Archive of Our Own ^beta

“‘Samu! Open the door! ‘Samu!”

“Fuck off,” came Osamu’s groggy reply, but he opened the door to his apartment anyway and let Atsumu push him. Marks of sleep were still on Osamu’s face. “What’s your problem this time?”

“Oh, I wanna guess,” Suna chirped in, because of course he was in Osamu’s apartment at eight in the morning, lounging on the couch. As much as Atsumu resented the sight, he had actually seen worse things for the last twenty-four hours. “You hate how your spread in this month’s sports magazine came out, you’re mad about how all the fans are either thirsting or shitting on it, or—or you’re pissed that you decided to show up on Osamu’s doorstep unannounced only to find that I’ve been here before you.”

“No," Atsumu said, even though those were normally the reasons he was angry whenever he came over.

Osamu resumed his place behind Suna, grabbing the towel and drying his hair. Atsumu sat down beside Suna on the couch, which was small enough that two grown men could barely fit, and for once didn't wonder how Osamu couldn't smell how Suna reeked of 3AM chain-smoking that he likely tried to do in the apartment balcony, even through his disgustingly scented shampoo. Osamu must have noticed the genuine distress on his brother's face, because he said, "What, don't tell me that you’re here because Sakusa found your second fanfic account.”

Atsumu, in fact, did not have a second fanfic account, even if Osamu would never believe him. It was justified, seeing as Atsumu refused to believe Osamu and Suna were dating all the way back in second year until he found Suna’s porn magazines hidden under Osamu’s pillow. “It’s worse than that,” he began. “I found Omi-kun’s fanfic account.”

When Sakusa first confronted Atsumu about the fanfic, he did it in the stroke of midnight, sitting by the dining table in the darkness until Atsumu returned to their shared apartment and flicked the light switch on. Atsumu did not know how long Sakusa had been sitting there, but it did not matter, because Sakusa greeted Atsumu with, “I found you out, Miya,” and then slid Atsumu’s tablet across the table like he’d been handing evidence of the crime to the culprit to prove that he was guilty.

Atsumu was indeed guilty. On his tablet were tabs of written word about someone named Miya Atsumu made in his liking and whatever latest OC—always a woman, who did not actually exist in real life, which was the point—sharing a rather passionate, albeit unrealistic, love story.

The whole interaction had all been very dramatic, because Sakusa was apparently a dramatic bastard. It was not enough for Atsumu to take on that role. Atsumu would’ve been offended, except he was mostly mortified about the whole ordeal to begin with.

“That was an accident,” Atsumu defended himself. “A fan posted that link in the comments section of one of our practice videos on the MSBY channel.”

“There are multiple tabs of different stories.”

“I like to poke fun at them.” That was a total lie. He actually thought they were good, but it fit his M.O. “There’s one where ‘Samu and I are fighting over the same girl. Can you believe there are people who think I’d stoop so low to his level that we’d have the same standards? He doesn’t even like women!”

Sakusa continued to look unimpressed. "Half of those didn't even have your brother in it."

Atsumu raised an eyebrow. He wanted to ask if Sakusa knowing this meant he actually read the fanfiction about Atsumu on his tablet while waiting for him to come home, but pissing Sakusa off wasn't going to do him any favors when he had dirt on him. Atsumu had a brother. He knew how this worked. Unfortunately, throttling Sakusa into staying quiet wouldn't work, because their apartment had a strict maximum one physical altercation (playful or otherwise) rule and they already filled that quota for the day when Bokuto had Atsumu in a chokehold for eating the last of his cereal that morning.

“Well,” he said, in one last pathetic attempt to defend himself. “I gotta deal with him enough in real life, I kinda get sick of knowing that I gotta see his ugly mug pop up even in stories that are supposed to only be about me, y’know?”

"Hmm," Sakusa replied. 

In the end, it could’ve been worse. Past Sakusa’s predictable judgment–which was fair, considering that Atsumu hadn’t stopped judging Sakusa for the fact that if he could wear socks with his slides for the rest of his life, he would—nothing earth-shattering happened between them. Sakusa had sincere blackmail material on him, but didn’t use it besides as an occasional incentive to get Atsumu to do chores.

Atsumu got off lucky, all things considered. Too bad he didn’t have any plans to do the same to Sakusa.

The problem with being dramatic and trying to coax out a humiliating admission from someone who was also unexpectedly dramatic meant Atsumu couldn’t just… tell him straight up. He had to get the timing right. He did not know what kind of timing he wanted, what kind of sign he needed to prompt him to walk up to Sakusa and boldly yell—I know your secret, you also read porn written by the fans! And you don’t even read porn about yourself! Who the fuck is Y/N?—all he knew was that he had to have one, and it had to be impeccable.

So of course he said it when the team had gone out for drinks, except he shouted it against the loud, throbbing EDM after chugging two glasses of gin, and no one actually heard him over the noise except the person across—who was Sakusa.

In response, Sakusa choked on the alcohol he’d been halfway into drinking, spilled some over his shirt, and Meian mistook Sakusa’s fumble as a sign that he was hammered, so he told Atsumu to take Sakusa with him to the bathroom to sober up.

It was a good thing no one was interested in staying there except for the two of them. Sakusa had locked the door anyway out of precaution. Paranoid bastard.

“How did you find out?” Despite the fact that he barely had a glass of soju and had a better tolerance than Atsumu did, he looked faintly ill.

Atsumu was probably more smug about this than he was supposed to be, given that it wasn’t like he was above consuming fan-created literature and maybe fapping to it. He partially blamed this on the fact that he hadn’t had a girlfriend in years, and traditional porn got boring when you were in your twenties. Mostly, he thought this was still all Suna and Osamu’s fault, just like many of the events in his life that he greatly disliked were. “That’s what you get for hangin' ‘round me and Shouyou’s room all the damn time. You left your phone in my bed and it was on the screen."

Sakusa thumped his head against the door. "Shit," he groaned. "Rookie mistake. I must've gotten that from you."

Inunaki managed to pick the lock ten minutes later only to find Sakusa and Atsumu trying to drown each other under the sink. He decided he would rather piss outside in the bushes than enter the crossfire just to reach the toilet.

It probably started when Osamu and Suna started dating before graduation. Atsumu absolutely hated it. He thought it was the worst thing that Osamu could do to him—second to only deciding to not pursue volleyball—especially when Osamu and Suna actually lasted past high school. Atsumu’s relationships lasted shorter than the fresh bottles of lube his brother was using, information he didn’t need to know, but it effectively drove the point home that Suna and Osamu had something special and Atsumu didn’t. They were in love and they were good at it. Osamu always made enough food to feed two. Suna always answered Osamu’s calls after the first ring. They had the same sense of humor and hobbies and probably made unofficial wedding vows to one another in the first year they got together. Suna’s secret nicotine addiction aside and Osamu’s overbearing doting attitude to his boyfriend, they were perfect for each other. Atsumu was clearly missing something.

Then in his first days of being part of MSBY, shortly after their first game, he found someone tweeting about his name and some link to a story about him and all this love he was apparently capable of if he lowered his defenses, if he met the right girl who wasn’t like other girls and saw through his assholery that hid his massive insecurity. Upon seeing this, he concluded two things:

1. Maybe he could take notes, see what girls actually wanted seeing as almost all these stories written about him being someone’s best friend, fuck buddy, boyfriend, husband, was written here for him to easily read, and;
2. Maybe it wasn’t totally lost for him when it came to love. He had to have a number of redeeming qualities if so many people were trying to climb on his dick and bury themselves into his heart, no matter how idealized he was.

Osamu knew about his secret hobby because he was Osamu. Suna knew because he was Osamu’s boyfriend. Sakusa knew because Atsumu was the idiot who didn’t use passcodes to his devices and Bokuto and Hinata were idiots who had one day dared Sakusa to go snooping around Atsumu’s tablet to see what kind of porn he was watching, and Sakusa found fanfiction instead.

“Did you find the porn?” Bokuto asked, a conversation that Atsumu only overheard because none of them had noticed his arrival and they left the door of Bokuto and Sakusa’s room open.

“So much porn, it’s enough to last the four of us a lifetime if Miya ever shared it to us,” Sakusa deadpanned, and Atsumu almost gave away his presence nearly banging his head against the cupboard as he tiptoed his way around the kitchen. “But it’s all vanilla and very boring.”

Atsumu would’ve been more insulted at Sakusa’s implication that his love stories were boring, but Bokuto and Hinata were successfully persuaded not to pry because Sakusa was right—Atsumu so-called porn was very vanilla, and that wasn’t interesting enough to them. Barely any of his fanfiction even had sex in it, because he didn’t read it for the sex. It was wholeheartedly for the romance. Sex, Atsumu could get that easily.

