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Atsumu had hoped to quietly sneak into the sharehouse with his bouquet, but his teammates always pick the worst times to be observant.
This time it’s Hinata, of all people, who betrays him.
“What’s with the flowers, Atsumu-san?” he asks, peering excitedly over the back of the couch in the common area of the sharehouse. “Are you meeting up with someone special?”
The television plays the low sounds of a volleyball match; they must have been watching game tape when he walked in.
Still looking at him, Hinata wears a mix of curiosity and mischief on his face, like he’s excited to catch Atsumu in the act.
He scoffs. People are always catching him in the middle of something; it’s like it’s his curse.
Hiding the flowers behind his back, Atsumu tries to diffuse his question. Act casual.
“They’re for me, actually,” he says, shrugging, like he’s in the habit of buying himself flowers and Hinata’s the one making it weird. “Just tryin’ to cheer myself up, you know.”
Shit. Was that too much?
Someone pauses the volleyball match.
Sakusa turns, looking suspicious as he narrows his eyes at Atsumu. “Those are mourning flowers, Miya.”
Definitely too much. Damn that guy; when did he get the chance to notice? Defeated, Atsumu brings the bouquet in front of him, so Hinata and Bokuto can both see, too.
It’s a simple bouquet. A mix of white chrysanthemums — what Sakusa pointed out — and yellow tulips, for Atsumu’s own desires, with some greenery and lotus flowers at the confused florist’s insistence, for the sake of aesthetics and professional pride. Along with it, he bought a nice vase with a braided black rope around the neck, to match the cuff around his wrist. They’d called it an odd bouquet, and Atsumu couldn’t find it in him to disagree; he wasn’t getting it for typical reasons, after all.
Already creeping towards the hallway, his room — and safety — just a few dozen meters away, Atsumu tries to laugh it off. “You’ve sure got a good eye, Omi-omi! I’m just fond of these, that’s all!”
He turns to the hallway, missing the way Sakusa frowns and touches the silicon cuff on his own wrist. Then he breaks into a jog before Hinata or Bokuto can demand a closer look, keying into his room and letting out a sigh of relief as he sags against the closed door.
They were supposed to still be gone when Atsumu got back; no one was supposed to see him return with the flowers. Closing his eyes, he squeezes around the vase. Not enough to break it, but just enough to feel some pressure, the coolness of the water inside, some wetness from the drops that spilled while he fled. He takes in the subtle fragrance of the flowers, too, so different and distinct from the ambient scent of his room.
It’s grounding; the scent almost floods him, and for a moment he feels an overwhelming burst of sadness. More than he’s felt in a long time.
It almost makes him feel normal.
Only then does he open his eyes and place the vase on his little-used desk, right in the line of sight of the door. He pulls up his chair, too, fiddling idly with one of the velvety leaves.
“Mourning flowers,” he scoffs, shaking his head as he recalls Sakusa’s questioning look. “You’re right on, as usual, Omi-omi.”
It’s an anniversary of heartbreak, after all.
***
The first time Atsumu felt his soulmark tingle with emotion and knew who it belonged to, he was in highschool. His second year; the All-Japan Youth Camp.
He’d arrived early, and was soaking in the baths after showering off the stink of travel. More tired than he thought he’d be, the baths were relaxing and he’d been still as a statue despite the heat.
Suddenly, underneath his cuff — white and black back then, Inarizaki colors to rep the team — he knew that the thick line wrapped around his wrist, connected directly to his soulmate’s emotions, glowed the slate blue of relief. A swoosh of cool air accompanied the door opening into the bath area, and he could hear the soft pads of someone’s footsteps as they entered.
No.
Not just anyone; Sakusa Kiyoomi, the Itachiyama hitter with the freaky wrists. When he’d been researching the fellow athletes at the camp, he’d lingered on some of the tape of Sakusa in the air, and couldn’t tell if he wanted to spike at him or serve to him more.
(He didn’t know then what emotion he was broadcasting to his own soulmate, whoever that was.)
But as Atsumu pushed eagerly forward to greet him, making ripples in the water, the sensation turned rapidly to the disgruntled flare of annoyance — a dull and icky yellow-green — as Sakusa noticed Atsumu.
“I thought the baths were empty,” he sneered, before turning tail and leaving, not even letting Atsumu get a word in.
Ah.
So that was how it was going to be.
Honestly, it was good that he had the youth camp to get used to it; that way, Sakusa’s emotions didn’t splinter through him whenever he imagined the other boy reacting to things. And if he had any doubt that Sakusa wasn’t his soulmate — that the relief and annoyance was just uncanny coincidence — he lost it while watching one of Itachiyama’s matches at Nationals, sneaking glances under his cuff to see the color flash and change with a familiar pattern of emotions.
Focus. Exertion. Success. Victory. Failure. Loss.
Triumph.
He turned to leave as Itachiyama won the match, knowing that, whatever unplaceable emotion he felt in his heart, Sakusa wouldn’t notice, because the thrill of winning was so overpowering.
Before he knew it, his soulmark had faded into the background noise of his life; something he rarely noticed, even when Sakusa signed with MSBY. He was sure, he’d been certain, that Sakusa knew as well. It must have been obvious, after all, given their proximity and the obviousness of his moods.
(“Thank god you wear your heart on your sleeve, scrub,” Osamu’d said to him, once, half-drunk. “That way love’ll find ya easy.”
“Since when did you become a poet, ‘Samu?” Atsumu’d replied, unwilling to admit how true that was, and drawing his brother’s more painful affections.)
