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It’s a shockingly bright day when Shinsuke finally relents and says the simple words, ‘I think we should break up.’
Atsumu has to squint to be able to look at Shinsuke, while Shinsuke stares ahead of himself and outlines all of the reasons why they should break up, cool and composed despite the burning heat of the day. Each stated as if he is reading them from a practised list he’d written on flash cards and memorised specifically for this purpose, to get it all perfect.
Atsumu nods along in time to every word and agrees with it all. Shinsuke, he’s found, is always right, always has been. This is just another example.
“We’re just not working out any more,” Shinsuke finishes and finally turns to look at Atsumu who tries to read something that clearly isn’t there. Sadness? Regret? None of it is there. Just acceptance.
It doesn’t hurt Atsumu not to see these things because, despite having been infatuated since the age of sixteen with Kita Shinsuke, he doesn’t really feel them either. It would be selfish and cruel for him to expect more from Shinsuke than he was able to give himself.
There is also the detail that Atsumu saw this coming. That he waited. Perversely, Atsumu had waited for it to hit, had watched it coming, and decided to not be the one to do it because Atsumu is a coward when it comes to these things. He always has been, and he isn’t worried about always being so because he’s still only young. It had been coming for a long time and this is just the inevitable end to a story that was always destined to end at some point, in some way.
It’s Shinsuke that is the first to relent because it wasn’t going to be Atsumu, it was never going to be Atsumu. Not that Atsumu didn’t want it to end, but because Atsumu is a coward and simply wouldn’t have been able to, ever.
Like most things, he let Shinsuke do it.
“I agree,” Atsumu says, finally breaking his silence and turning to stare out at the park in front of them filled with green and trees and children’s joyous screams, “with everything you said.”
“I still care about you.”
Atsumu laughs, but it’s not bitter, it’s not sad. It just is.
“I know. And I still care about you too, always will I think.”
Shinsuke says nothing for just a breath, a slightly too long breath, “Osamu—”
“Don’t worry,” Atsumu smiles and looks back at him, and for one sharp, painful moment again, it is Shinsuke that’s shining too brightly, “I’ll deal with all that. Besides, we can still be friends, right?”
x
Contrary to popular belief, it was Kita Shinsuke who fell first. Or so he and Atsumu concluded once, tucked together under a thick duvet while the sounds of rain pattered against the windows.
It was Kita Shinsuke who fell first.
“I don’t know when,” Shinsuke admitted, running his hand along Atsumu’s waist mindlessly, his head tucked against his chest. Atsumu sporadically placed kisses against Shinsuke’s hair. They hadn’t left bed because of the rain, because of the warmth trapped there between them, because they hadn’t seen each other in a while.
“I think it was near the end of first year. I realised it fully in second year, right at the beginning when I saw you again and I immediately thought, ‘I hope he’s okay.’”
Atsumu laughed at this because it had felt so like Shinsuke to think like that, to realise he’d fallen in love because of the simple wish for the other’s well being.
Shinsuke laughed too.
“So you only cared about me is that it?” Atsumu teased and leaned his face against the top of Shinsuke’s head until his hair tickled his nose.
“No,” Shinsuke replied in faux exasperation, “I’m not saying it right. I realised right then that I really cared about you. How you were, and that I wanted to be part of the reason you were happy.”
Atsumu hummed against his head and felt his stomach growl gently.
“You terrified me at first.”
Shinsuke’s laugh when it’s full and bursting, always had a tingling note to it that ran delicately through Atsumu’s body, setting his nerves on fire and his blood racing. He would feel it travel to the very tips of his toes right through his fingers, sometimes it would make him think his hair had nerve endings, and, always, it would alight something in his heart that would flutter gently, happily, beautifully.
“I’m serious!” Atsumu laughed back, both of their bodies shaking.
“I know,” Shinsuke replied. “That’s what I wanted.”
“So I wouldn’t realise you were crushing hard?”
“No,” Shinsuke replied gently, swatting away Atsumu’s attempts to pinch his cheek, “so you’d listen to me and take care of yourself.”
x
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Osamu asks through the tinny speaker of Atsumu’s phone which sits beside him as he begins preparing dinner, the knife gliding easily over the red pepper, rolling and slicing, the red tinged water seeping from it.
“Yes,” Atsumu says for the fifth time, “for the fifth time ‘Samu I’m okay, fine actually. It sucks, but it’s fine.” He sighs. “It’s for the best, things had been strained lately.”
There’s silence except for the scrape of the knife against the chopping board as Atsumu sweeps the chopped vegetables into a bowl.
“Three years is a long time ‘Tsumu, it’s okay to be upset—”
“I’m not though,” Atsumu replies, putting the knife down and picking his phone up with a sigh. “It’s not like we left on bad terms, ‘Samu. We’re still going to be friends. I don’t feel a need to go out and force myself to forget about him because we were friends before this and we will still be friends. They’re good memories. I want to keep them.”
“Are you sure you’re going to be okay with that?” Osamu asks, and Atsumu can imagine his brother looking at him with a pinch in his brow and his arms crossed.
“Why? What do you mean?”
Osamu doesn’t answer for a moment, and then sighs. “Okay,” he says eventually, “if you say so. Just don’t make it awkward for me. I do have a business partnership to try and keep.” He doesn’t sound like that’s what he wants to say, but Atsumu doesn’t ask, doesn’t want to.
Maybe there’s a part of him that knows exactly what Osamu is saying—they are twins, they are friends, very few people know them like they know each other, so silences and subtly hidden unsaid words aren’t an obstacle to them.
But Atsumu is selfish. He’s also stubborn. So he’s adamant that he’s right.
He’s adamant that they can and will remain friends, not only because he wants them to, but because he couldn’t for a moment imagine a life without Kita Shinsuke in it in any capacity, even some tiny insignificant sense. He wouldn’t be the person he is today without Shinsuke.