“Hmm,” Sakusa now hummed, sitting on Atsumu's bed, distracted by the game he was playing on the tablet screen. Though the tablet was Atsumu’s, Sakusa was the one who always used it, in spite of how Atsumu finally made the smart decision to put in a passcode. If people ever told Atsumu that being around Sakusa made him look like an idiot, Atsumu would concede that if it were ever true, it was only because Sakusa did shit like insist on playing Atsumu’s games because Atsumu paid for them and Sakusa didn’t want his money to go to waste since he never finished a single thing he ever downloaded, and Atsumu would be so stumped at the matter-of-fact way Sakusa would reason his way into getting away with the weirdest shit that he could do nothing but go along. There was a reason he, Sakusa, Bokuto, and Hinata were all living in the same apartment. They were the only ones in the group with no sense of personal space. “If it makes you feel better.”

“You know what, it will, because it’s true,” Atsumu decided. “And I’d like to think I’m better than some people, seeing as I don’t read erotica imagines about everyone I had hard-ons for all the way back in high school.”

Sakusa only shrugged. “At least I’m not living vicariously through a fan’s delusions of my personality.”

It was a weak dig considering that Atsumu rather liked their delusions, that’s why he was fucking reading them, but on an objective level, he understood that in determining who between them was more pathetic, the answer was the both of them. You probably couldn’t sink to a lower level than Atsumu, who once stayed up until five in the morning crying about story-him painstakingly making recordings for a girl he loved who would forget him with each new day because she had anterograde amnesia, or Sakusa, who Atsumu caught over breakfast reading an imagine about unrealistic angry sex with Romero in the training center’s shower stalls.

“Oh, I don’t like that look on your face,” Sakusa commented. “Horrifying how it’s the same face that girls want to write sonnets about.”

“Jealous that I’m so good-looking, Omi-kun? It’s okay, you don’t look so bad yourself,” Atsumu said, poking at the skin above Sakusa’s hip that peeked from his shirt. Predictably, Sakusa scowled, but he didn’t bat Atsumu’s hand away. Atsumu wanted to lie down on his bed—that was why he was in his room, after all, to rest, but Sakusa had been there before he was, occupying most of the mattress to play on Atsumu’s tablet. The only reason Atsumu didn’t kick him out was because it was much easier to shove Sakusa aside to make room for himself than making a feeble attempt to haul Sakusa’s ass away. He tried that before; it didn’t work out too well. “Now win me that highest score on that stupid fucking rhythm game.”

“I want a reward for this,” Sakusa told him. “I’m eating that burger meal you’re having delivered here.”

“Yeah, yeah, you always do,” Atsumu grumbled, drifting off the moment his head hit the pillow.

If this was fanfiction, Sakusa would not eat his burger and instead offer for them to share, because in a fictional world they were much kinder, considerate people, and every thoughtful gesture would convey feelings and affection that they'd never verbally say aloud. But this was the real world, where they were and had none of these things, so Atsumu didn't bother hoping and immediately fell asleep. By the time his delivery arrived, he hadn't woken up, and didn't notice how Sakusa, though still eating his burger, left behind all the fries because the flavoring was Atsumu's favorite, like he always did.

Hinata was giving him a strange look as he left the bathroom of their shared bedroom, which Atsumu wouldn’t have thought twice about if not for the fact that he was also eyeing the door that Sakusa had just exited. “What?”

“You and Omi-san have been spending a lot of time together,” Hinata starts. “He’s always holed up in our room.”

“That’s because you’re never here.”

“If that’s what you say.”

Atsumu grimaced. If Sakusa was staying at Atsumu and Hinata’s room frequently for the past month, it wasn’t for whatever Hinata was thinking. Sharing a room with Bokuto made Sakusa paranoid, Hinata was barely at the apartment anyway, and Atsumu was surprisingly not bad company in Sakusa’s eyes the same way Sakusa was unexpectedly cool to hang out with because they both knew how to mind their own business when they wanted to read any fic that grasped their attention. They didn’t intrusively ask what the other was reading about, though they’d make a comment or complaint about it every now and then whenever something didn’t go the way they wanted it to, questioning the accuracy of certain actions, what they would really do if they were in these situations, all without worrying about any form of judgment from the other when they were both stuck in the same humiliating boat.

It was fun to talk about how cool it would be to wake up in another body or how weird it would feel like to have fins instead of legs or why they could easily see someone as a florist but not a tattoo artist or why sex in the beach was better on paper but not in practice—not that either of them tried it. Neither of them read the same stuff, but some genres and plots overlapped, and as hectic as their lives were as professional athletes, life was horribly boring outside of it.

Reading was good. It made him smarter. (He had to sit back and imagine the whole scene, which required more brain power than he ever used back in high school.) It made him more interesting. (Or, well, interesting enough to Sakusa, who asked if he was an alpha-beta-omega, whatever that meant. Atsumu said he was a sigma male—Christ, Omi, do I look like I could be anything else?—except that was apparently the wrong answer, judging by the exasperated sound Sakusa made.) It killed time. (He no longer spent hours contemplating his existence or going out to spend money he didn’t have at his disposal.) It made him and Sakusa closer, to an extent. (Atsumu even occasionally joked that the bathroom was free for Sakusa to use to jerk off to given that all he read was erotica, so long as he told Atsumu about it so he could use his new noise-canceling headphones, a remark he would not even make to Hinata.

“The headphones I bought for your birthday?” asked Sakusa. He sounded affronted. “You still haven’t used them?”

“Was I supposed to? Shouyou doesn’t snore anymore,” Atsumu said.

“That was half my paycheck,” Sakusa muttered, sounding awfully put out. Atsumu was amused, but he still did not take them out of the case. It was novel for him to have an extra pair of something, given how he always had to give them to Osamu. Maybe Atsumu wanted to treasure it. Bokuto and Hinata gave him socks and a coffee machine that was for everyone’s use, respectively; Sakusa’s present stood out.)

There was no way Atsumu could tell Hinata any of this though. He and Bokuto thought highly of Atsumu and Sakusa—probably, it was hard to tell sometimes when you had to figure out who owned what briefs on laundry day based on size because a lot of them used the same brands—but it was a reminder enough that both of them had some dignity to uphold.

"We just found out that we had some surprising things in common," Atsumu vaguely explained. "I guess we got close 'cause of that."

Hinata's face cleared, doubt overshadowed by clarity. "I figured, I knew this was going to happen," he said, and wasn't that ominous. "Atsumu," he began solemnly. "You don't need to hide, especially around me."

For a moment, Atsumu almost didn't hear Hinata. He was going through his photo gallery and trying to delete all the bad selfies Bokuto had taken when he got ahold of Atsumu's phone while he wasn't looking and then somehow convinced Sakusa to join as well. All of his photos had him giving the camera a normal thumbs up sign. Atsumu kind of understood why it was hard for people to grasp that Sakusa was homosexual. He posed like a straight dude. "What?"

"If you and Omi-san want to hide your relationship, that's okay, but you should know Bokuto-san and I aren't going to judge. It's not like what Kageyama and I have isn't something special either."

Atsumu looked at Hinata incredulously. He had no idea what he was talking about. The most special thing about Hinata and Kageyama that they shared was their insane boners for volleyball. It was something else, Atsumu knew, but he didn't see how that had anything to do with… this. And where did this even come from anyway?

But Hinata wasn't done. He rested his hand on Atsumu's knee. "In fact, if you even want, I can switch with Omi-san so you two will be roommates instead."

He said roommates in such a peculiar way that Atsumu felt the need to clarify—to remind Hinata—that past whatever he was insinuating, Atsumu wasn't even gay. But he didn't, because Hinata stood up while Atsumu fumbled to find a response and left, as if he said all he wanted to say and wanted to make a poignant exit. So maybe it wasn’t just Atsumu and Sakusa with a flair for the dramatics; maybe they were all rubbing off on each other and that was why they were the only people on the team who could bear to room with one another.

“It’s a good idea,” Sakusa interjected, after Atsumu recounted the whole event to him. It didn’t matter that Hinata made an explicit offer to change rooms; Sakusa had practically moved into their room already. Here he was, squeezing himself into Atsumu’s single mattress, back leaning on the pillows while Atsumu was propped against the wall because it was weird if he put himself in a position where he’d have to look at Sakusa’s face the whole time.

Atsumu blinked. “The roommate switching or the d–datin—”

He couldn’t even say it.