He’d been good at reading Sakusa, at abating the prickliest of his moods. Knowing when he really wanted to be left alone and when he was willing to get prodded with and played.
Sakusa’s a prickly guy, but Atsumu was good with thorns.
And Sakusa was a willing recipient of Atsumu’s attention, giving it back to him in turn. Pulling him in as a partner during variety shows, lingering by his side at parties and gatherings, glowering over his shoulder whenever Atsumu so much as thought about abandoning him.
(“Clingy!” He’d teased, once, when Sakusa — a little drunk and overtired — grabbed onto his shirt to keep him from walking off into the crowd.
“You’re my shield,” Sakusa muttered, as a reply. “No one wants to talk to you, and they’ll leave me alone.”
“Mean!” But there was no sting in it, and Sakusa probably felt that, too.)
But then, two years before buying himself flowers, in the midst of an impromptu party meant to celebrate a winning streak, Atsumu felt tipsy and high on victory and willing to let the unspoken thing between them coalesce into reality, especially with Sakusa so content and happy, both of them in their usual spots at the end of the table.
“Hey Kiyoomi,” he said, clearing his throat and straying from the pithy little nickname so Sakusa knew he was serious. He put his fingers on Sakusa’s cuff — a pristine black, silicon affair — intently. Easy to clean, he thought, unlike the braided variety Atsumu preferred, at that point a colorful gift from a fan. He batted his lashes up at him, keeping his voice low. “Do ya wanna, maybe, come back to my room tonight?”
It was easy to take the risk when the rest of his feelings and logic felt flooded by the pride of winning, of the warmth of Sakusa sitting next to him at the table, listing into his space. Their thighs pressed together. Come back to Atsumu’s room, so they could show each other their soulmarks in private, and confirm what Atsumu believed to be true.
Sakusa kept looking at him, too, like he could feel the same pride inside of him.
Like he knew what they were.
But instead, he stayed silent. Something acrid burned inside of Atsumu, and, for once, Atsumu misread the play. Sakusa frowned, even as Atsumu leaned closer, puzzled. “Hey, don’t ya-”
“No, Miya. I won’t come back to your room.” He cut him off, no chance to even say another word, before glaring down at his drink and leaving the table in order to get a new one at the bar.
The rest of their team pretended to ignore them, which was fine for Atsumu. He felt all the noise of the bar as if it were muted, the sound of his racing heartbeat dulling all other sensation,
There was no victory in his heart, anymore. No pride.
Just absence. The lack of feeling. The hollow sound of emptiness.
He chugged some water and left the table, too; heading outside to get some fresh air, hoping that would clear his head. But he also wanted a little bit of privacy to check one small thing.
Carefully undoing his cuff, he held his breath, hoping against hope that the fates weren’t laughing at him, that the hollow ache within him was his own heart, and not someone else’s.
The cuff dropped to the dirty ground.
“Oh,” he said, as a chill wind blew over him, and he shivered, the pale skin of his wrist bright in the moonlit night. His hopes were always a little bittersweet; Atsumu never quite liked wishing.
The band around his wrist was grey; no longer thrumming with color, or his soulmate’s feelings.
Honestly, he couldn’t help but laugh. Of course this was how he confirmed what he’d known, for years, was true: Sakusa was his soulmate.
That was the only way it could have gone inert and grey, after all. His soulmate had rejected him.
***
Anniversary of heartbreak. After last year — when he woke up exhausted, realized what day it was, and got drunk enough that he cried on the phone to Osamu, missed morning practice, and got benched over it — he decided to commemorate the death of his romantic life with something a little less damaging to his personal and professional reputation.
It’s easier, in the big scheme of things, especially because the morning after the party, Sakusa seemed to ignore that anything had even happened, snorting when Atsumu makes a good joke, rolling his eyes over the latte Atsumu insists on getting.
Like Atsumu’s the only one to feel the heartache, echoing in the empty space Sakusa left behind.
***
It takes a while for the flowers to wither and die. Atsumu thought they’d shrivel up immediately, that he would come home one day to find them dried and preserved, practically pickled; but instead, as he diligently changes the water, trimming the ends, mixing in the food the florist had sent him home with, they stay nearly pristine, only drooping lightly.
(Technically, the flowers are already dead; have been since they were cut from the root and refrigerated in order to make a pretty picture in the homes of maudlin men like Atsumu, but somehow that felt fitting. With his soulmark inert, all he can do is continue to foster something similarly frozen in time.)
“I've never seen you take such good care of something, Miya,” Sakusa says, one day. “Outside of volleyball,” he adds, preempting Atsumu's usual retort.
They're still friends of course; Atsumu couldn’t stop that if he tried, or wanted to.
He’ll take what Sakusa’ll give him, just like the flowers’ll take the food.
Because their rooms are so small, the vase is easy to see whenever someone passes by Atsumu's open door, hovering over his shoulder like a particularly fragrant ghost whenever he and Hinata — to Sakusa’s endless consternation — have a discussion while standing in the hallway.
Lately, Sakusa’s been keeping an eye on it, poking his head in and ignoring the inevitable mess of laundry littering the floor of his room, in favor of flowers.
(It’s like Sakusa’s been keeping a closer watch on him, too, but Atsumu’ll blame the flowers for now.)
The fragile lotuses wilted early and had to get culled, but the tulips and mums are hardier.
Once upon a time Atsumu would know how Sakusa felt when he saw them.
Now? He just has to shrug and accept the uncertainty.
“Yeah, well,” Atsumu says, pruning one of the shriveled leaves. “Some things are worth preserving.”
