pairings: Bokuto x reader, Oikawa x reader, Kuroo x reader, Tsukishima x reader
content: one-shot!, established relationships, post time skip, fluff
note: The amount of motivation I don't have is crazy rn
BOKUTO . ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁
It was around the middle of the game, the two of you having just settled back into your seats with snacks and a fresh round of drinks.
Bokuto was as happy as he ever was. The conversation had already changed directions four or five times since you'd sat down. You'd covered his last match, something he'd seen a dog do on the street earlier that week and an argument he'd had with Akaashi about something you'd already lost track of. You'd stopped trying to keep up and just let it wash over you in the comfortable way you'd gotten used to.
Then the music shifted.
Your eyes drifted up to the jumbotron where the words KISS CAM sat large and bright across the screen, the camera already scanning through the crowd. Older couples, younger couples, first dates, people covering their faces, people leaning in without hesitation.
"Bokuto, look," you chirped, pointing up.
His head tilted back and his chattering stopped mid-sentence, attention fully absorbed by the screen in the usual way his attention went fully somewhere when something caught it. He watched it shift from couple to couple, quiet for once, genuinely entertained.
Until the camera landed on someone who looked an awful lot like him.
"Bokuto?" Your soft voice pulled him out of it.
His face broke into the widest grin you'd ever seen, which was saying something. He stood straight up out of his seat and offered the camera an enormous wave with his whole arm, completely unbothered by every eye in the surrounding section turning toward him.
The screen caught you below him, head tipped back, laughing softly up at him when he was being fully himself.
You didn't even see it coming.
He dropped back down, took your face between both of his hands like it was the most natural thing in the world, and kissed you. Firm and warm and completely certain, the noise of the stadium swelling around you both.
And then he pulled back, wrapped his arm around your shoulders, and grinned back up at the camera like nothing had happened.
You sat beside him a complete blushing mess, drink still in your hand, blinking down at the field while the crowd around you cheered.
He pressed a kiss to the side of your head without looking away from the screen.
Still grinning.
OIKAWA . ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁
You weren't usually the type of person to go to sporting events.
But when Oikawa had proposed it as your third or so date, the way he'd said it made it hard to say no. So here you were, in the bleachers, trying to look at the bright side. See a side of him you hadn't seen before. He was an athlete himself, it only made sense that he'd enjoy watching other sports.
He'd left to grab another round of drinks, leaving you alone in your seat.
You watched the kiss cam scan lazily through the crowd, drifting from couple to couple. You watched with a fond ache of someone who hoped that would be them someday. Not necessarily with Oikawa specifically (you were trying to be realistic) but you'd started to really like him these past few weeks, and the thought wasn't as far fetched as it might have been a month ago.
"Sorry for the wait."
His voice broke through your thoughts and you looked up as he dropped back into the seat beside you, handing over your drink, cold and condensating against your fingers.
"No worries. Long line?" you asked.
"Sort of." He tilted his head back slightly, a small smirk sitting on his face that you clocked immediately.
You settled back into a comfortable quiet, watching the screen together. It felt like the kiss cam segment was winding down, the camera drifting through its last few couples, when it landed on the two of you.
Except it no longer said KISS CAM.
It said, in large bright letters across the jumbotron 'Will you be my girlfriend?'
You looked at the screen. Then back at Oikawa. Then at the screen again, making absolutely sure it was the two of you sitting there on it.
It was definitely the two of you.
"Will you be my girlfriend?" he asked quietly, the second you finally stopped long enough to look at him properly.
"No way," you breathed.
"No?" he repeated, something flickering across his face for just a fraction of a second.
"I mean yes!" You laughed, the word coming out in a rush. "Yes, of course!" You threw your arms around his shoulders and he caught you easily, pressing a kiss to your forehead while the section around you made noise you barely registered.
When the screen finally shifted away he pulled back just enough to look at you.
"You said no way," he pointed out.
"Not like that, silly." You shook your head, still smiling wide enough that your face ached with it. "It was such a grand gesture I could hardly believe it. You're unbelievable."
The smirk that crossed his face was the most satisfied you'd ever seen it.
"Only the best for my girl."
KUROO . ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁
The stadium was packed, which made sense. It was a beautiful day, the team was having a good season, and the whole city seemed to have had the same idea about how to spend the afternoon.
You and Kuroo had come mostly just to get out of the apartment and do something different. Which had sounded great in theory, and slightly less great when you were circling the bleachers for the third time trying to find two seats together.
When you finally found them you both dropped down immediately like planting a flag.
You ended up next to two others: a guy around your age and a younger sibling who was clearly a devoted fan, head to toe in the team's colors.
You'd been slightly regretting the whole thing up until that point, but somewhere between the team actually playing well and Kuroo being Kuroo about all of it, you'd loosened up. You'd even gotten to talking with the two beside you, which helped the time pass.
"Hey, you want another drink?" Kuroo was already standing when he asked.
"Sure, thank you." You smiled up at him and he patted your head once before shuffling his way through the packed row toward the aisle.
You kept talking to the siblings while he was gone. The younger one was explaining something about the team's starting lineup with the kind of authority only a true fan could have, and you were genuinely interested when the music shifted.
Your eyes went immediately to the jumbotron.
KISS CAM.
You scanned the aisle for Kuroo, hoping he'd somehow make it back in time. He hadn't. When you looked back at the screen it had already landed on you and the guy sitting next to you.
You both laughed immediately, waving your hands in front of the camera in the universal gesture of absolutely not. The cameraman was not giving up though.
And then a hand came around from behind you, gripped your chin gently, and turned your face.
Kuroo kissed you soft, like he hadn't just appeared out of nowhere and like the entire stadium wasn't watching. Then he pulled back, settled into his seat beside you, and mouthed directly at the camera, "My girlfriend."
One more pat to your head. Eyes already drifting back to the game like that had been the most unremarkable thing to happen all afternoon.
You sat there smiling to yourself, a little warm in the face.
It hadn't played out the way you'd imagined when you'd first spotted the kiss cam. But there was something about hearing him claim you in front of a packed stadium that settled happily somewhere in your chest.
You leaned into his shoulder and watched the rest of the game.
TSUKISHIMA . ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁
You'd already had to beg him to come.
The team was having a good season and you wanted to see what everyone kept talking about. Tsukishima's position on the matter was that you could watch it from home, on the couch. You went back and forth longer than you probably should have before he finally agreed.
You took the win without comment and moved on quickly before he could reconsider.
Now you were in the stands, planted in the plastic chairs, and he had his arms crossed with the focused energy of someone actively refusing to enjoy themselves. Because Tsukishima Kei couldn't just be wrong. He had to sit in it. Make a whole thing out of it.
You, on the other hand, were having a great time.
The noise, the atmosphere and the energy of a packed stadium was exactly what you'd hoped for. You'd already gotten a snack you didn't need and you were deep in people watching.
Tsukishima sat beside you and stared at the field.
Then the KISS CAM came on.
You'd never been able to watch these from home and you were extremely excited to see it in person. It moved from couple to couple, some sweet, some awkward. And you watched all of it with your chin in your hand, thoroughly entertained.
Then it stopped on the two of you.
You tapped his shoulder.
He looked at you. Then up at the screen. Then back at you.
And didn't move.
Of course he didn't.
You knew he didn't mean anything cruel by it. He was just committed to not visibly enjoying something he'd complained about. Even if that meant taking you down with him in the process.
You leaned across the armrest and pressed a gentle kiss to his cheek.
The camera got what it wanted and moved on.
But you weren't finished.
You turned back and kissed him properly, soft and unhurried.
He went still for a second afterward.
Then he let out a long exhale through his nose and his shoulders finally came down from around his ears.
"Okay, fine," he said.
"You're done?" you asked.
"Sorry." He said it flatly, "It's not that bad."
"You're just being shy because you got kissed on camera," you giggled, and pressed one more to his forehead before he could prepare a response.
He didn't say anything to that.
But he uncrossed his arms, and didn't cross them again for the rest of the game.
your electric touch, got me feeling like i might fold.
oikawa tōru x f!reader
tōru’s brain malfunctions whenever you’re at arm’s reach.
the grand king of aoba johsai is a liar.
it’s a well-documented fact, really. he lies about how much milk bread he’s eaten, he lies about how much his knee hurts, and he most certainly lies about the state of his nervous system whenever you are within a five-mile radius. oikawa operates on a level of theatricality that would make a broadway lead look humble, strutting across the court with a smirk so sharp it could probably slice through the volleyball net.
but here’s the secret: his confidence is a house of cards, and you are a category 5 hurricane.
“i’m simply saying,” oikawa chirps, leaning against the gymnasium wall with a practiced, casual grace that he definitely rehearsed in his bedroom mirror for twenty minutes this morning. “that if you were to witness my jump serve from the front row today, you might actually experience a spiritual awakening. i’m in top form. i’m lethal. i’m basically a biological weapon of mass destruction.”
he’s doing the thing. the thing where he tosses his hair—which is suspiciously soft-looking—and looks at you through his lashes like he’s trying to sell you a luxury perfume you can’t afford. he’s a flirt by trade, a heartbreaker by reputation, and a complete disaster by nature.
you aren't really listening to his lecture on his own greatness. instead, you’re looking at the way his pulse is thrumming at the base of his throat. you reach out, your movements slow and nonchalant, and let your fingertips graze the sensitive skin of his inner wrist, right where his pulse point is jumping like a frantic grasshopper.
the effect is instantaneous.
the sentence ‘i am the pinnacle of athletic evolution’ dies a gruesome death in his throat. oikawa’s entire skeletal structure seems to liquefy. if he were a computer, this is the exact moment the blue screen of death would appear, accompanied by a very loud, high-pitched mechanical whirring sound.
his fingers twitch. the volleyball he was spinning on his other hand hits the floor with a pathetic thud and rolls away, forgotten.
“tōru?” you hum, your voice tilted with genuine curiosity as you trace a small, slow circle over the bone of his wrist. “you stopped talking. did the ‘biological weapon’ run out of batteries?”
oikawa’s brain is currently a soup of static and screaming. he is staring at your hand like it’s a holy relic and a live grenade at the same time. his heart is performing a drum solo against his ribs, a frantic thump-thump-thump that says ‘oh god, she touched us, abort mission, evacuate the building, tell my mother i love her.’
he swallows hard. his throat feels like he’s trying to gulp down a whole cactus.
“i—uh,” he starts. his voice cracks. not a cool, edgy crack. a ‘thirteen-year-old boy going through puberty’ crack. he clears his throat, desperately trying to grab the tattered remains of his dignity from the floor. “i was just… pausing for dramatic effect. to let the weight of my brilliance sink in.”
“you’re shaking,” you point out, your eyes dancing with warmth. you aren't trying to be mean; you just find it genuinely endearing that the boy who gets confessed to ten times a week is currently vibrating like a smartphone.
“shaking with power,” oikawa lies through his teeth. he is actively folding into himself. his knees feel like they’ve been replaced by overcooked udon noodles. he wants to pull his hand away to save face, but the lizard brain responsible for his survival is screaming ‘NO, STAY, LET HER TOUCH YOU MORE, PERHAPS IF YOU’RE LUCKY SHE’LL PAT YOUR HEAD AND YOU CAN DIE HAPPY.’
he is so deeply, pathologically gone for you that it’s actually a safety hazard. iwaizumi often tells him he looks like a kicked puppy when you leave the room, but oikawa prefers the term ‘pining aristocrat.’
in reality, he’s just a boy who has built his entire personality around being untouchable, only to find out that your touch is the only thing that makes him feel like he’s actually standing on solid ground.
“you have a smudge on your face,” you lie, stepping a fraction closer.
the proximity is the final nail in his coffin. oikawa can smell your shampoo—something sweet and soft that makes him want to bury his face in your neck and never emerge back into society. he is a man of many words, most of them annoying, but as you lean in, he becomes a man of zero words. he is a man of zero thoughts. he is a man of white noise.
you reach up, your thumb brushing his cheekbone.
oikawa’s eyes flutter shut. he’s supposed to say something witty. he’s supposed to wink. he’s supposed to tell you that he’s the one who does the flirting around here. instead, he leans into your hand with a tiny, involuntary whimper that he will later deny ever happened, even under threat of torture.
“there,” you whisper, your fingers lingering. “all gone.”
when he opens his eyes, he looks absolutely dazed, like he’s just been hit by a freight train made of marshmallows. he’s staring at you with a level of raw, unadulterated devotion that is honestly borderline embarrassing. he wants to melt into a puddle at your feet. he wants to write your name on every volleyball in the equipment shed. he wants to follow you home and sit on your porch like a gargoyle just to make sure you’re safe.
“you’re… so mean,” he breathes out, though his expression says please do that again or i will perish. “i’m mean? for helping you?”
“it’s a distraction!” he suddenly shouts, waving his arms around with the frantic energy of a man trying to put out a fire with a toothpick. “i have a practice match! i have to be a cold-blooded killer on the court! how am i supposed to serve a ball when my entire body feels like it’s been put through a blender? you’re sabotaging aoba johsai! you’re a spy! a beautiful, terrifying spy sent to ruin my life!”
you laugh, a bright, melodic sound that makes oikawa’s heart do a backflip and land in his stomach. “i think you’ll manage, tōru. you’re the grand king, remember?”
he huffs, crossing his arms and pouting in a way that is far too cute for a six-foot-tall athlete. he’s trying to look annoyed, but the faint pink dusting his ears gives him away. he is so hopelessly whipped that it’s a wonder he hasn't started barking yet.
“yeah, yeah,” he grumbles, though his eyes are soft and melting as they trace your features. “just don’t complain when i lose my focus because i’m too busy thinking about your hands. that’s on you. that’s your burden to bear.”
