Work Text:
A walking nightmare for any PR professional to be assigned to work with.
That was how just about everyone in the industry referred to one Suna Rintarou, middle blocker for EJP Raijin, and absolute terror to work with. Not because he was particularly offensive or controversial, no. He just gave you absolutely nothing to work with. Put him in a post-game interview, and he'd give one-word answers, staring at his phone half the time. Try to cajole him into doing a promo video for Instagram, and he'd deliver whatever lines you gave him with the energy and pizazz of a cinderblock. And god forbid you try to get him to do some livestream event, he'd call in sick.
Trying to get Suna to do any kind of publicity that didn't make him look completely devoid of personality was like trying to force a square peg in a round hole. But the day you stopped trying would be the day you died. Or took a new job. Whichever comes first.
You've got a fun idea planned for a new video for the team's social media, and you're pretty sure most of the players are going to get a real kick out of it. Here's the plan, right? You contacted all the players' family and friends and asked them to send you some of their childhood photos. The more embarrassing, the better. And then, when they get to practice today, you're going to walk up to them, and ask them to sign the photo.
It sounds kind of lame when written out like that, but really, the format has done numbers on social media. Fans love the silly photos of their favorite players, and the players get a kick out of the throwback.
So here you are, waiting by the entrance to the gym, stack of photos and a pen in hand. You're excited about this. It's going to be good.
Motoya is the first player to arrive. He just about keels over laughing at the photo of himself, in which he's wearing a dinosaur onesie and proudly presenting his cherished Holo Rayquaza Pokémon card to the camera. He wipes his laughter-induced tears and signs the photo, asking if you can send him a copy of the photo.
He saunters off to practice, and you feel like you're off to a good start.
A handful of other players arrive, with varying reactions, though everyone seems to take it in stride. Sarukui barks out a laugh, asking how you managed to get the atrocious photo of him in front of his middle school science fair project, before signing the photo and remarking on how proud he was of his baking soda volcano. Washio's face betrays no surprise when you hand him his picture and a pen, but you can tell by the slight upturn at the corner of his mouth that he's amused.
Through the glass doors to the gym, you can see Suna approaching. He's caught sight of you, you know, because he's eyeing you suspiciously as you hover near the door.
"Suna, would you mind signing this photo for us?" You ask as he enters. He pauses, warily glancing at the pen and photo in one hand and your phone in the other.
"Is this content?" He asks blandly.
You hum noncommittally as he takes the pen and photo from you. His eyes narrow as he takes in what he's looking at. Which, to be candid, is one of your best finds for this whole thing. It's a photo of Suna from what you would guess is his early high school years. His hair is longer, and he has the same bored expression he always wears, but the funniest part about it is the fact that he's wearing a black hoodie, hood up, with the green alien from Invader Zim on it, and it's a mirror selfie. He's trying so hard to look cool, and you knew when you got this photo from his younger sister that this was going to be a hit.
Suna is still staring at the photo, wordlessly. You tilt your head, trying to gauge his expression. You can make out a faint hint of a blush on his cheeks, and his brow is furrowed.
"How did you get this?" he manages to sputter out finally, though he isn't meeting your gaze, eyes still focused on the offending image. "I swear to god I deleted all of these photos, what the fuck."
"I've got my ways." You reply cheerily.
He grumbles in irritation, but uncaps the pen and signs the photo nevertheless. "I just want you and everyone watching this video to know that I've put my emo kid days behind me."
"Cringe is dead, Suna, be yourself." You reassure him.
He snorts at that, handing you back the signed photo. "What are you doing with these?" He asks.
"Hm, dunno. Maybe for the charity auction? I'm sure fans would love these." You giggle.
What was once a light dusting of pink on his cheeks has turned to a full on blush, his face bright red. He shakes his head in dismay. "I'll provide as many other mirror selfies as you or the fans want to avoid that one going on sale at the auction."
You can't help but think he looks a little bit cute like this, flustered and flushed, so different from his usual cool-guy, unbothered and uninterested, persona. His fans are going to love this video.
