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Sakusa’s always had vivid dreams, but as he wakes up in a bed that isn’t his own, he knows this one is different right from the start.
Most of the time his dreams are like anyone else’s - nonsensical situations like pushing a shark away from his kayak, clambering down an apartment building, wandering along a street market. They change at a moment’s notice and you don’t question the dream logic. Baking sourdough with a coworker and then walking through a forest. Running through his childhood neighborhood only to meet an infinite shoreline of the sea. Reading a book and the words are all in the wrong places. He has recurring ones, too — some weeks, he returns night after night to a dream where he’s fighting his way through a field of grass towards two houses on a hill and he wakes up before getting there.
He approaches dreams like most people do. He remembers some, gets scared by others, finds some nonsensical or hilarious. He forgets many.
But on occasion, some of them feel frighteningly real - like he’s closed his eyes and opened them into a different reality. There’s no distinct marker for these types of dreams; the only common denominator is that it feels real, and it isn’t about being able to control the dream like a lucid dream. Dream logic is just like real logic when he’s in one of these; there’s no shifting into some other setting or feeling the blank dream emotion of “this is normal and fine” to something that only dreams can create.
Sakusa blinks bleary eyes open and knows this is one of those almost-maybe-alternate-reality-ones, probably brought on by the lack of sleep he’s been getting throughout the week. He’d basically fed himself, cleaned up, and crawled into bed at 9PM on a Friday night after pulling a frankly stupid amount of overtime problem solving another programmer’s code before it broke down the entire city’s payment systems.
He’s so tired. But in this new bed, he’s comfortable - he has half a mind to drift off again, but since his brain’s clocked that he’s dreaming, sleep won’t come.
He blinks a few more times and tries to get a bearing on his surroundings. This dream feels more alive somehow. There’s a warmth in the air and the sunlight seeping into the bedroom illuminates dust motes floating in the air. The light is concentrated more outside of the open bedroom door, presumably towards the kitchen. Sakusa slowly sits up and examines the room he’s in.
The duvet is a pale grey and is cool to the touch; he thinks the thread count on the bedsheets is high from how soft it is, and he’s cushioned comfortably on a memory foam mattress. The bed is tucked into a corner of the room. The room has a closet and dresser and a cute metal lamp that looks like a tulip on the bedside table. A closed book lies cover side down next to it, whose back cover text actually makes full coherent sentences.
Most strikingly, Sakusa notices the second pillow on the bed next to him, the side of the bed neatly made. This solidifies that this dream is unlike regular ones.
It’s not that he’s always alone in his dreams. He’s had dreams with people in it, from strangers to his family and friends. In this one, he knows someone is waiting for him in the kitchen; the expectation to be out there pulls at him like a magnet.
Sakusa rises and resists that pull to explore instead.
The staircase landing opens to a bathroom and another guest bedroom. He has half a thought to look at himself in the mirror, but backs away from the bathroom for the very silly but dream-logical reason that there might be something terrifying looking back at him.
The kitchen down the stairs glows ever brighter. He heads down the stairs.
He turns the corner and sees first a kitchen island that has some high bar stools. The kitchen window is angled behind it and the sun cuts straight through, hitting him directly. He can feel it warm the buttoned-up pyjamas he has on. The smell of coffee permeates the air, almost humid with it.
A man turns from the stove that’s out of Sakusa’s field of vision towards the kitchen island with two mugs. Sakusa jumps a little at the movement, startled. He’s a little shorter than Sakusa, with a floppy mess of blond hair over a dark undercut and broad shoulders underneath a large t-shirt with the arms cut off. Sakusa can see the pull of tanned skin over his torso through an armhole. His sleep shorts have a small tear at one leg's hem.
The man looks toward him, and Sakusa’s breath catches a little in his throat.
He’s handsome. Sleepy eyelids droop over brown eyes turned liquid in the daylight, set in a face with a strong nose and gently sloping jawline. Most striking of all is the soft upwards tilt of the corners of his mouth, already so pleased at the presence of Sakusa awake.