“i’ll take the blame,” you promise, patting his chest.
his breath hitches. his heart does a little dance. he watches you walk away toward the bleachers, and for a solid thirty seconds, he forgets how to use his legs. he just stands there, a premier setter and the pride of his school, looking like he’s just seen a vision of the afterlife.
iwaizumi walks up behind him and smacks him on the back of the head. “get a grip, loserkawa. the ball is over there.”
oikawa doesn't even complain about the physical assault. he just sighs, a dreamy, faraway look in his eyes.
“iwa,” he whispers, clutching his wrist where you touched him like it’s been plated in gold. “i think i’m going to marry that girl. i don't think i have a choice. my soul has left my body. i am an empty vessel now.”
“you’re an idiot,” iwaizumi mutters, but oikawa doesn't hear him.
he’s too busy trying to figure out how to get you to touch his other wrist.
the match starts ten minutes later, and oikawa is, predictably, a disaster for the first three points. he steps up to the service line, spins the ball, and looks at you in the stands.
you wave.
oikawa’s brain immediately short-circuits. he tosses the ball, swings, and sends it flying directly into the back of kindaichi’s head with the force of a thousand suns.
“oikawa!” the coach screams.
oikawa stands there, frozen, his face burning a shade of red that shouldn't be biologically possible. he looks at his hand, then at you, then at the floor. he’s folding. he’s folded. he is a crumpled piece of paper at the bottom of a trash can.
he flashes you a shaky, desperate thumbs-up, his smile trembling at the edges.
“all part of the plan!” he yells, his voice an octave too high. “tactical error! i’m in control!”
he is not in control. he is a man possessed by the memory of your thumb on his cheek, and as he prepares for the next serve, he knows he’s going to spend the rest of his life trying to earn that look you gave him—the one that makes him feel like the only person in the world who matters.
he’s desperate, he’s a mess, and he’s never been happier to be completely and utterly defeated.
oikawa tōru is a liar, but as he catches your eye again, the way he leans toward your presence like a flower to the sun is the most honest thing he’s ever done.
he’s going to buy you so much milk bread after this.
𓏵
the “tactical error” of hitting his own teammate in the skull is a brand new low, even for him. as the whistle blows for a timeout, oikawa practically evaporates toward it. iwaizumi is looking at him with the kind of expression usually reserved for a dog that’s just tracked mud all over a white carpet, but oikawa is too busy vibrating to care.
he reaches for his water bottle, but his fingers are still buzzing from that brief contact earlier. his hand shakes so violently that he nearly splashes water into his own eye.
“oikawa, if you don’t stop acting like a victorian maiden with the vapors, i’m going to kick you into the equipment room and lock the door,” iwaizumi hisses, looming over him.
“iwa, you don’t understand,” oikawa whispers, his voice sounding like it’s being squeezed through a straw. he looks over his shoulder, squinting toward your spot in the bleachers. “she’s looking at me. she’s doing that thing where her eyes get all crinkly at the corners and i think my soul is actually leaking out of my ears. i’m losing my structural integrity. i’m becoming a gas.” states of matter who?
“you’re becoming a nuisance. play the game.”
oikawa tries. he really, truly tries. he stands back up, rolls his shoulders, and attempts to summon the ‘grand king’ persona. he adjusts his knee supporter. he narrows his eyes. he looks like a lethal, focused predator. then, he catches a glimpse of you leaning over the railing to cheer, and he immediately trips over his own feet while walking onto the court.
he performs a graceful, slow-motion slide that ends with him face-down on the polished wood.
the gym goes silent.
oikawa stays there for a second, cheek pressed against the floor, contemplating if he can simply melt into the floorboards and live the rest of his life as a piece of gym equipment. it would be easier. floors don’t have heart palpitations.
“i’m okay!” he chirps from the ground, muffled and miserable. “just checking the wax quality! it’s superb! ten out of ten!”
he scrambles up, his face a shade of magenta. he manages to survive the rest of the set by sheer muscle memory, though every time he hears your voice call his name, his sets go about three inches higher than they’re supposed to. he’s overcompensating. he’s performing like a circus animal hoping for a treat. he is, in every sense of the word, a goner.
the moment the match ends—a victory, miraculously, mostly because iwaizumi started threatening to bury oikawa in the sand pit if he missed one more serve—oikawa is a blur of motion. he doesn’t even wait to change. he grabs his bag, splashes some water on his face to stop the literal steam from rising off his skin, and sprints toward the exit where you’re waiting.
he stops three feet away from you, chest heaving. he tries to lean coolly against a pillar, but he misjudges the distance and his elbow slips, causing him to do a little awkward jig to stay upright.
“so,” he pants, flashing a smile that is about 40% charisma and 60% pure, unadulterated panic. “did you see that? the way i strategically fell? it was a psychological tactic to make the opponents overconfident. very advanced stuff. you wouldn’t understand the complexities of my genius.”
“it was very graceful, tōru,” you say, reaching out to straighten his rumpled collar.
his heart rate hits a tempo that could rival a techno song. your knuckles graze the skin of his neck, and oikawa’s eyes go wide, his pupils dilating until his chocolate-brown irises are practically gone. he looks like a cat that’s just seen a ghost.
“you… you’re doing it again,” he squeaks.
“doing what?”
“being… like that!” he gestures vaguely at your entire existence. “existing! in my personal space! making me feel like i’m made of marshmallows!”
you laugh, and the sound is so sweet it makes his teeth ache. without thinking, you slide your hand down from his collar and take his hand in yours, interlacing your fingers.
oikawa tōru ceases to function.
his hand is large, calloused from thousands of repetitions at the net, but it feels like it’s made of lead the moment you squeeze it. he stares down at your joined hands. his brain is just playing a loop of high-pitched whistling. he’s hyper-aware of everything: the warmth of your palm, the way your thumb is idly stroking the back of his hand, the fact that he is definitely, 100%, about to pass out in front of the vending machines.
“your hand is really warm,” you comment, looking up at him with a soft, genuine smile.
oikawa makes a noise. it isn’t a word. it’s a tiny, strangled “mnh.”
he is currently undergoing a spiritual crisis. he wants to pull you into a hug and hide his face in your shoulder so nobody can see how much he’s blushing, but he’s also terrified that if he moves, he’ll break the spell. he is a man standing on the edge of a cliff, and you just gave him a gentle nudge.
“walk me to the station?” you ask.
“i—yes. station. trains. transportation. i am familiar with these concepts,” he babbles.
as you walk, he’s basically walking on air, except ‘walking on air’ involves him occasionally bumping into trash cans because he can’t stop looking at you. he’s holding your hand like it’s the most fragile, precious diamond in the world. his palm is a little sweaty—he’s mortified about it, truly, he’s screaming internally about his ‘hygiene’—but you don’t seem to care, which only makes him fall deeper into the abyss of his own devotion.
he’s thinking about the future. he’s thinking about how he’s going to have to win the nationals just so he can dedicate the trophy to you. he’s thinking about how he wants to buy you a giant stuffed bear, but then he realizes he’d be jealous of the bear because it gets to sit on your bed.
he is a terrifyingly competitive athlete, but right now, the only ‘win’ he cares about is the fact that you haven’t let go of his hand yet.
“tōru, you’re staring again,” you tease, swinging your joined hands back and forth.
“i’m not staring,” he lies, his voice full of a tenderness that betrays him completely. “i’m observing. i’m a setter, remember? it’s my job to analyze beautiful… i mean, important… things. i’m analyzing your face. for science.”
“and what does the science say?”
oikawa stops walking. the sun is setting, casting a golden-orange glow over the street, and it catches in your eyes in a way that makes his heart do a painful, soaring leap. he looks at you, and for a split second, the flirting stops. the big talk vanishes. the grand king retreats, leaving behind just a boy who is so profoundly, ridiculously in love that he doesn’t know what to do with himself.
he leans down, his face inches from yours. his breath is shaky. he smells like sports drink and adrenaline and something uniquely tōru.
“the science says,” he whispers, his voice dropping into a low, velvety register that makes your own heart skip a beat. “that i’m completely at your mercy. and it’s actually really embarrassing, so you’re not allowed to tell anyone, okay?”
you giggle and stand on your tiptoes, pressing a quick, soft kiss to his cheek.
oikawa doesn’t move. he stays frozen in that bent-over position for a full ten seconds after you pull away. his brain has finally, mercifully, completely short-circuited. there is no more oikawa. there is only a shell of a man who has been kissed by a goddess.
“tōru?”
he slowly stands up straight, his face a ghostly pale before turning a violent, neon red. he looks like he’s about to burst into tears or song, possibly both.
“i’m buying you a house,” he blurts out. “right now. i don’t have the money, but i’ll figure it out. i’ll sell my soul. i’ll sell iwa’s soul. he wasn’t using it anyway.”
“a house? we’re just going to the station, tōru.”
“it starts with a station! then a house! then a golden retriever! then a small army of children who all have your face!” he’s rambling now, his hands flying everywhere as he walks twice as fast as before, his legs suddenly working on high-octane fuel. “you can’t just do that! you can’t just kiss a man’s cheek and expect him to remain a functioning member of society! i’m a delicate flower! i’m a treasure!”
you catch up to him, laughing so hard you can barely breathe. he’s still talking, listing off all the ways you’ve ‘ruined’ him, but he hasn’t let go of your hand for even a second. in fact, he’s holding it tighter now, his thumb tracing over your knuckles with a frantic, devoted rhythm.
he’s big, he’s loud, and he talks a game that could move mountains. but as he pulls you closer to his side, shielding you from a passing cyclist with a protective arm, it’s clear that the grand king has finally found his queen—and he’s more than happy to spend the rest of his life surrendering.
n: an 8th grade classmate hits me up and tries to make conversation with me, but apparently i’m too stupid to catch on hints so i just kept shutting him down. he’s still trying though.
suna rintarō x f!reader
breaking news! boyfriend!suna stopped using his phone just to stare at you.
the glow of a smartphone screen used to be the only thing capable of holding suna’s attention for more than three business seconds. he was a creature of habit, a master of the mindless scrolling, navigating the trenches of social media with the deadpan detachment of a man who had seen it all. the world could be ending in a blaze of glory right outside his window, and he would probably just record a five-second clip of it, post it with a caption consisting of a single emoji, and go right back to looking at memes.
but lately, a catastrophic shift in his internal wiring had occurred.
the glowing rectangle in his pocket had lost its addictive charm, rendered completely obsolete by a far superior view.
you.
at this exact moment, the two of you were sitting in a bustling, overcrowded cafe that smelled aggressively of roasted coffee beans and overpriced pastries. the ambient noise was a chaotic symphony of espresso machines shrieking, people gossiping about their coworkers, and indie acoustic music playing just a little too loudly from the ceiling speakers. normally, this environment would have suna retreating so far into his phone that his nose would practically be touching the glass.
instead, his phone was face down on the wooden table, completely forgotten.
he was leaning his cheek against the palm of his hand, his heavy-lidded eyes locked onto you with an intensity that defied his usual sleepy demeanor. you were currently engaged in a highly animated explanation of something, honestly, he had lost track of the actual topic about five minutes ago, and you were using your hands to emphasize your points.
suna felt like his brain had been melted down into a puddle of sweet, gooey marshmallow fluff.
every time you laughed, a genuine, unbridled sound that cut right through the cafe’s clamor, his heart did a violent, olympic-level backflip in his chest. it was actually becoming a health hazard. he was a high-level athlete, a middle blocker known for his calculating mind and sharp reflexes, and here he was, rendered entirely non-functional by the way your nose crinkled when you smiled.
“and then, i realized i had been walking in the completely wrong direction for twenty minutes!” you exclaimed, shaking your head at your own navigation skills. “i was following a map that wasn’t even for this city. my brain was just on autopilot.”
suna didn’t offer a witty retort. he didn’t tease you or call you an airhead, which would have been his default setting a few months ago. instead, his lips twitched upward into a soft, dizzy smile that would have terrified his volleyball teammates if they were there to witness it.
“you’re amazing,” he murmured, the words slipping out of his mouth before his brain’s filter could intercept them.
you stopped mid-sentence, you feel heat creeping up your neck. “wait, what? i just told you i got lost using a map for a completely different prefecture, rintarō. how is that amazing?”
“i don’t know,” he said, his voice dropping to a low, velvety register that made your stomach do flip-flops. he shifted his position slightly, leaning a bit closer across the small table, completely ignoring the people walking past. “everything you do is just… fascinating to me.”
the sheer, unfiltered sincerity in his eyes was staggering. this wasn’t the bored, sarcastic suna the rest of the world got to see. this was a man who looked at you like you had personally hung the moon and the stars in the sky just to give him something pretty to look at.
you bit your lip, trying to fight down the smile that was threatening to take over your entire face. “you’re staring again.”
“mhm.” he didn’t blink. “i like staring at you.”
“people are going to think you’ve been hypnotized,” you teased gently, reaching out to tap the back of his hand.
the moment your fingertips brushed against his skin, a physical jolt of electricity seemed to shoot straight up suna’s arm. his hand flipped over automatically, capturing your fingers in a gentle but firm grip. he began to trace lazy, soothing circles against your knuckles with his thumb, his gaze never wavering from your face.
“let them think whatever they want,” suna said, his thumb smoothing over your skin. “i can barely breathe when you look at me like that, anyway. you’re like a waking fantasy.”
your brain short-circuited. you were pretty sure your soul had just ascended to a higher plane of existence. the blunt, raw honesty of his confession felt so incredibly real, stripping away any playful banter and leaving behind pure, unadulterated devotion.
he pulled your hand closer to his face, his eyes dropping briefly to your lips before returning to meet your gaze. the look in his green eyes was intense, heavy with a yearning that felt wonderfully overwhelming. suna, the king of nonchalance, was utterly, helplessly whipped.
he pressed a soft, lingering kiss to the back of your hand, his lips warm against your skin. “i used to think my phone was the most entertaining thing in the world,” he whispered against your knuckles, sending a shiver of pure delight down your spine. “but i’d happily let the battery die forever if it means i get to sit here and watch you instead.”
you squeezed his hand back, your heart swelling with so much affection you thought it might actually burst.
the warmth of his lips lingered on your skin long after he pulled his hand back to rest on the table, though he refused to let go of your fingers. suna watched with a look of triumph as you struggled to formulate a coherent sentence, your face a vibrant shade of crimson that rivaled a ripe tomato.
