Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Riptide, Creep, Bust Your Kneecaps

Sakusa wakes up to humming.

It’s a song he doesn’t recognize (it usually is), something generic and poppy, but it’s gorgeous, melodic, not a note off-key. It’s just loud enough to ease him out of sleep, but he doesn’t open his eyes.

Not yet. No, Sakusa takes a deep breath, sinks back into his pillow and basks in the warmth and the wonderful, wordless song in his head. The whole soulmate thing is kind of bullshit, but he can only hope one day he’ll wake up to this humming in person.

Then the humming stops and so does the hazy dream that comes with it. Sakusa sighs and opens his eyes just as his alarm goes off.

It’s time to get up and face the day - and all the frustration that comes with it.

When he’s dressed and showered, he drags himself into the kitchen of the little apartment. Komori’s at the table with a cup of coffee, a draft of sheet music before him. He smiles through the pencil between his lips. “Morning. Was he humming again?”

“Why?”

“You’re in a good mood,” he says as Sakusa starts the kettle again. God knows he’ll need the caffeine today, with a lecture in the history of bossa nova and a piano assessment coming up. “You’re only ever so chipper when he’s humming. Did you know the song this time?”

Sometimes living with Komori is annoying, especially with the whole soulmates thing. He hasn’t found his, but he’s got one of the easiest tells; a little dark flower behind his left ear, a flower that’ll be the same on whoever his person is. Sakusa squints at him, takes a mug and the instant coffee from the cupboard and resists the urge to wipe it down. All his disinfectant - wipes, sprays, scrubs - has been tucked out of immediate reach to try and break the (probably unhealthy) habits and it makes his skin crawl, but Komori will physically restrain him if he goes to fetch them.

“I wish I had one of those cool soulmate bonds,” he continues when Sakusa doesn’t reply. The kettle whistles, Komori taps his fingers on the table and looks back down to his music. “Those colour ones are really neat, too, or the taste ones. Or like yours, you just get a personal concert whenever you like.”

Sakusa doesn’t remind him he can’t control when his soulmate hums (or sings, though he’s never heard it) and just pours his coffee. He’d kill for Motoya’s soul bond any day.

“Do you sing back?”

“What?”

“Sing back,” he repeats. “Do you?”

Sakusa halts with the mug halfway to his lips and raises an eyebrow. “No. Why would I?”

“Man, you’re such a downer!” He clicks his tongue and shakes his head as he scribbles something down. “I know if I had the music bond, I’d sing for my soulmate all the time. Especially if I had a voice like yours.”

“Find your soulmate, then.”

“Tsk. Buzzkill.”

Sakusa briefly considers throwing his mug of hot coffee right at his cousin’s face, but he really needs to get through the day without burning out, so he settles with glaring at the top of Komori’s head. Just as the warmth starts to seep into his hands, the humming starts again, this time something slow and smooth like melted chocolate. It’s not the usual, but it’s always welcome, always sends tingles right down his spine and has a smile pulling at his lips. He likes these slow ballad-like songs better than the industrial pop, can imagine playing piano with this beautifully-voiced person singing beside him.

Komori glances up and catches his half-smile before he can swallow it back down. He grins and points his pencil. “See? He’s humming again, isn’t he?”

Sakusa glares over the rim of his mug and takes a sip of coffee as Komori laughs.

~

The bossa lecture isn’t totally dull, even if it’s far from Sakusa’s preferences, but it’s full . He’s sat near the back, an empty seat on either side of him, but his skin still crawls under his jacket. It’s a different crowd from his usual music lectures too; brash, loud kids from all over the art faculty if the bits of conversation he catches before and after say anything. He wants out , but he also doesn’t want to touch anyone or have any of these frat-boy-looking people breathe on him. It looks like he could catch the plague from some of them.

“Sakusa-san.”

Sakusa glances up at his name. Akaashi stands a few feet away, laptop bag slung over one shoulder and guitar case over the other. He looks tired - but he has since they met in freshman year, so Sakusa isn’t terribly concerned. “Akaashi. No boyfriend today?”

Akaashi’s cheeks flush pink. It’s kind of hilarious how easily flustered he is, considering he’s been dating the same boy - his own soulmate - since high school, and Sakusa never tires of seeing his composed demeanour crack. “He has class across campus. Have you found your soulmate yet?”

Ah. Of course it’s back to this. He supposes he asked for it. “No,” he says as he straightens up and slips his own bag over his shoulder. “I don’t care. It’s bullshit anyway, the whole ‘other half’ thing.”

Akaashi narrows his eyes and Sakusa immediately says, “Except you, of course.”

“Sarcasm isn’t a good look on you, Sakusa-san.”

“Good thing I didn’t ask,” he replies and leads the way down the lecture hall’s stairs, into the thinning crowd. “Is the specialization assessment for music minors too?”

“Yes, but-”

Akaashi’s cut off when they reach the bottom of the stairs by a terrible, off-pitch, blood-curling shout that sounds like it might be an attempt at singing. Sakusa flinches away from the noise while he searches the room for the source and settles on - oh .

Somehow, he’s not surprised to see a handful of loud frat boys near one of the hall’s doors; three of them complaining and scolding a bleached blond, who’s devolved into unattractive snickers.

They’re the epitome of dumb university boys. Sakusa wrinkles his nose. “No one with a voice like that should be allowed in the music program.”

Akaashi scoffs an amused sound from behind him. “We can’t all be music geniuses, Sakusa-san.”

He doesn’t comment on how Akaashi’s a music genius in a literature nerd’s body and just turns away from the frat boys to take the other, less terrible exit. “I’ll take the compliment. Are you practicing today?”

“Hopefully. Don’t wait for me, though,” he replies as they step out and into the still-crowded but breathable music building and Sakusa can see Akaashi’s boyfriend coming from a mile away with his dumb spiked-up hair and loud… everything . He’s only talked to him once or twice, but it’s more than enough and Akaashi knows it. He turns to Sakusa and ducks his head in a friendly nod. “I have work from other classes, and…”

He hazards a glance towards the young man practically charging towards them. Sakusa nods. “Yeah. I get it.”

Akaashi smiles at him and nods again before he closes the distance between him and his boyfriend and greets him with a kiss on the cheek. They’re too far for Sakusa to make out the conversation, but they’re practically glowing and Akaashi’s rare smile is on full display.

He can’t help but watch them, just for an extra moment, just as Akaashi’s boyfriend takes his guitar and links their fingers and they walk off, hand in hand.

He can see the appeal. He really can. But the humming in his head starts again, peppy and cheerful and wonderful, and as Sakusa starts down to the music rooms in the basement, he decides it isn’t that bad hearing this every day, even if it isn’t in person.

~

Sakusa has to stop playing the assessment piece and strip off one of the disposable gloves when his phone buzzes atop the piano. He’s half-expecting it to be Akaashi - they don’t text much except practice days - but it’s Komori with a YouTube link. ‘ shld learn to play this w/ ur guitar friend ’.

He squints at the phone. ‘ No. ’

‘ do it for meeeeeee. It suits you! ’

‘ Aren’t you in class ’

‘ ur no fun :cccc ’

Sakusa chuckles under his breath and tucks an earbud in while he opens the link. Komori’s music taste is good, even if it’s different. Sure enough, it’s a laid-back English song he doesn’t understand much of. While he watches the video, he repositions his gloved hand on the piano, takes a guess at the chords. He’s right the first time, to his delight, and follows along; C, A minor, D minor, G . The woman’s voice isn’t too high, and vaguely, he wonders if he could learn the vocals-

A knock at the practice room’s door startles him out of the music and he almost drops his phone. Sakusa catches it and glances up just in time to see Akaashi stepping in, guitar in hand. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“It’s fine, you didn’t.” It’s mostly true. “Wasn’t doing the assessment anyway…”

“Hmm?” Akaashi sets his guitar down and peers over his shoulder. He’s a little close, but doesn’t touch him, just looks. “Anything interesting?”

Sakusa starts to shake his head, but hesitates with his left hand still on the piano keys and right about to turn off his phone. He hasn’t played something for leisure in months, and this has been practically dropped in his lap.

And maybe he should start singing back to his soulmate or whatever.

It’s definitely not the reason he asks, after a moment, “Do you know any English?”

~

(Over dinner that evening, Sakusa tells Komori how tactless he is for sending him a song about murder. Komori just laughs).

Chapter Text

Taiyotobikini

Atsumu’s known his soulmate bond is vocals since he was little, but every time his soulmate sings is like the first time. He doesn’t sing a lot - he did more when they were both kids with squeaky voices - and it’s almost always hesitant, like he’s afraid to stray from what’s written on the page, but Atsumu still stops drumming in the middle of practice in Aran and Kita’s basement when it happens.

Because wow .

It’s beautiful. It always is, but he never gets tired of it. It’s a tenor, soft but strong, tender and sweet and god Atsumu falls in love again every time.

“‘Tsumu, seriously?”

Right . Atsumu suddenly feels the stares of his bandmates drilling into him. He clears his throat and looks up to meet his brother’s unimpressed glare with a grin. “Yes?”

Osamu narrows his eyes. “Can ya get yer head outta yer ass long enough to finish this? We have a day to get this down.”

“Shut it, ‘Samu.” Atsumu points a drumstick at him and tries to scowl, but it doesn’t work, not with the wonderful melody in his head. He doesn’t understand a goddamn word of it - is it English? - but it’s like a kiss in the morning before he leaves for class; lilting and sure and a little playful. “Lemme enjoy myself.”

“Right…” Aran groans and drops his forehead to the microphone. “Your soul bond thing…”

“When I meet yer soulmate, ‘Tsumu,” Osamu huffs as he starts to strum through the song’s chords again. “I swear I’m gonna punch him in the nose. He literally only sings when we’re practicin’.”

“Hey! It isn’t my fault!”

“It kind of is,” says Suna. His face doesn’t change, but Atsumu can hear the smirk. “Just find the damn guy.”

“Be quiet! It ain’t that easy!”

“Let’s take five,” Kita says before they can start bickering. “We can come back to this fresh.”

Osamu sighs and shoots a glare Atsumu’s way as he pulls off his guitar and flops down on the basement’s couch, Suna close behind him. Aran abandons his post at the mic to lean over Kita and the keyboard with a sigh, and Atsumu’s left behind the drums alone. He knows the band’s displeased, but it’s so hard to be even a little guilty when he has an angel singing just for him. He leans forward to rest his arms on the drumkit and smiles; it’s been too long since he’s been blessed with this voice and he’s going to enjoy every bit of it. The guy’s practicing - he stops and starts, goes back and sings phrases over, slows the tempo to hit the notes just right and it’s so intimate . Atsumu knows that’s the whole point of the soul bonds, but his heart speeds up as the vocals in his head slow down and stress a longer, higher note until he’s presumably satisfied with its sound. It melts him into a warm puddle over his drums.

He’s so, so lucky to have this man as his soulmate. There’s a beat before the singing continues again, at tempo from the beginning and it’s velvety and sweet and familiar like a hug on a cold day or breakfast in bed. Atsumu can imagine waking up on a sunny morning with the smell of pancakes and this gorgeous voice as his alarm, can imagine dragging himself out of bed and being greeted with a smile and a kiss as warm as the singing.

The best part is that yeah, he will have that eventually. It’s a dream right now, a dream based on the rare personal concerts he’s witness to, but this singer is his soulmate , the person he’s going to fall for and grow old with. This person, singing somewhere out there, is his other half.

“Hey, Kita,” says Osamu after a moment, though Atsumu only half-hears it. “What’s yer soul bond?”

Ah. Atsumu looks up, even as the singing in his head continues. The room goes quiet as they - him, Osamu, Suna and Aran - wait.

“I don’t know.”

“What?”

“I don’t know,” Kita repeats without missing a beat. He doesn’t even look up from adjusting knobs on his keyboard, just continues as if he’s stating the weather. “Maybe I don’t have one.”

Suna sits up from where he’s flopped over Osamu’s lap. “Is that a thing?”

“For some people.” He shrugs, plays a quick set of chords and shuffles the sheet music on the stand. “There’s more to relationships than soul bonds, anyway.”

Atsumu supposes he’s right; Osamu and Suna are walking proof, with their relationship of a couple years despite being bonded to other people. He knows relationships take work and time but the soul bonds exist for a reason.

“Yer ‘boutta crush ‘Tsumu’s dreams over there,” says Osamu. Atsumu almost misses it as his soulmate’s voice crescendos into the most confident he’s ever heard it, so strong he’s almost convinced he could reach out and touch it. “That’s his entire life.”

“Shut yer trap already!” The singing stops abruptly and Atsumu doesn’t know if it’s a blessing or a curse, but at least he can focus again. “‘Least I’m waitin’ for my soulmate.”

“Fuck off,” snaps Osamu. He pulls Suna even closer and Suna - the little shit - sticks his tongue out and flips him off. Atsumu resists the urge to chuck a drumstick at them both. “Yer in love with a voice , not even a person.”

“At least it’s the voice of the person I’m meant to be with!”

“We’re here to play music.” Kita looks up from his music and from Osamu to Atsumu and back again and Atsumu freezes on the spot. “So let’s play.”

Osamu scoffs but pushes himself up and brings a lethargic, clingy Suna up with him and Atsumu slams his foot down on the bass pedal and surges into a loud drum fill as they set up again.

The whole point of these soul bonds is to know (almost) everyone has someone out there, has a second half waiting for them. He’s not a total freak for being in love with this nameless singer he’s never met, right?

The band takes their positions and looks back at him, even though the song starts with Suna and his brother. He counts them in anyway and falls into the familiar 4/4 beat even though the angelic voice still lingers in his head.

~

Despite their last-minute practices, when the monthly faculty pub night rolls around the next evening, Atsumu’s feeling it. It’s not the same vibe as a wild concert or a rave, but backstage with the other music kids always has energy thrumming through his veins. These nights are always total chaos; musicians running to and fro, stagehands working lights and timing, the chatter of the pub, the adrenaline of an incoming performance.

Atsumu spins a drumstick in his hand, hums to himself and leans against the spare amps stacked in the corner. They’re on next, and within the chaos of instruments and people and tuners laying around he can pick out Kita warming up his fingers on a keyboard and Aran warming up his voice beside him. He can also pick out Suna and Osamu sucking face against the rack of music stands, but he decides not to.

He does have to wonder, though, what it’d be like to have someone with him backstage to hype him up and work out his nerves. He hasn’t heard from his soulmate since the day before; no new songs or even humming (he can’t imagine not humming) and he’s half-convinced he imagined the singing.

“Atsumu.”

Kita’s voice snaps him out of the daydream before he can get too far; he’s done warming up and has his music in hand. Atsumu stops twirling the drumstick, blinks up at the band’s lead. “Ya. Sorry, I’m-”

“Just focus,” he interrupts, before he heads towards the stagehand directing performers, Aran on his heels. Atsumu doesn’t comment on how his brother is still sticking his tongue down Suna’s throat, even though he really, really wants to. I’m the most damn focused in the band right now!

The group onstage wraps up, there’s applause and that’s his cue. Atsumu shakes out his hands, pushes back his bangs and follows Kita and Aran as the last group leaves the stage. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Osamu and Suna scramble for their guitars too.

At least they’ve still got their heads. He stretches his arms over his head as he steps onto the pub’s stage and lets his breath out all at once.

Because this is where he’s meant to be.

It doesn’t matter that the pub’s stage is small and casual or that he isn’t performing on his own drumset because it’s a stage . He saunters across it to reach the drums, plops down on the stool and starts to adjust the angle of the kit as he hums to himself and his bandmates set up nearby.

I wonder if he’s listening. Does he know the songs I hum?

They perform at these pub nights monthly and his thoughts wander to the same spot every time. If his soulmate is listening to his humming, if he’s nearby, if he’s somehow in the audience.

If it would be easier to find him if Atsumu could sing.

Osamu bops him over the head before that train of thought can get too far. “Ya ready?”

“‘Course,” he replies and drums out a fill on the toms to prove his point. “Hope Sunarin didn’t snatch yer voice.”

“We share , I’ll have ya know.”

“Gross.” Atsumu wrinkles his nose, raises his drumsticks, glances to the band, and then counts them in.

And they play. It’s an old song, upbeat, casual, with nostalgia from their childhoods as the most unique part. It’s a song he loves despite its utter lack of interesting percussion or guitar solos and it makes use of all five of them; the two guitars, the keyboard, the four of them that can sing, the steady pace Atsumu sets. It’s a song of vacation and sand between toes and the smell of salt on the breeze; of times before silly things like university and adulthood and soulmates. It has summertime spreading through the pub, even though it’s mid-November outside.

It’s perfect for a Friday night in autumn after a long week. As much as Atsumu loves the loud, the brash, the wild rhythms of rock, there’s something about setting the mood at casual venues that scratches a particular itch. He lets the rhythm keep his hands moving and indulges in the feeling of being onstage.

And then it’s over, as soon as it began. There’s applause over the normal pub conversation, some whoops from regulars and friends, a final fill on the drums to show his appreciation before Atsumu’s headed offstage with a grin on his face. The tension from classes is gone, the air between them five is light; it’s amazing what a single performance can do.

“I’m headin’ out.” says Kita as they start to pack away their things and the next group heads onstage. “Don’t get wasted.”

“Never,” says Atsumu despite the fact he’s done exactly that almost every faculty night. Kita just sends him a look that isn’t quite a glare, but certainly feels like one, nods to Aran and exits the backstage area. Atsumu stoops down to tuck his drumsticks into his brother’s guitar case and starts to ask if Aran’s going to hang around for drinks when he hears it, certainly not loud but clear as day.

It’s humming, the voice that makes him melt humming in his head which is unusual enough by itself but it’s humming something niche and familiar and-

“Hey, are you good?”

Aran’s voice and hand on his shoulder snap him half-out of it. Atsumu snaps upright so fast he might have whiplash and almost manages to ram the back of his head into Aran’s nose, but it doesn’t matter. “He’s - he’s here.”

Osamu raises an eyebrow as he packs his own things into the guitar case. “What?”

“The singer - my soulmate-” Atsumu forces a shuddering breath and tries not to freak out, at least more than he already is. “He’s here , he’s here now. ”

Chapter Text

Sunshine, Lollipops and Rainbows, Give Me the Tank Top, 

Sakusa leans against the brick wall of the pub and hums to keep himself busy. He doesn’t usually hum - he’s a pianist, not a singer after all - but it keeps his brain slightly more occupied than doing nothing.

He draws a long breath in through his nose. I want to go home.

These music faculty nights are torture. Sometimes Akaashi’s playing and Sakusa shows up to support him, but most times it’s Komori dragging him out of the apartment to watch someone-or-another because somehow he knows everyone in the department. It never gets particularly rowdy, but it’s always so full, so many people in such a small space no matter how isolated of a corner he manages to plop down in.

He could probably leave. He could leave early and shower and clean up and indulge in his habits before Komori predictably comes home an hour or two later just a little bit tipsy. It’s so, so tempting to put in his earbuds and walk back to the apartment.

Sakusa taps his fingers on his bare forearm as he hums. He kind of wishes he knew the lyrics or the song’s name.

He kind of wishes he could wash his hands.

His sanitizer’s with Komori - of course it is - and Komori’s probably backstage chatting or having a drink with some boisterous college kids.

His skin starts to crawl, the taps turn to light scratches, then to nails digging into the flesh and muscle. Sakusa knows what’s happening, but it doesn’t stop the crawling feeling from spreading up to his shoulder and under his shirt or how his heart beats a little faster-

Then, like some silent prayer’s been answered, his unsteady hums are accompanied by a much more familiar voice. Sakusa’s fingers loosen on his arm and his breath catches in his throat as his soulmate keeps humming, right here he dropped off.

This is some superstitious tomfuckery if he’s ever seen it, but he doesn’t care. His pulse slows and his lungs fill; it’s like a drug washing over him all at once. Sakusa forces a deep breath, closes his eyes and listens, focuses on the honeyed tune, on how it reminds him of summertimes spent at Komori’s grandparents’.

On how it feels like anything but panic. He can imagine the person humming to him being warm and comforting and homey - being safe . It’s a wholly unusual feeling, but Sakusa realizes he wants to be touched. Tenderly, gently, like the humming in his head, like he won’t feel the need to scrub it away right after.

“Sakusa?”

Sakusa’s eyes snap open and he’s suddenly face-to-face with Komori who’s peering up at him, eyebrows drawn together in concern. He bites his lip and steps back. “Sorry. I didn’t know you’d left. Are you…”

Sakusa swallows, nods and holds out his hand, and Komori tosses him the little bottle of hand sanitizer. For all his meddling, he knows when to give in.

“Do you wanna go home?”

He does, the answer is yes (it usually is), but as he returns the sanitizer to Komori, he hesitates. They’ve been at university three years and he can’t count the number of times his cousin’s ditched an event for him. If he says yes, Komori will follow.

“He was humming,” Sakusa says after a moment, fiddling with his fingers. “The song that the group onstage just played.”

“Really?” Komori leans against the wall next to him and his concern melts into enthusiasm. “That’s neat as hell. You think it’s some telepathic thing?”

“I was humming it first. He just continued it.”

“Still, it’s cool he knew it! I didn’t. Maybe he’s here right now.”

Sakusa wrinkles his nose. “I hope not.”

“Kiyoomi! He’s not gonna be like you!”

I hope not. “I’ll make him, then.”

Komori laughs and pushes off the wall. “I can ask around, see if anyone else has an auditory bond. It’s pretty uncommon, but you never know.”

“If you want to.”

“I’ll tell you if I find anything,” he says and smiles one of those crooked, cheery grins Sakusa can’t help but return, just a little. “I’m gonna grab a drink with some friends. You… You can go if you want, you know I won’t take it personally.

I know. “Thanks.”

He sends a little salute and heads back towards the pub’s entrance, and Sakusa’s left alone in the cool, humid evening.

Komori’s far from a child. He can handle himself, but it’s always an uncomfortable feeling leaving early. Sakusa reaches into his pocket for his earbuds as he turns to leave, but the humming starts again, the same summertime song, from the beginning and he reconsiders.

It’s a better soundtrack than the music he’s got downloaded anyway.

~

When he wakes up in the morning, there’s no alarm, no humming and no smell of breakfast - mostly normal for a Saturday. But there’s nothing cooking, which is a little odd.

Still, everyone needs a break. He doesn’t think much of it, forces himself out of bed and starts his morning routine. A shower, washing his hair, brushing his teeth and then into the kitchen where-

“Motoya.”

Komori’s hunched over a mug and a bowl of cereal, a far cry from his usual overenthusiastic homemade meals. He looks up when Sakusa steps in and rests his chin in his hand. “Hey. Sorry, no breakfast.”

“We have leftovers for days,” he says and makes his way to the fridge. Sure enough, there’s pasta, udon, eggs - his cousin’s a stress cooker, and it only gets worse as the semester continues.

Komori doesn’t offer any conversation as he closes the fridge and grabs the cereal from the counter too, but his eyes burn into Sakusa’s back. Something’s bugging him. “So.”

“So,” Komori grumbles as he pours milk and grabs a spoon. Sakusa turns to lean against the counter and face his cousin, who pouts intensely at his bowl. “I met my soulmate last night.”

“Wait, what ?”

“Yeah,” he says and Sakusa briefly wonders if he’s been body-snatched. “But. He’s seeing someone already?”

Huh? He squints at Komori and raises an eyebrow. “Wait. What?”

“I got his number.” Komori jabs at his cereal so hard the milk splashes up and hits him in the face. “But he - something about enjoying his youth? Not letting the bond decide how he lives? I don’t remember.”

Well . It isn’t a terrible philosophy; maybe if he was a different person, Sakusa would do the same. But Komori’s evidently torn up about it. “Did he… Turn you down?”

“No. Just said he isn’t gonna fall in love with me because we have the same mark.”

Sakusa pops a spoonful of cereal in his mouth and considers this. It doesn’t seem like a terrible result; the soul bonds don’t lie, they’ll end up together anyway.

Of course, he doesn’t say that. Komori shakes his head with a sigh and gives him an apologetic smile. “Sorry, I know you don’t care about all this stuff. I did find someone with an auditory bond, though, he was friends with my… Whatever. I didn’t get a chance to talk to him, just got his number from the other guy.”

Sakusa’s heart flutters despite himself. He swallows the bite of food. “It probably isn’t my soulmate anyway. Auditory bonds aren’t the rarest.”

“You never know. Did you get home okay?”

“I should be asking that to you.”

“I was fine,” he says, but there’s none of his usual optimism, none of the pep. He looks vaguely like a kicked puppy. “Didn’t get home too late. Finished that transcription I was working on.”

“Good,” he says, even though it’s nothing good. He hates seeing Motoya like this and it doesn’t happen very often. He’s excellent at shaking things off, at forcing Sakusa to do the same.

Sakusa sighs to himself and scoops up another spoonful of cereal. “Give me the guy’s number.”

“What?”

He brings the cereal to his mouth and gives Komori a don’t make me say it again look, and Komori complies. He reaches across the table for his phone and stumbles over his words for a moment. “Wha - which one? My soulmate? His boyfriend? The other guy?”

“The other guy,” he says. Even though he’d like to have a word with the soulmate and he’d really like to have a word with his boyfriend, it’ll just make Komori shut down more. They’ve learned not to mess with each other’s business without permission after so many years. “The… Auditory bond one.”

Komori raises an eyebrow as he unlocks his phone, and smiles a little at him; it’s weak and unsteady but it’s so much better than the devastated, deflated look. “What’s with you? Did my failure inspire you to find your guy?”

“It isn't a failure , Motoya.”

“Yeah, whatever. Here, I sent it to you.” Sure enough, Sakusa’s phone vibrates in his pocket. “His name’s Miya. Didn’t catch his given name.”

Sakusa nods. He doesn’t think he’ll need a given name anyway. Komori gives him another cheeky little smile before he deflates again and returns to his breakfast, and Sakusa does the same. He doesn’t go out much except to exercise and attend class, but he has a feeling his cousin’s gloom is going to chase him out of the apartment whether his stomach’s full or not.

Still…

“Do you want anything if I go out?”

Komori pauses with a spoonful of cereal halfway to his mouth and cocks his head. “Well, uh… If you’re going, maybe those nice senbei from the corner shop on campus? You don’t have to, though.”

Sakusa just grunts and makes a mental note of it, and the kitchen falls silent.

~

He doesn’t manage to spend more than a few hours in a dreary apartment before it gets unbearable. It’s grey and rainy outside, but Sakusa finds he prefers it to Komori’s moping, at least with his worn yellow jacket and an umbrella keeping him dry. So he ventures out, onto the humid, chilly campus, phone in his free hand and Komori’s text open on the screen.

It’s just a phone number and a wink next to it because even kicked-puppy Komori can’t resist his dumb emojis. He’s tempted to just close the text and forget about it, just head right to the corner store and get Komori’s senbei, but…

He ducks under the shelter of a faculty building’s doorway, long-presses the message to copy it and starts a new conversation.

‘ Hey. Is this Miya? ’

He stares at it for a long moment, then starts to tuck his phone into the pocket of his jacket when it buzzes with a new message.

