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Sakusa is the first one showered and dressed after practice ends that morning. It's not unusual for him to do so—he hated the communal locker room showers with a passion—but this time there was extra incentive to get ready before everyone else.
That incentive came in the form of walking with Shouyou to their shared apartment to sleep the rest of the morning away. Usually, they would have to separate right after practice because they both got stuck with early morning classes this semester, even as second and third-year students, but neither of them had classes today until later, which made it one of Sakusa's favorite days.
He got to laze around in bed with his boyfriend? That was the dream.
Currently, Sakusa sits on the bench in front of his locker with his hands in his pockets, and what he's heard time and time again be referred to as his brooding face, as he stares into oblivion waiting for his boyfriend to stop talking to their teammates. Unfortunately, Shouyou was a social butterfly who couldn't help making a 5-minute conversation into 30 minute one. With that adorable tilt of his head and little hums affirming that he was listening intently, on top of all the follow-up questions he asked, it was a surprise that he got anywhere.
Right now he was entertaining Meian with talks of a new training regimen he'd started over the past month, and how much he'd already seen the fruits of his labor, to which Shouyou flexed his biceps and posed dramatically. Their captain barked out a laugh, and Sakusa couldn't help feeling bitter, even if he also sported a small smile from his boyfriend's antics.
Shouyou was someone one couldn't help but feel an affectionate pull towards, and Sakusa couldn't blame anyone for being so drawn in. It was a naturally occurring thing —like the sun rising from the east—but he did not appreciate his time with Shouyou being shortened just because everyone else also wanted his attention.
Sakusa takes a calming breath in and exhales slowly, trying to focus on the near future where Shouyou would be curled up into him and snoring softly, lulled to sleep by Sakusa running his hands through his striking red hair. It softened the prior contempt he'd harbored for his oblivious captain, and his knee started bouncing with excitable anticipation.
"Man, you sure are happy today, OmiOmi," Bokuto says way too loudly, jumping into Sakusa's line of sight.
"It's 8 in the morning, Bokuto. No one can be happy this early," He scowls. That's why Shouyou needed to wrap up his conversation so they could get back home and sleep already.
It's like Shouyou hears his internal thoughts of agony and longing for his bed because he's bounding over to him in the next moment. Except he doesn't have his carefree smile, doesn't look like he's about to say, "Okay, I'm ready! Let's go home, Omi-san!" with his hand held out for Sakusa to grab. He looks frantic, like he has somewhere else else to be that doesn't involve Sakusa's arms.
"Sorry Omi-san!" Is the first thing his boyfriend says when he gets to him. Not a good sign. "I totally forgot I had an early meeting with my advisor today! I'm gonna head out first, okay?"
Dark clouds instantly loom over Sakusa's head, his mood plummeting to zero. He has to look away and bite his tongue to prevent himself from saying something, because all that wanted to fall from his mouth would make him sound childishly unreasonable.
Shouyou interrupts him from his personal sulking session by grabbing ahold of his chin so that they're facing each other once more. Then, as if giving him a gift to tide him over while they were apart, his boyfriend leaned down and kissed him. Sakusa tried to ignore the whoops and hollers they received from their teammates who were witness to their little moment, but he could feel Shouyou's lips stretch into a sweet smile at the attention. All too soon, his boyfriend pulls back, laughing at Sakusa when he dizzily follows after him.
"I'll text you when I'm coming home," Shouyou promises.
Sakusa still had his eyes on his lips as he hummed a soft, "'Kay."
Shouyou dips down to land another quick peck before he runs out the locker room, throwing a farewell over his shoulder to everyone else. The other teammates' replies ring back even after the ginger is out of sight.
Sakusa stared at the exit of the locker room, half-expecting for his boyfriend to come back and yell out, "Surprise!" Like the past few minutes had all been an elaborate set up to trick him. But the locker room stayed as empty and as dull as it was, like somehow Shouyou had sucked out all the color and taken it with him when he'd gone.
What made matters worse, was that from the corner of his eye, Sakusa could see Miya sauntering over to him, ready to kick him while he was already down. He didn't have to look up to know that the blond was sporting a shit-eating grin.