“rintarō,” you finally managed, your voice a tiny squeak. “you can’t just say things like that in the middle of a crowded cafe. my heart is genuinely about to tap out.”
“good,” he said, his voice dropping into a low, rumbling chuckle that vibrated right through your joined hands. “that makes two of us. let’s get out of here before i do something even more reckless, like kiss you in front of the barista.”
the sheer boldness in his tone made your stomach swoop in the absolute best way. suna left a few bills on the table, not even caring to wait for change, and guided you out of the noisy establishment.
the cool afternoon air hit your face as you stepped onto the sidewalk, a welcome relief from the sweltering warmth of the cafe. but any hope you had of cooling down evaporated the second suna pulled you close to his side. his arm wound around your waist, hauling you flush against his tall frame with a possessiveness that made your pulse skyrocket.
he was walking a little slower than usual, matching his long strides to your pace, clearly dragging out the journey for as long as humanly possible.
“you’re very clingy today,” you noted, though you didn’t make a single move to pull away. in fact, you leaned further into his side, wrapping your own arm around his back.
“i’m making up for lost time,” suna replied easily, his thumb rubbing soothing circles against your hip through your jacket. “think of all the hours i wasted looking at stupid internet videos when i could have been looking at you. i have a lot of catching up to do.”
“you make it sound like you ignored me for years! we see each other almost every day.”
“still not enough,” he countered instantly. there was no trace of his usual sarcasm, no playful jab to cushion the blow of his words. he was laying his feelings entirely bare, and the sheer gravity of it was making your knees feel like gelatin.
as you walked down the tree-lined street, suna kept stopping at random intervals. at first, you thought he was checking for traffic or looking for a specific shop, but you quickly realized his true motive. every few yards, he would gently tug on your waist to turn you toward him, cupping your jaw with his free hand just to press a soft, lingering kiss to your forehead, your temple, or the tip of your nose.
he was acting like a man starved, collecting little moments of physical affection like they were precious lifelines.
“rintarō,” you giggled as he pressed yet another kiss to your cheek, right near the corner of your mouth. “we are never going to make it back to my place at this rate.”
“that’s the plan,” he murmured against your skin, his eyelashes fluttering against your cheekbone. he pulled back just enough to look into your eyes, his gaze heavy with a soft, melty look that you were convinced only you ever got to see. “i’m holding you hostage. official boyfriend business.”
“oh, is that how it is?”
“exactly how it is.” he leaned down, his forehead resting against yours. his breath was warm on your lips, smelling faintly of the coffee he’d barely touched at the cafe. “you have no idea what you do to me. i was sitting there listening to you talk about getting lost, and i genuinely thought, ‘yeah, i would happily walk in circles with her forever.’ it’s a complete brainrot.”
a giddy, bubbly laugh bubbled up from your chest. it was absurd, it was over-the-top, and it was the most romantic thing anyone had ever said to you.
reaching up, you framed his face with both of your hands, marveling at how soft his dark hair felt beneath your fingers. you pulled him down the remaining few inches, sealing your lips against his in a proper kiss.
suna let out a soft, contented hum against your mouth, his grip on your waist tightening as he eagerly melted into the kiss. it wasn’t rushed or frantic, it was slow, deep, and devastatingly sweet, a physical translation of all the devotion he’d just confessed. he tasted like pure comfort, and as his tongue gently swiped against your lower lip, you felt your entire world narrow down to just the two of you on a random, beautiful sidewalk.
when the need for oxygen finally forced you to part, suna didn’t let you go far. he rested his chin on the top of your head, wrapping both arms around you in a crushing, protective hug that made you feel like the safest person on the planet.
“yep,” he whispered into your hair, a smile evident in his voice. “the phone is definitely never leaving my pocket again.”
love when you’re around, i just can’t sleep without you here.
sakusa kiyoomi x f!reader
enemy!kiyoomi hates your guts, your behavior, your laugh, your pretty lips, your hypnotic voice, and your beautiful eyes.
if sakusa had his way, he would live inside a giant, vacuum-sealed tupperware container, preferably one stored in a dark pantry away from the teeming, sneezing masses. instead, he was stuck in a humid gymnasium that smelled like unwashed kneepads and the distinct, looming threat of your existence.
you were, by all scientific definitions, a biohazard.
it wasn’t that you were actually dirty—in fact, you smelled vaguely of expensive laundry detergent and some sort of citrusy shampoo that made his sinuses itch in a way he couldn’t quite hate—but you were chaotic. you were the type of person who ate chips with your bare hands and then reached for a volleyball. you were the type of person who hugged people without a written 3-to-5 business day notice.
“komori,” sakusa muttered, his voice muffled by the thick fabric of his mask as he watched you trip over a ball cart across the gym. “why is it here again? did someone leave the door open and it just… wandered in?”
komori, sakusa’s cousin and the only person with a high enough tolerance for his nonsense to be considered a best friend, didn’t even look up from his stretching. “it has a name, kiyoomi. and her name is y/n. she’s literally here to bring me the notes I left in her locker.”
“she’s shedding,” sakusa deadpanned, eyes narrowed at a stray strand of your hair that had the audacity to float through the air. “i can see the epithelial cells drifting off her. it’s like a blizzard of filth.”
“you’re such a hater,” komori laughed, finally standing up. “you’ve been staring at her for ten minutes. if you hate her so much, look at the wall. the wall is very uhh.. what do you call that? ..sterile. the wall won’t give you the cooties.”
sakusa didn’t look at the wall. he couldn’t. his eyes were magnetically locked onto the way you were currently doubled over, laughing at something a passing teammate of his had said. you were loud. you were messy. you were the exact opposite of everything his nervous system required to remain in a state of equilibrium.
naturally, he wanted to boil you in hot water and then maybe, perhaps, hold your hand for three seconds (with gloves on).
his unreasonable hatred for you had started three months ago when you had accidentally spilled a drop of iced coffee on his pristine white training shoes. sakusa had looked at the spot with the same expression a victorian orphan might have if they saw a ghost. you had tried to wipe it off with a napkin, which he had recoiled from like you were wielding a rusted saw.
since then, it was war. a war fought with sharp glares, scathing remarks about your lack of spatial awareness, and your relentless pursuit of making him ‘crack a damn smile for once in your life, kiyoomi.’
“hey, mask man!” you yelled from across the court, waving a hand wildly. “stop thinking about how to bleach the floor and come help komori with the boxes! don’t worry, i haven’t touched them with my ‘filthy’ hands in at least five minutes!”
sakusa’s brows knitted together under his curls. “don’t address me. the air quality in your immediate radius is sub-optimal.”
“the air quality is fine! i’m a breath of fresh air!” you chirped, skipping toward them.
sakusa took three very calculated steps backward. you were a localized hurricane of bad decisions. you reached komori and shoved a pile of notebooks into his chest, beaming. then, you turned that beam toward sakusa. it was bright. it was offensive. it felt like being stared at by a high-intensity surgical lamp.
“you’re looking particularly grumpy today,” you noted, tilting your head. “is it because the humidity is at forty-two percent? i know that’s your ‘i’m going to commit a crime’ threshold.”
“forty-four percent,” he corrected icily. “and your presence is a pollutant.”
“i love you too, sourpuss,” you grinned, intentionally leaning a little too close into his personal bubble.
sakusa felt his heart do a weird, frantic tap-dance against his ribs—purely out of fear for his immune system, he told himself. he watched you walk away, noting the way your hair swung like a pendulum. he hated that pendulum. he wanted to study it. he wanted to document its bounce rate.
“he’s doing it again,” komori whispered to iizuna who just sighs. “he’s complaining about the smog while inhaling it like it’s oxygen.”
the thing about sakusa was that he was a creature of habit, and you had somehow become his most annoying, most essential habit.
during away games, his routine was simple: sanitize the bus seat, put on noise-canceling headphones, and scan the bleachers until he found the specific shade of your hair. if you weren’t there, the entire match felt... wrong. the court felt too big, the air felt too still, and his spikes felt like they were lacking their usual lethal precision.
he told himself he looked for you so he could keep track of the enemy’s position. keep your friends close and your biological hazards closer.
at a mid-season tournament, the crowd was a mosh pit of screaming teenagers and sweaty athletes. sakusa was vibrating with the urge to crawl into a hole. he was scanning the stands, his eyes darting back and forth with a frantic energy that komori recognized immediately.
“she’s in the third row, left side, wearing that ridiculous neon yellow sweater,” komori said, not even looking up from his water bottle.
sakusa stiffened. “i wasn’t looking for her. i was looking for... the exit. in case of a fire.”
“right. the exit that happens to be wearing a neon sweater and waving a ‘GO ITACHIYAMA’ sign with your name misspelled on the back.”
sakusa looked. there you were. you had painted two small, messy black dots under your eyes with eyeliner to mimic his moles. it was the most disrespectful, hideous, endearing thing he had ever seen. you were screaming something—likely an insult directed at his personality—and when your eyes finally met his, you stuck your tongue out.
sakusa turned away immediately, his face heating up beneath his mask. he felt like he was losing a war he hadn’t even realized he was fighting. his chest felt tight, like he’d swallowed a gallon of disinfectant.
“she spelled it ‘sakusa kiyommy’,” he grumbled, his voice cracking slightly. “she’s illiterate. she’s a menace. i want her banned from the premises.”
“you want her to buy you a soda after the game,” komori countered.
“i want her to stay six feet away from me at all times,” sakusa lied.
the lie tasted like copper. in reality, he was already calculating how many wet wipes he would need to use on his hands after he inevitably let you drag him to a convenience store later. he was already thinking about the way you would laugh when he refused to share his straw, and how he would secretly buy two of whatever you were eyeing just so you wouldn’t have to ask.
he was a goner. he was a sinking ship in a sea of your making, and he didn’t even want a life jacket. he just wanted you to stop being so far away.
as the whistle blew for the start of the set, sakusa took his position. he felt your gaze on him from the stands—hot, messy, and loud. he took a deep breath of the gym air, the same air you were breathing, and for the first time in his life, he didn’t feel the need to hold his breath.
he just wanted to play. he wanted to win. and then, he wanted to go find his favorite catastrophe and tell her she looked stupid in neon yellow, just to see the way her eyes would light up when she challenged him to a fight.
𝓼.𝓴.
on a random thursday, the sky had decided to throw a temper tantrum. it was as if the clouds had collectively decided to dump the entire contents of the pacific ocean onto the pavement in one go. for sakusa, this was the apocalypse. it was sky-diluted filth, city grime made liquid, a slurry of wet pavement and damp public transit odors.
naturally, you were standing in the middle of it without an umbrella, trying to catch raindrops on your tongue like a particularly enthusiastic golden retriever.
“you’re going to get pneumonia,” sakusa’s voice cut through the heavy rhythm of the downpour. he was standing under the school’s concrete overhang, his umbrella—a sturdy, black, industrial-strength shield—held firmly over his head. “and then you’ll sneeze on everything i own. it’s a biological hit job.”
you wiped a wet strand of hair from your face, grinning at him. your school blazer was already soaked through, sticking to your shoulders in a way that made his stomach do a weird, uncomfortable somersault. “it’s just water, kiyo! it’s refreshing! plus, i missed the bus because i was busy finding your lost knee sleeve in the locker room. you’re welcome, by the way.”
sakusa froze. his left knee sleeve—the one he’d spent a good few minutes sanitizing—had gone missing after practice. he’d assumed it had been abducted by aliens or, worse, dropped into a trash can. the fact that you’d stayed behind to find it for him sent a localized earthquake through his chest.
“i didn’t ask you to do that,” he snapped, though his grip on the umbrella handle tightened. “you’ve contaminated it now. i’ll have to wash it twice.”
“i used a plastic bag to pick it up, you absolute drama queen! i know your rules!” you laughed, trotting toward him.
as you stepped under the overhang, the smell of wet pavement and that damn citrus shampoo hit him. you were shivering. your lips were pale, and your teeth were chattering like a wind-up toy. sakusa looked at you and felt a wave of irritation so intense it could only be described as buried, panicked affection.
“get under here,” he commanded, his voice dropping an octave.
“what?”
“the umbrella. get under it. now.”
you blinked, eyes wide. “but kiyo... the ‘radius.’ the ‘filth.’ the ‘epithelial cells.’ won’t i pollute your air supply?”
“i’m wearing a mask,” he grumbled, though his ears were turning a suspicious shade of pink. “and if you catch a cold, komori will make me visit you, and then i’ll have to enter your house, which i assume is a breeding ground for black mold and dust mites. this is a preventative measure.”
you stepped closer, tentatively entering the small, dry sanctuary of his umbrella. the space was cramped. sakusa had to adjust his stance, bringing his arm over your shoulder to keep the rain off your back. for someone who treated human contact like a death sentence, he was currently inches away from your damp, shivering form.
“wow,” you whispered, looking up at the black fabric above you. “it’s like a tiny, sterile cave.”
“don’t talk. you’re exhaling carbon dioxide too close to my face.”
“you love my carbon dioxide,” you teased, though your voice was softer than usual.
the walk to the train station was a slow, rhythmic torture. every time your shoulder brushed against his arm, sakusa felt a physical jolt, like he’d touched a live wire. he was hyper-aware of everything: the way you were trying to make yourself smaller so you wouldn’t touch him, the way your breath hitched when the wind blew, and the fact that his heart was currently attempting to exit his ribcage via his throat.
he was desperate. he was absolutely, miserably desperate to reach out and pull you against his side. he wanted to wrap his coat around you. he wanted to take you home and put you in a sterile, heated room and feed you soup until your cheeks puff up again.