“Gmornin’, honey,” the man says, and uses one hand that isn’t holding his mug to draw Sakusa in by the waist. The heat of his touch sinks through Sakusa’s clothes and he ends up losing all his breath when the man turns his head up and in to brush their mouths together - not quite a full kiss, but a light touch, for the sake of it. Closeness for the sake of it. The man’s cheek slides up against his own as he tucks his face a little into Sakusa’s neck, and Sakusa tries not to shiver. He smells like coffee and a deeper, cleaner scent.
“Hi,” Sakusa mumbles, taken aback by the intimacy but trying to roll with the dream. His voice sounds almost like his own, oddly enough; maybe a little deeper. He makes a note of it, albeit distractedly. It doesn’t help that his - whoever he is in this dream - their partner - is a beautiful man obviously in love. Sue him. Maybe he is a little touch starved in a way where cuddling his cat Ajax back at home isn’t the quite the same. Sakusa takes pride in himself, his work, his family and friendships, and thinks it’s important that a romantic relationship isn’t the miracle to happiness. He can build his own happiness in his own way.
But it would be nice. This - the way this man slots his body into the spaces of his own - is nice.
The man tilts his head back to make eye contact. “Extra sleepy t’day, are we? I heard you wanderin’ th’ house. Were ya sleepwalkin’?”
His voice is scratchy from sleep. Sakusa finds it cute, the way his accent slips over the syllables.
“Uh, maybe,” is what he says in reply, still reeling, and the man quirks a little smile at him before letting him go. Sakusa stares at the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes that signal a handful of decades of laughter. He would guess this man is in his mid-to-late thirties to Sakusa’s own twenty-something.
“Have some coffee, yeah? We don’t have plans t’day. I dunno how we got into having a social event every Saturday for over a month, but even I’m tired. If I know anythin’ about my husband, so is he.” Sakusa’s graced with a knowing look.
The man lifts his hand to scratch at his shoulder and a gold ring on his fourth finger reflects the sunlight. Sakusa glances down at the ring on his left hand that he hasn’t noticed before.
One part of him reminds him that he’s dreaming; that this can’t be real. The other part of him reminds him that he’s dreaming, and he could just keep this going until he wakes up.
“I – ” he starts, and feels a pang of guilt when concern crosses this husband’s brow.
“Hm? What’s up? Ev’rythin’ okay?”
It’s not his husband. It’s so like his brain to dream up someone who isn’t real, but finally strikes his fancy.
Sakusa shakes his head. “I’m not your husband.” He swallows, steps back. The room feels a little colder. “I’m not from here. I started to dream and I woke up here. I’m still dreaming.” A small thread of panic slides up behind his sternum towards his throat. “I’m sorry.”
If this was a regular dream, the reality would have begun splintering about now. This man would turn into some cosmic horror or reveal himself as a serial killer and start a murder chase.
This man does the oddest thing instead: he smiles.
“Oh, I know. This happens t’him every couple of months or so.” He passes Sakusa a mug of coffee and slides the serving plate of cream and sugar cubes towards him. “I’m Atsumu. It’s nice t’meet ya.” He tilts his head to one side, watching Sakusa carefully, and reaches out one hand to offer a handshake.
Sakusa blinks. Several thoughts crowd his mind at once, but what he gets out is, “Every couple of months?” He takes Atsumu’s hand to shake but lets go immediately at the warmth, feeling a little foolish that he’s embarrassed by the touch when he learned what Atsumu’s mouth felt like a minute ago.
Atsumu nods. “My husband’s always had realistic dreams. We assume he goes to some other place and he swaps places with another dreamer for a little while.”
“Wait, so the both of you know about it?” Sakusa watches Atsumu turn around to slide a notebook from a shelf in the pantry and flips it open to a previously written page. He picks up the pen that’s been tucked into the front cover by the pen clip and clicks it.
“He’d tell me about his hyper-realistic dreams, but a different dreamer takin’ his place started happening maybe three and a half years ago.” Atsumu writes down the date, which Sakusa recognizes as correct in his reality; if he woke up the next day, it would be Saturday. They both climb onto the bar stools and Sakusa sets his mug on the counter with a click.
Sakusa mulls this over as Atsumu jots more notes down. “How do you know when it’s someone else?”
“Usually they tell me,” Atsumu says, with a wry smile at Sakusa. “But I can also usually tell before they say so. It’s the same look in his eyes every time; kinda vacant n’ confused. He only looks confused when he’s annoyed with me, so I know when he’s swapped.” This last sentence is said with infinite fondness, and Sakusa knows that this couple riles each other up for the fun of it.
