for jjk and haikyuu

[neoheros]

01 | masterlist / ii iii 02 | carrd. 03 | fic recs.

⋆ ꒰ఎ ✰︎ ໒꒱ ⋆ ﾟ buy me a ko-fi ! / spotify ﾟ⋆ ꒰ఎ ✰︎ ໒꒱ ⋆ 

hello !!! my name is rue ( ◡‿◡ ) and my pronouns are she/her — a warm welcome here to neoheros, and i really hope you enjoy your stay ꙳⸌♡⸍꙳ !!

🦷 <33 -﹏- ★ !! carrd by @terrakiyo

[neoheros]

NEOHEROS MASTERLIST 2021 I, II, III ◡̈

NOTE: all of these are gender neutral / no pronouns mentioned ! (i use they/them if i do mention pronouns though) ♡

LAST UPDATED: june 21, 2025 || most recent

HAIKYUU

★ ATSUMU

( drabbles )

slipping through my fingers

a cat !? ( married under 25 )

stood up

happy to help

scary miya ( married under 25 )

spring cleaning ( married under 25 )

have you seen me lately?

back spasm ( married under 25 )

good morning, baby! ( married under 25 )

sewing ( married under 25 )

visiting parents ( married under 25 )

scammed!

life of the party

the oncoming storm

can you keep a secret?

husband of the year ( married under 25 )

gloveless mondays ( married under 25 )

STARSETTER! ( married under 25 )

grocery shopping ( married under 25 )

bad moods ( married under 25 )

kageyama? ( married under 25 )

the miya household ( married under 25 )

★ BOKUTO

( drabbles )

scammed!

★ HINATA

( drabbles )

scammed!

★ KUROO

( drabbles )

marry me ( married under 25 )

telling other people ( married under 25 )

hectic mornings ( married under 25 )

plans tonight ( married under 25 )

family night ( married under 25 )

the morning after ( married under 25 )

the duality of mornings ( married under 25 )

bed-ridden ( married under 25 )

rumors

★ OSAMU

( drabbles )

freak occurence

onigiri miya

★ SAKUSA

( drabbles )

scammed!

drunk

morning hangovers

miya atsumu.

risk

first dates

JUJUTSU KAISEN

★ INUMAKI

( drabbles )

fish with mayonnaise

★ MEGUMI

( drabbles )

sleepless nights

a new hairstyle

★ NANAMI

( drabbles )

a broken jaw

first kiss

sharing apartments

a very long day

a rock shirt?

[neoheros]

to this day, there are only three things in this world that kuroo tetsuro is deathly afraid of: big spiders, losing the winning point in a finals match, and worse of all, his mean and evil older sister (as he likes to call her).

now, normally, his sister doesn’t scare him at all.

normally, she’d just annoy him so much that he’d just rather pretend she doesn’t exist, and normally, seeing her at the family dinner tonight wouldn’t be so nerve wracking and horrific.

but normally, you wouldn’t have your arm in a bright pink cast, your left hand all the way up to your forearm covered in a hardened plaster.

and kuroo just knows — he knows so well — that it’ll take his sister one look at your injured hand and then he’d be a total goner.

talk about a dead man walking.

there’s a sound of a “clink” made as a plate is set in front of you.

your morning laziness as you lay contently on the couch interrupted as kuroo stands in front of the TV, arms at his hip and a wide, proud smile, donned on his face.

you blink, looking up at him and then down at the dish he set on the table.

you look warily at the plate of seemingly black and gray pancakes (?) in front of you. a small stack of the most ominous looking breakfast you’ve ever seen.

you glance up at kuroo again, still smiling proudly in front of you as he gestures to the dish.

“oh… uhm…” you feel the sweat forming on your temples, “thank you?”

were you supposed to eat this?

kuroo gives you a wider smile at your response, and he pushes the plate closer to you, prompting you to take a bite.

you can’t help the way he looks at you, all proud and happy at his accomplishment of making something that mildly resembles food, and you almost feel bad for feeling anything else but gratitude that he took the time to make you breakfast.

still though … are pancakes supposed to be gray? plus, you don’t really remember seeing any flour or baking powder in the kitchen the last time you checked… and would it really be a good idea to risk eating the world’s scariest pastry right now before the family dinner tonight?

