Archive of Our Own

1. A Perfect Beach Day

The sun was hot and high in the sky, salt on the breeze, and the crashing rhythm of ocean waves filled the air. It was, for lack of a better turn of phrase, an absolutely perfect beach day. Sugawara had been dreaming of this kind of beach day for weeks, and it had finally arrived. 

“Woooo!”

With a hoot and a holler, Bokuto has leapt the little wooden fence surrounding the parking lot and is absolutely booking it towards the waves, eliciting-

“Ah! No! Bo-” as Akaashi stumbles and almost immediately gives up chasing him, watching him run into the water. “He’s still wearing his shoes…” he adds, miserably, which Suga decides can only be offered a sympathetic pat on the back. 

“He’s got the right spirit, though!” Tendou chirps, before vaulting the little fence himself. “Come on, no point in wasting even a second of the sun.”

Ushijima is making a point of walking around to where the actual gate in the fence was, so he has to raise his voice to call:

“I believe you should wait a further ten or so minutes before entering the water.” 

“Yeah, whatever, mom,” Tendou scoffs, though he sounds more amused by the odd assertion. “What are you talking about?”

Ushijima is approaching them again from the other side of the fence - in the meantime, Daichi has jumped it, and turns around with an exaggerated flourish to offer his hand to Suga. 

He takes it with a smile, using the assist to leap gracefully up and over the fence at the same time Kuroo trips himself and hits the sand. 

“You do not wish to burn, correct?” Ushijima replies. “Sunscreen requires at least thirty minutes to be dried sufficiently to avoid washing it off in the water. And given your propensity towards burning I assume you should wait longer than the others.”

Tendou rolled his eyes. “I think I’ll be fine, mister, don’t tell me what to do.”

Ushijima makes a soft, disquieted hum, but seemed to accept that Tendou is to do as Tendou does - and in this case, that’s turn around and sprint full tilt into the ocean. 

Kuroo picks himself up out of the sand, shaking his hair out and turning to help Kenma over the fence.

“Lookit him go,” Oikawa mutters, from where he, too, is following in Ushijima’s path and using the actual gate. Directly beside him, Iwaizumi is doing what can only be described as the most irritating smothering of attention, alternating between holding Oikawa’s arms and trying to be a walking stick for him, and getting shoved off. He clearly wanted to just pick him up, but that wasn’t going to happen. 

Oikawa is still walking with a relatively significant limp - Sugawara can see even from under the brace on his knee the scarring from what he had insisted was a minor surgery just to reset the kneecap, but honestly Suga couldn’t be sure if that was the truth. 

Iwaizumi sure does not seem to think it’s the truth, at least. 

“Well, if he wants to get burned, that’s his prerogative,” Daichi says, stretching his arms out. “Couldn’t be me.”

Suga snickers, giving him a nudge. “I don’t care how well you tan, you should put sunscreen on.”

Daichi scoffs. “Nah, I’ll be good. When do you ever remember me getting a sunburn?”

“Admittedly, I don’t,” Sugawara says, holding his own arms out. “You’re not cursed like me.”

Daichi give a playful shrug, very much in the can’t help being awesome family of communication, before Ushijima cuts in with:

“You should definitely be wearing sunscreen,” with a very concerned voice.

“Eh?” Daichi says. “Alright, mom, I’ll consider it.”

Ushijima tilts his head to the side, before saying: “Setting aside the medical conditions associated with sun exposure, your back is now significantly scar tissue - those scars are going to burn very fast and very painfully, on top of making the actual scarring worse, as sun exposure tends to thicken that tissue.”

“...why do you know this?” Daichi says, after a second, annoyed mostly at ever being presented factual logic that directly defies his ability to continue being cooler than other people. 

“I have a friend with severe scarring, I want to know how to best assist them.”

“... you… fuck, that’s a good line-”

Suga giggles, reaching to take Daichi’s arm and get him started towards the water. “Well lucky for you, I got myself plenty of extra sunscreen you can borrow, come on.”

Daichi pouts, but let’s Suga drag him out into the sunlight, the small troupe - minus Bokuto and Tendou, who’d already gotten into the water - find a place to mark a little basecamp, laying out towels and bags and a cooler for lunch. 

“I don’t know if I really need this,” Daichi laughs, once Suga is wagging a bottle of sunscreen at him. “I’ll probably keep my shirt on anyway, there’s so there’s no real issue.”

“What are you talking about? It’s like a bazillion degrees, we’re at the beach, you gotta come in the water,” Suga says.

“No he doesn’t,” Oikawa calls, from where he’s already very excitedly sitting down on his towel. “Some people are made for sunbathing and that’s okay.”

“He’s lying,” Iwaizumi calls, as if to clarify Oikawa’s statement. “He’ll be too hot in twelve seconds and be in the water soon.”

“Stop bullying me.”

Daichi laughs, watching Ushijima set his shoes aside neatly on a towel before wandering off towards the ocean as if he’d never seen it before. 

Kenma, too, seems wary of the water, crossing his legs and settling under an umbrella, sunscreen still visible on his nose and seeming far happier to play on his game than actually be at the beach. After a little bit of poking and prodding, Kuroo gives up and heads off to join the boys in the water. 

“Baby?”

Daichi turns his head, realizing he’d forgotten to answer Suga’s question.

“Oh, I… I’ll go in the water,” he says, followed by: “I just… didn’t plan on taking my shirt off.”

Suga cocks his head to the side. 

“Don’t look at me like that,” Daichi replies, waving him off and moving to sit down on his towel. “It’s… just Ushijima’s thing, gotta protect the sensitive skin and all that, right?”

Suga moves almost immediately to sit down beside him, half in the sand.

“This is the perfect beach day, though,” Suga says. “You…”

Daichi is staring back at him, and Suga can see the way his jaw tenses, eyes darting over Suga’s shoulders, to the hoards of families playing on the sand, enjoying this perfect beach day as they should.

