Work Text:
Miya Atsumu gets asked what he likes a lot. He gets asked that in interviews, on dates, by his fans online. When his birthday is approaching a whole lot of people ask him what he likes. If he thinks back to when he was really little he can remember even Samu— who learnt about Atsumu as he was learning about himself— asking him that question.
And it has never been difficult to answer it. He likes volleyball, 80s J-pop, fatty tuna, onigiri (his brother’s), his brother, gloves that keep his hand warm enough that they don’t crack in the winter, Curel Kao moisturiser, mid-day supermarket runs, talking out of his turn, finding errors in people’s playing style and fixing them, Hinata Shoyo (special mention), children whose noses don’t run when they cry, children who don’t cry in front of him, children who don’t do anything other than play volleyball in front of him, volleyball again. He likes a lot of things.
He’s been told there’s a unique specificity to his likes. A date once told him that when people ask him what he likes they want a vague glimpse into his life, not what brand of moisturiser he sticks to. She explained that saying he liked onigiri was fine, but he could afford to leave out the, “my brother’s onigiri, specifically. Pain in the ass but he’s the best in the game.” She was obviously a pig in disguise for her manners to be so non-existent, but it got him digging deeper into the terms and conditions he puts on his likes.
He likes morning training, but only if he has plans right after and then gets to kick back in the evening. He likes getting gifts from his fans but not if they give them to him after a game, it has to be at an event where he’s not playing. He likes going to the laundromat every now and then even though he has a washing machine he paid for, but only if it’s past midnight. He’ll even like letting someone else have the spotlight when he’s out with a group, but only if observing everyone’s reaction to what is being said is interesting. That’s probably one of the few times he’ll pay attention to every little detail of someone’s behaviour when he’s off-court. He never bothers watching people when he’s speaking either. He’ll extend that courtesy to Osamu, but only if he hasn’t been pissing him off all day.
All this he runs through in his head before he sets his beer down and finishes the story he was telling. Everyone caught onto the uncharacteristic pause but who’s going to bring it up, really? Shoyo might ask him if he’s okay while leaving but he does that so often, it can’t throw Atsumu for a loop. Besides, that had already been done by Omi when he looked up from whatever the fuck was on his phone to listen to what Atsumu was saying.
As he walks back home, Atsumu closes his eyes and watches as the eyes move up and lock onto his, over and over again. And he also thinks about why he was looking at Omi in the first place. He never looks out for how people react when he speaks. He just says his piece and then deals with the consequences of it. He was looking for Omi’s reaction this time. Maybe it’s the product of his admittedly weird desire for the spiker’s attention. Like how he’ll falsely declare that he forgot to wear his shower slippers in the locker room because he knows Omi will glare till he leaves. The whip of his head is always satisfying.
Then why wasn’t it satisfying to know Omi will put aside the thing he’d been absorbed in all night, the thing he ignored everyone else for, just to hear about Atsumu killing his stupid tomato plant? Sure enough, he picked his phone back up when Atsumu was done. There was also the annoying neutrality on his face while he listened. Atsumu hates dissecting his interactions with Omi like this. He knows what it means and he made his peace with it as soon as he realised but it gets dangerous when things like this happen. When Atsumu’s brain tries to tell him that Omi tunes into reality for very few things and one of those things is him. That Omi listens to what he says not because it interests or concerns him but because it’s Atsumu speaking. That Atsumu could start singing the national anthem under his breath and Omi would stop what he was doing to pay attention. It dawns on Atsumu that when he started fighting for Omi’s attention he didn’t prepare for the day when he’d start receiving it freely.
It makes sense for it to be out of conditioning. Maybe Atsumu conditioned him into opening his eyes and ears when the Miya voice activates. It’s still not a non-issue though. What happens when Atsumu gets to have all of Omi’s attention, all the time, with no terms and conditions? What happens when Atsumu decides to tell him that he added something to his list of likes and he listens and understands and responds? Three months ago, Atsumu took approximately six seconds to accept that he likes Omi, but it’s not as easy to accept that Omi might give a shit. Things get complicated when Atsumu’s life goes from looking at the person he likes to the person he likes looking back at him. Now there are alternatives. Before tonight, he could tell Omi he likes him and get ignored. Now, he has to face possible rejection or worse. If it’s this stomach-upsetting to think Omi might care about Atsumu, he can’t imagine how terrible it’d be if he liked him back. A nightmare, all in all.
When he opens the door to his house and steps into the warmth, Atsumu decides he has to do the unthinkable. He has to tell Sakusa Kiyoomi he likes him before the conditioning makes Sakusa Kiyoomi like Atsumu back. He can barely make sense of his own logic but he has always made decisions before he understood why he made them anyway. Besides, he can never go to sleep without resolving something that’s bothering him. And God forbid he lose out on more than one day of sleep. He couldn’t put his health in the line of fire like that.
He notices next morning when he walks into the gym that he only feels the tiniest bit off. His sleep wasn’t as badly affected as he had anticipated after all. Perhaps he has also overestimated how much of Omi’s attention he could command because the spiker does not look up from his shoes when Atsumu stops in front of him. Turns out tying some stupid neon coloured shoelaces win out over his glorious morning hair. He greets him nonetheless, and doesn’t waste time beating around the bush. It was never going to be difficult to tell Omi he likes him anyway, the problem had always been what Omi would say back.
Out of all the options, though, Atsumu didn’t prepare a course of action for if Omi said, “I know,” in that monotone voice. What the fuck does he mean he knows? What’s Atsumu supposed to do with a single acknowledgement?
As he runs through a list of things he can do— which also includes beating the shit out of Omi, he won’t lie— Omi asks, “do you have plans after practice?”
It’s a nightmare. “You wanna go out after?” Atsumu asks and this time he sees the firm nod coming.