So he believes it. Because he wants to. Because the alternative, no matter how fleeting the thought is, pains him in a way he hasn’t felt pain before, it’s not something he can bear to think about. Not at all.
Miya Atsumu is also a good liar. Even to himself.
x
Atsumu remembers clearly when he realised he had feelings for Shinsuke. He doesn’t and has never done things delicately, so when he realised, it was sudden and crashing. It wasn’t so much like getting hit by a truck as it was like getting hit with a bike—still enough to send him flying, land awkwardly, and hurt all over, but it had the added awkwardness of ‘I got flattened by a bike.’
Not that there was anything shameful in falling for Kita Shinsuke, not that there was anything to judge him for. It had nothing to do with falling for Kita Shinsuke so much as it did with the fact that it was Atsumu who fell for him.
It was two days after Spring Interhigh in his second year of highschool, three days after their own loss—the last game they played together officially—that it hit him, flattened him, and he realised he was in love with Kita Shinsuke and didn’t know what to do about it.
So he told his brother, Osamu, who stared at him, chopsticks pausing mid air, his mouth hanging open and nose twisting up in something akin to derision.
“What?” Osamu asked, too harshly for a fragile Atsumu who’s own dinner was looking more and more unappetising with every second and every squeeze of his stomach.
“You heard me, asshole,” Atsumu grunted, stabbing a chopstick into a piece of beef that suddenly looked like gristle.
“Yeah, but,” Osamu said, dropping his food and leaning on his arms over the table, “what makes you think you’d ever have a chance?”
“Fuck you.” Except Atsumu knew he was right. He was probably talking to himself.
Osamu shrugged and picked up his chopsticks again, taking a mouthful of food he began to speak through. “I’m just warning you so you don’t get your heart broken.”
And the worst part about all of this is he knew Osamu was right. Kita Shinsuke was more than Atsumu, more than anyone, anything; he was something that couldn’t be touched, obtained. Kita Shinsuke was perfect.
Atsumu never really thought he had a chance. He confessed to Shinsuke by accident two weeks after his realisation.
A bleeding nose courtesy of Suna Rintarou learning how to jump serve was the catalyst.
Atsumu had zoned out in training (again) thinking about what he could possibly do about his feelings (again) because he was running out of time. But there was still the little fact that his feelings were for Kita Shinsuke and he stood no chance with him.
Then Suna finally managed to pull off a strong and accurate jump serve, aiming for the space where the setter, Atsumu, moves from the back row to the front to get into position—but Atsumu was zoned out. So instead of moving, he’d remained flat-footed, rooted to the spot, lost in his thoughts about Shinsuke, and received the ball straight to the face.
Coach Kurosu wasn’t there when it happened, so it was Shinsuke as their captain that helped Atsumu back onto his feet and walked him to the locker room, while Atsumu, with every step, tried not to think about Shinsuke’s hand around his waist.
Methodically, Shinsuke sat him down, instructed him to lean forward, handed him a heap of tissues to catch the blood, and fetched an ice pack for him.
“How sore is it?” He asked, handing Atsumu the ice pack and pulling up a chair to sit opposite him.
“Sore enough to wring Suna’s neck,” Atsumu gruffed, staring at Shinsuke’s slightly worn shoes.
Shinsuke laughed.
“I better not have two black eyes ‘cause of this,” Atsumu mumbled.
“I think that’s only if you break it.”
“You don’t know it’s not broken.”
“Atsumu,” he said with a sigh and a small laugh, “let me see then.”
So Atsumu looked up and, as gently as he always does things, Shinsuke took the ice pack from him, placed it on the bench, then leaned forward and peered at Atsumu. Then, just as gently, carefully, he took Atsumu’s face between his hands, and turned it slightly while a trail of blood ran down and over Atsumu’s cupid bow, and over his lips. Atsumu felt himself going cross-eyed watching Shinsuke inspect his injury. Then suddenly, he told him. Quite simply, he told him,
“I like you.”
Shinsuke blinked at him, his hands still firmly cupping Atsumu’s face, the blood was now teetering off the edge of his chin and Atsumu felt the words build up and begin to pour out of him like blood from an open wound.
“I mean I like you. Not just as a friend. I really like you because you’re caring, you always have been, you care so much for everyone and for me. You’re smart and kind, so, so kind, and you always know the right thing to say. And I know you probably don’t feel the same way about me because—”
“Atsumu,” Shinsuke cut him off.
“I’m sorry,” Atsumu replied, pulling his face from Shinsuke’s hands and putting the tissues back against his nose, he could taste blood in his mouth. “I just needed to tell you. I know you don’t feel the same—”
“Atsumu,” Shinsuke repeated, but Atsumu refused to look at him, looking instead at the small drop of red on the floor. “I like you too—”
“Ki—”
“Let me finish,” Shinsuke cut him off for the third time. Then Atsumu could feel his touch on his cheek again, but refused to look up, to get his hopes up. “I like you too Atsumu. As more than a friend. Because you’re passionate and dedicated. You’re caring in your own way, and you nearly always put others first, even if you can be foolish and inconsiderate of yourself. I like you too.”
It was only after the last declaration that Atsumu allowed himself to look up again and into the soft, earnest, amber eyes of the boy he was in love with, who he didn’t realise right then had been in love with him for longer than Atsumu had known of his own feelings.
At the same time, Atsumu still doubted it, could barely believe the words, even as Shinsuke smiled and planned a date as the bleeding from Atsumu’s nose began to ease and stop.
Because Atsumu didn’t deserve someone like Shinsuke.