“It doesn’t look that bad,” Suga finishes with, voice barely audible. 

There were a lot of things that Suga had struggled with, having Daichi back safely, having him fight with these nightmares and his own head, he was impossible to convince to do anything he didn’t want to do, and he didn’t want to talk about himself. He didn’t before the woods, and he certainly didn’t now. But what Suga had found the most difficult to stomach, the weirdest shift, was the entire concept of Daichi being self-conscious. Perfect Daichi, with his hair and his eyes and his smile and his athlete’s body and tanned skin, him, not wanting to take his shirt off? 

Suga didn’t know what to even say to that. He couldn’t tell him it was an irrational fear, he couldn’t tell him that it was over now, that the bear couldn’t hurt him - that wasn’t the point. The bear already had hurt him - he’s afraid of the people on the beach, now. 

Daichi doesn’t reply to him, just shrugging, somewhat helplessly. 

It occurs to Suga that it was probably new for Daichi to be feeling this way in general, weird for him, too, having never had to face this kind of attention. 

Beside them, a few feet away, Suga hears Oikawa go: “Oh, fuck this,” and has pushed himself up to his feet to limp off to the ocean. Iwaizumi scrambles around in the sand to stand up and follow after him. 

With Akaashi having chased after Bokuto, and Kenma probably deaf to the world in his game, it’s just the two of them left out. 

“...Dai?” Suga says, looking back at him. 

“Mhm?”

“Will you at least put sunscreen on?”

“I said-”

“You can put your shirt back on afterwards, but… you know some of the scars are visible up your neck, and… I’d hate for you to be in pain, or… and… you probably don’t want it getting any worse, so…”

Daichi stares at him a little bit more, before looking down to his hands. 

“Well I don’t really want you to see it either…” he mumbles, barely audible. 

“You know I don’t care,” Suga says, reaching to put a hand on his knee. 

Daichi is quiet for a very long time, staring at his hands, before he lifts his head slightly and gives just the smallest of nods. Suga feels a massive wash of relief go though him, maybe not because he’d convinced him to put on sunscreen, but because it was this tiny, tiny flicker of proof that Daichi was still in there, willing to let him help, willing to let Suga be a part of it all. 

“Besides,” Suga says, pushing himself to his knees to scoot in behind him. “It’s like… classic fantasy to get to put sunscreen on a hot guy’s back, so… get that shirt off, babygirl.”

Daichi laughs, and seems distracted enough by Suga’s absurdity that he doesn’t hesitate so much to grab the fabric of his shirt and tug it up over his head in one swift motion. 

Suga, for the next ten years of his life, will consider the fact that he didn’t yelp the most incredible accomplishment. Stifling it took everything he had - but he knew it would have crushed Daichi, so he figured it out. 

Suga hadn’t actually seen his scars like this before. He’d seen the edges, he’s seen the shadows, at night, when his back is turned in a dark room. But never like this, never in broad daylight, right in front of him. 

It’s… well, what he notices is that they’re not actually really scars. Not yet. There’s still harsh redness around the edges, it still looks angry, raised welts in eight long rivets down his back and the torn, jagged lines of teeth in his shoulder. It fills Suga with a kind of dread he’s intimately familiar with - the same feeling he felt the first time he’d learned what had happened to him. 

“Suga,” Daichi says, softly. “You’re staring.” 

“I’m…” Suga shakes himself out, scooting in closer to him. “Sorry.”

He expects Daichi to tense up, but something in that must have appeased him, because he sees his shoulders relax. 

“It’s okay. Just… hurry up.”

“I’m okay to touch you?” 

“It doesn’t hurt, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Good, am I okay to touch you?”

“... yeah, that’s okay.”

Suga smiles, and then decides that even if he is a little bit horrified at the confrontation of the damage Daichi had sustained, there’s really no good reason that should get in the way of his sunscreen fantasies. 

He warms up the lotion in his hands, and starts with his thumbs in the center of his back, between his shoulder blades - where there aren’t really any scars at all, and the skin is undamaged - and pushes his hands up, slowly, to his neck. 

“Oh… my god…” Daichi says, swaying slightly. 

Suga giggles, squeezing his shoulders slightly before running his hands back down. “That feel good?”

“Mhm…”

“You feel so tense,” Suga teases, as he tries to not get himself distracted, working to cover his back gently. “You should look into some kind of massage therapy-”

“Not gonna do that.”

“Boo.”

Daichi laughs softly, and Suga can feel him relax another inch, so he continues with his work, refreshing his hands with the sunscreen and gliding them down lower, to his waist. It’s especially bad there, he notes - he can see the image of the bear, the first attack, raking down his back, and then - he’d never noticed, really, that the bear had adjusted it’s claws in him once - or twice - but based on the criss-crossing lines and torn up skin it must have grabbed at his hip to-

Keep him down.

He was fighting. 

Suga blinks, and realizes he’s barely holding back tears. Shit. He hurries to distract himself by getting handsy with his boyfriend, finishing up with the sunscreen on his back and letting his hands wander down to his hips, and then around his front. 

“Hey,” Daichi warned, but his voice is playful.

“I’m not doing anything,” Suga defends, leaning in to rest his head down on Daichi’s shoulder, gliding his hands up to his chest. 

“You absolutely are.”

“Nuh-huh.”

“Yeah-uh,” he resorts, and that makes Suga laugh, so he puts his face down into his shoulder and hugs him tighter. 

He feels Daichi lean back against him, sighing softly and relaxing just a little bit more. Good. After enough time has passed, enjoying the heat from both the sun and his weight, Suga mumbles:

“You know you have no reason to be embarrassed, right?”

“I know, I know, badges of honour, or whatever-”

“No, not-” Suga lifted his head, so that he could look at him again. “Who cares why you have them. You have no reason to be embarrassed.”

Daichi is quiet for a moment, before saying: “I… I think I do understand that. Objectively. But it’s… just so hard to believe it, sometimes.”