***
What’s really baffling, more than anything else, is the fact that Sakusa — despite, well, everything — seems to like his soulmate.
Or the idea of them, at least.
(It makes everything hurt twice as much; a casual cruelty. Before he was rejected, he thought Sakusa would be giddy with the idea of finally knowing, for sure, who his soulmate was. That was why he’d been so confident, before everything came crashing down to earth.)
For some reason, questions about soulmates are seen as less invasive than questions about their dating life — which Bokuto has, more than once, publicly expressed his confusion about — so they get asked about their marks and emotions a lot during fanmeets.
Atsumu, luckily, has always been vague about his own, and open to other questions as well, so no one seemed to notice when his own went inert and he stopped mentioning his soulmate at all. Better to interrogate him on his opinions about their next opponent; the sound bites are juicier.
But Sakusa?
Reticent and prickly as he is, he's strangely honest about his soulmate’s feelings, even now.
“Sakusa-senshu, a fan question! What is your favorite emotion from your soulmate?”
They're all on a panel, Atsumu seated next to Sakusa at the end of the line — better to isolate all the jerkiness to one corner, after all — watching as Sakusa considers it.
Then he pulls down his mask, leans into the mic. “Happiness,” he says, gaze skirting briefly to Atsumu as if daring him to make fun of it. “Joy and happiness.”
“And — a follow up question, if you please! What is the color of their happiness?”
“Yellow.” This answer comes quickly.
Too quickly, in fact. “No. It's golden,” he corrects.
Atsumu, meanwhile, squeezes his fists tight under the table.
Kiyoomi is either a good liar, he thinks, or our soulmarks are lopsided.
He can't tell which is worse.
***
When the flowers finally reach their unnatural end, when no amount of food or trimming can stem the inevitable, Atsumu feels a little empty.
He'd grown used to the space the flowers took up on his desk, the little reminder of his own feelings, his own perennial heartbreak.
So he buys another bouquet. This time, he lets the florist pick it out.
“And who are these for, Miya?” Sakusa asks, looking up from where he's wiping down the kitchen counters and flaring at the bouquet like they’re his own worst enemy. “Someone special?”
The words sound like poison on his lips.
Atsumu fakes a smile so sweet that butter wouldn't melt in his mouth. “Why, are ya jealous?”
Sakusa glowers, and Atsumu — still weak to what they used to have — relents, softening. “It's for someone who knows how to mind their own business, Omi-omi!”
Softening just a little.
Even though he clearly has more questions, Sakusa lets him go, realizing he’s not going to get a clear answer out of Atsumu.
(He does, however, peer into his room the next day, smugly satisfied when he sees that the bouquet is in the same vase as before.
“Do you really think you know how to mind your own business, Miya?”
“More than you do, nosy bastard!”)
Honestly, Atsumu’s not sure what he was thinking when he went back in for more flowers; maybe the absence was overwhelming, in the same way that the loss of his soulmate's emotions wrecked him for the first few weeks after Sakusa turned him down.
Or maybe they just cheer him up, a bit.
The bouquet, this time, is much brighter; a mix of purples and greens, zinnias and vines. It seems bigger, too, with the color.
It fills the space more.
Unignorable. It’s impossible to not smile when he sees it.
The thing with soulmarks is that they’re easy to hide, if you cover it up with a cuff or a bracelet. And if you go through life feeling so strongly that it washes out your soulmate’s emotions, and you could almost pretend you didn't even have a soulmate.
That used to be Atsumu's problem; he felt so boldly that he never had space to recognize his soulmate's feelings. So when Sakusa slipped in during that moment of respite in the bath, it felt almost serendipitous.
Now, though? He wishes he could go back to not knowing. That way, the absence of Sakusa's feelings wouldn't hurt as much, even two years later.
“You don't feel anythin’ either, do ya?” Atsumu mutters, leaning onto his desk as he pets the soft flower petals. “All severed from the stalk. You get it, then, what it’s like. Missin’ your roots, the soil.”
The flowers, of course, don't answer.
But that's just fine; he doesn't need a response. He just needs to talk.
“It's like —” Atsumu pulls off his cuff, rubs the dark line that wraps all the way around his wrist. “It's like you're reaching for somethin’ that ain't there anymore.”
Life, for the flowers. Sakusa’s emotions, for Atsumu.
But what about his feelings? Had Sakusa ever felt the same bubbly sense of anticipation for Atsumu whenever he saw him, or was that just Atsumu filling in the blanks? Did he ever want them to be soulmates, or was the rejection just a way to correct the record?
And why — given the rejection, given everything — did Sakusa still seem insistent on being so close to him? Checking in on him, looking at the flowers. How could it be friendship, when it just felt cruel?
Was Atsumu trying to reach for something that had never been there in the first place?
More than anything else, Atsumu wants answers; he wants to know what happened, to close this door for good. Growing up with his soulmate’s emotions in his heart, he’s not used to this kind of uncertainty, and he’s decidedly not a fan.
Unexpectedly, Atsumu laughs. “Ya can't go makin’ me all maudlin like that,” he says. And then — “god, am I really talkin’ to flowers? What would Aran say if he saw me now?”
It's easy to be happy around the bright flowers, though, and he practically whistles as he starts to clean up his room.
A little later, there's a knock on his door.
Sakusa.
Uncanny, since he was just thinking about him.
“Who were you talking to, Miya?” He asks, and then, sneering under the mask, “what are you doing, cleaning? What happened to you? Are pigs flying, too?”
“Hey! I clean!”