“Both,” Sakusa answered. “I’ve jacked off in your bathroom more than in mine anyway.”

“You what? Since when?”

“I’m kidding,” Sakusa told him, except Atsumu couldn’t tell if he actually was. Atsumu had made that offer as a joke, but he wouldn’t put it past Sakusa to take him seriously. It was Atsumu’s fault for complaining within the first week of the four of them all living together that everyone always thought he was fucking around during times he was being serious. “But there’s no other way Bokuto and Hinata would buy why we suddenly spend so much time together besides the fact that we’ve decided to date. You have to admit, it does look like we’re sneaking around. We’ve even gone to the bathroom together.”

“Because we’re always picking the same drinks!” Atsumu protested. It was like having a stupid brother again, always sharing things, even if this time they weren’t sharing objects but interests, and nobody was actually forcing them to do this. “But fine! Whatever. We can pretend to date. It’s not like the standards for dating aren’t low nowadays. Who cares if it won’t work because I’m straight? That clearly wasn’t stopping Shouyou from drawing conclusions!” Sakusa only hummed, which didn’t indicate whether he was actually listening to Atsumu. He was too invested in his latest werewolf sex story. “But that doesn’t mean you can just place your dirty smelly feet all over my lap whenever you feel like it!”

“Nothing is going to change,” Sakusa promised him, even though eight minutes later he was cramping from folding his legs on the small bed so he stretched them over Atsumu’s lap. But he always did this—it was one of the most comfortable positions he apparently discovered whenever he was lying on Atsumu’s bed because he was too lazy to climb to Hinata’s bunk on top, and it wasn’t like he had permission to stay there. Atsumu though; he was free game. Indeed, nothing had changed.

Atsumu tried not to sigh and looked away from Sakusa’s wiggling toes—he did this unconsciously, it wasn’t actually to annoy Atsumu as, contrary to popular belief, he was not the main protagonist of everyone’s story—and the baby blue socks with stupid dog prints he wore that made him look off-putting considering his aloof image.

So maybe—Atsumu was a little gay. He played sports, which all had homoerotic subtext, and he played one for a living. Osamu, additionally, used to reason that it wasn’t that Atsumu was necessarily straight when his exact sexuality was wanting to sleep with anything that had legs for miles, happened to be hot, and had the sliver of a possibility to be attracted to Atsumu. Sakusa fit all that criteria. He had nice legs, he was hot, he was gay.

And it wasn’t like Atsumu had never thought about having sex with any of his roommates. Hinata’s thighs were obscenely thick and Bokuto’s chest was just there, staring at Atsumu in the face, begging for him to think about doing something with it in his wet dreams—how could he not? But the idea of legitimately being with a man was strange, and that wasn’t the case for girls. Suna said it might’ve been because being gay was new territory to Atsumu, so he had to take it slow, maybe imagine being with a man he actually knew and spent a lot of time with. (In hindsight, Atsumu should’ve figured out by then that Suna was secretly dating his brother; the only other person Suna spent so much time with besides Osamu was Atsumu.)

Sakusa was someone Atsumu knew and spent a lot of time with, and maybe he spent a lot of time with Bokuto and Hinata too, but unlike them, Sakusa actually liked men, just in a quiet way—Atsumu’s basis for homosexuals was Suna and Osamu, and contrary to the mature, put together-image they always put before strangers, they didn’t actually do anything quietly—so it didn’t feel that weird if Atsumu tried doing that exercise where he imagined himself with a man, and rather than the usual faceless guy Atsumu had to try kissing and holding hands and taking on dates, it was Sakusa.

If he had to imagine being gay, it was only logical for him to imagine being gay with someone who was actually gay, and gay in a weird endearing way, just like his obscure socks. It didn't get any deeper than that.

Bokuto and Hinata thought Atsumu and Sakusa were banging in secret, which meant they never talked about their façade of a relationship with anyone else, which meant Atsumu and Sakusa didn’t have to put a lot of effort into acting like they were in a relationship when the assumption was that they wanted to be more lowkey. It was enough for Atsumu to forget why he was complaining about all this to begin with. Rooming with Sakusa meant he didn’t have to be as discreet—not that he really was in the first place; Hinata was a good roommate like that—and in the end, the new arrangement was better than Atsumu thought, even if Sakusa didn’t always sleep on the top bunk like he should’ve and now there were an array of posters on the walls of movies Atsumu thought were incredibly overrated.

Except one day, Osamu asked, “So when were you gonna tell me there was fanfiction 'bout you and Sakusa floatin’ ‘round?"

Onigiri Miya had just closed. When Atsumu came by, Suna wasn’t there. He’d been around though, because there was the faint scent of tobacco hanging in the air. Initially, Osamu insisted that he didn’t want him here because Atsumu was making the place reek, even if it wasn’t Atsumu’s fault—he didn’t even know how to use a fucking lighter. He didn’t mention that it was all Suna and not him; he didn’t want to be involved in Suna digging his own grave by refusing to quit.

Atsumu startled. If Osamu was ever going to confront Atsumu about Sakusa, he expected it at least to be about the ridiculous fake secret dating thing they roped themselves into. Not this. "There is?"

Osamu looked at him, disbelieving, before he picked up his phone. "In the Black Jackals' In The Bag video posted a week ago," he began. "I found out that about half of the things in my brother’s filthy duffel bag are stuff he doesn't actually own."

The video had at least one million views. Atsumu had no idea why, but he did know he was responsible for about fifty of them. The team had split into two and stayed in different rooms to record, and though Atsumu wasn't with Sakusa, it was clear Sakusa was with him based on the sheer amount of stuff Atsumu had with him that weren't his. It wasn't intentional. The staff told them to not fake whatever junk they took with them on a daily basis and Atsumu took that to heart, not sorting out through any of his shit. That was how he found Sakusa's mini alcohol spray, his headband, his concealer, his lip balm, and his cardholder. With all his credit cards still in it.

The first time Sakusa had Atsumu carry his stuff for him, it was because they agreed it was the bare minimum they had to do to keep Bokuto and Hinata thinking that they were still dating, just subtly. Atsumu didn't mind; there were only so many things Sakusa's fanny pack could bring, and Sakusa's belongings were useful. He had a good brand of lip balm and his cardholder, for some reason, stored enough coins that Atsumu often needed. Sakusa grumbled about Atsumu using his things once or twice, which was rich coming from the guy who always used his tablet without even asking, but didn't tell him to stop.

In the comments section of the video, their fans had gone wild. There were speculations rising about the nature of Sakusa and Atsumu's relationship. (There was also talk about Hinata and Kageyama, but that wasn't anything new, even if Kageyama wasn't in the video because he was from a different team.) Everyone was raving about his and Sakusa's sudden closeness. (Sudden closeness, as if they weren't close before this. Atsumu was offended. Sakusa had been using his conditioner even when they didn't room together and share a goddamn bathroom.) The fact that Osamu was asking about it meant he saw it too.

"Wait, are you tellin' me you actually read comments 'bout me? That when you see my videos, it's actually on purpose and not 'cause of autoplay?" Atsumu simpered, grinning widely. "'Samu! If you missed me, you could've just said!"

"No," Osamu said, though his cheeks burned. "It's just gross. ‘Tsumu, you're as bad as Kageyama Tobio and Hinata Shouyou now."

"Yeah, what’s with that anyway? What's the deal 'bout the two of them? Where'd that come from? Just 'cause they're both volleyball freaks? Everyone there's a freak too!"

"My point is," Osamu continued, after giving Atsumu a look that meant he thought Atsumu was dumb but wasn't going to tell him why. "I can't believe people are making fanfiction about you and Sakusa and you two fuckers don't even know about it when you read fanfic too."

Atsumu didn't read because he didn't know that was even a thing, plain as that, but Osamu's judgmental tone was getting on his nerves, and it wasn't even on Atsumu for getting into a conversation he knew would go this way. Osamu was the one who brought it up.

He crossed his arms. "How do you know 'bout this anyway?" He asked. "Thought you were above all that crap."

"I am," said Osamu smoothly. He walked past Atsumu to begin tidying up, flipping the chairs and placing them on the tables. Atsumu did not help him. He didn't do anything for free, not even for his brother. "But yesterday I caught one of my patrons writing fanfiction on her laptop, which I wouldn't give two shits about, except it occurred to me that she's been coming here every day for the past week for inspiration 'cause you look exactly like me."

"I look like you? You look like me! I was born first!"