It’s probably Motoya or Akaashi-

Oh. Sure enough, it’s the number Komori gave him. Sakusa sighs and reopens the conversation.

‘ Which one ’

Which one? Sakusa does a double-take; he’s never met another Miya in his life. Is there really more than one on campus?

‘ My cousin met you yesterday. Komori Motoya ’

This time, Sakusa watches the dots at the bottom of the screen while he closes his umbrella. There isn’t any backing out of this at this point, he supposes.

‘ The sunny guy w the flower??? ’

That’s one way to put it. ‘ Yeah. ’

‘ Ahhhhhhh ur the guy with the singing bond then!!! ’

Sakusa can feel the energy radiating through the phone. He pulls a face under the mask. Komori’s emojis are better than this kind of texting any day. ‘ Yeah. ’

‘ Ive never met someone with the same bond!! We gotta meet! ’

No , is his first thought. Just texting this person - Miya - is draining. He just needs to figure out what the hell is going on with Komori’s soulmate. His thumb hovers over the keyboard for a second before he sorts out his thoughts but when he goes to press send, another message comes through. ‘ Wait whats ur name lol ’

Sakusa doesn’t bother copy-pasting his message, just tacks his name on at the beginning. He isn’t all that interested in getting to know this guy, or this guy getting to know him. ‘ Sakusa . What’s with Komori’s soulmate? ’

There’s a pause in the messages, a moment where Sakusa’s huddled under the building’s overhang with rain drumming on the roof and phone in hand. He starts to fumble for his earbuds in his pocket when almost on cue, there’s that wonderful humming in his head. It’s cheerful and peppy, completely out of place on such a dreary day, but it’s very welcome.

‘ U don’t mess around, huh? U mean Suna? ’

Fuck if I know. ‘ What’s his deal? ’

‘ Aren’t u a mama bear ’

Sakusa scowls at the message and tries to figure out the best way to reply while keeping an air of civility when another message comes through. ‘ Its complicated. Buy me a boba and I’ll spill ’

What?

Sakusa starts to reply, starts to call it off and just accept he’ll be in the dark about the whole thing, but pauses halfway through the message.

He’s talking to this obnoxious guy for Komori, not for him, and there’s no way in hell he’s spending a dismal weekend stuck inside with an even more dismal cousin.

Plus you’ve never met anyone with an auditory bond before…

The humming in his head does not match the annoyance he’s currently feeling. Sakusa deletes his half-finished text and starts a new one. ‘ Fine. When? ’

‘ Oh lol I wasn’t serious but like 20 mins then? @ the one on campus? ’

Plenty of time for him to duck into the corner store and bring Komori a snack. He opens his umbrella with his free hand and texts back with the other before stepping back out into the rain. ‘ K ’

~

The boba shop is too full for Sakusa’s liking and he ends up waiting outside, under the building’s tiny overhang. He doesn’t usually venture to this part of campus for that reason exactly, but the sooner he gets this over with, the sooner he can retire back to his room with his keyboard.

Sakusa shrinks back against the wall as a couple chatty girls head into the shop and keeps scrolling through his phone. The humming’s stopped, but he can’t comfortably reach for his earbuds without getting wet…

“Hey. Sakusa?”

Sakusa glances up at his name. Someone’s stopped right in front of him, jeans and a wet hoodie, but he has to look all the way up to see their face-

Wait.

He scoffs a laugh. “ You’re Miya?”

“Yeah…?”

There isn’t another explanation for the person standing in front of him, but Sakusa still can’t quite believe it because apparently this is the other guy on campus who has an auditory bond. This guy with bleached-blond hair and a hand on his hip and water dripping down his nose; this guy who’s unmistakably the one who was cutting off the other exit at the bossa lecture.

“I mean, I’m the older Miya,” the guy continues before Sakusa can find anything to say. He has a thick accent of some sort, which must be annoying to his soulmate. “My brother - Osamu - he’s Suna’s boyfriend. So ya could be lookin’ for him, but-”

“You have an auditory soul bond.”

“Oh.” Miya nods. “That’s me, then.”

“And you can’t sing.”

“I-” Miya scoffs and his hands clench into fists like a petulant toddler. It’d be a little funny if he weren’t a university student. “How do ya know-”

“The bossa lecture.” Something lifts off Sakusa’s shoulders when he realizes this guy can’t be his soulmate because he has the voice of a dying raccoon. He lets out a breath. “You’re not mine, then. Tell me about Komori’s soulmate.”

“Ah ah, ya promised boba first.” Miya points a finger way too close to his face and Sakusa shrinks away. “Boba then I’ll talk.”

Ugh, god. He’s chilly and the humidity has his mask feeling damp and now that it’s obvious this guy isn’t his soulmate, he just wants to go home . Sakusa fishes a bill out of his pocket and shoves it at Miya. “Go. Buy your drink then.”

“Huh?”

He glares at him with his best don’t make me repeat myself , and Miya clicks his tongue and snatches the bill away. “Fine. I’m not gonna turn down free shit.”

He turns on his heel and opens the door to the boba shop, leaving Sakusa alone in the rain again. A long breath puffs past his lips.

Miya is overwhelming and he’s only been around for five minutes at best. Sakusa yanks down his masks and gasps a lungful of fresh, damp air as his heart skips against his ribs. He likes to think he’s better at managing his emotions, but it's a lot harder when it comes like a sucker punch. Before the jitters can spread out from his chest though, the gorgeous humming starts.

It’s uncanny how it comes when his anxiety spikes, Sakusa knows it is, but he doesn’t care because it always washes over him like a warm shower after a long day of class, always comes like a wave lapping at a beautiful seashore. His hand tightens around his phone but the rest of his body relaxes, back against the shop’s wall. It’s something he doesn’t recognize again, but he likes it; there’s range and variety in only a few phrases, all of which is captured perfectly. Sakusa’s wondered before if it’s somehow a program or robot with how flawless it is, but there’s too much emotion in the tone. He’s sure it’s a human - which is kind of amazing.

It’s a shame Miya can’t sing, but it’s a distant thought with the song in his head. Sakusa tries to remember it, working out the chords so he can look it up later - taking his mind off what’s currently at hand. It sounds a little like rock, but it’s hard to tell by just a voice-

Before he can figure it out, the boba shop’s door swings open and Miya walks out with a sunset-orange drink in hand. The humming in his head stops at the same time the humming outside his head starts, and-

Wait.

Sakusa’s eyes widen and his heart stops as Miya cocks his head, gives him a half-concerned look and stops humming. “What?”

There’s no fucking way. There’s no way this is real. A rushed, whispered ‘ what the fuck ’ slips past his lips before he can stop it. Miya waves his free hand in front of him, too close to Sakusa’s face. “Hey. Yer starin’ into space.”

Sakusa doesn’t even know where to begin. There’s no way in hell this is his soulmate - and even if it is, does he really want him? He’s seen Miya twice, maybe three times and every encounter has been unpleasant and suffocating.

He doesn’t know where to start. So he doesn’t. Sakusa pulls his mask back over his face and shakes his head. “Tell me about Motoya.”

“Flower guy?” Miya takes a sip of his drink and slips his hand in his pocket. “Well - it’s kinda wet. Ya sure ya don’t wanna sit inside somewhere?”

For god’s sake - “If it’ll get you talking faster, then fine,” he snaps, only a little guilty at how Miya recoils. His back hits the wall next to Sakusa’s. “Geez, okay, okay. What do ya wanna know?”

“His soulmate…” He trails off and tries to recall Komori’s exact words. “Is dating someone.”

“Ah… Yeah. Told him it’d backfire, but…” Miya shakes his head a little and stares up at the overhang. “Suna’s his soulmate. But Suna’s been datin’ my brother for awhile now.”

“And your brother…”

“Got a different soulmate too,” he says and taps his fingers against his drink. “Some people wait their whole lives for their soulmate. They weren’t about to.”

It makes sense, it does; whatever string linking soulmates together doesn’t always untangle itself in youth. Sakusa’s dated other people who definitely aren’t his soulmate, even if none of them lasted long. It isn’t uncommon.

But…

“He doesn’t have to wait anymore,” Sakusa says after a moment. “Motoya’s right there.”

Miya shrugs and takes another sip of boba. “Seems complicated. I dunno what Suna’s plan is. I think it’s easier just to wait for yer soulmate.”

“That’s not the point.”

“Y’had a point?”

Sakusa glares daggers at him. He holds up a hand defensively. “Okay, okay, what is it?”

“That he has found his soulmate now. So he should drop whoever the other guy is.”

“Alright, alright, I see yer point.” Miya punctuates his sentence with an obnoxious slurp of his drink ( how did he even manage that? ). “But I don’t see what I’m supposed to do with it.”

Sakusa raises an eyebrow at him and crosses his arms over his chest. This guy seems dumb, but he can’t be that dumb. He’s in university after all.

Yet Miya stares back blankly and drinks his boba. There’s a long moment of silence, of rain pattering on the roof above and another handful of chatting people leaving the shop, of Miya loudly sipping his tea, and Sakusa’s patience is really wearing thin. One of the girls leaving the shop smiles at him, and Miya grins back with a flirty little nod.

This guy is insufferable . Sakusa’s tempted to smack him, even knowing he’s probably riddled with germs, but he resists. “Miya.”

“Yeah, yeah - call me Atsumu, will ya?” Miya rolls his eyes and swirls his drink as he speaks. “Me and my brother are Miya. Gotta be specific, y'know?”

Sakusa squints at him. “ Miya .”

“I’m not gonna tell my brother to break up with his boyfriend,” he says, tone dropping to something, well - less irritating but definitely irritated . “It ain’t my problem.”

“I’m not asking you to.”

“And Suna’ll deck me if I go to him!” Miya shakes his head vigorously and sucks another mouthful of boba up the straw. “No way dude. Man, and I was hoping ya’d be my person!”

“Tough luck.” Sakusa pushes off the wall and opens his umbrella. He’s had enough for the day and he has music to practice, things to think about that aren’t ‘ did I just meet my soulmate? ’. “Thanks I guess.”

“Wait!”

Before he can react, there’s a hand on his arm, tugging him back. Sakusa yanks it out of Miya’s grip and whips around so fast the umbrella almost smacks him across the face. “ Don’t touch me.”

For the first time since they’ve met, Miya looks legitimately startled, half-flinched away and his hand extended in midair. Sakusa steps out of his range and tries not to choke on his pounding heartbeat as Atsumu says. “Uh - sorry. I just… What’s yer first name? I’ve never met someone else with a song bond…”

Oh. This guy wants a friend, a friend who shares his more unusual soul bond and can relate and Sakusa isn’t that. He isn’t friendly or relatable or tolerant enough for this loud, overenthusiastic man and he doesn’t want to pretend he is.

He doesn’t want to entertain the idea of a friendship, whether they’re soulmates or not. If they are, they’ll get thrown back together eventually. Sakusa turns back to head out into the rain. “Kiyoomi.”

“See ya ‘round then, Kiyoomi.”

Sakusa hopes he doesn’t, for both their sakes.

Chapter Text

Funkastic, Love Sick, 

When Atsumu says he has no intention of interfering with his brother’s relationship (more than he normally does, at least), he means it.

Well. For like, a day or two, at least. He practices drums, goes to class and absolutely does not think about the pretty stranger whose text conversation is dropping lower in his messages.

He doesn’t. But sitting in the music building’s quiet lobby after his only class on Wednesday, Atsumu’s feeling for boba, and well, it can’t hurt to see if the guy’ll pay for it in return for a favour.

Right?

Right , he thinks to himself as he scrolls down to tap on the conversation titled Sakusa Kiyoomi . It hasn’t been touched since that rainy day they met, but it doesn’t stop him. ‘ Kiyooooooomi ’

He watches the text to make sure it sends, then flips back to his other messages. There’s Osamu at the top, who’s refused to lend him notes and completely deserves the message calling him a dickhead, then Aran who’s only learned about his twins’ soulmate fiasco today and is so unimpressed Atsumu can feel it radiating out from the text, then the band’s group chat which is mostly just Suna dumping gossip like the nosy bastard he is. Then-

Then his phone buzzes and oh . It’s him, he’s replied and Atsumu shouldn’t get such a rush from that because he’s not some thrill-seeking high-schooler. He leans back in his seat and opens the message.

‘ Don’t call me that. ’

Of course . He’s just as dry as Atsumu expected. He grins to himself as he replies, ‘ Omi, then ‘

‘ What do you want ’

Well. Even though he was expecting it to go something like this, Atsumu’s a little disappointed he was right. ‘ Omiomi don’t be like thattttt I was gonna help u out’

There’s a long pause where he’s left on seen and he’s about to swallow the defeat and continue his day, but then another message comes through. ‘ With what ’

‘ Ur cousin or whatever ’

‘ Motoya? ’

That sounds familiar. Atsumu starts to tap out a response, but he’s cut off; ‘ What’s the catch? ’

Clever boy. It might make milking the opportunity a little harder, but he likes the fiery reservation - and he’s never shied away from a challenge. ‘ There isn’t one!! Except maybe more boba ’

The seen receipt pops up again. Atsumu stares at it for a moment, then two, then just as he’s sure Sakusa’s over it, his phone buzzes.

‘ Don’t you have class? ’

Heh. He relaxes back in the seat and starts to hum the first song that comes to mind - something old, something from his too-extensive Rip Slyme library. It’s not a no. ‘ Not today. We on for boba Omiomi? ’

‘ I’m not paying for anything until I hear your plan. ’

It’s annoyingly fair, especially because Atsumu doesn’t have a plan, but he wants boba, specifically from this pretty boy who seems adversed to giving it. ‘ Aight. 30 mins? ’

Another long pause, enough Atsumu reaches the bridge of the song he’s humming, but sure enough, another text comes through. ‘ An hour. ’

Score. Atsumu slings his bag over his shoulder, hops up, mentally pats himself on the back and goes to turn off his phone when it buzzes again.

‘ And don’t call me that. ’

He laughs to himself. The nickname definitely suits Sakusa.

~

It’s a nicer day, which Atsumu appreciates during the walk across the busy campus. Autumn’s in full swing, with fallen leaves splotched brightly over the pavement, fuzzy sweaters and bomber jackets donned by almost everyone he passes and couples with hands clasped or pockets being shared. It’s kind of like walking through a painting, with student-staffed shops on either side and the big university building placed smack in front of it all.

He hums to himself, steps in time to the music; Osamu’s always made fun of his tendency to walk with rhythm (especially because he’s been told he can’t dance) but how’s he supposed to resist? If no one else knows how to enjoy themselves, it isn’t his issue. Atsumu wishes he’d brought his sticks because this song swings in time with the beat and the itch to drum along crawls under his skin, but-

Ah. Atsumu catches a glimpse of the same neon jacket Sakusa wore the first time they met. Sure enough, he’s leaning against the boba shop’s wall, slouched over with his hands stuck in his pockets and a plain white mask covering most of his face; it almost looks like he’s trying to hide, which is kind of ridiculous considering how loud his jacket is and that he’s at least six feet. Atsumu has to bite his tongue against a comment that might send him running off before he gets his drink as he lets his humming trail off and approaches. “Hey, Omi.”

Sakusa glances up and squints at him - or maybe it’s a glare, it’s hard to tell with so much of his face covered. “Miya.”

“Don’t get too excited there.” He grins and slides his hands in his pockets. Even with the killer side-eye, Sakusa can’t look terribly intimidating with his highlighter jacket. “No class today either, huh?”

“Evening lecture,” Sakusa huffs. “Cut the small talk. Are you going to help me or not?”

Harsh. Especially because Atsumu likes small talk. He cocks his head and leans forward, just a touch and Sakusa shrinks away. “We can’t sit down and talk about it over boba? How unprofessional , Omi.”

Sakusa blinks at him, slow, calculated, utterly unimpressed. “Boba isn’t professional.”

“Well - business casual!” He places a hand firmly on his hip and narrows his eyes to mirror Sakusa’s; god he wishes he could see the expression under the mask, but he’ll cope. “C’mon Omi-Omi, ya can’t sit down and work out an agreement?”

Sakusa stares at him silently for a long moment, looks him up and down with an intense predatory gaze Atsumu feels he should probably be more afraid of. He holds his ground, though, and raises an eyebrow as the bustle of campus around them fades into distant background noise.

It’s him and Sakusa and the question hanging over them, him smirking just a little bit wider so it can’t be missed and Sakusa’s dark eyes boring a hole right through him.

Then-

“Fine.”

-the rest of the world comes back all at once. Sakusa turns on his heel and pushes the boba shop’s door open with a shoulder. “I’ll pay you back after.”

It’s curt and just shy of a snap and Sakusa lets the door fall shut without waiting for him, but it doesn’t feel like any less of a win. Atsumu grins to himself and follows Sakusa into the shop.

~

After ordering his regular pineapple-mango tea, Atsumu slides into a seat across the table Sakusa’s waiting at. It’s right by the window - a coveted study spot - and tucked away in a comfy corner, yet Sakusa somehow still looks uncomfortable, sitting stiff and slouched with his shoulders drawn in. Atsumu rests his elbow on the table and fiddles with the straw’s wrapper. “Not enjoyin’ the weather, Omi?”

The way Sakusa looks at him, he’s never enjoyed the weather in his life. Atsumu tsks , slides the end of the straw between his lips and shoots the wrapper right against the beauty mark on Sakusa’s forehead. It falls to the table. Sakusa’s brow furrows. “Are you helping me or not, Miya?”

“ Really not one for small talk, are ya?” Atsumu stabs the straw past the plastic lid of the drink and sighs. He’s not getting a cute boba date, he supposes, no matter how hard he pushes - at least not today. “Whatever. I guess I could try and invite yer cousin to some of our band practices. He’s a music major, right?”

“Production.”

“Sure Aran would like that,” he hums because drawing this out, watching Sakusa’s brow wrinkle more and more until he undeniably snaps is much better than slaving over whatever chapter of music history that’s been assigned. “Why’re ya so set on this? Tryin’ to get rid of him or somethin’?”

“It’s none of your business.”

“Ya know,” Atsumu takes a sip of his boba, then points it across the table. “I feel like it kinda is, if yer askin’ me to help ya.”

“Do I need to have a reason?”

He definitely has a reason. Maybe it’s some family drama or maybe the cousin’s super annoying (it was certainly nice to have Osamu off his back when he started seeing Suna) or maybe it’s utterly boring but Atsumu is going to find out what it is if it kills him. He grins and the ice in his drink clatters as he brings the straw back to his lips. “Y’know, Omi, it’s a lot easier to help ya if I know all the info.”

Sakusa glowers at him. Atsumu wishes he would take off the mask to see if his scowl matches his eyes. “Look Miya-”

As if on cue, Atsumu’s phone pings loudly from his pocket and he goes to grab it out of habit. He doesn’t keep his ringer on for many people. “Hold that thought, Omi.”

Are you serious?” Sakusa scoffs as he turns his attention to the offending message - shoot, it’s Gin. “ God you’re insufferable .”

Maybe Atsumu would take it more personally if the new message from Ginjima didn’t hit him first; ‘ Hey bastard u better be ready to start the classical composition final or I will personally kick ur ass ’

Right. It’s a small miracle he’s gotten so far as a music major without being able to read sheet music (well, anything but drum sheet music), but he was hoping it’d carry him further. Atsumu clicks his tongue and starts humming, tapping his fingers in time against his boba. It might be time to get on his knees and beg Gin to do his part for him. “Shit…”

“ Miya .”

Right. Atsumu snaps his head up and blinks at a Sakusa who looks very peeved and very close to leaving. “Er. Sorry. Yer really not gonna tell me about why yer so obsessed with this?”

“I’m not obsess-”

“Ya know, my services might come at a higher price, then,” he drawls, lips twitching back up into a grin because wow even with the mask, this guy is expressive as all hell. Maybe it’s why he wears it. He licks his lips and continues, drawing things out for the sake of it, “I dunno if I could just help ya outta the kindness of my heart if ya don’t tell me why I’m helpin’...”

“Somehow, I don’t think you were going to help me just ‘out of the kindness of your heart’ anyway,” Sakusa says flatly, though his irritation is practically oozing from what Atsumu can see of his expression. He’s right, Atsumu’ll give him that, though he hadn’t quite decided what his side of the deal would be. As much as he likes boba, it’s pricey for an undergrad student, and-

Oh.

Atsumu stops tapping his fingers, sits up a little straighter. “Hey, Omi, yer a music major too, right?”

“I am.” The furrow on his forehead relaxes a little, but one of his eyebrows raises. “Why?”

“What’s yer specialization?”

“Miya, why do y-”

“Omi, serious, what is it?”

Sakusa blinks at him, once, twice, three times, as if he’s trying to visually put a puzzle together. “Keys.”

Perfect. “Teach me to read music and I’ll help ya with yer cousin, no questions asked.”

For a long moment, the ambient noise of the shop and tinny music playing over the sound system fills the space between them. Sakusa stares at him, leans forward a little, contemplates his words, then says, “Excuse me?”

“Teach me to read sheet music,” he repeats. “And I’ll help yer cousin win over Sunarin. Sound fair?”

“I…” Sakusa crosses his arms and cocks his head. “Aren’t you a music major? Can’t you read sheet music?”

“I - well…” Atsumu scratches his ear with a little laugh; it’s a lot more embarrassing to say aloud. “I can read drum music…”

“Oh my god, how are you-” He groans and pinches the bridge of his nose, right above the mask. “Can’t you ask a prof? Or a friend ?”

“Ya know, we could be friends, Omi.”

Sakusa lets out a long, exaggerated sigh and looks up at the ceiling, as if he’s saying a silent prayer - or maybe asking for patience - then says, strained and biting, “We aren’t friends. The second you know how to read basic sheet music, I’m done being your tutor. But you sure as hell better convince your friend to start seeing Motoya.”

Atsumu grins at him and brings the straw of his boba to his lips. “Deal. When do ya wanna start?”

Chapter Text

Capriccio in B Minor, Phanto(me)

Sakusa likes to think he has a fair bit of self-confidence. He’s a good pianist and a better student, he’s at university on a scholarship that covers most expenses and he’s, well, civil to people - people that deserve it, at least. He’s a relatively confident, self-respecting man.

At least, he usually is.

Today, sitting at the piano in the basement of the music building with this bleached-blond dumbass drummer who he’s terrifyingly certain is the one constantly humming in his head, is not ‘usually’.

The old wooden bench creaks and dips in the middle when he shifts to snap on the latex gloves he (thankfully) keeps in his jacket. He usually favours the left side, but he’s placed himself square in the center lest Miya gets any ideas about sitting on it with him. He can see and hear just fine from the chair he’s pulled from stacks along the percussion equipment.

Atsumu slurps his boba loudly as Sakusa moves his sheet music aside and creases his old scale book so it’ll stay open on the piano. He hasn’t used it in ages, but it’s probably the best place to start.

How the hell is he here if he can’t read music? How’d he even get in?

“Hey Omi-kun, ain’t it hard to play with gloves?”

“No.” He doesn’t explain that it’s harder for him to play without them and glances over his shoulder. “Look. Does any of this make sense?”

Atsumu leans forward in the chair and squints at the scale on the page. It’s C major. If he knows any notes, it’ll be these ones. He hums a curious note then shakes his head. “I mean, they’re quarter notes? It’s in common time?”

Well. He isn’t a total lost cause, at least, though it’d be even more disturbing if he somehow knew nothing . Sakusa points to the first note of the scale. It’s middle C, the first note any piano player can recognize. He can’t remember a time where he didn’t know what it was. “What’s this note?”

A slurp of boba, a shrug. “Fuck if I know.”

“ How ?” It slips past his lips before he can think about it because what the hell . Is this guy a total fraud of a musician? How has he passed any theory classes? “You can’t read any of this?”

“Ya know, this feels a lot like judgin’ and not a lot like helpin’, Omi-Omi.”

Dear god. Sakusa’s brain hurts already. He takes a deep breath and places his right hand on the piano. “The notes go from A to G, but keys and strings start on concert C. So it goes-” He hesitates, clears his throat, then loses his nerve and flatly recites the scale instead of trying to match pitch. “ C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C . They correlate directly to the notes on the page.”

Atsumu hums again, then points (too close) over Sakusa’s shoulder at the book. “So that one with the line through it is C?”

“Middle C,” he supplies. “It’s a good benchmark.”

“But that one’s also C?”

His finger moves up, up to the third space on the staff and the last note of the scale. Sakusa nods. “That’s high C. The spaces on the staff are F, A, C and E, and the lines E, G, B, D and F.”

“So…” Atsumu reaches forward, places his drink on top of the piano and presses middle C with his pointer finger, just above Sakusa’s gloved thumb. They brush, warmth seeps through the thin glove and sets Sakusa’s entire body alight as his breath stutters. It takes a second for his brain to kick back into action and yank his hand away, but by then, Atsumu’s moved from sitting behind him to standing to his right and leaning so close Sakusa gets a whiff of fruity shampoo.

His chest goes tight, and he almost misses Atsumu’s finger trailing down to the next scale; G major. “So this note’s the same as this one from the other scale… It would sound like…”

And then he hums , right next to Sakusa’s ear, starting on middle G and working his way up the octave, unmistakable and familiar and comforting even though his heart’s going a million miles an hour. It’s him , it’s undeniably him; the boy whose humming he’d listen for curled up under the blankets with anxiety wracking him on dark nights, the boy who he’s imagined duets with since he was little, the boy - the man - leaning over him and puzzling over basic piano scales he should know by now.

It’s perhaps the less shocking realization he comes to, though. Sakusa whips around and glances up. “Do that again.”

“Do wh-”

“The scale. Hum the scale again.”

“Um…” It’s hard to tell with the angle of the light, but he swears Atsumu’s face goes pink. He obediently hums the scale, though, starting right on middle G and working his way up without any reference point - without any mistakes.

Suddenly, pieces start to fall into place. Why he’s here, why he can’t read music, why he’s gotten as far as he has. Sakusa’s face must say something, because Atsumu chuckles and reaches for his boba. “What is it, Omi-kun? I know I’m good looking, but-”

“You have perfect pitch,” Sakusa says softly to himself. He’s met people with perfect pitch before, but this one, this person - god, he doesn’t deserve it. “You have perfect pitch and you can’t read music.”

“Perfect - what?” Atsumu cocks his head and raises an eyebrow and it pisses Sakusa off even more because this goddamn man doesn’t even know how lucky he is. “What’re ya on about, Omi? Is my pitch really that pretty?”

“No, you…” Sakusa turns back to the piano and plays a key. “What note was that?”

“Geez, Omi, I don’t know…” He takes a sip of the boba as Sakusa repeats the note and stares up at him. “E? Is it E?”

Sakusa blinks at him in disbelief, resists the urge to bite his head off as he smiles - smirks , the little shit - back and chews on the end of the boba straw. “ Omi , was I right or not?”

“Yes,” he finally says, and the look of glee on Atsumu’s face is nothing short of childish. “But you can’t sing… What…”

“Well, yeah, I’m a drummer for a reason, Omi. What’re ya talkin’ about, anyway?”