“you’re shaking,” he noted, his voice uncharacteristically thick.
“i’m fine! i’m just... vibrating.”
sakusa stopped walking. the rain was drumming against the umbrella with a deafening roar, creating a private world for just the two of you. he looked down at you, his eyes dark and intense. slowly, with the kind of deliberation one might use to defuse a bomb, he shifted the umbrella to his left hand and used his right to reach into his bag.
he pulled out a small, vacuum-sealed hand towel—freshly laundered and smelling of nothing but clean air.
without a word, he reached out and draped it over your head. he didn’t pull away. instead, his hand lingered, his fingers gently tucking a wet lock of hair behind your ear through the fabric of the towel.
“you’re a nuisance,” he whispered, his gaze dropping to your mouth before snapping back to your eyes. “the most inconvenient, messy, loud-mouthed nuisance i have ever had the misfortune of meeting.”
you didn’t fire back a joke. you couldn’t. the intensity in his eyes was enough to melt the polar ice caps. “and?” you prompted, your heart hammering against your chest.
“and i find that the gym is too quiet when you aren’t there making a fool of yourself,” he admitted, the words sounding like they were being dragged out of him. “i find that i... dislike the silence.”
you reached up, your cold hand brushing against his wrist. sakusa didn’t flinch. he didn’t pull back. he just watched you with a look that was so raw, so utterly devoted in its frustration, that you felt your knees go weak.
“kiyo,” you breathed, a smile tugging at the corners of your mouth. “are you saying you missed me at the away game on tuesday?”
“i’m saying the air quality was marginally better today because you were in the room,” he lied, his voice trembling just the slightest bit. “now move. we’re going to miss the express train, and if i have to stand on a platform with you for another ten minutes, i’m going to lose my mind.”
he started walking again, faster this time, but he didn’t pull his arm back. he kept the umbrella centered over you, letting the rain soak his own left shoulder just to ensure you stayed dry.
you followed him, clutching the sterile towel to your head like it was a holy relic. you knew he was complaining. you knew he was probably thinking about how many germs were currently transferring from your sleeve to his blazer.
but you also knew that he had just let you into his ‘tupperware container’ world, and he wasn’t looking for the exit anymore.
𝓼.𝓴.
the locker room smelled like industrial-grade bleach and sakusa’s simmering existential crisis. practice had ended twenty minutes ago, and while the rest of the team had scrambled out to catch the late-night bus, sakusa was still there, meticulously wiping down his locker for the third time.
his hands were steady, but his brain was a chaotic browser window with fifty tabs open, and every single one of them was a high-definition video of you.
you were currently sitting on the bench behind him, swinging your legs and eating a protein bar with a reckless disregard for crumbs. he could hear the faint crinkle of the wrapper. he could hear the rhythmic thump of your sneakers against the metal. it was the most irritating, beautiful percussion he had ever been forced to endure.
“kiyoomi,” you said, your voice bouncing off the tiled walls. “if you scrub that metal any harder, you’re going to phase through the atoms and end up in another dimension. and i don’t think they have hand sanitizer in the fifth dimension.”
“the fifth dimension is likely a vacuum,” he replied without turning around. “it would be significantly more hygienic than this room. why are you still here? komori left ten minutes ago.”
“i was waiting for my favorite hater,” you chirped. you stood up, the crumbs on your lap fluttering to the floor like tiny, edible confetti. sakusa winced at the sight, but he didn’t move away when you stepped into his personal space.
you were close. too close. the air between you was thick with the scent of his sterile soap and your chaotic vitality. he finally turned, the spray bottle still in his hand, and found himself staring directly into your eyes. you weren’t teasing him now. your expression was soft, curious, and devastatingly sincere.
“you’ve been looking at me all week,” you whispered, tilting your head. “and not the ‘i’m-judging-your-entire-bloodline’ look. the other one.”
sakusa’s heart hammered against his ribs like a trapped bird. “i don’t have another look.”
“you do. it’s the one where you look like you’ve swallowed a lightbulb and you’re trying to pretend your mouth isn’t glowing.” you reached out, your fingers hovering just an inch from his masked cheek. “kiyo, are you going to keep pretending you hate my guts, or are we going to acknowledge that you’ve sanitized my desk every morning for the last month?”
the silence that followed was so heavy it felt like it had its own gravity. sakusa felt the mask over his face become a suffocating barrier. he was desperate—so profoundly, painfully desperate to close the gap that his vision actually blurred. his logic was screaming pathogens!, but his soul was screaming please.
“your desk was a disgrace,” he choked out, his voice cracking. “it was a petri dish. i was doing the school a public service.”
“you hate public service,” you countered, stepping even closer. your shoes were touching the tips of his sneakers. “you hate everyone. except maybe komori. and yet, you let me use your special, imported-from-germany hand cream yesterday. the one you don’t even let the coach touch.”
sakusa dropped the spray bottle. it hit the floor with a plastic thud, rolling away unheeded. his hands, reached out and gripped your waist with a sudden, jarring intensity. it wasn’t a gentle hold; it was the grip of a man who was drowning and had finally found a piece of driftwood.
“you’re a disaster,” he breathed, his forehead dropping to rest against yours. the contact was electric. “you’re loud, and you’re messy, and you never close your bag properly, and you’re going to ruin my life. i’m going to be sick for the rest of my natural existence because of you.”
“is that a confession, kiyoomi?” you teased, though your breath was hitching in your throat.
“it’s a medical diagnosis,” he growled.
then, with a trembling hand, he reached up and hooked a finger ontop of his mask. he pulled it down, baring his face—his sharp jawline, his pink lips, and his pale, beautiful skin—to the open, unfiltered air of the locker room. he looked like a god coming out of hiding.
he didn’t wait for you to say anything. he leaned down and pressed his lips to yours with a hunger that was almost terrifying.
it was a sweet, desperate, clumsy kiss, that smelled like mint and adrenaline. sakusa was kissing you like you were the cure to a disease he hadn’t known he had, his tongue dances with yours as he tastes you like a man who hasn’t had a drop of water in decades. his hands moved from your waist to your hair, his fingers tangling in the strands he’d spent months pretending to ignore.
he was ruined. he was absolutely, biologically compromised, and he had never felt more alive.
when he finally pulled back just an inch, his eyes were blown wide, his face flushed a deep, frantic red. he looked like he’d just run a marathon through a field of pollen.
“i’m going to need to gargle with saltwater for an hour after this,” he rasped, his thumb brushing over your lower lip.
“shut up and do it again,” you laughed, pulling him back down by his collar.
sakusa, the man who feared everything he couldn’t see under a microscope, didn’t hesitate. he dove back in, deciding right then and there that if he was going to catch anything from you, he wanted to catch it all.
you were the only mess he ever wanted to clean up.
n: no, i’m not stereotyping him as just a germaphobe, it just fits right for the story this time :3
timeskip!MSBY!miya atsumu x f!reader
bf!atsumu being utterly obsessed with your existence.
the speedometer of the black suv was currently doing a very suggestive dance toward numbers that would make a highway patrolman weep, all because at 11:47 pm, a certain text bubble had appeared on atsumu’s lock screen.
it wasn’t a summon. it wasn’t an emergency. it was a casual, sleepy, “kinda miss ya, tsumu,” followed by a sad emoji.
most professional athletes would have smiled, sent a heart back, and gone to sleep to preserve their precious fast-twitch muscle fibers for morning practice. atsumu, however, possessed the impulse control of a golden retriever in a tennis ball factory. he was out of his silk sheets and into his keys before the phone screen had even dimmed.
he drove like his car had unresolved childhood issues, taking corners with the kind of audacity that suggested he viewed traffic laws as mere suggestions for people who weren’t deeply, pathologically in love. his heart was doing a drum solo against his ribs, a rhythmic chant of she-misses-me-she-misses-me-she-misses-me.
when he finally pulled up to your apartment, tires practically steaming, he didn’t even wait for the elevator. he took the stairs two at a time, lungs burning with a fire that had nothing to do with cardio and everything to do with the fact that he was about to see the only person who made his brain chemistry resemble a glitter bomb.
you opened the door in your oversized pajamas, blinking at him with sleep-heavy eyes. “tsumu? what are you—it’s midnight.”
he didn’t say a word. he just stepped into your space, smelling like cool night air and expensive cologne, and wrapped his arms around your waist so tightly it felt like he was trying to merge your molecular structures. he buried his face in the crook of your neck, inhaling the scent of your shampoo like it was the only thing keeping him tethered to the earth.
“ya said ya missed me,” he mumbled against your skin, his voice a low, vibrating rumble. “did ya think i was gonna just sit at home after that? i’m not made of stone, darlin’.”
you laughed, the sound warm and melodic, as your hands found the soft hair at the nape of his neck. “i said kinda miss you. i didn’t realize that was a signal for a high-speed pursuit.”
atsumu pulled back just enough to look at you, his eyes blown wide and shimmering with a devotion so intense it was bordering on a medical concern. he looked at you the way an ancient civilization might look at a solar eclipse—with a mixture of terror and absolute awe.
“well, i’m a sucker for you so you don’t have a choice now,” he chirped, his trademark smirk tilting his lips, though his eyes remained terrifyingly sincere.
he said it with a wink, draped in the casual armor of a joke, but as he hoisted you up so your legs wrapped around his waist, he knew it wasn't a joke at all. he was a goner. he was a puddle. he was a man who would happily jump into a volcano if you mentioned you liked the aesthetic of lava.
“you really drove all the way across town for a text?” you whispered, pressing your forehead against his.
“i’d walk across the ocean on my hands if ya told me ya were lonely,” he countered, his voice dropping an octave, losing the playful edge for something raw and hungry. “yer my entire world. yer the sun, the moon, and every single star in the sky, and i’m just a little satellite loopin’ around ya forever. i’m yours. lock, stock, and barrel.”
he peppered your face with kisses—tiny, frantic, reverent touches on your temples, your cheeks, the tip of your nose. he treated your skin like it was made of thin glass and ancient magic.
atsumu thrived on this. he lived for the dramatic late-night arrivals, the over-the-top declarations, the way his chest felt like it was going to burst whenever you smiled at him. he didn’t want a quiet, sensible love. he wanted the kind of love that required a warning label.
he carried you to the sofa, refusing to let go for even a second, as if the moment he lost physical contact, he might simply cease to exist. he tucked your head under his chin, his large hand splayed across your back, grounding you both.
“stay the night?” you asked, already feeling your eyes drift shut against the steady, frantic thrum of his pulse.
“try and kick me out,” he challenged, his grip tightening. “i’m stayin’ right here. i’m gonna watch ya sleep like a beautiful, golden-haired gargoyle. i’m the luckiest man in history. call the museums, tell ‘em they can stop lookin’ for the eighth wonder of the world, ‘cause she’s currently usin’ my arm as a pillow.”
you drifted off to the sound of his voice—a soft, rambling stream of consciousness about how your eyelashes were ‘unfairly long’ and how he was going to buy you a literal castle one day just to see if it matched your eyes.
atsumu stayed awake for hours, staring at you with a look of such profound, unadulterated worship that it would have been alarming to anyone else. but to him, it was the only way to breathe. he was sinking into the depths of you, and he had no intention of ever coming up for air.
𓏵
the next morning, atsumu was already vibrating at a frequency that could probably shatter fine china. he hadn’t slept—not because he couldn’t, but because watching you breathe felt like a more productive use of his limited time on earth. he’d spent four hours memorizing the exact cadence of your heart against his chest, convinced that if he listened hard enough, he’d learn the secrets of the universe.
“mornin’, sunshine,” he chirped the second your eyelids fluttered. he was already propped up on one elbow, looking like he’d been hit by a bolt of divine lightning. “i made coffee. well, i found the coffee. i didn’t wanna leave the bed ’cause i thought ya might float away if i wasn’t holdin’ onto ya, so i just… stared at the machine until it felt intimidated enough to start brewin’.”
he hadn’t actually intimidated the machine; he’d just lunged out of bed at 6:00 am, sprinting to the kitchen to ensure everything was perfect before sprinting back to resume his position as your personal space-heater.
you groaned softly, burrowing deeper into his side. “tsumu, you’re hovering.”
“i ain’t hoverin’, i’m protectin’ the love of my life,” he corrected, his hand tracing the curve of your shoulder with a reverence usually reserved for religious artifacts. “do ya have any idea how much i adore ya? it’s actually physically painful. like, my ribs are too small for my heart right now. i think i need a medical professional, or maybe just another kiss. yeah, definitely a kiss.”
he didn’t wait for a response before smothering your face in soft, lingering affection. he tasted like mint and desperation. it was the kind of devotion that felt like being wrapped in a heavy, heated blanket—suffocating in the best way possible.
𓏵
later that evening, the msby black jackals were gathered at a noisy izakaya for a team dinner. atsumu was sitting between bokuto and hinata, looking uncharacteristically focused on his phone. his thumb was blurring across the screen, sending a barrage of stickers that ranged from ‘miss u’ to a cartoon fox weeping violently.
“atsumu, you’ve been staring at that screen for twenty minutes,” hinata noted, leaning over. “is something wrong with the wifi?”
“the wifi is fine, sho, but my soul is currently empty,” atsumu sighed dramatically, leaning back so far he nearly tipped his chair. “i haven’t seen my girl in six hours. six. hours. do ya know what happens to a plant without water? it withers. i’m witherin’, guys. look at my skin. am i turnin’ grey?”
sakusa, sitting across from him, looked genuinely pained. “you saw her this morning. you’re being a nuisance.”
