Sakusa never spoke much about his private life while at work. The team knew he had a partner, only because he mentioned it once, and they assumed whoever it was must be similar to him.
So they were shocked when he arrived at the New Year’s party holding hands with you. Your face was adorned with a bright smile and you waved eagerly the second you faced the rest of the attendees.
“This is my fiancé,” Sakusa said, using his free hand to gesture to you as if it wasn’t obvious who he was talking about.
“Hi!” you greeted cheerily.
“If anything happened to her, I would kill everyone in this room and then myself,” he added for no apparent reason other than seeing Atsumu, Bokuto and Hinata’s jaws drop at his unusual display of affection.
You chuckled as if this was completely normal. “It’s so nice to be here, I’ve heard a lot about you!”
“Now get back to the party, thank you.” After finishing his introduction, Sakusa swiped you away so you could both wash your hands in the bathroom.
RUNNING OUT OF TIME (TO MAKE YOU LOVE ME) - MASTERLIST
or the moments you wondered if this time with nagumo would be the last
pairing: nagumo yoichi x reader
status: ongoing; each work can be read as a standalone fic or chronologically as part of the series
warnings/includes: (kinda) friends with benefits with sprinkles of angst, manga spoilers (sakamoto's past arc & assassination exhibition arc), reader and nagumo were classmates when he was a JCC spy apprentice, no use of pronouns for the reader (but heed tags for part 1), and instances of sexual harassment and inappropriate behavior (heed tags for part 2)
can be read on ao3 here
i. like last time (1.7k; nsfw)
Like last time, the question that rolls off his tongue comes at the worst moment.
Though you doubt there’s ever a right time to call for a favor that may involve JAA violations and end with your head on a spike.
ii. since last time (9.4k)
You’ve never seen this man before in your life. He’s quite large, a towering figure with shadows that threaten to swallow the two of you whole. These facts make for a deadly combo and provide more than sufficient material to create a nightmare even a grown adult would struggle to escape from.
But you’ve seen that smile. You know that smile.
It’s a hard one to forget. Clearly.
₊˚⊹。 big gym energy (is this my fantasy?) | fushiguro toji
wc: 2.0k
summary: who would have thought the rippest DILF in all of Japan would get you to go to the gym everyday?
contains: gn!reader, non-curse au, college au, appearance of itafushikugi (mostly nobara), reader has a huge and lowkey delusional crush on toji, age gap
a/n: the gym toji fic! tone in this is a bit different from what i write, and it's lowkey a crack fic but i hope it's still enjoyable! listened to: big energy - latto & area codes - kaliii
part of the in's and out's new year/birthday event | request
prompt: going to the gym for yourself (and totally not for that cute guy who sometimes says hi)
“You’re going to the gym?” Nobara halts smack in the middle of the busy hallway. Groans huff behind her, the rest of your class filing out of the lecture hall. You bow your head apologetically as you pull her to the side.
“Yes.”
She squints, skeptical, “You.”
You nod.
“The gym.” she says it slower this time, tilting her head down.
You nod again.
Nobara blinks, shifting her weight as she reaches one hand inside the pocket of her overalls. There’s a long pause, rushed footsteps amplifying the suspense, then—
“Okay, what’s the bet? How much did Maki put out? I want in.”
You roll your eyes, shaking your head as you loop your arm around hers and continue walking.
There’s good reason for her to doubt you; she knows you best after all. In your little quad, you are the least likely to be found doing any physical activity or sport whatsoever—and that’s saying a lot, considering the other fourth of your group is Megumi. But at least he walks his dogs regularly.
“Rude,” you scoff jokingly, “there’s no bet, just testing it out because they have a free trial promo.”
It shouldn’t hurt to check it out, you think. One of your resolutions this year is to finally get started on your fitness journey, whatever form it may be.
“You should come.”
Nobara snorts, “Wrong person,” you both turn at a corner, “ask Itadori.”
The gym is just a few blocks away from your campus, a good 18-minute walk if you’re counting—which is also part of what makes it so appealing. The ad you’d seen for the free trial is an early bird promo to attract new customers for the gym’s new branch launch.
And it does make the most sense to ask him; he is the sports science major after all—
“No way,” you step out on the sidewalk, “telling him is practically committing to a membership.”
—but Yuuji is a bit too eager when it comes to things like this. No doubt he’ll be at your heel, wagging his figurative golden retriever tail at the prospect of being your certified gym buddy. It’s endearing and you know he means well, but that’s way too much pressure for someone who’s just starting out.
She laughs, readjusting her bag, “He’d know how to use the machines though.”