“Sometimes,” Sakusa mutters. His eyes glance over the flowers. “If needs must.”
***
Sakusa doesn't stop asking about the flowers, especially the way Atsumu keeps replacing them, week after week.
It’s his little ritual.
He's not very picky, so the florist always makes something interesting with what's left over from the week. The blooms about to expire, the discards. When he’s feeling particularly low, he thinks it suits him; discarded from Sakusa’s heart, so readily.
No matter what, though, Sakusa is curious.
“Who gave these to you?”
“What do these flowers mean?”
“Where do you put the ones you're done with?”
“Jeeze, Sakusa, quit with the third degree!” Atsumu complains, one day, when he's a little too tired and cut it pretty close to closing time to snag his flowers. He's cranky, sue him. “You know what happens to the cat who asks too many questions, right?”
“He's satisfied,” Sakusa purrs, a little smug. “And you know me, Miya. I like to see things through.”
If this were two years ago, if this were before the party, Atsumu might have registered the knife’s edge of flirtation buried in Sakusa’s words.
Instead, he scoffs and puts the flowers in clean water, unable to notice Sakusa’s confusion or hurt.
“What’s his deal?” he mutters, to the daisies and lilies.
They don’t respond, but the water makes them perk up, and it makes him smile.
***
Sakusa isn’t wrong about wanting to see things through.
Sure, they’ve been friends this whole time, but it's like Sakusa read some kind of self-help book and decided to start being friendlier than ever, after that. Knocking at his door to invite him to breakfast, buying an industrial sized container of flower food, spotting him when he works out.
The seasons ends, the team changes; Hinata goes back to Brazil, and keeps forgetting to send his recipe for feijoada as if he’s trying to make sure they can’t replace him that easily, and Sakusa shows up at his off-season apartment with dinner and copies of a K-Drama they both pretend they’ve never heard of, but secretly love.
Having Sakusa in his apartment like this is strange; he’s never had someone from the team visit him here before, preferring to travel to see them and infringe on their hospitality.
(It only takes Sakusa stiffening from one off-hand remark about the ‘big house you must have in Tokyo’ for Atsumu to apologize by pausing the show and cooking them both dinner.)
When he goes to bed that night, Sakusa quietly asleep on the spare futon in his living room — he sleeps almost noiselessly, which spooks Bokuto out so they’re never road roommates — he can’t help but think that, if Sakusa hadn’t rejected him, he would have noticed Sakusa’s discomfort so much earlier. And it’s not fair that Atsumu, who wants to be able to read his hitters like a book, would misread him so thoroughly, so he resolves to be better at understanding Sakusa without the built-in cheat code of their long-lost soulmate connection.
It’s crazy that Sakusa seems to be making him work twice as hard, even after rejecting him.
It’s crazy that Atsumu’s going along with it; still trying to nurture the ghost of what was once where, even if it hurts him to think about what they could have had.
After that, friendship escalates naturally, easily.
Sakusa saves a seat next to him on the bus, a light crinkling of a smile in his eyes as Atsumu brightens, because it’s nice for someone to think of him. There’s a seat for him at dinners, at parties, at the bar; in the cramped karaoke booths Inunaki insists on even though he can’t carry a tune.
It’s like Sakusa is always around him, always thinking about him, and it’s conscientious even when his words still match the same ol’ jerk he’s always been — which is the only comforting thing — and, for the life of him, Atsumu can’t understand why.
If there’s something Atsumu’s good at, it’s matching energy; there’s no way to rebuff Sakusa even though his affection now, after the fact, hurts. So he saves a seat in turn on the off-chance that he’s earlier than Sakusa. He leaves dinner a little earlier in order to keep the bath empty for him, which puts that crinkly, awkward smile on his face even as a pang of pain lurches through Atsumu because it reminds him of the moment he first thought they were soulmates. He claims Sakusa as his drill partner until Bokuto gets annoyed, and Meian bans them from partnering up for a week.
And all the while, he tries to stifle the hurt that’s growing inside of him, the little fire of confusion and anxiety that burns like a brazier, smoke in his chest until his lungs are hurting, doubled over in practice and nearly crying for reasons he can’t fathom.
(When he leaves, taking a few minutes to catch his breath, he misses Sakusa reaching for his own wrist, a concerned expression on his face.)
Luckily, he has the flowers. Stuck in this strange liminal space where his soulmate has rejected him but directs all his attention towards him, where he he both craves and fears their connection, sweet as it is cruel, talking to his flowers — knowing it’s a little odd, a little unhealthy, and something he absolutely cannot bring up to Osamu or Aran or Kita without them making them worry — is a good outlet.
“I just don’t understand,” he starts, after Sakusa has another one of his little fits of friendship — this time getting Atsumu a drink from his favorite cafe that he allegedly passed on his way back from a jog, even though he knows Sakusa’s jogging route and the fact that it goes nowhere near that cafe. “Like. What’s his deal? What’s he trying to pull?”
But the dahlias have no answer. And neither do the lilies, or the roses, or the snapdragons, or the bleeding hearts or the tulips or the plum blossoms or the —
Well.
You get the picture.
The internet has no answers, either, when he turns to it; as far as he can tell, there’s no way to fix an inert soulmark, but no one seems to have really tried.
Which makes sense; if your soulmate, the one who’s meant for you, breaks your heart, what’s the use in trying again?
***
Atsumu’s in an uneasy truce with his feelings by the time the next anniversary comes around. Sakusa’s friendly affections don’t hurt as much, anymore, as long as he doesn’t think about what they could have been. Down that road lies despair, after all.