So really, Atsumu should have been more surprised that they lasted as long as they did, not the fact that they broke up. Shinsuke was and always will be so much more than him. Will always deserve so much more than him.
x
“Atsumu—” Osamu says, when Atsumu enters Onigiri Miya on a Tuesday unannounced, his eyes flicking towards the kitchen with something like panic on his face, “what are you doing here?”
“What? Can’t visit my brother at work now, is that it?” Atsumu smirks and lands heavy on a stool, then plops his upper body on the counter, part from genuine tiredness, part from dramatics—Osamu doesn’t need to know the last part. “I’ll even pay for food this time.”
“No—” Osamu starts before he’s interrupted and all of Atsumu’s body, his muscles, his tendons, his bones, even the hair on his body, stiffen in alertness.
“That should be everything, Osamu,” Shinsuke says, coming out of the kitchen, a clipboard in his hand, and a pen scratching against the paper.
He hasn’t seen Shinsuke in weeks, months, not since the day they broke up, but he cannot help but smile at seeing him. He looks the exact same as he always has, but there’s no pressure to it, to seeing him. There’s no feeling of having to live up to something, to having to make every moment special or monumental. There’s just this happiness at seeing an old friend that he hasn’t spoken to in a long time. A rusted familiarity he’d almost forgotten.
“Shin!” Atsumu grins wide and full.
Shinsuke’s head snaps up and his eyes crinkle in the soft tell that shows he’s smiling even if he’s not.
“Atsumu,” he says, “good to see you.”
“Yeah you too! Is that the new rice?”
Shinsuke smiles with his mouth now. “Yes, it is. It’s nice to see you’re excited for it.”
“‘Course I am, Shin.”
Osamu’s watching them. Carefully. Arms crossed, he’s looking between them as if they’re something fragile, or destructive, or both—a flicker of a flame or a piece of broken glass maybe.
“Hey ‘Samu,” Atsumu says, just to be a little bit of an asshole, to call him and his watchful, speculative eyes out, “stick on the kettle, I’d like some tea,” he turns back to Shinsuke. “Would you like a cup, Shin?”
Shinsuke smiles, eyes going between the twins with a fond look. “Yes, that would be lovely.”
“You heard the man,” Atsumu says and claps his hands, rubbing them together expectantly, “two cups of tea, ‘Samu.” And Shinsuke laughs at them before taking a seat beside Atsumu.
It's funny how easy it feels to be back in Shinsuke’s company—even if Osamu skirts around them, bathe in uncertainty that rolls off him in waves—to smile at him and ask about his grandmother, and listen to the newest gossip from the farm and a story about how his chickens escaped a few days ago.
It almost feels so much easier than before.
Maybe because there’s no pressure between them, maybe because all those things making them stiff before were knocked down and scattered in the rubble when they broke up, maybe because this is how it was always supposed to be.
So when he sees a dog in a jacket and sends a picture of it to Shinsuke two days later with the caption tea good sir?, a silly, inside joke he doesn’t even remember beginning, it doesn’t feel strange, it feels right.
When Shinsuke replies, it’s not weird.
They were friends before they dated, they agreed to be friends again. This is just a natural progression.
x
Their first date was perfect. It rained. The movie was terrible. The bubble tea was overpriced. Neither brought an umbrella because neither knew it was going to rain. Atsumu felt like he was going to puke the entire time and his palms wouldn’t stop sweating, which was horrible up until Shinsuke took his hand in his and this should have made it all worse, but he suddenly didn’t care anymore because Kita Shinsuke was holding his hand. Then his face turned so warm, he thought the rain would sizzle and turn to steam as soon as it hit his skin—it didn’t. Of course it didn’t.
Despite all of this, it was perfect. It was perfect because Atsumu doesn’t know if he’d ever laughed so much with one person before this. It was perfect because they both wanted to be there. It was perfect because it was with Kita Shinsuke and Atsumu didn’t think anyone else could make him feel like this.
Saying ‘I love you’ was not something Atsumu ever worried about. It wasn’t something he ever thought about. Yet he didn’t expect it to bubble and swell inside him, a pressure in his chest that tried to force itself out his mouth so it would spill across the floor, I love you, so quickly, so easily, so soon.
Wanting to say ‘I love you’ to Shinsuke came so naturally, and loving him came so much easier and more natural than wanting to say it.
He held it back that day, he was smarter than his brother gives him credit for, and knew not to say it on a first date just because a pretty boy held his hand and smiled at him so brightly he could have been the sun that cut through the rain.
No matter how much he tried to tamper it down, to hold it back, in the days and weeks that followed, he kept having to bite it off before he said it, the words half slipping from his lips in moments when Shinsuke would look over his shoulder at him, play with his fingers, kiss him quietly or passionately, ask him how his day was, smile. Every single thing he did made Atsumu want to crash into the earth and leave a dent so large, just so people could begin to understand the impact Shinsuke had on him.
Atsumu knew he couldn’t stop it, keep it in forever, and he wanted to do it, say it right. But one evening in Atsumu’s third year, while Atsumu was sitting under the kotatsu at Shinsuke’s grandmother’s house, the words slipped out easily as Shinsuke swirled the tea in the teapot three times, as he always does, before beginning to pour.
“I love you,” Atsumu blurted, it burst from him gracelessly in contrast to the delicate rivulet of tea pouring into his cup. Then it stopped. And so did Atsumu’s heart—or so it seemed. Until Shinsuke was on his knees and holding Atsumu’s face in his hands like he had the day Atsumu first confessed to him, smiling a small, soft smile that he so rarely wore. One that Atsumu knew meant he’s happy, more than happy.
“I love you too, Atsumu,” he said and that smile glowed, he shone in a way that made Atsumu want to cry, but instead he leaned forward and pressed his lips against Shinsuke’s. It was messy and toothy and his tea was growing cold, but Atsumu was so happy and so in love.