“That’s okay,” Suga says. “I’ll keep reminding you, then-”

And as he’s speaking, Daichi has pulled away, shifting around to face him properly, and Suga is pretty sure he’s just going to put his shirt back on, before being delightfully surprised when the actual action includes him pushing in really close to kiss him. 

He would have expressed his pleasure with a noise, but Daichi’s tongue makes that very difficult, so he chooses instead to wrap his arms around his shoulders, and fall backwards into the sand and pull Daichi on top of him. 

Sure, would Suga have liked a heartfelt conversation that led to a breakthrough that got Daichi to open up a bit more and agree to go to therapy to start unpacking his trauma? Of course. Will he take a steamy make-out session in the sand on an absolutely perfect beach day instead? Absolutely, he’s only human. 

Suga indulges in it entirely, dragging his nails through his hair, down his neck, pulling him in and wishing he could just drown in his kissing, and the feeling of his hands on his waist, and up under his shirt, and then-

Without much warning, Daichi breaks away with a laugh - a real laugh, and Suga is barely able to breathe let alone ask him what’s funny, but he doesn’t need to, because Daichi says:

“This was not the right move if I didn’t want people to stare,” with a giggle. 

This realization does not, apparently, do enough to dissuade him from immediately resuming the kiss. 

2. Zoo Date

Akaashi had not really thought this was a good idea, but Bokuto was insistent that they do it. Visit the zoo.  

Exposure therapy, Bokuto had decided. That’s what he needed. He didn’t want to be afraid of bears, so he wasn’t going to be afraid of bears. So he was going to go to the zoo to look at the bears until he stopped feeling anxious about it. 

Akaashi hated this idea, but had to admit there was some kind of merit to it. Plus, it meant Bokuto was taking him on a zoo date, and at the very least, he could enjoy the panthers and flamingos and iguanas, or whatever else was at the zoo. 

It’s a nice, warm morning, and Bokuto holds his hand loosely as they’re pulled through the little zoo lanes, between savannah enclosures with tall trees and invisible animals that did not want to come out to play. 

It was very hot, animals tended to be smarter than people and not go out at the hottest hours. 

“Hey, don’t you want to take a look at these guys?” Akaashi calls, nodding to an enclosure that did have a handful of antelope or - well, some horned beast Akaashi was not familiar with - in it. “Look at them, they’ve got silly horns.”

Bokuto stops, letting the tension on Akaashi’s arm tug him back around to the fence of the enclosure. 

“Oh, yeah,” he says, peering it. “Stupid looking guys.”

“They… yeah they are a little weird…”

“You know what they are?”

Akaashi looks to the side, to where a family is crowding around the information placard, and he does not feel like being the one adult shoving his way past twelve year olds for Animal Facts and says: “No idea.”

“Mhm.” 

The answer is satisfying enough to Bokuto, it seems.

“So, should we-” Akaashi looks up, and it’s the same moment his arm goes taunt again, and he realizes that he’s being tugged along. “...continue.”

Bokuto is on a mission. A mission for bears. Akaashi would have to wait for his zoo date, it seemed.

Maybe this was for the best. Bokuto hadn’t actually expressed any specific desire to talk about what had happened before, or really engage with it, or regale them with the story. Akaashi had gleaned what he could off of Iwaizumi and Tendou - the former being very pushy, and the later having access to Ushijima, the only one of the five willing to answer questions with any kind of straightforwardness. 

(A terrifying straightforwardness, actually, Tendou had expressed moderate concern over potentially asking a question he didn’t want such a straightforward answer to.)

But Bokuto had fallen into the other camp, beside Daichi and Kuroo, the Haha! Nothing is wrong! Don’t ask me questions! camp. 

He seemed fine. Akaashi was not at all convinced that he was fine. 

But this, him deciding he didn’t want to be afraid of bears anymore, him wanting to go see one, this seemed… like a step, in a direction, whatever that was worth. 

The bear enclosure is easy to find - it’s very popular, after all. They have three black bears, apparently, somewhere in this vast enclosure. Akaashi watches Bokuto trail his fingers along the links of the chain fence, one of three main layers separating them from the beasts. 

They pause to stare into the enclosure, but can’t spot them, so Bokuto slowly starts winding his way along the perimeter, heading around the area and towards a little shelter of sorts, filled with bear informational postings and images. 

They duck out of the sun, and Akaashi’s eyes adjust slowly to the darkness, as Bokuto pulls away now to look through the glass and try and spot the bears. 

He wanders his eyes over the information. This biome and this diet and this life cycle. Bokuto stands at the glass and stares. Akaashi reads a little bit more, before following him over and putting a hand on his back. 

“See them?” he asks. 

“No.”

“That’s too bad.”

“It’s not fair,” he replies, practically cutting him off. “I just… I want to… I just wanted to see them. To prove that I’m… not… afraid of them-”

Akaashi sets his cheek down on Bokuto’s shoulder, looking up at him. 

“This really is bothering you, huh?”

“...yeah.”

“You really wanted to see the stupid bears that badly? I, personally, wouldn’t ever want to see them again but-”

“Well that’s probably because you weren’t there.”

It’s… 

Actually, it’s almost mean. Akaashi doesn’t take it as such, of course not, he knows better than that. But in all of Bokuto’s mood swings, he’s always been internally driven. This, though, this is… this is about Akaashi, he’s annoyed at his perception of things, his input - this isn’t just a shallow moodswing because he didn’t get what he wanted. 

Akaashi takes his hand. “Let’s go sit down.”

It’s loud and busy in the zoo, and Akaashi takes them to sit down on a little log bench, and Bokuto slouches forward to stare at the seemingly empty bear enclosure. He waits for a little bit, let’s him languish in his misery as he often wanted to do, before saying:

“Will you tell me why you… why you wanted to see the bears so badly?”

“I told you… I… I want to prove that I’m better than them, that I’m not afraid of them-” he starts, before shaking his head and leaning forward to put his head down. “That’s all.”

