Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/33458812/chapters/83120350#kudos
Sakusa met Miya Atsumu on his first day of school.
AKA the touches Atsumu and Kiyoomi have shared throughout the years.
(Inspired by Out of Touch by Hall and Oates)
Notes: HI. Thought it was about time I wrote for my favorite HQ ship. :)) If I missed any triggers in the tags please let me know!
Chapter Title: Smoking guns, hot to the touch/Would cool down if we didn't use them so much
Kiyoomi’s parents died days after his seventh birthday.
For better or worse, he couldn’t seem to remember much about them as time went on- their voices, their touch, their love. What he does remember is the feeling he contracted after their passing- disoriented misery and an incredible, devastating loss of control.
At eight years old, he was officially diagnosed with mysophobia, inspired by his appointed grief counselor. While he understood the weight of his prognosis, he couldn’t wrap his head around how everyone else in the world could simply ignore the dangers presented by their filthy surroundings. He went about life as he always had, except now with an as-needed anti-anxiety medication.
A year after his first prescription, in his fourth year of elementary school, he moved from the suburbs of Tokyo to a small town in the Hyogo prefecture. He had no choice- his grandmother couldn’t afford to house and homeschool him. Fortunately, his mother’s sister, a kindhearted black-eyed woman he knew as Aunt Mei, was willing to take him in. Having already had a child, Sakusa’s older cousin Motoya, she sought to combat Kiyoomi’s newfound loneliness.
Sakusa met Miya Atsumu on his first day of school.
It was February, well into their third term, when the world around them was coated in a brilliant white. Kiyoomi always loved the snow- its delicate grace one of life’s small pleasures. He was studying the milky flakes through the lens of an unfamiliar classroom window when his new teacher, Miss Suzuki, prompted him, “Please, introduce yourself to the class.”
When Kiyoomi said nothing, not at all comfortable nor in the mood to entertain a bunch of strangers, the teacher cued him again more gently, “Just tell us yer name and age.”Right then and there, her drawl grating to his ears, Kiyoomi promised himself he would never speak with a Kansai dialect. He tore his eyes from the window reluctantly.
“Sakusa Kiyoomi. I’m nine,” the curly-haired boy muttered at the front of the classroom before shuffling quickly to his desk at the back. Immediately a few heads turned, their eyes scanning him unabashedly. All but one pair refocused to the front of the room when Miss Suzuki clapped her hands and said, “Alright class, don't overwhelm him! Today we’re going to pick back up with multiplication…”
He resisted the urge to retreat to the corner of the room, his pupils burning holes into his sneakers. He glanced up, once, only to meet the wide, hooded eyes of a boy with a chocolate brown undercut. The brunette offered him a slight tilt of his mouth before a dark-skinned boy with a cropped haircut to his left smacked him lightly on the back of the head with an exasperated, “‘Tsumu.”
Two hours and three lessons later came Sakusa’s worst fear- snack break. Atsumu, then only ten, had marched right up to his desk, stuck his hand out about two inches from Kiyoomi’s nose, and said boldly, “Atsumu Miya. D’ya wanna be friends?”
It took Kiyoomi all of his strength not to vomit at the mere closeness of the boy, let alone respond to his inquiry.
“No,” he said firmly. Then, without waiting for Atsumu’s response, up and bolted out of the classroom. He remembered getting to the bathroom, locking himself in a stall, and feeling its dirty, indecent walls close in on him whilst he cried quietly.
What he didn’t know was that the boy from earlier had followed him, raised a fist to knock on the door, and dropped it wordlessly.
Sakusa started wearing a mask to school not soon after that. While some kids balked, Kiyoomi favored their unwanted stares over the disgusting alternative. The Miya kid stared too, his previous sentiment proving false.
Good, Sakusa thought, I’d rather be alone anyway.
Of course, his inner peace didn’t last long when Atsumu also started wearing a mask to school.
At first, Sakusa didn’t understand. By the way he introduced himself, Atsumu didn’t strike Kiyoomi as the clean and cautious type. Maybe he’s just sick, and his mom forced him into it. Best to stay away, anyway. But Miya didn't stop. He wore a mask every day for two weeks straight. When Kiyoomi caught sight of him folding it inward so as not to contaminate it when he sat down at lunch on the last day of February, something in him snapped- a rubber band pulled too far back.
Furious at the boy’s audacity and his own childish stupidity, Sakusa stood up from his own lunch table with small hands bunched up into fists. Motoya, sat next to him in their corner of the cafeteria, tugged on his shirt instantly, asking him, “What are you doing?” with big brown eyes.
Sakusa ignored him, making a beeline to his bully’s table. Atsumu looked up at the sudden intrusion, his cheeks slightly tinted red from laughing at something- at him- with his friends. He smiled so sweetly, it made Kiyoomi sick just looking at him.
“Oh, h-hey, Kiyoomi-chan. What’s-” That’s when things started to move in slow motion. Sakusa registered Atsumu’s wide, golden-brown eyes blown open with shock and his own fist winding back with all the strength his nine-year-old self could muster.
“Never mock me again,” Sakusa said after his punch landed squarely against Atsumu’s jaw, the latter’s teeth chattering in response. It wasn't the hardest blow, but it was enough to leave the brunette clutching his cheek with a small gasp. When Miya pulled his hand away, a red splotch stained his plain, stupid face, the beginnings of a bruise sure to blossom in the next couple of hours.
That wiped the smirk off his face, Sakusa thought smugly. Miya paused, most likely out of shock, before the ten-year-old looked up at Kiyoomi with a level of vulnerability Sakusa had never seen on another person’s face. A flurry of emotions passed across Atsumu’s features, his eyes growing wet then red, then wet again. His mouth gaped open in a near-perfect oval, trembled a bit, then locked to a tight line.
He looked hurt. He looked angry. He looked betrayed. He looked like he was about to say something until the teachers rushed over to separate the boys.
Sakusa glanced down to his hand, a little sore from the connection, with the sudden realization dawning on him: he touched Atsumu, skin to naked skin. His palm was a light red, as if warmed by the heat from Kiyoomi’s disgusted stare. He blinked slowly in complete disbelief. He let his emotions overwhelm him to the point of making physical contact with that prick.
He felt his bravado bled through as he breathed heavily out his nose, his charcoal eyes still wide on his open palm. Count to ten, he vaguely remembered his grief counselor saying. He wasn’t sure if that applied here, but he’d be damned if he didn’t try.
He thought he could hear Motoya’s voice, maybe feel his safe touch on a clothed shoulder.
Atsumu was staring at him- he knew it- still hurt, but different somehow.
The boys’ eyes connected, even through the arms of teachers holding them back.
Miya said something Sakusa couldn’t quite make out.
It looked an awful lot like, I’m sorry.
Ah. The only thing nine-year-old Sakusa hated more than mockery- pity.
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