What happened?
x
They slip into each other's lives again so easily. Although they never really left—just hesitated on the peripheries for a while before inevitably being dragged back to each other as if it were the most natural progression of things.
They break up, they stay friends.
It’s so easy.
Yet something inside Atsumu tells him he should feel bad, guilty. Maybe it’s the way Osamu looks at him if he mentions Shinsuke, maybe it’s the way his teammates faltered when they asked if he needed help getting over it and he replied,
“There’s nothing to get over. It was for the best. We’re still friends. I want to remember and cherish every moment we shared together.”
Maybe it’s something else. There’s this constant pull and push in his mind and body between wanting and enjoying seeing Shinsuke, and that small, sick part in the bottom of his stomach that writhes a little bit and tells him he shouldn’t want to see him because things have changed, it’s not fair to want that.
Yet he finds he can’t make it stick, because Atsumu is not only a coward, but selfish, and the part of him that wants and enjoys seeing and talking to Shinsuke, always wins.
And they’re friends. And it’s easy.
The only problem is that sometimes, just sometimes—when he smiles a little too large, when his fingers dance over the display name on his screen, when he catches himself thinking about Shinsuke at random moments—he doesn’t really know how. How to do this, how to maneuver the minefield that isn’t a minefield.
But it’s not a problem, it isn’t a problem because it’s okay, they’re friends, they agreed.
And it’s not like they talk all the time. It’s not like they meet up often. It’s not like before when Atsumu would spend every moment thinking of him, thinking of how to make him happy, what to do to make him smile, not worrying about how long it’s been since they last spoke, counting the seconds like they’re diamonds and each one passed is a loss of immeasurable value.
They’re friends and it’s normal.
And Atsumu is comfortable with him. He doesn’t admit it to himself, but he prefers this distance between them.
Atsumu feels like he can be himself. He can be an effortless version of himself to his friend Kita Shinsuke because they’re friends. And there’s no pressure.
And he’s happy.
It’s easy. But it’s fine.
x
Atsumu likes to joke that he had two first times; his actual first time and the first time that went right. Both times were with Shinsuke. Only times.
This is a joke he keeps to himself. He never dared say it to Shinsuke because it’s one of those self-deprecating jokes that would’ve made him sigh and look sad and maybe stroke Atsumu’s hair, tuck a finger under his chin, and say something, the right thing, to make Atsumu regret it, forget it.
But Atsumu needs it as it is. Exactly as it is; as a monument to something he didn’t grasp at the time. It’s not sad or pathetic, it just is.
He makes this joke because the first time was a disaster and awkward and pretty much abandoned half way through. They lay on the bed of Atsumu’s small apartment in a silence that wasn’t awkward, but also wasn’t not awkward, Atsumu with his arm thrown over his eyes as the smell of scented candles drifted into the air around them and weeks of waiting, preparation, expectations landed on him and pushed forcefully on something that was already breaking, this was just another hairline crack growing and running along it, waiting for the right moment to shatter completely.
He heard Shinsuke sigh beside him and shift on the covers. Atsumu lifted his arm enough so he could just about see Shinsuke through the shade of his eyelashes.
“This was a disaster,” he mumbled. Shinsuke laughed.
“It wasn’t,” Shinsuke assured him, pink staining his cheeks too, for a reason Atsumu didn’t know.
Atsumu groaned, low and guttural, and turned to the side, fixed the blanket over his waist, feeling suddenly insecure about everything.
Shinsuke laughed again and turned onto his side to look at Atsumu too, his hair soft, some damp strands sticking to his forehead, the pink in his cheeks receding, his lips slightly parted, slightly puffed.
“Everyone says first times are a disaster,” Shinsuke assured him, placing a hand on Atsumu’s chest, just over his heart that was beating rapidly, still.
“Yeah but—”
“No buts!” Shinsuke smiled and laughed again, then shifted in closer to Atsumu so their bodies aligned, skin almost touching, and the distance between them felt like fire. “We were nervous, it happens. I still love you, I think I love you more because of this actually. ‘Cool Miya Atsumu’ getting all nervous and flustered—”
He was cut off by Atsumu putting a hand to his mouth and pushing his face away. He could feel Shinsuke’s tinkling laugh beneath it, racing through his body.
“No butts?” He asked as Shinsuke pulled his hand off himself, “none? Should I go put some clothes on then?”
Shinsuke grinned, wicked, his hand snaking around behind Atsumu. “Hmm,” he pretended to contemplate, “not just yet.”
They ended up not going through with it that day, or the next. Instead they took their time, they waited. They waited until it happened naturally.
After their second time, Atsumu woke up hours later, the soft spill of moonlight and streetlights splaying over the floor, reaching for them—but in that moment he felt untouchable, he felt greater than himself as Shinsuke snored gently on his chest, their legs tangled and clothes scattered around them. He remembers feeling at peace. He remembers it feeling so easy loving Shinsuke in that moment, remembers thinking he’d never felt something as soft and crushing in that moment as the weight of his feelings for Shinsuke.
Then, as Atsumu lay there in bliss, he remembered the first time, the real first time, and it shattered the moment. Once again, he looked at the soft, black and silver hair and asked himself how it hadn’t ended yet, how he was lucky enough to have been dating the most beautiful and incredible person in existence for so long already. How this man, Shinsuke, could be happy with him, and tell him so readily, easily, every day.
x
There’s a turning point, there’s always a turning point and it’s not always obvious until after it happens that it’s a turning point, but all things must come to an end and all things must therefore have a crux, the beginning of the end.
For Atsumu and Shinsuke, this is a party at the Shinsuke farm. A party he didn’t hesitate in accepting an invitation to. A party that had their old high school friends pause when they heard he was going. A party that Atsumu was never going to say no to attending.