“I mean… I don’t think anyone would blame you, if you were a little afraid, but… Bo, you… from the story I’d heard, you chased that bear off, you’re… a hero. I don’t… understand why this is weighing on you like it is.”

“Of course you don’t understand,” he mutters. 

“...will you help me understand?”

He’s quiet and contemplative far longer than he usually is, before in a very miserable voice, mumbling:

“I should have run to draw it away from Oikawa.”

“...draw it away from Oikawa?”

Bokuto lifts his head, before saying: “Yeah, so… when the bear attacked, it… it was corner Oikawa, who was injured, and… wouldn’t have survived, and Daichi was running at the head of the charge, and I was only a little bit behind him, and… I knew… When I saw what was happening, I knew what needed to be done, I… I thought about doing exactly what Daichi did, about screaming, throwing something, doing anything to get it’s attention off Oikawa because he… was basically the only one of us without a fighting chance, not hurt like he was, but…”

Akaashi frowns, lifting a hand up to squeeze his shoulder. “It’s okay, that you… that it went after Daichi - okay, well, that’s odd phrasing, I just mean - you don’t have to feel guilty about it not going after you…”

“I don’t… that’s not… quite right…” he groans, before flopping over and thumping his head into Akaashi’s shoulder. “I didn’t do anything to get the bears attention. Daichi moved so fast, it… it was like… he saw the situation, and he didn’t even consider that it would hurt himself, he just leapt into action. And I… I was just… I froze. I spent too long thinking, too long panicking. And then… and then Daichi was running and… sure, I got myself together eventually, and I know… I know I did good, but… if I hadn’t frozen… maybe I would have caught up to Daichi quicker, and saved him some pain, maybe I could have been the one running, I might not have tripped, I may have been better for it, I don’t know, I just… I keep thinking about the fact that I froze. I just froze and…” 

He shakes his head suddenly, pulling away and leaning over to wrap his arms over the back of his neck. “I don’t want to freeze.”

Akaashi slouches slightly, fiddling his fingers together and wishing - begging - the universe to give him an answer that would make this easier. But nothing comes. 

“It’s oka-”

“Don’t tell me it’s okay!”

Akaashi shuts his mouth. 

“I… what if Daichi hadn’t been there? What if Daichi wasn’t there, and we all saw the bear, and we froze, and Oikawa was dead because of it? What if next time it’s you, and we’re alone, and I can’t move fast enough to stop you from getting hurt. I just… I don’t want to be that person, I need to know that I’m someone that can… protect you, or… everyone, my friends, my family… I…”

Akaashi stays quiet for a moment, before taking a slow breath and mumbling: 

“I feel safe with you.”

Bokuto lifts his head to look at him. 

“And as far as I understand the story, you saved Daichi’s life, so… I’m sure he feels safe with you, too. There’s nothing wrong if you feel safer with someone else around, too. You don’t have to protect the whole world, Bo.”

Bokuto seems to let this sink in for a moment, before reaching out and taking Akaashi’s hand. 

“I want to spend my whole life with you,” he says, softly. “I don’t want that to be cut short.”

Akaashi smiles, squeezes his hand in return, and leans in close to kiss his cheek. 

“I’m not going anywhere,” he promises, even though he knows that’s not something he can control. “Now, would you feel better if we went to look at the owls?”

“... yes.”

Akaashi laughs, and takes the opportunity to tilt Bokuto’s face to kiss him properly, letting it linger for a moment before pulling back. 

Hopefully it would be a long time before his promise was broken. 

(He’ll do everything in his power to make sure it never is.)

3.

The sun is shining and the birds are whistling. Daichi is trying to balance several bags of groceries in his arms at once as he leaves the store, having planned this very poorly. 

There’s a woman out front of the store with a little stand covered in pictures of cute little animals. Daichi eyes the brown bear on the side distrustfully as she catches his attention, and notes him staring. 

She says: “Hey! We’re collection donations for the wildlife relief fund, there are tons of little critters all over the world really struggling with climate change, do you-”

Daichi is already wandering over to her, still struggling with his bags, and now trying to get even more of them into one arm, so he could dig around in his back pocket. 

“Oh, sir, be careful-” 

He manages to figure it out, and drops a note into her little collection jar. 

“Oh, thank you so much!” she laughs. “The bears thank you.”

“The what?”

“The bears! We’re collecting for a wildlife reservation that specializes in rehabilitating bears that have been displaced due to climate or weather- Oh, sir-”

Daichi crouches down, to be at eye level with the image of the brown bear. 

“You got my money this time, fucker, but I won’t make that mistake again.”

“...sir?”

4. Earth Sciences

There’s a little river that runs out back behind Shiratorizawa Academy. The school uses it, mostly, for annoying biology projects or art classes. Students get ushered down the green hill and beneath its sparse and vaguely dying trees, and are asked to collect dirt and water and twigs to then take back to the class and pretend they know how to analyze. 

Tendou has noticed, with increased frequency, the hesitation Ushijima takes over the threshold of the forest. They have one final project to do, for this bastard biology class in this stupid prep school, and it’s been an absolute headache for all parties involved. In fact, the only saving grace of the whole affair at all is that they were allowed to pick their partners, and Ushijima doesn’t have any other friends in that class. 

(It also, he would note, had become much, much better since Ushijima had come back from the woods, not for any specific reason except for that he’d been a lot… more involved, in their relationship. Tendou hadn’t thought for a second that Ushijima would ever do something like, say, invite him out to lunch over the weekend just to listen to him talk for hours on end, but life had been, at least for little Tendou, quite nice recently.)

But they have to go back into the little woods, to get another dirt sample, because some kid knocked over the whole damn tray and now their Saturday was restarting the experiment. 

And Ushijima hesitates, just for a second, a pause with his foot in midair, until suddenly his foot goes down and it’s like nothing’s happened. Tendou notices him glancing through the trees, to the outline of the school up on its hill, as if keeping a mental map of its location, reminding himself it’s still there. 