Osamu ignored him, caught up in his own tirade. "And to think she was trying to write a story about you as a barista! Like you could ever be charmin’ enough to convince some random customer to buy your product, much less go out with you. I was telling Sunarin ‘bout how horrible it was—these people just wanna go about their day and here you are tryin’ to awkwardly insert yourself into their business by being absolutely unethical. Why would they think someone like Sakusa’d be into that? Someone who doesn’t know how to work a cashier but knows enough bad pickup lines—”

Atsumu tuned Osamu out because (1) he didn’t want to know, (2) he wasn’t actually doing any of these things, and (3) because his phone had vibrated with a text from Sakusa, asking him if he could take home onigiri from his brother’s shop. Atsumu said okay even though he was thinking about where the nearest corner store was, just to see if Sakusa would be able to tell the difference in quality and taste. He could always make it up to Sakusa by waking up early the next day to see Osamu get and make a morning order.

It did not occur to him that this was a kind of compensation he wouldn’t do even for Hinata, or Bokuto.

Of course Atsumu checked the fanfiction after Osamu mentioned it.

It was. Well, it was fanfiction. The way people wrote him wasn’t that different from all the OC fic he usually read, except for once the person he was there wasn’t being matched by projections of his fans’ personalities or totally made up characters that fittingly made up for all his flaws and shortcomings, but… Sakusa. Sakusa, who people apparently thought took really good care of his curly hair despite how— “You spend two hours tryin’ to straighten your hair and fail though?”

Sakusa gave him a withering look. This was a sore spot for him, if the fact that Atsumu occasionally woke up to watching Sakusa fumble with the hair straightener through the door of their bathroom meant anything. “What’s your point?”

“Nothin’,” Atsumu said, exiting the page. Just for good measure, he deleted the story from his history before locking his tablet. He needed to shower, but Sakusa was still using the sink, so he dug through his drawers looking for things to wear. As he took out a shirt, he paused and chewed his lip. “Actually, there’s fic about you and I. Us being together for real.”

“Oh,” Sakusa said. He tucked away his makeup kit, even though Atsumu thought his vanity—even if Sakusa only put on base makeup, not that Atsumu knew what that meant—was for naught when he refused to shave unless there was a game or they were going to be scrutinized by a camera. “Does it suck?”

The Sakusa in fanfiction and the Sakusa in real life were naturally different. The same thing applied for Atsumu too, but he felt like that shouldn’t have sat right with him, and maybe he’d been reading more than he should’ve, going down a rabbithole that was starting to cloud his judgment, because he thought—I could totally be that appealing if I tried hard enough, as if what he was lacking was effort, and that was relatively easy to fix. So of course Atsumu felt miffed at whatever Sakusa was implying. “Is that a dig that datin’ me would be terrible ‘cause I’d be a sucky boyfriend?”

“I didn’t say any of that.”

“You didn’t need to! I’m such a great boyfriend that I could read between the lines easily! And I’m gonna prove you wrong by being a great boyfriend who takes you out on great dates.”

“How? With your arsenal of experience from reading fanfiction?”

Through the walls, Atsumu could hear Bokuto yelling his name. He probably needed help with the coffee machine again. Atsumu scowled. “Don’t underestimate me,” he told Sakusa, as he made his way to leave their bedroom. “And I’m getting back at you just for that comment!”

Sure enough, after dinner that day, Atsumu was in their kitchen scrubbing the sink while Bokuto and Hinata were in the living room, playing an old model of MK, when Sakusa yelled, loud enough to make the walls almost vibrate, “Fuck you very much for finishing my shampoo, Miya!”

“That’s the least I had to do when you used all my conditioner five days ago!” Atsumu shouted back. “And to think I just bought a new bottle! The fuck are you doing with it—conditioning your pits and pubes too?”

(Amidst their screaming match, Bokuto lowered his console and whispered to Hinata, “No wonder they always have that boyfriend smell to them.”

“They don’t even know they’ve been using the exact same deodorant brand since we moved in,” Hinata responded. He was wearing Kageyama’s hoodie. Sakusa was swaddled in an Adler's jersey with Ushijima’s name on the back. Atsumu didn’t think anything about it; buying merchandise of your friends or people you admired was normal. If he was a little bit more gay, he probably would’ve bought a Romero mug. As it was, he settled for getting the same shaving cream Romero endorsed three months ago. “They’re so close it’s almost gross.”

The Sakusa in fanfiction and the Sakusa in real life were naturally different, but there had been on-point observations made too that Atsumu couldn’t deny. The little baby line between Sakusa’s eyebrows whenever he was toying between making one decision or another. The lame way in which he’d comb his hair to brush away the bangs hanging over his eyes to make the gesture look natural and not purposeful. The split second of hesitation he’d make before he’d smile, genuine. The unflinching stare he’d give like he was trying to figure you out, even if he acted like he knew everything. It all made him devilishly attractive, but Atsumu might’ve only been thinking about it because everyone else had and it was permanently seared into his brain.

He seriously had to cool with the fic.)

The weather was good, sunny but not hot. Competition season was winding down, so training schedules were spread out, and they didn’t have anything for the weekend. It meant they could afford to dress nicely and not worry about having to take it off at any point in the day to change into something more practical but plain. They didn’t have to worry about being spotted by fans and bombarded by the press either. People only seemed to remember their existence whenever they were playing or endorsed something.

Atsumu decided on a nice café date. Sakusa said they couldn’t go on one of those.

“We can’t be obvious about this,” he said, dragging Atsumu away from the coffee shop whose door Atsumu was trying to grab onto. “You can’t show your big guns and woo me with some grand, romantic gesture. This isn’t fanfiction. We live in Japan. The world’s having a hard enough time as it is reeling in Kageyama and Hinata’s relationship.”

Atsumu blanched. “Wait, they’re actually gay? And dating? I thought they were dating volleyball together. Not each other.”

“They’re using volleyball to date each other,” Sakusa corrected, like that clarified anything. “The marketing team doesn’t know how it happened, but the public somehow interpreted their dedication to their rivalry as so impossible to comprehend conventionally that it’s natural for it to be misconstrued as love between two men, when it’s actually an ‘unparalleled love for the sport that binds them together’.”

He was barely keeping up with what Sakusa was saying. “So, what, if you’re as passionate for a sport as Shouyou and Tobio are, you’re bound to be a little gay? And people find it okay when that’s the justification? Not because being gay is something you’re—born as?”

“Yes.”

“Who the fuck bought that dumb logic?”

“I suppose you did, since you didn’t know they were actually dating.”

Atsumu resented that statement. “That still doesn’t make any sense!”

“This is real life,” Sakusa said, as if in reminder. “There’s no tidy explanation for things. Nothing ever makes sense. We just roll with it. But that’s why we can’t go on a date. We can’t get away with it like Kageyama and Hinata can.”

So they didn’t go on a date. They hung out—Atsumu thought there was no difference between either terms—in some chic European restaurant two streets away from the cafe that caught Sakusa’s eye for lunch. Atsumu was empowered by a story he read last night though, one that painted him as a high school delinquent with a penchant for hideout spots that served as excellent dating locations. Atsumu was no bad boy—the only rule he ever broke in high school was not wearing his uniform tie properly, but knots were harder than they looked, okay?—but that didn’t mean he couldn’t do it too. If he was an amazing boyfriend in fiction, how hard would it be for him to be an amazing boyfriend in real life either?

“What do you want?” Atsumu asked, glancing down at the menu once they were seated. It was a small table for two. Their knees knocked together. “Actually, don’t answer that. I’m gonna go prove I’m a kickass secret boyfriend and order somethin’ you like.”

“Okay,” Sakusa replied, after giving him a long look. He reached for his phone and kicked Atsumu’s chair once he stood up so he could manspread comfortably. Atsumu rolled his eyes.

It didn’t occur to Atsumu that he didn’t actually know what exactly Sakusa even liked until he was standing in front of the counter with the menu in his hands and the employee was waiting for his order.

“Uhm,” Atsumu said. “What sells better here, the pasta or the pork ribs?” Sakusa looked like he could either be a pasta or a pork person.

“They’re both our bestsellers, sir.” Which didn’t answer his question, but from the corner of his eye, he caught the growing line behind him.

“Great.” Atsumu forced a smile. “I’ll get… both of those then? And a quarter pound steak. Oh, and add in two glasses of your strawberry iced tea.”

The total price made him grimace, but his wallet could take the hit so long as his dignity was intact. Sakusa had to at least like one of the dishes. Atsumu didn’t know how anyone could mistake them to be in a relationship when he didn’t even know something as simple as what kind of food Sakusa liked. Even Atsumu knew what Hinata and Bokuto would prefer more. Atsumu was already being a bad boyfriend and they weren’t even on a date.