“So I’m in his body.” The realization makes him feel a little odd, like he’s floating.
“Y’didn’t take a look in the mirror?” Atsumu’s eyebrows raise in surprise.
“Have you ever seen a horror movie? No mirrors,” Sakusa says, and gets to see what it looks like when Atsumu cracks up with laughter.
“That’s the same every time too. Everyone refuses to look in the bathroom mirror when they swap.”
“I don’t think you can blame us for that one.” Atsumu shrugs and sips his coffee. It jolts Sakusa into finally adding a little bit of cream and a spoonful of sugar, raising an eyebrow when Atsumu seems to be writing that into the dream journal. He wonders if other dreamers have different coffee preferences.
He doesn’t feel like anything is pulling him back into being awake and resigns himself to being in this dream for now. He might as well try to figure some things out. “Do you have theories on what’s happening?”
“Some,” Atsumu says. “All th’ regular stuff of dream interpretation, startin’ with the Freudian kind. Unconscious desires or unfulfilled wants are revealed to th’ dreamer; maybe there was swappin’ to a different life or experience because the dreamers, including my husband, wanted somethin’.”
Sakusa squints. “Freud did a lot of cocaine,” he says, skeptical. Atsumu snorts and waves his hand.
“Sure, but y’gotta start somewhere. Father of psychology or whatever. We tried interpretin’ where my husband went or who he swapped with as a sign of somethin’ in his life. Swappin’ with a backpacker meant he wanted to be more adventurous, for example. But soon enough, we realized I was meetin’ real people n’ these weren’t normal dreams. He wasn’t dreamin’ of a whole new personality that symbolized a desire or truth in real life. He was the personality.”
Sakusa nods, taking this in. “It makes sense to start with the established dream interpretation theories out there. I always just chalked my dreams up to REM sleep cycles and the beta brain waves, or the brain organizing information while I’m asleep. I think Freud’s a little too focused on penises for my liking.”
“Beta-brain waves,” Atsumu echoes. His smile is teasing. “You’re a neuroscientist?”
Sakusa shakes his head no. “I’m a programmer.”
“A programmer’s into dream interpretation?” Atsumu cocks his head to one side.
“I read,” Sakusa huffs. “I can have interests outside of my work.”
“Sure,” Atsumu says, easy. “What’s work like?”
“I work on databases and security. I pulled a lot of overtime this week – the debit system was glitching out for the city.” He pulls a face, and so does Atsumu in sympathy.
“Cool. Y’always been into th’ computer science stuff? Coding?”
“I like that it’s like a puzzle,” Sakusa says. “I like that I can use the language to solve a problem, or serve a function.” He clears his throat in light self-consciousness as Atsumu writes something down.
“What else are ya into? Y’got a partner? Pets?”
He shakes his head. “No partner. Dating apps are weird,” and at this Atsumu chuckles. “I have a cat, he’s one of my best friends. I play volleyball recreationally.”
At this, Atsumu visibly perks up. “Volleyball? What’s your position?”
“Outside hitter. Since middle school.”
“And y’never went pro?”
“There’s no tragic backstory,” Sakusa says. “I enjoyed it, and maybe I was good enough to go professional, but computer science caught my attention in university.”
Atsumu hums. “Any regrets?”
To this, Sakusa doesn’t miss a beat. “No. Volleyball, or work, my choices – everything has its purpose in my life, is how I see it. Each day, if I can end it knowing I was satisfied with myself if it was my last day alive, I know I’m lucky to feel that way.” He isn't sure why he's telling his life story to a stranger. Something about this whole thing feels safe, gentle.
“Gratitude practice. I don’t think I reached that point of perspective myself ‘till my husband and I got married,” Atsumu says. “My back’s givin’ me some pain lately. ’S too bad I can’t set to you.” He stretches, several joints popping with the effort, and Sakusa lets his gaze float out the kitchen window to not admire the flex of muscle and skin.
Atsumu picks the pen back up from the table. “What d’you think’s happenin’?”
Sakusa turns and watches the steam dissipate in the air from his mug. “I have really realistic dreams too. This usually happens when I’m really tired; I worked a lot this week and fell asleep as soon as I could. I’d say this dream is different than the usual because it feels really – well, real. Parallel universes, maybe.
