summary: they’re next to you when you wake up, but you wonder if he’s really yours even after last night. [previous / next]
tags: suggestive content, nudity, aged up characters, hurt/comfort + angst to fluff, insecurities
featuring: suna rintarou, kageyama tobio, oikawa tooru
image credit: @seerlight on twitter
— suna rintarou
suna looks beautiful when he’s asleep, you decide. you take in the sight of how the hair falls over his eyes, how his eyelashes fan over the tops of his cheeks, and wonder if you’ll ever see this sight again.
you’re almost sure that he had only slept with you last night because it had been convenient: at the same party, living in the same apartment building. there’s no way he would want to keep doing this, not when there were so many other people he could be with. you graze your fingertips over his cheekbones, smiling to yourself, before you get up to go brush your teeth.
you’re making breakfast when he wakes up, padding barefoot and shirtless into the kitchen, rubbing his eyes. god, he looks good, you think. you avoid eye contact, afraid that your feelings would show on your face.
“morning, rin,” you say, trying to keep your voice level, “i’m making food, if you want some—”
and then you stop yourself. maybe he doesn’t want any, maybe he wants to leave as soon as possible. so you backtrack, “i mean—it’s okay if you don’t want any! i just... i made—”
he cuts you off by putting his hand on your hip and resting his chin on your shoulder. your breath catches when he says, “what’s wrong? last night got you flustered?”
“no— it’s just—” you try to find the words, your face heating up, “it’s okay if you want to leave. i don’t— maybe you don’t usually have breakfast with your one night stands...”
he presses his lips to your neck. “is that what you think this is? a one time thing?”
you finally gather the courage to look at him, but he’s so close to you that you reel back. he catches you in his arms and smirks. you must look like you’re on the verge of tears, but suna just looks amused.
“come on,” he urges, digging his fingers into your back, “let’s eat breakfast.”
— oikawa tooru
“wake up, tooru,” you sing, slinging an arm over his waist and burying your face in his back.
you feel great. your body is pleasantly sore and you slept better than you ever have with oikawa next to you. you nuzzle him until he groans, twisting around to look at you. you grin at him, and he almost smiles back, but then a look crosses his face, and suddenly he’s turning back around.
“hey,” he groans, burying his face into the pillow, “c-could you get off of me?”
you recoil, your fingers slipping from his body. oh, you think. maybe it wasn’t like that then. so you laugh awkwardly, turning away from him with a small sure. there’s nothing to do except get out of bed, your morning mood broken. unbeknownst to you, oikawa peeks at your back.
“i’m just— i’m gonna go shower,” you mumble, and add, “it’s okay if you leave the door unlocked if you wanna go,” as an afterthought.
you turn the shower scalding hot, rinsing away the remnants of last night. you try not to strain your ears, try not to think about oikawa leaving while the memories of his touch are still on your mind. by the time you get out of the bathroom, your body feels clean but your heart still feels heavy.
“u-uh,” you hear from the living room, and you look up in surprise, “good shower?” oikawa asks, averting his eyes from your naked body.
“tooru?” you hold a hand over your breasts as an attempt at modesty, “what are you still doing here? i thought— i thought you left...”
he’s still shielding his eyes, but you can see the furious blush on his face. he’s embarrassed, you realize, watching his curled up form on your couch. you walk closer to him, dripping water all over the place, but you don’t care. you take his hand away from his face.
“s-sorry,” he mumbles quietly, still covering his eyes with one hand, “i was kinda mean earlier...”
you stare at him, finally relaxing. you burrow into his arms, leaving him sputtering over how he was getting all wet. you pout anyway, looking up at him with watery eyes.
“you’re such a dork, tooru...”
— kageyama tobio
when you wake up, kageyama is already getting dressed, slipping on the sweats and trackshirt that he wore to your place last night. he’s doing it so meticulously, so seriously, that you just watch him for a few moments before you say anything.
“tobio?” you call when he’s done, his hand on the doorknob of your room, “why don’t you come back to bed?”
he turns to look at you blankly, “no, i should get going. i have some things to take care of today.”
you search for signs that he’s evading, but knowing kageyama, he really does have errands to run, ones that he wouldn’t put aside even for five minutes in bed with you. he’s always been like that, straightforward—so you give him your best smile, pulling the blankets up to cover your chest, and wave him goodbye.
“okay,” you say quietly, the hurt from his dismissal lingering, “have a good day then, tobio.”
you try not to read into his actions for the next few days, but it gets harder with every moment that passes when he doesn’t contact you. he sometimes sent texts unprompted before that night. you’re disappointed when he doesn’t.
you see him by chance after a week, when you’re sweaty and out of breath after a jog. your heart’s already racing when he runs up to you, looking exactly as he did the morning he left you in bed.
“y/n,” he greets, face impassive, “how are you?”
you avert your eyes, telling him you’re good, even though you’ve been worrying about this despite your attempts not to. it’s awkward, with the sound of the wind blowing between you, and you don’t know what to do.
he looks around, hands in his pockets, “um...” he starts, blush forming on his cheeks, “do you want to spend some time together today?”