“How much do I owe you?” Sakusa later asked, unzipping his fanny pack after Atsumu finally returned to the table. He had wandered around the restaurant first, admiring the greenery interior of the restaurant and the lighting of the bathroom. He even ended up taking a couple of bathroom selfies through the mirror, and wondered if he could get Sakusa to take his photo against the backdrop of fake plants springing through the walls and the edges of the room for his Instagram. “I didn’t know this was a pay as you order place.”

The food came fast; Atsumu could see the waiter carrying a tray of their order as he exited the kitchen. Atsumu waved a hand. “Don’t bother. It’s my treat.” He watched as the plates were set before them, eyes carefully trained on Sakusa to gauge his reaction, if he was going to make a comment pointing out that Atsumu bit off more than he could chew, acting like he knew shit when he just made a fool of himself.

Maybe Sakusa would get mad, or mock him, and Atsumu would retaliate, and they’d make a scene ending in some horrible breakup no one around them would understand because less than five people knew they were supposed to be together and only the two of them knew it was a total hoax they were shit at keeping up.

That didn’t happen. Sakusa took a bite of the pasta, then he took a cut of the ribs, and then he poured equal amounts of both dishes into his plate and started digging in, hungry even though Atsumu thought it was a disgusting combination given that the dishes were drowned in cream and sauce.

Suddenly, Atsumu had no idea why he was agonizing over what kind of food Sakusa preferred and how picky of an eater he could be. Sakusa was a guy, just like him. Their favorite food was everything. And the kind of guys who especially ate everything were the same guys who bumped balls for a living. Atsumu was floored.

“This is good,” Sakusa commented absentmindedly, like Atsumu wasn’t two seconds away from strangling him for making him worry about impressing him, or strangling himself for giving a damn about Sakusa’s opinion. “Do you do this for all the girls you’ve gone on dates with?”

“Weren’t you the one teasin’ me ‘bout havin’ no experience in that department?”

“Maybe I was wrong,” Sakusa acquiesced, a response which totally gobsmacked Atsumu.

“You must have horrible standards,” Atsumu pointed out, because there was something soft to Sakusa’s tone that just made him feel weird. “Is that why you’re not in a relationship either?”

Under the table, Sakusa kicked his leg hard enough to make the wood shake. “No,” he deadpanned, ignoring Atsumu’s loud whine. “It’s because it’s not easy being gay when you’re a pro-athlete and men suck.”

Atsumu rubbed his shin. “That sounds exactly like all the things I’ve heard girls complain about.”

“That’s because it’s true.” Sakusa took a forkful of his pasta. “Example A of why men suck: you.”

“Hey!”

“Example B of why men suck,” After he took the fork out of his mouth, he pointed it to himself. “Me.”

“Oh, you have a point,” Atsumu relented. “I can’t imagine being a girl—or a boy! With standards!—willingly date a guy who doesn’t listen to music like a heathen and keeps three posters of the same movie in his bedroom.”

“Die Hard is the best movie history has ever made.”

Atsumu huffed. “For walking red flags, maybe.”

“It’s okay to be jealous, Miya. Not every film can afford to have at least three different posters that are equally good.”

“Fuck off,” Atsumu said. He paused. “Is that why you read so many erotic imagines about all the dudes you’ve ever liked—Romero, Wakatoshi, Tsukasa? ‘Cause they’re real men you’re attracted to but you don’t wanna deal with the disappointment of remembering they suck? And is it—is it a gay thing? All the excessive porn?”

Atsumu had enough tact to keep his voice down when he was speaking, but the tips of Sakusa’s ears turned red like he was conscious of the fact that anyone around them could eavesdrop. But the classical music playing in the background was loud and everyone around them was noisy to their own degree. Atsumu kind of hated it here, and was glad that this wasn’t actually a date. He would’ve insisted on a café with sparse clients and better music and genuinely tasty food worth its price if it were.

“I—” Sakusa started, only to stop. He sighed, like he was giving up on any pretense of denial and timidity. Which was a relief, because a shy Sakusa was off-putting to Atsumu. “Pretty sure it’s more of a guy thing than a gay thing. And we’ve been athletes since we were teenagers, so the bulk of my fantasies were locker room stuff since we always changed in front of each other. Not that I was constantly staring,” he added hastily. “I’m not that kind of gay.”

“I know,” Atsumu said. “But I would be really offended if you told me that you never tried checking Shouyou or Bokkun or me out once or twice. You should know we worked very hard for these bodies.”

Sakusa’s mouth twitched. “I’m aware.” At least he stopped looking so shifty and nervous, bracing himself for a type of judgment Atsumu would never give. His own brother was so gay he was like a walking rainbow flag. Nothing Sakusa could say would freak him out. He didn’t listen to any music, for fucks sake. Sakusa couldn’t get any more fucked in the head than that, as far as Atsumu was concerned. “But I like to read about all those stories because I know these people,” he admitted thoughtfully, which—Atsumu didn’t get. It was always weird for him to read something about him and see a mention or dialogue about someone else he knew, even if he knew why stories did that: to make it real, because these were real relationships Atsumu established that people knew about. But when he read these things, he was signing up to know how people saw him, not others. “The only people I’ve found sincerely attractive have always been the ones familiar to me in one way or another. And they happen to be people I used to like a lot when I was younger.” Sakusa tapped his fingers on the table. He glanced to the side, looking… almost wistful. Coincidentally, there was a couple seated two tables away from them. Atsumu made a face. “Sometimes I like to look back on those memories and wonder what would’ve happened if I had the courage to confess, or if they were genuinely interested, or if something actually happened.”

“I can’t imagine you ever confessin’ your feelings to someone like Wakatoshi.”

“Me neither,” Sakusa agreed with amusement. “He’d be too nice about it. Tsukasa too, though we used to bond over how cool Romero was all the time. But we were different people then. In any case, that’s what I like about what I read. I get nice daydreams.”

“The fantasy of fanfiction is always just that though—fantasy,” Atsumu pointed out. He liked to think he was speaking from experience, even if he never liked to read any fic that wasn’t just about him. Real Life Sakusa was nothing like Fictional Sakusa. “It’s hard to believe it when you know how inaccurate it is.”

“Not always,” Sakusa reasoned. “The fans, all these outsiders—they may only know the fraction we reveal to the camera and then exaggerate it to fit their own speculations, but there has to be some truth to what they think about us, because it’s still us they’re imagining about. Maybe they know more than we realize, or something we don’t.”

Realizing he had nothing else to say, Sakusa resumed eating. It hit Atsumu how this moment felt like one that could come of a story, where the guy’s entire worldview was changed because he realized he loved the girl all along from some unexpected but incredible insight she offhandedly mentioned. Except Sakusa was a man, and they weren’t in love with each other. And Atsumu was unfortunately only the protagonist of his own life, so intertwined with others that they had equal amounts of autonomy and power in their decisions.

In response to Sakusa’s profound musing, Atsumu kicked him under the table.

Sakusa immediately clutched onto his drink, some of it spilling over his fingers. “Why.”

“Payback for you kicking me earlier,” Atsumu explained. “And for the fact that out of all the tables we could’ve chosen, you got us the smallest one!”

“I like tight spaces,” Sakusa said placidly, the first time Atsumu had ever heard someone say something like that. “If it makes you feel better, the next time we go out, we can sit on a table you like.”

“Thank god for small blessings,” grumbled Atsumu, but in truth, he didn’t actually mind the proximity. He didn’t remember the last time he was so close with someone that their knees were touching for longer than a minute. He didn’t remember the last time he spent time with someone in a nice albeit overpriced place and it was casual. He was likely with a girlfriend back then.

That was when it dawned on him, much to his horror, that for the past five years, the closest thing to a relationship he ever had was with Sakusa.

Atsumu was camping out in Osamu’s living room when the window to the balcony opened and Suna stepped back inside. Murky air curled around him, which he batted away to cover the fact that he’d been smoking, even if he promised Osamu he quit years ago and Osamu wasn’t there. Neither was surprised to see one another. As much as Osamu liked to harp on that they needed to start paying rent given that they were around constantly, he had given both of them the extra set of keys for a reason.

“What are you doing?” Suna asked, noticing the blank document on Atsumu’s laptop screen. “Thinking about writing fanfiction?”

Atsumu blanched. “What? No,” he sputtered.

In fact, it was arguably worse; he was thinking about listing all the pros and cons of sincerely being into Sakusa—not just in an I want to get in your pants way, but in an I want to get in your pants and heart way. But maybe the problem was just that he hadn’t gotten laid in so long, hadn’t found anyone interesting enough to attach himself to, so he was projecting his feelings onto the person he was closest to.