Jesus, he really has no idea. Sakusa isn’t sure if he wants to kick him or teach him - or both - but for the moment, he focuses on the latter. It would be a disservice to the music program to let this idiot walk without educating him. “Nothing. Do you have a pencil?”

“Yeah, here ya g-”

“I don’t want it,” Sakusa says as Atsumu holds out a pencil to him. He plucks the scale book from the piano and presses it to Atsumu’s chest, just hard enough he stumbles back and Sakusa can breathe again. “Go through the book and write the letters under the notes. I can’t teach you anything if you don’t know their names.”

Atsumu tucks the pencil behind his ear and takes the book with a huffy, overexaggerated pout. “Ya won’t help me, Omi-kun? That isn’t very helpful of ya.”

Sakusa stares at him. He’s made the wrong decision in not booting this guy in the shins and leaving him in the dust. “I’ll help you when you learn the notes.”

That seems to be a fair compromise. Atsumu retreats back to his seat and lays the scale book open on his lap, and Sakusa turns back to the piano. He’s got a full term’s worth of repertoire to perfect by the holidays, and he’s half-tempted to try and cheer up Motoya by learning the song he’d sent with Akaashi too.

But…

He doesn’t want to sing, not in front of Miya, not if they’re actually soulmates. Sakusa’s heard bad soulmate meetings and how they can poorly impact the relationship and he’s experienced dumb people who try to jump into his life without his consent.

Just… It isn’t time… Not now. If he’s really my soulmate, we’ll get thrown together in the end anyway.

Being alone isn’t a bad thing, and Sakusa isn’t going to change his mind over some cheeky drummer he barely knows the name of. He straightens his back, places his fingers on the keys, and starts the first repertoire sheet on the stand. It’s a capriccio - he’s never been fond of them - and an uninteresting one at that, but it’s easy enough to play with someone else in the room. He starts slow, below tempo because his fingers are cold , quiet enough he can hear Atsumu’s pencil strokes from behind him and detached enough he can feel eyes boring into his back.

He chews on his lip beneath the mask, tries to focus on playing even though all his thoughts are consumed by Miya Atsumu and his dumb blond hair and dumber perfect pitch-

“Hey Omi, whatcha playin’?”

Sakusa fingers slip. He takes his hands from the keys with a sigh. “Repertoire.”

“Rep - what?”

How is he in the music program? “Repertoire. It’s like a test.”

“Is it hard?”

“It’s a lot harder when you’re talking.”

He doesn’t mean for it to come out as a snap, but it does. It works, though; Atsumu makes a huffy, petulant noise and mumbles something under his breath as the scratching of graphite on paper starts again.

Sakusa slides his gloved fingers back into place on the piano and starts to play.

He likes repertoire more than most people, more than most kids he remembers in elementary school. It’s reliable and straightforward, no matter how much creative liberty he’s given. It’s predictable and he knows what’s expected of him right off the bat, and he can get lost in playing even the most boring pieces.

Except. He’s still painfully aware of his surroundings as he plays; of Atsumu clicking his tongue and scribbling in the scale book, of the latex between the keys and his fingertips, of how still the air is.

Of how bizarre this is. Sakusa fumbles over a grace note, sighs and starts again.

Does Atsumu know ? Sakusa can’t imagine he does; he hasn’t sung or hummed since the faculty night and his speaking voice isn’t much like his singing voice. Plus, he seems like the type that couldn’t keep a secret if he tried.

He’d been mostly kidding when he and Komori had talked about his soulmate not being the same as him, but…

“Hey, Omi, how long’ve ya been playin’ piano?”

Sakusa stumbles over the same key, makes a mental note to skip it until he’s alone and glares at Atsumu. “Since I was little. Do you want to learn to read music or not?”

“Well, yeah, but-”

“Then finish labelling the scales.”

“ Omi …” he prods, to Sakusa’s dismay. “Aren’tcha flattered a handsome guy like myself is interested in ya?”

Sakusa turns back to the piano. “No.”

“Tch. Well ya should be! I can’t imagine ya get many people askin’ ya for dates with that restin’ bitch face of yers,” he says, light and airy over the resumed scratch of the pencil. “I dunno if the mask makes it better or worse.”

It shouldn’t sting, yet Sakusa has to bite his tongue against a bitter retort. “Are you trying to insult me or ask me out?”

“Well-”

“Besides,” he interrupts sharply, because he doesn’t want to know the answer. “I’m not looking for a partner.”

For a long moment, Atsumu falls silent, pencil and all. Sakusa should be relieved, should fix his posture and go back to practicing repertoire while it lasts, but he’s frozen in the spot, stuck staring down at the piano keys while the heavy quiet hangs over them.

Then, just as it becomes suffocating, Atsumu drawls, “Aw, are ya shy, Omi-Omi?”

Ah. Of course. Sakusa brings his fingers back to the keys with a huff through his nose. “No.”

“Or ya haven’t been in a relationship before,” he says, without missing a beat. The pencil scratches start again. “Or - I know - yer waitin’ for yer soulmate, aren’tcha Omi? How romantic .”

“I’m n-”

“It’s okay, I’ll keep yer secrets.” He sounds all too pleased with himself. Sakusa can hear his dumb smirk. “They’re safe with me, Omi-kun.”

“Miya.”

“Yes?”

Sakusa musters up the best glare he can and sends it right over his shoulder to - yup - a smirking Miya Atsumu, leaning forward with his chin in his hand. “Shut up.”

Atsumu grins at him. “Aye-aye, Omi-kun.”

He huffs and turns around to play the capriccio.

~

Sakusa doesn’t get very far into the repertoires; Atsumu chats, and when he doesn’t he hums, hums things he’s hummed before and things Sakusa doesn’t recognize, hums classical music and something that sounds like an anime opening, and he can’t focus with it in the same room.

So he leaves for his evening lecture early, with the scale book tucked under his arm and a curt goodbye to Atsumu, makes his way back up to the lecture hall and gets situated in his usual seat near the back. He’s jittery and flushed like he’s had too much coffee, only he’s barely running on a single cup, so he fishes a pen out of his pocket and opens the scale book he wasn’t planning on marking.

And it’s surprisingly well-done.

The order of the notes is scribbled at the top of most pages, but the scales are also labeled correctly, which he supposes is the important part. It’s about halfway through, though, that the scribbles in the margins become more than letters. It starts with messy, doodled flowers in the corners, then different shaped drumsticks and what looks like a poorly-drawn dog, then little notes; ‘ tf do those little number signs mean? ’ and ‘ minor??? whats a minor scale??? ’ and ‘ u never told me what perfect pitch was omi!! ’ in scribbled, looping letters. It reminds him oddly of high school and notes passed between classmates. Sakusa bites back a smile under his mask as the humming in his head - Atsumu’s humming - comes, quick and carefree, then realizes:

He hasn’t brought up Atsumu’s part of their deal since they stepped into the building.

Chapter Text

Tomoni, Sonata in C Major 

“Ya think he’s followin’ the music faculty’s account?”

“Oh my god ,” Osamu groans from where he’s lying flat on his stomach on the couch, just before a throw pillow smacks Atsumu in the face. He snaps his head up from drumming on the kotatsu. “I don’t know. Why don’t ya check?

“Because that’d be weird ,” he huffs and tosses the pillow right back at his brother. It misses by a long shot and flies over the couch, skids across the wooden floor to stop right in front of Gin’s closed door. Atsumu makes a mental note to pick it up (or blame Osamu if someone trips on it) and starts drumming rudiments to the beat of his humming on top of the kotatsu again. “And I’m not a stalker.”

“Yer startin’ to sound like it.”

Atsumu glares pointedly at him as the apartment’s lock jiggles. They can’t see around the corner, but he cranes his neck to watch a slouched Suna kick off his shoes as he shuffles into the living room. “How was class, Sunarin?”

“Ass,” says Suna. He drops his bag on the other side of the kotatsu, makes his way over to kiss Osamu’s forehead and continues down the hall to his room. “Takin’ a nap. Join me if you’re sleepy, babe.”

“Don’t starfish.”

Suna waves him off and mumbles something that sounds vaguely like ‘ no promises ’ before slipping into his room and closing the door.

For a moment, Atsumu considers bringing up Sakusa’s cousin and what Osamu and Suna’s plan is - if they have one - but he still can’t bring himself to pry. He wants to - he always wants to because they’re so nonchalant about their relationship - but he can see the stress etched all over his brother’s face without it being brought up.

So he doesn’t. Even though he really, really wants to.

“Aren’t ya waitin’ for yer soulmate anyway?” asks Osamu after a moment. He sounds half asleep, yet hasn’t made any move to join Suna. “What’s with that?”

“‘M not tryna date him!” He huffs, accent all over the place; it only gets thicker when they’re biting each other’s heads off, turns into some dialect only they can understand. “‘S just that I haven’t met another audio soul bond person!”

“‘Audio soul bond person’, huh?”

“Shaddup!” Atsumu brings both his drumsticks down atop the kotatsu and swivels to glare right at his brother. “‘M serious! Ya got an easy one, with yer writin’ on the arm-”

“It’s on my shoulder-”

“-so y’don’t get t’ talk!” Osamu’s smirking lazily at him, and that’s what has him absolutely tilted. He chucks a drumstick overhand at the couch, and it also goes far, instead clattering to the floor beside the pillow. Osamu sends him a deserved dirty look. “Tryna take my head off?”

The retort on the tip of Atsumu’s tongue dies as Ginjima’s door opens wide. It looks like he’s trying to glare, but the bags under his eyes and exhaustion on his face make it hard to tell. “Can y’all shut the fuck up so I can study?”

“Whatcha studyin’, Gin?” asks Atsumu as innocently as he can. Gin squints at him, presses his fingers to his temple. “Organic chemistry.”

“Sounds nerdy.”

“We can’t all be music majors.”

“Speakin’ of that,” says Osamu, perking up to glance at Gin. “Can ya tell this idiot to just follow his dumb non-soulmate crush on Instagram already?”

Atsumu barely restrains himself from throwing his other stick at his brother’s head. “‘Samu! ‘M just curious!”

“Curious my ass.”

“That other song-bond guy?” Gin crosses his arms and leans against the doorframe. “Did you two like, sing at each other to find out?”

“Well - no,” says Atsumu. His cheeks are going hot, which is weird because he hasn’t been self-conscious of his voice since he was a kid, but now he stares down at his lap and mumbles. “He said somethin’ about me havin’ a garbage voice and his soulmate havin’ a gorgeous one…”

Osamu bursts out laughing, to his dismay. “Ooh, ouch. Ya should’ve at least asked him to sing for ya. Maybe his voice was garbage, too.”

He can’t imagine such a pretty person having a voice that didn’t match, but Atsumu keeps that to himself. “Shaddup already! Yer actin’ like yer love life’s so much better!”

“‘Least it exists.”

“Oh my god, give it a break for once,” says Gin. He stoops down to grab the pillow and drumstick and tosses them back to their owners. Atsumu nearly misses the catch when he continues, “Atsumu, just follow him already you pussy.”

“Hey!”

“And Osamu, stop moping about your boyfriend or whatever.”

“Wh - ‘M not mopin!”

“And for the love of god, shut up.” Ginjima smiles at them as he steps back into his room. “ Please .”

With that, the door closes. For a heartbeat, they sit in silence, before Osamu clicks his tongue, pushes off the couch and throws the pillow right back into Atsumu’s face on his way past. “Jus’ check yer mutuals, pussy .”

He shuffles down the hall and quietly slips into Suna’s room, and Atsumu scowls and flips him off, mostly because he’s an annoying asshat but also because why didn’t he think of that? He picks up his sticks and starts tapping rudiments out on the kotatsu. Maybe Aran follows him? Or Kita, he’s good at keys…

He doesn’t get far before that rare, timid singing starts out of the blue, the same English song from last time. It startles him enough he jumps, knees banging against the kotatsu, but he stops drumming and leans back on his hands to listen, to enjoy it. The person’s voice wavers a little every other line, like they’re afraid, stepping carefully along the edge of a building, but Atsumu can’t imagine why ; it’s gorgeous and lilting with a natural rasp that has goosebumps rising on his skin. He tips his head back, closes his eyes and smiles to himself.

He’s a lucky, lucky bastard. Atsumu’s got no leads on the guy other than his nationality - Japanese, considering his song choices and accent - and his wonderful singing voice, but he’s imagined what he’s like; maybe quiet and timid and warm, a cuddler and someone who likes to hold hands on cold days, or maybe someone scathingly sarcastic and playful with a tempo that’s hard to keep up with. The songs he sings don’t give much away and he almost never hums…

It’s a terrible, wonderful combination that leaves so much to Atsumu’s buzzing imagination.

The song gets further than last time before it stops and the singer starts repeating phrases slowly, intentionally, stressing every note and syllable in a way Atsumu’s never heard from even his own band. It’s methodical and gentle, reminds him of tuning the guitar in the music building’s basement, fiddling with the little knobs until the sound is perfect. It’s so technical, yet Atsumu’s in love with it and how careful it is.

He’s never heard music sound like this outside of his soulmate, and it’s so uncommon it feels new every time. Atsumu lays back on the living room floor, stretches his arms above his head and enjoys the personal concert (even though it’s more of an acapella practice session).

He needs the break from learning sheet music and his roommates, anyway.

~

“Tell me which notes to play.”

“Omi-kun,” Atsumu whines. “I could just play-”

Sakusa glances over to him and narrows his eyes. “Do you want to learn or not?”

He does. Atsumu makes a face at him and leans forward in his seat to scan the music on the piano. Sure, maybe he’s being a little childish, but there’s plenty of space on the piano bench, and he wants to play anything. He’s never been good with instruments that aren’t drums, but he can sound out songs on most of them.

This song, though - this song, placed in front of them both - is something he’s never seen before. It’s in a book that is sort of like the scale one, only it’s thinner and full of well, not scales. Sakusa’s opened the page to something titled Sonata in C Major , none of which makes much sense for a title, and the notes are semi-familiar, but he itches to hear it.

“Are ya sure I can’t just look it up and-”

“No.” Sakusa’s answer hasn’t changed from the first time he asked, and Atsumu groans as he continues. “That trains your ears, not your eyes.”

“Man, why do I need my eyes for music anyway?”

Sakusa stares blankly at him. He’s wearing a mask (Atsumu has yet to see him without one) but the dismay radiates off him in waves.

Part of him wonders how much of it is real, considering it’s the third time they’ve met up for this and he hasn’t ditched yet. Or maybe his cousin’s love life is just that important.

Atsumu seriously doubts anyone’s cousin’s love life is that important, though. He rolls his eyes and leans further forward. The first note actually is one he recognizes - “C.”

Which one?”

Something about the deadpan voice and unimpressed expression makes Atsumu want to punch him. “Ugh, does it even-”

“ Which one ?”

“The-the not middle one!” he huffs, throwing a hand up in the air. Sakusa presses a key with a gloved thumb, and the sound cuts clean through the still, stale air of the basement. It immediately melts some of the tension in his shoulders. “Well? I was right, right?”

“You’ll know by the way it sounds all together.”

“Ugh!” Atsumu pushes bangs off his face and curls his fingers into his hair. Something about this situation actually hurts , an annoying ache smack in the middle of his chest, and it definitely doesn’t help when Sakusa cocks his head at him like he’s a child. “This is bullshit!”

“It’s reading music,” says Sakusa. It’s a little difficult to tell with the mask, but he almost sounds amused - no, snide . “What? Can’t you do it?”

“I can!” Atsumu snaps, even though he still isn’t all that sure about the lower set of notes - the left hand, Sakusa said when he’d asked. Those notes there follow a different type of organization apparently - though Sakusa’s waiting for him to read the second note of the right hand. “Jus’ don’t wanna…”

“Sucks.”

Atsumu glares at him, then at the page. The next note’s on the first line of the staff, and he counts up from C. “E. It’s E, right?”

Sakusa just raises an eyebrow at him, a silent ‘ you tell me ’ as he presses down on the key with his pointer finger. It doesn’t sound wrong, though it’s kind of hard to tell with only two notes.

This is physically painful. Atsumu rolls his eyes and leans forward to squint at the page. “Uh… It’s off the staff…”

“So? You know the alphabet, right?”

“‘Course I do!”

“Then figure it out.”

“Yer not a very good teacher, Omi-kun.”

Sakusa glares cold daggers right through him. “I didn’t say I would be.”

Yeesh. Everything he says bites, especially when they’re sat in the music room - though Atsumu’s never been deterred by bitter words. He has a feeling Sakusa would just stop meeting him if he really, really didn’t want to be doing this, but he’s a little difficult to read with the ever-present mask.

Though hilariously, his eyebrows are expressive enough Atsumu knows he’s not completely pissed. They’re scrunched, the beauty mark on his forehead dipping further down than it usually is, and Atsumu can’t help but wonder what sort of face he’s making. Sakusa doesn’t seem like he’d be a scowler, but he can’t be deadpan under the mask with his eyebrows as expressive as they are, either.

The piano notes hanging in the air fade away, leaving deafening, still silence between them. Atsumu blinks at Sakusa, then the music. “Uh. A?”

Sakusa presses another key and though it’s definitely in tune, it immediately sounds - feels - wrong . Atsumu reaches out to fix his mistake. “Wait, wait, wait-”

“Miya, don’t -”

Atsumu lets instinct guide him under Sakusa’s gloved hand and to the key left of the one he’s pressing. It rings clear through the room, alleviates the discomfort from the incorrect note. He feels Sakusa’s hand tense above his, though he’s a lot more focused on the music. “Er. I meant G. Next is uh… B? B, right?”

Sakusa doesn’t reply right away, so Atsumu leans forward over his shoulder to get a better look at the music. It’s still a whole bunch of lines and spaces that give him a headache, but he hums the previous note and counts down until he hits the next one-

“Stop.”

“Omi, I’m readin’ the musi-”

“I said stop ,” Sakusa snaps, yanking his hand back, and when Atsumu glances up at him, he’s glaring. “You’re not going to learn anything by sounding the song out.”

“Wh - I’m readin’ the damn music!”

“You’re guessing by ear.”

“Does it matter if I get it right?”

“If you want to learn it does.”

“I’m tryna learn!” Atsumu glares right back at him. “Yer supposed to be teachin’ me!”

Sakusa’s ink-black eyes narrow into something Atsumu should probably be more afraid of. “And I’m trying to teach. Maybe you should listen, and you’ll learn something.”

“Maybe y’should teach better!”

“Sorry, am I interrupting?”

Atsumu turns his head towards the voice. There’s a young man he vaguely recognizes standing at the doorway, guitar case over one shoulder and computer bag over the other. He cocks his head at the stranger, trying to remember why he’s familiar, when Sakusa says, “Akaashi. No, you aren’t.”

Ah. Akaashi Keiji. They’ve never met, but he plays bass and he’s friends with Osamu. Atsumu’s pretty sure his boyfriend’s a music major, too.

“If you’re busy,” says Akaashi, the door swinging shut behind him. “I can take a practice room and play by myself. I don’t mind.”

“No, no…” Sakusa sighs up at the ceiling, then grabs the music on the piano and unceremoniously drops it into Atsumu’s lap. “If you want to learn so badly,” he says, leaning in close enough Atsumu can see the sharp dive of his cheekbones under the mask and his own reflection in his eyes. “Then teach yourself.”

“Wha - Omi!” he whines. “This ain’t part of the deal!”

“ Omi ,” Akaashi hums curiously under his breath. Atsumu glances just past Sakusa to see a ghost of a smile on his lips. Maybe Sakusa sees it too, because he shoots a glare his direction before he says, “Write in the notes. And let me remind you, you haven’t done anything for your side of the deal.”

“Ya haven’t taught me to read music yet!”

“Which is why you are going to go write in the notes.” Sakusa says, turning back to face him. “And read them to me after.”

“You run a tight ship, Sakusa-san.”

Sakusa sends another look at Akaashi, but it’s less of a shut up and more of a seriously? , at least from what Atsumu can see of his side profile. It’s like a switch’s flipped; his brow relaxes just a touch and his gaze softens into something that’s definitely still a glare but not as life-threateningly sharp and his head cocks ever so slightly right and-

-And all at once, Atsumu realizes maybe he does have an itty bitty crush on this guy, or at least the part of him sat at the piano with a smoking side profile and enough expression in his eyes to make up for the rest of his face.

He’s staring. He must be; Sakusa glances back over to him, and for half a second the less-deadly more-incredulous look is directed at him, though it only takes that long for Atsumu to realize he might be a little fucked.

Then-

“What, Miya? I thought your ears were good.”

He swallows against his heart, which has tried to jump up his throat, and scoffs, “I know when I’m not wanted. Bein’ blown off for Akaashi-kun… I don’t blame ya, but still.”

“I’m not-” Sakusa cuts himself off with a sigh, then shakes his head. It sends his curls bouncing gently, and Atsumu has to physically restrain himself to pull on one and see if it springs back. “Move. Let Akaashi sit.”

“No matter how hard ya try, Omi-Omi,” Atsumu says, but obediently pushes himself up with the music in one hand and pencil in the other. “Ya can’t replace a pretty drummer with a pretty bassist. I’ll have ya beggin’ to have me back sooner or later.”

Sakusa’s squint stays on him as he gets up and retreats back to the drumset near the wall. “Bite me, Miya.”

“Ah, that’s pretty kinky, Omi,” he says, settling on the stool behind the drums. It’s a little low, but he supposes he isn’t playing. “Ya really should take me to dinner first.”

Sakusa blinks at him, then turns back to the piano. “Hard pass.”

Atsumu tries not to wonder if he imagined the hesitation on his face, places the music on the snare and starts humming to himself as he puzzles over the notes.

Chapter Text

Amour d’un soir

They’ve been warming up with Atsumu’s fingertips tapping away gently at the snare drum as background noise when Akaashi murmurs with all the smugness of a schoolboy, “Omi-kun?”

Sakusa’s fingertips hover above the piano keys as he turns to glare at Akaashi, whose face is as deadpan as ever - though his eyes give him away. His head cocks. “I didn’t know you and Atsumu-san were like that.”

“We aren’t.”

“I didn’t know you knew him, to be honest,” Akaashi continues. He sets his bass down, leaning against the piano. “Did he turn out to be your soulmate?”

“Why do you even know about his bond?” It’s the first question that comes out, but not the most pressing; why the fuck does he know everyone?

Akaashi shrugs. “Can you help me practice for a group assessment?”

“Depends,” he says, even though he can’t recall ever saying no to Akaashi. “What is it?”

“Another performance,” he says. “But our pianist is foreign, as is the song.”

Oh. Sakusa perks up a bit at that; he hasn’t been abroad for a long time and he hasn’t met any foreign students in the program since his first year.

Though he supposes that’s for a reason. Sakusa flexes his fingers and winces at the half-dried sweat stuck on the inside of the gloves from trying to teach Atsumu. “So you can’t practice with them.”

“Not from scratch,” Akaashi agrees and though he’s never seemed the shy type, Sakusa can’t imagine the nightmare of trying to work through a project with someone who doesn’t speak the same language. “She chose a song for us. The bass part is relatively simple, but the timing is a little odd without a piano or drum part-”

“Drum part?” Atsumu chirps from behind them. Sakusa shoots him a sharp look, but he doesn’t react. “I could-”

“You can’t,” Sakusa fills in helpfully, and that has Atsumu scowling as he leans forward over the drums like a petulant grade schooler. “What? Why not, I c-”

“Are you finished the sonata?”

“Wh - I can finish that any time!”

“Not if you want me to keep teaching you, you can’t.”

“Omi!” he whines, but Sakusa turns back to the piano and to Akaashi, who despite his straight face, looks like he’s trying awfully hard not to laugh. “You were saying?”

“If you could help by playing the piano part,” Akaashi says, stoic face breaking into a soft smile the second he opens his mouth. It’s a little jarring and Sakusa realizes all at once how little he actually smiles, and how pretty he is when he does. “I would appreciate it a lot.”

“Got music for it?”

“No, sorry. We’re working by ear.”

Great. He’s not bad at playing by ear, but it gets under his skin, messing with notes until he finds one that’s probably right. It doesn’t help when Atsumu perks up again; “Yanno, I’m pretty good with my ears-”

“Nobody asked you,” Sakusa reminds him. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Atsumu pull a face and return to the music in front of him, “‘M just offerin’ my services, Omi. Most people would be ecstatic to have me drummin’ for ‘em.”

“Because they don’t know you can’t read music.”

“He can’t read music?”

Sakusa shakes his head and expects Atsumu to huffily go back to the sonata, but instead he replies, “Why’re ya so pissy ‘bout that? It doesn’t matter as long as I can play.”

For a moment, Sakusa considers letting the frustration bubbling up his throat spill out and abandoning this impromptu practice/tutoring session by physically knocking Atsumu down a peg. He bites the inside of his mouth and glares at the ivory keys.

It’s not fair.

Life isn’t fair.

“Obviously it does matter,” he replies after the simmer in his chest quiets down. “Or you wouldn’t have asked me to teach you.”

“Well, yeah, but it shouldn’t matter!”

He is wrong. Blatantly, objectively wrong; Sakusa can list the reasons he’s wrong one after another, and he’s tempted to. But there’s only so much time until someone else comes barging into the music basement and Akaashi is still seated next to him, leaning on his bass patiently.

It’s a good thing he is, for Atsumu’s sake. Sakusa flexes his fingers and takes a deep breath. “It doesn’t matter what you think. Finish the sonata.”

“Or what? Ya jus’ gonna get up and go? Revoke what ya already taught me?”

“I’ll stop teaching you altogether.”

“Aw, but what about yer cousin, Omi-kun?”

“He’ll survive,” he says, because Motoya will. It’s more about Sakusa surviving his moping. “Now do the sonata before I kick you out.”

“It’s a public area, Omi!”

“That I will kick you out of.” He glances at Akaashi. “Do you have a video of the song?”

He nods and pulls out his phone. The lockscreen’s a picture of him and his boyfriend, but it takes Sakusa a long moment to realize it. Bokuto’s easy to recognize with his hair and grin and crushing hug, but Akaashi almost looks like someone else with the smile he’s sporting.

Sakusa tries not to think too hard about it.

Akaashi opens a video with a few taps, bumps up the volume and sets his phone down on the piano as the song starts with a pickup drum fill. Sakusa’s expecting something English, but when a piano chord and simple bass line are accompanied with a light, airy, feminine voice, it’s definitely not that. He cocks his head, too taken aback by the foreign language to pay attention to the instruments. “Is it… It’s French?”

Akaashi nods. “The foreign student is European.”

Interesting. The verse morphs into the chorus with another drum fill and the swell of strings in the background, and for a second, he loses the piano’s steady chords, buried under the melody. There’s percussion and a second guitar and maybe violins and it sounds like it should be too much at once, but it isn’t . The lightness of the singer’s voice and simplicity of the rhythm instruments creates space where there shouldn’t be any.

It’s kind of impressive. And it doesn’t hurt that the voice is nice, even if he doesn’t understand a word.

He finds the piano again with a bit of focus; it’s still there, under the bass, right where he left it. Sakusa slides his fingers into place on the piano in front of him and realizes too late he should have asked for a key signature.

