Description: ‘’Oikawa is nine when he first hears the word. The boys on the playground whisper it like it’s dirty, like the way they daringly mutter the word fuck and then look over their shoulders to check their parents hadn’t heard.“You know Abe-kun from class?” they snicker, hands cupped around their mouths like they’re passing along a filthy secret. “I hear his older brother is… gay.”
ughhh i want to write kagehina now. but i’ve also really been wanting to write a kenhina these days. but i’ve been trying to write some daiyui all day. but i also have that bokuaka i’ve been trying to finish for a month...
a daiyui confession scene: a lot of yui blushing, a lot of daichi staring at her dumbly, a lot of yui stuttering out some cute shit, a lot of awkward mumbling, a lot of my heart exploding.
Her soulmark stays blurry for a while—a little longer than average, actually—but when it clears up, it reads, “Sorry! I’m still practicing my serves!” in a line of messy, sprawling kanji that rests on the inside of her left thigh. It’s an intimate place, easily covered, so there are few chances for people to read it and prank her, which Yui is grateful for.
It’s not until high school that she imagines showing it to her soulmate—imagines someone’s fingers ghosting over the words they’ve left on her skin—and she ends up burying her tomato-red face in her pillow and screaming.
...
A Soulmark AU featuring DaiYui. Written for Day One of Haikyuu Rare Pair Week. Prompt: Beginnings/Celebration. Rating: T for (very) mild suggestive content. Words: 3,300. Many thanks to michichans for the beta. ^^
Also found on AO3.
...
...
...
got a boy in the wings, waiting for me
...
...
...
Yui’s soulmark came in when she was two months old. The pain of it apparently made her scream so loudly that she woke half the neighborhood up a few minutes past midnight, at least according to her parents.
“Did it come in on December 31st? Or today?” her mother wondered, exchanging quizzical glances with her father.
He shrugged, unconcerned. “She can find out when she meets him.”
“It would be nice if he was born on New Year’s—lucky,” her mother murmurs.
“He’s already lucky. He’s got our daughter for his soulmate,” her father says, rolling his eyes, and her mother hides her grin in Yui’s soft hair.
...
Her soulmark stays blurry for a while—a little longer than average, actually—but when it clears up, it reads, “Sorry! I’m still practicing my serves!” in a line of messy, sprawling kanji that rests on the inside of her left thigh. It’s an intimate place, easily covered, so there are few chances for people to read it and prank her, which Yui is grateful for.
It’s not until high school that she imagines showing it to her soulmate—imagines someone’s fingers ghosting over the words they’ve left on her skin—and she ends up burying her tomato-red face in her pillow and screaming.
...
She thinks she meets her soulmate when she’s twelve. She’s on the volleyball team in junior high, you see—mostly because of her soulmark, she has to admit, because where else is she going to meet someone who’s practicing their serves? (She tried tennis once in elementary school. It didn’t go well.) But after a few weeks, she finds that she genuinely loves volleyball. Loves the stinging of her palms after a good block, loves the burn of her thighs as she crouches low, loves the whooshing sound of the ball as it flies across the court.
(She’s not very good at it, of course, but she figures practice will make perfect. She’s in it for fun, anyway, right? No worries. This isn’t something she ever plans on spending blood and tears on.)
And…well. She may or may not like a certain dark-haired boy on the boys’ team. She thinks he’s in Class 3, and they haven’t spoken yet, but they’ve exchanged a few nods and smiles, and every time Yui can feel her heart race. He’s not even that good-looking, not like Koizumi-senpai, but he’s always so earnest. So determined. She admires him, she really does.
He looks like the kind of boy who would say, “Sorry! I’m still practicing my serves!” She’d like it to be him, she thinks.
Which is why she hasn’t said anything to him despite nearly three months of pseudo-acquaintanceship. Her soulmark kind of suggests that her soulmate’s the one to speak first, you know? So she’s going to hedge her bets a bit and wait.
(It’s really, really, really hard, though. Yui’s not very good at waiting.)
...
Then it happens:
A ball comes flying in from the left and hits her in the face. Next thing she knows, Sawamura-kun (she asked around for his name, okay? it’s not like she’s a stalker, she was just…curious) is leaning over her, a worried look on his face. He holds his hand out and she grasps it firmly, letting him pull her to her feet.
(His hand is warm—it’s bigger than hers, too, and already starting to callus. It’s a nice hand. She kind of doesn’t want to let go, but she does. She regrets it immediately.)