Shinsuke is a wonderful host. There’s a large smile on his face. There’s trays of food dotting the tables. There’s a large supply of alcohol. There’s a small group of people Atsumu doesn’t know laughing at something Shinsuke’s just said.
Around Atsumu, people are talking and laughing, yet he suddenly feels the need to be alone. He loves his friends, each and every single one of them, but he just doesn’t want to be around them, anyone, right now, he doesn’t know why, but he finds himself picking up his jacket and slipping outside onto the deck overlooking the back garden. It’s slightly damp and his socks begin to soak up the moisture easily.
He watches the night for a moment, not really looking at, or for, anything, and then carefully puts down his jacket, sitting on the edge and pulling off his socks. From here, Atsumu can see the expanse of the paddy fields that stretch for an infinity. It’s beautiful out here, always has been. Yet something about it tonight, as vast and still as it is, under a night sky that’s so clear—like curtains have been pulled back so there is nothing blocking the view of all those stars, so many stars—makes each breath he takes feel awed, like it’s a last breath at the end of the world.
He almost misses it; two bright, almost yellow eyes staring at him from the edge of the garden. Then they’re gone, a flick of a bushy tail and a flash of movement and the fox is gone.
“Atsumu.”
He almost jumps, shoulders jolting. He looks back to see Shinsuke haloed in the light spilling out from inside, and for just a moment, he remembers what he looked like on that day.
“Shit, Shin,” Atsumu says with a laugh, his heart beating a little fast, “you scared me.”
“Sorry,” he replies and walks over, it’s then Atsumu realises he has two towels in his hand, one of which he offers to Atsumu. “It’s damp out.”
Atsumu shakes his head. He’s still trying to take care of him.
“I’m using my coat.”
Shinsuke looks at the jacket beneath him, then nods and places one of the two towels down and sits beside him, lying the second over his lap.
Once upon a time, Atsumu would probably feel his posture straighten to attention, once upon a time, he would have become aware of all the things he was doing and all the things he could be doing. Instead he leans forward, his elbows on his knees and takes a small mouthful of cheap beer.
“I just saw a fox,” he says and nods towards the end of the garden, “just over there.”
“Hmm,” Kita hums, looking to where Atsumu indicated, “yeah, we get them sometimes. All the chickens are locked up for the night so there’s no need to worry.”
Atsumu nods and they sit like this, not really saying anything beyond vague words with little meaning but it’s okay, they don’t need any more than that right now.
“It’s beautiful out here, Shin,” Atsumu suddenly says without thinking.
He feels Shinsuke’s eyes on him before he turns to meet them.
“I'm proud of you,” he continues, genuinely. He's never been so genuine about anything in his life. He rolls the can of beer between his palms, can feel it becoming warmer as he does so, so stops to toy with the pull-tab instead. It’s still getting warmer, this is just a farce to make him feel like he’s doing something. “You always tell me—us, how proud you are. It's my turn. You've built an incredible life. It's everything you deserve.”
Shinsuke always knows the right thing to say at any moment. It’s one of the things that Atsumu loved about him. There was never a moment when he doubted himself, never a moment he wasn’t perfect. So when he looks at Atsumu and opens his small mouth to say something, only to close it again, something whirrs in Atsumu’s brain. Slowly. Then Shinsuke looks back out over the yard and smiles to himself that soft smile that Atsumu rarely saw, even when they were together, and he suddenly seems so at peace with everything.
“I—I love it,” he almost seems bashful as he says this, “I'm lucky.”
“Nah,” Atsumu says, swirling the now warm dregs of the drink he could have finished a long time ago, but he had wanted to make it last, didn’t want it to end—he knows he’s not thinking about his beer as he thinks that. “I know some lucky people and you're not one of them. You built this. You earned it. This is all you Shin, and you should be proud of that, not reduce it to something as random as luck.”
That small smile lights up his face again.
Suddenly, Atsumu is hit with a pain, an ache, that makes it feel hard to breathe, hard to move his fingers—stilling for the first time tonight as a chill runs through his body that makes it feel like all the blood has suddenly drained from him.
“You're right. Thank you Atsumu,” Shinsuke looks back at him again and Atsumu is left wondering if he ever looked this happy when they were together. He always knew the break up was what was best for them, but something about this now makes him almost feel bitter.
And maybe it’s selfishness or petulance or stubbornness or competitiveness or a mixture of all of those things or none of them entirely, but Atsumu, right now, simply has the overwhelming urge to reach out and take Shinsuke’s hand and do something sweet, innocent, like lie in the grass and watch all those stars and just hold on. For just a moment to hold on to something he let go of.
Because he did let go of it, what feels like a forever ago.
Something stings in the back of his eyes, causing them to water, so he turns to look out at the garden instead, fixing his legs, stretching them out in front of him, one at a time, feeling the movements, grounding himself in his current reality.
Shinsuke smiles. Atsumu doesn't know it, but he does all the same. He knows Shinsuke. He knows he’s smiling, soft and small.
So now isn't the moment. Now is the very last moment he should break artlessly with questions about them, because he doesn’t think he has ever felt so at ease with Shinsuke before. So right now is the perfect time, because he has never felt so at ease with Shinsuke before. He suddenly has a need to know.
“What happened to us?” And as he says each word, it feels like they’re tearing off a piece of his flesh, leaving him and all of his nerve endings vulnerable and exposed.
Shinsuke lets out a sigh, it’s not a sad sigh or a tired sigh or an exasperated sigh. It's a sigh of contemplation, consideration, and Atsumu immediately feels like Shinsuke’s aiming to protect him, take care of him, as he always has.
“Truthfully,” Atsumu asks.
“I don’t know,” Shinsuke says, “we grew up. We grew apart.”