“but—” you look at him in surprise, “but you— i mean... do you want to?”
he’s confused, shifting his head to the side. “yeah,” he agrees, like it’s natural, “we haven’t seen each other much the past few days so...”
“i just...” you mumble quietly, “...thought you didn’t wanna see me anymore.”
“huh...” he hums, looking away, “sorry, i’ve just been busy. i guess i should have sent a message or something... but i, um... i missed you.”
you take him in then, with his flustered expression, and think, yeah, tobio is like that. he’s honest, almost to a fault, and you should have known. you relax, sliding your hand in his, just to watch him blush harder.
summary: you think it’s a happy ending once you’ve found your soulmate, but today you learn that it’s not always the case.
characters: suna rintarou, kita shinsuke, hoshiumi korai
tags: soulmate au, neglectful relationships, childhood friends to lovers, strangers to lovers, angst to fluff, more hurt than comfort, happy endings
☆ suna rintarou
you thought you were so lucky to be suna’s soulmate. he’s good-looking, hard-working, and while he’s not easy to get along with, you think the way his face softens into a small smile when he sees you is worth it.
you know other couples have it hard. sometimes they don’t get along, but it’s destiny, so they work it out. some people can’t bear their partner’s pain. but you thought you were lucky, because you and suna are compatible, and you’d bear it all for him.
you were lucky, so why did you feel this way?
you sit alone in your empty apartment, waiting for him to come home from long practices. you can feel every spike that he makes, right on your palm as if it was your own, and every pang in his waist when he twists. it was almost as if he was there with you, connected by each other’s pain.
when he does come home, his face softens, probably more in exhaustion than with affection, and he brushes past you to the bedroom. you wonder if the pain in your chest is only psychological, or if he can also feel your heart getting chipped away.
“rin,” you try to say one night, tugging on his sleeve, “we haven’t... been together lately... i just—”
but he shakes you off, as he always does, saying, “we’re soulmates, yeah? so don’t worry about it.”
of course you do worry, because everyday you feel lonelier and lonelier, even with the constant reminder of his presence. your body aches more and more as suna pushes himself harder and harder, and every pang only reminds you that he won't let you be there to support him.
you lie in bed that night, staring at the dark ceiling, when all your feelings coalesce in your heart. you haven’t seen suna for more than two minutes for the past week, barely felt his body next to yours in the bed you supposedly share, and you feel empty.
so you cry, letting the tears fall onto his cold pillow, feeling the sobs wrack your body. you dig your nails into your palms, hoping the physical pain might take away your mental one.
you forget that suna can feel the pain too, or maybe you just think that he wouldn't care either way. but the door opens just as your tears dry, just as your body starts to feel cold.
"y/n," suna's voice cuts through the darkness, "what's wrong with your hand? are you hurt?"
you're jolted out of your half-dazed state, his voice sounding almost like a dream. you hum noncommittally, turning around to face away.
"i'm fine, rin," you mumble, "just tired."
but he switches on the light anyway, sitting on the bed in his dirty gym clothes. he seems annoyed, grabbing your arm where the pain is originating from, and inspecting the half-moon marks on your palm where your nails had dug in.
“tch, some of these are bleeding,” he hisses, and you can’t tell whether it’s because the pain inconvenienced him or if he actually cared, but he turns you over either way. “what were you—hey, were you crying?”
you tug your arm away, with the little energy you had.
“no,” you say softly, turning your cheek away, “i just think it’s funny that, compared to the pain in my hand, the one in my chest hurts much more.”
he frowns. “that’s not fair,” he retorts automatically, frowning, "what are you mad about now?"
the frustration, the sadness, the loneliness, it bubbles up inside you outside your control, and you start to cry quietly again. he reaches for your hand, the one that you had tugged away, and you let him, if only for now.
"do you think if i cut half my heart out," you wonder, "you would finally be able to feel how lonely i am without you?"
it's silent for a while, but he doesn't sigh, doesn't leave, and you take it as good as it gets. but then he slides into bed behind you, wraps an arm around you, and presses his face against the back of your neck.
he doesn't say a word, not that he ever does when it matters, because he thinks you get it. and, you think, maybe you do, because you're soulmates after all.
☆ kita shinsuke
you know that kita doesn’t think soulmates are logical. he doesn’t think anything will change when his mark appears once he turns eighteen, and he doesn’t understand why others will let themselves be dictated by something so arbitrary.
but the first time you saw a soulmate mark appear, right above your sister’s heart, you thought it was magical. she finds her soulmate the next week, and they haven’t been apart since.
you think it would be nice to have someone who’s with you through everything, too. but, kita retorts, even as a 12-year old, you don’t need a mark to decide who you want to be with. you nod along, a little confused because he’s always been right, but about this you get the nagging feeling that he might be wrong.
your eighteenth birthday is before his, and your mark appears on the inside of your right wrist. you spend months looking for a matching one, but to no avail.
it’s the middle of summer, the heat overwhelming, when kita turns eighteen. you sit with him with your feet in the pond behind his house, peeking at his exposed skin to see if anything had appeared. as if the world had gone into slow motion, he turns his left wrist, and you see the mark you’ve traced with your eyes so many times.