They’re just friends, that’s all, and nothing will change that; Sakusa made sure of it.
“Time heals all wounds,” he says to the last remaining lotus, and he almost believes it, too.
As the date approaches, he feels a curious mix of fluttering anxiety and striking contentment. He even has the blind faith that he’ll get past this; just one more anniversary, and he’ll be over it. Able to move on.
It’s unfounded optimism.
(Sakusa, feeling a little flutter of positivity in his own chest, unearned confidence, decides to take a risk.)
The florist is distraught when Atsumu gets a bouquet of only white mums, but he promises he’ll get one twice as big the next week.
Sakusa’s lingering in the lounge like a ghost when Atsumu returns, a bag of takeout from Onigiri Miya in front of him. “Miya,” he says, looking at the flowers, in a new vase this time, “dinner?”
Even though there’s a tight knot in his throat, Atsumu’s not one to turn down free food, so he puts the flowers on the table and grabs utensils for the both of them, and drinks from their fridge, before settling down on the couch across from Sakusa.
“Penny for your thoughts, Omi-omi?” He asks, dangerous words, after he’s scarfed down two of the tuna onigiri. “Ya haven’t told me off for chewin’ with my mouth full, yet.”
Sakusa splutters. “That’s when you’re supposed to chew! What are you talking about?”
Atsumu laughs, before taking another bite. “Ya know what I mean. And we’re eatin’ at the coffee table. You hate that. Why’re ya bein’ so… lax with your rules?’
“They’re not rules, Miya, they’re just preferences.”
“And now you’re avoidin’ the entire subject! Come on, I’ll raise ya currency we even use.” Atsumu winks, feeling light with teasing Sakusa all of a sudden, as he pulls a hundred yen coin from his pocket and places it on the table, next to the flowers. The mums shake a little bit with the motion, and Sakusa follows the sway, warily.
Then he reaches out an arm, touching one finger to the mums. This, for some reason, makes Atsumu’s eyes go wide, his heart racing; it feels too intimate, like Sakusa’s trying to touch his heart, or, god forbid, his soulmark.
“What’s these flowers for, again? You got them last year too, didn’t you? Same day?” Sakusa asks.
Mourning flowers, Atsumu recalls. That lump in his throat returns, and he gulps.
“Is that really what you were thinkin’ of, Omi?”
Sakusa nods. “I’m just curious,” he says. “You know me.”
“Ya really can’t let things go, can ya?” Atsumu says, letting out a laugh that’s more like a wheeze, a little nervous.
Instead of answering, Sakusa lets him sit in silence.
Atsumu looks at the flowers instead.
It’s easier that way, somehow.
“I told ya,” he said. “They’re mournin’ flowers.”
“If I’m recalling correctly, I told you that.”
“Yeah, but I knew why I was gettin’ ‘em.”
“And why were you getting them?”
It’s like Sakusa’s voice is coming through the flowers, and Atsumu feels anxiety flood him. This isn’t how it’s supposed to go; his weekly bouquets were his sanctuary, his levee against the unbearable wrongness of Sakusa and his behavior.
(He doesn’t notice Sakusa’s frown, or the way he has to steady his breaths against a flood of unfamiliar, foreign feelings.)
Their friendship — Sakusa’s escalations — combined with his content, pleased answers to all the questions he fields about his soulmate and their emotions, has upset the delicate balance in his heart. Cruelty, unconscious or conscious, still wounds him.
And, for the last year, the flowers have been keeping the scales from tipping. Atsumu hasn’t been getting over it, not really. The flowers have just been a crutch, making him think he’s alright.
“You should know,” Atsumu says. It’s a little biting, a little mean, and he almost feels bad for the way Sakusa winces, suddenly, taken aback.
“All I can think of is that you were drunk on this day, once,” Sakusa replies, after a moment of thought, after he recovers from the recoil. “And you missed practice, and a game, and we lost.”
“You don’t gotta remind me of all my failings, you know, Omi?”
A smile spreads across Sakusa’s face, before slipping away just as fast. “But you bounce back, though. You wouldn’t be so upset about that even now, two years later.”
“You’ve really been puzzlin’ over this, huh?”
“Only one way to get me off your back, Miya,” Sakusa says.
But Atsumu doesn’t answer. He ignores it; puts this conversation in the same liminal space where everything with Sakusa lives, nowadays. Instead, he stuffs the remainder of his last onigiri inside of his mouth, before clearing his throat. “What’s all this about, anyway?”
“Oh, right.” Sakusa looks a little awkward now.
No. Not awkward. Bashful.
“I hope that whatever happened today isn’t too bad, Miya,” he says, and — that can’t be, can it? A dangerous little flush on his cheeks? “Because I’ve been meaning to do this for a while.”
He leans forward, grabs Atsumu’s hand. It’s the one with his soulmark. He still wears a cuff on this wrist, both out of habit and also to avoid horrible questions about his greyed out soulmark.
Suddenly, his heart starts racing.
It’s like looking at himself in a mirror, years ago.
“You’re nervous, Miya — Atsumu,” Sakusa corrects, confirming at least one uncertainty that’s been plaguing Atsumu. But instead of making him feel better, like he thought it would, knowing that Sakusa still feels his emotions unsettles every nerve inside of Atsumu; makes him feel like he’s falling. “You don’t have to be.”
Sakusa tugs off his own cuff to reveal a line around his wrist pulsing the acrid green of anxiety, racing in time with Atsumu’s heart.