“I watched some videos…” you mumble, because Nobara has a point, but if you’re being honest, you feel just a teensy bit embarrassed at the idea of anyone else knowing about your attempts at fitness this early on, lest it fail in the end. “I can probably ask someone there…”
“Try the most jacked up person in the gym.”
You shove her jokingly, her laughter echoing down the road.
.
The first person you meet at the gym is the lady at the front desk. Her ponytail sways as she greets you, a chirpy smile welcoming you in as she holds an iPad to her chest while touring you around—at the center, the main floor plan is decked out with machines; towards the back sit the squat racks, and to your sides are the private cycling rooms and multifunctional spaces. According to her, they also offer yoga classes every 6:00 p.m. on Wednesdays.
You’d expected a lot more people to be in here at 7:00 p.m., but you suppose it makes sense others would prefer to spend their Friday nights elsewhere.
Looking around, you spot a middle-aged lady you swear is Megumi’s English professor; on the treadmills, a couple your age share a laugh as they try to match pace. There are some machines you’ve never even seen in your life, Youtube videos included.
You take a deep breath. You can ask for help.
After all, the crowd feels friendly enough, not too intimidating—
—until your eyes land on him, on the benches; an absolute tank of a man doing chest presses with what you think are probably the heaviest dumbbells on the rack.
You try not to stare, catching only a glimpse of the way his biceps flex against the tight sleeves of his black compression shirt.
Don’t be a creep, you tell yourself, walking towards the leg press machine. You may be new here, but you’ve learned that gym etiquette isn’t so far off from acting like a civilized human being.
Thank god you never take Nobara seriously, because you can’t even imagine the stuttering mess you’d be if you had to ask him how to work any of these god forsaken machines.
.
It’s a good thing, then, that help comes to you without you having to say a word.
This is number four out of five sessions in your free trial promo, and you have no idea how to get the goddamn plates out of the barbell. You pull some out from the other side and the whole barbell comes along with it. When you attempt the other side, it does the same. Then when you finally do manage to get off the plates on one side, the whole barbell drops, clanging loudly against the metal foot of the squat rack set-up.
(Now that you think about it, maybe it isn’t such a good thing that you’ve been offered help instead of you asking. There must be a reason someone thinks you could need it.)
Someone, who is also the last person you could ever possibly want to embarrass yourself in front of.
Someone, who just so happens to be the jacked up tank of a man you’ve admittedly glanced at a few times in your past few visits here.
“To make it easier,” he crouches beside you, laying down a smaller plate and rolling the larger ones on the barbell over it.
He unloads them like they weigh nothing—and with his physique, it isn’t hard to believe that they probably do. His biceps look to be the size of your head, chest popping out in ways you’ve only seen on those Tiktok thirst edits; his one hand is larger than a 2.5 kilogram plate, and his forearms look like they could ch—
Mind out of the gutter, you blink away, focusing instead on the metal bar in front of you.
God, you don’t even know this man’s name.
“T-thanks.” you stutter, embarrassed.
He gives you a half-smile, lips turned on one side, “Sure.” then he walks away, the tightness of his black compression shirt hugging the ridges of his back muscles.
You gulp.
So begins your year-long gym membership.
(And maybe, just maybe, the kind-of-meet-cute of a lifetime. Who knows, really?)
.
“Who would have thought the rippest DILF in all of Japan would get you to go to the gym everyday,” she snorts, fingers grazing over the curved edges of the heart-shaped watermelons in the fruit aisle.
You hush her, scanning the area around you for anyone who might have overhead.
It’s 11:00 p.m. on a Thursday, so you doubt it, but you can never be too sure.
“He’s nice, you know.” you pout.
“Yeah, what’s his name?” Nobara gives you a look.
You glare, touché.
Maybe you don’t know his name. Yet.
But he’s always offered to stack on the heavy plates for you, and will oftentimes help in unloading them too. There are times when you aren’t quite sure how to work the machines and he swoops in like the gym buff version of prince charming, teaching you proper form just so you don’t get injured. He’ll wipe down a mat for you to use some days, because—
“Stretching is important,” he never fails to mention.
He’s nice.
And you have an insanely delusional crush on him, but you don’t care, because why else would he be giving you this much attention if he wasn’t interested in you too?
.
You find out many things about your gym crush, most of them completely unexpected.
One: his hair is unusually soft for someone who looks so rough. Or, well, you think it looks soft, you can’t tell for sure; you haven’t actually touched it to be able to tell. The black mop on his head falls flat over his eyes on the few days you assume are right before his next scheduled haircut. It surprises you even more when he walks in the gym with a small hair tie holding his bangs up.
