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Sakusa hates it here.
January is a combination of all of his least favorite things: cold and flu season, cold weather season, the dismally depressing time of year in between major holidays and festivals, and has he mentioned that it’s cold and flu season? With all the travel they have to do for away games and all the physical contact that comes with the nature of being on a sports team, germs and their ilk are at an all-time high. And his idiot teammates always tease him for masking and keeping his hands in his pockets and standing as far away from large groups as possible, only to come down with hacking coughs and disgusting sneezing fits days later. Sakusa always says “I told you so” and they never listen.
Atsumu is the worst about it. He’s always getting up in Sakusa’s face and doing the whole “I’m not touching you” bit, an annoyance tactic that Sakusa knows is just a side effect of growing up with a twin but still gets under his skin every time. And Atsumu’s still breathing on him, so even if they’re not actually touching, his idiot germs are definitely getting into Sakusa’s airspace. Disgusting.
Bugs like to go around the team since they’re all inside and in tight quarters traveling most of the time, so it’s only a matter of time before a third of the team is out for the count. Some new flu variant, apparently, but it’s their own fault for being germ idiots. Sakusa happens to be rooming with Hinata when they’re in Fukuoka and the disease strikes. He feels like the last one standing. Like the sole remaining human who hasn’t been infected with a zombie virus, the final girl in a horror movie. So he does what any sensible final girl does—leaves his teammates to suffer in their germy hotel rooms, ignores their requests for him to bring them various soups and other feel-better foods, triple-masks, and heads to the nearest MallMart. Not for the food or medicines they want, absolutely not. They’re on their own for that. This odyssey, this quest, is for his weapons in the battle against germs and viruses.
When he steps into aisle four, he feels his shoulders relax slightly. He’s home.
Shelves upon shelves of wipes, disinfectants, sponges, hand sanitizers, and air fresheners greet him, gleaming and colorful and sterile, and he breathes it in. Well, as much as he can when he's triple-masked, that is. He hefts the shopping basket and gets to work. Living with germ-carriers like his team is a real test, and he needs everything he possibly can to be prepared.
But as he moves down the aisle, he bumps into someone while he's reaching for a can of aerosol disinfectant.
“Oi. Watch where you're going,” scoffs the person he'd knocked into.
Sakusa peers down at him. Standing there is a short little man, hair parted slightly to the side and falling over his forehand. His gray eyes are narrowed. His own shopping basket is stocked up with cleaners and gloves, even a feather duster.
Sakusa scoots six feet away. “Are you sick?”
“Excuse me?”
“If you're sick, I have no intention of catching whatever you have,” Sakusa informs the stranger, who rolls his eyes.
“If I were sick, I wouldn't even be out. Common sense not to go out sick and spread it.” He's right, is the thing, but Sakusa doesn't quite like him enough to want to acknowledge it. The man continues to glare at him. “Are you sick?” he accuses next.
“Digusting. No,” Sakusa snaps. “Of course not.”
“Then why the masks?”
“My teammates are sick, including the one I'm sharing a hotel room with,” Sakusa explains. Speaking of, one of them (probably Atsumu) has to be blowing up the team group chat right now with how often his phone is vibrating in his jacket pocket. “So it falls to me to clean up after them.”
The stranger nods in understanding. “Yeah. Don't have to tell me twice,” he says. “My squad's fuckin’ hopeless without me. One of the little shits hadn't cleaned his room in so long he had fucking mushrooms growing behind his bed.”
They both shudder. “Horrible,” Sakusa laments. “Why can't anyone understand the importance of cleanliness?”
The man shrugs. “Fucking animals.” He stands up on the balls of his feet to try to reach a bottle of disinfectant on the very top shelf. He’s having trouble, though, so Sakusa decides to do something nice for once and get it off the shelf for him.
But apparently that was the wrong fucking move, because the man whips around and kicks him in the shin. “What the fuck?” Sakusa spits. “I’m an athlete, I have to play tomorrow!”
The man snatches the disinfectant from Sakusa’s hands. “Didn’t ask for help, shitass.”
“Excuse me for being kind,” Sakusa snaps. The man just scowls, but before he can make a retort, two more people join them in the aisle.
Sakusa tenses at the sight of them out of habit. Yakuza. The first man has that look about him, and Sakusa’s certain that beneath the long sleeves of his neat blue button-up and disarmingly cute puppy apron lie the telltale tattoos of yakuza affiliation. And his cadence as he speaks to his companion, a younger man with a garishly-patterned shirt and the same rough demeanor, confirms it. Sakusa inches away from the pair.
“…messed up the job again, Masa,” says the older man, pushing his sunglasses up his nose and grabbing a bottle of bleach off the shelf. “And when you screw up the job, you gotta clean up right away.”
“Yes, boss!” the other man—Masa—says. “This’ll get it out of my shirt, right, Tatsu?”
“Guaranteed,” Tatsu confirms. “Just don’t let it bleed like that again and we won’t have this problem in the future.”
Sakusa does not like the combination of the yakuza look, the industrial-strength bleach, and the talk of screwing up jobs and bleeding, so he makes up his mind to quietly slip away before he gets caught up in anything unsavory. Wouldn’t that be a headline. MSBY Outside Hitter Sakusa Kiyoomi’s Secret Yakuza Affiliation. Yeah, no thanks. He turns around and almost walks straight into someone else. Gods, this aisle is popping today. He bows slightly, apologizes, and straightens up to leave, only to see that the newcomer has an even worse aura than the yakuza men. He’s tall, inhumanly so, and is wearing a full butler outfit from the late 1800s or something like that. Sakusa immediately gets creepy, unsettling vibes from him. On top of that, his eyes are red. What kind of weird cosplay event is happening in this city today?
Wait, there’s another figure riding on his shoulder. An imp of a creature, much like a woman from the American 1950s in a long skirt and petticoat. Except she, too, has a big red eye. Eye, singular, taking up most of her face like a tiny Cyclops. She’s giggling maniacally and brandishing an equally small feather duster as she chatters away in the creepy butler's ear. The creepy butler just smiles and lets her point him toward the section of glass cleaner.
“Fuck this shit, I’m out,” the short man mutters, turning on his heel and stalking off toward the registers. Sakusa takes that as his cue to get the hell out as well. It’s been so strange in this store that he’s almost excited to get back to his germ-infested team.
Almost.