Work Text:
Atsumu
The red string tied securely around my index finger wasn’t something that ever truly got in the way. It had been there for so long that I didn’t really notice it anymore. At first, it brought the same feeling as a new ring that feels out of place on your hand, and you constantly find yourself noticing how it glimmers or rubs the skin of neighboring fingers. But over time, you grow not to notice the ring; it feels like it is a part of you, and you eventually don’t even realize that you are wearing it. The red string appeared on my eighteenth birthday. I didn’t know that it was coming, but I had anticipated its arrival since I learned of the strings' existence. The rope was supposed to connect me to my soulmate or something stupid, and I was the only one who could see my string. It made sense that I was the only one who could see it; if everyone could see the strings, the entire world would be consumed with an endless maze of red that roped and weaved around table legs and door handles and snagged on the corners of open lockers. My parents had told me about the string, and at first, I thought they were joking because I had never seen the strings before. Then, we learned about it in our health class in high school, and I knew that it couldn’t be a giant farce, much like Santa Claus.
The string never pulled on my finger, and I assumed no one could be on the other end because I never felt the slightest tug or disruption traveling across the yarn. It never frayed, and it never ripped, no matter how hard I tried to break the link. I didn’t like the idea of being tied to someone and having no say in who it was. Yet the string persisted, and I eventually adapted to going about my days with a piece of yarn wrapped around my finger, following or leading me throughout life.
I remember I was scared when I woke with it on my finger. I was afraid it would get in the way during volleyball practice and tangle in my shoelaces, causing me to trip on the court in the middle of a crucial play. It never did; I seemed to walk right through it no matter what I was doing, and the string disappeared from my mind. The idea of who I was destined to be with never faded from my thoughts. I’d think about where she could be from, where I would meet her, and what she would study in college. I pictured her with dark curly hair and soft eyes that reminded me of home. However, as much as I tried to imagine her in my head, she never materialized.
I was twenty, playing in a collegiate volleyball match at my university when the string disappeared. I reached up to set the ball to Kiyoomi on the outer left-hand side when the red yarn vanished from my finger as if it had never been there in the first place. The set failed, and the ball came crashing into my face. While the ball rested at my feet, out of play, I stared at my hands as if they were responsible for losing the string. Had I done something wrong? Did I break some kind of rule? Did it come untied and accidentally float away from the commotion of the game? I scanned the court and the benches nearby, searching for the little red string, but I was only met with concerned looks from my coaches and teammates, who leaned their heads together and covered their mouths with their hands.
My coach called for the alternate setter immediately. I shuffled off the court and looked at Kiyoomi, who was trying to mouth something to me. His eyebrows were tied together with a scrunch streaking across his forehead, and he kept his eyes on me as I made it to the bench, which was cold to the touch and sent a shock through the back of my thighs.
“Son? Are you high right now?” He asked as I scanned the rafters at the top of the gymnasium. Maybe it had gotten stuck up there somehow? Was there a ladder that would reach up there? The gym was silent aside from the whispers from the stands as fans gossiped to one another with hushed voices, obviously confused. I was sitting on the bench, still staring at my index finger, as a drop of sweat rolled from my forehead down to my chin and dripped onto my finger, where my string would’ve been. It would’ve colored the yarn a deep maroon like it did whenever I showered after a match. A firm hand on my shoulder, shaking me, pulled my gaze to my coach, whose face was scrunched, making it look like there was a raisin on his face in place of his nose.
“Atsumu? You okay?” He was frowning, and I watched a stray of his gray hair fall from where it was swooped on the top of his head and draped across his forehead.
“My red string. It’s gone,” I told him.
He paused like he didn’t know what to say to me. “Are you okay?”
“I don’t know what it means,” I told him. An uneasy feeling wormed its way through my stomach and threatened to claw its way up my throat and splat onto the floor for everyone to stare at and point. My vision distorted as tears formed, making the court look like it was underwater, and the players were glued to the floor, rendering them unable to float.
“Why am I crying?” I sobbed, looking to my coach for something, anything. He sucked in his lips, biting back what he seemed to want to say: for me to suck it up and get back on the court.
He slapped my back. “You’ll be okay, Atsumu.” I nodded and wiped away my tears, splotches coating the yellow compression sleeves on my arms. “Yeah.”
“You ready to go back in?”
The game passed in a blur. Multiple sets failed to reach the optimal hitting height I had trained to master for each of my hitters. My feet had dragged on the court like they were weighed down, as if I were back home with my nieces clinging to my legs, begging me to carry them to the next room. My teammates' calls for the ball were muted in my ears, only being comprehended as muffled shouts with no coherent meaning behind them. I was eventually benched for the remainder of the game.
Kiyoomi stopped me in the locker room once everyone else had showered and cleared out. No one mentioned anything to me, as if they were scared that if they said something about the missing string, theirs would disappear as well. I was untying my sneakers when he set his volleyball bag next to me. I didn’t have to look up to know it was him.
“What’s going on, Atsumu?” He asked as he rubbed my knee, which still had my kneepad on. “You can talk to me about it.”