… you pick up the fork slowly with your good hand, cursing under your breath as you recall the series of events that got you in this situation in the first place.

see, two days ago, you got into an unfortunate car accident with kuroo — something about a late night drive for ice cream and an unsuspecting duck who wasn’t taught to look both ways crossing the road.

lucky for all of you though, everyone made it out of the accident just fine — duck included — and the only real injuries sustained were a couple bruises and scratches here and there, save for the minor hairline fracture on your left arm, but it still isn’t anything too serious to fret about.

truthfully, it was the best outcome in a horrible situation, and if the worse thing you can get from an accident is a bright pink cast on for three weeks, then you’ll happily take it.

… but kuroo’s cooking?

“ehem.” he coughs, bringing you back to the predicament you find yourself in.

he’s still staring at you with that expectant smile of his, waiting for you to take a bite of his hard work.

hesitantly, you touch the fork to the pancake and you shudder as it bubbles slightly, a wheezing sound coming from it as you let the fork sink in.

no freaking way. you already almost broke your arm for pete’s sake, you’re not getting food poisoning too!

“it looks really good…” you look at him with a forced smile, “but you know the doctor said i can’t have any of … whatever this is…”

you try your best to sound as miserable as you intend to.

kuroo’s hand falls from his hip, “are you serious?”

your smile is more apologetic now, “such a shame…”

“i made this!” he exclaims, scoffing as he points to his mysterious plate of mystery, “with ingredients and shit! … for you!”

you shake your head at him wantonly, like it can’t be helped, and you thank the stars in the sky when he sighs and pushes the plate of doom away from you.

kuroo gives you a pouty look now, shoulders falling dramatically as he crashes on the empty spot on the couch, and with the TV still going on in the background, you happily welcome him in to your lazy posture, making space as he cozies up next to you.

once he settles, he turns to you, a lot less pouty now that you’re so close to him, and he says, “how’s the arm?”

“itchy.” you shrug, “but it doesn’t hurt anymore, so it’s okay.”

for a moment, there’s a flicker in the way kuroo looks that almost bothers you. eyebrows furrowed, lips pursed into a thin line, eyes sunken and worried.

its the exact same look you’ve woken up to in the past two days in the middle of the night. just suddenly jolting awake and seeing kuroo stare at you so intently. you ask him what he’s doing up and he says something about a nightmare and you kiss him goodnight and the two of you fall back asleep together with his hold on you just a little bit tighter than before.

you bump your shoulder with his, nudging him as you shake your head, “don’t look like that, i can’t have you crying on me again.”

and he scoffs, turning away, “i have never cried. i don’t cry at all. i deny all such accusations.”

(you know though that that’s a lie.

kuroo’s probably cried more in the past two days than he has all his life.

he was a teary mess as he rode with you on the ambulance to the hospital, a teary mess when the doctor said you had a fracture in your arm, and a teary mess this morning when he woke up to you in your cast).

to be honest, these past two days are probably the worst in his life. in such a short amount of time, he’s experienced such pits in his stomach that he didn’t know was possible to feel.

he still feels it sometimes when he closes his eyes, the fear and worry setting in his body as he waited in the hospital waiting room.

kuroo looks at you much softer now, gentler, and he puts his hand on your thigh, squeezing it lightly. “you sure you don’t need me to go with you today?”

“i’ll be fine on my own, i just need to grab a couple of things from campus,” you shake your head as you answer him, and you move in deeper to his side to bring you closer.

even the way he touches you now is lighter — like he’s deathly afraid to hurt you even more.

you turn to look at him, “but it might make me late to the dinner with your family later, maybe twenty or thirty minutes?”

“that’s okay,” he nods at you, and then he sighs again, as if suddenly remembering something important.

“well,” and there’s a helpless smile on his face, “it’ll give me more time to work on my “why you’re in a cast” story to my family.”

you grin, “yeah? what have you got so far?”

and he tells you, with a hint of a clipped laugh in his voice, “really big bees.”

…. “oh.”

“yeah.” kuroo grumbles, and he sinks deeper into the couch, “they’re gonna kill me.”

he turns slightly to face you, and he points, quite dramatically, “you’re gonna be a widow.”

you push him off, shaking your head in amusement as you watch his dramatization play out, “you’re such a drama queen.”

kuroo shakes his head incessantly, and he clutches his chest with both his hands, “oh, trust me, the first words my sister is gonna say to me when she sees you later in that cast is “how could you let this happen?!” followed by “waiter, may i please have a bigger knife – this one doesn’t seem to pierce my brother all the way.” and then i die.”

you look at him, incredulous, and you shove him away as you get off the couch to stride away from him.

you scoff, loudly, “has anyone ever told you that you talk too much?”

and kuroo nods his head, following you as he stands up too, “you did — in our vows.”