“shin—” you choke, heart racing, and take his wrist in your fingers, lining your own up next to it, “...it’s the same.”
to your surprise, he yanks his arm away, rougher than he’s ever been, and tucks his wrist back at his side.
“it’s nothing,” he murmurs, “soulmate marks don’t mean anything.”
you can’t believe this is happening. your head swirls, you feel faint, and it’s like you’re floating. you open and close your mouth several times, which kita doesn’t even seem to notice since he’s avoiding your gaze.
you’ve never said anything to him before, not during any instance of his explanations about how soulmates don’t make sense, and you’re not sure how to do it now. but you feel like you’re about to explode and you think, maybe just this once, it’s okay to tell him how you feel.
“but it makes sense to me, shin,” you declare, slowly standing on wobbling legs, “and for one moment i was really happy... because i’ve been in love with you since we were seven years old.”
he finally looks at you at that moment, his eyes wide. you blink back tears.
“if you don’t feel the same way,” you breathe, voice cracking, “...then i guess soulmates don’t mean anything, after all.”
you stay still for a few moments, letting the words you so impulsively let out sink in. but as the seconds tick by, and the silence stretches on, and the more you realize kita’s not going to say anything back, the heavy feeling in your chest just weighs you down more and more.
you mentally trace the lines of his face one last time, barely registering his widened eyes, his parted lips, and turn on your heel and leave him.
when your sister comes into your room one night to ask if you’ve found your soulmate yet, you think for a moment, staring at the mark, imagining his, and reply, “no, i didn’t.”
kita appears at your doorstep the week after that.
“i stand by what i said. you don’t need a mark to tell you who you want to be with,” he says to you, and your heart drops, crushing the little hope you didn’t know you had.
but he takes your hand in his, unlike anything he’s ever done before, and turns your right palm face up to expose the mark that you’ve avoided looking at all this time. he looks at it for a while, quietly, and puts his hand on top of yours.
“i...” he continues, slowly bringing his wrist to touch yours, “...have only ever wanted to be with you.”
☆ hoshiumi korai
when the time is right, they say, and you pass by your soulmate, you’ll be stuck together forever. or, in other words, you must be within a certain distance from your soulmate at all times.
hoshiumi thinks this is inconvenient. he doesn’t like being chained down, literally, and doesn’t think that having someone in his vicinity at all times would be beneficial for him.
which is why it displeases him so much when he passes by you in the hallway, as he’s done so many times, being in the same year, and instantly feels himself tethered. you turn, too, feeling like there was a string connecting you to him from your fingertips. you guys make eye contact, his look of recognition different from yours.
“tch,” he frowns, “it just had to happen today.”
you furrow your eyebrows and ask tentatively, “what’s wrong with today?”
“listen,” he says, almost as if he hadn’t heard you, “i have an important volleyball match today. so you’re going to need to come with me.”
“i—” you instinctively protest, thinking about the cram school you had to attend. but you’ve been watching hoshiumi since your first year, watched him improve at what he was clearly passionate about, entranced by everything about him, and you let the words die on your lips.
“...okay,” you smile lightly, “i have literature next period. what do we do now?”
and the more time you spend with hoshiumi, listening to him talk for hours, realizing that he has so many opinions on so many things, you like him more and more. you follow him around, from nagano to tokyo, as his volleyball career takes off.
it’s not unusual for soulmates to have to sacrifice for each other, not with the restriction. it’s also not unusual for soulmates to not be in love with each other, especially when others see it as simply a partnership, but you knew you were in love with him since the day of your graduation.
you never wonder if he’s in love with you, and you never tell him you love him either. maybe because you’re scared to find out, but mostly because you know it won’t change anything.
but sometimes hoshiumi catches you staring at other couples, or comes home late at night to find you on the couch watching sappy movies, and a brief thought crosses his mind.
“hey,” he says to you on a rare day that you’ve spent together in the house, characteristically blunt, “do you love me?”
“huh?” you stop folding the laundry that you had been focused on, blushing, “w-what do you mean, korai?”
“are you in love with me?” he asks again, his stare unwavering as he steps closer to you.
your heart races, hoping that this won’t change anything at the same time that you do. you think of the nights you’ve spent together, the clumsy touches that you didn’t know meant whether or not he’s been in love with you just as you were with him, and you tell him the truth anyway.
“of course i am, korai,” you reply softly, voice shaky as he breaches your personal space, closer than the requirement would ever be.
he’s forceful, uncouth, as he cups the back of your head and brings you to his chest. he presses a rough kiss to your forehead, resting his head against yours, until you relax in his arms.
“good,” he says, firm and resolute, thinking that these chains he’d thought were an inconvenience were, in fact, something precious to him.