As soon as she’s standing and patting her face in mild confusion—is everything still attached to her? ah, definitely, ahhh, that stings!—Sawamura-kun bows in apology.
“Sorry!” he says, and her eyes widen, her stomach swooping in sudden anticipation. This is it, this is it! she thinks,“I’m still practicing my serves!”
He blinks. “Uh…okay. Are you sure? The ball hit you pretty hard.”
“No, I’m great, I swear!” she says, grinning at him. “Oh! Uh, sorry, I’m Michimiya!” she belatedly adds, hand going to the back of her head and gaze dropping to the floor. She hopes her face isn’t blushing, but she doubts it.
He grins back. “Okay. I’m Sawamura. From Class 3.”
They stand there grinning at each other, until—
“Sawamura!” one of the senpai shouts, and he winces.
“Anyway…I better get going. Uh, sorry, again, but I promise to be more careful in the future!” And then he gives a little wave and walks away, leaving Yui staring after him.
Is…is that supposed to be it?
...
She waits a few days, but he doesn’t approach her. Their interactions are a little friendlier, a little more open, but that’s it.
It looks like they’re not soulmates, after all. Yui’s surprised at the depth of her disappointment, but she figures that’s that, case closed, matter over and done with. If she plans on staying in volleyball (which she does) there will be way more opportunities for her to meet her soulmate. It’s okay that it’s not Sawamura-kun.
Eventually, she sees him with his shirt off (it’s summer, okay, it gets hot! he can take his shirt off if he wants to!), and there is his soulmark, written in neat, perfect kanji along the back of his right shoulder: Hi, could you say your name again? I didn’t quite catch it the first time around.
Right. Definitely not her, then.
...
…except her crush on Sawamura doesn’t conveniently disappear. If anything, it gets worse, and by the time they’re in high school, Yui’s fallen desperately in love with him.
After their first practice in their first year, he gives her a friendly pat on the back. Five minutes later, she’s staring at her blush-reddened face in the girls’ locker room, and groans so long and so loudly that her teammates start throwing their gym clothes at her to get her to stop.
(She eventually quits making dying cat noises, but her heart still races like a jackrabbit, doki-doki-ing along without her consent.)
...
And then she finds out in in their second year that he’s already found his soulmate:
It’s Sugawara-kun.
That…makes sense. She should’ve seen it earlier, actually—she knew his handwriting looked familiar…
She nods and smiles when her friends tell her the news, waves them away when they give her concerned looks. “It’s fine,” she says. “I’m fine.”
She’s not, but it’s okay. She will be.
...
The thing is, she still doesn’t fall out of love with him. No matter how many practices and games and strategy meetings and day-to-day interactions they have, she still catches her breath when she catches sight of him. Her heart still beats faster every single damn time he smiles, even if it’s not at her (which is a pain, she’ll tell you straight up).
...
The other thing is, it turns out that Sawamura has a second soulmate.
“What? Really?” Yui says, surprised, then claps a hand over her mouth. Jeez, way to be rude! It’s a little unusual, but not out of the ordinary to have two soulmates—her own mother has two soulmates, after all, and neither of them happen to be Yui’s father, and they happen to be married to other people, too; Yui’s mother and honorary aunts are perfectly happy being best friends. Yui’s father, on the other hand, doesn’t really…talk about his soulmate, and she doesn’t ask. Yui knows better than to assume a soul bond means marriage bells or happily ever after—even if she wonders if her own errant soulmate is going to be The One.
(Every day, as she gets to know Sawamura a little more and more, this possibility gets smaller and smaller.)
Sugawara winces and smiles sheepishly at her. The sunset almost sets his hair glowing in the dying light; it’s just the two of them in the gym, cleaning up and getting the place ready for when the school year starts. They’re going to be third years—and when the heck did that happen? Yui’s still not sure. Sugawara scratches the back of his head, saying, “Whoops. Sorry, but could you keep it to yourself? I wasn’t really supposed to tell anyone—Daichi only told me because we’re soulmates and he thought I should know he’s got two.”
“But I’ve never seen a second mark,” Yui says, and then fights the urge to smack herself. Wow, very smooth, she thinks to herself. Let your crush’s soulmate know you’ve been examining him super closely.
Damn it, she likes Sugawara. She doesn’t want things to be awkward between them. She glowers at the broom in her hands.
From the corner of her eye, she catches Sugawara’s smile turn cheeky, and he waggles his eyebrows at her. “Apparently it’s in a very…intimate spot.”