you laugh, and you push him away again when he tries to get closer to you, “so i got it right then.”

he’s less tense now, less pouty, and seemingly out of things to complain about, and in the morning silence, he pulls you in, the two of you standing in the middle of the living room floor.

kuroo touches your injured arm slightly. the tv forgotten behind him.

all his life, he’s only ever been afraid of three things: big spiders, losing the winning point in a finals match, and his evil, mean older sister yelling at him for allowing you to get hurt after she made him promise that he’d never let anything bad happen to you.

he knows now though that beyond those three, there’s something deeper in his bones that terrifies him deeply. something that scares him so much it wakes him up in the middle of the night in cold sweat. something that ruins his day and something that makes him call you out of nowhere when you’re away from him.

his biggest fear, bigger than spiders or losing matches or his mean sister, is … you.

he’s looking at you that same way again; eyes worried, lips pursed, eyebrows knit together, and you don’t miss the way his mouth trembles slightly as he stares.

“it isn’t your fault, and i dont blame you at all.” you say, and even now as he holds you, you still feel how scared he is to hurt you.

you squeeze his hand. “accidents happen.”

and you can say this all you want, but in his head, at the end of the day, he was still the one driving the car.

but he knows you, and he knows you won’t allow him to think that way, so instead, he just nods, short and clipped and he pulls you in as gentle as he can, embracing you tightly.

kuroo mutters against your neck, “my sister is still gonna kill me.”

you laugh, patting his back with your good arm, “oh, well, some things can’t be helped.”

lord help him for what you’ve done to his poor heart, for you’ve made him deathly afraid of the one thing he can’t control.

something so out of his hands that it sets deep within his bones, ruins his day, and wakes him up in cold sweat in the middle of the night, leaving him desperate and exhausted staring at you helplessly.

his worst fear that terrifies him daily … waking up without you.

[neoheros]

i always love to see you on here rue

i always love being here thank you so much for having me

[neoheros]

Rue the way I’m not even exaggerating when I say that I’ve read every single thing in your masterlist, some of them twice, some of them a million times, youre a household name in my life, everyone I love knows who you are to me

STOPPP THATT thats so very sweet and INSANE TO ME?????? WHAT DO YOU MEANNNNNNNN ive written so much and im not even sure a lot of them are good and im so appalled and omwjwj

[neoheros]

dear rue, as an online person where we have no idea who each other are i just wanted to sit in ur askbox and Cry

i recently received an offer as a fulltime lecturer at a public uni, which i'm really happy and proud of myself and have accepted the offer. but ever since this news, my bf doesn't seem to be very supportive(?) he keeps remarking and making comments that bc i'm a young lecturer, students will be interested or give me attention(?) and i am gonna feed off their attention(?) and that my previous job is better for me bc i don't need to deal with as many people

am i crazy for feeling, out of all the things to think or say this is how you view things..? a year ago i jokingly said i want to try streaming my games, and he said i'd enjoy the male attention.

am i crazy for feeling like, why do you see me this way. i don't even do anything and i just stay home, blog, game, read and do work. i don't understand. even when i receive this offer that i feel like is monumental for my career, this is how you think of me instead of being happy..? i feel like i always need to shrink myself to be around him, somehow. when i play valorant i can't even comm with the team bc he says i like the attention.

like are you okay...

and i just shut up because he always tells me off that i talk back, or raise my voice at him or i give him attitude when i type. i literally dont...i speak very normally and am extra careful around him in tone, text, word choice etc (this is insane to type out btw)

it REALLY sucks because i do love him and we are planning to be married in 2 years-ish. however i'm at a point where i have so much hurt i'm really reconsidering how my life would wrap around this one man, who imo, sucks out all the peace in my life. and i HATE admitting that, i feel like a very watered down mummy around my partner and i'm trying to accept it (honestly, i don't have to. but we try a little more for love until we really cant right?)

so when i need positive thoughts i just think hmm at least kuroo would be super happy and would support me. and bc i was raised by delusions and fandom, it works well enough so far lmao

thank you for letting this stranger cry in ur askbox in going to watch sylus edits now

dearest anon,

thank you very much for confiding in me and telling me about your problems, i hope its okay to be answering this publicly like this, but when i got this ask i wanted to reply to it immediately to let you know that i was listening to whatever you say

first and foremost, getting the most important thing out of the way, congratulations on the job offer, that is wonderful news and im so very happy that this opportunity was given to you, im sure you mustve been amazing and skilled and wonderful to have been noticed and given this and im thrilled that its yours

secondly, im very sorry to hear that youre in this position with your partner. as a stranger on the internet, i hope its okay to give you some advice?