Did that mean Sakusa was his begrudging best friend, even if Hinata and Bokuto thought Sakusa was his begrudging boyfriend? He needed to fix this.

Suna had walked past him to reach the fridge, taking out a protein bar because he liked them chilled. There were magnets pinned to the refrigerator door, most of them EJP, and then one MSBY. Any hint of Osamu and Suna’s relationship usually grossed him out, but now he was realizing how desperate he was. “Suna, know anyone I can hook up with?”

The cool thing about Suna, in contrast to Osamu, and despite the fact that he was dating Osamu, was that Suna was more likely to give Atsumu a straight answer than give him shit first. It was because Osamu and Suna took turns in making Atsumu’s life hell. “I can always connect you with your high school ex,” he offered. “She’s probably still into you. Especially now that you’re sort of famous.”

It wasn’t exactly what Atsumu had been hoping for, but. “Fine, whatever,” he said. “Worse case, we can just get a good fuck out of it, right?”

“What about your relationship with Sakusa Kiyoomi?”

Atsumu’s eyes narrowed. “How the hell did you know ‘bout that.”

Suna stood across the counter Atsumu was at and rested his elbows on the marble. “Word gets around in the volleyball sphere,” he said. Then he added, “Also because my teammates are Washio, who is Bokuto’s friend, and Komori, who is—”

“Omi-kun’s cousin, I know.” Atsumu sighed. “What exactly did they say was going on between… us two?”

“Just—something.”

So Suna didn’t know much. Atsumu could keep it that way—Suna wasn’t even asking to know the details, but the entire thing was bullshit anyway. He felt like at least one other person besides Sakusa and himself had to know just how far it went. “Bokkun and Shouyou think we’re secretly datin’,” he told Suna. He avoided Suna’s eyes. “‘Cept we—we were only sneakin’ around ‘cause we were reading fic. So now we’re fakin’ it since it was the easiest lie they would’ve bought.”

He expected Suna to laugh at him. Suna didn’t. “Hm.”

That was suspicious. “Don’t tell ‘Samu. I don’t need him yappin’ ‘bout how I copied him ‘cause he was the first gay fucker in the family.”

“Too late,” Suna said. Atsumu snapped his head to see Suna typing away on his phone. “I already texted him.” Atsumu groaned and thumped his head on the table. “But I also texted you the new number of your ex so you could catch up. Before you complain about your brother, you should know I told him to do one good deed for a day and he decided that it would be saying good things about you to her when she attended your game two months ago and asked about you while she was lining up in his stall.”

“I knew there was a reason I kept you ‘round!”

This time, Suna did laugh. “It’s because I’m your brother’s new favorite.”

“Yeah, sure,” Atsumu snorted. “Y’know, except for whenever you keep secrets from him.”

Suna patted his shoulder, unruffled by the jab. “Maybe you should learn a thing or two from me about hiding stuff and being good at it.”

Atsumu had many girlfriends, but none were quite like his last one before graduation, who he liked the most and only broke up with because she was going abroad for college and they weren’t serious enough to try long-distance. She had returned to Japan sometime last year, a seasoned paralegal.

Suzuki Misaki back then had been one of the prettiest girls in his class. She was sweet, if a little too quiet, but she was a great listener. Their three-month relationship wasn’t that substantial or too complicated, just like most high school relationships—she confessed to him, she attended his games, he kissed her, he waited by her classroom as her lessons finished for them to walk home together since she lived along the way, they made out. He never took her on a real date, they had good memories. Atsumu thought it’d be cool if they were able to create new ones.

The main problem though—

“Don’t get flowers, get chocolates,” Suna instructed him over the phone. “And please, god, please tell me you booked a reservation at that nice seafood restaurant I told you about.”

Atsumu did, but. “I don’t remember her liking seafood.”

“Well, you should’ve known given how you were always sticking your tongue down her throat. You probably could’ve tasted it!”

“I don’t like seafood.”

“Who cares about what you like?” Suna scoffed. “Dates and relationships are all about impressing the other person. The ball’s on their court; you need to make sure they want to toss it back to you.”

“Sunarin.” Osamu, who was also with Suna on the other end of the line, dragged out Suna’s name sweetly. He sounded pleased. “Is that why we’ve never broken up before?”

“Baby, you know that if we had to break a heart, you’d break mine. I’d never do anything to yours.”

Atsumu dropped the call. He had to change into something more appealing but not too appealing lest he look better than her, and by the time he found an outfit he realized he was running late. She was forgiving and found it even amusing, which set off something in Atsumu that made him uncomfortable. He realized it was guilt. Then, over the course of dinner, it turned into annoyance.

The chocolates were expensive. The seafood was overpriced and he was somewhat baffled at the underlying expectation that he had to pay for everything rather than him actively deciding to do it of his own volition. Misaki was just—she was too perfect, asking the right questions to get him talking and eating daintily and responding to every comment Atsumu made with a laugh even if it wasn’t funny, and he was making an effort to not say anything too boisterous or offensive. She placed her hand on top of his on the table gingerly. Not once did she glance at her phone, or at other people, eyes on him the whole time.

Instead of making him relaxed, it made him feel awkward. He felt weird about reassuring her that she didn’t have to wear heels if she didn’t want to since it was making her uncomfortable just to impress him—in the first place, he didn’t even ask her to; he felt weird about carrying her purse and letting her clutch onto his arm to walk even though she was light and her hands were nicely soft; he felt weird about escorting her to the taxi he spent three restless minutes looking for and kissing her lightly on the cheek before they parted ways and about the realization that not even a hypothetical first-date-slash-catching-up sex would fix the feeling, even though these were all the things he had to do if he ever wanted to date seriously.

To be in a relationship, he had to be thoughtful and sensitive and chivalrous. Despite how he read countless fanfic about him being those very things, capable of doing all those tasks and more, it didn’t translate to how he was in reality. It was all sweet on paper but not in practice. It suddenly dawned on him that the reason he wasn’t capable of having a romantic relationship that lasted wasn’t because he was clueless on how to woo someone enough to get them to say yes when he wanted to be with them. It wasn’t because he was missing some kind of goodness that made him worth loving. It was because he was never interested in becoming anything that all these things would lead to. He could try to be that kind of boyfriend, unexpectedly perfect or something close to it, cool and romantic like he was in fic, but he realized, when he was actually required to do it in real life, that he didn’t want to.

Atsumu in reality was different from the person people made him out to be in fiction. He didn’t want to be with someone when he’d be pressured to measure up to some standard everyone was diligently following all the time. He didn’t want to be in a relationship that made him feel that way. He wanted to do what he wanted. It wasn’t something he’d ever been able to fully do whenever he was dating before.

But when was the last time Atsumu had ever been someone where he was fully himself, unabashedly, and they weren’t his brother, or someone so kind that it was unreal? It wasn’t Osamu. It wasn’t Suna. It wasn’t Bokuto. It wasn’t Hinata. It was—it was Sakusa.

Sakusa, who he roughhoused with constantly. Sakusa, who reacted to Atsumu’s quips flatly and remained undeterred by whatever insensitive thing that slipped Atsumu’s filter. Sakusa, who he aired out his dirty laundry to and whose laundry he had dirtied, then vice versa. Sakusa, who had “accidentally” shot his jizz into Atsumu’s towel; who knew that Atsumu retaliated by “unintentionally” farting on his sheets. Sakusa, who Atsumu had always been so obnoxiously comfortable with one another in a way that’d been evident since their early days of the team, when the spiker first joined and was nervous about people liking him after he hesitantly came out to them because he thought he would be outcasted, only for Atsumu to continue talking to him afterwards like nothing changed.

(“Thank you,” Sakusa had said then. “It’s nice that out of everyone who’s been okay with it, it’s you.”

“Don’t thank me,” Atsumu replied, because the only reason he wasn’t being awkward or needed any time to process what it meant to have a semi-openly gay teammate was because it wasn’t that deep and he hated it when Sakusa looked like a kicked puppy. People only pulled that look when people were making them feel bad about themselves, and fuck Atsumu if he’d ever let that happen to someone on his team, someone he knew. “That makes this entire thing weird. I didn’t do it for—whatever reason you’re thinking.”

“So you don’t know why you did it, you just did,” Sakusa noted, sounding amused. “That’s—that’s a bit gay of you, Miya, acting on a feeling.”)