Tendou wonders if he’d let him hold his hand, but decides that, at the end of the day, their weird friend-dating situation was probably best left up to Ushijima’s pacing. 

“Dirt,” Ushijima says, after a second, coming to a stop. Tendou follows him over to look down at the loose patch of earth, at one of the sites their teacher had required them to use. 

“Dirt,” Tendou agrees. 

Ushijima points across the river. “Dirt.”

“Dirt,” he echoes back, taking the cue to grab one of the sample kits and take off, quite easily skipping across low, wet stones in the river to reach the other bank, and heading up to the second site. 

Ushijima crouches down where he was, to set to work there. 

Honestly, under other conditions, digging in the dirt wouldn’t be so bad. It only takes him a second to get it all together - Ushijima is much more meticulous about it.

The third site is just down the bank a little way, so Tendou wanders off to keep collecting, humming to himself as he picks his way through the undergrowth. He’s just about finished there when he hears Ushijima actually shout:

“Tendou!”

It makes him jump, and he smacks his shoulder against a tree as he tries to stumble around and figure out what the fuck he did to get shouted at, a vocalization Ushijima is not typically capable of making. 

“Ey! What’s the-” Tendou’s words die on his tongue as he locks eyes on Ushijima, who's calming down now but has such a wide-eyed look of panic that Tendou can’t bring himself to scold him. “Woah, hey-”

And without nearly as much care, Ushijima walks through the river and approaches him, still with that tense, frightened look. It is an odd look, to see across his face. He didn’t know the man felt any kind of fear. 

“Hey, it’s okay,” Tendou says, reaching out to grab his elbow.

“...please, do not wander off,” Ushijima replies. 

“I’m fine,” he says. “I just… I just went… to the third site, and… now that we got all the stupid dirt, we can head back to basecamp and relax a little.”

Ushijima might have wanted to say something else, but just shakes his head after a second, pulling away from him to turn around again and start walking back towards the exit from the little creek. 

“Hey! I’m sorry! Why’re you mad at-”

He wasn’t worried about you getting lost.

Tendou’s intuition is always good. It strikes him in that moment that Ushijima hadn’t shouted his name because he was worried he was lost. 

“Sorry, sorry,” he continues, absolutely at a loss for how to gracefully handle this entirely new problem he was facing. “Sorry, I won’t wander off again.”

Ushijima gives him half of a nod, but keeps his eyes fixed ahead. 

“Will you slow-” Tendou grabs his arm, and Ushijima almost immediately yanks it back, turning around to face him. “...down…?”

“I would like to leave, now,” Ushijima replies. “I do not like this creek.”

“Hey, hey-” Tendou reaches out again, to take him by the arms and slowly turn him around, to start walking again. “It’s okay… you… look, we’re just around the bend from Shiratorizawa, you got nothing to be concerned-”

“Don’t… don’t do that, don’t baby me,” he mutters. 

“I… I’m not trying to, I just-”

“I get that you want to be helpful but I just… really want to-” and then Ushijima trails off, and Tendou is afraid he’s just shut down entirely, as he had, on occasion, done, but after a second, Tendou turns his attention to what he’s looking at. 

It’s just the woods.

“We… we can go, then,” Tendou says, softly. “Let’s-”

Ushijima turns to the left, suddenly over his concern with leaving the woods apparently, and heads over to a more heavily overgrown patch of ferns and moss at the wood of a cluster of trees. 

“Ush-ah, fuck it,” Tendou says, trotting after him. “Hey, buddy, not sure why-”

“Can I ask you a favour?” Ushijima says, crouching down in front of a mossy tree. “I need you to make a guess.” 

“...alright, well this is new and terrifying-”

“Please.”

Tendou swallowed, before catching up and crouching down beside him, to see what he’s looking at. Amid the moss and ferns, he can see thin, spindly white mushrooms growing up in a cluster. 

“...what’s the guess?”

“You can’t joke or explain yourself. I don’t want to hear your reasoning. I just want your intuition.”

“Bold of you to assume I’ve ever been reasonable, but go on. I will guess.”

Ushijima points down at the mushrooms. “Are these edible?” 

Tendou blinks, then looks down at the mushrooms. 

“Nah.” 

Ushijima - visibly - shudders some kind of release of energy, nodding as he closes his eyes. 

“Okay,” he says. 

“Okay?” Tendou echoes, leaning into him. 

And Ushijima sways slightly, before thumping his head into Tendou’s shoulder, hair brushing against his neck. Tendou feels his face heat up, one arm lifting to steady him like this. 

“Everything’s okay now,” Tendou mumbles, and this time Ushijima doesn’t have anything against it. “You’re fine, everything’s fine… the mushrooms are… fine…”

He’s not sure what he’s doing. 

After a moment of silence, Ushijima says: “When we were in the woods, Bokuto found some mushrooms, that… I thought might be edible - they looked very much like these ones. Oikawa… said no, he thought they were poisonous, and… we were so hungry, I… I threw them out, and I just…”

“Wait, you’re… glad I said no?”

“I do not often trust my intuition,” he mumbles. “I am glad to know that I was right to defer to someone else then, too. I wouldn’t have been able to bear it if my lack of confidence in mycology led to us going hungrier than we had to.” 

This makes Tendou laugh, and he tilts his head down, to feel his hair tickle his nose. “Well, these aren’t those mushrooms-”

“No, but knowing that should you have been there you would have advised the same makes me feel better about listening to Oikawa.”

“You don’t trust Oikawa’s intuition?”

“Not as much as I trust you.”

“... don’t eat mushrooms you find in the wild.”

“I will not.”

5.

Daichi reaches the top of the stairs, nudging his way into their little apartment, eyes focused on his phone. He kicks the door shut behind him, shuffling to the kitchen to put his bags down, blinking at the message. 

“Hey, welcome home,” Suga greets, appearing from around the corner, though he also looks distracted by his phone. “How was it?”