to be honest, from what youve told me, it sounds like hes very insecure and very scared of losing you to other people, its a horrible thing to keep implying that youre only doing things you like for the attention of others and even worse considering hes supposed to be thriving off of your successes regardless of whether or not that gains you attention from other people

i understand that you love him and you two must be very close to have formed such long lasting bonds, but it doesnt really sound like the happiness is there. sometimes we get so enveloped in trying to keep our relationships alive that we forget about ourselves too.

i think … you will be amazing at your new job and i am so very happy and thrilled and proud of you for this amazing step towards your very wonderful life. i also think in order to maintain this happiness for your very wonderful life you have to talk to him very sternly about what he makes you feel when he says these things to you and when things dont budge, thats when hard decisions need to be made

i am also just a stranger on your internet of course, but my dms are always open and this inbox too and wherever else on this earth it seems

youll always have my support!

proud of you dearly,

rue rue

[neoheros]

you write so beautifully

youve ruined fanfiction for me the way i expect all of them to be written just as beautifully…

thank you for saying this this is so very sweet and im so touched and grateful and truly there are not enough words in the world to tell you ahhhh i dont know what to do with myself thank you so much

[neoheros]

just want to say the “welcome home” sign on your blog really made me emotional, i used to pray for times like these LMAO

BAHSHSHSHHAHS I KNOW IT MADE ME EMOTIONAL TOO i know ive been back for a while but its still bonkers cray cray to me that anyone still cares abt whatever i make or whatever cray cray i bring to the table 💔💔

[neoheros]

hiya my lovely rue any songs youd like for me or us to listen to today? i sent this ask three years ago too and loved the song you told me about then, im happy to be doing this again now, and im happy to hear from you again too

stop itttt this is so sweet 🥲 not even exaggerating when i say that this made me tear up a bit bc whatt do you mean weve known each other for more than three years 💔💔💔

been listening to a lot of ethel cain these days especially nettles and a house in nebraska, the new lorde is also good (i think theyre wonderful) and noah kahan has just been flooding my room every single dayyyy

this is my current favorite though i hope you like it 🥹

[neoheros]

omg saw in ur tags that u just finished 2nd yr med how is med school for u !!! (as someone taking pre-med rn)

OMG im gonna be so real right neow and say that it is like 6/10 on a good day …….. but this is how i felt all throughout all kinds of schools for me so this is more a reflection on who i am as a person and not the school BAHSHSH

its actually so cray cray though ive seen and smelled a cadaver now and ive done it right after posting a sakusa kiyoomi fanfiction on tumblr dot com

the worst thing about it are the hours 💔 my earliest class starts at 5:30 am and sometimes those are clinical duty hours where i have to scrub in / assist in surgical procedures … when its that early i dont even sleep i just wait til its time to move bc im so deathly afraid of oversleeping

(one time i posted an atsumu fic on here at 6:00 am and then proceeded to observe a below the knee amputation at 6:15 am) (GNARLY) (i love katseye)

[neoheros]

Your writing is so insanely good ugh 😾❗❗

THANK U SAUR MUCH im on the floor again ive simply melted into my bedroom carpet

[neoheros]

BRO YOUR THEME IS SO SOOOOOO CUTE

OMG THANK YOU its my favorite theme so far i think the pink is such a rue vibe but i fear its also like two months old now and shes due for a change soon 💔 THANK U FOR LIKING IT IT STRESSES ME OUT EVERYTIME

[neoheros]

i only just found you But i love you already the pure domesticity in your fics is so lovely please keep feeding us

omg THANK YOU THATS SO SWEET I LOVE YOU TOO every time i answer asks i’m just a mess of myself scattered on the floor, its why i stopped answering asks standing up, my knees are bruised by how often i fall down

keeping the fics domestic is in the bag for me but im sorry abt the speed of my production i fear i am so kafka sometimes … writing … my greatest enemy

i babble SO MUCH TLDR THANK YOU I LOVE YOU TOO I WILL WRITE AS OFTEN AS I CAN AND I DO IT BC OF THIS SWEET MSGS AH

[neoheros]

kiyoomi anon (i’m revealing my identity) BUT OMG PLEASE DO SHOW ME THE 701 WIPS U GOT FOR HIM!!!!! i’ll read each and every single one… i’m ready to give you my soul for it

HIIII KIYOOMI ANON ugh thank you for revealing yourself to me i feel such a strong way about all kiyoomi lovers like we are bonded very specially through a mutual feeling and shared love for all things omi omi omi