That made Atsumu laugh then. Now, he looked back on that memory and wondered if it did mean something then and he was just too stupid to realize it. If this was a fanfic, everything would tie in all together, connecting memories and moments that never seemed like much before to construct a large, life-changing picture about himself. If this was a fanfic, maybe there would be a revelation for how this was about his emotional instability, his disinterest in conforming to what people expected of him, his paradox of wanting something like what Suna and Osamu had but not actually wanting it in application, when Suna and Osamu were as traditionally in love as they got and Atsumu could never see himself fitting into that mold; not with someone he genuinely liked spending time with.

But this was real life. Atsumu wasn’t going to acknowledge any of that. So he grabbed a random magazine from designated porn pile that had accumulated in the corner of the bedroom and made his way to the bathroom to masturbate his feelings away, only to realize when he closed the door and pulled his pants down that he had accidentally grabbed the sports feature that had somewhat weaseled it way in the stack. It was coincidentally the one with Sakusa’s face on the front cover. Atsumu was fucked.

Kageyama and Hinata were holding an event in celebration for their years-long rivalry and passion for volleyball. Everyone they were friends with knew it was a cover up, and a poorly made one at that, but the public bought it. They were having a grand event for their exchange of vows—to each other, not the sport.

“I know it’s not to the sport, Shouyou,” Atsumu huffed, because ever since Hinata learned from Sakusa that Atsumu didn’t know he and Kageyama were a thing, he hadn’t been letting him live it down since. “What I don’t know is why I ain’t your best man. Why is it Kozume Kenma? I’m your best friend!”

“You’re not my best friend, Atsumu,” Hinata replied, bemused. He had been checking his suit in front of the mirror for the seventh time, even if nothing had changed for the past half hour. Atsumu accompanied him in his dressing room—it was just a small tent beside the much larger one, where everyone was gathered and waiting—shortly after Kenma had left, saying he needed to deal with an emergency named Kuroo Tetsurou (Atsumu didn't ask). Hinata looked good in white; he almost looked as he did whenever he was on court. It almost felt like he was getting married. “Bakayama is actually my best friend, and then Kenma comes after. The reason I didn’t choose you is because your best friend is Omi-san. That’s why you’re together.”

Atsumu didn’t really know what to make of the ceremony. Kageyama and Hinata’s speeches turned into a conversation with inside jokes only they and Karasuno understood. It didn’t feel that romantic when they were holding a volleyball as they spoke and didn’t even kiss, not that they could actually get away with it, but they did end the ceremony with an impromptu volleyball match on the field right outside. Atsumu’s team lost, and that wasn’t exactly why he wanted to spend the party hunched by the bar nursing shots until Sakusa returned him to their designated table because he was holding up the line, but it gave him a viable excuse to wrangle a bottle of gin from the bartender to take with him. Despite Sakusa’s initial reluctance, he ended up accepting the glass Atsumu poured him. It was the least he could do given that over dinner he ate all of the prawns Atsumu had stacked for himself on his plate.

At some point, by the time Atsumu finished his fifth shot, Sakusa interjected, “The woman in the silk black dress—she came here alone tonight.”

“What?” Atsumu asked. Sakusa pointed to a familiar woman; a journalist Atsumu had seen in their games once or twice. “Cool.”

Sakusa pursed his lips, but instead of responding, he directed Atsumu’s attention to another woman—a coworker friend of one of Kageyama’s guests—and then another woman, saying the most striking thing about her and then adding that they were single each time. It vaguely felt like those times when Atsumu would go out with Inunaki and Thomas to dive bars, something he hadn’t done in years, where over drinks they’d talk about which girl they should approach and why.

Even amidst the haze of alcohol swimming in his brain, Atsumu understood what Sakusa was trying to do. And he didn’t like it. “We’re at Shouyou’s wedding and he thinks we’re together,” he grumbled after the fourth girl Sakusa pointed him to. “Why the fuck are you tryna matchmake me with someone else?”

Sakusa didn’t look at him. “I heard about you asking Suna Rintarou to hook you up with some of your exes." Atsumu nearly shattered the thin wine glass with his hand in surprise. "And you know how to be subtle if you want to screw around. It’s not like we can’t stage a breakup if you actually want to get serious with someone else.”

Atsumu wasn’t sober. His voice came out more bitterly than he meant to. “Sounds like you wanna get rid of me.”

"This isn't real," Sakusa reminded him. He didn’t sound as matter-of-fact about it as Atsumu thought he intended to. "A fake breakup won’t change anything between us. We’re friends.”

“What if I do want things to change?”

But Sakusa only glanced at him like he didn’t understand, and Atsumu realized that he didn’t actually mean it, that he wanted things to change between them. Not if by change they would become distant, something different than they were now, close in a way that was nothing like what Atsumu ever anticipated, and he liked it. It was good. He didn’t want to lose it. He wasn’t interested in being in any kind of relationship if it wasn’t going to be something like this—embarrassing and weird and honest and comfortable.

Atsumu poured himself another full glass and downed it in one gulp even though he knew he was going to reach his limit soon. Sakusa watched him, almost like he was contemplating on doing something about it, but all he did was sigh. His breath smelled minty, despite what he ate. Atsumu knew the kind of mint he used; it was one of the new things he’d been recently carrying around in his bag that was Sakusa’s

“Atsumu,” he began. He dragged out his words, like he was reluctant to say them, but his sincerity bled through regardless. “I just want to do what will make you happiest. You’re probably my—best friend, something familiar in my life, and I value that.”

“That’s kinda gay,” Atsumu blurted out, before air rose from his stomach to his throat and he burped obnoxiously right at Sakusa’s face.

For the briefest of seconds, Atsumu swore it looked like Sakusa was about to laugh. But he didn’t, and instead he rolled his eyes and punched Atsumu in the arm, the one not holding the alcohol. “You’re hopeless,” he said, before walking away.

Atsumu felt awfully like a boyfriend who had just disappointed his girlfriend for a reason he was too blind to understand but had to learn himself. He was garbage at this. He didn’t read enough fic of this genre to know what the hell happened next.

Atsumu didn’t know where Sakusa had fucked off to, but at some point, he spotted him talking to Ushijima Wakatoshi and Iizuna Tsukasa. Atsumu had forgotten how good-looking they were. Not like he was, or Sakusa, or Bokuto, or Hinata, but when they cleaned up, they stood out. They spoke animatedly to Sakusa, probably reminiscing about their high school experiences and flexing their new accomplishments in their respective teams because DESEO Hornets had just kicked MSBY’s ass after their match where they tied with the Adlers, and Atsumu wondered if the only reason Sakusa wasn’t bitter was because he used to get hard over them, in a sexual and romantic way, and probably still did, if the pleased look on Sakusa’s face was anything to go by.

Atsumu wondered if gay men flirted differently. But he didn’t want to stick around and watch Sakusa make moon eyes over the people he read obsessive amounts of imagines about until they became reality, so he walked out.

It was quieter outside, all the noise contained in the tent. Atsumu had left behind the glass but took the bottle with him, only realizing a moment too late that it was empty. He wanted to go home, but he couldn’t when he didn’t know where any of his friends were. It was miserable, suddenly thinking about them and how they hadn’t come without plus-ones, how all the guests came in pairs and groups, and how he was the only one truly alone. Sakusa probably wouldn’t be, by the end of the night.

Atsumu stared down at the bottle in his hands, peeking through the neck to see the bottom of the glass. He wondered if that meant they broke up.

“Where’s your boyfriend?” someone asked. Atsumu didn’t glance up. He knew it was Osamu.

“Where’s yours?” he retorted. “You know we’ve just been pretendin’ anyway. Badly.”

Osamu snorted. “We both know it’s never actually been pretend with you two.”

Nothing Osamu said was anything Atsumu was in the mood to unpack. “We didn’t even know how to act like a couple.”

“Like you’ve ever wanted that kinda crap,” Osamu explained. “I’m talking ‘bout the feelings, not the actions. ‘Cause even if the actions change, the feelings will always remain the same, and you know what you feel for him.”

Atsumu wasn’t asking to have this conversation. He didn't want to talk about how he felt for Sakusa. It wasn’t butterflies in his stomach or fireworks popping off. Being with Sakusa was just comfortable, which was ordinary and unremarkable and surprisingly, something he didn’t mind. It wasn’t like any fantasy he experienced from reading a fic, but it did remind him that this was real. They didn’t have to do anything brand new and adventurous for them to care for one another. No one had to rescue one another from a villain; they didn’t have to take an excruciatingly long road trip to work out their differences; people weren’t actually forcing them to do anything they didn’t want to and that was how they banded together, through shared spite and determination to get out of this mess. The actions meant nothing.