Two: he does a considerable amount of bodyweight exercises for someone his size—Calisthenics, specifically.
You watch him pull himself up the bar, biceps and back straining against the movement. The muscles ripple across the fabric of his tee, and it’s impressive how smoothly he’s able to go up and down; as if he isn’t exerting any effort at all. Then, the push-ups and dips. He can do them all, in every variation you never even thought existed, and it’s always done with so much ease.
It gives you reason to believe that he could be gentle, controlled. In what? Well. You know.
Three: he likes fruity things. You expected his go-to to be straight black, maybe a chocolate protein shake on other days too. But he shows up one day with a smoothie in the shade of vibrant magenta. Dragonfruit, you assume, from all the black specks floating in it.
This also happens to be the first time you initiate the conversation with him.
“Your smoothie looks good,” you mumble, a little hesitant.
God, so awkward.
He looks up from adjusting the plate stoppers on your bar.
A hum rumbles from his throat before he flashes you the same half-smile he always does, “Strawberry, banana, and dragonfruit.”
You don’t really know what to say after that other than, “Cool.”
And you mentally facepalm yourself.
.
In your fourth month at the gym, you learn a few more unexpected things that change everything.
You’ve just finished freshening up and you’re on the way out when you bump into—
“Megumi?”
He looks up from his phone, dark strands hitting the tips of his eyelashes as he pushes back one side of his headphones. He raises an eyebrow, confused and surprised.
“You gym?”
“What’re you doing here?”
Pink dusts his cheeks as he ducks his head, motioning for you to go first.
“Sorry,” you chuckle, adjusting the strap of your duffel bag, “I started going here a few months ago. You?”
He looks a little surprised by it, probably more so at the fact that you’ve kept it a secret from him for so long, but he nods, “That’s good. You did mention wanting to work on your fitness more this year.” then, he shifts, adjusting his weight before hanging his headphones by his neck.
“I’m waiting for my dad.”
In the past few years you’ve known Megumi, he’s never mentioned his dad. You never bothered to ask because you suspected there was a good reason he never talked about him in the first place.
And so comes number four, and maybe the last unexpected thing you find out about your gym crush—
“Megumi!”
You both turn around to the voice of none other than Nobara’s proclaimed rippest DILF in Japan; the most jacked up tank of a man who also happens to be the man you’ve crushed hard on for the past four months.
Everything is snapping into place, information forming bridges you would rather not cross right now.
He walks up to Megumi, duffel bag slung across his chest as he reaches for your friend.
Megumi looks like he wants to wither away, embarrassed at you seeing him tucked under his dad’s arm. But all your brain can really comprehend is that Megumi, your good friend, is currently squished between the bicep and chest you’ve been staring at since your first day at the gym.
You hold your breath, the realization creeping to the forefront of your mind. There had been signs that your gym crush was a dad; apart from being built like one, he’d offhandedly mention ‘son’ a few times. You didn’t think it would be—
“Oh, you two know each other?” your gym crush tilts his head, turning to you, “you didn’t tell me your friend signed up for this gym, Megumi.”
“I didn’t know,” Megumi grumbles, and the look on his face can rival yours, for sure. Tough competition on ‘who looks like they want to die the most right now?’.
But he can’t win.
Because when Megumi begrudgingly introduces your gym crush to you as his dad, you’re pretty sure you’ve buried yourself twelve feet underground.
(It doesn’t ease the embarrassment when you learn unexpected thing number five: he’s been a trainer at the gym this entire time.)
thank you notes: to @twentyfivemiceinatrenchcoat for encouraging me all the way!! ily ari
comments, tags, and reblogs are greatly appreciated ♡
"i hope you know i find you very attractive," atsumu slurs from the bar, head lolling as he spoke.
you sigh and pluck the shot glass from his hand and set it down on the bar. "yes, you've mentioned this several times." you look behind him and scowl. "seriously? you know he has a game tomorrow."
osamu shrugged. either he didn't drink as much as atsumu or he had an extremely high tolerance for hard drinks. "i didn't do nothin'. he was the one who kept playing drinking games."
"then why'd you play with him?!"
"i didn't. he just kept drinkin' by himself."
you sigh and turn back to the blond. "you're lucky you drank so much so fast. it's only eleven. you've got time to sleep this off."
"you're taking me home?" atsumu gasps, leaning so far forward you have to catch him and push him upright. "oh my god! what will the media say when they see us?!"
your face crumples in incredulity bordering on disgust. "uhh, that we're engaged? wait, how much did you drink?"