AND PLS its like 7 gazillion jillion billion wips now since that omi post was posted i swear every single day i just churn out his wips like im an omi factory i must be stopped or else i will lose control

[neoheros]

PLS PLS PLS PLS keep on writing for kiyoomi 😭😭 i am literally dying of starvation i've read everything pls you're my only hope 😭💔

hehehe i just love writing for him so much id just have to keep doing it for the rest of my life i fear, ive also felt that starvation 😔 i feel like ive read every kiyoomi thing on ao3 AGHHHH i wanna keep him in my pocket and chomp chompchomp

[neoheros]

“morning samu!”

the bells that hang by onigiri miya’s front door ring loudly as you enter the building, the sound of your voice accompanied with a chipper smile on your face as the early morning begins.

osamu barely looks up from the counter at your arrival, not needing to see you to know that it is you, and even if he is too busy fiddling with the register, he still smiles knowing that you’re here.

not that it would be anything special if you were, you were here practically everyday at this point, it might as well be part of osamu’s morning routine to welcome you in.

not that he minds — he’d never — but not that he’d tell you that, anyway.

“good morning.” he says to you, the smile on his face obvious now as you can hear it in his voice, but he still doesn’t look up from the register, too immersed in the work to tear himself away.

“seat yourself, will ya? bit busy here at the moment.”

you shrug off your coat from your shoulders as you hear him, nodding to yourself as you pick the table you like the most, and you call out, teasing, “alright but if you ask me to serve myself too, i’ll be expecting a paycheck from you.”

you slightly hear him chuckle a bit at that, too busy to respond, but you understand anyway considering the incoming morning rush.

knowing osamu, your closest friend for years, he must be knee deep in question marks as he tries to commandeer both the cashier and the kitchen by himself, too stubborn to hire anyone else, and way too confident to ask for any bit of help.

you’ll save the scoldings you have in mind for him later.

now, you’re preoccupied.

you pull the chair on your table out for your guest this morning, a small gesture of your hand to get him to seat across from you as you make yourself comfortable, and once all that’s settled, you hand him one of the menus to choose from.

the menu isn’t complicated at all — mainly the reason you took him here — and you’re sort-of proud of yourself for bringing him here in the first place.

after all, what better first date than the restaurant you already go to every single day?

your date gives you a smile, “so, you come here often?”

from the counter afar, there’s a sound of the register suddenly closing in on itself that can be heard loudly, a loud “clang!” echoing throughout the entire building.

osamu blinks, his attention suddenly torn away from the register in front of him, confusion settling in his face as his eyebrows furrow together, his languid smile dropping slowly and he looks up — finally.

from where he stands, the first person he sees is you, you’re laughing and smiling and you’re all dressed so nicely today that it almost makes him smile — but then he sees you’re talking to someone else, someone you brought here, someone across from you, and that doesn’t make him smile at all.

“yeah, it’s my favorite restaurant.” he hears you reply, the smile in your voice evident.

and as much as osamu just loves to hear how much you like his establishment, he’d rather you say it to him and not to anyone else.

there’s a bitter taste in his mouth. he feels like he just got the wind punched out of him as he continues to stare.

did you seriously bring a guy to his restaurant for a date?

“what can i get ya this mornin’?” there’s an obvious frown sitting on osamu’s face as he stands near your table, a pad of paper in his palm as his other hand holds a pen lazily.

it took him a lot of energy to force himself away from the counter and actually walk over to you and your … date, but he figured the more he ignored you, the more likely you were gonna come after him for not … well … doing his job.

“jeez. reign it in with the joy, please.” you tease, your morning spirits undeterred by his newfound persona of he-who-hates-all-things.

osamu sighs, dramatically, and he straightens up slightly to look at you more professionally now, “i’ve got the new flavors in this morning, they’re new and experimental so you get the chance— alright, what the hell is that?”

you look down to where his pointing, an exasperated look on his face as he gestures at the very bright object you brought with you today that was just distracting enough to bring him out of his spiel, and you smile even wider— proud.

“my shoes!” you nod with excitement, grabbing them from the paperbag on the floor as you take them out to show him.

“those are shoes?” his eyebrows furrow together tightly.

“well, i broke them, that’s why they look so clanky and the steel stuff ended up hanging outside the sole part, so i was planning on fixing it today during my break time at work.”

osamu looks at you, deadpanned, “they look like they could kill somebody.”

and you scoff, “so dramatic today.”

you sneak a peek over at the other side of the table to check on your date, and your smile remains when you see him still pre-occupied with the menu, browsing his options as he gives you a small smile while he listens to the conversation.

back to osamu now, he still looks frustrated at — well, you’re not really sure at what — and there’s a deep expression that settles on his face as he looks at you like you’ve just stolen his pen.

a second passes.