This is the first time I’ve met someone in them that’s actually held a longer conversation with me as well. I usually don’t speak much in dreams.”
Atsumu smiles and gives a non-committal shrug. “Either way, welcome. I guess it’s good you landed in some random guy’s home instead of the apocalypse or somethin’.”
Sakusa snorts into his cup. “Been there, done that.” The coffee is rich and a little bit acrid. It’s like his senses are heightened in this dream state.
He isn’t sure how much time he has left in this dream and steers the conversation back to figuring this situation out. “Who else has showed up in this way?”
“I can tell you about th’ last few.” Atsumu flips a few pages back in his notebook. “About a year ago someone woke up and wasn’t shy at all about how he knew he was in th’ wrong place. He pretty much didn’t let me get a word in edgewise; he insisted he get back right away and I had to help him because he was definitely, positively married to Iwa-chan in his universe and every universe, and this was a mistake. I had t’ leave him in th’ bedroom so he could sleep and also leave the house ‘cause I was laughin’ so hard about how upset he was that body he was in was married t’me.”
He flips a few pages and scans before tapping on some of his writing. Shouyou is written in messy pen strokes.
“Then it was a guy speakin’ in Portuguese. I had t’get Google Translate on my phone to understand what he was sayin’, but the funniest thing was that he swapped to fluent Japanese as soon as I spoke into my phone to translate whatever I was sayin’ into Portuguese. Turns out he was dreamin’ in Portuguese because he moved there, but he was born and raised in Japan.”
Sakusa watches Atsumu’s hands smooth down the paper in the notebook. His ring catches on the edge of the paper for a moment.
“Another time there was a rice farmer who got real intrigued by th’ rice cooker.” They both look over at it, sitting innocuously on the kitchen counter. “He’d gone on and on about how he’d never seen such a thing. I looked up a video explainin’ the tech on Youtube, but he got even more confused by my phone.” Atsumu’s grin makes Sakusa start to smile involuntarily.
“That sounds like time travel,” he says, and Atsumu nods in agreement.
“My husband thinks so too. Sometimes he says he travels to other time periods he’s only recognized in movies or history books.”
Sakusa rubs a small bump on his mug with his thumb, worrying the imperfection on the otherwise pristine surface. “It’s like that for me too. I think I woke up in the Taisho era once. Steam engines and everything.”
Atsumu jots down another note. “So maybe timeline jumping, and alternate universe jumping.”
Sakusa’s speaking before he knows he is. “It’s more like falling, since we fall asleep, not jump asleep.”
Atsumu smiles at him like he’s said something really funny. It’s a little intense to be on the receiving side of his attention, like he’s staring straight into the sunbeam from the window – Atsumu is looking at his husband’s face knowing a stranger looks back out at him, and in spite of knowing this, the tenderness of his love bleeds through in every movement Atsumu makes. Almost like he can’t help it. Irrationally, Sakusa feels jealous of the aforementioned husband.
“Sorry,” he hears Atsumu say while Sakusa’s taking a sip of coffee. “That just really sounded like somethin’ my husband would say.”
“How did you two meet?” Sakusa flicks his eyes up to make eye contact and just as quickly shies away to stare again at the notebook or his mug.
“We played volleyball in high school and university, n’ went professional. Olympians, too, but now it’s retirement bliss,” Atsumu says, puffing his chest out a little, and Sakusa’s nodding in a bit of awe. He’s part of a recreational volleyball team with Komori, playing once a week. But he’s speaking to an Olympian? He tries to remember who’s currently on the national Japanese team and draws a blank.
“That’s amazing,” he replies. “Did you get on the podium?” He looks around the room, but stops when he notices there’s some art on the walls, but no photographs of Atsumu and his husband. The bedroom also had no photo frames, no identifying vacation trinkets. It’s like the house has been scrubbed of their married life.
Sakusa turns back to Atsumu, who has a look on his face that says he knows what Sakusa has noticed.
“Yeah, th’ gold medals are in our office.” Atsumu tilts his head at Sakusa and narrows his eyes a little.
“The bedroom was also bare of anything that gave you two away,” Sakusa says. “All of that’s on purpose?” There’s a spike of fear that fizzles in his chest. “Why?”