“you wouldn’t understand, omi! you don’t have a muse! you don’t have a reason to wake up in the mornin’ other than spite and hand sanitizer!” atsumu clutched his chest, his voice rising to a theatrical pitch. “when she looks at me, i feel like i’ve won the lottery, the olympics, and a lifetime supply of fatty tuna all at once. i’m a changed man. i’m a soft, gooey mess and i don’t even care who knows it.”
“we all know it,” meian muttered, nursing his drink. “you spent the entire practice today trying to serve the ball in the shape of a heart.”
“and i almost pulled it off!” atsumu defended, his eyes lighting up as the door to the izakaya opened.
the second you walked in, the transformation was instantaneous. atsumu practically launched himself across the room like a heat-seeking missile. he reached you in three strides, nearly tripping over a stray shoe in his haste to occupy your immediate vicinity.
“ya came! ya actually came!” he beamed, his hands hovering over your waist as if he needed permission to touch the sun. “i was worried the sidewalk might’ve swallowed ya whole or maybe a talent scout saw ya walkin’ and realized ya were too beautiful for this mundane world and whisked ya away to be a movie star.”
you laughed, patting his cheek. “i was just stuck in traffic, tsumu. it’s only been a few hours.”
“a few hours is a lifetime in miya-time,” he declared, ushering you toward the table with the frantic energy of a shepherd guarding a prize lamb.
he spent the rest of the dinner practically vibrating. he didn’t eat his own food; he spent his time peeling shrimp for you, topping off your drink before it was even half-empty, and leaning in so close that your shoulders were permanently fused. every time you spoke, he watched you with such intense, starry-eyed focus that the rest of the team felt like they were intruding on an intimate ritual.
“is he always like this?” inunaki whispered to you, gesturing to atsumu, who was currently trying to explain to bokuto why your hair smelled better than a summer meadow.
“pretty much,” you smiled, leaning back against atsumu’s chest.
he immediately curled his arms around you, tucking his chin onto your shoulder. he looked like a cat that had successfully claimed the only sunbeam in the house.
“i’m a goner,” he murmured into your ear, loud enough for the whole table to hear, his voice thick with a terrifyingly sweet sincerity. “i’d let ya drive a tractor over my foot if it meant ya’d hold my hand while i was in the hospital. i’m absolutely pathetic for ya, darlin’. i’m the president, secretary, and sole member of the ‘i love you, y/n’ fan club, and i’m never resignin’.”
he looked at his teammates, a defiant, giddy glint in his eyes. “laugh all ya want, ya losers. i’ve got the prettiest girl in the world in my arms and i’m never lettin’ go. i’m gonna cling to her like a barnacle on a luxury cruise ship. i’m the king of the world!”
the rest of the night was a blur of atsumu being utterly, shamelessly whipped. he carried your bag, he opened every door with a flourish, and when he finally walked you back to your car, he looked like he was about to burst into actual tears at the prospect of a fifteen-minute drive apart.
“call me when ya get home?” he pleaded, holding your hand through the open window. “even if it’s just to tell me ya saw a cool rock? i just need to know yer okay. i’m a psycho, remember? a total, complete, uncurable nutcase for ya.”
he leaned in for one last kiss—one that tasted like a promise and felt like a permanent home.
n: it might take long for the next fics since the taglist is ENORMOUS 😮💨 not complaining much, i bought this upon myself thinking that i’ll be ignored, torched, tortured, and beheaded.
“why aren’t you holding my hand?” / iwaizumi hajime
“iwa, why aren’t you holding my hand?”
he stops halfway down the flight of airport stairs at your comment. he turns around, one brow raised in confusion as he scans himself. both of his hands are completely occupied, one carrying his suitcase, the other carrying yours and a ginormous duffle bag full of things you insisted had to come with. he has a travel pillow around his neck and a backpack on his back that feels so heavy he might fall over any second now. you didn’t just ask that question, right? but he’s competitive in his nature and certainly not one to back down from a challenge. plus, despite how emotionally intelligent he may be, he can never tell when you’re trying to get a kick out of him and when you’re being dead serious.
so your duffle bag gets slung over his shoulder and he opts to tough it out and carry both suitcases in one hand. he tells himself that after skipping the gym to pack for the trip and eating strictly junk the past few days just to empty out the fridge, he needs the arm day anyway. as long as he can keep some of his sanity on the way down.
now, with one hand completely free, he holds it out behind him for you to take. you intertwine your fingers with his, smiling up at him in victory. even though he’s dying inside, he still gives a gentle squeeze back.
authors note:typed on my computer so ignore typos n stuff based off a tiktok trend, got this idea in the shower😭, i got lazy and didn’t want to do the coding to color so sorry it’s bland
you spotted kenma relaxing in the kitchen, on call with shoyo while he ate the apple pie he'd just gone out to buy. your original plan was to let him relax on his day off, but you decided to try something you had seen on tiktok.
"we should do another minecraft stream soon." kenma's monotone voice sounded as he spoke to shoyo.
"okay but you have to promise to not take my diamonds.." you could imagine him frowning as he said that. "OR, take all my coal!"
both you and kenma unanimously let out a small chuckle. at the sound of your voice he turned around and finally noticed you. you made your way over to the chair he was sitting in, leaning down to press a quick kiss to his lips. you rested your cheek against his soft hair.
"oh yeah, i forgot to tell you!"
"tell me what?"
"i seen kuroo at the monster generation event.. i think that's what its called...?" his voice was filled with unsureness.
"oh i heard... i actually was a sponsor for that event." he said it so casually like it wasn't a big deal at all.
you listened to their conversation for a little while longer before finally deciding to do the trend.
as they continued talking, you set your phone up against kenma's empty glass of water, before pulling away you started the video.
kenma paused for a quick second as he noticed the phone recording. he let out a small sigh before continuing to talk with the other man on the phone.
you rested your hands on his shoulders, making sure you were stable enough before you got on him. he turned his head, kissing the ring on your finger while he listened to shoyo talking about who else he met at the event.
you slowly slung your right leg over his shoulder, your left soon following after. kenma’s warm palm quickly held on to your calf as he felt you wobble a bit. once he felt you were stable he let go, letting out a deep sigh in the span of 3 minutes.
"oh, am i talking too much?, my bad—"
"nonono, its not you..." kenma quickly said to erase the misunderstanding. "you can keep talking im listening."
"heyyy shoyo" you interrupted as you reached over to grab kenma's phone.
kenma reacted fast, holding you back and grabbing the phone himself so you wouldn't fall on your face. he held up the phone for you to take. you took the phone noticing kenma's camera was off and shoyo's wasn't. you pressed the camera button, holding it up to your face.
"heyyy, whats up!" he said.
you squinted at the phone. "shoyo." you murmured. "why are you in your jersey?... i dont remember the media saying anything about yall having a game this week."
"im just so proud to say im apart of the jackals."
you stared at the screen, just blinking at him.
"ITS A JOKE, YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO LAUGH WHEN YOU HEAR A JOKE Y'KNOW."
"its only a joke if its funny shoyo." you let out a small chuckle at your own joke. "ok im gonna give the phone back to kenma though."
you lowered the phone down to kenma's face. he grabbed it, turning off the camera again. they started talking about ramdon things now.
you lifted your hands to settle on his head, his shoulders, then his cheek. your thumb carressed his cheek gently. you rested on his shoulders, waiting till he said something about it.
"babe... what is this..? what are you doing?"
the same way you climbed on to him was the same way you got off. you started to walk away? sniffing dramatically as if you were crying.
"i was showing you my love!, but i guess you dont want it!…" you quicly dissapeared into the hallway and shut the shared room door behind you.
—
about a minute later you came walking back into the kitchen at the realization that you had forgotten your phone on the table.
you tiptoed behind him so he wouldnt hear you. you quickly took the phone and speed-walked back to the room. you shut the door behind you for the second time. you sat yourself on the bed and started to edit the recording before you posted it.
while editing you came across the part where he started talking to shoyo. while you were touching his face in the video you noticed how he leaned into your hand and how blush dusted the tips of his ears.
you felt your heart swell as you replayed the cute moment for the nth time.
before you could even get to him, he already heard you from down the hall.
"awweeee kenmaaaa!" you said, as you gave him a hug, pressing kisses to his face. as soon as he felt you hug him he rested his hands on your hips. "you really do love me!" you said in between kisses.
"why wouldnt i?... i literally married you for a reason." he said with a small smile.
you squeezed his cheeks together, letting out another loud coo. you pressed a kiss to his lips, except you didnt pull away after half a second.
"can you hear me or see me..?" shoyo’s voice came from the phone.
you pulled back, looking over at the phone that was propped up on the same glass yours was. you had just now realized kenma’s camera was on during that whole interaction.
you gave a sheepish grin as you climbed off of kenma. "oops.."
on the other hand kenma couldnt even care less. he had a small smirk plasered on his face.
"please get a room.." shoyo said with a small sigh.
hajime iwaizumi getting blinded by your lethal facecard <3
fem!reader
hajime is used to seeing pretty girls all the time. the only issue? they're usally not here for him — it sounds crazy because he's not ugly, but it's the truth, the girls he finds attractive talk to him only to get closer to oikawa.
so yes, maybe he's a bit jealous of his best friend for stealing all the pretty girls, but who wouldn't be? it's not like something he thinks about every single day — only when he sees his exact type march over only to go straight to the star of the game.
he got used to it soon — he doesn't need thousands of pretty fans to swarm him.
imagine his surprise when he sees the girl of his dreams standing infront of him, a picture of him in her hand, waiting for him to sign it afterr a game.
"uhm do you think you could maybe sign this? please." the moment he hears your voice he's already convinced this must be a dream — his eyes move fast to take in all off you, only to come to the conclusion perfection is standing in front of him.
seemingly coming out of his trance realizing he's just staring at you with parted lips and wide eyes, he blushes and tries to speak. "uh— yes sorry sure." he wants to slap himself mentally for sounding so stupid, but he doesn't have anytime because you're already smiling and holding out the pen for him to take.
and if he was red before it doesn't compare to now — his hand touching yours so lightly he wonders if he imagined it. taking a deep breath to try to get his act together he signs the picture — with the pink pen and he almost smiles to himself. you're getting better with every minute that passes.
when he gives you the picture back, he's almost relucant — like he doesn't want the moment to vanish, to lose you forever without even getting your name. "thank you so much, hajime." your voice comes out soft, now he's not sure how he could ever forget this conversation.
he wants to tell you to keep talking, to keep saying his name like that — it never sounded better. but you're already turning away like you're scared of annoying him. so, he does something oikawa would probably clap on his shoulder for and tell him he's proud of him — he catches your wrist right before you're out ouf reach.
it makes you halt right away — and when you're looking at him with wide eyes and glossy lips he almost forgot to talk. "oh u—uhm i'm sorry, you're really pretty do you think i could get your number?" it comes out more confident than before, his heart beating so hard he's scared it might jump out off his chest.
the moment you smile he lets out a breath he didn't realise he was holding. "of course. do you have your phone?" hajime feels his confidence come back, his usual lazy barely-there smile on his face. when you take his phone and start tapping your number down with manicured nails he looks at you a last time like he's trying to burn the image in his brain.
you move to give him back his phone once you're done and when he holds out his hand to take it, you move right past it — until you're next to him, pressing the phone to his chest. he's confused until you get on your toes to whisper something in his ear right before vanishing in the crowd.
"i like fancy restaurants and red roses."
he can't respond — not because you're already disappearing in the crowd, but because he thinks you just officially broke him. he stands there staring at the new contact, 'cute girl from the game ' written with a pink heart next to it.
he's already looking up the fanciest restaurant near.
you met him during your time as inarizaki’s manager for the boy’s volleyball team, putting away equipment after practice as he trained late nights in that small high school gymnasium. once graduation came along and you went off to do your own thing, you stayed on the sidelines, cheering him on the same way he does with everything you do.
it’s a sad fate for all of his fan girls, really. the moment he takes his first steps on the court as a pro with the msby jackals, he’s already taken. his first press conference sends storms through the media—this handsome, charming young rookie steals japan’s heart with every wink the cameras catch.
but what they don’t see at first is who atsumu’s really winking at, and it’s not the cameras. it’s you, up in the stands wearing his jersey and cheering for him every game without fail.
there’s one post-game interview that really gets his fans going.
“atsumu, great game today! as a rookie, do you feel the pressure of the professional world setting in yet?” a short female reporter with a courtside access pass around her neck shoves a microphone in atsumu’s face before he can even catch his breath.
“there’s always pressure at this level, ya’ know. but i pour my heart out into my training and i think it translates well onto the court. plus, i’ve got my girl to support me.”
a look of confusion passes over the reporter’s face before she collects herself with a polite smile. “i’m sorry, your girl?”
“yeah,” he smiles at you, waiting for him off to the side. “she’s a little camera shy. but sorry to break the news, she’s already stolen my heart. cheesy, i know.”
“so we have a case of high school sweethearts, i see,” she’s quick to switch the topic back to volleyball, “and about that play in the first half. . .”
the media sends a mixed response afterwards, but it’s certain that there’s plenty of talk about atsumu’s love life. there’s the comments on how adorable your young love is, questions about who atsumu’s mysterious lover could be, posts gushing over the way he looks at you or how he’s always seen with a bouquet of flowers after a match, disappointed fangirls that know they’ll never have a chance—and the list could go on.
but beyond the internet hype, everyone can tell how much atsumu loves you when he can never keep his girl out of the conversation.