“You must be able to feel mine, too.” He reaches for Atsumu’s cuff, about to fiddle with the complicated closure that Atsumu is suddenly immensely grateful for, because he needs the time to understand what’s going on, and what’s about to happen.
Sakusa thinks they’re soulmates, still.
But Sakusa rejected him, stifling the connection, but only on one side.
What will he do when he pulls off Atsumu’s cuff and sees the grey soulmark? Will he think they’re a mismatched pair? Or will he realize what he’d done to Atsumu, and realize why his emotions have felt particularly tumultuous for the last couple of years?
And how will Atsumu explain not telling him?
It’s like watching a trainwreck in slow motion as Sakusa tries and fails to loosen Atsumu’s cuff, before —
“Hey, am I interrupting something?” Bokuto asks, his arms full with bags from the grocery store and a puzzled expression on his face.
My hero, Atsumu thinks, noticing Sakusa’s soulmark go light blue with his relief — not fading entirely, because this is not a rejection, just an interruption, their connection held in stasis — before he grabs his vase and flees.
***
“I just don’t get it!” Atsumu says to the flowers that night.
He tried to sleep but he couldn’t, feeling his heart race whenever he tried, his vision sparking the same shade of green as Kiyoomi’s soulmark when he closed his eyes.
So, giving up, he sneaks out of his room to steal from Bokuto’s stash of sleepy tea and talks to his flowers instead. They’re in stasis, too; a holding pattern as Atsumu cares for them, but there’s an inevitability to their wilting that makes Atsumu’s heart race.
“What’s it like to live on borrowed time?” He asks, realizing, suddenly, that at some point they’ll have to deal with this whole confusing thing between the two of them. Not today, though, even as he senses Sakusa lingering outside of his door, fist resting on the wood like he wants to knock, before thinking the better of it.
What was going on? With the way his colors pulsed and changed, there was little doubt — to Atsumu, and now, to Sakusa — that they were soulmates.
But why, then, had he rejected him so long ago?
***
Things change a little, but some remain constant.
Atsumu still buys flowers.
Sakusa is still his friend.
They keep living in this uncertain space, where Atsumu won’t reject him and Sakusa won’t stop reminding him that they’re made for each other.
He’s almost insistent in his overtures, and Atsumu suddenly sees it for what it’s been this whole time — Sakusa trying to read him the same way Atsumu did.
And now that this is all out in the open (at least to Sakusa) he’s so obvious with his affections. Especially since Atsumu didn’t outright reject him.
He probably thinks Atsumu just needs time.
Honestly, he’d be shocked if the rest of the team didn’t have some idea of what was going on.
Sakusa seethes with jealousy whenever Atsumu talks to someone else — even if it’s Ushijima, who is Sakusa’s friend, or Suna, who he’s known for too long at this point. He always comes up behind Atsumu, glaring and hovering, which might work on strangers, but doesn’t work on the people who know them best.
(“What’s his deal?” Suna whispers to Atsumu, when Sakusa refuses to leave them alone even though they’re doing little more than arranging the next Inarizaki birthday gift.
“He’s just a weirdo,” Atsumu shrugs. “You know how it is.”
“Well. Like attracts like,” Suna smirks, a little smug, and then — “Ouch!” when Atsumu steps on his foot.)
He keeps saving seats for Atsumu, and he can’t help but wear the hurt on his face so clearly whenever Atsumu ignores it to sit next to Bokuto, or Inunaki, or Meian. But because Atsumu can’t quite let go of his own emotions whenever he sees Sakusa, he eventually gives in and sits next to him again, which makes him happy, at least a little.
And, still, Sakusa wears that unbearably fond little expression that he always does whenever he gets asked about his soulmate, even butting into other teammates' interviews to talk about them, practically staring Atsumu down when he does.
(“Omi, you’ve gotta stop,” Atsumu says, cornering him after an interview where Sakusa mentioned his soulmate three separate times. “People are gonna get real suspicious.”
They already are, actually; Suna keeps sending him tweets of fans who are noticing it, wondering when they’re going to come clean about their nonexistent romance.
Hell, if they got a picture of this moment it would only damn them more; Atsumu pushing Sakusa against the wall, staring him down. An outsider might notice the intensity, but Sakusa’s the only one who feels Atsumu’s frustration.
“You know what’ll make me stop, Miya,” Sakusa says, grabbing his wrist and rubbing against his cuff. It makes Atsumu shiver, despite himself. Sakusa’s hands are cold, and he wonders, briefly, how they would feel if they rubbed along the line of his inert soulmark.
“I know,” Atsumu sighs, leaning against Sakusa, letting the other man carry his weight, for once. “I just —”
He doesn’t know how he feels. And he doesn’t want to reject Sakusa out of hand.
From experience, he knows how much it hurts; he wouldn’t wish it on his worst enemy, even though Sakusa did it seemingly without thinking. “Just give me time,” Atsumu says, finally. “And cool it on the public stuff. Ushiwaka’s your friend, and he’s not my type.”)
***
Their own feelings can’t get in the way of their volleyball, though. When the scouts come for an overseas team in need of a setter, Atsumu plays his heart out and Sakusa helps him shine.
After the off-season, Atsumu’s playing in Europe, and Sakusa’s the MSBY vice captain.
It’s refreshing and nerve-wracking, being on a new team, in a new country, in another language.
And he knows why and how Sakusa can text him when he’s at his most stressed; he even starts looking forward to it. Living in each other’s pockets, he’d forgotten how novel it was to have someone to understand his feelings so easily.