“...Bokuto wants us to all get matching tattoos of a bear,” Daichi replies, looking up at him. 

“Oh, that answers my next question.”

“...and that would be..?”

“Why Akaashi just sent me a text that reads ‘do not let Daichi encourage the bear idea,’ in all capitals.” 

6. Bear Attack

God, this summer just couldn’t get any better. Then again, their metric for good was wildly different than it was a few months ago. The little group was, at least temporarily, what everyone considered ‘unsupervised,’ that is to say, without any of their paramours present to prevent catastrophic events taking place. 

But things were great. The sun was shining, the birds were chirping, the world was at peace and they were in the middle of a very public and very busy outdoor shopping center in Tokyo, enjoying their lunch. Daichi actually hasn’t felt this good in a long time. It’s actually starting to feel like things were improving. Not just… going.

It really helps that he just really enjoys having food in front of him. Bokuto and him have been swapping little snacks all day, but lunch is an event. 

“Iwaizumi is… absolutely unbearable,” Oikawa is in the middle of saying. “That fucking bastard made me fall in love with him before I could realize it.”

“Is he still bothering you about the surgery?” Kuroo asks, tilting his head to the side. 

“It was four weeks ago! My knee is fine, and he’s still doting on me like I’m Bambi, I don’t understand what his problem is,” Oikawa says, punctuating the sentence by sucking on the straw of his drink.

“I’m not… I’m not fragile.”

“Ugh,” Bokuto agrees. “I know, right? Akaashi keeps trying to get me to talk about my feelings, and he looks so sweet, and I wanna listen to him, but… it makes me feel like…”

“Like we’re broken?” Ushijima supplies, crossing his arms. He’s leaned back in his chair, mostly done with his lunch now, and Daichi is eyeing his leftovers and wondering if he can get away with stealing it. 

“Yes!” Oikawa says. “Like, okay, I get it, I get that he’s just concerned, and I love him, I really do, I just… I can’t stand feeling like a doll in a glass display case.”

Daichi hummed, nodding slightly as he listened. 

“What about you?” Kuroo says, reaching over with a foot to nudge his knee. “Are you getting hounded by Suga nowadays?” 

“I don’t dare complain,” Daichi chuckles. “I know he’s… probably the best thing in my life, I wouldn’t dare speak ill of him.”

“You’re not,” Oikawa says. “But come on, does - okay, does anyone else get treated like a little baby animal when they wake up in the night. I swear, I had… okay, I have nightmares sometimes, but like, it’s like Iwaizumi has attuned himself to my psyche and will wake up with me, and start cooing and fawning, and-”

Daichi nods to him. “Ah, you and Iwaizumi are sharing a bed that often?”

Oikawa pauses, shutting his mouth quickly as his face starts to flush red. “Uhm. excuse you, we’ve been friends for ages, we’ve shared a bed since we were ten, it’s not unusual-”

“Yeah but now you’re dating, which is like an entirely different genre of sleeping in the same bed,” Bokuto agrees, leaning on the table. 

“Okay, well, shut up,” Oikawa says. “I didn’t come here to be judged by you idiots. I came here to complain about my perfectly lovely boyfriend.” 

Kuroo snickers, nodding slightly. “As much as I agree with Daichi’s sentiment, Kenma’s whole ‘never letting you set foot near a tree again,’ thing really is a little overbearing… I’m still the same person I was before, y’know? But it’s like I’m different, in his eyes, now.” 

“Exactly!” Oikawa says, pointing at him. “That’s exactly it. I don’t want to be fawned over, I’m not broken. They just need to get it through their heads that we’re okay.” 

“Are you really having no issues with Suga?” Bokuto says, after a moment of silence, when he turns his attention back to Daichi. “He seemed… really… on it, every time we spoke. And I know he texts Akaashi a lot…”

Daichi is quiet for a moment, before saying: “I… I guess… I mean, I… really appreciate just having him around, I really don’t want to sound like I’m complaining about a good thing, but-”

Do it,” Oikawa hisses, leaning forward on the table. “Do it. You’re not better than us.”

Daichi laughs softly, before saying: “I guess he has started doing this thing where he makes, like… a whimpering noise every time I make a joke? It’s… like the other day, we were walking, and I passed a store that had a bear in its logo, some kind of clothing store, whatever, and I kinda… pointed at it, and said ‘oh I think I’m banned from there,’ and instead of laughing, he like… held my hand? He made this really sad noise and held my hand tighter and it was… it was… really… so not what I was trying to do.”

“Oh my god, exactly,” Kuroo agrees, stretching out across the table. “I feel like I have to tip toe around jokes and humour because Kenma gets all weird about it. He’s my best friend! If I wanna send him pictures of bears and ask which ones he thinks would have gotten Daichi properly, that’s my right!” 

“Hey,” Daichi says. 

"You want to talk about nightmares?” Ushijima says, cutting in from where he’s been sitting, arms crossed, staring at them. “I don’t even have to sleep in the same bed as Tendou for him to know I’m having a nightmare. I woke up in the middle of the night, it was three in the morning, and I got a text immediately asking if I was sleeping alright. He’s like a… it’s very impressive, but I’d like him to learn how to turn it off.” 

“I cannot imagine if Akaashi could sense my emotions,” Bokuto says. 

“He can,” Kuroo replies. “That’s not even related to this conversation, just trust me, Akaashi is basically plugged into your emotional state at all times.”

“Yeah it’s a little different then Tendou’s thing,” Oikawa says, followed by: “But I did see him once see a calendar, say ‘oh, it’s May,’ and then immediately pull out a phone to call you, so the man is operating on a different wavelength.” 

“...fair-”

“Bear! Bear!”