“S’not malicious, I swear,” Atsumu says, raising his hands in surrender. “It was my husband’s idea. We have our photos n’ other memorabilia in our office.” He gestures to a closed door past the living room. “We can go in there, if y’like?”
Part of Sakusa wants to, to prove that Atsumu isn’t lying, that he isn’t going to pull the rug out from under him and actually be a dream serial killer, luring dreamers somehow. But then again – this whole thing is literally unreal for Sakusa – if Atsumu was going to kill him and turn this into a nightmare, Sakusa would just wake up in his own bed.
A larger part of him says that right now, what he feels like doing is talking to Atsumu some more, and leave his relationship with his husband to themselves. He’s the dreamer that’s stumbled upon them, not the other way around.
Plus, he’s getting sleepier. Dream time has no rules the way real time does. When would be the next calm, peaceful dream?
Sakusa shakes his head. “No, it’s fine. I’m curious why your husband would want to hide your life in your office, though.”
Atsumu sighs through a smile. “My husband gets worried about you – the dreamers that stop by. If we left up anythin’ like photos of us together, he thought the dreamers would feel more scared about not being in the right body, or th’ right reality. Our routine is coffee in th’ mornin’, no matter what. If a dreamer woke up instead of him, we figured it would be likelier for them to explore a plain house calmly and make their way down to the kitchen, just like you did.”
He shrugs and fiddles with the pen in his hands, smiling down at it. “It’s funny, how worried he gets about ya. He’s so uptight that I almost couldn’t tell he liked it when I got under his skin. When he told me he loved me, he looked like he was gonna throw up.” Another affectionate eyeroll.
Not for the first time, Sakusa feels a little bit of envy towards Atsumu and his husband. It must be a treasure to know someone so well. To be allowed to be known so deeply that your partner knows how you’d react to things before you do. That they could conjure you up in their own mannerisms, picked up from over a lifetime of loving you.
It’s through this envy that Sakusa says what he says next. “Do you have a favourite dreamer so far?”
Atsumu leans his chin into one hand, with a bit of playfulness. “I think you’re most like my husband, so that makes you th’ favourite. Prickly.”
It’s a mild insult, but the fondness with which Atsumu says that makes Sakusa’s face heat up. Atsumu’s voice is warm with love.
Sakusa says, “I bet you say that to every one of us. Does your husband know you’re a flirt?”
Atsumu outright laughs this time. “There’s nothin’ like a blush on your – his face, I gotta tell ya.” His eyes trace down Sakusa’s jawline. “If I could get paid t’flirt with my husband all day, I’d be the richest man alive.”
“I feel like prickliness should be the normal response to this situation.” Sakusa has to look away.
“Say that to th’ others that have appeared.”
He raises an eyebrow. “What, were they outright screaming?”
Atsumu chuckles again and shakes his head, but sobers. “Some didn’t like the idea of being in his body when I told ‘em. Thought it was fake, tried hurting themselves, or me, to wake up. Those were th’ scary ones.” He’s looking at a point in the distance now, his mind far away.
“The only way t’go back is by fallin’ asleep again. That’s as much as we know. Others pushed the limits and tried to not fall asleep. Call it magic – my husband calls it biology – but everyone needs some sleep. After maybe an hour tops, people just pass out. My poor husband, wakin’ up to bruises when I couldn’t quite break his fall.”
Sakusa imagines this body falling over suddenly. He glances at the clock – it’s been about half an hour. Hopefully when he falls asleep it’ll be back in that really expensive mattress instead of crashing onto the granite countertop of this kitchen island.
“Aren’t you afraid he won’t come back?” he says, a little sad at the idea that someone would try to hurt this body or Atsumu to wake up. The undecorated house and coffee really were a comforting way to realize he was dreaming. “Is he afraid he wouldn’t come back?”
“Sometimes,” Atsumu says. “Like I said, everyone needs t’sleep. Th’ most consistent thing we’ve noticed is that after sleepin’ some, the dreamer and my husband always switch back. I keep my faith in that – in him. Besides, I know he’d try anything to get back here if something was different. He’s mentioned he’s hopped several places before, sleeping in each dream.”
“Like Inception,” they both say at the same time, and share more laughter.