"Kicked to tha curb by Shouyou-kun, huh? Well, serves ya right for hoggin' him all tha time. I haven't hung out with him in so long!" Sakusa looks up to find Miya dramatically fake-crying in the crook of his elbow.
Bokuto swoops in to give him a sympathetic pat to the shoulder, and a soft, There, there. Sakusa, on the other hand, doesn't hold back from rolling his eyes, making sure to go around the two as he stands up to also leave the locker room.
"I just don't want him hanging out with the likes of you," Sakusa glowers, finding some satisfaction in the string of curses his comeback earns him.
The walk back to Sakusa and Shouyou's shared apartment is longer than usual. He doesn't know if it's because he's dreading going back to an empty home or because the time with Shouyou always felt short-lived. Life just seemed to drag on without the ginger beside him, and he was really feeling it now when he was opening the front door and toeing off his shoes.
He announces himself, even as he knows that there will be no one to acknowledge his return. "I'm home."
The silence is deafening as he makes his way deeper into the apartment, setting his dufflebag on the floor of his bedroom with a sigh before crawling into a bed that seemed too big now.
. . .
When Sakusa wakes up from his nap, it's nearing half-past noon. He's heating up last night's left overs and eating at the dining table when he gets two messages from Shouyou. He hurries to open their message thread, thinking it must be the ginger informing him that he'd be back soon.
He's disappointed when it's actually a text telling him that Shouyou would be out for a bit longer because he got roped into a last-minute activity for the college's Study Abroad program. As a student ambassador for this club, Shouyou attended all kinds of school events detailing his own experience of going to Brazil for a semester.
The second message—that quells said disappointment—is a selfie of a beaming Shouyou in the bottom corner of the frame. The rest of the picture shows the Study Abroad program's booth behind him, with Oikawa and Ushijima appearing to be talking to a few passerbyers about their respective semesters in Argentina and Poland.
Sakusa takes a while looking at the photo—noticing how the afternoon sun reflected off Shouyou's hair and spun some of the strands a fiery gold, and how the freckles that always returned in the warmer months were starting to show already.
He instantly saves the photo into his camera roll, and then goes back to react to the message with a thumbs up. He sends back a very casual reply—Have fun—which reveals nothing about Sakusa's true condition to the absence of his boyfriend.
Sakusa sighs and gets up to wash his empty plate in the kitchen sink, hearing the familiar ping of a message notification as he's putting the dish into the drying rack. He smiles softly at the simple heart hands emoji Shouyou sends back, and does well to lift his spirits up a little.
It's enough to convince him to work on a project he's been holding off on. What else did he have to do to pass the time? Sakusa could very well go back and lounge around in bed until his class in a few hours, but it reminded him too much that Shouyou wasn't here to join him in it.
He settles for the kitchen table to study after he's wiped it down, losing himself easily in his work for the next few hours. The only thing that breaks his concentration are the message notifications he receives right after another—definitely from Shouyou.
Sakusa's expecting an I'm coming home text, along with a question about dinner later, but all he gets is another selfie with a text explanation after.
The photo, again, has a smiling Shouyou and another man with his long-grown-out dyed blond hair in a bun. Sakusa recognizes him to be Kozume Kenma, Shouyou's good friend from high school. They're sitting close, shoulders pressed together as if to squeeze into the frame, and Sakusa doesn't miss the almost-mocking glint in Kozume's eye. Like he'd somehow won a battle Sakusa hadn't known he'd been fighting.
Shouyou: just ran into kenma at the cafe on campus!
Shouyou: didn't think i was gonna run into him today lol
He broods over the photo, even if Shouyou does look happy catching up with an old friend after so long. Honestly, as long as Shouyou was happy, Sakusa was happy; It was just frustrating when he felt like he was always competing for his boyfriend's attention. This was not to say, that Shouyou couldn't have any friends—he had a lot of them, and would continue to have them because of his kind and honest nature—but there was always an ugly feeling that curled around Sakusa's heart, that made him think that Shouyou could do much better than a scowling, pathetically jealous man like him.
. . .
Sakusa ends up being too dejected to keep working, sticking to moping around on the living room's couch until he has to get ready for class. The walk to campus is uneventful—translation: he doesn't run into Shouyou—and the lecture comes and goes much the same way. Feeling absolutely defeated by the day, he wants nothing more than to crawl into bed and wait for Shouyou to finally make it better.