You laugh, gently placing your hand on his arm to reassure him. "I'm joking, Suna. It's just for the video, you can have it after if you want. And if you really don't want it to be included, we can edit your clip out."
He shakes his head again, indignant. "No, it'll be weird if I'm the only one not in the video. And it's whatever. I'll just redeem myself."
"Redeem yourself?" You ask, confused.
A slight smirk briefly flits across his face. "You'll see."
You watch him go, as he heads into the locker room to change for practice, confused on what exactly he plans to do to 'redeem' himself. And also confused but pleasantly surprised by his sudden willingness to participate in the crafting of his own public image. He'd make your job a lot easier if he was more engaged in the social media content and interviews he's supposed to be doing. So you'll take whatever he wants to do to 'redeem' himself.
Anyways, with the most difficult of your players to do content with out of the way, you reorder your photos and add Suna's to the stack of already-signed pictures. Just a few more now, and you're confident this video is going to be a hit.
The video is a hit. You posted it to the EJP Raijin account, and as expected, the fans eat it up. In particular, Suna is a hot topic in the comments, with half the users gushing over how he's so cute when he's flustered. You happen to agree with them from a purely professional standpoint, of course, and you feel like this might be a winning strategy for engagement from his fans. You file that mental note away for later.
You smile to yourself as you scroll through the comments. A job well done, if you say so, with already over 50,000 likes within the first day of posting. You're glad you convinced your boss this was a good idea.
And as you're admiring your handiwork, and packing up to leave for the day, you see a notification pop up.
>sunarintarou has posted a new photo!
>sunarintarou tagged you in a post!
You have notifications on for all of the players, so that you can repost what they post onto the main EJP account, and help further engagement. So you tap on the notification, business as usual, expecting he just tagged the team account so you'd repost it.
You promptly drop your phone when the photo loads.
It's a mirror selfie. Oh, and he's also shirtless. That's probably an important detail to mention. If you had to guess, this was taken in the locker room, immediately after practice, based off of the sheen of sweat on his skin. Not that you're looking that closely, obviously.
You peer at your phone, sitting on your desk, and the offending photo. This was not his usual content. Suna's posts were usually photo dumps, candids of himself and his friends, that kind of thing. Not thirst trap shirtless mirror selfies! Maybe he was hacked?
But then you notice the caption.
>i promise i can take better mirror selfies now @ejp_raijin_official :p
You gape. Definitely not hacked.
You tap the comments, which are absolutely unhinged, though to be fair, is about what you expected.
sunastan692: HOLY FUCKING SHITTTTT I TOLD YOU GUYS HE HAD A SLEEPER BUILD
xXxGojoGirlxXx: i want him to suffocate me with his biceps :3
motoyakomori: damn bro lol
rintar0000: my husband ladies and gentlemen. we're married.
kageyama_enthusiast: might be changing my username bc holy shit
miya.atsumu: WHO IS THIS GUY LMFAOOOOO BRO WTF
kuromiiiiicutie: Raw. Next question.
sakuchan_88: SUNA PLEASE SAVE HEX WITH ME
You blink, and tap out of the comments, forced to face the mirror selfie itself once more. And, well, he does look good. Despite your better judgment, you find yourself lingering on the photo. And come on, his abs are staring you in the face, after all.
And you're staring back. Which is fine. Which is totally normal. Completely normal and fine to ogle your coworker's washboard abs, and the way his shorts are slung low on his hips, revealing a trail of hair down to… well, you're not going to think about that, really. That's just too far.
You drag your gaze upward and your vision snags on the self-satisfied smirk on his face. He knows he's hot. And well, he does spend all day every day working out basically, so, it's to be expected.
You shake your head in exasperation. This is not something you're sharing on the official EJP Raijin page. This can stay on Suna's own Instagram. As you're trying to tap to exit out of the post and return to your main feed, you balk when you accidentally somehow double tap and like the photo.
This would happen to you, wouldn't it? Maybe it's karma for putting Suna through the whole childhood photo thing in the first place.