What an odd marriage, Sakusa thinks. He gets his husband all of the time, but sometimes it’s a whole different person.
“What’s marriage like to someone who wakes up as someone else?”
Another soft smile breaks across Atsumu’s face. “Pretty normal, honestly. I just get to chat with someone new for a little while before I get my husband back, learn a little about them. He has some pretty interestin’ adventures himself.”
“How do you know it’s him for sure? No secret handsake? No codewords?” Sakusa is being fully serious, because he’d probably have a breakdown if his spouse swapped his consciousness with another person, but Atsumu is laughing.
“Nah. I dunno, all I can say is that I know it’s him. Somethin’ just tells me so.” Atsumu gives him a rueful smile, noticing the frustration that Sakusa feels furrowing his brow. He just wants to know how it works. Why was he brought here?
“I think it’s cool you’re tryin’ t’figure it out. Most people don’t think this hard about it, too busy bein’ freaked out. Like Iwa-chan guy.”
Sakusa looks up at him. “Have you ever thought about why this happens, instead of just how? If there’s a purpose?”
Atsumu taps the pen on the open notebook. “Used to. My husband n’ I had a whola buncha’ theories, but since the visits are fully out of his control, we decided we'd rather figure out how t'manage them instead of solving them.” He sips more coffee before looking back at Sakusa.
“Most important thing I’ve learned from this is how easy it is t’get t’know someone. Just gotta give it a try.”
The sentence settles in Sakusa’s chest. A marriage where someone else stops by for a visit and a chat. A marriage where their love extends to the strangers that involuntarily intrude on it – welcomed, instead of being turned away – with coffee. Welcomed with love.
Sakusa yawns, wide enough to hear a crack in his jaw. His eyes water with it, suddenly stinging.
“Right on cue,” Atsumu chuckles. “Y’probably should lie down soon or else you’ll break my husband’s nose on the granite, and I’d never forgive you.”
He raises his hand to his nose. The metal of the wedding ring is cool against it. “How often has that happened?”
“Zero.” Atsumu shoots him a joking warning look. “Don’t start the count, or else we’d have to change th’ coffee routine, and I really don’t wanna do that. I’m not alive before my first cup.”
Sakusa smiles back, tentatively. They stand and Atsumu gestures at him to leave the coffee mug on the table, that he’ll clean it.
Sakusa wrings his hands. “Thank you for welcoming me here,” he says, suddenly stiff and formal for the conversation they’d been having. “And for fielding all my questions. If you could pass along the message to your husband when we swap, I’d like to thank him for the thought he put into dreamers. It really was a nice dream.” Atsumu snickers.
“Nice is one way to put it. Don’t tell me y’never had a wet dream before.”
“Non-apocalyptic nice,” Sakusa says, blushing. He can feel the heat of it on his face. Better to leave Atsumu’s husband to deal with his terrible, incorrigible flirting.
Atsumu is laughing. “Sorry, sorry, y’left that one wide open for me. Have a good rest. If y’see my husband anywhere, tell him to hurry up.” Atsumu waves, and Sakusa does his best in this moment to capture him, remember him, golden in the sunlight.
Going upstairs to the bed and sliding in happens almost without Sakusa being in control. His eyelids are so heavy. Before he knows it, he feels the room fading out of his perception.
The last thing he registers is footsteps padding in and warm hands tucking the duvet around him, brushing hair from his forehead. A kiss is placed on the highest point of his cheekbone, and a final sentence filters into his ears:
“See you when you wake up, Omi-Omi.”
Sakusa doesn’t dream for a few weeks after, which is seriously unusual for him. When he sleeps, he closes his eyes, it goes black, and then he opens his eyes to a new day.
Over these weeks of not dreaming, he tries to unpack the last thing Atsumu said to him. He replays their conversation in his mind – he never told Atsumu what his name was, nor did Atsumu ask. How did he know?
He’s on his way out of a café with a fresh new notebook and a coffee in his hand to chronicle the instance and start a journal for his other dreams. He’s lifting his takeout coffee up towards his mouth as he pushes the door open, and just as he’s turning to his left with the door closing behind him, he’s barreled into by someone who’s looking down at their phone and trips over a raised section of the crumbling sidewalk.
The arm holding his coffee is pushed into his chest as their bodies collide – the lid pops off the cup from being squished, and Sakusa gets coffee down his white-button up while the other person goes down to the ground with a vividly colourful string of swear words.
Sakusa hisses and pulls his shirt away from his chest, hot liquid soaking into the linen. The rest of it, a river from his fallen cup, seeps into the sidewalk cracks to nourish the dandelions growing there.
He’s turning to ask if the person is alright when it feels like his heart stops in his chest.
Groaning with embarrassment and pain, Atsumu – younger than the one he met – is dusting off his shirt and pants as he gets up. The same blond hair, tan skin, and deep brown eyes make Sakusa freeze up. He looks up at Sakusa, and they both gawk at each other for a beat.
“Damn,” Atsumu says. “What a face to fall for.”
Sakusa gestures with one hand at his ruined shirt. “A dream come true,” he deadpans. He isn’t sure what he’s feeling right now. The shock of seeing Atsumu eclipses everything else.
“You’re a dream come true,” Not-Dream – well, Real-Atsumu mutters derisively at him with narrowed eyes, and his lowered tone is so close to the fond one of Dream-Atsumu’s despite having total opposite meaning that Sakusa blushes from his ears all the way down the back of his neck.
This doesn’t go unnoticed. Atsumu’s eyes glint with amusement and intrigue, and Sakusa’s mouth is speaking before his brain can stop him.
“I’ve seen you in my dreams before.”
Atsumu’s eyebrows raise. “Y’have, have ya?”
Sakusa feels himself growing redder. “That wasn’t a line.”
Atsumu snorts. “If it was, it sucked. Wouldn’t be the first time someone’s said that t’me, so, you gotta try harder,” he replies, with a smirk. The cockiness is so familiar that Sakusa banters back as if he’d never woken up.
“Would this be the first time it’s worked, then? You’re still talking to me.”
Atsumu shakes his head. “Just givin’ you a chance. What’s the next part, handsome? You’ve dreamed of me, so what?”
Sakusa imagines coffee and the golden light of the kitchen. He thinks of love that’s well worn, broken in, like a second skin.
The colour of Atsumu’s eyes in the dying light of the sunset are the same as when he was dreaming.
Most important thing I’ve learned from this is how easy it is t’get t’know someone. Just gotta give it a try.
He feels bold.
“I think I’d like to find out how to make my dreams a reality.”
Atsumu whistles and grins. “Not bad,” he says. Sakusa drinks in the curl of his mouth and the reveal of teeth. “What’s your name?”
“Sakusa Kiyoomi.”
“Well, then it’s nice t’meet you, Omi-kun. Sorry about bumpin’ into you n’ spillin’ your coffee. I’m –”
It’s now or never. “Atsumu?”
Atsumu’s eyes widen. “No shit. How’dja know that?”
“I don’t know if you’ll believe me,” Sakusa starts, and barrels forward before Atsumu can get a word in edgewise because he’s already opening his mouth to retort. “I’ll tell you over a new coffee.” Sakusa takes a step closer.
Atsumu bites his lip and laughs a little incredulously before his eyes light up. “And I’ll accept if I can get you outta that shirt.”
Sakusa huffs a breath of a laugh, and Atsumu looks dumbstruck for a second time at his smile.
“Seriously. What a face t’fall for.”
“This café has a slight rise in their doorstep, so if you wanted to fall, that would be your chance.” Sakusa tilts his head backwards at the coffee shop he just exited. Atsumu glances at the cafe, then back at Sakusa's face, then pulls his phone out of his pants pocket to check the time. He puts his phone away with a shrug and laugh at himself.
“Aw, hell, why not? You’re cute and I’m curious. Y’better catch me then, huh, Omi-Omi?”
See you when you wake up, Omi-Omi.
As they step across the threshold, Sakusa thinks of warm hands tucking a blanket around him. Dream-Atsumu is always the one to provide a soft landing for his husband and the dreamers. He thinks of what it would be like to hold someone between his two palms. Thinks about the airy lightness of dreaming, and the comforting weight of the duvet when he woke up. Thinks of being that, for someone.
Thinks of falling.
Thinks of flight.
“Definitely before you knock another coffee out of my hands.”
“Sheesh, alright, this one’s on me.”