It is instant and terrifying, how everyone is suddenly moving at the same time. Daichi doesn’t even have the brainpower necessary to process everything that’s going on, because when he hears someone screaming the word ‘bear,’ he tries to stand up so fast he knocks his chair back, sending it clattering to the ground - coincidentally the same way that Ushijima, who’d already been testing fate by leaning back, hits the ground as well. Then, panicking, as someone shrieks:

“Bear!”

He ends up jumping up onto the table as if that would do any good, and manages to process just enough to see Kuroo absolutely booking it away to get a better vantage point, head whipping around. Oikawa looks absolutely sick with fear, and though he was frozen in place for a second eventually, shakily, scrambles to join Daichi up on the table. 

Bokuto is holding a chair above his head. 

A very fluffy brown dog goes racing through the outdoor area, barking and happily annoying patrons, as the young woman who’d drop his leash races by: 

“Bear!” she cries. “Stop it! Leave them alone!” 

The dog comes sniffing over, and Bokuto is staring at it, trembling, the chair held above him, and the owner finally catches up, apologetic, but immediately catching sight of him and a look of alarm crossing her face. 

“Ah, please don’t hurt him, he’s harmless, I promise-” she stammers. It looks like it takes Bokuto a lot of willpower to put the chair down, and then with very shaky hands, he crouches to pet the dog. 

“Sorry,” he says, as he lets the woman pick up the leash again. 

He hears Oikawa groan, pressing his face down into the table. 

Daichi tries to get off of it, slowly and with as much dignity as he had left, but his whole body feels numb and weak, and he’s sick to the stomach now. 

A glance over at Ushijima, who’s using one hand to absolutely crush the other with an iron grip, and over to Kuroo, who’s quite a distance away and looking shell shocked, confirms that none of them had gotten out of that without a racing heart and skyrocketing blood pressure. 

His brain is spinning. 

The woman is still speaking, as his legs go weak and he has to sit on the ground. He can feel the blood pounding beneath his skin, hot and flushed and pressurized with stress and terror. The dog, seeing a potential new friend, tries to go over to sniff at him and meet him, and when he feels the cold nose touch his arm it’s like lightning cracking through his body, and he flinches away from it on reflex alone. 

“Oh, I’m sorry,” the woman keeps going, tugging him away. “I didn’t realize you were afraid of dogs.”

I’m not, Daichi wants to say, as he curls his arms up over his head and shuts his eyes, trying to stop shaking. I’m not, I’m not, I’m not afraid of dogs. I’m not afraid of anything.

He hears someone resetting the chairs, cleaning up the scene they’d made. He knows everyone in the mall is looking at them. 

He feels arms on his elbows, standing him up, and he manages to uncurl enough to follow along. 

“Hey, it’s okay,” he hears Kuroo mumbling. “It was a stupid dog.”

It was all funny, just a couple of minutes ago. They were all feeling good, having such a nice time. 

He opens his eyes, and lets Kuroo wrap his arms around him, hugging him tight against his chest. 

“We’re okay,” he hears him mumbling, the same stupid sentiment they’d just been complaining about the other’s making. “It’s fine, you’re okay, just take a breath…”

Daichi doesn’t even know why he’s still shaking. 

It wasn’t even a real bear. 

7.

Suga peers out from underneath the heavy blankets of their bed, to watch as Daichi gets changed for his early shift, buckling his belt before reaching for the blue uniform shirt. 

He doesn’t flinch, when he takes off his clothes anymore. He doesn’t shy away from turning around and showing his back to him - he seems happier, now, though maybe it’s just because so much time has passed, he’d had a chance to get used to it. 

Suga hasn’t stopped noticing it, but he certainly sees it differently now. Whereas before the scarring felt like a constantly, visual reminder of everything he had come so close to losing, of a terrifying, violent encounter Daichi had barely survived, now… well, now he struggled to even remember what his back had looked like without the harsh lines. Maybe, if he really tried, he could summon the memory of an eighteen year old Daichi changing for volleyball practice. But that didn’t even feel like him anymore. 

They hadn’t even shared their first kiss, before the attack had occurred - by all real accounts, this was the only version of Daichi that Suga had ever been with. 

He pushes himself out of bed quietly, sneaking across the room on silent feet, just in time to grab the shirt before Daichi could get it over his shoulders. 

“Oh?”

But before Daichi can turn around, Suga has wrapped his arms tightly around his middle, peppering kisses to his shoulder. 

“Someone’s a little clingy this morning,” Daichi teases, which makes Suga chuckle. 

“Maybe,” he agrees. “But you got out of bed without waking me, which means you owe me morning attention.” 

“I have to go to work, you know that.”

“Your work is more important than me?” 

“That is not what I said,” Daichi scoffs, and Suga closes his eyes, taking in a slow breath as felt the natural rhythm of his partner breathing, in and out, waiting for him. After a second, Daichi prompts: “Is something wrong? You’re awfully sweet this morning.”

“Nothings wrong,” he murmured. “Just… thinking about how much I love you, that’s all.”

“Is that so?” Daichi teased, and Suga nods again, pulling back just slightly to run his palms up his back, following the curve of his spine. He doesn’t flinch away, he doesn’t turn around or jump - he used to, Suga remembers. He used to tense up and freak out, always so embarrassed, so self-conscious of each touch, each set of eyes on him. 

And now…

Well, maybe someone else might not get away with it, but Suga has manages to teach him that when he is running his hands up his back, it is to try and coerce him back into bed for the morning, and not because he is paying attention to any imperfection. 

And, of course, Suga is very persuasive, so when Daichi tosses the shirt to the floor and turns around to sweep him up into a hug, it is with a grumbled: “If they fire me for being late, you’re gonna be in trouble.”

“You promise?” Suga replies, which only serves to incite Daichi to bend and pick him up, grunting slightly as he carries him back to the bed. 

8.

“Hey, now that you’re fully healed - again - can I ask you a question that might offend you?” Kuroo says one morning, looking across the table at him. “I’ve just always been curious.”

“Shoot,” Daichi replies, paying more attention to the game on his phone. 

“The bear, or Adam?” 