I wasn’t even sure what to say to him. I’d never heard of someone losing their string before, aside from their partner dying, effectively relinquishing the link. No one ever talked about other possibilities. “My string disappeared.”
He rubbed my back. “You know, I’m twenty-one, and my string has yet to appear. I think losing your string doesn’t mean something as bad as they say. I think you have the freedom to choose who you want to be with now.” His smile reminded me of preschool, the uninhibited joy of living without responsibility, and the biggest worry in the world being what game to play at recess.
“Let me walk you home.” He stood up and grabbed our bags, shouldering them both. He started for the door and turned back, looking at me expectantly when I didn’t stand to follow him. He waved, and I pulled my kneepads down to rest above my shoes and followed him out.
As I lay in bed that night, I stared at my phone displaying hundreds of responses to ‘What does it mean if my string disappears?’ on Quora. The majority of the top hits claimed that it was true that if your string was gone, then your match had passed away. I wondered how people came to that conclusion if they hadn’t met their match yet; how would they know if their partner died if they didn’t even know who they were? Many people posted joke responses saying that you were a loser who didn’t deserve love or that you were an idiot for losing it in the first place. I was about to give up when I saw someone’s post about their story in the discussion.
“I was 25 when my string disappeared the first time. I had been in one of my lectures in grad school when, in the middle of taking notes, the red string I had grown used to seeing during every waking moment disappeared. I absolutely lost my shit. I started crying in the middle of the lecture thinking they had died, and I was destined to be alone. My professor kicked me out, and I spent the rest of the year severely depressed. My next string appeared a year later. I didn’t even know that it was possible to get a new match. I absolutely couldn’t believe it. Eventually, that one disappeared, and I didn’t get my final string until I was 30 years old, and I didn’t meet my husband until I was 32. I think that sometimes the universe makes mistakes, and yes, it did just about kill me when it messed up twice, but in the end, I found who I was meant to be with, and my past strings no longer mattered. Chin up. Someone is out there for you; you just aren’t ready to meet them yet.”
I fell asleep with dreams coated in hope, and a string wound around my finger, tying me to who I was truly meant to be with.
Kiyoomi and I stayed late at practice every day to work our serves and our quick. He was by far my favorite hitter to set to. I wasn’t sure if our bond outside of the team strengthened our chemistry on the court. Kiyoomi was everywhere. He always appeared where I sent the ball without warning. It was almost like he could read my mind because he was always there without fail; we danced on the court together, a perfectly rehearsed duet where he would follow no matter where I led him. I sent the ball to the far left, dancing the boundaries of the court, and watched as he closed in on the net, his five-step approach engraved in his subconscious as he sprinted at the netting. His jump looked effortless as he rose to meet the ball with an open palm, the perfect height. His hand connected with it, and he tucked his left thumb in and powered through the ball, causing a loud slap to echo through the gym as it powered down onto the other side of the court and bounced in the back corner before sailing into the wall.
“Nice hit!” I called to him, and a lopsided smile stretched across his face, displaying the chipped tooth on the right side of his mouth.
We ran drills and practiced different setting speeds and heights, desperate to find a new combination that would impress our coaches, teammates, and opponents. We practiced our serves, different variations of floaters, jumps, and jump-floaters, some with topspin, some without, while the other would practice receiving; it was our secret contest. Our competition had been going on since we were in middle school. Even though we didn’t attend the same schools, we still met at training camps where we could continue the match to see who the best was at serving and receiving.
“5-3! Come on! You are slacking today!” Kiyoomi called out from across the net. He jumped on the balls of his feet, bent at his knees, and stretched his arms out to the side, his ready position. “Any day now, Atsumu!”
I took a few steps back, my sneakers squeaking against the polished floor of the gymnasium. Taking one step forward, I tossed the ball high and far out in front of me before running at it and taking two carefully placed steps before launching into the air. There was a sharp stretch in my calves from not warming up properly, but the burn felt refreshing and almost relaxing. My palm connected with the ball with a thundering clap above my head. Instead of following through, I let my arm stop as soon as it touched the ball. It flung across the net but dropped right as it crossed my side and into Kiyoomi’s. Yet, as he always was, Kiyoomi was there, sliding on his stomach with one fist outstretched. He slipped it below the ball before it touched the ground, and it floated back up instead of smacking the floor. Kiyoomi stood and brushed off his stomach. His body was coated in sweat, and his dark curly hair flopped down his forehead.
He laughed and pumped his arms wildly. “6-3, baby!”
By the time Kiyoomi got to twenty points, our palms looked as if they had been dipped in pink paint due to how hard we had been hitting and serving. Sweat dripped from our hair, and the sports gray t-shirt I had been wearing turned into a dark heather gray t-shirt by the end of the practice. My elbows had been rubbed raw, and the skin peeled away from diving for serves, desperate not to let the ball fall.
He slung his arm around my shoulder, and I could feel my pulse throbbing in my esophagus and chalked it up to the rigorous workout. “Let’s get something to eat, yeah?”
