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It started with a message.
“Are you okay?”
Just three words, sitting on the screen like they had weight. Sakusa stared at them for a long time, thumb hovering above the keyboard, not yet sure whether to open the conversation back up or let it fester in silence.
He knew who it was from before even checking.
Miya Atsumu.
And of course he wasn't okay. That wasn’t the point.
They had broken up two months ago. Not loudly. Not dramatically. Just... slowly. Quietly. Like snow melting off a roof—drip by drip, unnoticed until the gutters overflowed.
They stopped talking as much. Their schedules stopped syncing. And when they finally sat across from each other in Atsumu’s kitchen, neither of them had the energy to fight for what they used to be.
So Sakusa had said, “Maybe this isn’t working anymore.”
And Atsumu had nodded, rubbed the back of his neck, and said, “Yeah. Maybe.”
No slamming doors. No tears. Just an echoing absence.
But now there was this message. The first contact since the end.
Sakusa opened it.
He typed: “Why?”
The reply came almost instantly.
“Just wondering. You haven’t been to team dinners.”
“And I thought maybe…”
“Never mind.”
Sakusa closed the chat. Then opened it again. Then closed it.
That night, he dreamt of Atsumu’s hands—calloused, warm, always in motion—and woke up clutching his pillow like it could hold him back.
The second message came three days later.
“Did you see that dumb thing Suna posted?”
And with that, something broke.
“You can’t just message me like nothing happened.” Sakusa typed. His fingers trembled over the screen.
“We broke up, Atsumu.”
A pause. Then:
“Yeah. I know.”
“But I still think about you. Is that allowed?”
Sakusa stared. That was the problem. He thought about Atsumu too. Every day. In the mug he didn’t use anymore. In the playlist he skipped. In the hoodie shoved in the back of his closet, still faintly smelling of cedar shampoo.
He typed:
“Do you miss me because you love me? Or do you miss me because you’re lonely?”
This time, the pause stretched longer. Five minutes. Ten.
Then:
“I don’t know yet.”
“But I think about your toothbrush next to mine. And the way you always corrected my form when I got lazy.”
“And how you used to hum under your breath when you read.”
Sakusa’s throat tightened.
“That’s not love,” he replied.
“That’s memory.”
They didn’t talk for another week.
But the distance felt more crowded than silence. Like something unfinished.
Atsumu broke it again.
“I saw you on the court today.”
“You looked good.”
Sakusa didn’t reply.
But he read it. And Atsumu knew he would.
The next time, it was Sakusa who messaged first.
“Do you still wear the scarf I gave you?”
“Every morning.”
He shouldn’t have asked. But he did. And he kept asking.
They talked in fragments. Half-truths and small confessions.
Not about the breakup. Not yet.
But about what came before.
“Do you remember that weekend in Kyoto?”
“You hated the hotel pillows.”
“But you kissed me under a thousand red lanterns.”
Sakusa remembered. He remembered everything.
That was the problem.
They saw each other again after a practice match.
Neutral ground. Cold air. Streetlight halo.
Sakusa wasn’t sure who moved first. But then they were standing too close, like gravity hadn’t gotten the memo that they were supposed to be strangers now.
Atsumu’s hands were in his coat pockets. Sakusa’s were clenched.
“You look tired,” Atsumu said softly.
“You look guilty.”
A pause.
“I am,” Atsumu said. “I didn’t fight hard enough, did I?”
Sakusa swallowed.
“I didn’t want to keep someone who didn’t want to stay.”
“That’s not fair,” Atsumu said, voice breaking. “It wasn’t about wanting to leave. I just—I got scared. Of how much I needed you. Of what would happen if I lost you.”
“But you did lose me.”
“Yeah,” Atsumu whispered. “And it’s the worst thing I’ve ever done.”
The street buzzed in the distance. Somewhere, someone was laughing. Here, everything was still.
“I don’t know if I can trust you again,” Sakusa said.
“I don’t know if I deserve that trust,” Atsumu replied. “But I miss you. Not because I’m lonely. Because I love you. I think I always did. I was just too dumb to realize what that meant.”
Sakusa’s chest ached.
He looked down. Then up.
“What if we just break again?”
“We might,” Atsumu said. “But maybe this time, we don’t go quiet. Maybe we fight.”
Sakusa studied him. The same uneven smile. The same hopeful eyes.
The same boy he had loved.
Maybe still loved.
“I’m not promising anything,” Sakusa said.
“I’m not asking for a promise,” Atsumu replied. “Just a chance.”
A moment passed. Then two.
Sakusa stepped forward, slowly. Close enough to hear the breath catch in Atsumu’s throat. He reached up, fingers brushing the scarf around Atsumu’s neck.
“It still smells like my laundry detergent,” he murmured.
“You always picked the good kind.”
Another pause.
Then Sakusa said, “Okay.”
Just that. But Atsumu’s eyes went wide, like it meant the world.
Maybe it did.
They didn’t get back together that night.
They walked. Talked. Let things breathe.
But when they said goodbye, it wasn’t final.
It wasn’t a closing door. Just one slightly ajar, waiting to be opened again when the time was right.
And maybe—just maybe—that would be enough.