Atsumu lets this roll around in his mind, slowly, like a marble in one of those games trying to find the slot it’s to be dropped into. It doesn’t.
I disagree, Atsumu wants to say while his heart slams against his chest.
He doesn’t. Nor does he say,
I don't think it was an issue of not loving you enough or falling out of love. I think I loved you too much and lost myself in what I was to you. Or what I could be. Or what I could become. And so I pulled away, because I couldn't allow myself to become a burden to you. Because I loved you too much.
Because Atsumu hadn’t realised this until he thought it, just now, right here beside Shinsuke. The little marble rolling around in his mind finds its spot and falls with a thud, and it’s overwhelming how he now realises all of this. He still loves Kita Shinsuke with his whole heart. It's just too much. Just not in the right way. Not in the way he deserves to be loved.
Seeing him tonight, seeing the way he smiles softly and seeing him and the way they can exist without expectations is choking Atsumu. Existing as they have been for months now. Without expectations of each other. WIthout fear.
And, really, he knows that he never stopped loving him. He never stopped.
Instead he nods and finishes what’s in his can, the bitter unpalatable taste of warm, shitty beer doing nothing for him.
“I guess you’re right.”
Atsumu’s a good liar.
x
It’s a bright day punctured with a cold, chilling breeze, when Atsumu finally gives up on the farce and decides to stop lying to himself. He is a good liar, but no one’s good enough to keep up such a ruse. To tell themself that it’s okay. That they can stay friends with the man they used to date and were in love with—still are—especially after realising just how much they still are, and realising that it was their fault they broke up because they, Atsumu, drove him away.
Atsumu drove him away because of his own insecurities and inadequacies.
From the beginning, right from the start, remaining friends with Shinsuke had felt far too ‘easy’. Maybe it was desperation, or maybe Atsumu really is the idiot Osamu says he is, and all those sad glances and pursed lips and quiet hums were right from the moment Atsumu first said, it’s fine, we agreed to stay friends. So it was inevitable it would end in disaster.
Atsumu couldn’t bear to look at Shinsuke to do this. He’d been ignoring half of his texts, deleting social media apps from his phone to avoid seeing him, only to log on via the internet and go straight to his page.
Maybe Atsumu is also pathetic.
So he opts to call him instead, his lungs burning from the practise he just left—he’d been distracted the whole time. Again. As soon as Coach finished talking to them afterwards, Atsumu had waved off prying questions, rushed to get changed, dashed out the door, pulled out his phone and began to dial.
“Atsumu?” Shinsuke’s voice is curious with a tinge of concern.
Atsumu stares at his feet as he walks home, and attempts to simply tell Shinsuke that he can’t do this, this friendship, anymore. Or whatever it is. It’s not right. It’s not fair.
Atsumu is a coward and he’s selfish, always has been, most certainly was that day about a year ago when he so naively asked, ‘we can still be friends, right?’
He tries to state it all clearly, along with his reasons, matter-of-factly, because he has stayed up all night a number of nights trying to organise the points coherently and concisely so he could learn them off, memorise them perfectly so Shinsuke can understand. So it would be as fair and as easy as possible on both of them.
But it all comes down to one, simple fact.
“Shin,” his throat closes over and he’s choking on words that tear and catch in his throat, clinging on by their fingertips, sharp edges dragging up his throat. He’s choking. There’s a silent static on the other side of the line, Shinsuke, ever so kind, ever so patient, is waiting for him.
“Shin,” he tries again, and the worst part is he knows exactly how Shinsuke must be looking right now, eyes wide but set in concern, his lips pinched together and a small crease between his brows. He knows him too much still for someone who gave up on being with him a long time before their relationship ended. He knows him too well for someone who let him walk away, let himself drive him away. He knows him too well for someone that has no right to be in his life, who’s nothing but an ex.
“Shin, I can’t do this anymore.”
“Atsu—”
“No,” he’s still looking at his feet, but he’s stopped walking. One of his laces needs re-tied, there’s gum embedded into the pavement; flat, fat splotches decorating the asphalt that look like they’re meant to be there—they’re not. “I can’t and I’m sorry, I know I was the one that asked to remain friends and this has nothing to do with you, this is all me. I just can’t do it anymore because—”
Because I’m in love with you again, or I never stopped, but I am nonetheless, and I can’t stop it, I can’t bear to see you and not be able to reach out and touch you, I can't bear seeing you and not having you. I don’t want to be part of your life because I cannot bear to watch you live it without me beside you. Because I’m not able to be with you, not as I am right now, I’ll end up hurting us both—again. Because I love you. Again. Or I never stopped. I love you, I love you, I love you—
“—because it’s too painful, Kita.” Kita. “I’m sorry, and I don’t want to make this awkward. You did nothing, this is all me.”
He hangs up. He digs his fingers into his hair. He goes home and he cries before calling Osamu and admitting defeat.
x
Atsumu tries dating. Atsumu tries those stupid apps. But he always ends up in bed alone, sometimes on the phone to Osamu.
“How is he?” Atsumu asks, and every time Osamu falters and sighs.
“Atsumu—” he will try to say.
“Just in general,” Atsumu will insist.
“He seems good,” Osamu will admit. That’s it. Atsumu doesn’t allow himself to ask any more and Osamu wouldn't allow himself to tell Atsumu any more than that anyways.
Other nights he simply rolls over and falls asleep alone with the ghost of a memory of warmth wrapped around him.
There’s no more appearing at Onigiri Miya without a call or a text. There’s fewer parties with high school friends. There’s a lot of laughing off offers for set ups, there’s awkward turn downs for dates, there’s clumsy avoiding topics of his love life in interviews.
“But Miya-senshu,” one interviewer says, shocked, “you’re a very handsome man with a lot of fans for more than your skills, it can’t be hard for you to get a date.”