“hand them over.” he suddenly tells you, a big sigh coming from him as his shoulders fall with defeat.

you turn to him, “what?”

“hand over the shoes.”

“samu, i know they look bad, but that doesn’t mean you can take them from me!”

osamu breathes in very loudly as he stares at you, his frown impossibly getting deeper the more he stays here it seems, and with another swallow of possibly his last straw, he puts the pad down.

“give me the shoes so i can fix them, you idiot.” he tells you, his tone as quiet as he can make it, and he swears, if you had not been one of his closest friends, you’d been out of your seat five minutes ago.

you cross your arms over your chest, “you know how to fix shoes?”

and he scoffs, “i don’t, but i figure my chances are better than yours.”

your expression finally breaks into a small smile, defeated, yes, but you did get out of fixing your shoes yourself, which is a win in its own case, and a scenario only possible with osamu by your side.

“you win.” you throw your hands in the air, and show him a wide grin as you hand over the shoes, “thank you very much.”

osamu takes the shoes from you and puts it at the empty table behind him, begrudged, but amused, not like he wouldn’t do anything for you anyways.

your date leans over to you slowly — an action that makes osamu want to roll his eyes all the way to the back of his head.

he gives you a smile, “you get good service here.”

and you reply back, “i know the owner.”

osamu ignores the wink you give him, and he gives you an unamused look as you grin. he shakes his head to himself and grabs the pad of paper once again before clearing his throat.

“order?”

“i’ll have two of my usual orders, and then one of each of the new flavors to go.” you tell him, proud at not having to look at the menu anymore to know what you like.

you do come here every morning after all.

osamu gives you a short nod, listing down your request, and begrudgingly, he turns to the other person at the table, “and you?”

“i’m just not sure.” your date tells him, humming to himself as he picks up the menu again. “give me a second.”

the gray haired man gives you a look; almost 10 minutes with that menu and he still hasn’t decided?

you give him an apologetic look, “oh, then, i guess hold off on mine too.”

osamu shakes his head, sighing, “i might run out of the new ones.”

and your date looks up from the menu to give you a wanton smile, “go ahead, order, i’ll be fine.”

you shake your head, polite, “no, it’s okay, i’ll wait for you. take your time.”

osamu clears his throat. adamant. “i’m almost out and i can’t make more.”

you shoot him a look. “then set some aside for me.”

and he squints his eyes. “it’s first come, first serve.”

there’s a stark frown on your face now too. your eyebrows tightly knit as you shoot the man in front of you a hard glare.

you have no idea why he’s making this morning so hard on you for no reason at all, but you’re about to say something to his remark if it weren’t for the sudden ringing on the phone that interrupted the conversation.

“i’m sorry, i might have to go.” your date intervenes suddenly, the ringing of his phone going off as he stands up and grabs his things from the table.

you look at him expectantly, “you do?”

“yes, something came up,” he tells you, apologetic and giving you a sad smile. he leans down anyway to come squeeze your hand quickly, and he says, “i’ll call you?”

you give him a small nod, “sure.”

not that you can do anything else about it, you say your goodbyes, and suddenly, not even twenty minutes in to your first date with him, he’s off and leaving.

the bells on the door ring loudly as the door closes with a slam.

your head falls on the table once he’s gone.

“well.” you grumble. “that was a bust.”

osamu puts a hand on his hip as he watches you, “ya seriously cannot be hung up like this on the world’s slowest reader.”

you lift your head up slightly to roll your eyes at him, watching him with squinted eyes as he walks away and disappears into the kitchen.

obviously, you weren’t hung up on this stupid date. you didn’t want to go on this stupid date anyway!

dating sucks. and it sucks even more when it’s forced on you last minute by a work friend who you’re definitely not talking to outside of the work place anymore.

you grumble again at the thought.

great, and you were having such a good morning too.

you let your head fall back on the table.

a minute passes in your sulking mess before you hear the sound of a plate being pushed across the table breaks you from your world of wallowing.