He gets used to the new life and culture; he’s flexible, like water. He’ll do what he needs to do. And even though more of his teammates are literal giants than usual, the volleyball is still the same. The scouts did their job, and he fills in the cracks like ice on a sidewalk. He starts to feel like he fits in.
He almost forgets about the inert mark on his wrist, the gray line of rejection, and his teammates don’t know him well enough to tease him about the cuff he wears, especially when half of them have found their soulmates and wear their wrists bare with pride.
Secretly, Atsumu thinks it’s a bit of an infringement on their partner’s privacy to broadcast their emotions like that, but he’s not gonna tell his teammates.
It means that his guard is down when he next sees Sakusa, at a JNT friendly match-up during a break in the international season. It’s not in a country either of them play in, and the change in scenery does a lot to make Atsumu forget important things, like what day it is and to ask Sakusa where he goes during the brief gap between practice and dinner, and especially that Sakusa is the king of seeing things through.
Dinner is at some fancy place that the JVA — that conman Kuroo with his corporate card who won’t stop crowing about all the airline miles he’s racking up from this — rents out. Sakusa’s running late, so Atsumu saves a seat for him.
They’re only just setting out appetizers when Sakusa finally makes his way inside, looking a little frazzled and lost and holding a bouquet of flowers in his right hand. Komori’s the first person to notice and he lets out a low whistle.
Sakusa’s eyes go wide when he sees Atsumu and the empty seat next to him, and there’s a flash of deja vu in Atsumu’s body followed by a rush of confusion — why does Sakusa have flowers? Where did he get them? — before Sakusa reaches their table and holds the bouquet out to him.
It’s a peculiar bouquet; one hard to source on late notice, especially in another country.
White mums, Atsumu thinks, feeling a phantom pang on his wrist, before it clicks.
He’s lost track of it between the flights and the chaos of practice, but today’s the anniversary of the rejection — and the confession.
This time, a flash of anger rushes through him; he sees Sakusa reel back in confusion, and has a brief moment to be grateful that Sakusa’s soulmark isn’t inert like his, before he rises, upset and confused and frustrated beyond belief.
“What the fuck is your problem,” he hisses, louder than he meant to. The entire table goes quiet, even the rookies that must have once looked up to Atsumu when they were in high school, and embarrassment floods Atsumu’s body as Sakusa tries to reach for him, for his cuffed wrist.
But Atsumu just shakes it off before storming out.
***
He only has a few moments of peace in the street outside, before he hears the door open.
He'd forgotten, already, how cold it was, and left his jacket inside
“Here,” Sakusa says, holding his coat out.
“Thanks,” Atsumu replies, taking the jacket but not putting it on, just looking at it.
It feels like Sakusa's been tormenting him; keeping him trapped in this strange relationship where he acts like he wants to be his soulmate even though he rejected him. Atsumu's not a snake; he can't slough off his skin and forget the aches of the past. He wouldn't want to be like that, anyway; he's made of all the things that he's done, experienced. Built up, like layers of paint on the walls of a house.
He can't get rid of the sensation of rejection, no matter how many bouquets he buys.
Maybe it’s a little bit his fault, too, for not ending things entirely last year.
But, knowing how it feels, how could he inflict the same pain on someone else?
“What's your deal?” Atsumu asks, finally, turning to Sakusa. There's a light dusting of snow falling down, the flakes landing on Sakusa's curls and eyelashes, but he doesn't move to shake them off. “Why are you - why?”
Sakusa crosses his arms. “You have to be more specific than that, Atsumu.”
That makes Atsumu angry, and they both wince. “Do ya have to be a jerk, even now? Christ, Omi,” Atsumu laughs, dry and tired.
“I’m not trying to be.” He’s pouting when Atsumu looks up.
Atsumu raises an eyebrow.
“For once,” he amends, with playful exasperation, enough to make Atsumu almost smile.
That’s been the problem, this whole time.
No matter how much Atsumu wanted to move on, to get over it, he couldn’t make it happen. Not when Sakusa keeps intruding on his space like this; not when their friendship somehow persists despite the dull grey soulmark around his wrist.
Not when Sakusa seems to want him, in spite of his casual cruelty, and the way his affection feels like a mockery of everything Atsumu wanted before he was rejected.
Still wants, now that he can admit it.
For all that Sakusa inadvertently inflicts pain, making his heart ache, Atsumu craves it, like scissors to his stalk. They’re still intertwined, and part of him — brazen, bare, ruined — will always turn towards the light of his soulmate.
Sometimes, people describe the soulmark as a handcuff; it chains you to another person, links you to them, forever.
But Atsumu’s soulmark is as silver as any handcuff, and it doesn’t feel like it’s tying him down. Maybe the rejection has given him the freedom to understand that, despite everything, they’re still made for each other, no matter how their marks react. Maybe, in another life, where Sakusa didn’t reject him, they’d break apart completely, unable to come back together.
Atsumu doesn’t live in possibilities and maybes, though; he’d get lost if he tried to think about every alternative world he could live in. He only has his own life, the one he’s living, and he’s quite fond of it.
That’s why he has to open one last door.
(Or close it, depending on how you’re looking at it.)
“Why would you want me to remember this day, Omi? Why are ya so insistent on helping me revisit it?”
“You’re the one who keeps buying yourself flowers,” Sakusa says. “And last year was an accident — I hadn't realized what day it was, until I saw the bouquet. I meant to talk about this; it felt right, the timing, until I noticed.” He sounds regretful, too.
“But you’re the one who keeps diggin’,” Atsumu replies. “And, last I checked, ya didn’t wanna be a libero.”