It made Atsumu grimace. He didn’t want to admit his brother was right. The longer he kept silent though, the more Osamu would realize this, but that was when Atsumu caught Suna exciting the tent from his periphery, not having seen them. He took out a lighter and his cigarette pack. Without even thinking about it, Atsumu spilled in a rush, “‘Samu, Suna’s been smokin’ for the past three years behind your back even though you’re worried ‘bout him worsening his health ‘cause whenever he gets stressed ‘bout somethin’ he doesn’t wanna burden you since you dote on him too much.”

Then he pointed to where Suna stood, looking like a lonely protagonist contemplating his life.

It wasn’t an image that lasted for long. Osamu immediately turned and his expression turned betrayed, then resolute. By the time he dashed towards Suna, Suna had looked up right on time and finally spotted them. Atsumu watched as Suna tried to run away, only for Osamu to easily catch up and pounce on him. They were two faint blobs in Atsumu’s vision, engaged in a scuffle, Suna trying to escape and Osamu refusing to let him. It didn’t give him the satisfaction he expected, because when he saw them fight he remembered why they were doing it, and it was so depressingly clear that they loved each other, that despite what they hid and did that they didn’t like about one another, they were meant to be.

Atsumu didn’t have that. What he had, especially at the moment, was the empty bottle he carried. Then he decided that he was still too sober to mope about this, so he returned inside to look for something to drink.

Hours later, Atsumu woke up sprawled on the bathroom, cradling the toilet bowl. He flinched at the vomit swimming inside until he realized it was his. He was in his bathroom, back at the apartment.

“Fuck,” he groaned. His head pounded, but he no longer felt nauseous. He didn’t remember how he got here, or how long he’d been retching.

“That was an hour ago,” someone with Sakusa’s voice commented, except it was actually Sakusa, sitting in the bathtub and watching something from his phone. His feet dangled out, idly swinging, barely managing to not jab Atsumu’s side. Atsumu could only vaguely make out the sounds through his muddled brain, but it was probably one of those dog compilation videos that Sakusa sometimes saw whenever he wasn’t lounging on Atsumu’s bunk reading fanfiction.

“Is it the next day already?”

Sakusa paused, tucking his phone away. His chin was a bit dark, hints of a stubble forming. “It’s four in the morning, but I suppose that counts. You’ve only been here for three hours after Bokuto dropped you off, then he went somewhere with Akaashi Keiji for the afterparty.”

“There’s an afterparty?”

“It’s not that late.”

Atsumu didn’t bother with a response. It was Saturday morning, far too early from the time he usually woke up, but also far too late for a time to arrive home. At least they had a day off. He probably wasn’t going to see Bokuto until Sunday, and Hinata was spending his weekend in Kageyama’s place. “How long have you been here?”

“I got here two hours ago, from Tsukasa’s house,” Sakusa said. Atsumu waited for the punchline, that something between them happened, but it never came. “Bokuto called and said someone needed to take care of you.”

Atsumu snorted. “You won’t take care of me.”

“I won't,” Sakusa agreed. “I’m not planning to, and it’s not like you ever like it anyway.”

He didn’t. Whenever he was sick, whenever he was hungover, he didn’t like it when people hovered over him. It felt like being a kid all over again. He would’ve rather taken being left alone, which was a big deal, considering Hinata once said that growing up with a twin meant Atsumu was bad at being by himself—it was why he jumped at the prospect of all of them living together.

“Why are you here if you’re not gonna take care of me then?”

“I’m here to keep you company in your misery,” Sakusa replied. “I figured that growing up with a twin means you want independence but not loneliness.”

Sakusa was unbelievable. Atsumu let out a harsh laugh. “And you wonder why I don’t want you to hook me up with other people,” he said. Sakusa flinched. Atsumu forged on. “Hell, I don’t wanna even break up, I want the fucking opposite, ‘cause I’m into you, which is ridiculous even though you’re hot ‘cause you also got really ugly taste in socks and use too much conditioner and you shave way less than you should so I’m always feelings your hairy ass legs pressing against mine and you think Die Hard is the best Christmas movie in existence.”

“And what do you think I feel?” Sakusa challenged, voice rising. His cheeks were flushed. “You forget to change your sheets, you always stick your tongue out in photos, even when I tell you not to because it ruins the aesthetic, you contradict yourself about everything, but at the same time I’ve been using your magazine spread as spankbank for the past month.” Before Atsumu could ask, you have?! What spread is this? Why haven’t I seen it yet? Sakusa continued, “And you’re my best friend.”

But that only made Atsumu roll his eyes. “What the hell does that even mean? What’s the deal ‘bout being best friends with someone? Is that supposed to be a confession? Don’t people have best friends all the time?”

“Not like we do.”

“Right,” he deadpanned, because that explained so much. “Forgot you’re gay, does that mean it’s a gay thing? Do gay people not have friends in a bro way, only a homo way?”

Sakusa pinched the bridge of his nose. “I regret telling you anything.”

“That makes two of us.”

And then they exploded in laughter, because everything they were saying was downright stupid. It didn’t make sense. There was no straight answer, the same way there was in fic, with clear points of conflict and climaxes, resolutions and endings.

“Is that it?” Atsumu asked, because even if Sakusa didn’t say it outright, he wasn’t an idiot. He could read between the lines. “Did we just say that we liked each other and now we’re datin’?”

“We’ve all been dating, technically,” Sakusa pointed out. “As far as Hinata and Bokuto are concerned. Now we just confessed.”

“Thanks. That was super helpful.” This time, Sakusa swung his leg far enough to hit Atsumu’s side. Atsumu groaned and shot him a glare, but he wasn’t really angry. Sakusa smiled, only partially apologetic. “So what next, do we go on a date? ‘Cause no offense, that doesn't make sense given that we already went on one and we already know how that’s gonna go.”

“That was a hangout. It’s not the same.”

“I’m gonna strangle you.”

“We can probably go on another one tomorrow,” Sakusa considered. “On Sunday.”

“Why not right now? We just did something big. Shouldn’t we monument the moment by doin’ somethin’—I dunno—special?”

“We’re in the bathroom. What do you want to do, jack off?”

Atsumu paused. “That doesn’t sound so bad, actually.” Except when he tried standing up, the dizziness that had only been lingering in the back of his mind slammed to the front, catching him off guard that he flopped back to the ground and hurled into the bowl one more time. Rather than looking disgusted, Sakusa only looked bemused.

“Well, that’s not happening for you anytime soon.”

“For me? What ‘bout you? Does that mean you’re gonna fap by yourself and make me watch? Omi-kun, I always knew you had a sadistic side, but I’m not sure if I’d be into that.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. BDSM takes too much work,” Sakusa scoffed, before getting up. Atsumu watched him warily, but Sakusa only settled down beside him on the uncomfortable tiled floor and took out his phone.

Sakusa was leaning his weight on him, like Atsumu wasn’t the one between them who was sickly. Atsumu didn’t mind it much, but still. “What the fuck are you doing.”

“I’m going to continue watching dog videos,” Sakusa began. “Which you’re free to do with me, if you want to.”

“I like cat stuff more,” Atsumu told Sakusa, just to fuck with him.

Sakusa rolled his eyes, unimpressed. “We can watch a compilation video with both cats and dogs.”

Atsumu stared at him. Then, he said, “This is really pathetic of us, Omi-kun. How we’ve fallen.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about. We both read fanfiction. We have a low bar. We can’t do any better than this.”

It wasn’t actually an insult, and in the end, that was exactly what they did. They probably made a sorry sight, sitting by a smelly toilet in their shared bathroom where they jacked off often and took massive shits, dressed in their disheveled suits, watching videos about random people’s pets. It was the last thing that Atsumu would ever consider to be a date, or something as neat as that, but he was content where he was and what he was doing. Atsumu was, against all odds, comfortable. He was even kind of happy.

And maybe, just maybe, they could actually go to a café on Sunday, if Sakusa would let them, or they could just order in coffee and sit in the living room, quietly reading to themselves like they always did. Maybe they would kiss, but only after Atsumu brushed his teeth twice and Sakusa shaved, and then maybe jerk each other off in the bathroom because they didn’t want to make a mess in their bedroom. Maybe Atsumu would tell Osamu all about it the next time he barged into his apartment, unannounced, like he always did, and Suna would be there, because that was how they were, and Atsumu would no longer think about them with envy, or bitterness, because what he had—it wasn’t exactly like that, but that was a good thing, because he didn’t want to conform to anyone’s standards but his own.

Nothing had to change, just as things had already did. It did not make sense. Atsumu was okay with just rolling with it.