Oh well. He can still take a shot.

He hazards a guess at the last phrase of the chorus with a couple fingers. The chord fits into the song like a puzzle piece, so he reaches for the next.

And nearly jumps out of his skin when the chorus ends in tandem with a drum fill from behind them.

Sakusa glares over his shoulder in the direction of the drumset, but Atsumu isn’t looking at him. He isn’t looking at anything , eyes focused blankly at a spot high on the wall at the front of the room as he finishes the fill and settles into the verse. There’s a bit of a furrow in his brow and his tongue pokes past his lips in a caricature of focus, but he matches the song almost beat-for-beat. Sakusa can’t see much of what he’s actually doing from in front of the set, but he can identify at least four or five different parts being played with scarily good coordination. He hits the drum fill perfectly, and Sakusa’s fully convinced he’s heard this song before.

Atsumu’s intense staring at nothing ceases when he reaches to hit one of the cymbals and the song surges back into the chorus, and his face morphs into something decidedly not Miya Atsumu - at least not the one Sakusa’s been trying to teach. There’s a soft, childish gleam in his eye and his face breaks into a concentrated, genuine grin that looks out of place on the same person whose expressions seem to be dedicated to being as irritating as possible.

He looks nothing short of alive , alive and loving it.

Sakusa manages to tear his gaze away and put his hand back on the piano when Atsumu misses a beat on the transition to the bridge and proves that he’s indeed not a robot. The piano’s the main instrument at this part, with chords broken into eighth notes that he guesses haphazardly at while the drums settle into a steady background beat. He’s just started to fall into the therapeutic routine of figuring out a song when Atsumu says over the noise, “A lot easier with the drums, huh, Omi?”

“I didn’t ask,” he replies, but it gets muddled with another quick fill, cutting the bridge in half. If Atsumu heard him, he doesn’t say so, just keeps drumming. The melody builds, Sakusa does his best to keep up with the chords, even if they’re a half-beat behind, and then right on cue, another fill on the toms brings in the chorus.

It’s weirdly satisfying, how his chords match up with Atsumu’s surprisingly controlled drumming, how the song playing Akaashi’s phone comes to life even without vocals or other instruments. Sakusa can’t remember the last time he played with someone other than Akaashi, and even then, it’s almost always repertoire or studies, and he’s pretty sure he’s never practiced with a drummer.

The chords of the chorus are simple enough he can glance back at the set and watch Atsumu play, all laser-focus and palpable glee as he hits another fill across the toms with perfect timing. There’s something familiar and about how he throws his entire body into playing.

There’s another fill and the chime of tube bells from the video, then all at once, the song is over. It hangs in the air for a long moment as the video stops and Sakusa releases the chord he’s holding. Atsumu pauses with his sticks in the air for a moment, then glances over and almost catches Sakusa staring. “Ah, that was fun! Ya got any other songs, ‘Kaashi-kun?”

Akaashi opens his mouth to answer, but Sakusa beats him to it. “No one invited you to play, Miya.”

“Well-”

“Finish the sonata,” he says. It comes out as a snap, even though he isn’t intending it to, because it’s infuriating , how easy the music seems to come to him and how flippant he is about the basics. “And figure something out for Motoya before I stop teaching you altogether.”

“What’s yer deal with this dumb sonata?” Atsumu’s tone shifts immediately to match Sakusa’s as he leans forward over the drumset and glares right back. “Yer barely teachin’ me anyway!”

“It isn’t my fault if you’re a bad student,” Sakusa says through gritted teeth. He can feel Akaashi watching them, but like hell he cares. “And maybe you should start your end of the deal and I’ll give more of a damn about your inadequacies!”

“ Inadequacies ?”

“Say,” says Akaashi, deadpan as ever. “What’s the deal you two have gone on about?”

“He’s supposed to be teachin’ me to read sheet music.”

“He’s supposed to get his brother’s boyfriend interested in my cousin,” Sakusa replies, almost in perfect unison with Atsumu. “And in return-”

“Hey, no!” Atsumu interrupts, pointing a drumstick right at him. “Yer supposed to help me first, then I take yer cousin and Sunarin to a party or somethin’!”

“I never said-”

“Ah,” Akaashi interrupts before Sakusa can bite Atsumu’s head off, snapping his fingers. “I don’t have a party, but Bokuto-san and some of his friends are going skating downtown this weekend. I’m sure they wouldn’t mind some other music students coming with them.”

Downtown. The word alone sends a shudder up Sakusa’s spine. He’s about to decline when Atsumu says, “Oh, that’d actually be good! Haven’t caught up with Bo in forever, either! Make sure ya bring yer cousin, Omi, and I’ll make sure Rin comes along.”

“I’ll inform Bokuto-san and his friends, then,” says Akaashi before Sakusa can try and decline, and by the look on his face, he knows it. “Until then… Can you play the piano chords, Sakusa-san? I hate to ask if you’re teaching Atsumu-san, but-”

“I’m not,” says Sakusa, because he isn’t letting these two put any more words in his mouth. Atsumu makes a whiny, childish sound of protest from behind them, but he ignores it and focuses on the piano. “He’s annotating a piece. Just pretend he isn’t there.”

Atsumu clicks his tongue and Sakusa is waiting for a petulant retort, but it doesn’t come. He doesn’t turn around and press his luck, either, just glances over to Akaashi expectantly. Akaashi smiles to himself and reaches out to restart the video. “Are you ready, then, Omi-kun?”

Sakusa almost decks him as the song starts again.

Chapter Text

Yuki, Light Pollution, Joyful Prize

Saturdays are lazy.

The person up earliest is usually Gin, around ten or eleven in the morning, then Osamu to cook something or another and Suna if they’ve fallen asleep tangled together (though really, he barely counts with how unresponsive he is before noon) and finally Atsumu, on a good day.

It’s a predictable routine that everyone wordlessly falls into.

Usually, at least.

Today, Atsumu wakes up at 12:13 with Osamu still snoring across the hall. He’s tempted to go back to sleep - they don’t need to be anywhere for a few hours - but when he turns over to huddle back under the covers, he catches a glimpse of the window.

Rather, what’s outside it. Past the frost along the edges, snowflakes flutter lightly to the ground and dust everything in white. It couldn’t have been on a more perfect day either, with the skating trip on the horizon, or a more perfect time with everyone else still asleep.

Atsumu grins to himself and stretches his body taut, toes curled and arms over his head.

It’s going to be a good day. He’s sure of it - he’ll make sure of it, like he always does on days like these.

Atsumu is not a creature of habit and he likes it that way, but some things need to be done in routine. He gets up, flattens his bedhead down and brushes his teeth as quietly as he can, as not to wake his brother.

And then, he grabs his phone, opens up Spotify, finds the playlist of one song buried under recent radios and podcasts and links to the bluetooth speaker while he presses play .

The early 2000s pop-rock immediately booms through the apartment and makes Atsumu jump, even though he was expecting it. He doesn’t dare sing along (he isn’t that much of an ass), but grins as the floor practically shakes with the bass. From across the hall, he hears a groan, then a shout; “‘Tsumu, fuck off!”

Atsumu, in fact, does not fuck off. He pops across the hall, throws open his brother’s bedroom door, and launches himself on top of a disoriented Suna and Osamu tangled in the blankets. “It’s snowing!”

“‘Tsumu I will slit yer throat,” Osamu mumbles, muffled by the pillow he has his face pressed into, but he barely makes a move to get up. “Turn it off , y’ little-”

Before he can finish, a shirtless Suna springs up with speed Atsumu didn’t know he had so early in the day and lunges at him. It’s half-assed and sloppy, and Atsumu dodges with the phone above his head. “Ah ah, Sunarin, don’t be rude. I’m just tryna inform ya-”

“Fucking shit-eating asshat-” Suna mutters before lunging again. This time he manages to grab Atsumu’s forearm with clumsy fingers, but he can’t reach the phone in his position. Atsumu gleefully holds it out of his reach, basking in the simple pleasure of having something Suna and all his six feet can’t get. “Nice try, Sunarin, but-”

Before he can finish, Atsumu’s thrown back, off the bed and dangerously close to the bedside table. He can’t find his bearings between the boom of the music and sliver of light from the hallway and by the time he hits the floor, both his hands are empty. “Ow, the hell-”

The music stops, and from above him, he hears Osamu huff, “Fuckin’ finally.”

“Ya should thank me,” Atsumu says. He can’t wipe the grin from his face, even face-down on the carpeted floor. A choked ‘ oof ’ bursts past his lips when his phone’s dropped square on his back. “How else would ya know there’s snow?”

“Every year ya do this, I consider stabbin’ ya to death,” Osamu snaps, though it’s sleepy and slurred and very difficult to take him seriously. “I’ll sic Rin on ya.”

“Mmm,” Suna hums noncommittally and flops back into the bedding. “Snow?”

“Yeah, ‘Tsumu plays that stupid song by Whiteberry every first snow,” Osamu says as Atsumu picks himself up off the floor and pockets his phone. “‘Dumb habit.”

“‘Scuse me, it’s a tradition ,” he huffs. He can kind of see the room now; it’s just as small as his, almost identical other than the garbage-fire mess on the floor and lanky man in the bed. “Y’can’t just break one of those, yanno?”

“I am going to bash your head in with a block of ice,” says Suna as he burrows under the covers. “After I finish cuddling.”

“I’ll help ya cover up the murder,” Osamu says. He presses a sleepy kiss to Suna’s cheek, and Atsumu almost gags at how lovey-dovey they are. “‘Tsumu, I’ll kick yer ass before I have hot morning sex with my boyfriend if ya don’t leave in the next ten seconds.”

Atsumu does gag at that, which is more important than the fact it’s greatly exaggerated. He turns on his heel and scoffs, “Ugh, gross. I didn’t ask.”

A pillow whacks him in the back of the head in response and he flips both of them off on his way out. Atsumu pulls the door shut behind him too loudly, ignores the muffled protest and unlocks his phone as he starts down the hall to the kitchen. For a moment, he lingers on the days-old text from Sakusa about finishing the sonata before the trip downtown and considers texting him some sort of good morning or a tease about it being a little like a date.

Atsumu’s cheeks flush hot at just the idea, like he’s a nervous teenager all over again. It’s bizarre - he can’t remember the last time flirting flustered him - but he chalks it up to Sakusa’s sour attitude paired with his pretty face. Instead, he makes his way to the fridge, snaps a couple yogurt cups off the link and hops up to sit on the counter before Osamu gets up and shoos him away. He hums the first song that comes to mind - the fact it’s piano-heavy and sung by a man means nothing - reaches over to the drying rack to grab a spoon and starts scrolling through what he’s missed on Instagram.

(He certainly does not, for a brief moment, tap on Sakusa’s profile, and he is certainly not disappointed when it comes up as private).

~

As much as he looks forward to the first snow exclusively to piss off his brother, it’s always soft and gentle, just a thin dusting over everything and Atsumu completely, wholeheartedly loves it. It always comes earlier than back home in Hyogo and by the end of winter there’s always more of it even though Tokyo’s climate is almost the same. For all he misses his home, Tokyo’s snows fill him with irreplaceable, childish joy.

For the most part, at least. Atsumu’s rudely snapped out of trying to catch snowflakes on his tongue by a whump of snow from a branch above. He glares pointedly at Osamu’s back and shakes what he can out of his hair. “D’ya mind?”

“Not particularly,” he replies without turning around. Atsumu wishes there was enough snow to lob a snowball at him, but he settles with glaring daggers. “I’m sorry , did I mess up the hair ya made all pretty just for yer not-boyfriend?”

“He’s not my boyfriend,” Atsumu huffs, shoving his way into the tiny gap between the bag over Osamu’s shoulder and Suna. They aren’t holding hands - which isn’t uncommon - but Osamu’s hands are shoved firmly in his pockets - which is. Suna scoffs, jabs a bony elbow into his side. “That’s what he just said, jackass.”

“Yer same-soul but not-bond person, excuse me,” Osamu corrects, though it isn’t much better. “Were ya obligated to bring a plus-one to this date?”

“It’s not a date!”

“So he says,” hums Suna, and Atsumu doesn’t have to glance over to know he’s grinning, that they’re still conspiring on how to piss him off even though he’s physically between them. “How many bucks says they’re sleeping together by the end of the year?”

“Rin-”

“Oh, at least fifty.”

“God, I’m not into him!” he says, loud enough to expel any other possibility in his own mind. Both Osamu and Suna scoff in laughter as they turn the corner to the park with the outdoor rink but mercifully drop the subject. It’s not too busy and he can spot Bokuto and Akaashi and Sakusa with his neon-highlighter jacket, along with other university-aged kids along the perimeter; some he recognizes and some he doesn’t. It’s a small blessing they’ve arrived a tad late because Atsumu can confidently say, “See? It’s not a date.”

“Seventy says one of us finds em sucking face before January,” Suna titters and Atsumu doesn’t have a chance to cuss him out before Bokuto calls, “Hey hey hey, it’s the Miyans!”

“The Miyas ,” Akaashi corrects from behind him, but Bokuto ignores him in favour of clapping Atsumu so hard on the back it knocks the wind out of him. “Tsum-tsum, it’s been ages!”

“It’s only been a few weeks,” Atsumu wheezes as Bokuto moves on to greet Osamu and Suna. “Since the November faculty night.”

“That’s ages !”

“Hi, Atsumu-san!”

“Shoyo?”

Right on cue, a tuft of orange hair pops out of the group and in front of them, and the grey haze of winter seems to clear all at once. “I saw your faculty performance! It was so cool!”

“‘Course it was!” Atsumu puts his hands on his hips and puffs out his chest. Though it really hasn’t been long since he’s seen Bokuto and Akaashi, it feels like forever since he’s spoken to Shoyo. “Gotta do the best for the band!”

“Yer ‘best’ is just a buncha drum fills,” Osamu says, whacking the back of Atsumu’s head on his way past. “Ya don’t need a show-off drummer to play well, Hinata.”

“I’m not a show-off!”

Suna whacks the other side of his head and starts to say something, but pauses with his eyes set on the rest of the group. Atsumu blinks, cocks his head and follows his gaze right to - oh .

Sakusa’s cousin - Komori - stares back. Suddenly, the crisp afternoon is heavy with tension. Atsumu doesn’t have to look over to know his brother feels it too and even though this was his intention, he can’t help but feel a little bad for ambushing them.

Still, he wants to learn from Sakusa - wants to learn about Sakusa - and wants the best for his brother. Eventually.

“Come on, we’re all about to get on the ice!” Hinata chirps and tugs him towards the rink by the sleeve. He’s already wearing skates, Atsumu realizes; he’s too tall and his steps are stiff but he manages not to trip on the tiled path beside the rink. He can pick out the people he knows now; there’s Kageyama Tobio, Hinata’s freshman drummer friend (rival?), Oikawa Tooru and some of his friends, Kozume Kenma, sat on the bench and half-hidden in his jacket and scarf and Hoshiumi Korai who he can remember from high school nationals. They’ve got friends with them, friends he doesn’t know including a handful of girls and a guy with a striking blond undercut, but they’re all somehow related to the music program. He hazards a look at Sakusa, but unsurprisingly doesn’t get as much as a glance back.

Well. Atsumu supposes it doesn’t matter as long as his cousin gets talking with Suna. He drops his bag next to Hinata’s, stoops down to unzip it and hums along to the stupid piano song stuck in his head as snow melts on his cheeks.

~

Really, Atsumu should have expected this.

He’s been skating with Osamu before and he knows their unspoken rules inside and out - the person not first on the ice is tasked with watching the things.

Evidently, Atsumu, sat on the end of the bench Kenma hasn’t moved from, with his earbuds tucked in and skate blades still guarded, was not the first person.

Usually, he’d fight Osamu for the grunt work of watching the bags, especially since they’re in a group; Kenma hasn’t budged, even though more than a couple people have tried to pull him to the rink, Sakusa’s still standing against the boards with a mask over his face and his hands firmly in his pockets and a couple of the girls he doesn’t know are chatting nearby with hot chocolate. He could pin the task on them and bicker with his brother about just how necessary a bag guard is and he’s beyond tempted to.

But - and it’s a big but - he wouldn’t dare disturb what’s happening right now. It’s a little funny watching Suna’s entire lanky self stumble and trip as Osamu and Komori teach him to skate. Atsumu isn’t entirely sure how it happened but he certainly isn’t complaining, and even though the irritation on his brother’s face is clear as day, neither is Osamu.

So Atsumu watches, hums absentmindedly along to the song blasting through his earbuds, wishes he brought his sticks so he wasn’t stuck drumming his fingers on the bench and tapping the guarded blades of his skates against the ground. It’s a nice, crisp day at least and it matches the upbeat EDM his playlist has shuffled to.

Atsumu glances over to where Sakusa’s stood next to the rink. He’s got skates on but hasn’t made a single move towards the ice.

Maybe he’s watching the small miracle taking place in front of them, too.

Before he can think about it, Atsumu pops out one of his earbuds and carefully pushes himself up off the bench. He’s tempted to try and sneak up on Sakusa, but the awkward drag of the skates on concrete earns him a wicked side-eye just a few steps in. “Sheesh, control yer happiness there, Omi-kun.”

Sakusa clicks his tongue and turns back towards the rink. “What do you want?”

“Not a fan of skatin’?” Atsumu asks, taking the spot beside him. He’s careful to make sure their elbows don’t touch when he leans forward on the boards. “Komori-kun seems to be pretty decent at it.”

“He is.”

“Y’any good yerself?”

“Haven’t been in years.”

“Seriously?” Atsumu does a double take, whipping his head around to face him so fast it knocks his other earbud out. He can’t imagine not skating every winter; he and Osamu hauled their skates all the way to Tokyo for a reason. “Wha - why not?”

Sakusa cocks his head at him, gives him a look that screams ‘ are you kidding me ’ so loud it almost hurts his ears. Atsumu cringes. “Right… Yer not one for crowds, huh?”

“No shit.”

“Well yer already wearing skates!” He reaches to grab Sakusa’s arm, but stops himself halfway; being given curt responses from an obviously curt person is one thing, but being snapped at like the day they met is another. “C’mon, ya gotta at least get on the ice!”

“No.”

“Omi, c’mon !” he whines. Atsumu is fairly certain Sakusa would walk away or cuss him out - or all of the above - if he was really peeved, and if he won’t, it’s his own fault. “Can’t ya skate?”

The moment of silence before Sakusa mumbles an almost-incoherent “I can,” is more than enough of a response. Atsumu almost laughs, but has a feeling it won’t be taken the right way. “Really? Omi, I can teach ya!”

“Miya-”

“Ya shoulda asked!” he continues before Sakusa can finish. “I helped ‘Samu get his skatin’ legs back when we were kids, I can do the same for ya, Omi-kun, promise.”

Even with most of it hidden behind the mask, Sakusa’s expression is beyond apprehensive, eyes narrowed and the twin beauty marks on his forehead scrunched down towards his eyebrows - which frankly, isn’t all that different from his normal look. “I don’t need you to teach me to skate.”

“Well, duh, but it’d be fun!”

He squints at Atsumu like he’s never heard the word before. “It would not.”

“Not with that crappy attitude!”

Sakusa stares at him, does the incredibly irritating thing where he blinks slowly at him in a silent, judgemental ‘ really? ’ and Atsumu is already ready with his next comeback when he says, “Did you finish annotating that sonata?”

“Huh?”

“Did you?”

Atsumu’s left doing the dumb blinking at Sakusa’s question because really ? That’s what he’s asking? “Are ya serious, Omi-kun? Wh-”

“Hmm. Suppose I’m not skating, then.”

“Wait, what? No, I’ve finished the damn sonata!” he yelps. Like hell he’s about to give up a chance to watch Sakusa Kiyoomi trip over his own skates - and maybe get a chance to hold his hand, maybe even get his dumb scowly demeanour flustered. “God, I finished it. Now c’mon, I’m teachin’ yer sorry ass to skate.”

Sakusa seems to consider this; he stares for a moment more, then the furrow in his brow smooths out and it almost looks like he’s smiling - no, laughing , and definitely at him. He starts towards the gate onto the ice, hands in his pockets and head ducked. “I can skate, Miya.”

“Yeah, we’ll see about that,” Atsumu huffs. Somehow it feels like this has ended not in his favour, and he isn’t sure how. He leans down to slide the guards off his skates, but pauses. “Hey, Omi-kun, wait a sec.”

Sakusa sighs and looks over his shoulder from where he’s about to open the gate and step onto the rink. “ What , Miya?”

“Yer ass looks great from here,” he says with a shit-eating grin. It’s true, but seeing the way Sakusa’s brow wrinkles is the main reward. It looks like he’s about to be cussed out or abandoned by the rink - or maybe both - so he continues, “Wait, wait, seriously, yer skates’re too loose.”

“What?”

“‘M serious, Omi.” Atsumu lifts his other foot to take off the blade guard and meets Sakusa’s inky stare. He can see his ankles bowing inwards and knows from experience it’ll be hell to skate on. “Here - turn around, ya can’t tie ‘em properly with gloves.”

It looks like Sakusa’s about to turn and ask another question, but Atsumu stoops down all the way and starts undoing the knot on his skate before he can. Sure enough, it’s loose enough to work a finger through. “Yer ankles’ll break like this, dumbass.”

“No need to be rude, asshole.”

It’s still a snappy, unimpressed comeback, but when Atsumu glances up, he’s sure Sakusa’s glare isn’t as sharp as before.

Chapter Text

Sunflower  

Something about how Atsumu grins up at him while he’s tying his skates with surprisingly deft fingers hits Sakusa like a sack of bricks.

It’s a genuine grin, not completely devoid of the mischief that seems to be an essential part of him, but it isn’t making fun of him or plotting some sort of cheeky comeback and it almost seems out of character. Sakusa’s convinced that last part is why his face, hidden under the mask, goes warm.

He really is glad for his anxieties sometimes.

“That’ll do ya better,” Atsumu says after a long moment. The skates hug Sakusa’s feet tighter than most shoes or boots he wears and are almost claustrophobic, but keep his ankles stubbornly upright without any prompting. Atsumu straightens up and brushes some of the unmelted snowflakes off his jeans. “Can’t imagine ya’d have any less of a stick up yer ass if ya broke an ankle.”

Ah , there’s the Atsumu he’s gotten used to. Sakusa glowers at him and opens the gate onto the rink without a moment’s hesitation, even though he probably hasn’t touched a pair of skates in years. He’s good with rollerblades and skateboards, though, so some of it has to carry over. Atsumu laughs from behind him. “Careful, Omi, no need to bust yer pretty face open.”

Sakusa opens his mouth to snap something at him, but he steps onto the ice and nearly goes sprawling backwards. His breath catches and his heart jumps into his throat and for a terrifying moment, he’s convinced he’s about to fall forward and prove Atsumu right all in the same go.

Then, he’s hanging, suspended forward over the ice. The breath caught in his throat leaves his lungs in a whoosh and all at once, he realizes there are hands on him, hands under his arms and holding him against a broad chest-

“Sorry,” Atsumu blurts out from behind him and the warmth against his shoulders pulls away. “But I told ya t’be careful…”

“Shut up,” huffs Sakusa. He steps onto the ice properly this time, with the aid of the boards, but is woefully unaccustomed and almost slips backwards again. His right hand flies back on instinct, and -

Oh. Suddenly, he’s half twisted backwards, hands just barely holding him upright and his own hand clutching Atsumu’s bicep - which has enough muscle to stay taut under his grip. Sakusa rapidly blinks up to get his bearings, then halts, frozen to the ice, caught looking right into surprisingly warm, chocolate eyes. His face goes hot and Atsumu’s cheeks are red, too. He can’t decide if he wants to jump away from the touch or relax into it, but doesn’t get the chance before Atsumu smirks and says, “Flexible, aren’t ya?”

“I-” Sakusa’s breath comes back all at once. With Atsumu as leverage, he rights himself on unsteady blades. “I suppose I am.”

“What, no thanks?” Atsumu hums, stepping onto the ice. He can’t quite see behind him and keep his balance, but when Atsumu comes back into his line of sight, he’s skating backwards so they’re face-to-face in careful, smooth glides. “Yanno, it’s not a big deal if ya can’t skate. I really can teach ya.”

Maybe, maybe if it weren’t Atsumu, but Sakusa does think he has some pride. “No,” he huffs and starts precariously around the outside of the rink. “I’m just fi-”

As if it’s on cue, his skate catches on a bump in the ice and Sakusa trips forward again - but this time, Atsumu’s right there to catch him by the shoulders with a laugh that sounds like it might be at his expense. “Omi, for real. Look, it always helped me when I was learnin’ to hum a song. Sets a pace, yanno?”

Before Sakusa can answer, Atsumu’s hands slide down his arms, just enough pressure he can feel it through the material, to his gloved hands. He grasps them, loosely enough Sakusa could pull back if he wanted, but tight enough to guide him along steadily. Their eyes meet for just a moment, and he swears a silent question passes between them.

Sakusa doesn’t know what his answer is, but whatever shows on his face seems to be enough. Atsumu grins, grips his hands a little tighter. “Just look at me, Omi, an’ listen, aight?”

Sakusa’s flustered, flustered by the gentle tone of Atsumu’s voice and how his hands are still warm enough in the winter air it seeps through the gloves and the way he’s looking at him, too flustered to do anything but what he’s asked. His heart’s pounding against his ribs in a mix of anxiety and anticipation and there are words on the tip of his tongue, but they stick to the roof of his mouth. He’s trembling, he realizes, fingers shivering in Atsumu’s grip, but he can’t pinpoint why.

Then - then Atsumu starts humming, low, under the buzz of the rink, but so solid and musical the rest of the world fades away. It’s them; it’s just them, on the ice with the snow fluttering down and Atsumu’s gorgeous humming setting the pace; his own thin, gloved fingers half-twined with warm, steady ones and his heart skipping in his chest. He gingerly wraps his fingers around Atsumu’s - it’s been so long since he’s held someone’s hand that the soft, firm warmth is foreign, even with a layer of fabric between them - and really, truly listens to the humming. It’s steady and upbeat, something half-familiar and probably not Japanese, but he can’t tell without words. It doesn’t matter anyway, because it works ; his jerky glides turn into steps that fall onto every beat of the song, even though his heartbeat’s still wild and breath still shaky. He dares glance up from his skates to look at Atsumu, who once again, looks nothing like the young man he’s teaching to read music. There’s still that always-present mischief on his face, in the upward curl of his lips as he hums, but his brow is furrowed just a smidge and his eyes are soft and kind and he isn’t making fun of his failures , even though he has every opportunity - every right - to.

The best part, without a doubt, is the humming. It’s such a simple song, so heavy with phrasing that Sakusa can almost make out words in the tune. It’s smooth and nostalgic for something that doesn’t exist; it feels like the embodiment of holding hands with someone - with Atsumu - like it shouldn’t be so easy, like it shouldn’t feel so natural.

Atsumu cocks his head at him, raises an eyebrow. Smiles - no, smirks, maybe - and squeezes his hands so quick Sakusa’s almost sure he imagined it.