"we're engaged?!" atsumu says, placing his palms to his cheeks. he pulls away one hand gasps at the ring sitting on his finger before turning to you and holding your face in his hands. "we're engaged. our combined hotness level is through the roof."
"o-kay," you say, having quite enough of this. you push his hands away and tug at his wrist. "get up. we're leaving and getting you sober."
"i'm not drunk!" he says stubbornly, even though he nearly tripped just trying to stand up. once he's upright, though, he looks you up and down and grins so wide you're concerned he might tear his face apart.
"what?"
he giggles. "my fiancée is so hot."
that makes your lips twitch. "whatever. let's go home."
because in that pair of eyes you’d search for every single time you lose yourself, you see an infinite that holds everything together.
it’s a pair of inky black eyes, but the shade of the reflections you see from them are otherwise painted. they are colourful and vivid; full of possibilities and promises.
in his eyes you find assurance, secureness, and yourself. you love to stare right into his eyes: across the dining table, on the couch, in the mirror.
because on some sunday mornings where you feel like hiding forever under the sheets, letting yourself sink into the darkness; on a thursday nights where moonlight casts a shadow of anxiety over your fatigue, the ceiling before your eyes comes crashing down in a blink of an eye. times where you think there would be no more tomorrow to come, the nightmares always vanish into thin air at the touch of his palm, warm of his chest and something more than tender in his eyes.
life gets tough sometimes, but sakusa always finds a way to break through and move forward, while he makes sure of his presence through the ups and downs with you.
he shows you that the darkness is beautiful, and it is also what makes the outcome evermore stunning. he makes you believe in tomorrow and the day after tomorrow is beautiful.
you peek over his figure at the digits on the drawer, trying to ignore the anxiety inexorably crawling up from your feet, the same feeling you endure once in a few days, fear of tomorrow, of yourself, of the future lying ahead.
you reach out a hand to brush off the strand of curls on his face in a move to distract yourself, thumbing over the moles peacefully sitting on his neatly trimmed brows, below are those eyes that hold a galaxy where everything is possible in it.
his eyelids flutter under the friction between your sweaty thumbs and his flawless skin. the room is dim, dusky city lights seep through the blind, bleary eyes looking at you on the pillow beside.
“i’m sorry.” you whisper. you didn’t mean to wake him though.
“nightmare?” he asks, voice still husky from hours of slumber.
calloused palm on yours, pulling your hand over and planting a soft kiss on it. his eyes behind looking straight into you, no sign of going back to sleep in a moment.
you don’t reply but stare back. and you feel like crying.
“go back to sleep, omi.” you chide softly in the air of 4 something in the dawn, another few minutes to 5.
kiyoomi gives you a reassuring smile, “only after you.”
like the overcast Tokyo sky turning into a clear azure, the dark clouds blocking the moonlight gone after a windblow, the knot in your stomach gradually unwinds itself and suddenly you are looking forward to the tomorrow that’ll come in a few hours.
“do you wanna watch the sunrise with me?” you’re not sure if this is a good idea, though he’s an early riser but it’s an hour earlier than his usual routine.
“that sounds romantic.”
hues of orange and yellow stretch over the horizon, painting the clouds roseate. vibrant, vivid and promising.
you look over to sakusa, already sitting up with his back against the headboard. he taps on the spot beside, beckoning you to come over.
his eyes crinkling into a crescent.
and finally you understand how you can easily find yourself through his eyes.
Sakusa has been edgy on his seat since this morning, right after sending out a text that reads Are you down for a quick run to the store tomorrow?
This is one of the notably few times he texted you. He doesn’t usually start a personal conversation with you, which is the very reason that speaks for his current demeanour.
And that is why he quickly sends out another message to make it sounds not-that-personal.
My duffle bag is torn, gotta get a new one before the upcoming tournament.
The waiting for your response is agonising, to say the least, at how he repeats himself every five minutes.
Pick up — check — put down — walk away — come back and da capo.
The morning news that he always pays attention to, has now become a faint background noise in the living space.
The conversation history that sits above his very latest message is about three weeks ago, when you checked on him the night before the big day of the last tournament. The worst part of the whole conversation is that he left you on read.
He can’t believe he actually did that, or that he may actually develop feelings for you. He needs a verification on when, where, why and how it happened.
It is on his top-priority and it has to be done by tomorrow.
He startles when his phone chimes. A new text comes in, but it’s from Miya Atsumu.
Omi omi, we are down for the run tomorrow and see you at 11!
Sakusa pushes his face into the pillow that he’s been hugging and lets out a frustrating groan.