Sakusa opens his mouth in a rebuttal, but closes it after a moment of thought. “I just — I don’t understand what this day means to you. You got catastrophically drunk once. We had a party, another time. I don’t understand.”
“The party, Omi, don’t ya remember?” Atsumu furrows his brow. “You turned me down?” Your soulmate, Atsumu thinks.
“The party?” Sakusa furrows his brow in confusion. “I just — Miya, I just didn’t want you to take me back to your bedroom, like some drunken mistake. And back then, I didn’t know — I just thought all you wanted was a hook-up!” Sakusa protests, but he sounds unsure, fiddling awkwardly with the hem of his coat. “...Right?” he adds, hesitantly.
Suddenly, Atsumu realizes that, throughout this whole drawn-out affair, neither of them have said that they’re soulmates out loud. It’s out of character for both of them, as straightforward as they are, but they've tiptoed around the most critical and important part of the confession. Sakusa might think he’s said more than enough, by talking about his soulmate’s feelings every chance he can get — he still does this, Atsumu watches the interviews when he should be sleeping — but it’s not enough for Atsumu, who needs directness.
“I didn’t want to hook up with you, Omi,” Atsumu admits. “I wanted some privacy to show you…” My heart. Your feelings. Our love, and all the things we could be. “Well, you know.” He gestures with his wrist.
Sakusa blinks, but doesn’t say anything. Just reaches for his own soulmark, like he’s finally understanding.
“And I didn’t want just that night; And I wanted the morning after, too,” Atsumu says, squeezing his fist and trying to find some strength. He feels ragged. Exhausted. The end of the frayed rope of his heart. “And the next morning, and each one after that. I wanted to share them with my soulmate,” he says, feeling all the weight leave him with the last word.
It hangs in the air between them, suspended in the gently falling snow. Atsumu has to blink it out of his eyes.
Before him, Sakusa looks shellstruck, like he never thought he’d hear the words out loud.
“But then you rejected me,” Atsumu adds, the icing on the cake, and Sakusa reels back.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to, I didn’t realize at the time that we were soulmates.” The word slips out of Sakusa’s lips almost awkwardly, but they hit Atsumu like a meteor.
“I know, I know. But even if ya thought it was just a hook-up, I took it as a rejection, look.” Atsumu feels desperate now, almost insane, pulling off his cuff and tossing it to the ground so Sakusa can see.
The inert, grey line on his wrist, almost invisible in the night.
Sakusa blinks. “Atsumu, I —”
He cuts himself off this time, pulling off his gloves and his own cuff — his soulmark flashing cyan, whatever that means — so he can grab Atsumu’s hand.
His fingers are cold and reverent as they touch Atsumu’s wrist, ghosting over the line.
Atsumu shivers, but not because of the cold.
“Oh, Atsumu,” Sakusa sighs, pulling Atsumu’s hand up to rest a kiss on the inner pulse point. “What have I done to you…”
A lot, Atsumu thinks, but he doesn’t tear his hand away. He doesn’t flee. He doesn’t run, no matter how many people enter and exit the restaurant, looking at them askance before decking to ignore the strange duo.
They can’t live in stasis any longer.
Something’s gotta give.
“You said —” Sakusa says, suddenly, his throat dry, his voice cracking as his breath warms Atsumu’s hand. “You said you wanted to spend every day afterwards with your soulmate. Do you still want that, Atsumu?”
For once, Atsumu doesn’t hesitate. “It’s impossible,” he says, trying to tug his wrist away, but Sakusa won’t let him go.
“My wrist is still glowing,” Sakusa says. “I can still feel your emotions. And I think —” the color on Sakusa’s wrist changes to a light lavender, something soft and almost sweet, “that means we have a second chance, if you’ll give it to me.”
If he says anything but yes, it’ll count as a rejection. Atsumu can feel that truth in his heart. If he says anything but yes, the color on his wrist will fade to the same grey as Atsumu’s, and they’ll be handcuffed, but not together.
But if he says yes, then what’s in store for him? For them? And is it any different than the life they’ve been leading? Sakusa knows his feelings; Atsumu can read Kiyoomi. They don’t necessarily need the marks to know they’re it for each other, inexorably linked, twinned planets.
Atsumu’s got only one life to live.
He’ll make this one count.
“You’ve got one more chance, Kiyoomi,” Atsumu says, watching the smile spread on Sakusa’s face. “And ya better make it count.”
“I won’t let you down.” Sakusa reaches down to cup Atsumu’s lower back and tug him closer, nearly knocking him to the ground but holding him steady before he can fall. “See? I told you I always see things through.”
Before Atsumu can say another word, Sakusa kisses him; Atsumu’s eyes close, and the last thing he sees as their lips press together is the snow collected on Sakusa’s long eyelashes, like the fuzz behind his eyelids when he tries to fall asleep. Sakusa’s lips are cold, but they feel nice against his own. They feel right.
There aren’t supposed to be any sparks when you meet your soulmate; you already have their emotions up your sleeve, so you should know how they feel.
But as Sakusa kisses him, his fingers tightening around Atsumu’s wrist, he swears there’s a snapdragon spark of something, and then he feels joy and love redouble inside of him, jumping between them, more emotion than he’s felt in years.
And when they pull apart, the two of them are bathed in sweet, red light, from their matching glowing wrists.
No more greys.
Looking at Sakusa, his pleased smile, his eager eyes, Atsumu doesn’t need the color or a soulmark to tell him how he feels.
But, leaning back in to kiss him again, the pleasure ricocheting between their bodies, he can’t imagine living without this again.