Yui blinks and fights the urge to blush—and loses badly, of course, but she still has the presence of mind to stick her foot in her mouth yet again and ask, “You haven’t seen it?”
Sugawara laughs. “Nope! I’ve got no desire to, either.” He bumps her shoulder good-naturedly. “We’re not together, you know. Despite the rumors,” he tells her, his voice so gentle, so encouraging, so Sugawara that she ends up reaching out and punching his shoulder out of sheer overwhelming affection for him, and bites her lip to hide her smile—unsuccessfully, but the attempt is made even if Sugawara still snickers at her.
You know what, she likes Sugawara. Not the way she likes Sawamura, obviously, but he is an awesome guy.
...
The revelation of a second soulmate doesn’t change things as much as the revelation that Sugawara and Sawamura aren’t dating. It means she still has a chance. A slim one, sure, and he could totally be waiting on his soulmate, but she’s not waiting on hers, and who cares about soulmates anyway? She’s certain hers will be nice, but when she meets them she wants to be able to point to Daichi and say, “This is my important person. I hope you get along well with him.”
The thought of it makes her squeal and bury her head in her hands and accidentally run into walls, but it’s a thought she holds onto.
...
Graduation day comes and her heart does its drum-impersonation when he loops an arm around her shoulders for a picture, and it beats so loudly she’s afraid he’ll hear it.
She needn’t worry, though. Sugawara-kun’s on his other side, Asahi-kun behind them, and Kiyoko-san and Hanabi-chan are sitting on the stage steps, all of them smiling as wide as possible, a diploma in one hand and a volleyball in the other, Karasuno forever and ever.
...
The first thing she puts up in her dorm room is that picture from graduation day; Sawamura drops by, volleyball tryout schedule in hand, and smiles when he sees it on her wall.
Her roommate comes back to find him him sitting on Yui’s beanie bag, a smile playing ‘round his mouth as she regales him with her stories from her whacky orientation day, her hands doing as much talking as her voice.
The volleyball flyer is tacked next to the picture on her wall.
...
They win their first game. She’s just a freshman, not even close to her senpai’s level, barely played 10 minutes total, and none of it matters because they won their first game. The minute she gets out of the locker rooms, she sees Sawamura waiting for her on the sidelines and she just jumps him, high on adrenaline and victory and volleyball, all of it humming in her veins and making her mouth practically buzz as she presses it clumsily to his.
From the way he kisses her back, he doesn’t seem to mind at all.
...
Hanabi-chan rolls her eyes and says, "Finally," when she tells her. Her kouhai find out two seconds after that when Hanabi-chan sends a mass text message, and nearly deafen Yui with their shouts of excitement and congratulations.
Sugawara grins at her nonstop that whole first week of them dating. He ends up bruised from all her reflexive punches, but he doesn’t stop smiling.
Nishinoya-san calls her randomly after their second date and wails that she should’ve had mercy on him; apparently he lost the bet the Karasuno kouhai had over who would make the first move, but he’s willing to forgive her if she tells him Kiyoko-san’s favorite flower.
Asahi-kun likes every single picture of them at the botanical gardens that she posts on Facebook.
...
“Hey, Daichi,” she says, savoring the words in her mouth. Daichi. Daichi. He’s her boyfriend, so she can call him Da-i-chi all she wants. “How come you didn’t make the first move, if you liked me for so long?” She pokes him in the belly, which is rock-solid and probably dents her finger more than her finger dents it.
He laughs. “I didn’t know I liked you until we started college.”
“Hrm,” she says, pouting. “Then how come you didn’t do anything then?”
He kisses her forehead. “Because,” he says, “I thought you were waiting on your soulmate.”
She straightens up from where she’s sprawled across his chest, surprised. “Huh?”
He grins at her, but she thinks there’s something a little guarded about it, a little unsure, and it twists her heart even as it makes her want to kiss it off his face. “A lot of people don’t want to get serious with anyone until they meet their soulmate, you know,” he says. “And I’m…”
“…a pretty serious guy,” she finishes, smiling sunnily. He’d wanted to be serious with her. It sets butterflies floating in her stomach, it really does.
He nods, carding a hand through her hair—it’s gotten a little longer, now, so it catches on his calluses, but she doesn’t mind. “Yeah. I didn’t want to get in the way or anything.”
“Of someone I haven’t even met yet?” she says, snickering.
“People get weird about soulmates,” he replies.
They lapse into silence for a bit, then Yui drums her fingers against his chest. “What about you?” she asks quietly.