He nearly chokes, but stumbles instead. Atsumu keeps him upright and it looks like he’s going to make a smarmy comment, but he keeps humming as they carefully turn the bend and Sakusa falls back into the rhythm of one-and-two-and .

Really, Atsumu isn’t that bad when his vocal cords are occupied.

Just as he thinks that, though, someone bumps Atsumu from behind and this time, he’s the one to go pitching forward. The humming stops, he yelps and Sakusa topples back with Atsumu’s full weight atop him and one arm reached behind him.

And his back hits the ice hard.

His first thought is that he’s incredibly lucky for catching himself on his elbow. His second is that ow , the impact was enough to knock the breath right out of him.

The third, that he’s pinned to the ice by something - someone - and that he’s closed his eyes. Sakusa blinks them open.

And. Comes face-to-face (nose-to-nose) with Atsumu Miya.

Atsumu’s face is just as shocked, which is a new look for him (one that Sakusa definitely doesn’t hate) and Sakusa is trapped; trapped between examining the teeny tiny scar under Atsumu’s eye, or the way his hair curls over his forehead or how there’s a red spot on his bottom lip where it’s cracked and shoving him off and leaving the rink and indulging in the simple pleasures of long showers and intense laundry and scrubbing this feeling away.

It’s exhilarating.

It’s repulsive.

“What the hell!” Atsumu shouts behind him. At least they aren’t facing each other anymore (Sakusa can breathe again, at least a little). “‘Samu, ya little-”

“So- orry ,” Osamu says in a singsong that certainly isn’t sorry as he skates by with Komori and a clumsy Suna. “Outta practice, yanno?”

“Yer literally - ugh!” Atsumu scoffs and pushes himself up to his knees. “Motherfucker’s definitely not outta practice… Gonna kick his sorry ass.”

Yes , Sakusa thinks as Atsumu continues to mutter half-baked threats to himself and pushes himself to his feet. I can get behind that.

“Whatever. Yer gettin’ the hang of it, huh?” Atsumu says, holding a hand out to him. He stares at it for a moment, then just as it starts to withdraw in defeat, reaches up to grab it firmly. He can see his own surprise mirrored on Atsumu’s face, but doesn’t comment, just uses the leverage to push himself up (and avoid falling right back on his face). “Think yer ready without my humming?”

“Not yet,” he says as Atsumu starts to guide him along the perimeter of the rink by the hand. It’s mostly true. He doesn’t reckon himself a liar, after all.

Atsumu starts humming again, the same song, the same oddly comforting calmness, and Sakusa also reckons it doesn’t hurt to try and relax and enjoy it a little more.

~

“Where’re ya from, Omi?”

“You were a lot less irritating when you were humming,” Sakusa replies. He’s gotten good at this, good enough to skate alongside Atsumu with his hands in his pockets even if his conversation suffers a bit. He’s flushed from the cold and his legs ache and Atsumu really is less of a bother when he’s humming but he supposes it could be worse. There aren’t as many people on the rink anymore and he can see Komori chatting animatedly with Suna and Osamu on a bench, which he supposes was the whole point of this outing.

“Aight, fine. Why’d ya come here for uni?”

It’s kind of a stupid question and he hopes the look he gives Atsumu says just that. “Why did you?”

“For the music program, ‘course.”

“Exactly.”

“Huh. Fair enough.” Atsumu rounds the bend of the rink with graceful ease, while Sakusa stumbles into an awkward turn. “When’s yer birthday?”

“My birthday?” he echoes, caught up in making the turn without tripping. It’s been a long time since someone’s asked for his birthday, probably since high school. “March… March 20th.”

“Hmm…” They come back to the straightaway and Atsumu crosses his arms over his chest to ponder something - what is there to think about? “Hold on, are ya born in winter or spring, then?”

What?

The incredulous look must show even with the mask, because Atsumu laughs a carefree, melodic little noise and says, “‘M serious, Omi! These’re very important questions!”

Frankly, Sakusa doesn’t feel the same way, but Atsumu is staring pointedly at him and doesn’t seem inclined to look away without an answer. He sighs. “I don’t know. I’ve never thought about it. Why does it matter?”

“Well, the season yer born in’s gotta lot to do with yer personality, Omi-kun.” He pulls ahead just enough to settle into a smooth, backwards skate, a little like when they were holding hands (Sakusa wonders why he’s still thinking about it). “Y’know how it goes, summer babies’re all loud and probably doin’ coke and winter babies’re all mysterious and probably depressed…”

Sakusa stares blankly at his dumb, grinning face and wrinkles his nose under the mask. “Do you believe horoscopes tell the future, too?”

“I - that’s not the point!”

He could dismiss the entire stupid topic (and he’s damn tempted to), but instead he humours Atsumu and his strange choice of conversation. It isn’t like he could come up with a better one, not with so much attention on keeping his balance. “What do I come off as?”

“Winter,” says Atsumu without hesitation. “But like - not mid-winter. The end when it’s warm ‘n mucky.”

Sakusa decides to ignore the comment about him coming off ‘mucky’, at least for the time being. “You only say that because you already knew my birthday.”

“Wh - no!” He almost smiles at the petulant, disdainful scowl that crosses Atsumu’s face. “Yer such a buzzkill! ‘M serious, guess my birthday, then!”

His birthday. Sakusa ponders this for a moment, examines the man skating before him - recalls his voice, his humming. It’s steady and confident with a bit of rasp; but it’s always clear and crisp and soothingly rhythmic.

Sakusa doesn’t know what that means in Atsumu’s weird season logic, but it reminds him a bit of a bright autumn day with a breeze that bites at his cheeks. “Fall,” he says, then revises - “Early fall. When there are still more sunny hours than not but it’s starting to get cold.”

Atsumu practically bounces on his skates. “Ha! See, toldja it’s legit! My birthday’s October 5th!”

It fits, he supposes, but like hell he’s telling Atsumu that. “You’re just saying that.”

“‘M not, asshole! October 5th, 9:32 p.m. Three minutes before Osamu.”

Sakusa hasn’t ever spoken to Osamu, but somehow knowing he’s the younger twin doesn’t sit quite right. He opens his mouth to shoot down the superstitious nonsense again, but a question comes out instead; “Does he have perfect pitch, too?”

“Huh?” Atsumu’s pace slows almost to a standstill, and Sakusa scrambles to match it without toppling backwards or crashing into him. “Don’t think so. Ya never told me what perfect pitch is, though.”

“You could look it up. How are you in the program without knowing what it is?”

“We can’t all be geniuses, Omi.”

“That isn’t-” He sighs, cuts himself off halfway and decides to loop back to the original question before he loses his mind. “Perfect pitch is said to be when someone can identify the pitch of any sound perfectly, hence the name.”

“Oh.” Atsumu seems to consider this for a moment, brow scrunched in thought. “Can’t most musicians do that?”

“No. They have relative pitch, which is an educated guess based on common intervals.”

“But my guesses’re educated, too.”

“They aren’t,” Sakusa huffs. He starts to cross his arms over his chest, but almost slips forward; evidently, that isn’t an option he can pull off yet. “You have the ability to know , which is why your own voice sounds so out of tune to you.”

Atsumu’s cheeky grin falls away comically fast and behind his mask, Sakusa smirks. “You don’t sing,” he says, careful not to reveal too much; he isn’t interested in the soulmate talk, not today. “But you can hum in tune. It’s unusual.”

For a heartbeat longer than usual, Atsumu stares at him in silence, an eyebrow raised, just barely moving backwards on the ice. Sakusa’s sure he’s messed up, let slip something he shouldn’t know without being his soulmate for a long, terrifying moment. His heart skips into his throat, but he can’t figure out why before Atsumu laughs lightly. “Perceptive, aren't ya, Omi-kun?”

“I would hope so.” His voice doesn’t waver as he lets out his breath, which he counts as a minor win. Atsumu starts chattering about something pitch-related and his pace returns to that slightly-too-speedy glide around the rink’s perimeter and Sakusa half-listens. He’d almost forgotten about the soulmate thing - and frankly, he preferred it that way - but it’s back in his head now, even as Atsumu talks animatedly about… something he can’t keep up with.

Sakusa takes a deep breath and flexes his fingers, as if it’ll keep his mind from running away without him. Suddenly, the air is burning cold on his cheekbones and his rhythm is all wrong (is it right foot forward or left?) and-

-And all at once, Sakusa trips forward. Not a stumble or a little slip-up but a full fall forward that rips the air from his lungs and stops his heart as he anticipates hitting the ice.

He doesn’t. Again, hands catch him under the arms, this time from the front and he practically faceplants into Atsumu’s chest, cheek squished against the slightly scratchy material of his coat so firmly he can feel his heartbeat. Atsumu trembles in a laugh and Sakusa’s heart kicks back into action so fast and so furious he’s pretty sure he might vomit it up. “Still haven’t got yer ice legs, Omi?”

“I…” Sakusa can’t speak over his heartbeat in his throat; can’t move, can’t breathe because he’s tangled in Atsumu’s arms, pressed right up against him in a way that pops all the coherent thoughts in his head like bubbles. He coughs (chokes, really) and grabs Atsumu’s arms to shove himself back clumsily across the ice until his back hits the boards. He dares look up to Atsumu, whose face is oddly unreadable as he says, “Y’know, ya can use me to balance whenever ya need, don’t gotta fall into my arms for it.”

And Sakusa has never been more glad in the dumb way he runs his mouth. He hopes it doesn’t show in his voice when he starts back around the rink and replies as bitterly as possible, “You wish.”

Atsumu grins and falls in beside him, starts to hum the sweet, easy-to-follow song from before.

Sakusa tries to ignore the palpable sensation of a heartbeat still on his cheek.

Chapter Text

White Christmas, Waltz in D Flat Major

“Ya doin’ anything for the holidays, Omi?”

“Not particularly,” Sakusa replies from the piano. It’s their last little practice session before the new year and he should be working through repertoire while Atsumu finishes annotating the old scale book at the drumset behind him, but it’s cold and dark and quiet and feels a little bit like a stormy Friday in the last hour of elementary school. His fingers are too frigid to play anything but warm-ups, the usual chilly, still air in the basement’s music room has started to spread over the rest of the school, and Sakusa has a single class left before he can go home for the break.

Really, he could be sleeping right now. Or asking Motoya to bring back something tasty from where he’s going to stay with his grandparents in Sapporo. Or doing anything but leaning forward on the piano and scrolling through his phone while Atsumu’s fingers tap triplets onto the head of a snare drum.

“Run outta stuff to practice?”

Atsumu’s voice isn’t as grating as usual; it’s taken on the soft, muted sound of winter like everything else around them, and Sakusa’s mildly surprised by it. “No,” he replies, briefly wondering if his own voice has done the same. “Why would I have?”

“Well, ya haven’t played anything since ya got here.”

Oh. It’s a fair observation, but Sakusa can hear the smirk in his voice. He wrinkles his nose as he double-taps an Instagram post of Motoya and Suna and Osamu doing… something at twilight in an empty parking lot (they’re a terrifyingly chaotic trio and he dreads the day he’ll have to bail them out of some mishap). “It’s hard to play when you’re tapping.”

Atsumu, the little shit, taps louder, and now it’s actually irritating. “Never bothered ya before, Omi. If yer not practicin’, ya should play that dumb sonata.”

Right - the sonata. Sakusa’s head pops up and he glances back to Atsumu, whose feet are up on the drumset’s toms and is balancing precariously on the back leg of the stool. “Bring it here.”

Atsumu grins a little crookedly at him. The drumming stool’s legs hit the floor and he hops up with a couple wrinkled papers in hand. “Did ya forget, Omi-kun?”

It’s patronizing and annoying and smooth as honey. “No,” Sakusa lies through his teeth as Atsumu makes his way over. He places his phone atop the piano and snatches the sheet music held out to him, crumpled at the edges and marked with pencil under each note. “Sit down and listen for mistakes.”

It sounds like Atsumu mumbles something under his breath, but he does as told, pulling up a chair beside the piano bench as Sakusa flexes his fingers. They’re still stiff and chilly (one of the worst parts about winter) but he’ll manage. He places his gloved hands on the keys, takes a breath, and reminds himself to look at the letters scrawled beneath the notes instead of the notes themselves.

And he starts to play.

It’s a little choppy, between reading letters instead of notation and the chill in his hands, but he knows this piece practically by heart and he’s purposely cut the pace in half for Atsumu’s sake.

Sakusa makes the mistake of glancing over about halfway through the correctly-annotated sonata. He’s never watched anyone watching him play, never mind anyone his age or his soulmate , so he’s a little startled when he catches Atsumu focused on his hands and the piano and him , like he’s fascinated by the mere idea of a pianist. He can’t look away as he plays, even as Atsumu’s eyes trail up his arms to his shoulders and face until finally, their gazes lock.

Sakusa’s breath is forcefully pushed out of him all at once as his fingers press familiar keys, as Atsumu watches him - no, properly looks at him - with his head cocked and big coffee-coloured eyes and some incomprehensible interest in something exceedingly mundane-

Sakusa’s right ring finger slips. The natural note becomes an accidental. He cringes and stops out of habit, waits for Atsumu to correct him, but the silence hangs over them for a long moment as one of Sakusa’s hands drops to the bench and he leans most of his weight on it, ever so slightly towards Atsumu.

It flits through his head that in a sappy romance novel, this is where the love interests would kiss, but it only lasts a second before his phone buzzes with a notification against the wood of the piano, practically echoing through the empty music room.

Sakusa blinks and retreats from where he’s started leaning forward. Atsumu shakes his head like he’s snapping himself out of a dream. “Uh - wrong. That one - that note - it wasn’t-”

“I know.” His voice comes breathless and snappy and he turns away, back towards the piano. He’s gone warm in the cold room, warm enough he has to be blushing under the mask. “My hands are cold. It’s why I wasn’t playing before.”

“Ya could’ve asked me to warm ‘em up for ya,” Atsumu says, matter-of-fact, smug - sickeningly Atsumu Miya . Sakusa never noticed before, but he’s stuck in a cycle of listening and watching and observing since the weekend they went skating and he hates it but he can’t stop . He tsks and makes sure his hands are well out of Atsumu’s reach. “You wish, Miya.”

“But I got the notes right?”

Right . He’s almost forgotten the entire point of this. Sakusa takes a final glance over the music, in case he missed anything. “You did. You can identify patterns, congratulations. You have the aptitude of a first grader.”

“Yer such an ass!” Atsumu pushes back his chair with completely overexaggerated angst and (to Sakusa’s relief) heads back to the drumset. “Man, yer hands’re as cold as yer heart, huh?”

“Your insults aren’t very creative.”

“Yeah, well it ain’t like ya got anything better.” There’s terrible sound Sakusa’s come to know as something almost falling off the shelves lined with music equipment, and he braces for a crash and glances over his shoulder to see Atsumu precariously balancing the bin of percussion equipment on his hip as he hops down from the drum stool. “Whoever put this thing up there is a fuckin’ giant.”

The comeback is on the tip of Sakusa’s tongue before he can even think about it. “Or you’re just short.”

Atsumu makes a face at him as he sets the bin down on a lower shelf, next to electronic guitar tuners. “I’m not short.”

He isn’t, but Sakusa knows he’s taller. He bites back a smile behind his mask. “Maybe you are, if you couldn’t reach.”

“I’ll have ya know,” Atsumu huffs, pulling out a silver-grey metallic object that looks a bit like a floppy whisk and pointing it at him. “I’m taller than average!”

It’s times like these Sakusa appreciates how level his natural tone of voice is, because it doesn’t waver, even though he’s this close to snickering. “Obviously not tall enough to reach the bin.”

“What? Like you could’ve reached it?”

Considering he had to stand on a stool, probably not. But Atsumu doesn’t need to know that. “I would have had a better chance than you.”

“Tch.” He scowls at him as he sits down at the drums, and Sakusa can’t bite back his smile no matter how hard he tries, even as Atsumu launches into one of those loud, complicated and most importantly obnoxious drum fills. He settles into a beat with a bit of swing after a few deafening crashes of cymbals, a beat Sakusa finds he doesn’t mind as much as the driving rock Atsumu usually plays. Something about it, about how the drums are being hit is softer , but he can’t place a finger on why.

“Play somethin’ with me, Omi,” Atsumu says after a moment. “Ya like jazz, right? Don’t most pianists do jazz?”

“I don’t.”

“What?” The question is punctuated with another drum fill, but this one isn’t as irritating as the first; it’s more drawn out, more rhythmic. “Why can’t ya do jazz?”

“I can ,” he corrects. “I choose not to.”

“Well ya should. ‘Specially ‘round this time of year. There’s tons of Christmas jazz out there. Can’t ya play one of those?”

He can - sort of, at least. Sakusa’s made a pointed effort to avoid jazz in favour of, well, anything else, but he’s also been subject to playing piano for relatives at the holidays. He’s picked up his fair share of swing, no matter how stilted and awkward.

Sakusa is not a liar. So he turns back to the piano and stays silent.

That has never deterred Atsumu before, though.

“ C’mon , Omi,” Atsumu drawls over the drums. “Play a song with me. It’ll be fun!”

“Don’t you have friends who can play for you?”

“They all went home yesterday,” he huffs. “C’mon! Don’tcha have any holiday spirit?”

Sakusa does not. Especially not for a holiday he doesn’t celebrate. Atsumu, however, seems unfazed by his silence. “Or maybe yer just not as good as I thought ya were,” he huffs, and it’s a poorly-masked challenge that has Sakusa clenching his jaw anyway. “What, can’t play without music? ‘ Oh, how could you make it this far without knowing to improvise? How did you even get into the progra- ’”

“Shut up,” he snaps, effectively cutting off Atsumu’s horrid impression of him. Sakusa flexes his fingers and slides them over the keys, hoping his memory is still good.

Of course, Atsumu does not shut up - maybe he’s just incapable. “What, so I can’t comment on yer musical flaws? It’s a one-way road or somethin’? Real fair of ya, Omi.”

“Shut. Up.” He repeats, then before Atsumu can prove he legitimately doesn’t know how, he starts to play. It’s stilted and slow and his fingers are still jerky and cold, but successfully shuts Atsumu up. Sakusa’s wondering how long he’ll have to keep it up to prove he can play a Christmas carol when Atsumu laughs behind him and starts into a beat on the drums that serves as a rhythmic - almost melodic - addition to the piano. “ White Christmas ? Of course the one ya choose would be somethin’ boring like that.”

Sakusa can’t speak without losing his spot in the song, so he settles for tossing a dirty look Atsumu’s way - which really, just seems to amuse him further. “Aww, s’okay Omi, yer just as cute with old man tastes.”

Before Sakusa can even process what he’s said, Atsumu speeds up, just enough to rattle his pace but not enough he loses time, then - the little shit - swings his notes; a breath of a pause here, an uneven triplet there. He’s forcing the swing into the song and Sakusa hates it, hates how he can’t properly keep count - can’t properly keep up - without following along. “Miya-”

“C’mon, Omi-kun!” Atsumu chirps over the music. “Can’t keep up? Ya gottta have a lil bit of jazz in yer veins!”

He doesn’t want a little bit of jazz in his veins, but Atsumu increases the pace and loosens the notes even more and the musician in him - the perfectionist in him - has to keep up, even though it feels wrong from his fingertips all the way down his spine. He wants to stay within that 4/4 time signature, wants to avoid any deviations, good or bad but he can’t without falling out of rhythm with the drums…

It’s a rock and a hard place and Sakusa wishes he had the spare brainpower to bite Atsumu’s head off.

Instead, he keeps playing. He swings the notes awkwardly in comparison to Atsumu, can’t exactly figure out their length or the beat and it all makes his head spin in the worst way. He’s running a race, a relay with Atsumu just ahead of him and waiting for the handoff, but he can’t catch up, can’t sync them up properly to smooth it out-

“Loosen up, Omi,” Atsumu calls. “Stop thinking so hard.”

Easy for you to say, he retorts in his head. If anything, he tenses more, knowing he’s being watched - maybe Atsumu sees it, because he calls out again; “Stop for a sec and listen.”

Sakusa does so without a fight, and behind him, Atsumu launches into a jazz fill that’s a lot less obnoxious with one of his sticks replaced with the brush. “Y’know the chords,” Atsumu says where the end of the fill would usually fall, then repeats it as he speaks. “Just play , Omi. Y’know the chords and what the song sounds like. So turn it into somethin’ of yer own.”

It’s shockingly intelligent from Atsumu. He plays the rest of the drum fill identical to the last, then there’s a wordless count transitioning out of the solo and-

And Sakusa plays. For real this time, or at least he tries to. His first chord is staccato and a little bit stilted, and he still can’t quite find the beat that Atsumu has set, so he keeps his left hand as the bass notes, just dumbed down and in time with the drums. It grounds him a little bit, gives the illusion of a bass guitar leading him along, so he plays the next few chords on the offbeats.

It’s still uncomfortable. But the way Atsumu whoops like he’s performed a complex solo and keeps the weirdly abstract beat steady is encouraging. “There ya go! Feel the swing, Omi!”

Strangely enough, Sakusa finds he can talk like this. “Shut up,” he calls over his shoulder, but doesn’t stop playing because this is interesting . It’s different than playing without someone else or even with a backing track; it’s someone living and laughing and enjoying themselves in the room with him, someone who isn’t observing him but playing along instead.

Sakusa bounces his heel against the ground in time with the drums before he even realizes what he’s doing. And all at once, like emerging from a fog, he’s found the rhythm and it feels beyond fantastic, tingling on his skin and warming his fingers. He bites back a smile behind the mask, lets his fingers dance over the keys, lets Atsumu’s odd choice of rhythm guide him.

He hasn’t played with someone else like this in years. It’s as exhilarating as it is downright weird and Sakusa can’t tell what parts he likes and what he doesn’t but like hell he’s going to stop playing to figure it out. His right hand loosens all the way down to the wrist, his notes become less linear and when Atsumu indulges in another drum fill he doesn’t lose his place, doesn’t lose the rhythm he spent so long finding but just plays through it, bouncing his heel in time. Sakusa glances back at the fill and doesn’t regret it in the least because Atsumu’s grinning to himself as he plays, his reach spanning the entire drumset like it’s just a natural extension of his body. He’s rolled up the sleeves of his hoodie to the elbow and pushed the bleached-blond flop of hair off his forehead and Sakusa feels like he’s intruding just watching him - but he can’t tear his gaze away, even as the drum fill slips effortlessly back into the base rhythm.

Really, Sakusa could watch him move behind the set for ages, watch him play with his whole body and turn into a different person. It’s a little magical, how he throws himself wholeheartedly into the song just for the sake of it, just because he wants to.

It’s something he realizes, on that last day of the year they’ll spend in the music room in the basement, with his fingers moving absentmindedly over the keys, something he hasn’t seen - hasn’t experienced - in ages.

The squeal of the door snaps him out of the musical reverie. Sakusa’s fingers stutter to a halt on the piano as Atsumu jumps and his sticks clatter to the floor. The sudden silence is deafening as they both turn to the front of the room, where Akaashi stands straight-faced in the doorway, guitar case slung over his shoulder. “Sorry, did I interrupt?”

Of course the one time it would be helpful, Atsumu does not speak up. Sakusa swallows the sudden jitters thrumming through him, then speaks for the both of them. “No. Were we supposed to play something today?”

Akaashi shakes his head. “No. I just figured I would wish you a happy holiday if you were still here. You too, Atsumu-san.”

“Thanks, Kei-kun,” Atsumu chirps; his name seems to have snapped him back to himself. “Wanna come play with us? We’re just gettin’ into it.”

“Were you?” Akaashi raises an eyebrow with that dumb, all-knowing look on his face. “I don’t want to interrupt-”

“It’s fine,” says Sakusa before Akaashi can leave them again - or even worse, ask to join in. Whatever possessed him a moment ago is gone as quickly as it came and he’s uninterested in finding it again. Instead, Sakusa gathers his music and stands up from the piano, as best he can with the inexplicable jitters coursing through him. “I should get going anyway. I’m supposed to see Motoya to the airport.”

“Aw, Omi, we were havin’ fun!” Atsumu whines, but a sharp look over Sakusa’s shoulder silences him. Fun is subjective.

“Well, I won’t stop you, then.” Akaashi ducks his head politely and turns to leave, to Sakusa’s relief. “Have a good Christmas and New Year, Sakusa-san, Atsumu-san.”

“Ah, wait, Kei-kun!”

Akaashi’s halfway out the door and Sakusa’s just zipping up the music pocket on his bag when Atsumu calls out. He’s bent down to fetch his sticks with just his eyes and dumb bleached-blond hair poking over the drumset and his voice bounces off the snare when he says, “A fellow I know’s throwin’ a party on the 29th, if ya wanna come and bring Bokkun.”

Bokkun? Sakusa isn’t sure if it’s better or worse that Atsumu seems to give everyone he meets nicknames but he’s too preoccupied with the little tremors zipping down his spine into his fingertips to dwell on it. Akaashi hums, seems to consider, glances over at him so quickly Sakusa almost misses it, then replies, “I’ll see. I’m going to meet Bokuto-san’s family this holiday, but I’ll see how he feels.”

“Ooh, big day, huh? What ‘bout you, Omi? Wanna come? Yanno, I do need a date-”

“Hard pass,” Sakusa snaps before he can finish. Like hell he’s going anywhere as Atsumu’s date; like hell he’s getting anywhere close to being involved with this maelstrom of a man. “I’m going to see my family in the suburbs anyway,” he continues, slinging his bag over his shoulder and smoothing down his jacket and pointedly not looking at Atsumu. “I won’t be on campus.”

“Well that’s still in Tokyo, right?” Atsumu, like always, seems unbothered and Sakusa’s forced to look up at him as he steps out from behind the piano. He’s grinning mischievously, spinning one of the recovered drumsticks between his fingers. “If ya got a sec, yer welcome to come. It’s at the psych post-grad place. Ya probably need to untwist yer panties with some booze and music. Get that stick outta yer ass, yanno?”

Sakusa squints at him. “I’d rather deal with my family.”

Atsumu barks a laugh at that. “Well, suit yerself Omi. The offer still stands.”

He turns on his heel to leave the room, before he can actually start to consider it. It’s a tough choice, his family or a rowdy, terrible college party but one of them doesn’t include the fluttery feeling Atsumu tends to elicit. “And I still decline. Goodbye, Miya.”

“Happy holidays to you too, Omi,” Atsumu calls after him, and it almost sounds fond, like he’s speaking to an old friend.

Or maybe Sakusa’s imagining things. It seems like something that would fit into the sleepy, edge-of-a-vacation atmosphere at least. He doesn’t look back to confirm anything, just leaves the music room with Akaashi close behind and electricity still thrumming through his veins. The slam of the door echoes in the empty basement hallway, followed by a muffled crash of drums and light footsteps beside him. Akaashi clicks his tongue as he falls into step. “I wasn’t aware you were a swing sort of man.”

Sakusa shoves his hands in his pockets and glares at a smug Akaashi Keiji. “Shut the fuck up.”

And Akaashi Keji just looks down the hallway and scoffs a short laugh.

~

When Sakusa returns home he’s expecting bags to be by the door and Komori to be waiting at the table with his leg bouncing like a suspecting spouse, but he can hear the hum of the television in the other room and the door’s suspiciously devoid of luggage.