Daichi slowly lifts his head, then slowly turns to look at Kuroo. 

“Like… which one do I prefer?”

“Well… I guess like… which one was worse? Like if you had to pick one to go another round with, who’d it be?” 

“Oh, Adam, definitely. The bear was way worse,” Daichi replies, evidently having thought about this before. 

“Really?” Kuroo says. “Huh. I would have thought, like… the bear is just an animal, right? But isn’t the psychology of Adam way scarier? Like at least Mrs. Momma Bear was just doing her thing, y’know?” 

“Yeah, but… like the bear would have killed me if Bo and you guys weren’t there,” Daichi replies. “Adam ain’t got nothing on me. I already beat that motherfucker once, I’d do it again.”

“Hmm.”

9. A Perfect Beach Day (Cont’d)

As the day wears on, the boys that had come out to enjoy the sun and the ocean waves grow more lethargic. They tire out, the sun starts to dip and the air starts to cool and it is still perfect, but it’s getting late.

Kuroo has dragged Kenma out into the ocean, both of them looking like drowning victims as they stumble and chase each other through the cold waters. Oikawa had wandered off a bit, and settled to sit in wet sand with his toes wiggling in the waves, and though they’re too far away to be heard, Iwaizumi is clearly talking about something, sitting beside him with one hand waving around to make his point. 

Bokuto is shaking sand out of his hair, and talking loudly to Akaashi, who is only about halfway done counting and packing everything up, continuously distracted by his boyfriend's antics. A little way down the beach, with red across his face from the sun, Tendou is dragging Ushijima around between shells and little bits that he finds, excitedly showing them off before adding to the pile that Ushijima seems at a loss for what to do with, choosing to just hold them in his hands. 

Suga can see them all slowly beginning to make their way back, but the constant distracting of each other makes it hard to actually get going. 

He feels a hand wrap around his waist, and jumps slightly as he turns to find Daichi having snuck up on him, planting a kiss on his cheek before settling in to hold him back against his chest. Suga leans into it, closing his eyes for a moment before opening them again to focus out across the ocean, to the wide, blue water and slowly darkening waves, as orange and reds and gold begins to creep over the horizon to the west. 

“We should go pack up,” Daichi mumbles after a moment. 

“I know,” Suga says, softly, not wanting to break the moment by speaking too loudly. “But I kind of want to stay here for a little bit longer.”

“We can always come back, there will be other good beach days.”

Suga isn’t sure that’s true - well, obviously there will be other good beach days, but he doesn’t think they’ll ever be able to come back to this day. This perfect one, with everyone together and the sun hot and the waves cold and life… calm.

He feels Daichi kiss his cheek again, but before he can say anything, he hears Bokuto shout:

“Everyone! Come on, gather ‘round!”

“Mhm?”

They both turn, just in time to see Oikawa and Iwaizumi dragging themselves over, looking curious, and Ushijima and Tendou hear them and do the same, putting down their odd collection of shells to head back over. 

Kuroo and Kenma come in from the water, laughing still and shaking their hair out, and Bokuto is excitedly trying to get them in even closer. 

“What is it?” Oikawa laughs eventually, once close enough. 

“Let’s take a photo,” he says. “All together. I don’t think we have a photo all together… I don’t think my arm is long enough, though… here-”

“Here,” Ushijima cuts in, as Bokuto has begun a dance of trying to figure out if he can position a selfie that is wide enough to fit all ten people. “Let’s head up to the fence-”

“To the fence…?”

But they all follow along, across the beach a ways until Ushijima was able to set the phone propped up on the post of the wooden fence, looking out over the beach. He spends a little bit of time fiddling around with the settings and positioning it correctly, before pressing the camera on a timer and heading back over to them. 

“You have to hurry!” Tendou laughs, trying to wave him along. 

“Ten seconds is a long time,” Ushijima replies. 

Daichi wraps his arm more tightly around Suga, tugging him in against him as everyone else piles in, leaning their weight on each other and poking to try and distract them or ruin the photo - Suga actually misses the sound of the shutter, since he gets distracted by the sound of Bokuto laughing. 

“Go! Go check it!” Oikawa calls, as Ushijima heads back towards where the camera is. “Make sure we look good.”

“I’m sure everyone looks fine,” Ushijima calls back, and at the same time, there’s a piercing shriek of sorts, the sound that a child might make in excitement, and Suga turns around as he hears a little boy shout:

“Mom! Look at that man’s back!”

Suga feels an anxious pit in his stomach, as Daichi turns around as well, and he’s already preemptively trying to figure out how to undo the damage, he’d only barely been able to convince Daichi to keep his shirt off to swim, how-

He sees the kid, and sees Daichi see the kid, and the kid is smiling ear to ear, probably about eight years old, bouncing up on his toes, waving his arms excitedly to get Daichi’s attention, so that once he had it he could point at his face, the entire half of which was marked by a reddish brown birthmark, or scar, of sorts, that covered most of his cheek and his lips. 

He’s beckoning to himself, like hey! Me too! It’s it cool we’re the same?

The mother looks mortified, waving apologetically and trying to pull him away. 

Suga looks over to Daichi, wondering if he even needed to say anything, but finds that Daichi is already smiling ear to ear, waving with all he had to return the energy and watching the kid laugh and get dragged off by his mother. 

“Yeah, I guess it’s not so bad,” Daichi says, after a moment, watching the little kid disappear down the beach. 

Suga smiles, setting his cheek down against Daichi’s shoulder. 

“It’s really not,” he agrees, softly. “Things are gonna be alright.”

10.

“Hey, check it out,” Suga laughs, scooting in beside Daichi on the couch to show him his phone. “March 23rd, it’s World Bear Day, time to celebrate bears.” 

Daichi frowns, looking up at him. “Nobody should be celebrating bears. Why the hell do bears need a special day?”

“Well the website said it was to raise awareness and support conservation efforts, you know…

“Trust me, I’m plenty aware of bears.”