“Huh? What about me?” he says, startled. “You know Suga and I are platonic, right? Anyway, he’s dating Yaku-san, so there’s no reason to be jealous—”
“I mean your other soulmate,” she blurts out.
Daichi just about chokes on thin air, which makes her panic for a bit and thump him on the back harder than she means to, which unfortunately doesn’t distract him from the fact that she even knows about his second soulmate when he’s never told her, which in turn makes her choke on thin air, which makes him panic a bit, which means it’s not until a good quarter hour later that he answers her question (he’s not very happy about Sugawara telling her, but since it gave her a boost to keep chasing him, he supposes his best friend can be forgiven).
“I’m not really concerned about my other soulmate,” he says. “I’ll let them know right away that I want to be platonic.” He gives her hand a reassuring squeeze that she returns.
“Right,” she says, smiling again and bouncing on the bed a little.
“Besides,” he says, “I might not even recognize them when I meet them. All I have is a ‘sorry!’”
Yui tilts her head. “Really? That’s tough.” She’s heard stories before, of course, of good morning’s, and hello’s, and nice to meet you’s and nothing more, but she’s a little insulted on Daichi’s behalf that his other soulmate couldn’t manage to say anything else. Daichi rated at least three sentences on first meeting, in her opinion.
“Tell me about it,” Daichi says, chuckling. His gaze turns thoughtful, glancing at her mouth, then back to her eyes, than back to her mouth again where it lingers. Yui’s closing her eyes in anticipation when he murmurs, “I thought it was you for a while.”
Her eyes snap back open. “Huh?!”
No way! It couldn’t be!
This time his grin’s crooked and more than a little wry. “Do you remember when we met?”
“Of course I remember when we met! You hit me in the face with a volleyball!” she says, smacking his shoulder.
Daichi winces. “Ah. Wow. Yeah, I remember that. But, uh, that’s not actually when we met.”
“What! Of course it is!” she retorts, indignant. Every moment of their first actual interaction is seared into her memory.
“No, it’s not,” Daichi gently but firmly refutes. “We met on the first day of junior high. You were late to class, I had to drop something off at the front office, and you crashed into me and yelled, ‘Sorry!’ And then you left.”
“I did not!” Yui says, horrified, but a vague memory is tickling the back of her mind.
“You did.”
“But—but—what did you say?” she says, bewildered.
“I didn’t get to say anything. I chalked it up to a fluke or an accident—you’d be surprised how many people have said ‘sorry’ to me as their first words. So I wanted to at least know you before saying anything—do you know how awkward it is, asking people, ‘hey, my name is Sawamura Daichi, I think you might be my soulmate?’ That gets old fast, so I figured I would introduce myself first and see if you reacted.”
“Then you hit me in the face with a volleyball.”
“Then I hit you in the face with a volleyball,” he repeats, burying his face against her neck. “That definitely wasn’t part of the plan.”
She’d be embarrassed to have him pressed close like this where he can surely feel the hummingbird thrum of her pulse against his lips, but she’s too busy processing the fact that her first words to him match his soulmark, and his first words to her match her soulmark. “Daichi?” she says, her voice shaky and uncertain and so very unlike the person she tries to be these days.
“What?” he asks, looking up at her, suddenly concerned with her change in tone. For someone so oblivious before they started dating, he is awfully good at reading her.
“My soulmark says ‘Sorry! I’m still practicing my serves!’ That’s the first thing you ever said to me,” she says, trembling now.
It’s in his handwriting, too, which is the thing that always killed her—that her soulmate had the same messy, careless handwriting that Daichi did. That Daichi was born on December 31st, which is when her soulmate could’ve been born. That so many things about him came so close, but just missed the mark.
Eventually, she’d stopped caring about it, because Daichi was the person she chose, always and forever, and no words could change that.
No words changed that, not even now.
Still, there’s something precious about seeing her words on his skin, inked in a slanted line low on his left hipbone, exclamation point dotted with a star the way she still does sometimes when she’s very excited. There’s something precious about standing up and shrugging off her jeans, self-conscious but anticipatory, placing her foot against his thigh and letting his hands trace over the soulmark he’d left on her, his fingertips oh-so-reverent, his touch a tender benediction.
“I chose you,” she says, gasping as he presses his lips to her skin, right against his words, “Daichi, I chose you before I even knew it.” She’s crying a little—okay, a lot, but she doesn’t care right now, doesn’t care ever if he looks at her like that forever.
“I know,” he says, smiling back up at her. “Me, too. Me, too.”
And after that, more words are definitely not needed.
