting to savor the moment--take a mental picture--when he saw, right behind Kiyoomi’s head and on the floor, it.
With remarkably steady hands, Atsumu gripped Kiyoomi’s shoulders. Despite their training, Atsumu had never exactly been that great at keeping quiet, but he maintained a deadly hush as he breathed into Kiyoomis mouth:
“Don’t. Turn. Around.”
Kiyoomis body went rigid. The muscles beneath Atsumus fingers tensed so hard he was afraid they’d snap. He let go and slowly rounded Kiyoomi, who remained shock still.
Atsumu crept. He used all the stealth training he’d ever learned to make sure his boots didn’t bend the floorboards into creaking, concentrating far harder than before, forcing his breath to come out so evenly that it almost sounded like he wasn’t breathing at all.
He crept. Lightly, every so lightly; steady, steady—
“FUCKING YES,” he cheered and Kiyoomi whirled around.
There, just beneath Atsumu’s boot, was the cockroach, flattened and twitching in death. It was clearly enough to almost make Kiyoomi sick, considering the way he flinched and placed the back of his hand to his mouth. Or maybe that was a hint of a smile he was trying to hide? Either way, Atsumu waltzed his way back across the floorboards with all the confidence of a man who'd just defeated God, and smiled his most blazing smile in the hopes of truly drawing out one of Kiyoomis.
“Got the little fucker! How d’ya like that?”
Kiyoomi looked at him again. And then, with more enthusiasm than Atsumu has ever seen him display, Kiyoomi surged forward.
It’s a great third kiss. A fantastic third kiss, one where nothing is stopping them, no reproach, no cockroach, no—
“Zombie,” Kiyoomi gasps into his mouth.
Together they break apart and shoot the mangy bastard stumbling out of the far room, so much uglier than any bug could ever be.