Briefly, he wonders if his cousin’s been kidnapped. But when he closes and locks the door, Komori calls out, “Kiyoomi?”

“Yeah,” he says, poking his head around the wall separating the living room from the kitchen. Sure enough, Komori’s splayed across the old, cramped loveseat in front of the television that was a birthday gift from high school, a bowl of candies on the coffee table and a video game in hand. “You’re going to miss your flight.”

“Got cancelled.” Komori pops a couple candies in his mouth and continues, “Big storm in Sapporo. Dunno when it’ll clear up.”

Oh. Sakusa shrugs off his coat, heads back into the kitchen and cringes as Komori crunches the hard candies (loudly, probably just to piss him off). “So you’re not going?”

“Nah. I’ll go up for the summer.”

It’s a solid plan, one Sakusa’s considering agreeing with as he hangs his coat on the rack and turns on the sink to wash his hands until Komori continues, “Thought I’d come along with you, though. I haven’t seen your siblings in ages.”

Sakusa freezes with his hands under the faucet. “Absolutely not.”

“See,” Komori calls back, the crunch of the candies bouncing off the goddamn walls. “The beauty of being family is that I get to come regardless of what you say. Great, isn’t it?”

“You don’t even like my siblings,” he says, scrubbing the dirt of the day off his hands. “You just want a free meal.”

“You don’t like them either.”

“That’s not-” Sakusa cuts himself off with a deep breath. He shakes the excess water off his hands, turns off the faucet, reaches for the dishcloth and makes the executive decision to change the topic to something - anything - else. “A friend of Miya’s is throwing a party. You could go to that.”

“Miya - like Atsumu?” Komori perks up at that and when Sakusa makes his way back to the living room, he’s sat up, head cocked like a curious dog. “Did he invite you? Are you two going together?”

Sakusa wrinkles his nose as he removes his mask and sits in the only other chair in the room; it’s a creaky old rocking chair from Komori’s grandparents, a charming thing he’s warmed up to since they moved in together. It’s good for when his nerves are frayed, too; he can put at least some of that energy to work. “No. I was just telling you about it.”

“Don’t look at me like that,” Komori chucks a candy at him (it skitters across the floor and probably gets lodged under something, to Sakusa’s dismay). “You’ve been spending all this time with him lately. It’s not like it’s a stretch to think you’re into him.”

“I’m not.”

“And you two were all cutesy when we went skating,” he continues innocently, like the look on his face doesn’t give him away. “Holding hands and all - I didn’t know you knew how to hold someone’s hand, honestly.”

He squints at Komori again, sends the rocking chair into motion with a flex of his ankle and crosses his arms over his chest. “I don’t remember asking for your opinion.”

“‘M not giving an opinion. Just the facts.” Komori’s lips crook up into a smug smirk and he pops another hard candy in his mouth before turning back to the television. “Anyway. I’m sure your parents will love to see me. And I’ll be a buffer between you and your siblings.”

“I know you’d rather be at some party between the other Miya twin and his boyfriend.”

“Well, this isn’t about me,” he huffs, reaching for the remote. Komori bumps up the television’s volume, sighs and turns all the way towards him. “Look man, if you get over yourself and whatever you have going on with Atsumu and go to the thing, I’ll come with you. Otherwise, I’ll take someone else cooking dinner for me.”

Sakusa does not like this conversation. He stands up even though the chair’s just fallen into a steady rhythm and walks right in front of the television on his way to his room. “Bring something for my mom.”

“What, can’t appease her yourself?”

He doesn’t bother to entertain Komori’s (mostly) lighthearted jabs, just steps into the tiny hallway and into his room, where he can close the door and finally have some quiet . Sakusa flops into the office chair by his desk, looks up at the ceiling and pinches the bridge of his nose.

He loves his family. He really does. But…

Would I really rather be at a terrible party than with them?

The answer is no, of course; no matter how obnoxious his parents and siblings are, they’re predictable and tidy and generally respect his boundaries and university kids are everything but that before the introduction of alcohol. It’s a no-brainer.

So why am I dwelling on it?

He doesn’t have anything going on with Atsumu and he doesn’t want to; Atsumu Miya’s loud and obnoxious and over the top in every way and he knows it, which makes it worse. He’s completely immune to what’s expected of him yet simultaneously manages to do exactly the opposite of what everyone expects and it’s infuriating.

He’s everything Sakusa abhors.

Yet…

They’re supposedly soulmates. He hasn’t thought about it - it’s probably bullshit anyway - but there’s more evidence for than against it. He’s heard Atsumu’s humming in person and through whatever supposed connection now and they’re definitely similar, to say the least. He’s started to get a grasp on his persona too, beyond the frustratingly cocky rocker that isn’t his entire character (though it does encompass a fair portion), to grasp where they differ - and perhaps more interestingly, the rare places they seem to be similar.

It’s wholly unnerving how efficient Atsumu Miya is at stripping down his defenses. And frankly, he doesn’t like it.

Sakusa swallows hard and decides all at once he is not going to spend his break mulling over some stupid soulmate drama. He puts his hands to the keyboard and starts to play something - anything - to settle his thoughts.

It does not help in the least that the first song that comes to mind is White Christmas .

~

The evening he and Komori make the trek into the city core, to the little townhouse his parents moved into after he graduated is brisk and clear, just enough to flush cheeks and numb fingers. Komori leads the way down busy streets despite Sakusa knowing the directions, a sweet rice pudding in a bag on his arm and a cheerful grin on his face in contrast to Sakusa’s bitten-off scowl behind his mask, and Sakusa’s going over the notes of Chopin’s Waltz in D-Flat Major in his head, tapping his fingers against his palm as if it’ll dispel of his nervous energy. “I haven’t seen your sister in so long! She’s been overseas, right?”

Thankfully . He hates how bitter it sounds in his head, how angry he sounds at her for nothing in her control. He loses his place in the song, starts over from the beginning. “She’s supposed to be home.”

“Man, I should’ve gotten her a present or something!”

“She’ll survive.”

Komori glances back at him with his eyebrows drawn close and head tilted in apology, but cleverly opts to say nothing. He turns down a side street lined with townhouses and Sakusa speaks up, lest they walk right past. “They’re 128.”

“So should be right about…” He clicks his tongue and squints at the address plates, then stops all at once. “Here!”

Sure enough, the building Komori’s stopped in front of is the one he’s come to know as his parents’; small and thin with steps leading up to a door adorned with painted flowers. There’s a car in their side of the driveway - his brothers’, probably - and the warm light glows through the curtains and into the grey chill outside.

It feels like home, even though it’s far from the several-bedroom detached house they lived in as kids.

Komori leads, along the little path along the driveway and up the few steps to the narrow porch with a bounce in his steps, and Sakusa reluctantly follows close behind. He’s just stepped onto the porch when Komori raps on the door, practically bouncing. The muffled sound of footsteps comes from behind the door, then a lock clicks and-

“Ki-chan!”

And Marisa pushes right past an eagerly-waiting Komori to throw her arms around Sakusa. She’s still teeny, just as lean and bony as he and their parents, but barely reaches his chest and struggles to wrap him in her stubborn hug. Sakusa jumps (not visibly, he hopes) then gingerly hugs her back, abandoning the mental performance in his head. “Motoya’s here, too.”

“I saw, I saw.” She pulls away and tucks a stray curl behind her ear, then grins at Komori. “Momo, you’ve grown! Look at you!”

“Aw, Marisa…” Komori ducks away as she reaches to inspect his hair and face. “I really haven’t. It’s good to see you though, you look really good.”

She does, in her modest black dress and red cardigan and dark curls grown past her shoulders. Sakusa doesn’t know if he’d feel better or worse if she looked different.

“Oh, it’s cold - come inside.” Marisa throws the door open for them and the smell of family cooking and that one type of incense his mother is obsessed with - the smell of home - is overwhelming. “Yugo’s already here with his girlfriend. She’s really sweet, she’s a professor - I can take that for you, Momo.” She holds out one hand for their coats as they step inside and motions to the bag in Komori’s hand with the other. “Did you make something?”

“Nothing special.” He hands over his jacket and Sakusa does the same, closing the door with his elbow and unhooking his mask, but Komori keeps the bag with the rice pudding. “And it’s alright. I can carry it. Are you staying in Japan?”

“For the holiday,” she says, hanging their jackets on the coatrack as they place their shoes with the others, then she starts backwards down the hall, towards the bright light of the kitchen. “The orchestra’s Finnish, so they’ve given me a Christmas break. I go back the second week of January.”

He shouldn’t be glad she’s leaving the country again. Sakusa knows he should want her to stay, with their family and where she has safety nets to fall back on, but being in the same house as her is making his skin crawl already. He lets Komori make small talk as they approach the kitchen, where the smell of food is strong and the ambient sound of conversation drifts out.

Sakusa really does not want to be here. And he hates that, too.

“Hey, Kiyoomi’s here!”

Just as they poke into the kitchen, he’s greeted with another warm hug from his mother. “Kiyoomi, your cheeks are all red! Do you want a cup of tea?”

“No, thank you-”

“And Motoya, your mother told me about your flight… It’s wonderful to see you, sweetheart.” She lets him go and squeezes Komori in a hug that looks just as suffocating as Marisa slips behind them to sit at the table with Yugo and a woman Sakusa doesn’t recognize. “Your father just popped out to pick up some things I forgot. Here, let me take that from you.” She takes the rice pudding from Komori before he can argue and turns to place it on the counter with other dishes in various states of completion. “Sit, it’s been so long since you’ve all been home together.”

Sakusa glances over to the kitchen table, too small for the seven-person setup it’s been forced into. Yugo’s there, chin resting in his hand and chatting to the woman beside him with a smile, but he glances up to meet Sakusa’s eye and silently invites him over, like the good big brother he is.

Sakusa swallows the thick, sour feeling in his throat and forces his way into one of the chairs squished into the kitchen corner, not directly beside his brother nor right across from his sister. Komori opts to sit next to a beaming Marisa; maybe an old protective instinct from when they were younger. Yugo smiles at him. “Hey, Kiyoomi. How’s school?”

“Fine,” he says. He’s wishing it was a little more acceptable to wear his mask but it’s been tucked away and he’s left here with his family, completely exposed.

Yugo either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care; probably the former, knowing him. “That’s great. This is my girlfriend, Hana, by the way.”

“Pleased to meet you,” says Hana, gentle and practiced and polite with a bow of her head. “Your brother is a lovely man.”

He is , Sakusa can agree, but it really makes him feel even worse without his safety net. It feels sickeningly like when they were little, crowded around the table and sneaking bites, unable to wait for everyone to be served. He can see it still; Marisa’s petite face dwarfed by the noise-cancelling headphones as she taps her fingers in a rapid, anxious pattern on the table and chews so hard on her bottom lip it’s turned puffy and raw and Yugo across from her, all fever-flushed cheeks and bags under his eyes and mussed hair; can see his father trying not to fret over how to convince Marisa to take off the headphones and Yugo to take his medicine and tiny, barely-competent Kiyoomi to take off his mask and his mother just accepting it and trying to get her husband to do the same.

He can still see it, hazy and foggy and a little bit distant, like an odd dream from a time he can’t place.

Now, in this too-small-for-seven-people townhouse, with Marisa chatting cheerily to Komori as she drums her fingers and Yugo with his unchanged soft smile; with his father out fretting over something or another and his mother watching with that proud smile he’s only ever seen on a mom; even now, not much is different.

Yet as Yugo starts to talk about how he’s met this woman beside him, perfectly groomed and looking like the professional researcher he is, as Marisa breaks into unabashed chiming laughter at something Komori’s said, it feels like everything’s changed except him.

~

“...So we’re trying to find ways to use that and shape the neural pathways of infants with certain music,” Yugo explains as they eat. He’s grinning like he hasn’t just spewed some of the longest words Sakusa’s ever heard at them, and Hana’s smiling like she’s understood them all. “It’s really interesting. It would be fantastic if you two could have music in a study one day.”

Sakusa starts to say he doesn’t make music, starts to divert away from this topic before it can progress but Marisa jumps in with before she’s even finished her mouthful of food. “I’ve been working on an orchestra piece!” she chirps in the way she only does when it’s about music. “The orchestra - they said they’d try it out when I’m done. I’ve never written a full-length piece, so I don’t know how it’d turn out but I’ve taken inspiration from some of the greats and am trying to make it heavy in woodwinds and…” She ducks her head to hide behind her curls and takes another bite. “Sorry. You could fly out to watch it, if we ever perform.”

“We’ll fly out and have a celebration,” says their father. “Bring the whole family. We’ll throw the best party in Finland.”

Marisa laughs. “That’s unnecessary… I’m sure Ki-chan has something he’s been working on.”

Oh. There it is - he’s put on the spot as the family turns to him, at the corner of the table that’s been stuffed too close to the wall. Sakusa takes a deep breath. “I don’t.”

“Don’t be so humble, Kiyoomi,” his father encourages, and it lights a tiny, flickering flame under Sakusa’s skin. “I’m sure you’ve been working away at something. You always loved coming up with little tunes when you were little.”

He did. He did , past tense, and present Sakusa just looks across the table to Komori for help. Komori, the bastard, brings his glass of water to his lips before he can be prompted to speak.

Sakusa really, really hates the holidays.

“I don’t,” he repeats, a little firmer, but it unsurprisingly doesn’t deter his mother. “Kiyoomi, do you hate sharing your work that much with us? If you do, we’ll stop asking but we’re just curious, as your family, and every year you come home for the holidays without any news…”

“I just don’t-”

“I’d like to see or hear anything you’re working on!” Marisa says and her raspy, cheery tone just irritates him even more. “We could work on something, the three of us - a family project! We could dedicate it to Mom and Dad and-”

And that is what has the spark turn into a full blaze. “I don’t have anything!” Sakusa snaps, chair hitting the wall as he stands up, palms on the tabletop. “You ask every time, as if it’ll be different - do you wonder why I don’t make music anymore? Or invite you to shows, or talk about it?”

Yugo starts to say something and in the back of his head Sakusa wishes Hana wasn’t here; this isn’t her fault nor her family affair. He leans forward and says before his brother can interrupt, “It’s because of you ! Because how many times I was so slightly off-key when I tried to sound out a song and made Marisa cry or couldn’t use the piano because I might’ve had something on my hands that made Yugo sick… I’m not just - just keeping something from you, for god’s sake!”

He finishes with a throat sore from shouting and sweat starting to form at his brow, with flushed cheeks and the realization everyone’s eyes are on him in the worst way possible. Komori’s wide-eyed, glass still at his lips and beside him, Marisa’s face is frozen in a terrible, crestfallen look. She meets his eyes for just a moment and to his horror, hers are full to the brim with tears just waiting to spill over. Before they can, she pushes back her own chair, wraps her cardigan closer around her and dashes out of the room.

“Marisa!” Yugo calls after her, but there are footsteps padding up the stairs and then the sound of a door slamming shut. He gives Hana an apologetic look before leaving the table himself to go after her. Sakusa feels something sour rise in his throat. He should follow, he knows he should, but his feet are glued to the kitchen floor. He closes his eyes and hopes perhaps he’s having a hyper-realistic dream.

“Oh, Kiyoomi…”

His mother’s sigh shoots down that idea and lances him right in the chest; he knows that sigh like the back of his hand and when he opens his eyes to look at her she’s making the face that always goes along with it, all tired eyes and a cocked head and disappointment in something - maybe him or herself or something else entirely. He hates it, the tone of her voice and the way she looks at him like she’s still dealing with three troublesome kids (like he’s still a troublesome kid). Sakusa only wishes she got angry at him sometimes.

She doesn’t, though. Like always, she looks at him like she perhaps wants to cry for them both, like she’s torn between pulling him into a hug and trying to work a conversation out of him - like a tired mother saddled with too many difficult children.

It makes Sakusa’s head hurt and the smell of home he’s craved every day of university turn acrid. Without another thought, he steps back from the table and turns to leave the kitchen. His mother reaches out to him on his way past, whispers something that vaguely sounds like his name but he flinches away and hurries to the front door to slip on his shoes and grab his jacket. The floor creaks, a sure sign someone’s followed him, but he doesn’t wait to find out who it is. Sakusa unlocks the door and leaves the house before he’s even put on his coat and even though he closes it behind him, he doesn’t hear it slam. Instead, the same footsteps catch him just as he pulls on his coat and makes it to the end of the driveway and Komori silently falls into step with him.

For all of his unnecessary chatter, Komori does know when to shut up. Sakusa shoves his hands in his pockets and starts to work through Waltz in D Flat Major in his head.

Chapter Text

Hoshi ni Naretara

“...And he’s such an ass sometimes!” Hinata whines. “Seriously - who does he think he is? He’s not the lead of the band!”

“I mean,” Atsumu says, leaning on the island counter and grinning over the lip of his cup. “He is yer drummer.”

“I never said he wasn’t !”

Atsumu chuckles and watches Hinata drink from his own cup. It’s always fun to hear how the younger students are doing; it’s almost never good and he remembers it like it’s yesterday.

It always gets better, though, so he never feels too bad about laughing.

“Hey, ‘Tsumu,” says Suna as he walks into the kitchen, probably for another drink; how many has he had? It’s definitely been more than one, even if he seems unfazed. Atsumu’s about to preemptively cut him off before he can make a verbal jab, but Suna just says, “Your little boyfriend’s here. With Komori, of course.”

“I don’t have a-” He cuts himself off and cocks his head. “Wait, who?”

“Who do you think?” Suna deadpans, popping the tab on a beer, then he’s gone as soon as he arrived. Hinata leans across the counter, eyebrows raised and grinning that blinding, charming grin. “Atsumu-san, you have a boyfriend?”

“I don’t…” Atsumu hums. He sets down his cup and peeks out of the kitchen. It takes a second of scanning and he isn’t exactly sure what he’s looking for until he sees it.

Or rather, him.

Atsumu nearly misses him because he looks so out of place, donning a navy shirt with the first few buttons undone and sleeves rolled to the elbow and mask nowhere in sight and his heart skips a beat because Sakusa is here and chatting to someone with the same resting scowl and a drink in hand and he looks damn good .

Wow. Atsumu might have a problem.

He opts to leave Hinata in the kitchen (he’ll find someone else to chat to, he always does) and makes his way across the room, ignoring both the people he recognizes and those he doesn’t. Sakusa’s talking to Meian, leaning against the back of the sofa placed in front of a wall-mounted TV displaying a 1-on-1 Smash Bros match. Usually he’d poke his head in, see who’s playing and maybe play a round or two before he’s too tipsy to win, but Atsumu sidles up beside Meian and puts on his best smile. “Omi-kun, I thought you weren’t coming.”

Sakusa stops mid-sentence and looks over - and wow he really is stunning without the mask; a sharp jawline and a tiny mole high on his left cheek and surprisingly soft-looking lips. When his eyes narrow like they always do, his nose scrunches in a subtle, almost cute way Atsumu never noticed with so much of his face covered. He brings the can of beer to his lips and takes a swig. “My plans changed. What do you care?”

“I didn’t know you two were friends,” says Meian. He’s stepped back, leaning against the back of the couch just behind Atsumu instead of beside him, like he’s observing a show. “An odd match, wouldn’t you say?”

“We aren’t friends,” Sakusa says without missing a beat and Atsumu’s ego shouldn’t deflate so much, especially considering it’s far from the first time it’s happened. Before he can retort or tease or do anything much, though, Sakusa downs the rest of whatever’s in his bottle. “What is it, Miya?”

“Just wanted to chat,” he says because there’s no excuse shoving them together here. It’s just two young people at the same party and Atsumu’s hoping the curious sentiment is reciprocated. He’s not very optimistic but that has never stopped him before. “Can’t a classmate talk to another classmate?”

Sakusa surveys him for a long moment, this time his face on full display. It isn’t as scrutinizing as usual and Atsumu can almost see the cogs in his head turning as he weighs some unknown options against each other.

He holds his breath and waits, keeps his expectations low.

“Fine.”

And Atsumu nearly does a double take. He doesn’t , thank god, and instead replies calm and level, “Great. Were ya waitin’ to play?”

He motions to the television, where the match has ended and Meian has moved to take on the winner. Sakusa shakes his head then after a moment says, like an afterthought, “No. I like playing games alone.”

“Really? Even these sorta games?”

“I don’t play a lot of them.”

“Huh.” It makes sense but it’s still odd to him how someone could go without playing games, especially with other people. Atsumu can’t help but wonder if he played games as a kid or if he had siblings to play with but opts to stick with simpler questions, lest Sakusa dash like a startled animal. “What d’ya do in yer free time, then?”

“Music,” he replies. “And… Read, I suppose. Go for runs sometimes.”

His replies are stilted and awkward and Atsumu might not be fantastic at reading people but he can tell Sakusa’s uncomfortable - and not in the fun, for the greater good way either. Atsumu mulls over the realization for a heartbeat then just barely bumps Sakusa’s forearm with his own as he turns to leave the room. “C’mon, Omi, it’s a nice night out.”

“It’s cold,” Sakusa says but follows him back through the room, past the kitchen and around the corner to a side door half-hidden by hanging jackets. Atsumu pushes some aside and ignores the few that flop to the floor in heaps, unlocks the door and glances back. “It’s nice . Yer such a party pooper. Now c’mon before one of the psych kids comes and takes this spot.”

He thinks he sees Sakusa’s eyes roll but regardless, when Atsumu opens the door out onto the tiny, chilly balcony overlooking the wintry university town, he’s close behind.

~

Sakusa isn’t bad for conversation when prompted, Atsumu learns - though to be fair, it’s the least interesting thing he learns as they talk. He learns Sakusa has grown up in Tokyo with occasional trips to visit family in the north, that he can play guitar and trumpet competently, that he’s quite good at chemistry and knows all sorts of words and theory Atsumu never knew existed. He learns apparently Sakusa is the youngest sibling of three (which, in a weird way, is fitting) and dislikes bugs and spiders and anything vaguely crawly with a passion and likes overwhelming flavours like umeboshi.

Perhaps more importantly, Atsumu learns that Sakusa slouches naturally, leaning against the rail of the balcony as they talk, and that he thinks extensively - too much, probably - before speaking. He fumbles with the sleeves of his shirt and seems comfortable to accept a drink from Motoya when he pops out to see where they are. He doesn’t flush as he drinks and even when his shoulders loosen, just a tad, he seems to hold his alcohol well.

He isn’t as shy as Atsumu thought, and is quick to correct him when he’s wrong or reply with a sharp-tongued retort when given a chance, all with a miniscule smirk just barely tossed Atsumu’s way.

Maybe it’s the chill of the snowy night or maybe it’s the alcohol but that smirk, usually hidden away, warms Atsumu to the core every time.

There’s a lull in their banter as Atsumu finishes the drink Motoya offered. Sakusa seems to be reaching the bottom of his as well, tipping the bottle higher as he silently looks over the town. Atsumu leans on the creaky wooden railing, watches the last tiny snowflakes from the flurry flutter down. They’ve been outside long enough he can see where they stick in Sakusa’s hair, glittering under the porch light. Atsumu’s staring in a terribly unsubtle way but he can’t help himself because in this light - this scenery, on the balcony with the backdrop of the university campus and frost-glazed trees and thrum of activity inside - without the mask and more relaxed than Atsumu’s ever seen he’s downright ethereal, from the single sooty curl falling in his face to the sharp cut of his cheekbones. Somewhere, some little voice in the back of his head laments their lack of a soul bond but Atsumu could care less in the moment.

Sakusa pauses with the bottle still at his lips and glances over so their eyes meet. For a split second instead of the one-sided observation, they’re staring intently at each other.

Then-

“You’re staring, Miya.”

“There’s snow in yer hair,” Atsumu replies, though the snow is probably the last thing he’s thinking about. Sakusa sets his bottle on the railing. “I’m cold.”

It’s somewhere between a statement and a complaint. To be fair, the chill’s set into his bones too, but it’s tolerable this close to the house. Atsumu cocks his head as Sakusa turns back to look out at the town and says before he can think about it, “Y’know, yer way prettier without a mask.”

Sakusa doesn’t blush, even though Atsumu would really like him to, but there is a beat before he replies, “You’re prettier when you shut up.”

“Really? Ya think I’m pretty?”

“I think you should shut up,” he reiterates. And really, who would Atsumu be if he didn’t reply, “Aw, make me then, Omi-kun.”

It’s banter, the same banter they’ve been shooting back and forth all evening, the same banter that comes and goes without a second thought and the same banter Atsumu can usually predict with great accuracy. It’s why, he tells himself, that when Sakusa takes a step to close the space between them and tips Atsumu’s chin up to press a surprisingly soft kiss to his lips, he freezes up.

It only lasts a second, then Sakusa steps away, takes his drink and turns to head inside. “It’s too cold,” he says, like he didn’t just take Atsumu’s dumb banter bait and kiss him, opens the door and heads inside without looking back.

Atsumu, like the moron he’s somehow sure he is in this situation, stares at the door as it closes. It wasn’t a great kiss or a proper kiss or an anything kiss; just casual and gentle and maybe a tad curious, like a first kiss goodnight after a date. He has to squeeze his eyes shut just to make sure he didn’t get lost in a daydream and Sakusa isn’t still standing there, their lips unacquainted with each other, and sure enough he’s still alone on the balcony in the cold.

Dumbly, he figures he probably should have kissed back.

He could go back in and find Sakusa and pull him in for a proper kiss. Hell, he’s probably done something similar before and he’s never been shy about these casual attractions that lead to kisses or hookups but…

Atsumu licks his lips. This doesn’t seem like those casual flings he indulges in - and it’s unnerving.

He likes to know what’s going on in his own head, to have a good grip on himself. But Atsumu makes the decision to ignore whatever… this is, at least until he’s done at this party.

Which might require more alcohol.

He shakes his head and starts back into the house.

~

Sakusa manages to elude him after they head in; he’s disappeared into the house when Atsumu steps inside and for the first time since they’ve met, he doesn’t go out of his way to find him. Instead, he opts for another drink and catching up with friends he hasn’t seen in awhile, then another drink and a couple rounds of impromptu Smash Bros tournament before it gets too competitive (and he gets too tipsy) and then, despite his better judgement, yet another drink because really, he can still hear himself thinking and they are not good thoughts.

Besides, Atsumu can hold his liquor well. He isn’t drunk. It’s just enough that he can’t be bothered to think about kissing Sakusa on the snowy balcony.

It’s late enough the party’s winding down when someone pulls out a guitar; an inevitable part of so many music freaks in the same place. He’s back in the kitchen to chat absentmindedly with a girl majoring in theater production when the speaker’s turned down and replaced by someone tuning a guitar and doesn’t think much of it. Whoever’s playing is pretty decent and even though the singers vary in skill, it’s endearing, in that tired way parties get into the wee hours of the night. So Atsumu listens to the half-muffled laughs and songs from the other room and considers bringing this girl he’s chatting with home for something he actually does find familiar in the muddy sea of oh god I think I like him .