His teammates snicker around him as he laughs, confidently.
“You’re all just jealous she called me handsome and not any of you,” Atsumu says with a grin, turning to look at them. Bokuto’s laugh booms loudly, and Atsumu leans back as Inunaki half shouts something at him, Meian rolls his eyes, and attention is diverted from him.
It gets... easier. It’s difficult feeling it get easier, because it’s sad. It’s necessary though, and sadness must sometimes be endured, waded through. He hopes it’ll be like one of those stupid, tacky quotes that say hardship must be endured to make the good times sweeter. He hopes it gets sweeter. Or at least next time he is stronger.
It gets easier.
Until there are days he doesn’t think about him, what was, what could be. Where hearing his name mentioned doesn’t bring him hurt. Where there isn’t a bitter taste to the rice his brother cooks. Where the scar tissue becomes almost invisible, and it doesn’t hurt.
He still doesn’t really date. The odd dinner here, a drink there. Nothing really lasts because Atsumu knows what he wants and he knows what he needs and he’s not willing to settle for less.
“Can’t you skip training?” Someone complains. They last another day.
“I’m just looking for something casual.” They don’t last the night.
“I just think we’d look good together.” They don’t even exchange numbers.
He doesn’t want someone who wants him for his looks, or his fame. He wants someone he can grow with, someone he can stand beside—not behind, not in front of.
And the break up was the best for them both, because Kita deserves someone who is ready and strong enough to be himself with him. Someone who won’t reduce themself for an ideal of Kita. Someone who loves him for who he is, and not who they perceive him to be.
It gets… easier, until it doesn’t need to be thought of anymore.
x
“Kita,” the name feels as if it’s pulled out of him, or forced out with a perfectly aimed punch to the stomach.
He’s standing in the middle of a supermarket just outside Kobe at six in the morning and all he can see in the endless aisles stretching around him, is the silver, black tipped hair of Kita Shinsuke.
Kita’s shoulders stiffen ever so slightly.
“Atsumu,” Kita says, turning and smiling, tilting his head gently as he does, Atsumu feels like he’s been sucker punched. Again.
There’s five feet between them, and Atsumu feels every centimetre of it tugging at him, a gravitational pull in his soul trying to draw him back to Kita Shinsuke. He aches. He feels sick. He wants to smash it, this non-existent entity, he wants to grab it between his hands and snap it over his knee so it doesn’t exist anymore.
Even with so much time between them, the cold reality of seeing Kita in front of him overrides everything Atsumu had taught himself to know and his heart pounds against his chest with a constant metrical one, two, one, two, one, two, reminding Atsumu of all that time between them. One year since he last saw Kita as more than pixels on a screen, two years since he gave up the right to see him as more than pixels on a screen.
“How have you been?” Atsumu asks, feels an itch in his foot and shifts his weight.
“Good,” Shinsuke answers, ever polite, “I can’t complain. You look well.”
“Thanks,” Atsumu’s face is heating, “so do you. Tanned.”
Shinsuke huffs a small laugh. “I’ve been hearing that a lot actually.”
“It’s true.”
It’s awkward.
Glass smashes in the background. Atsumu looks over his shoulder, though he knows it was at least an aisle over, and he doesn’t wish that when he looks back, Kita will be gone. But he does.
He’s not. Kita is still there, a neutral expression on his face. Atsumu wonders what it means, what exactly it’s hiding. Then he’s hit with the realisation that he shouldn’t want to know what his expression is, and this, this not knowing Kita like he used to, is what he thought he had wanted.
They may as well be strangers.
“I watched your game on Saturday, how’s your leg?”
This simple, innocuous question throws Atsumu for a moment as a mantra of ‘what does this mean?’ courses through his mind.
“Good, it was a little sore for a day or two but I made sure to take care of myself. I was given a few days off for rest which is why I’m home.” The explanation feels necessary.
Kita nods. They fall into a silence punctured only by the hum of the fluorescent lights above them and the freezer motors beside them.
“I saw Osamu the other day,” Kita begins, and even to Atsumu it sounds lame—which is odd, Kita always knew the right thing to say, or so he used to tell himself. “He mentioned getting a dog.”
“Yeah,” Atsumu laughs, remembering Osamu just last night after dinner, scrolling through the local animal shelter page on his phone, and falling in love with every dog he saw and at least four cats, “he’s been talking about that for a while. Don’t know if he’ll ever go through with it though, you know how he is, and his apartment isn’t very big.”
Kita nods in reply. “Yeah, he said he prefers big dogs. I don’t see how he’d fit one, himself, and Rintarou, whenever he visits, in there.”
“I said the exact same thing!”
They fall into silence again, and horribly, Atsumu yawns.
“It’s early, why are you here?” Kita asks with a slight cock of his head.
Atsumu laughs and scratches the back of his neck. “I’m staying with ‘Samu so I woke up when he did and, eh, it’s the only shop that stocks this,” he says and holds up the pack of Cheese Curry ramen, and shrugs, “I had a craving.”
Kita laughs and scrunches his nose, “Is that really something a professional athlete should be eating?”
Atsumu grins wickedly, “Probably not, but that hasn’t stopped me before.” Then he looks down at the small basket in Kita’s hand. “I’ll let you finish, you’re probably busy. It was good to see you though—”
“I’m almost done,” Kita interjects and seems to bite the inside of his lip. “I—Have you eaten breakfast? I was going to get something after this. There’s a nice place around the corner…”
“No, I’ll pass. Thank you, though,” is what Atsumu should answer.
“Yeah, I mean, no. No, I haven’t eaten. Yeah, I’d like to join you if… if that’s what you meant…?”
“Yes,” Kita says too quickly and nods, “I’d like that.”
x
Once again, Atsumu finds himself making room for Kita in his life so easily.