Sakusa numbly enters the apartment, and suddenly freezes when he's hit with a mouthwatering aroma and soft singing coming from the kitchen. As if in a trance, he stands in the doorway, letting the door close behind him, alerting the other person in the apartment that someone had arrived.
A moment later, Shouyou's voice is calling out to him. "Is that you?" He asks, before popping his head into the hallway to see Sakusa still frozen in his place.
The rest of Shouyou's body appears around the corner when he skips over to greet him. He stops right in front of him, wriggling with contained excitement but not wanting to disturb Sakusa as he slipped out of his shoes.
"You said you were going to text me when you were coming home," Sakusa says dumbly, a nothing-complaint, really, but he would've really liked to have a heads-up so he could process his icky feelings before Shouyou became witness to them.
"I knew I forgot something! I'm so sorry, Omi-san!" Hinata says this with an anguished groan. Then, more quietly, with a blush and bashful look, he adds, "I was just so excited to see you again, I guess."
Sakusa's breath hitches at the confession, and immediately steps into Shouyou's space to wrap him up in his arms. "I missed you," He murmurs into the crown of his head, breathing the scent of Shouyou in deeply.
Shouyou's giggling reverberates throughout his body from where he has it pressed against Sakusa's chest. "I missed you too!" Then, he pulls away to look up at him through long eyelashes, his perfect mouth curved into a smile just for Sakusa.
"Welcome home, Omi-san."
He pauses before breaking out into his own smile.
"I'm home."
. . .
After their moment, Sakusa helps Shouyou prepare dinner, setting up the table and rinsing off any of the bigger dishes after their use. Then, they both sit down, and Sakusa nods along as the ginger recounts his day—occasionally have to prompt Shouyou to eat because he was so engrossed in his own story.
"Thanks Omi-san," His boyfriend would say, filling his mouth up with a spoonful of rice and the chicken stir-fry he'd cooked up for them, chewing sufficiently before swallowing. "Anyways, as I was saying…" And he'd pick up right where he left off.
They finish eating, and Sakusa volunteers to clean up the rest of the dishes so Shouyou can clean up for the night. When he's done drying and putting up the last plate, Sakusa makes his way to his room.
He finds that Shouyou is already under the covers waiting for him, who scooches over to make room for him as Sakusa approaches. He turns off his bedside lamp, and the vague silhouette of Shouyou giggles in front of him as he fumbles into bed.
Sakusa pulls his boyfriend into him, so that his chest is curled against Shouyou's back in a spooning position as he holds him tight. The warmth of their bodies pressed together like this lulls Sakusa into a drowsy state, planting a lingering kiss on the crook of Shouyou's neck that elicits a shiver from him.
"Mm, I wish I could hide you away forever," His stupid, half-awake brain admits.
"Omi-san!" Shouyou gasps, but the shaking of his shoulders in his arms indicates that he finds it rather funny.
"I know, I know." Sakusa sighs with a frown. "I guess I just have to accept that everyone's in love with you."
Suddenly, he feels Shouyou twist around in his arms, and having slightly adjusted to the dark, his eyes catch the movement when his boyfriend brings up his hand to rest on Sakusa's face. He brushes the cheekbone with the pad of his thumb soothingly before bringing him down to press a deep, closed-mouth kiss to his lips.
After they pull away, they're face-to-face again; Even in the low lighting, Sakusa can feel the intensity of Shouyou's stare because it lights him up from head to toe.
"Even if that were true—"
"It is," Sakusa interjects.
"Even if it were true," Shouyou repeats, "I'd only ever be in love with you."
"Even when I'm an asshole, and get mopey and jealous?" He asks skeptically.
"Sometimes, especially when you're those things."
Sakusa's heart lurches, and he dips down to capture Shouyou into another searing kiss. Against his lips, he dizzily confesses, "I love you, too."
He laps up the smile Shouyou presses against his lips. "I know."
After they pull away, his boyfriend sighs and yawns adorably, curling further into his chest. A few moments later, his breaths have slowed down significantly. He's asleep. It doesn't take much for Sakusa, too. One minute, He's mindlessly playing with Shouyou's hair, and the next, he's falling in right after him.