“you hate it when it’s loud, but you know what else is?” v2
timeskip!oikawa tōru x f!reader
w/c: 1.2k, slightly suggestive ,, wait! series
the arena is always too loud.
the squeak of sneakers on polished floors, the rhythmic, deafening thud of volleyballs meeting palms, and the relentless, piercing shrieks of his fanbase. it suffocates you. you’ve always hated it—the volume of his world—but you sit through it, tucked away near the player tunnel, just to see him.
oikawa knows. he knows exactly how the noise grates on your nerves, how your shoulders tense when the crowd roars. every time he looks up at the stands, his eyes find you instantly, tracking the slight crease between your brows. his adoration for you isn’t something he hides; it’s an all-consuming, heavy thing that bleeds into every glance he throws your way.
when the match ends and the CA san juan players begin their usual lap to greet the fans, definitely ignoring the people named quack, sura, and mika doing the six seven emote. the barrier separating the court from the stands becomes a chaotic surge of bodies. you’re standing near the railing, waiting for him to break away from the media, when the crowd shifts violently.
“move it,” a sharp voice snaps.
before you can register the hostility, a frantic fan shoves past you, hard enough to send your shoulder slamming into the metal railing. the impact rattles you, but it’s the suffocating proximity of the screaming crowd that makes your breath hitch. they don’t see you as a person; you’re just an obstacle between them and him.
the screaming stops.
not all at once, but the sudden drop in temperature radiating from the court causes a ripple effect of silence.
oikawa had been smiling, waving his usual practiced, blinding smile, but he had never taken his eyes off you. he saw the shove. he saw the way your frame stumbled back against the metal.
the transition is terrifying. the playful, charming setter vanishes, replaced by something dark, cold, and entirely unhinged. he crosses the distance between the court and the railing in mere strides, his long legs eating up the space. his face is completely blank, his eyes blown wide and fixed entirely on the girl who had pushed you.
“what the hell did you do?” oikawa’s voice isn’t loud, but it cuts through the remaining ambient noise like a blade. it’s entirely devoid of his usual sweetness, dripping with a quiet, lethal venom.
the fan freezes, her face draining of color as the god she was just worshiping stares down at her with undisguised disgust.
“how dare you?” he steps closer, towering over the barrier, his chest heaving. the sheer intensity of his gaze is suffocating. “who gave you the right to put your hands on what’s mine? look at her. you made her upset. you’re annoying her. i tolerate your screaming, but if you think for one second you can touch her and get away with it—”
“tōru,” you whisper, your voice trembling slightly from the sudden attention of the entire section.
the sound of his name on your lips snaps the thread of his restraint. the dark, menacing aura evaporates instantly, replaced by a desperate, pathetic panic. oikawa drops to his knees right there on the hard floor of the arena, his hands reaching through the bars of the railing to clutch at the hem of your shirt, completely unbothered by the hundreds of eyes watching his public breakdown.
“my angel, my sweet girl, i'm sorry,” he begs, his voice cracking with a terrifyingly raw emotion. he buries his face against your thigh, right there in front of his fans, his teammates, the cameras. he doesn’t care. nothing else exists. “i’m so sorry i let those things near you. please don’t be mad at me. please don’t look at me like that. it’s my fault, it’s all my fault for letting it get so loud. i’ll make them be quiet. we’ll leave right now, just please don’t hate me.”
the fans are frozen in horror, watching argentina’s star setter shamelessly sob and beg for forgiveness at your feet, completely whipped, entirely in love with you. he looks up, his beautiful eyes glossy and wild with a desperate need for your reassurance. “let’s go home, okay? let’s go home right now. i’ll fix it. just tell me you forgive your tōru.”
you can only nod, overwhelmed by the spectacle but craving the quiet just as much as he craves your touch.
oikawa doesn’t waste another second. he stands up, shoving his way past security without a care for his post-match duties. his arm wraps securely around your waist, pulling you so flush against his side that you can feel the frantic, irregular thudding of his heart. he shields you completely from the lingering stares, his grip borderline bruising, guiding you out of the arena and straight into the waiting car.
the drive back to his apartment is silent, save for the heavy sound of his breathing. his knuckles are white on the steering wheel, his jaw clenched tightly. every few seconds, his eyes cheat a look to you in the passenger seat, checking, monitoring, making sure you aren’t slipping away from him.
the moment the front door of his apartment clicks shut behind you, the atmosphere shifts. the silence of the apartment is a stark contrast to the arena, but it isn’t peaceful. it’s heavy, thick with his possessive energy.
oikawa doesn’t even let you take off your shoes before his arms lock around you, lifting you slightly to press you back against the closed door. he buries his face into the crook of your neck, inhaling deeply, consuming your scent to ground his frantic mind.
“finally,” he groans, a dark, needy sound vibrating against your skin. “it’s finally quiet. just us.”
his hands slide down your back, gripping your hips with an intensity that leaves no doubt about how badly he wants to consume you. he starts kissing your neck, frantic, messy, desperate marks that tell the world exactly who you belong to.
“i’m sorry. you hated it there, didn’t you?” oikawa murmurs against your skin, his lips brushing over your collarbone. his fingers dig slightly into your skin, anchoring you to him. “all those people... all that noise. it makes your head hurt. i know it does. i hate them for making you uncomfortable.”
he pulls back just enough to look at you, his eyes dark with a dangerous, worshipful heat. his thumb brushes over your lower lip, pushing it down slightly. his expression is a mix of desperate adoration and something much heavier, much more demanding, like he wants to eat you alive.
“but you don’t hate it when it’s just me, right?” he whispers, his voice dropping into a low, husky register that sends a shiver straight down your spine. his eyes lock onto yours, tracking the way your breath hitches in the quiet room. “you hate it when it’s loud out there... but you love it when i make you loud in here, don’t you, sweet girl?”
he doesn’t wait for an answer, his lips crashing onto yours in a deep, possessive kiss that steals the very air from your lungs. his hands shift, lifting you effortlessly so your legs wrap around his waist, pinning you securely between his body and the hard wood of the door.
every touch is heavy, every breath is shared, and as he carries you deeper into the quiet safety of you two’s bedroom, you know the silence of the night is about to be broken entirely by him.
n: i kept getting distracted, it was supposed to be finished hours ago. does anyone here play the card bot called sofi 🤣 fuh i want a butler gojo card, i placed a bounty on his head for 5 custom fics.
“but now, we’re settled down in my kitchen talking.”
timeskip!kozume kenma x f!reader
w/c: 1.1k ,, wait! series
the kitchen smells faintly of vanilla and burnt sugar—the latter entirely kenma’s fault, though he’d never admit it to the thousands of people currently watching his screen.
it’s supposed to be a milestone stream. a casual, domestic cooking broadcast to celebrate a subscriber peak, something his management team had nudged him to do for months. kenma had agreed only on the condition that he wouldn’t have to carry the commentary alone. which is how you ended up trapped between the kitchen counter and a massive stainless steel bowl, trying to read a chaotic, fast-moving chat while kenma aggressively whips egg whites.
“your form is terrible,” you murmur, leaning your chin on his shoulder to peer at the iPad propped against the coffee maker. “chat says you look like you’re trying to defeat a boss, not bake a soufflé.”
kenma hums, a low, rumbling sound in his chest. his bleached hair is tied up in a messy, half-hearted bun, a few dark strands framing his face. he doesn’t look at the camera; his focus is entirely split between the stubborn eggs and the way you’re pressing your weight against his back. “it’s a stamina test,” he replies, his voice quiet, carrying that distinct, sleepy cadence that his viewers love. “the recipe said stiff peaks. these are... medium peaks.”
“they’re sad peaks, kenma.”
“shut up.” there’s no bite to it, just the easy, worn-in comfort of two people who have spent years navigating each other’s spaces.
the chat is flying by in a blur of emoticons and uppercase screaming. since kenma transitioned from a quiet volleyball setter to a wildly successful CEO and streaming personality—the public curiosity about his private life had skyrocketed. today was the first time you’d actually appeared on camera with him, rather than just being a stray voice or a hand petting kenma from time to time.
you reach past him to grab the vanilla extract, your fingers brushing his waist. “let me take over before your arm falls off.”
“i’ve got it,” he says, but his grip on the whisk is slipping. he shifts his stance to get better leverage, turning his torso with a sudden, sharp jerk.
it happens in a fraction of a second. kenma’s elbow swings outward, driven by the momentum of his frantic whisking, and connects sharply with your ribs.
the impact isn’t enough to break anything, but it’s a direct hit to a sensitive spot. you let out a sharp, involuntary ‘oof’ and instantly double over, clutching your side as the wind gets knocked out of you. the vanilla bottle clatters onto the marble counter, rolling harmlessly into a puddle of spilled milk.
kenma freezes. the whisk clattered into the bowl, sending a small spray of egg white onto his apron, but he doesn’t care. his entire demeanor shifts from mild irritation to sheer, unfiltered panic in the span of a heartbeat.
“—oh my god. y/n. i’m sorry, i’m so sorry,” he blurs out, his voice dropping an octave, completely forgetting the live broadcast, the camera, and the five-digit viewer count.
he’s on his knees in front of you before you can even straighten up, his hands hovering over your waist, trembling slightly. he looks up at you with wide, wide golden-brown eyes, a rare flash of genuine vulnerability breaking through his usual stoic mask. “where did i hit you? did i hit your ribs? let me see, let me—”
“ken, i’m fine,” you wheeze, a breathless laugh bubbling up despite the dull ache in your side. “it just caught me off guard. i’m okay.”
“you’re not okay, you gasped,” he insists, his hands finally making contact. he presses his palms gently against your side, right over your hands, rubbing small, soothing circles into the fabric of your clothes. his touch is warm, frantic, and incredibly tender. he leans his forehead against your hip for a second, letting out a shaky breath. “i’m clumsy. i shouldn’t have been moving like that. look at me, are you dizzy?”
“dizzy from an elbow to the ribs?” you chuckle, reaching down to run your fingers through the loose hairs at the nape of his neck. “ken, look at the screen. you’re neglecting your audience.”
he doesn’t look. instead, he stands up, keeping one arm securely wrapped around your waist to pull you flush against him, as if shielding you from the camera’s gaze. he buries his face in the crook of your neck, his breath warm against your skin. “i don’t care about them right now.”
a collective meltdown is occurring in the live chat.
the text scrolling on the iPad is moving so fast it looks like a waterfall of white light. keyboard smashes, crying emojis, and frantic questions are multiplying by the millisecond.
@ ihatelifebutilovejoaofelix : LOVE ISN’T REAL UNLESS I’M WITH JOAO
@ forgottensniper : me and zodyl when
@ faengelofilum : kissing my shotgun 🤣🤣
@ surabob : look at his eyes he’s actually panicking
among the chaos, a few familiar sub badges pop up. a small corner of the overlay shows a highlighted notification from three prominent community members. anaiya, may, and kora—regular moderators who usually keep the peace—have completely abandoned their duties. instead, their stickers are synced up in the corner, doing the ridiculous, coordinated ‘six seven’ emote across the screen in a celebration of the rare domestic display.
you glimpse the screen over kenma’s shoulder and snort, the movement hurting your side just a little. “your mods are enabling them. may and the others are doing the six seven emote, kenma. they think this is cinema.”
kenma finally glances at the monitor, his eyes narrowing slightly as he catches the three animated figures bouncing in perfect synchronization. “i’m banning all three of them,” he mutters into your shoulder, though there’s no actual malice in his voice. his grip on your waist tightens slightly, his thumb continuing its slow, rhythmic stroke over your side. “are you sure it doesn’t hurt? do you want to sit down? we can just end the stream.”
“we are not ending the stream over a minor kitchen injury,” you say firmly, pulling back just enough to look him in the eye. his expression is still soft, a little pinched with lingering guilt. you reach up, using your thumb to wipe a stray speck of egg white from his cheek. “see? i’m perfectly fine. the soufflé, however, is dying.”
kenma sighs, a long, defeated sound, but the tension finally drains from his shoulders. he looks down at the mixing bowl, then back at you, his eyes softening in that quiet, private way that belongs only to you, far away from the cameras and the internet.
“the soufflé was a bad idea anyway,” he murmurs, leaning in to press a soft, lingering kiss to the temple of your forehead, entirely indifferent to the renewed explosion of chat messages on the screen. “let’s just order takeout.”
n: everybody be testing me today, christ, i’m hungry. godiwantthatevgojocard. also i miss u @j4zume , i dedicate this to you !!
you tear your eyes away from the screen a few seconds after rintarou says it, too rapt by what's unfolding in the movie scene to look away too soon.
"what do you mean?" you ask, glancing over to the other end of the sofa where he's seated. he's slumped down in the corner of the sofa, nestled right into the valley between the cushions where he always sits—which has resulted in a permanent sort of vaguely rintarou-shaped indentation that you hide using throw pillows when company comes over.
he's watching you very intently from his side of the sofa, too intently almost. you'd thought you'd felt his eyes on you while you were watching the movie, but you aren't exactly sure how long he's been staring, and now it leaves you wondering what exactly he's up to.
rintarou nods towards the television on the other side of the room, you look back at the screen once more and see the male lead still at the centre of the scene. he'd just gotten into a fight—shirtless, glistening with perspiration, and a strangely erotic trickle of blood trailing down his philtrum. you swallow a little as you become engrossed in the movie again, forgetting momentarily that you were ever asked a question at all.
"so?"
your eyes snap back to rintarou—who's still focused only on you, but with a slightly more disapproving look this time.
"what?" you ask him, a bit huffily. you're still not even sure what he'd been asking you in the first place.
"you've been ogling that guy since he got the shit kicked out of him," rintarou says pointedly, lifting a hand and gesturing towards the television. "you into that or something?"
there's something kind of accusatory in his tone.
"wha—hu—no," you stumble over your words in your haste to defend yourself. "i've told you i'm not into hardcore stuff. and that would constitute like... doctorate level BDSM."
rintarou's lips purse slightly. "do you think that guy's hot?"
"i mean... yeah," you answer after contemplating it for a moment. "i didn't really think so before but he's kinda sexy in this scene."