He doesn’t get that far in the conversation before something else familiar hits him - something wonderful and warm. Atsumu pauses halfway through flirting to listen to the gentle, gorgeous voice he hasn’t heard in ages and is just starting to relax, to absolutely melt into it when it occurs to him something is wrong.

Very wrong, actually. Atsumu blinks, shakes his head just to make sure it isn’t the booze playing tricks on him but it’s still there; the hesitant, familiar singing, only not in his head and also in time with the guitar from the other room.

And it clicks all at once. Atsumu mutters a hasty apology to the girl and nearly trips over his own feet to hurry around the island counter and to where the kitchen meets the living room. The music gets clearer, is something he recognizes from his childhood but it’s the least of his concerns. Atsumu pokes his head out of the kitchen and scans the room, dotted with people - mostly music students - focused on a young, silver-haired man seated on the arm of the sofa as he plays the guitar, someone Atsumu recognizes as a drummer but not a music major. He’s good with the guitar but not who Atsumu’s looking for, so he keeps looking, sweeps his gazes over the late-night crowd until-

Oh .

There, leaning over the back of a loveseat is the singer, is Sakusa Kiyoomi, with his long fingers tapping in time on the back cushion and chin propped up in his other hand. He seems unbothered, perhaps just a little wasted with his hair a bit mussed and body slouched more than usual but his voice -

Atsumu’s train of thought screeches to a halt when Sakusa glances over, meets his eyes and startles, voice wavering. Before he can stop, though, Atsumu interrupts in an exhale, “I… Omi?”

And Sakusa shuts up. That gorgeous voice - the voice Atsumu’s been obsessed with since before he can remember - stops, the guitarist a moment after, and then it’s just them in the room, locked in a terrible stare.

It takes a long time for Sakusa to open his mouth again. “Atsumu.”

He’s been waiting for Sakusa to use his given name but now, tonight, in this shabby university dorm house, it’s the worst thing in the world.

“Ya knew ,” he finally gets out. It’s flat, even though something awful is bubbling under Atsumu’s skin. “Ya knew - how long did ya - why didn’t ya-” He cuts himself off and swallows thickly. “Am I that awful? That ya don’t wanna be my soulmate?”

“Atsumu-”

“Soulmate?” Komori’s voice from across the room snaps him out of staring down Sakusa, and when he glances over, Komori’s on his feet, leaning forward. “Sakusa, what?”

Atsumu doesn’t know if it’s better or worse that no one else seems to know either, but he does know he wants to be anywhere but here. With a lump in his throat and his head spinning, Atsumu squeezes his eyes shut, flips up the hood of his sweater and hugs his arms across himself as he crosses the room and opens the door as fast as he can. Osamu calls after him, distant and lost in the blood rushing in his head, but he ignores it, slams the door behind him and walks out into the chilly night just as snow starts to fall again.

Chapter Text

Oshama Scramble!, Na Na Na

Atsumu spends New Year’s in bed.

There’s no shortage of things to do; parties, concerts, dates, a mix of all three. Usually, he indulges in at least a couple (a perk of living in the city) but this time, he can’t be asked. He spends New Year’s Eve under the covers while the rest of the house goes and does whatever people do to celebrate, and is starting to accept this might be his life now come New Year’s Day.

Because really, what is he supposed to do now? Pretend he wasn’t made a fool of, to his soulmate’s face and to the faces of the music and psych faculty?

Pretend he wasn’t kissed by the man with the prettiest voice he’s ever heard, and a face to match?

Pretend it isn’t proof I’m unloveable…

Atsumu brings the duvet closer around himself and curls up tighter in the dark, fluffy warmth. It isn’t a bad place, under the covers. It’s soft and comfortable and there’s no stupid soulmates or couples or music to bug him.

It’s almost perfect. Would be even closer to perfect if someone didn’t open his door so forcefully it hit the wall with a bang , stomped across to the bed and ripped the covers off all at once. “Get up.”

“Fuck off,” Atsumu mumbles, squeezing his eyes shut against the light. Someone’s opened his curtains and he is currently feeling as if the sun will burn his retinas, so he presses his face into the pillow. Osamu promptly grabs the back of his shirt to yank him into a sitting position. “I said get up .”

“God, ‘Samu-” His voice is laced with venom as he struggles to smack his brother, but Osamu doesn’t let up. A chilly hand grabs his wrist to prevent him from flopping back into bed and finally, Osamu steps into his view. “C’mon. We’re goin’ to practice.”

Practice? It’s only been however many days since he’s abandoned his drumsticks in the corner of his room, but it takes Atsumu a long moment to figure out what he’s talking about - and by then, Osamu’s hauled him half out of bed. “Come on . ‘M not lettin’ ya mope the year away. We’re going .”

Atsumu does not have the brainpower to bicker with him. “ Where? ” he whines instead, standing ragdoll-limp as Osamu reaches for his sticks, discarded against the wall. He shoves them into Atsumu’s chest, hard enough he reflexively grabs them, then turns to the door. “To practice , ya dumbass. C’mon. Don’t make me drag ya.”

Osamu - unfortunately - does not make empty threats. Atsumu stands with his sticks gripped against his chest for a long, quiet moment, then follows his brother when he turns to leave the room.

~

‘Where’ is one of the practice rooms in the basement of a campus building, one bigger than the usually-tiny square boxes to accommodate for a creaky drumset. It’s the one Atsumu’s always retreated to when he needs to bang out something as loud as he can; the quality of the set chases away competition and the cramped space makes it near impossible to fit another instrument inside. Even having just Osamu and his guitar in the room feels suffocating.

Osamu, however, does not seem to care. He shoves Atsumu towards the squeaky stool. Its leathery surface has been peeling since their freshman year, yet still hasn’t worn clean off. Atsumu sits out of pure habit, places his left foot on the hi-hat pedal and right on the bass, but he can’t quite get a feel for the sticks in his hands, or where they should be.

Why am I here?

Osamu pulls his little bluetooth speaker from the pocket of his jacket, bumps up the volume and places it on the only other chair in the room. Atsumu watches blankly over his shoulder as he fiddles with his phone, then he taps something and says, “Play.”

The sound explodes from the speakers all at once and Atsumu flinches away from the frantic noise; it has to be audible through the entire practice hall. He stares at Osamu for another moment, but he doesn’t even entertain keeping the gaze for a second, just starts to unpack his guitar. “Play, dumbass.”

Atsumu swallows, listens as the song’s chaotic introduction gives way to a more tolerable transition, and turns to the drums. He knows this song, he’s played along with it before, but right now it feels loud and foreign and his sticks are heavy wooden blocks in his hands.

“ Play !” Osamu smacks his shoulder hard and bumps up the volume, and heavy hands and all, Atsumu starts to tap away at the hi-hat in time with the beat.

And - as much as he loathes it - Osamu is a clever man. He starts a handful of beats from the next drop and when it hits, he’s there. Not in the tiny, cold, cramped practice room or on campus with a soulmate crisis or lying in his dorm room wondering about just how awful he must be, but there , surrounded by the familiar song and its organized chaos. It’s a monster of a song to drum along to and he loves it, can remember when it came out and he spent hours listening to chunks on loop until he could keep up. It all feels like a far away dream now, with how his sticks and feet move purely on memory.

He indulges in electronic noise. For all his love of melodic pop and rhythmic rock, sometimes this loud, overpowering hardcore is all he needs.

Another transition hits and he breaks, breath coming short and heart beating fast. Behind him, Osamu’s tuning his guitar, and Atsumu certainly has some choice words for him but for now, he shakes out his wrists and cracks his neck as the drums come back in. He had this album pumping through his veins for months when it came out, and as it all speeds up again, he knows exactly what comes next.

The beat drops again, fast and hard and unrelenting, and anything he was thinking before they arrived, before he sat down and the music started is chased away. Atsumu’s heart hammers along in time with his sticks as he reaches to hit the cymbals with everything he’s got, over and over in time with the song. There’s another pause in the drums, just a moment, and he twirls his sticks before the beat’s back, an old leftover habit from his high school days. It sounds like Osamu laughs behind him, but he’s too enveloped in the music and drums to care. The phrase, all cymbals and bass and snare, repeats again and again and one more time as the noise of the song ramps up. The music, his sticks - the set itself - all meld further into his skin and flesh and bone with each layer and Atsumu throws himself into trying to replicate the frantic build of the drum machine at the end of the last one.

The drums lull again, all the crazed crashing replaced by a laid back beat tapped out on the hi-hat and snare as another transition hits. Atsumu breathes for the first time in too long if the burning in his chest is anything to go by and rolls his shoulders back. His wrists are starting to get sore in that fantastic, exhausted way after he’s pushed himself too hard and he’s not even done the song yet.

The transition speeds into the next phrase, a loud staccato of sounds he relishes in punctuating with the loudest strikes of the drums and cymbals he can manage. Atsumu doesn’t even bother trying to catch the drum machine as the phrase finishes, just indulges himself with a perfectly-timed crash cymbal and that accursed habit of spinning his sticks before the beat drops.

And then it’s a mad dash to the finish line. The song’s merciful transitions are nonexistent for the last minute and Atsumu loves every second of his burning muscles and cramping joints and short, heavy breathing, loves how his entire being moves with the drums, loves how every fibre of his body is begging for it to end and every fibre of his being is in pure bliss. His arms are on fire as the song wraps up but he makes damn sure he can at least rival the song’s electronic drums and cuts off at just the right spot, satisfyingly perfect, before ending the song with an exhausted flam.

It’s him and the drums in this cramped, insulated room, his heavy breathing and the drum’s last, weak reverberations in the air and somehow, Atsumu forgot this is where he belongs.

Never again .

The silence in the room feels almost unnatural after so much noise and Atsumu’s starting to remember what’s landed him here in the first place when Osamu strums his guitar and nearly scares him to death. “Cool. Yer still good to play, then.”

He sounds so nonchalant - almost amused - and Atsumu almost spins on the stool to spit at him when he taps away at his phone again and yet another song comes through the speakers.

And oh . Atsumu knows this song too, though it’s more reminiscent of middle school than high school. Osamu’s guitar comes in after a beat and Atsumu flexes his fingers before hitting the pickup and launching into the song. He knows this one by heart, belts out the refrain at the top of his lungs with his brother without a care in the world because that’s the point . Osamu once knew the lyrics, English and all, but the first verse starts and he plays along on his guitar without uttering a word, which is fine. Atsumu doesn’t care if he sings or not, as long as he plays his guitar like his life depends on it.

And he does. He always does and it’s exhilarating as ever. Atsumu doesn’t have to look back to start that iconic refrain in time with him. It’s loud and pissed and he finishes it by beating the drum fill out as loud as he can. The next verse comes in, and if he listens carefully, he can hear his brother, singing almost under his breath, but the refrain starts again before he can focus on it. He shouts it alongside Osamu out even if he sounds terrible because god knows he needs it.

He reaches for the cymbals to play the bridge before he even realizes it’s arrived, and Osamu behind him is right with him, as if the song’s integrated into their very musical existence. He knows these fills by heart too, after countless angsty tween days of sitting in front of the drums, yet still somehow is surprised when Osamu hits the solo like it’s nothing. It’s one of their more satisfying duets, this one, miniscule part of the bridge where he takes the backseat and Osamu reminds everyone (himself included) why he’s been in every honours band. He doesn’t falter for a moment and Atsumu doesn’t have to look back to give that silent signal to stop like he does with some people, can revel in one of those great, simple builds on the drums that he’s been so deprived of. Osamu’s riff is back without a moment’s hesitation, steady and right in time with every strike of the snare. It builds - they both build, the drums and the guitar together - until it’s just them, yelling the refrain into the insulated room like wronged teenagers all over again.

And when the verse and the instruments come back all at once, it feels great, from head to toe, feels bright and electric, feels like he’s alive again. Osamu’s voice joins the music, just as good as it's always been, and Atsumu’s entire body hits the last fills of the song, as if he’s on stage, with a band, putting on a show for someone other than himself. The last note of the guitar rings in the air, the song fades out, the breath he was holding comes out in an exaggerated whoosh .

Osamu mutes his guitar and the air stills. Atsumu finally turns in his seat to glance back at him. “Gonna let me go back to sleep now?”

“Yer such an asshat,” Osamu huffs, but that hard bite that dragged him out of bed is gone. “No thanks? Not even a little?”

“Why’re we here?” Atsumu asks, despite knowing very well why they are here. Osamu grabs the speaker so he can sit down, resting one leg on his knee and leaning forward against his guitar. “Ya know why. Are ya gonna talk to me?”

Suddenly, Atsumu realizes he’s been played and is now in a closed room with a stubborn brother. It’s tempting to throw down his sticks and force his way out or play until his arms fall off and Osamu gets bored and for a long, silent moment, he considers it.

But he wants to talk. He wants this out and off his chest and anywhere but coiling in his stomach.

“Why would he lie?”

It’s a question he knows his brother won’t have the answer to. Osamu doesn’t try to, just watches him with his head cocked. Atsumu swallows and turns back to face the drums. “‘M I that bad? That my soulmate doesn’t wanna be my soulmate? I just…”

“Yer not unloveable,” Osamu finally says, low and level. “Sakusa’s just a prick.”

“But-”

“I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t care for ya,” he continues like Atsumu hadn’t spoken at all. “Bein’ yer brother doesn’t obligate me to be here.”

It doesn’t obligate him to be here.

Atsumu stares at the head of the snare, worn to the transparent underside from use, and turns the phrase over in and over in his head, as if it has the answers.

It doesn’t. He knows it won’t, but still, he hoped. Atsumu’s voice cracks as he says,  “Just… Why …”

The still, cold air of the basement is deafening in between his halfhearted question and the moment Osamu says, “He’s a prick and doesn’t deserve how much yer thinkin’ about him.” He pauses, then says quieter, almost like an afterthought. “You’ve got us. Nothin’s changed except Sakusa’s a prick.”

It’s such a simple mindset, one Atsumu knows just isn’t true. But as the bluetooth speaker turns back on behind him and he readies his sticks for another song, he decides for now, in this little room, it can be.

Chapter Text

Yakeni in the Rain, Omocha No Heitai

The first time Sakusa leaves the apartment after New Year’s is to go to the boba place where he met Atsumu. The thin layer of snow from Christmastime has melted into cold, grey rain and it’s anything but seasonally warm like it was the last time he visited. Sakusa dons his bright jacket and green scarf, and for the first time in what feels like forever, both a mask and latex gloves.

Komori didn’t try to coax him out of it. In fact, Komori’s done nothing but give him the scariest, most pissed glares he’s ever seen.

Which alright, he probably deserves. Still, Sakusa is uncomfortable indulging in his usually comforting bad habits without the nagging mother hen voice in his ear.

And yet, he’s just as uncomfortable without the mask and gloves. Or maybe his constant state is now just discomfort. The more he thinks about it, the more his skin crawls.

The dismal weather seems to have kept most of the students who have returned to campus inside at least; the shop’s storefront is empty, a first since he’s started his major. It settles his frayed nerves a tad as he approaches. Worming his way through boisterous, cheerful university kids with too-sweet drinks before he even gets inside is the last thing he wants right now. Sakusa scrunches his nose under the mask, swallows as much anxiety as he can, and reaches for the boba shop’s door. A warm gust of air warms his cold-flushed cheeks, the bell above the door chimes and the person behind the counter calls out a generic welcome but he barely notices because at a two-person table by the window sits Osamu Miya.

Sakusa concludes all at once that this is actually the last place he wants to be right now - and that’s before Osamu looks up and meets his eyes.

If Komori’s scary, Osamu is downright terrifying. Every part of Sakusa is screaming not to walk over and sit across from him, but Sakusa has gotten very good at ignoring his own best advice over the past couple of months. He keeps his pace steady and hands in his pockets as he takes the dozen paces to the table, keeps his eyes on Osamu as he nudges the wooden chair out and sits down. Osamu stares him down like he’s prey, an insect already trapped in a web. It takes all of Sakusa’s willpower not to squirm in his seat.

Briefly, he wonders if he’s actually going to be beaten to death in this warm little tea shop on his university campus.

Then, finally, Osamu says, “Gimme one reason not to break yer nose.”

Sakusa does not have one. He tries anyway. “You didn’t at the party.”

“‘Cause I had to go after my brother.” Every word is clipped, seething, downright venomous in a way he didn’t know human speech could be. “Who ran off after ya crushed him. Like a psychopath.”

Psychopath might be a bit much, but Sakusa knows when to keep his mouth shut. Osamu’s eyes narrow. “The only reason I’ve got is that yer still my brother’s soulmate and I dunno if I’d be able to stop at hittin’ ya once.”

Okay. That is definitely a thinly veiled threat. Usually, Sakusa doesn’t care for threats, especially physical ones; he’s bigger and in better shape than most. Osamu’s tall and he doesn’t look especially scrawny, but Sakusa decides it’s the furious malice emanating from him that would tip the scales. He does not want to be on the receiving end of a punch from this man.

“I don’t wanna hear whatever shitty excuse ya got,” Osamu says, low and dangerous, and the muted, constant hum of Sakusa’s anxiety spikes into something more akin to real fear. “Or why, or any of that bull ‘cause it’ll make me wanna punch ya even more. So just…” He rises from his seat, slow and controlled, brings his hands down on the table hard enough it shakes and leans forward to spit with terrifying vitriol, “ Fix it . Or I’ll make sure ya regret ever settin’ eyes on him.”

Sakusa’s frozen in his chair as Osamu glares daggers through him for another moment, then finally scoffs and turns to leave with a shake of his head The bell above the front door jingles, the outdated pop song on the tinny speakers ends and Sakusa sucks in a deep breath through the material of his mask.

Desperately, he wants to wash his hands.

~

Fix it.

It repeats over and over in his head as he cleans, not in just Osamu’s voice but in Komori’s, Marisa’s, Yugo’s, until it’s the only thing he can think in the quiet of his own room while he scrubs and dusts and disinfects. He hasn’t had the time to do this, to take down every book from the shelf and empty every desk drawer to clean them out properly since the beginning of the school year and so he goes over every surface thoroughly. The small room smells of cleaning products and vacuuming, even with the window cracked to let some wet, cold winter air in, but Sakusa takes comfort in it, knowing not a speck of grime will be left over.

 It’s been a little under a week now, and it’s becoming part of his routine; go for a run, practice at the keyboard until his fingers stiffen, clean until everything is as spotless as it can possibly be, every inch of the room and then himself.

Sakusa does not think about it. Classes will start soon, he will have more work to do and…

And that is where he stops thinking because otherwise, his skin starts to crawl again. Usually, he supposes Komori would force him out of whatever funk he’s gotten stuck in, but Komori has kept to himself, save for a couple of peeved looks when they’re in the same room. Sakusa keeps his door closed and even without locks, they’ve always had an unspoken rule not to open them.

So, when he’s reaching to wipe the shelf above his desk and the door squeaks open, he almost assumes a ghost to be on the other side, or perhaps Osamu having snapped.

Instead, it is Akaashi Keiji, arms folded loosely at his ribs and mussed black curls tucked under a baby blue hat. “Sakusa-san.”

Sakusa looks back up to the shelf, for the last specks of dust. “What do you want?”

“Ever the polite one.” Akaashi steps into the room and closes the door, and before Sakusa can tell him to leave or not touch anything, he sits on the flimsy keyboard bench, hands clasped in his lap. “How are you?”

It’s a dumb question; rhetorical, it has to be. Sakusa finishes with the shelf, places the rag on his desk and turns to face his visitor. “Why are you-”

“What exactly happened?”

The formal niceties are over and Akaashi regards him with a silent, level curiosity. Sakusa almost snaps at him for asking a question everyone already seems to have an answer for, but then realizes all at once that Akaashi really doesn’t know. It isn’t a snide jab or an attempt to find out where he went wrong, it’s a genuine question.

“You were at the party,” he finally says, leaning back against the desk, but Akaashi shakes his head. “I left with Bokuto before it got late. I didn’t even see you.”

Even though Sakusa made sure to drink enough he couldn’t remember most of the night, that sounds correct. Akaashi’s easy to lose in a rowdy group but Bokuto would only make it rowdier. He bites the inside of his cheek. “You’ve heard already, then.”

“I want to hear from you.”

Sakusa picks at the dry skin on his hands, glances at the fluttering beige curtain covering the open window, listens to the drip of icy rain from bare trees and apartment units above. Perhaps he can bore Akaashi out of his room and keep not thinking about the last week.

Akaashi, however, watches him quietly, straight-faced, patient and unrelenting. Even when he looks away, Sakusa can feel eyes drilling into his skull.

A car passes through a puddle outside. A recorded lecture starts, muffled by the bedroom door. Sakusa looks anywhere but the keyboard.

It’s a shock when Akaashi breaks the silence in an unusual act of mercy. “You found your soulmate.”

He almost laughs at the incredulous simplicity of it. “Yeah.”

“How long did you know?”

How long has it been? Three months, four? He doesn’t remember the date or much of anything from that day except the out-of-body sensation when he realized and the sheer panic that followed.

Sakusa hasn’t thought too hard about either reaction. He’s never been one to psychoanalyze.

“A few months,” he says before he can think too much about it. “After we first met.”

“And now it’s January.”

“It’s January…” Sakusa agrees. How is it already January? And how has he gotten so used to Atsumu’s obnoxious texts and their half-planned practice sessions - to having him around?

How much do I like him?

Another thought he doesn’t dwell on, lest it takes him somewhere dangerous. He sighs to himself and inspects his cuticles. Akaashi, however, doesn’t let up. “So what are you going to do now?”

Sakusa stops picking at his nails, looks up and blinks, once, twice, and opens his mouth only to realize he doesn’t have an answer. Hell, no one’s asked him that since, well, the family dinner. It isn’t demeaning or pissed, just cool and level like everything Akaashi says.

Finally, Sakusa takes a deep breath. “I don’t know. Got any ideas?”

Akaashi stands up, wrings out his hands and smiles wryly. “I doubt you’ll like it.”

“Can’t get worse. Spit it out.”

“Sing,” he suggests. “For him.”

The idea alone sends a wave of disgust over him, even more so after everything that day. His skin crawls at the very notion of singing aloud, for someone to hear, to judge … “I can’t.”

“That’s my idea.” Akaashi turns and opens the door to leave - Sakusa makes a note to rewipe the handle along with the keyboard - but hesitates, just for a moment. “You aren’t a bad person, Sakusa.”

Then he leaves, shutting the door behind him. Sakusa reaches for the hand sanitizer on his desk and focuses on how it stings the raw patches on his hands.

~

Going out these days is a hassle; it reminds him of his high school days, with hands too marred by washing to play piano well and masks strewn over every surface in his room, and leaves him with that rising sense of anxiety in his stomach. There are too many people, students back from holiday, too many unknowns.

So when Sakusa slips into the music building’s basement, it’s almost midnight. Cold, dark and nearly empty, he swipes in with his student ID and hopes no one has the same idea.

The soles of his leather boots bounce off the stone grey walls as he walks down the long hallway lined with doors. Usually, the sound of wind instruments and vocal warmups and metronomes drifts on the still, stale air, but tonight it just seems to be him. The windows in the doors are dark and most are cracked open instead of being shut tight, a telltale sign of a musician inside.

He has his pick of room. Sakusa passes his usual choice - the half-soundproof music room with a practice room in the back - and instead pushes open a door at the end of the hallway with a gloved hand. He has to fumble for the light in an unfamiliar spot, but when it flickers to life, he’s presented with one of many tiny square rooms, usually nabbed by woodwind or vocal majors. A chair, a music stand, and some forgotten sheet music scattered on the floor; nothing like the drum or piano rooms he’s used to, but exactly what he needs. Sakusa slips in and closes the door behind him.

And then, it’s quiet. He can hear the blood thrumming in his ears and the odd creak of the old building practically echoing around him.

Sakusa takes a deep, shuddering breath and pulls out his phone before the silence gets to him.

He already knows what he’s looking for when plugs in his earbuds and sifts through his music, but his thumb still hesitates for a long moment over the play button. For just a moment, Sakusa wonders, what am I doing?

Then, before he can dwell on the thought, he presses play, the music comes so loud he can’t hear himself think - and finally, Sakusa begins to sing.

He doesn’t know all the words to the song - the song that got him into this mess, the one Atsumu played all those months ago with his friends - and his voice is tired and rusty, but he can’t hear himself through the earbuds. He sings anyway, tries not to let his voice waver and hopes he doesn’t sound too bad.

The song ends and for a terrifying moment, Sakusa is left in silence before the next song starts. It’s another one he’s had on repeat the last couple months - intentionally, lest he loses his nerve - and he doesn’t know all the lyrics again, but he sings, for Atsumu’s sake.

For their sake.

He sings that English song Komori goaded him into learning what feels like ages ago and what he can remember of that French one Akaashi had him play, sings those rock songs Atsumu hummed right into his thoughts and that mellow one from the day they went skating. He sings all the songs he’s gathered from Atsumu’s constant humming, even though his voice doesn’t really suit the rock and swing ones, and when he’s exhausted those and the playlist is over and the songs are less familiar, he sings the ones he vaguely knows best he can; a fast, electronic one Atsumu’s played drums to before, one that would probably make his anxiety worse if he wasn’t already so engrossed in singing his heart out. His throat’s raw and he’s hot in the longsleeved shirt and disposable gloves, but he doesn’t care. He’s singing for someone - for Atsumu - and while it doesn’t feel great, it’s better than whatever he was doing before.

When the next song starts, it’s one he knows from his own life, not his soulmate’s, and Sakusa doesn’t hesitate for a moment. He knows the lyrics, it’s in his range and…

And he hits the chorus and it feels good . Something about the key or the pace or maybe just the time of night catches him just right, and for the first time since the dinner and the party, Sakusa feels everything at once, thick in his throat and prickling over his skin. It should be unpleasant but belting out the lyrics in the empty basement at some god-forsaken hour with nobody left to turn to and the mistakes piling up, it feels good . Good like stretching out a cramped finger after a performance or falling asleep after a terrible day; good like nothing else matters.

Because right now, nothing else does. He sings, though the stupid emotional waver and the ache in his throat, to his invisible audience and hopes with all he has it gets through.

The vocals close out, and Sakusa takes a deep breath as the song finishes, then lets it out into the sudden silence. His phone’s apparently out of recommended songs and it goes quiet, and Sakusa sinks into the lone plastic chair and peels off one of the gloves to dismiss the music from his phone, chest sore from sheer exertion.

It feels good. Achy, physically - and mentally - but like something’s finally off his chest.

Sakusa thinks that for the first time since everything fell to pieces, perhaps he can sleep easy.

Just as the thought crosses his mind, his phone vibrates with a call. It’s probably spam, or maybe a scolding from a relative, but he checks the caller ID out of habit.

Sakusa freezes.

Miya Atsumu .

Miya Atsumu who should definitely be asleep, Miya Atsumu who he’s dedicated this amateur concert to, Miya Atsumu who he assumed isn’t listening.

He shouldn’t pick up. For both their sakes, for a litany of reasons. He should wait until morning or set up a meeting in person or anything else.

Sakusa picks up the call with the button on his earbuds. It’s quiet for a moment, before a gravelly, soft version of Atsumu’s voice comes through the phone. “Hey, Omi.”