“here.”

osamu looks at you from the side, his gaze much softer now as he keeps his hand on his hip, and he watches as your confused look when you see him falls on the playe in front of you.

your usual order, and the new ones to go.

you look up at him, “but i thought you didn’t ring my order in?”

and osamu, defeated, rolls his eyes slightly, but you don’t miss the way his lips curl upwards even just a tiny bit.

you come in here every single day, every single morning, and order the same exact thing. rain or shine, he can also expect to greet you in as you come in those doors and greet him with that big smile you never fail to give him.

he can’t help it, it’s part of his routine now too.

atsumu keeps pestering him on hiring somebody to man the front desk so he can lessen his work load, but that would mean what? give up the chance to see you come in everyday? give up the way you say his name when you say good morning? give up your smile and your laugh and the way you tease and mock and tarry?

you’re the best part of his mornings working here, even when you’re with somebody else, you’re still the person he looks most forward to seeing every single day.

he rolls his eyes but you see him smile anyway.

“i already set these aside before you came in anyway.”

[neoheros]

sakusa knows he’s a bad date.

he’s quiet, timid, doesn’t speak much, and asks all the wrong questions at the wrong time.

he’s not very good at eye contact and a lot of the things he wants to say he feels he can’t say at all either.

(partially due to the feeling that everything he says when he talks to you ends up embarrassing him, and partially due to the fact that talking to you for long periods of time make him tongue tied).

(not that he’d ever admit that).

despite all that though, he does know the basics when it comes to going on dates:

he buys you flowers (and forgets it by his doorway), he opens the car door for you (and apologizes when it almost hits you as he opens it), and he makes dinner reservations at the restaurant you mentioned to him in passing three days ago (he did a good job with this one).

so yes, him being a bad date is not unbeknownst to him. quite the opposite in fact, it’s not only something he knows about himself, but it’s also something that he thinks about all the time.

or at least, all the time ever since he’s met you.

that’s how the two of you end up here — the evening of your first (and probably last) date, sitting on a porch step of an empty building, a bloodied handkerchief filled with crushed up snow pressed against sakusa’s left cheek, and a few missing buttons from your favorite winter coat.

sakusa always knew he was a bad date, but he never thought he would be this bad.

the plan had been simple: get you flowers, open the door for you, drive you to the restaurant you liked. sakusa had this game-plan of his memorized ever since you said yes to him four — now five — days ago.

he wrote it on a piece of paper, step by step, and kept it in his wallet sleeve in case he forgets, he repeated it to himself three times in the mirror this afternoon before he left the house to pick you up, and he said it to himself one last time in the car before texting you that he’d arrived.

he memorized it.

and still, he messed it up.

the streets are empty and the evening is quiet.

“sorry … for this.”

his words feel like they’ve been the first to be spoken all night.

on the snowy concrete just below your feet, there’s a few drops of blood making its presence known loudly against the whiteness of the snow, the drops scatter sporadically, and near it, there’s a button or two from your coat.

you sit next to sakusa on the cold steps, it’s a quiet night, and it’s not snowing anymore, but the soft bed of the cold flurry it left behind made for a beautiful evening.

you let your head fall slightly on his shoulder, “for what?”

you can feel him stiffen immediately under your touch, and he coughs, shy, and looks to the side.

it makes you smile a little bit — his efforts of hiding his expressions — it’s not like you can see him anyway with that big makeshift ice-pack covering his face.

“sorry for the bad date.” he clears his throat, more clearly now, a little louder too, but his tone almost sounds disappointed. “… and sorry for ruining your coat.”

you lift your head up from his shoulder, frowning, and you turn to face him, “it’s not a bad date.”

he doesn’t say anything to that. instead, he keeps his head turned slightly away from you, but his shoulders fall a bit when you move away from him.

“if anything, i should be the one apologizing.” you mutter lowly, “i’m the reason you got hurt.”

sakusa huffs slightly. a second pausing in the air as he refuses to return the look you give him, and finally, he puts down the “ice pack” from his cheek, and looks at you.

his cheek is scratched lightly, nothing too deep, just a red mark that’ll probably resolve itself in a few days, but his lower lip though — the culprit of the blood stained snow — is undeniably busted, still bleeding slightly, and making him wince at the sudden loss of pressure.

“don’t say stupid things.” he tells you, and if it makes him sound cold, he swears he’s not trying to be.

he just doesn’t know what else there is to say.

the truth is — it is a bad date.

he forgot your flowers, almost hit you with the car door, and now, the two of you are missing your dinner reservation because he got himself injured twenty minutes into the night.

it’s not fair, he thinks. half the things he wants to say to you, he can’t. half the things he wants to do, he messes up.

you make him fumble on his words, tongue tied, speechless, literally. you make him write things down on notes so he won’t forget them or practice on bathroom mirrors or worry in his car outside your doorstep.

he is the most capable man in his team, he is the sharpest, the most composed, his teammates and coach all count and look up to him.

but for some reason, one night with you, and it all washes away.

he doesn’t know what to say to you, he forgets things, and he falls face first flat on the hard concrete ground twenty minutes into your first date.

don’t say stupid things.