We stumbled into my apartment with our arms full of Chinese takeout, the smell of sweet and sour sauce and egg drop soup wafting from the cradle of our arms. Kiyoomi kicked his shoes off, placed the food on the counter, and leapt over the back of the couch, settling down in his usual spot. His arms stretched across the back of the sofa, and he looked back at me, waiting for me to help pick out something to watch.
“What are we watching today?” He reached for the remote and flicked on the TV. “Another episode of The Uncanny Counter sounds good.”
I hummed in agreement, grabbed a Peach Nehi for him, and carried the food over to the coffee table, which had a crack in one of the legs from when Kiyoomi had wanted to try leg wrestling and flung me into the table.
“Dinner is served,” I said, picking away at the cashew chicken. Kiyoomi started scrolling through Netflix, searching for the show. He had always refused to begin eating until whatever he wanted to watch was loaded and playing. He rested his legs across my lap and zoned into the TV, his eyes flicking from the subtitles to the action. I toyed with the fabric of the sweatpants covering his knees. We burned through three episodes before Kiyoomi decided three hours of The Uncanny Counter was enough.
“Does it ever freak you out that you haven’t gotten your string?” I asked him.
He took a sip of his drink and placed it on the table. “Sometimes, but I also feel like the string doesn’t appear until it knows you are ready for it. Am I a little late to the game? Sure, but at least I know I’ll be ready when it does come.”
“How does it know you are ready?” I asked.
He laughed. “I don’t know. It’s just something I made up to make myself feel better about being the only one without a string so late in the game.”
He hugged me when he left, and I let my arms linger around his waist for a beat longer than usual. “Things will be okay, Atsumu. I’ll be here for you, string or not.” He placed his hand on the back of my head, pulled me in close, and kissed my hair softly. I tightened my grip on him and let my head rest on his shoulder.
“Thank you, Kiyoomi. I don’t know how I’d survive without you.” I let him go, and he made for the door quicker than he usually did. I swore I saw pink lining his cheeks.
When I woke, my finger felt the tight wrapping of the red string that had been missing for the past few weeks. It looked the same as before as if it had just taken a few weeks off and was finally home from vacation. I stared at it, careful not to let my eyes leave it with the fear that if I looked away, it would disappear again. The feeling of the string on my finger brought deep satisfaction and comfort, similar to the feeling of finally getting a kernel of popcorn unwedged from between two teeth. It was the same reassurance that things were perfectly okay and had been restored to how they had been before.
I dressed quickly, anxious to see Kiyoomi and tell him the good news, but part of me felt hesitant about the string returning. Kiyoomi and I had been spending a lot more time together, and with the string returning, the feeling that everything was going to change persisted through my jog to the gym, where I knew he’d be. Not having strings felt like another thing that bound us together. As I ran, I didn’t think about who might be on the other side of the string; I thought about who I wanted to be on the other side, Kiyoomi. The realization that I liked my best friend halted my full-on sprint immediately. Students pushed past me on the busy sidewalk on the outskirts of campus, some muttering that I should watch it or get out of the way. What if Kiyoomi wasn’t on the other end of the string, and I had to deal with the repercussions of liking my closest friend and being tied to someone else all on my own?
Standing alone on the sidewalk among the crowd, I thought about Kiyoomi and how he had cried while watching Fantastic Mr. Fox on the futon in our tiny dorm during our first year of college. I thought about how whenever he took a bite from his food, he stuck his tongue out as if trying to catch any pieces that might fall from his fork. I thought about how he slept on his left side, so when he woke in the morning, the left side of his hair would lay flat against his head while the rest would be swirled together in a wild nest that a bird would be tempted to make a home in. I thought about the first volleyball camp we were both at, and he was drinking from a water bottle with a scrap of paper taped around the outside with his name printed on it and clip art pictures of volleyballs surrounding it. I approached him to tell him that his water bottle was cool, and he asked me my name. The next day, he brought me one with my name printed on it with matching clipart volleyballs.
My phone buzzed in my pocket; it was from Kiyoomi.
where r u?
I pushed my way through the students who were desperate to make it to their early morning classes on time, and picked back up into a sprint once the crowd thinned out. The taste of pennies filled my mouth, and my arms grew heavy from pumping them rapidly. The excitement of wanting to share the exciting news of my string with my best friend and the anticipation of seeing if it was him to whom I was tied drained my body of all the athletic capabilities I had worked so hard for over the years. I huffed on the sidewalk like a college student who overslept and sprinted like their grade depended on that singular attendance point.
The red string stretched out in front of me in a taut straight line. It seemed to be leading the way, almost as if it were pulling me toward the gymnasium. I pushed through the door and found Kiyoomi standing with his back turned to me; he spun at the sound of the door slamming behind me. I looked down at the string stretched out in front of me, which pulled me closer to Kiyoomi, who was now facing me and staring down at his own hand. I followed the string's path, like a red dotted line on an old treasure map, and scanned down the yarn, which floated above the gym floor and was wound tightly around Kiyoomi’s index finger. I looked up and found him already staring back at me with a crooked smile already on his face.
“I always knew it'd be you,” he said and reached for my hand.