Which is why, three weeks after the supermarket, Atsumu asks to meet him. He chooses somewhere quiet, he chooses somewhere neutral, he chooses somewhere he thinks Kita will like.
The tea room is quiet, that awkward time between lunch and dinner, so Atsumu is free to choose their seats as he pleases, and walks towards the back, to the small, low table tucked into the back corner. Tucking his feet beneath him on the zabuton, he orders water to help wet his mouth which feels perpetually parched, and waits.
He opens the message Osamu sent him earlier and reads it again.
Remember everything you told me.
He’d spent the night on Osamu’s couch, when he was sleeping. He spent it lying in the doorway of Osamu’s room, back to the ground, legs in the air against the doorframe, for hours before that, detailing everything he wanted to say—just trying to unravel the knot in his mind, picking at each thread until he could find an end he could work from. He didn’t want to practise it all, didn’t feel the need for it to be perfect, just needed a beginning and a natural progression to the end.
“Atsumu,” Osamu said quietly, lying on his stomach on the floor beside him, after listening to Atsumu lay out his thoughts on the rug of his bedroom floor, “you’ve grown so much.”
“Fuck off,” Atsumu growled back, swatting at his brother.
“I’m serious,” Osamu replied, and leveled his eyes at him. “You’re not the kid who was head over heels for him and never knew what to do with himself. You’re not the awkward, kind of an adult, who was scared of his every movement. You’re… you know who you are now, and who you want to be. Not who you think you should be for someone else. And everything you just said, your awareness of where it went wrong, proves that.”
So Atsumu sits, and waits, and rises slowly to his feet when Kita walks in, greeting him properly. They sit, order their tea, talk easily, and Atsumu waits for a moment that would never be perfect, because there’s never a perfect moment for these things.
“Kita.... Shin,” he begins during a small, comfortable lull in the conversation, and the tea in his stomach feels scalding, “if I can… if I can call you this again, remember when I asked you why you thought we broke up?”
Dawning realisation can be clearly read on Kita’s face as he nods, but he doesn’t betray anything else, if this is a good or a bad thing. If it’s a neutral thing.
“It wasn’t the truth, was it?”
Kita turns his cup and wraps his hands around it delicately, looking into it, and if there wasn’t still a liquid there, Atsumu might think he was trying to read the leaves, give himself an answer.
“No.”
“Can I ask again, and have you tell me the truth.”
Atsumu watches his chest move, watches him make the decision, still looks as if he is asking the cup in his hands for answers. Then he looks at Atsumu, his bright eyes looking for something. He takes a shaky breath.
“I didn’t know how to help you anymore,” he starts, hesitantly. “I didn’t… I didn’t know what I could do. I felt you pulling away from me and I let it happen because I thought it was what you needed.” He turns the cup in his hand again, and watches Atsumu’s expression, maybe trying to see how much more he can say.
Atsumu remains silent.
“Atsumu... you always put so much pressure on yourself to live up to an expectation I never had of you. I loved you before we started dating, before you tried to change yourself and be something that wasn’t you,” he laughs, “I fell first remember? I tried so many times to tell you, to show you that I loved you. Like when we first slept together—you blamed yourself for it being awkward, but I was just as terrified as you and you refused to accept this. You put me on a pedestal I never wanted to be on.”
His voice sounds wet, even if his eyes don’t quite show it. “I always only wanted to be with you. Beside you. I loved you so much, and it broke my heart to see you reducing yourself to something you weren't because you thought that was what I wanted. I only ever wanted you.”
He looks like he wants to say more, but the words won’t come out. Shinsuke, Atsumu used to always think, always knew exactly the right thing to say. But truthfully, he too was just a young man, helplessly in love, and unsure of what to do. He was only ever trying his best.
“Yeah,” Atsumu says and nods his head, “you’re right. I… I was infatuated with this idea of you and I was always so scared of not being enough for you. And that scared me. Terrified me. And as time passed and it was supposed to get more serious I began to suffocate myself in these expectations, as you said, that I had for myself to be with you. I think… I think I found it so easy to be friends with you afterwards, because I was still in love with you, but I felt no pressure as to what I should be like.”
He finds he’s begun looking at a small knot in the wooden table. He looks up, to look Shinsuke in the eye.
“I realised this that night, in your garden, which is why I had to stop seeing you completely. Because it hurt that I couldn’t have you, but it hurt more knowing I wasn’t ready. If I’d tried again then, the same thing would have happened again, and that wouldn’t have been fair on either of us. I was scared that I would think there was something I had to be to you again.”
Shinsuke’s eyes are wide and they begin to look as watery as his voice had sounded.
“But I know this now,” Atsumu says, his chest feels too small for his heart, “and I still love you. But I also know myself now. And I know who I want to be.” He takes a deep, shaky breath. “Shin, I—I’d like to try again. Because I know I can be better now. Because as good as I am now, I still miss you, and I want to be with you.”
There’s tears on Shinsuke’s cheeks.
“But, if that’s not what you want, then I can accept that. But I can’t be friends. I’m sorry.”
Shinsuke’s shaking his head as a laugh that sounds like a sob escapes him and Atsumu hands him a napkin.
“Atsumu,” he says, “I never stopped loving you, and the you I got to know again when we broke up, and over the past few weeks—I love you. Still.”
When Shinsuke looks at him again, he has that soft, small smile on, and Atsumu can feel the tears in his own eyes.
“I love you too,” he tells him, easily and decidedly. There’s a him that would have worried about this, that it was too soon after so long, even though Shinsuke had said it already. But he doesn’t care, because it’s what he wanted to say, and he never wants to stop saying it.
Atsumu reaches a hand across the table and takes Kita’s strong hands in his own.
“I love you, Kita Shinsuke, and I, Miya Atsumu, want to always.”