"he just got the shit kicked out of him," the boy at the other end of the sofa responds flatly.
"so you've pointed out," you answer. you turn back to the screen, watching as the battered male lead winds a roll of bandages around his ribs, then drags his knuckles roughly across his lips to clear away some of the blood that clings to them. your tongue peeks out to moisten your own unconsciously. "don't you think there's something kind of hot about a guy with a bit of blood on him?"
"is this a trick question?"
you look back at rintarou again, and find him still fixated on you rather than the film. he's pouting a bit, and it kind of makes you want to laugh. instead, you push yourself up from your own little nest at the opposite end of the sofa, crawling down towards him.
"rintarou, are you jealous because i called the bloody guy sexy?" you ask him as you pause at his side, resting back on your haunches.
he nibbles on the inside of his cheek—a habit he's had as long as you've known him—and for the first time in possibly the entire 54 minutes this movie has been playing, he averts his eyes from you.
"...no."
you do laugh then, swinging one leg over his lap to perch yourself atop him.
"you're being silly," you say to him as you balance yourself with your hands on his shoulders. his own come slithering up to settle at your waist, and his grip is a little tighter than you expect. he's still sulking though, refusing to look at you.
there's a loud crash in the film playing on the screen behind you, but you don't turn to look at it—you doubt that would help the situation at hand very much.
"rin," you coax him, making your voice as sweet as possible.
he doesn't look at you, but he does seem to bite the inside of his cheek a little harder now.
you dip down close to him, your mouth hovering over his and your eyes level. "rin-ta-rou."
he finally looks at you, his lips parting in surprise at your sudden nearness. you're so close that your mouths brush slightly thanks to that subtle movement, and he leans into the warmth of your lips to kiss you properly after getting such a small taste of it.
rintarou pulls away after one long, deep kiss, slouching back into the sofa again—but this time pulling you down with him into his little him-shaped indentation—holding you tightly to his chest as he gets you both comfortable. you let him maneuver you however he wants to, placating him with your docility to make him feel better, and keeping any comment about his jealousy to yourself—at least for now.
the two of you eventually find a comfortable way to rest, entwined together on his end of the sofa but both with a clear view to the screen to resume your spectating of the movie.
"what's so hot about a guy with a nosebleed anyway? i used to get them all the time when i was a kid," rintarou mumbles bitterly after a few moments, and you feel the words reverberate through his chest as you rest with your head upon it.
you laugh lightly, and your boyfriend's arms tighten around your waist.
he pipes up again after a few moments more pass in the film.
"you don't want me to start fighting or anything, do you?" he asks you skeptically.
you've effectively lost track of the movie's plot now, but you don't really care that much.
"no, rintarou, i don't want you to start fighting," you reply, patting his chest reassuringly. "you'd get your ass kicked anyway."
"well, apparently you're into that," he mutters.
"will you be quiet and just watch the movie, nosebleed boy?"
(a week later, rintarou sends you a photo from practice—having gracefully taken one of motoya's receives to the face—with an angry red welt on his cheek, blood dripping from his nose, and an obnoxious smirk on his lips. unfortunately, you are kinda into that.)
the building he's in now is much nicer than the last one he lived in, and in an even better part of town, too—it's a newly built place that's still only half-occupied, leaving him with so few neighbours on his floor that he claims sometimes it feels like he's got the whole building to himself.
living in a new-build (a half-build, technically, since there's still active construction happening in some of the units on other floors) presents its own unique challenges, though. since no one's ever lived in his unit before him, he's sort of like the guinea pig; the first to discover which of the design elements are functional and which aren't. like how the tap in his bathroom had accidentally been installed backwards, so the hot and cold water markers were switched—a realization he regrettably only came to after stepping into an ice cold shower for the first time.
or how the intercom system in the building isn't quite up and running yet, so every time he has guests over he has to come all the way down to the lobby to let them in himself.
"wow, what are the chances of running into you here?" rintarou drawls as he opens the building door for you, allowing you to step in out of the cool night outside.
pretty good, you'd wager, because he knew you were coming and had to be here to let you in.
you're too tired to make any sort of snarky remark though, shooting him a pointed look instead as you step past him in the doorway and into the lobby's warmth. coming to suna's place had been a last minute decision made late in the evening when a poorly-timed (or well-timed on his part) text landed in your inbox; you weren't dressed for the weather, but had been close enough to walk from the little bar where a few of your friends had gathered that evening.
"cold out?" he asks you as he lets the door swing shut, turning and following along behind you as you begin making your way towards the elevator.
"freezing," you reply, still holding your coat tightly around your frame. you're narrowly fighting back the way your teeth threaten to chatter.
"sorry, I came down as soon as you called to tell me you were on your way," rintarou frowns a little as he takes in the way you have your arms wrapped around yourself for warmth.
"no, i know," you wave off his concern, pressing the UP button on the panel next to the elevator in the lobby. "i should have called sooner but i didn't want to take my hands out of my pockets since it was so cold on the walk here."
you'd only fished your cellphone out of your pocket when the building was in sight a few metres down the road, preserving every little bit of warmth you could for as long as possible.
"you know, you wouldn't need to wait for me to let you in if you'd just let me give you a key fob."
the elevator doors slide open to take you both up to rintarou's floor, and your glance over at him from the corner of your eye as the two of you step inside.
you don't want one of suna's key fobs. firstly because he'd already broken the only spare he had thanks (indirectly) to you—having once tried to toss it down from his third floor balcony while you were waiting out front in the middle of the night. it had landed on the pavement underfoot and shattered into approximately a million pieces—leaving him down to only the one connected to his own key ring. he'd told you it really wasn't that expensive to get his building manager to replace it, but you'd vehemently spurned the suggestion, which brings you to the second point—
having a key to rintarou's place (however temporary) just feels too... serious.
too serious for you and him, and whatever this decidedly unserious thing between you is, anyway.
"who's to say you won't destroy that one too?" you brush off his suggestion as the elevator doors slide closed.
the inside of the elevator still has those thick, padded blankets hanging up to protect the mirrored walls while they finish construction, and still have people constantly moving boxes and furniture and whatever else into the vacant units units. it makes the already confined space feel even smaller, and you try to ignore it as suna presses the button for his floor on the panel off to the side of the doors.
"fine, freeze then," rintarou shrugs, but you can feel his eyes on the side of your face.
"the cold wasn't even the bad part," you sigh, wincing a little as you shift your weight from one foot to the other. "i haven't worn these boots out before and my feet are killing me."
suna glances down at your feet, taking in the knee high boots you have on your feet.
"oh," he says, his tone a bit different now in a way that makes you look at him suspiciously. "those are nice."
"you're such a freak," you laugh under your breath and he peeks up at you without a hint of guilt on his face.
"i mean it," he insists.
"i know you do," you snort.
the elevator dips slightly as it arrives to rintarou's floor, and it makes you wobble a bit unsteadily. rintarou wraps his arm around your waist to steady you without missing a beat.
"they really hurt that bad?" he asks, peering down at you curiously.
from this close you can see just how unfairly long his eyelashes are, and how they flutter as he blinks down at you. you hate how nice it is to feel his warmth seeping into you when he holds you like this. you hate the thought of him stepping away again even more.
"yeah, it's my own fault though," you answer quietly.
the elevator doors slide open, and you move to step out, but rintarou rushes ahead of you. you watch, confused, as he crouches down just on the other side of the threshold of the sliding doors.
"really?" you ask him with a laugh, rolling your eyes as he waits for you to climb up on his back.
but it's late, and you're tired, and your feet hurt.
(and you really like how warm he is, even if you'll never say it.)
so you carefully hop on, wrapping your arms around his neck and your legs around his waist, and let him carry you off in the direction of his apartment—endlessly grateful for how few units on his floor are leased, and therefore how your chances of running into anyone in your current state are lowered.
you can only see the slightest bit of rintarou's profile while he carries you like this, but you can tell even from the glimpse you get that he's looking awfully smug as he carries you to his door.
"don't look so pleased with yourself," you mutter, squeezing your legs a bit tighter around his waist in warning.
rintarou's hands slip down from where he was loosely holding you behind your knees until they grasp your thighs and the leather upper of your boots.
"these really are nice you know," suna remarks quietly, his thumbs brushing along some of the stitching at the sides.
"i'm not keeping them on in bed," you warn him flatly, his apartment door now in sight at the other end of the hall.
"why not?" suna sounds so plaintive it almost makes you laugh. his grip slips all the way down to your ankles now. "it's not like they can hurt your feet while you'll be on your back, anyway."
"rintarou!" you hiss, slapping one of your hands over his mouth to shut him up, scandalized at what he's said in the middle of the hallway—lack of neighbours or not.
you feel his lips spread in an obnoxious grin under your palm, but you don't dare pull it away.
"keep it up and you're getting thrown off the balcony next, pervert."
the wind bites at your cheeks, but the sting you feel is as much from the smile on your face as it is from the chill.
"dunno," you muse, pursing your lips as though you're contemplating the question deeply. "can you?"
rintarou groans, but the sound isn't half as plaintive as it ought to be. you watch as his head hangs down defeatedly where his frame is folded over the railing that lines the front of the train station, his body pitched forward over the barrier like he's trying to reach you on the other side.
you've been saying goodbye for the past twenty minutes—or, you've been trying to. sort of. maybe. the train you'd planned to catch has already come and gone, and the next is set to soon arrive. one more and it will be the last of the night, but not even knowing that fact seems to be moving you closer towards the door to the station—content to stay here, like this, as the wind of the late fall night nips at your cheeks and the two of you muddle through your goodbye with the inelegance of two people who couldn't be less committed to it if they tried.
rintarou lifts his head to meet your gaze.
"i mean it, though." he says. "can i call you tonight?"
your stomach flips when he looks at you this way. when he keeps looking at you this way.
"we just spent hours together," you remind him, but your words are too breathy to make impact. too elated to be reproachful.
you've been on three dates with rintarou now. you think they're dates anyway, though it's never explicitly been stated. his invitations are always casual, sandwiched in between all the other texts he sends to you these days, so you might be reading into things too closely for your own good. but dinner doesn't just feel like dinner when rintarou has this way of looking at you like you're the only person he's ever laid his eyes on.
"i know," he answers. it's not an explanation, or an excuse, or even an apology. it's plain acceptance. a shamelessness you find wretchedly endearing.
you glance back at the station behind you, biting the inside of your cheek to temper your delight.
"my train is coming," you say.
he looks a bit crestfallen. laughably glum, considering the circumstances.
you drag the heel of your shoe back ever so slightly, not quite a step—at least not in any meaningful way—but inching in the direction of the doors at a glacial pace. continental drift seems positively hasty in comparison to your retreat.
"bye," he calls, his tone dejected. you watch as he lifts his hand weakly, still slumped over the railing, and waves at you with only a few fingers raised.
you want to laugh, but your chest is so full of something else—something syrupy and fluttering and good—that it's like there's no space for it underneath your ribs.
you call back to him just before you step into the station.
"rintarou—"
there are other people around, stepping between and around you both—rushing into the station to escape the cold, or moving briskly as they brace themselves and step out into it—but you hardly notice them when your eyes meet.
you smile.
"—call me later."
he calls you almost every night after that.
even as the cool autumn winds change with the seasons; carrying flakes of snow as winter blankets nagano, warming with the spring, turning heavy with humidity in summer, and then repeating the cycle anew.
even as your reluctant goodbyes turn from late nights outside of train stations to early morning words whispered under blankets as rintarou leaves for practice or away games.
even as the uncertainty of whether or not you're getting your hopes up—of whether those meetings were even really dates at all—melts away into nothing more than a memory.
you're not even sure what the two of you manage to spend so much time talking about on the phone. nothing, really. everything in its own right. rintarou's phone calls are something you come to look forward to at the end of a long day. something you anticipate when you have exciting news to share. a comfort when you're missing him and a relief when you need him most.
"is that the last one?" you ask, turning just in time to see your boyfriend—your live-in boyfriend now, officially—flop back on the sofa after he drops the last moving box atop the stack piled near the balcony door.
"yeah," he wheezes, evidently winded from the exertion—from the exhaustion—of moving house. you laugh a bit to yourself as you shuffle over to the sofa, leaning over the back so you can peer down at him where he lays sprawled against the cushions.
"aren't you a professional athlete?" you tease him. "shouldn't you have better stamina?"
rintarou cocks a brow, something sly swimming behind his gaze.
"i need better stamina?" he drawls. "you're usually complaining about the opposite."
you roll your eyes in the wake of his remark, grabbing a throw pillow from beneath his head and yanking it from under him unceremoniously, only to press it lightly against his face.
you shuffle back towards the kitchen where you'd left the box you were unpacking abandoned. you grab a plate from inside the cardboard and turn to place it on the shelf you'd decided would house your dinnerware.
"it's late," you tell him, reaching for the next plate in the box. "you should go wash up first."
you don't get a reply, and that surprises you. you creep over to the sofa again, only to find rintarou staring up at the ceiling, lost in thought.
"hey," you laugh a little, leaning on your elbows against the back of the couch. "where'd you go?"
rintarou's gaze snaps back to yours. he still looks at you like he did on your first date. like he did outside the train station on your third. he smiles, bit it's a bit sheepish.
"sorry, was just thinking," he answers quietly. he reaches up from where he's lying on his back, brushing his thumb against your cheek. his smile turns a little bit giddy, then. boyishly charming. "can't believe we finally got a place together."
you lean into his touch, huffing a little breath through your nose—halfway to a laugh.
"guess you won't have to call me anymore," you joke, and rintarou's expression changes—falls slightly—but only for a moment. you realize what you've said, or at least think about the implications more, and you sort of understand the shift.
you fell in love through those phone calls.
you'll miss them—the ritual, the familiarity, the comfort—even though you know they've been replaced by something better.
you turn your face, pressing a fleeting kiss to rintarou's palm. "go wash up," you tell him again, heading back towards the kitchen and your (now twice abandoned) box of plates.
he seems to heed your advice this time, peeling himself up off the sofa and shuffling off in the direction of the washroom.