“you really won’t let me take you to the hospital?” you put your hand on his knee, turning even more to your side so you can face him better.

you have half a mind to put your other hand on his injured cheek but you don’t want to hurt him more than how he already does.

“it’s not as bad as it looks.” and as he says that, he winces, the gust of wind suddenly hitting his busted lip a testament to his bad luck tonight.

sakusa wants to kick himself, if there ever would be an appropriate time to act cooler than how he actually was, it would definitely not be now.

you don’t look so convinced, but sakusa wouldn’t know, he’s still only limiting himself to looking at you briefly before shifting his glance to something behind you or beside you or above you.

“hm. and it doesn’t hurt?” you cross your arms.

he shakes his head, “no. it doesn’t.” (it does.)

you raise a brow, “and you wouldn’t happen to be lying to me right now so i don’t take you to the emergency room?”

he shakes his head again, “i’m not.” (he is.)

you give him a look.

listen — sakusa already knows that he’s a bad date, but come on! he has been planning on asking you to dinner with him since the first week he’s known you, he’s been worrying about this evening since the second you agreed to it, and he’s been kicking himself in the head ever since the night began.

he’d rather bleed out on this disgustingly dirty porch step than admit that he’s a date so bad he can turn an evening meant for dinner into a night at the emergency room.

he doesn’t want you to think that he can be so bad like that. (is it too soon to ask you out for dinner again?)

you still look frustrated at his answers. but at least, he’s looking at you now.

you let out a big sigh, shoulders falling, and suddenly, you clap your hands together loudly as you straighten up.

“then i have an idea.” you say, and sakusa furrows his brows at the sudden change in the atmosphere.

you give him a prompting grin. “heads or tails.”

and it catches him so off guard, he says aloud, “what?”

you dig for a coin in your coat, “i’ll flip a coin and if it lands on heads, we go to the emergency room, no arguments, no fusses, no nothing.”

he frowns at that.

“but.” you tell him, and your grin gets wider as you show him the dime laid out on your palm, “if it’s tails, we go to my apartment, and i’ll try to fix you up there.”

his frown falls almost immediately into something else.

one night out with you and he’s already bleeding heavily and injured, and now you wanna take him back to your apartment?

were you trying to kill him?

“heads or tails, omi.”

he blinks at your words. and once again, he finds himself saying aloud, “what?”

you shoot him a funny look, your eyebrows slightly raising as your lips curve upward into a crooked smile.

you say, teasing, “if you don’t know; heads is the part of the coin with the head of the person showing on it and tails is the–”

sakusa grumbles loudly, cutting you off mid-sentence, making sure you see him roll his eyes at you, and he nudges you slightly with his foot.

he mutters, albeit under his breath, and he tries to hide it, but you can always tell when he’s smiling, “i know what a goddamned head is.”

you shrug, your grin wider now when you see his mood lighten up a bit.

“do you know what a goddamned tail is?”

sakusa huffs out an amused sigh. the smile on his face a lot more prominent now, and you only wonder slightly if it hurts him when he does it.

his shoulders fall as he’s defeated, “just take me to the emergency room.”

you let out a short laugh and the night doesn’t seem so quiet anymore.

you fall back against his shoulder, “ah, omi, are you just saving the opportunity to be invited into my apartment for our next date?”

there’s a choking sound to be heard in the air.

his face almost feels like it’ll erupt into flames by how casually you just said that, a hot pink hue creeping up from his neck to nose all the way to the tips of his ears. he blames it on the cold, and immediately, he presses the “icepack” back against his cheek.

sakusa stands up suddenly from the porch step, “let’s go now.”

and just like he said, he strides away, faster than what would usually be safe on snow-covered pavement.

“omi, not so fast!” you yell after him, rising from your own seat and following his pace, “you might fall again and hurt the other side of your face and atsumu will think i beat you up on our first date.”

he walks faster.

“i can go to the hospital myself, please don’t follow me.”

“that’s ridiculous! let me take care of you!”

he trips on his feet slightly as you say that and his heart feels like it would’ve fell from his mouth had he not caught himself before falling again.

you really were trying to kill him, weren’t you?

maybe this date doesn’t feel so bad after all.

and, is it too soon if he asks you to come have dinner with him again?