As quickly as you can, you remove the like. It might be the official team account, but even still, Suna knows who runs it. You don't want to have him see you liking his obvious thirst trap.
Well, at least your video did well.
Suna didn't like doing media.
He felt bad, because you were nice, and you did your job well, but, he just hated the scripted, overly sterile feel that all the interviews and media appearances tended to have. He's also not into this whole, develop your public image thing. He's here to play volleyball, and play it well. If he does that, then his image will be fine. Post-game interviews suck anyway, who actually watches those? He'll leave them to his captain.
Now, when it comes to the promotional content that you try to get of the team, well, he's just more comfortable behind the camera than in front of it. And there might be the added fact that he's developed a small, completely unimportant, irrelevant crush on you.
And Komori knows this and he doesn't want the libero to be a pain in his ass and say some dumb shit exposing him when they're doing whatever promo content. So he tries to be as uninteresting in the material you film as possible, so you never come to him. It's a solid plan, since he doesn't really give a fuck about PR or his image anyways. No one loses. Except maybe Komori since he can't meddle. But screw Komori.
But then, you'd done the whole 'sign an autograph on this photo haha oh actually it's a childhood photo haha surprise!' thing and he'd been legitimately so embarrassed he'd wanted to melt into the earth. Not even from the picture itself honestly, though, yeah that was pretty fucking embarrassing too. But the majority of the embarrassment came from the way that he'd been so embarrassed to have you specifically see such a mortifying photo of him. Did he ever plan on acting on his dumb crush? No, but a man still has to have his pride. How could you ever respect an edgy teenage Suna that wears alt kid hoodies and said 'rawr xD' in chatrooms online unironically?
The rest of the world can see that photo, sure, but having you standing in front of him, photo in hand, beaming at him as he sputtered and blushed, well, cool guy image fucking ruined. He later learned his traitor little sister sent you the photo, and well, she's written out of his will now.
When he'd walked into the locker room, face as red as a tomato, Komori had immediately pounced, sensing weakness. Suna had planned to take a very nonchalant 'brooding and mysterious but handsome vibe' mirror selfie later to include in a photo dump at some point, and somehow, it turned into a fuckboy-esque shirtless mirror selfie. It sounded brilliant at the time, when pitched to him. Komori even got the rest of the team to hype him up, though the detail of who exactly this thirst trap was being taken for was conveniently left out.
So he took the photo, and you know what, he did look hot.
But he also just looked like a fuckboy, honestly. And this is super out of character for him. His phone has been blowing up from his friends all evening, Samu called him a whore, Atsumu called him worse, and the Inarizaki grads groupchat is ripping him to shreds for the obvious thirst trap.
He's considering deleting it, but it feels like that might almost be worse. A sign of weakness, of self-doubt. That would definitely be more embarrassing than leaving it up.
He is considering turning comments off. It's flattering to have people so openly thirsting over him, but god, his mom reads these comments.
Fuck, his mom is gonna see this post.
Maybe he should delete it.
His phone pings.
He rolls over from where he's laying on the couch to grab it off the coffee table. Probably another message from the groupchat calling him a loser. He should probably just mute it.
When he picks it up, he sees a text from Komori.
[komori] 6:02 PM: dude she liked ur thirst trap
He jolts up.
[komori] 6:03 PM: [1 Photo Attached]
It's a screenshot of the post, which, honestly, hurts to look at. But Komori has circled in red the likes, where one @ejp_raijin_official has liked it. He raises a brow, and swipes out of the tab to check for himself.
He taps likes. Searches for the account name. Nothing. He rolls his eyes.
[rintarou] 6:05 PM: she unliked it if so. also from the official acc bro??? means nothing
[rintarou] 6:05 PM: im in my flop era fr
[komori] 6:06 PM: BRO have faith in yourself
[komori] 6:07 PM: also if she unliked it…. lowkey what if thats bc shes embarrassed to like it in the first place… you know.. like. no one would give a fuck if the ejp acc liked it, no one even knows who runs it outside of the team and staff. so her UNLIKING means she probably thought u were hot and then embarrassed about it. im telling u bro
[rintarou] 6:08 PM: are you ok
[komori] 6:08 PM: SHES GOTTA BE INTO YOU MAN
[rintarou] 6:09 PM: delusional…..
Suna drops his phone back on the table beside him and sighs. This is so fucking dumb.
The next day at practice is like, honest to god, hell. The guys are hyping him up, completely unaware that it completely failed to actually deliver on the goal. He's never listening to Komori, or any of these goons again.
Practice goes fine, aside from his mortification every time he sees you, sitting on the sidelines to film content from the practice to post on socials. You call Komori over to do some mini interview, and he's glad that you didn't ask for him. He was pretty sure he'd be even worse on camera than normal today.
And the day is almost over, he's about to go shower and head home and sit in his own humiliation a little more, when disaster strikes.
He's grabbing his water bottle and other things from courtside, when you call him over from where you're sitting in the stands. He briefly considers pretending he didn't hear, but when he looks up at the call of his name, he makes eye contact with you. So that plan is out.
"Hey, I just wanted to let you know, about your post yesterday-" You begin.
His heart rate just increased tenfold. He's about to crash out. Are you actually gonna acknowledge that?
His mouth moves faster than his brain can.
"Did you like it?"
As soon as the words leave his mouth, he wonders what the fuck compelled him to say that shit.
You're staring at him, eyes wide, mouth slightly agape. Silence settles between you, the only audible noise is the gentle murmur of the rest of the team as they shuffle into the locker room. The door shuts with an echoing ring throughout the gym.
"I don't know why I said that, I am so fucking sorry-" He sputters out, immediately feeling heat creep up his neck and into his cheeks.
You're still staring at him, a hint of pink now gracing your cheeks as well.
"Let's just forget I posted that, and that I said that, and actually, I think I'm going to go delete that post right now anyways, Komori talked me into it for some reason and it was clearly a stupid choice." He rambles, desperately trying to salvage the situation.
"Suna, it's fine." You interrupt, having recovered from his earlier words. "I was just going to say, I know I usually repost content the team posts when they tag the official account in it, but I don't think I should repost your selfie." You pause, looking a little awkward as you continue. "It's, uh, not exactly family friendly. I think the bosses would be pretty peeved."
He nods vigorously. "That's completely fine, I don't really know why I posted it in the first place."
A pained smile crosses your face at his obvious discomfort. You look like you're about to say something, but he's going to get out of here before he says anything else stupid.
"Well, I'll head out now if that's all-"
You reach out to grab his arm as he turns. "Hey, it's seriously not that big a deal, Suna. You look good. It's a good photo. You don't have to be embarrassed."
His heart rate quickens for the second time. He's pretty sure his smart watch is going to record this as some kind of cardiac event.
"Ah." He croaks out, throat dry. "So you'd say, you uh, did like it?"
You tilt your head and raise an eyebrow. "Yes?" You say quizzically.
"Cool." He replies, shoving his hands in his pockets.
"Cool?" You snort. "A girl says your thirst trap is hot, and you say cool?"
"So you knew it was a thirst trap?" He asks, prying.
You roll your eyes. "Suna, I'm like, the same age as you. I know what a thirst trap is."
He grumbles acknowledgment.
"Did you want me to like it?" You cross your arm across your chest, and narrow your eyes.
He ignores this question in favor of asking his own. "Do you wanna get dinner?"
Your eyes widen. "Are you asking me on a date?"
"Yes." He adds quickly. "Now let's stop answering questions with more questions, yes or no?"
You laugh, and Suna really hopes it's an, 'I think you're endearingly silly' laugh, not a, 'that's super pathetic and I'm about to completely destroy your ego' laugh.
You shake your head in exasperation. "You know what, sure."
And when he's walking you home that evening after dinner, and he's getting your phone number as he drops you off at your apartment, and you even kiss his cheek goodnight, he's almost grateful he let Komori talk him into posting that stupid thirst trap.
[komori] 9:38 PM: r u gonna thank me for manifesting this for u
Almost.
[rintarou] 10:34 PM: fuck off