"don't use all the hot water!" you call after his retreating frame, and you hear him reply noncommittally under his breath before the door clicks closed behind him.
you've only got three dishes left to unpack before your box is emptied, but the shelf you'd been organizing doesn't seem to want to accommodate all of your bowls in the way you wanted, so you're left arranging and rearranging them as you try to find a way to get them to fit.
in the back pocket of your jeans, your phone begins to ring. with three plates balanced in one hand, you reach for it with the other—the movement muscle memory now, instinct more than volition, after all this time. you answer the call without even looking at the screen, holding the phone between your ear and your shoulder as you continue juggling the dishes in front of you.
"oop—hello?"
you pause after you answer the call, realizing for the first time that you shouldn't be getting a call at all. not at this time of night. not in this apartment.
the line is quiet, just the sound of breathing that you could recognize anywhere to be heard from the other end of the call.
"why are you calling me?" you ask rintarou, but the words are light. too fond to be reproachful.
you hear rintarou laugh—from the other end of the call and from the other side of the bathroom door.
"just wanted to hear your voice," he answers you (the same way he has a thousand nights before when you've asked him that same question.)
"you're ridiculous," you tell him, completely enamoured.
"i know," he replies.
it's quiet for a moment as the two of you stand on opposite sides of your apartment. on opposite ends of your call.
you shift a stack of bowls a little to the left. it all fits now. just the way you wanted it to.
"y'know, the hot water won't run out as fast if we shower together—"
you hear the bathroom door open, and when you look over your shoulder, rintarou is peeking at you from around the edge of the door—his phone held to his ear, a smile on his face you know is mirrored on your own, and a look in his eye that's never once wavered.
iwaizumi got a lower back tattoo on his 21st birthday.
if you showed one hundred people in the street a photo of 30-year-old hajime, and then surveyed them as to whether or not they think he has a lower back tattoo, it's unlikely more than one of them would say yes—and even the one who did probably just misheard the question. it's as unbelievable a thought as any, and still somehow it's true.
he was 21, legally drunk for the first time in america, and hanamaki and matsukawa had finally come to california to visit him to mark the occasion. it was kind of a stupid trip, they realized afterwards, because issei and hiro were still only 20 and couldn't even go out to the bars near UC irvine that all of iwa's college friends were inviting him out to for the first time.
but he didn't mind.
he bought them beer and sugary canned cocktails from the convenience store near campus using the birthday money his nanay sent him, silently repenting in his mind as the store clerk in the polyester vest rang the expensive purchase through. then they all got drunk in iwa's tiny student apartment while they played video games, called oikawa, and eventually wandered out into the warm california night in search of food.
the details beyond that are fuzzy, but the lines inked into the little space at the bottom of hajime's spine are not—even after nine whole years.
most people have no idea about the tattoo—and hajime has gone to great lengths to keep it that way. he wears a compression t-shirt at the gym so there's no risk of it riding up and accidentally revealing it. he orders patches to conceal it on the rare occasion he goes to onsens. he never showers with the athletes at work, always either opting to shower at home, shower after the team, or use the staff facilities when available.
but in spite of all of that, he's not embarrassed of it.
he doesn't even really regret it.
it's just not anybody else's business.
the ink on his skin is a secret kept between him, matsukawa, hanamaki, the guy who tattooed him, and oikawa who was screaming on facetime in the background while it happened.
and now you, too.
your hand snakes up the back of hajime's sweatshirt as he stands at the stove preparing breakfast, cool fingertips tracing the curls of ink even without seeing them—having long mapped them to memory. hajime suppresses a shiver, not expecting the contact, as you crowd yourself closer to his back and lean your weight against him.
"i was trying not to wake you," he says quietly, the hand not holding the chopsticks he's flipping his omelette with reaching behind him in search of you.
"you didn't," you murmur into his back, catching his seeking hand in yours and twining your fingers together. "smelled food."
hajime laughs to himself, his eyes crinkling. he squeezes your fingers tightly as his heart thuds in his chest.
underneath his sweatshirt, your nails rake lightly against his skin.
"shouldn't i be making your breakfast?"
hajime transfers his omelette to the plate waiting beside the stove, flicking off the burner and then turning to face you. he wraps his arms around you and holds you properly now, your face burrowing into the collar of his hoodie the way you always do, his nose brushing your temple.
"wanted to let you sleep a bit longer," hajime grunts out, his cheeks burning a bit hot—still shy, sometimes, even after so much time has passed. "thought you might be tired after..."
you snort, your head popping up to look at him. "after you fucked me within an inch of my life into the wee hours of the morning?"
the fire burning under hajime's skin grows even hotter. he splutters a little, and struggles to meet your gaze.
"i'm not tired," you whisper, a mischievous smile tugging at your lips. the incorrigible one he fell in love with. "we were celebrating, after all."
hajime's eyes are burning a little bit, to complement the stinging in his cheeks. you lift your hand up to his face so you can feel the heat of his skin, and he rests his own hand—larger, more calloused than your own—to rest overtop of it. he looks at you, and sees happiness reflected back at him in your gaze. so fathomless he thinks he could drown in it.
hajime turns his face into your touch, and his eyes flutter closed as he noses against your palm.
he presses a kiss there. soft. adoring.
then another, just slightly higher, to the ring he put on your finger the night before.
he peeks at you again, that same heat in his cheeks, though not nearly as unbearable.
he's got another secret he doesn't regret now, one just as permanent as the ink in his skin, but this one won't stay hidden long. eventually he'll call his parents, and his nanay will probably get teary. then he'll tell his friends, who will put his mother's tears to shame. he'll leave the tattoo artist out of it this time, though—wherever that guy is now.
"happy birthday, hajime," you whisper to him with a smile he can't help but return.
he might keep this secret between the two of you today, though. just for a little while longer.
you're almost giddy as you run your hands underneath the stream of cool water rushing from the sink's tap, an effervescence fizzling in the pit of your stomach as the sound of running water whooshes through your ears. you watch the soap suds circle the drain as your teeth bite down against the side of your cheek.
on the other side of the restroom door, you can hear the distant din of the restaurant creeping in, reminding you of where you are. the sound spurs you on and quickly, haphazardly, you shake whatever water is left clinging to the tips of your fingers away once the soap suds are gone—too eager to even bother with properly drying them. next, you fish your cellphone out from inside the little purse you'd brought with you that evening.
you tap the name at the top of your recent call log, and your roommate answers after two rings.
"date goin' so bad yer calling in the black ops squad for rescue? what's our story gonna be this ti—"
atsumu sounds entirely too pleased by the prospect of your date going badly, and it makes you all too happy to cut him off.
"it's going really well," you say, nearly breathless in your delight. it's been a while since you've been this... excited about a date. about a guy. "too well, actually."
"oh?" atsumu's voice lifts in surprise, but he doesn't say a whole lot else.
you hum affirmatively, reaching into your purse again to pull out a tube of lip gloss, pinning your phone between your ear and your shoulder to free up your hands to unscrew the lid. your eyes are fixed to the reflection of your mouth in the mirror as you swipe a thin coat across your lips. "i need a favour."
"'n what's that?" atsumu asks, his voice drying out into a monotone that indicates his distinct lack of trust.
"can you go in my room and shove any mess i left out into my closet?" you ask him before rubbing your lips together to evenly coat them in their lacquered shine.
atsumu guffaws from the other line. "'m i yer maid?"
"a second ago you were ready to go full boots on the ground as the black ops squad," you chide him. there's a moment of silence that passes in the restaurant bathroom, you can't even hear him breathing from the other line. finally, you speak again—softer this time, more sincere. "please, tsumu. i really like him."
he clicks his tongue behind his teeth in that admonishing way you hate, but there's a certain concession in the sound. "yer doing my laundry for a week."
"if the rest of the night goes as well as dinner, i'll do it for a month," you laugh, your cheeks pinching with how widely you smile.
"when are ya landin' here?"
"probably in like... an hour? we're just gonna have another drink or two." he grunts in recognition, even if he doesn't seem thrilled about it. "thanks, 'tsumie. i owe you one."
"ya owe me at least four," he grumbles. "try 'n keep it down once ya come stumblin' in all handsy and whatever, will ya? i don't need to hear all that."
"promise, promise!" you singsong. "you're the best."
"whatever," he answers with a stiff laugh, ending the call soon after.
you quickly tuck your phone back into your purse, adjust yourself one last time in the mirror, and then slip back out into the restaurant towards your waiting date.
the rest of your evening passes much the same as the rest had already unfolded—though something between you and the young man seems to shift as time goes on, turns more palpably yearning. it's no surprise that when you ask him if he'd like to come back to your place with you, he quickly agrees.
"is your roommate home?" atsushi—who you'd met at a work event a few weeks prior, and had been talking to ever since—asks quietly as you two step through the door of your higashiosaka apartment. he's pressed close to you in the genkan, a hand on your waist as he toes off his shoes, and his warmth makes you suppress a shiver.
you hum. "he sleeps like the dead though."
atsushi knows about atsumu, having revealed to him not long after you started texting that your long-time friend turned professional volleyball player is now your roommate. atsushi seemed to know who atsumu was, and even noted he looked forward to meeting him, but that would have to wait for another day.
there were more important things at hand.
you twine your fingers with atsushi's, using that grip to lead him towards your bedroom on the other side of the quiet apartment as your heartbeat thumps—hot and wet and noisy—in your chest. you close the door to your bedroom quietly behind you, and before you even have time to reach for the light switch you feel a soft pair of lips against your throat.
"oh," you gasp, your hands reaching up and threading through the silky strands of atsushi's hair.
it's an uncoordinated blur after that as you lead your date blindly towards your bed in the dark, tumbling back across it in a flurry of limbs and lust.
atsushi's hands slip up underneath the hem of your dress as he pants against your mouth. you wiggle a bit to help him ease it up over your hips, but there's something soft underneath you that makes it a bit awkward—a pillow taking up too much space. he goes to push the pillow off the bed, but it's bigger than either of you seem to anticipate.
he pulls back, squinting at it in the dark. he laughs, tugging the unexpectedly large mass up from underneath you. "what is this?"
you can't quite identify it, reaching over to your bedside table and flicking on the light to get a better look.
you really wish you hadn't.
in his hands, atsushi is holding a—not quite life-sized, but certainly much too large—pillow with atsumu in his MSBY uniform printed across it. you're so shocked by it that it takes you a moment to see anything else, but atsushi is not so fortunate.
"uh," his voice cracks a little as he peers around your room. "is this—?"
pasted on virtually any open space on your walls, and lining the various shelves and dressers of your room, atsumu's obnoxious face stares back. it's like the MSBY merch stall has set up shop in your bedroom—the only thing missing is the lineup of squealing teens fighting over the last sakusa jersey.
you're seeing red.
"i'm so sorry," you say, mortified, as you scramble upright in your bed and look at atsushi's startled face. "atsumu must have... i asked him to... oh my god."
you take the body pillow that atsushi still has clutched in his hands, more in shock than anything, and throw it onto the floor. he laughs a little, shaking his head.
"well, i definitely wasn't expecting that."
"this isn't my stuff, i swear," you insist.
he laughs again, but this time it's less strained, almost a giggle. he peeks over at you. "i believe you."
you bite your lip. "did this scare you off?"
he shakes his head, smiling shyly. "nah."
you sigh in relief as he dips down and kisses you again, cradling the nape of your neck as he leans you back in your bed once more. your head is spinning as he presses himself between your parted thighs, grinding gently against you. your eyes flutter open as you moan, but that sound turns into a small shriek of surprise that has him recoiling upright.
taped to the ceiling over your bed, almost perfectly mirroring your own position, an enormous poster of atsumu stares down at you.
that breaks you.
you slip out from underneath atsushi, standing on your bed and ripping the poster down as you reach up on your tiptoes. the sound of the glossy paper ripping is almost violently loud in the quiet of your bedroom.
"i'll be right back," you say, stiff but apologetic, to your bewildered date, before fleeing from the room.
you don't knock when you get to atsumu's room, throwing the door open and stomping inside.
he's sitting in his bed, watching something on his phone with a pair of headphones covering his ears. he looks up in surprise when you come storming in, and his gaze goes from amused to concerned when he sees the look on your face.
"what the fuck is wrong with you?" you seethe, struggling to keep your voice low in spite of your desire to scream. you're still clutching a shred of the torn poster in your clenched fist, and you toss it onto his floor angrily. he pushes his headphones down to rest around his neck.
"aw, c'mon," he laughs as he sits up a little straighter in his bed, but the sound is a bit forced. "'s just a joke."
"well, it wasn't funny."
atsumu's jaw twitches a little bit. "if the guy got scared off by a harmless little—"
"he didn't get scared off," you hiss, "no thanks to you."
that shuts him up.
"he's still in my room, by some fucking miracle." your hands are shaking, that's how angry you are. you feel sick. "i told you i really like him, atsumu. why would you do that?"
you wish you didn't sound so wounded. you wish atsumu's answering expression wasn't so blank in the wake.
"god," you say, with a mirthless laugh. "when are you going to grow up?"
if atsumu wants to say more, you don't give him the chance. you spin on your heel and head towards the door, but just before you exit the room, you look back at him one last time. your eyes are narrowed in resentment and sharpened with hurt.
"you're gonna wanna turn that volume up, because i don't plan on keeping it down for your sake."
atsumu says nothing in reply, just stares at you. there's something almost desperate in his gaze that you don't understand, and make no attempt to.
you leave his door open behind you as your final act of spite.
fics that keep me sane @fullsunicfics - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag
