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“Do they ever shut up?”
Your friend, Sora Azuma rolls her eyes at the affectionate, for the lack of a better word, display Atsumu and his new girlfriend were putting on. You laugh robotically, dropping your bag onto your desk with a bit more force than you needed to.
The sound of his laughter mixing in with hers rings cheerfully in the small classroom and it does nothing to ease your heavy heart.
You can’t help the fleeting disgust that curls your lips and makes you roll your eyes at the sight. “You’d think,” You can’t help but fume a little, “that our relationship meant more to him since we were together for almost a year, but here he is with a new girl just after a month-”
Sora snorts at how vexed you look, before resting her hand across the top of yours.
“Hey,” her voice is soothing, calm, nothing like the rapid beating of your heart. She peers into your eyes and squeezes your fingers, “You’re okay. You got this”
“Besides,” her sweet smile lifts a little higher, a little more devious when her eyes narrow just slightly, “you’re way cuter than her. I overheard some girls in the hallway saying you and Atsumu were a cuter pair”
Those words shouldn’t make you feel a little bit better. But they do anyway.
You can’t help but sneak a peek over to the pair. Despite how fast Sora slaps her hand over your eyes, you’ve already burned the image of Atsumu rubbing his thumb over the pale expanse of his new girlfriend’s cheek, golden eyes staring at her so adoringly, it makes you sick to your stomach.
Sora clicks her tongue but pushes your hair back anyways and decides not to reprimand you. Instead, she drops a carton of juice at your desk under the guise of ‘got lucky at the vending machine and happened to get 2 instead of 1’
“Thanks,” You mumble, lips pressed together in a straight line, “i really appreciate it”
“I know,” Sora grins and holds up the matching carton, “Maybe you should focus on me instead of your deadbeat ex”
You scoff but you turn to face her fully anyways, resting your chin on the palm of your hand, eyes unfocused.
“He used to look at me like that,” You blurt it out before you can really think about anything else. When Sora stares at you with an exasperated look, you clamp your hand over your mouth quickly.
‘Sorry,” You squeak, “I didn’t mean to say that”
She doesn’t say anything but sips peacefully from her straw while you mull over the thick fog in your head.
He used to look at me like that
x.
“Why are you staring at me?”
“I can’t look at my girl?”
“You look like a lovesick idiot”
“Yeah, yeah” Atsumu rolled his eyes at your quip while he pulled you towards him, “can’t help it when it’s you i’m lookin’ at”
x.
You consider yourself saved by the bell when the incessant urge to stare at the couple creeps up on you again. With a soft sigh escaping from your lips, you pinch the bridge of your nose until a red mark appears to distract you from the ever growing need to look.
You’re beginning to understand why all breakup advice tells you to block your ex on every social media platform and avoid them as best as you can.
Sora turns to face you, arm covering her face as the sunlight begins to spill in through the windows. You laugh when she scrunches up her nose. She throws a paper ball at you and you’re thankful the teacher is too preoccupied with the front row to even notice you giggling away.
Atsumu rests his hand on his cheek and watches you cover your smile with an open palm, the corner of your eyes crinkling.
x.
Atsumu lifted one of his hands when you had begun squinting, looking up towards the sky.
“It’s too sunny out,” you complained, but lifted up on your tiptoes to press a kiss onto the palm of his outstretched hand.
The sun blazed openly, no clouds in the sky and the heat from the sidewalk made you sweat. Atsumu squinted once at the sun before tugging you towards his side.
“It’s not so bad,” he mused, “it could be raining”
“Hmmm, i guess” you begrudgingly agreed before wrinkling your nose when a hot gust of air blew towards the two of you, “ew that just felt like the earth sneezed on me”
Atsumu laughed at your description, the sound ringing clearly in the still air. He looked at you with a fondness most people didn’t know he’s capable of, lips still curved into a smile. You caught his gaze and wiggled your eyebrows. Atsumu rolled his eyes and stuck his tongue out. You tilted your head back and laughed.
He watched you with the weight of the words he was too scared to say resting on his back and carefully memorized every detail of your laughter.
X.
Your pencil taps on the desk in a rhythm only you can hear. The rest of your classmates scribble away on their papers, eyebrows furrowed intensely. Yours is blank, saved for the prompt “I want to be…” written in English on the first line.
Sora’s paper is filled as she concentrates on translating the sentences in her head, tongue sticking out of her mouth. She looks up when she feels your gaze on her, taking the time to throw a small eraser at you.
Write, she mouths at you, before you get in trouble
I don’t know what to write, you want to say, I don’t know what I want to be
You’re lying. Of course you know what you want to be. You want to be-
x.
“- the sun” you said it proudly, hands resting on your hip, “because I’m the brightest thing in your life”
“I dunno about that one,” Atsumu teased you, “ya really ain’t that special”
The sunlight shone in through the window, catching the top of your head. Atsumu watched you twirl in your spot. Beautiful, he thought to himself, tucking his arm behind his head, you always are
“You’re seriously going to tell me, your girlfriend, that I’m not special?” You threw the plush lying on his bed at him and he catches it easily, but you would never hurt him intentionally anyways.
The warmth of the sun made you dizzy. You landed on his bed with a heavy sigh and he immediately tugged you into his arms. He mumbled something into the crown of your head, the soft tone fading away in the quiet of the room.
You twisted around to face him and he pressed a kiss to your forehead in response. His heart beated peacefully while the sun casted gold around his room.
“The sun,” He murmured so quietly, you had to strain your ears to hear him. “You will always be the sun to me”
“You are something I cannot live without”
x.
“[surname]-san”
You blink, lifting your head to meet the expectant gaze of your teacher. He cocks his head to the side, gesturing with his hand for you to read your assignment. Sora winces when she catches a glimpse of your still empty paper on your desk.
“Please read what you have written for the assignment”
You glance down at your paper and suck in air between your teeth.
Right, completely empty.
The teacher waits for you patiently, scribbling away notes on other student’s work in his notebook.
“I um-” You rack your brain desperately for an answer, the broken english words from random TV dramas playing rapidly in your mind, “I want to be-”
The sun catches onto something, reflecting right into your eyes. You automatically lift your hands to cover your face, turning your face slightly towards where the glare was coming.
Atsumu finally twists his watch face away from the sunbeam on his desk, hiding it underneath his sleeve before you notice.
He blinks slowly when you catch his gaze. A soft moment passes and then-
Atsumu smiles, the genuine ones that you’ve missed so much with the corners of his lips upturned until his eyes crinkle at the end.
(Is it wrong to hope that he misses you too?)
You know what you want to be.
“I want to be the sun,” You answer your teacher honestly, despite some weird looks that your classmates were casting at you. Sora raises her eyebrows but stays quiet, gently tapping her fingernails on the wood of the desk.
The teacher looks up from his notes, a little confused, but he smiles anyways, “Do you think you could elaborate a little on that?”
“Um,” You glance down at the paper held in between your shaky hands, “I-”
I want to be the sun because-
“It fuels life on Earth,” You finish lamely, staring down at your desk, “Sunny days are nice too, especially being able to go to the beach, or something like that”
You take your seat when the teacher nods his approval and wipe the sweat away from your palms on the pleats of your skirt. Sora grins encouragingly, giving you a soft thumbs up when you catch her eye.
The weight of Atsumu’s gaze rests heavily against you, golden eyes seemingly trying to swallow you whole.
I want to be the sun because I want him to look at me again