Sakusa’s face flushes hot in the chilly room but he opts not to dwell on why, not right now. “Hi,” he replies, voice sounding nothing like his own. He runs through what he could say - how are you, why are you awake, I’m sorry - but before he can decide, Atsumu says, “Why’re ya… What’re ya tryin’ to do, Omi?”

“I… What?”

“Ya did yer damage,” he continues, small and tired and vulnerable in a terribly non-Atsumu fashion. “I get the point. If yer gonna sing, don’t make it…”

No, no, no, no… Somehow, Sakusa’s dug himself a deeper hole and it’s sickening. He suddenly understands what it means to twist the knife.

“I’m sorry.”

It comes out before he can emerge from his spiral but it might be the truest thing he’s said to Atsumu. He swallows, then repeats, with conviction, “I’m sorry, Atsumu. I really am.”

He holds his breath, half expects to be hung up on. Then, finally, Atsumu says “Are ya?”

“I am.” Sakusa squeezes his eyes shut and leans back in the chair. “I didn’t mean… I have my reasons, which isn’t an excuse but I… I didn’t mean for it to go like this. I swear it.”

“Reasons that’re not wantin’ to be my soulmate?”

The intonation says it’s a joke, but Atsumu’s tone does not. Sakusa shakes his head so hard bangs fly into his face. “No, no, it’s…” He almost rolls his eyes, but continues, “It’s not you, it’s… It’s me.”

Atsumu laughs a little, tired and stiff but the most he’s sounded like himself the whole call. “Real original there, Omi.”

“Shut up.”

He chuckles again and some of the tension in Sakusa’s shoulders dissipates. The call falls silent again, but this time it’s a little less tense. It’s almost like before, when they were something akin to friends.

Almost. Atsumu sighs and it’s heavy and tired, and Sakusa can imagine dark bags under his eyes. “I don’t wanna hear yer excuses, Omi.”

Fair. Sakusa hums an affirmative and says, “Let me treat you to boba later.”

Atsumu scoffs a laugh. “ Real original. Maybe I’ll take ya up on it, though.”

It’s not the usual way Atsumu jumps at a chance for free bubble tea, but it’s something, and right now, Sakusa will take it. “Okay.”

“M’kay,” he echoes, then says through a yawn, “Ya really do have a nice voice, Omi. G’night.”

The call ends before Sakusa can reply. He sits with the silence for a moment and sighs up at the ceiling. “Good night, Atsumu."

Chapter Text

Vivid color

Finals season comes around and Atsumu suddenly realizes what it must be like to be his soulmate.

Because Sakusa won’t shut up . They haven’t seen each other in a week or two but it feels like much less because that wonderful voice he’s usually so startled by is just there now, around every corner, humming or singing under his breath. Atsumu doesn’t know if it’s an attempt to apologize or coax him back or Sakusa’s rubbing his feelings in his face, even after their midnight phone call, but though it’s gorgeous, it’s velvet, it’s starting to drive him nuts. Every other thought is Sakusa Kiyoomi and unlike before, it’s less about how cute he is and more about his intentions.

Which, quite frankly, is not what should be on his mind a few days before the semester ends. It’s the billionth time Ginjima’s run their classical imitation piece through the program on his laptop when Sakusa’s gentle, casual singing startles him. It’s vaguely familiar but something he doesn’t recognize - something Sakusa’s been singing in chunks since that terrible party. It’s unhurried and nostalgic, especially the chorus, which is what he’s singing today, and it completely clashes with the strings and woodwinds coming from the computer.

It’s a beautiful song and a beautiful voice, even though Atsumu prefers his music hard and fast. He wonders what it sounds like with full instrumentation.

“Hey! Earth to Atsumu!”

And all at once, he realizes the laptop’s stopped and Gin’s waving a hand in front of his face. “Yes - yeah. I’m listenin’.”

“You’re really not,” Gin, who, unsurprisingly, looks exhausted. Atsumu does feel bad for him, for flaking out on the spot, especially because he knows Gin has exams. “Look,” he sighs, rubbing a hand over his face. “It’s not personal, ‘Tsumu. But if you’re just gonna stare off into space, I’ll do it myself.”

Not so long ago, Atsumu would have gladly taken the offer and found a practice room to go over his performance pieces. But right now, the thought of being alone with Sakusa in his head and his own thoughts running wild…

“No,” he replies - too quickly if the look on Gin’s face says anything. “No, I’ll - I’m payin’ attention. Run it again.”

Gin looks at him for another long moment and Atsumu wonders how much he knows. He’s always kept to himself, kept his nose out of drama and in his books, but he’s not blind and he’s not stupid. He has to know something’s gone down by the atmosphere in the apartment.

But then he looks away, back at the laptop. “This is my bird course,” he sighs, rewinding the piece. “I’ve got an exam tomorrow.”

“Gin, I’m-”

“Don’t,” Gin waves it off. It isn’t dismissive or rude or anything of the sort, but tired . “Just - let’s finish this.”

Atsumu nods and does his best to block out the singing in his head and all the feelings that come with it.

It doesn’t work. He doesn’t expect it to.

He does manage to help with bass and cymbals before Gin retreats back into his room to polish and turn it in, but left alone in the little kitchenette, Atsumu slumps to press his cheek against the table.

It’s all surreal. To know that soulmate he’s always been after is right here, on campus, to know the entire reason they met was to prepare for the final he’s just finished and put a face to the voice that’s been in his head his whole life.

To know that Sakusa knew. Sakusa, prickly, pretty Sakusa let him talk and hum and wonder about his soulmate without saying a word.

To kiss him, like a trial or a tease and keep him trailing like a puppy. Atsumu groans and crosses his arms on the table above his head. He doesn’t have time to dwell over this like a teenager with an academic performance in the morning but it’s hard not to. It aches in his chest like he’s been punched, and just when it starts to fade Sakusa starts to sing again. Unpredictably, too, so he can’t escape by playing the drums before being interrupted by a song he can’t block out.

The apartment is deathly quiet. Gin popped in earbuds before even closing his door, Osamu’s been gone for an exam since morning and Suna is probably doing his own performance piece. Atsumu’s sticks are on the table across from his seat, resting in a groove in the wood, asking to be picked up and drummed on something .

Atsumu stares blankly at them. When Sakusa’s singing breaks the deafening silence, he rests his head on his arms and closes his eyes, wondering if it’s all some cruel divine punishment.

~

He’s startled awake by something cold and wet on his neck.

Atsumu bolts upright and curses as he scrambles to grab whatever’s sliding down his shirt but stiff and clumsy from sleep, all he manages is some uncomfortable flailing. “What the-”

“Yer gonna be late,” Osamu says as the ice cube slips out from his shirt and skitters across the kitchen floor. It takes a moment to locate him in the groggy haze, but finally, Atsumu sees him still in loungewear with bedhead and an iced coffee in hand - for Rin, probably . He blinks in slow motion. “What?”

“Yer performance exam,” Osamu says, barely looking at him like he’s sorely uninterested (though they both know if he really was, he wouldn’t have bothered at all). “It’s at noon, right?”

That sounds correct. Atsumu rolls his shoulders back and winces at the loud pop. “Yeah. Noon, that’s - what time’s it?”

“Half past eleven.” Osamu turns to leave the kitchen, towards the bedrooms without another word, but it does the job. Atsumu pushes his chair back and cranes a sore neck to look at the wall clock.

Sure enough, just past 11:30. He jumps up, stumbles when pins and needles shoot through a foot and hobbles through the kitchen to his own room. Atsumu usually takes pride in his appearance but today, he throws on the first clean sweater he sees, splashes his face with cold water and hurries out the door without glancing in the mirror, his sticks and music and probably some terrible bedhead. The music building’s close, less than a block away, but he still has to jog in the brisk winter air to make it with time to warm up. The chill is terrible for his already-knotted muscles and Atsumu is muttering half-baked curses under his breath when he swipes into the music building with his ID; fuck Sakusa, fuck his stupid singing and him being my soulmate, fuck him for keeping me up at night…

The cacophony of instruments drifting up the basement stairs is soothing, at least enough to silence his inner monologue. Atsumu checks his phone as he hurries down the long grey corridor to the rhythm section; 11:51 . Good . The performer after him shouldn’t be in the practice room yet. Rather than go through his usual routine of trying to puzzle out who’s currently performing by listening at the room’s door, he bursts into the practice room across the hall, flips on the light and collapses on the drumset’s stool.

Ugh. It’s not even at the right height. The set’s arranged for someone shorter than him, and he has to scoot back a bit to even get his feet on the pedals right, but Atsumu doesn’t have time to adjust it. He’s played on much crappier setups before anyway, so he rolls his stiff shoulders and starts to play the first rhythm that comes, something quick enough to warm up his muscles but simple enough to play without really thinking.

Because really, who is he trying to fool; his thoughts are elsewhere. Scrambled with the lack of sleep but on anything but drums. They’re painful, he belatedly realizes, echoed in the volume of his drumming, which burns in his chest because why’s he let this happen? Why would his soulmate hurt him?

Atsumu turns the questions over in his head as he warms up - until a sharp knock at the door startles him out of the daze. The hinges squeak as it opens, and the student before him - a petite blonde girl - pokes her head in. “Um,” she starts, voice wavering, and Atsumu has to wonder if her performance went badly, or if she's just nervous in general. “Sorry - she’s - she’s ready for you.”

The girl turns on her heel to leave before he can say anything in return and Atsumu sits in relative silence for a moment.

He doesn’t need to ace this performance. His grades going in are mediocre, enough to keep him afloat if it goes south.

But I could use a win, he can’t help thinking, or at least something that isn’t a loss.

Atsumu takes his sticks in one hand and sheet music in the other, and leaves the practice room with a deep breath to gather himself.

It really is some cruel twist of fate, he decides as he steps into the room and smiles at the evaluator, that the entire soulmate debacle is so deeply entwined with what he loves.

~

He does not botch the performance.

He doesn’t fumble or miss beats or drop his sticks (which would be embarrassing at this point in his career) but the smiles and thanks and rhythm are soulless. Atsumu has played like this before and it’s usually when he’s sick or when it’s a song he isn’t particularly fond of, and while he’s not exactly excited about this semester’s technical performance piece, it doesn’t warrant a nothing performance.

At least, he decides as he gathers his sticks and music and tries not to think about the possibility of his music sounding like this forever, Sakusa was quiet.

That brief thought paired with none other than Sakusa leaning against the wall outside the door nearly makes Atsumu faint in surprise. He stumbles back and barely catches himself against the doorknob of the practice room. “Omi!” he blurts out, his voice something between a surprised shout and a gasp.

Sakusa seems unperturbed by his flailing. It’s difficult to tell, though; he’s wearing a mask and scarf and most of his expressive eyebrows are hidden under mussed curls.

It hurts to see him. Atsumu finds his breath, straightens up and, avoiding Sakusa’s eyes, starts to walk by him. “D’ya mind? I’ve got finals.”

“Atsumu, wait.”

He says it just as Atsumu passes, but he stops anyway and clenches his drumsticks tight. He should go, should enjoy the couple of days before next semester and try to forget about the last few months. He shouldn’t give Sakusa the time of day - especially because Osamu will see it on his face if he does.

But, staring straight down the grey hall with various instruments drifting from under the doors of soundproofed rooms, Atsumu waits.

“When I…” Sakusa begins, quiet - uncertain , he realizes. “The boba shop. When we first met. Was when I realized.”

Our first meeting… Atsumu swallows thickly. That was so long ago.

“I didn’t say anything,” he continues, as if Atsumu didn’t know that. “Because I wasn’t sure at first. You can’t sing and I… Was always under the impression my soulmate -” he says with vitriol, which only makes the lump in Atsumu’s throat grow. “-could. And then, when it was clear you were the right person, I didn’t want it then.”

And that’s the killing blow. Atsumu bites the inside of his cheek and starts back down the hall, digging his nails into the grooves on his sticks so hard the wood splinters. “Gotcha.”

“Wait, I-” He only gets a couple of steps before there’s a hand on his forearm, hesitant but firm enough he can feel the pressure through his sleeve. It freezes him in place, even though he wants to pull away because it’s like being burned in the worst way possible. Sakusa’s voice is still firm as ever, but breathy, like he’s run a mile when he says, “I’m not done.”

Atsumu yanks his arm away but stays. Sakusa lets him.

“I didn’t want to do a… relationship on top of everything,” he says. “I didn’t know how to tell you, or how it would impact Motoya. I didn’t-” His sentence clips at the end, as if someone’s pressed pause , then there’s a sharp inhale and he continues, “I wasn’t ready. For any of it. For… Someone being on the other end.”

Someone on the other end. How many days - months - of his life has Atsumu spent looking for the person on the other end, hoping for a stray tune to drift along that secret wavelength?

“I’m sorry,” Sakusa says before he can fully process it all. “I should have - it was insensitive not to tell you for so long.”

Yeah it fuckin’ was, says a little voice in Atsumu’s head. Aloud, to the floor more than Sakusa, he asks, “So what now?”

“I never liked the notion you’re supposed to be with your soulmate out of necessity,” Sakusa replies and his heart plummets again for a second. “That they’re your… other half , without question, whether you like them or not.”

“Well, I’m not forcin’-”

“But I like you,” he says. “Enough I want to get to know you. Not because of the soul bond.”

Not because of the soul bond. Atsumu mulls it over; it seems impossible because that is their whole relationship, isn’t it? Star-crossed lovers in a sea of other star-crossed lovers, destined to meet up before they could even think about it?

They’re not, he decides after a moment, or they weren’t, not before. Because Atsumu didn’t wish he and Sakusa’s bonds were to each other knowing they were, or fall in love with playing music with him because he was supposed to. It didn’t ache in his chest at the party, when Sakusa kissed him, because they were soulmates - and it certainly didn’t hurt when it all unraveled because he found out they weren’t .

“Why should I trust ya?” Atsumu says. It sounds wrong to his own ears, to be asking his soulmate something like this, but if it bothers Sakusa it doesn’t show in his voice. “I don’t know. Your brother didn’t punch me when I asked him where you were?”

“Ya went to ‘Samu ?”

“I didn’t - you weren’t home,” he huffs, and finally, Atsumu looks over to see his face. The thin stripe of skin below his eyes is flushed pink and his eyes are stormy and distressed. They narrow when he turns. “Stop laughing at me.”

“Wha - I’m not!”

“You’re thinking it.” His eyes close, and when they open again they’re sincere. He’s looking at Atsumu, not over or around him like he sometimes would before things got messy, and it’s a little unnerving. “Let me try again.”

“What if it doesn’t work?” Atsumu replies quietly, before he can think about it. It’s a terrifying idea, even scarier out in the open. “If I can’t trust ya?”

“Then maybe I deserve it,” Sakusa replies without missing a beat. It’s so serious - his face, his tone, the melancholy lighting and atmosphere - that Atsumu wants to trust him despite everything.

Because they’re soulmates. Right?

It’s not really a valid point anymore, not after the party, but Atsumu can try to pretend it is, at least for a little while. “No promises it’ll work out,” he says, turning to leave - for real, this time. Sakusa exhales, loud enough to bounce off the walls. “Fair enough. Tell your brother not to come after me anymore.”

“I will,” Atsumu calls back. It’s forced banter but it’s banter and it feels better than walking on eggshells. “But it won’t stop him.”

“Thanks,” replies Sakusa, just loud enough to reach him from halfway down the hall, but it’s not banter, not by the tone. Atsumu slows his pace, takes the word in, and still facing forward says at the same volume, “Yeah. Of course.”

Chapter Text

Intermission - Ain’t It Fun

It started as simple fun.

Really, it started at a party, one of the first of their freshman year. It was held in one of the bigger dorm suites, loud and rowdy and full of kids who had never been on their own, and while Suna deeply enjoyed people-watching, it was too much chaos to get much out of it. He still tried, though, off and out of the crowd, and found someone watching him back.

It startled him - Suna prided himself in being able to blend into the background and enjoy watching from afar - and he blinked, once, twice, just to make sure he wasn’t seeing wrong. Sure enough, those chocolate-brown eyes were still on him, observant and inquisitive, like he was asking a question from across the room.

Suna was intrigued. Intimidated, perhaps, but mostly intrigued. He tilted his chin up just a bit, held the look for another second, then tucked his phone in his pocket and turned to the door. The dorm sat at the end of the hallway, and he headed for the building’s side door and out into the night.

He didn’t wait for long; the mystery man followed, on his heels, and let Suna pull him in by the shirt for a kiss. Osamu was attentive and intentional from the first touch, pressed Suna against the brick dorm building and slotted their mouths together perfectly. It was so much better than the stupid party and had the convenient bonus of them not getting caught when it got too crazy and the campus dons showed up to dole out punishments.

And so it began. Suna didn’t usually care to keep up with people he made out with, but they shared a class and it was increasingly difficult to ignore the quiet, intent gaze from across the lecture hall, so he dropped down a couple rows of seats to sit next to him. He turned out to be a guitar major too, more involved in his studies than Suna cared to be and almost always paid more attention to the lesson. He had a thick accent, a dialect that was decidedly not from around there, and wasn’t bad on the eyes, and Suna decided they could make out from time to time and also be friends because Osamu’s first-words quote across his right shoulder definitely didn’t match his own flower mark.

Maybe it had been wishful thinking, but in Suna’s defense, he’d never gotten attached before, never to the point of liking - perhaps loving - someone. He just liked to keep things interesting.

He tagged along to the boba shop on campus after a couple weeks and finally met Atsumu, who he was not as fond of; unlike Osamu, he was louder and shameless and roped everyone into his shenanigans. It put him off for a while, knowing they were twins, but Osamu invited him along to practice with them once and he realized they brought out the absolute best in each other, at least in music.

He also found that his own bass complemented Osamu’s acoustic guitar rather well, and if that led to them kissing in his dorm room with sheet music and guitar tabs scattered about, so be it.

And so he became friends with the twins. They were both irritatingly fantastic musicians and though the theory classes and performance pieces didn’t interest him much, Suna was thrilled whenever they got a chance to play together. Osamu’s roommate, though not a music major, could join in on keys, and he befriended Ginjima, too.

They weren’t a bad group, their strange foursome; the twins, Gin, who always looked like he’d spent the night stressing over science yet still took care of his music minor, and Suna himself, who was only at university at all to avoid some terribly boring office job.

And still, the only one he ever really wanted to kiss was Osamu. It made sense (or maybe he made it make sense), Osamu kept him on his toes, kept him happily sated; why would he need another partner? He wasn’t looking for his soulmate, and he had what he wanted - something interesting on the side.

The first time he spent the night was deep into the second semester.

It was stress, he’d told himself; they were both stressed over the end of classes coming up, they’d thrown back a few drinks and the usual strumming guitars and sucking face wasn’t doing it and-

And. Suna woke up in what was certainly not his own bed or room, an arm sprawled over Osamu - who had woken up before him and was scrolling through his phone like it was the most normal thing in the world.

Maybe it was. Suna had hooked up with people before, but never with someone he considered a good friend, never with someone he’d been teetering on the edge of friends with benefits with for months. Maybe it was just the next logical step.

Osamu noticed he was awake, glanced over his shoulder and smiled at him, gentle and sleepy with mussed hair and a hickey on his neck, and Suna decided he could worry about it later.

Their one night of stress-relief turned into another, then a third and fourth as exams came, then a lazy, humid night after they’d passed, and then, in the middle of the act, hot against his neck between bruising kisses, Osamu said, “Come to Hyogo with us over the break.”

Suna froze up and maybe Osamu realized because he pulled back to look him in the eye. “Like - ya said yer family’d be overseas part of the summer,” he clarified. “Ya don’t have to-”

“Fine,” he replied, before Osamu could finish talking or he could finish thinking. “But we’ll figure it out later. Less talk, more sex.”

Osamu laughed at that and though the mood had dropped when he started talking, bizarrely, it was that joyful little sound that got Suna back into it.

In retrospect, Suna should have realized that was when he was in trouble. But instead, when the semester ended, he packed his things and instead of going back home to an empty house, accompanied the twins to their childhood home. It was cozy and warm and their family was welcoming, and for a few days, he enjoyed strumming at his guitar and lazing under the covers without a care in the world.

Until - and he should have seen it coming - the twins’ father commented on Osamu’s talented boyfriend over dinner.

Suna, for as much as he liked people, had never been called someone’s boyfriend before. It was an inevitable label but it made every possible response fizzle out before it even got to his lips. Atsumu glanced up, probably expecting them to fluster and wave it off, but instead Osamu was equally quiet, halfway through a mouthful of food.

They weren’t boyfriends, were they? They slept together and kissed and Suna was spending a couple weeks with the family - but to be fair, it was Atsumu’s family too!

They were compatible, good for each other physically, which was all Suna strove for, but…

“Hope yer not sayin’ he’s a better guitarist than me,” Osamu finally said, strained and offbeat. It restarted the chatter right where it stopped, though, so Suna didn’t care, and decided it would be best to keep his head down for the rest of the meal.

However, when he stepped out onto the patio afterwards to watch the fireflies start to flicker in the dusk, and Osamu came to join him, he asked, “Do you want me to take you on a date?”

“Nah,” Osamu replied, falling into place next to him, close enough their shoulders touched. “Not if ya don’t wanna.”

It was the answer he wanted to hear, and Suna begrudgingly admitted he liked Osamu more for it.

They weren’t quite dating after that; if someone called them a couple, neither of them corrected it, if Osamu’s hand fell in place on his hip, or he leaned his chin on Osamu’s head to look over his shoulder, they didn’t mention it. Their second year rolled around and Suna, who rented a tiny room in an apartment of other students, spent more time at the twins’ cramped flat than the place he was paying for.

But hey, he was having fun and it was nice to be doted on. Osamu was fun outside of their more coupley activities, was a pretty great cook and in an interesting twist, they became less handsy as the semester continued, even if Suna prefered to scroll through his phone flopped over Osamu’s lap. But he liked the company more than the kissing or the sex and slowly, Suna wondered if he should take him on a date.

It was a bad thought. They weren’t soulmates, it would end up as time wasted. But wouldn’t it have been time wasted too, if he sat around waiting? Wasn’t that his entire reason for hookups and whatnot in the first place?

“It’s yer decision,” Osamu said when he mentioned it in passing, during class. “I wouldn’t be doin’ this if I didn’t like ya. It won’t matter in the long run, though.”

It won’t matter in the long run. His words hit Suna harder than he would have liked, but only for a moment; he’d never lived for his future self, sacrificing his happiness for some moment that could be years down the road. He let other people do that for him.

Suna hummed in agreement and rested his head on Osamu’s shoulder as he half-paid attention to the class and decided he would cross that bridge when he got to it.

But the seed was planted and suddenly, in the afterglow of sex or when he was scrambling to finish an assignment at two in the morning, he couldn’t help but go back to it, to thinking about whatever future they were heading towards. What was he pulling Osamu into?

What happened when they graduated, or if they found their soulmates? They weren’t new, groundbreaking questions - Suna was sure most people had them at some point - but ones he actively avoided.

Until, evidently, right then. He still avoided them of course, just less successfully.

They finished their second year uneventfully, Suna agreed to move in with the twins and invited Gin along and there they were, junior year, halfway through their undergraduate career.

And then, of course, came Komori.

Suna didn’t like him much at first. He was cheerful and sociable and a bit too energetic for his liking, and perhaps Suna had been too harsh in their first meeting, a hand on Osamu’s hip. It was a brief introduction (Komori had left soon after the revelation that they were soulmates) and the night continued as normal, but something hung in the air.

Because things were different. Undeniably, unavoidably so. Suna knew it in how his bandmates looked at him, in how Osamu kissed him goodnight, in how he lay in bed, staring at the ceiling for hours.

He didn’t leave Osamu. He couldn’t; he was attached, a little bit in love, he didn’t click with Komori in the same way. He stayed, kept Komori in the back of his mind and tried to keep living like he wasn’t avoiding the inevitable. It didn’t work, but he tried anyway. Regardless of how he tried, though, Osamu pulled away. Not all at once, but enough, enough they went from the casual intimacy Suna had become so comfortable with back to how it all began, sleeping together, studying and messing around with their guitars in spare time, barely talking. There was something palpable between them, something he couldn’t reach past to find the Osamu he’d fallen for.

Maybe he deserved it. Even if he did, though, Osamu certainly didn’t, and that made him the most uncomfortable.

The day they went skating along with some of the other music students had started out as one of what Suna would call a bad day for them at the time; whatever they weren’t talking about weighed heavy enough in the air they went to bed wordlessly; cuddled together in the too-small bed of Osamu’s room, but wordless. It hadn’t quite resolved in the morning, and even as Osamu shooed Atsumu out with the promise of sex, there was none.

Suna couldn’t blame him, though. He could still taste the uncomfortable feeling from the night before on his tongue.

Atsumu didn’t know that, though. Atsumu didn’t know anything other than what he could get from Osamu’s demeanour, and it was especially evident that day, when they showed up to skate and Komori was there. Suna very much wanted to knock Atsumu on his ass because they’d been conned , but he couldn’t bring himself to because he didn’t know. Hell, Atsumu didn’t even know what he didn’t know and it was hard to blame him for ignorance Suna himself had created.

Suna opted to sit while Osamu skated. He couldn’t skate and watching people he knew was enjoyable - plus, he hoped it would save him bumping into Komori.

It didn’t, of course. The universe was seemingly unimpressed with his attempt to run from his problems.

Komori had gone to get something warm to drink from the little stand in the park with Sakusa the moment they arrived, which Suna appreciated, but returned with all the benches taken and the only seat next to him. Sakusa didn’t seem to care; he had skates on, and went to stand by the edge of the rink but Komori stood amongst the other students off the ice, and looked like a lost puppy.

It was hard to ignore. Plus, Suna couldn’t help but feel a little guilty for brushing him off so coldly before, so he sighed, looked up from his phone and said, “I don’t bite, you know.”

“Uh,” Komori trailed off, blinked at him with steam from the cup billowing in his face. “I mean - I didn’t think you did.”

“Just making sure.”

He looked back down at his phone and listened, until the crunch of frosted grass approached and Komori’s weight gingerly settled on the far end of the bench.

Fair. Suna didn’t try to engage. For the time being, sitting on the same bench was quite enough.

And so they sat, in silence, Komori with his drink and him with his phone, until someone said, “Hey. Come skate with me, loser.”

“I can’t,” Suna replied, looking up to Osamu. He could feel Komori’s eyes on them even though he kept his own on Osamu’s face. “Go. It’s fine.”

Osamu rolled his eyes and turned to his benchmate. “Yer Komori, right?”

‘Y-yeah?”

“Didn’t meetcha properly before.” Suna hesitantly looked over, but Osamu just held out a gloved hand. “Osamu.”

Komori understandably hesitated too, but accepted the handshake, which seemed to please Osamu - at least, Suna thought so. For the first time in nearly two years, he had no clue what was going through his boyfriend’s head.

When had they gotten close enough he could know what Osamu was planning?

When had it stopped?

“Can ya skate, Komori-kun?” Osamu asked, while Suna was suddenly the spectator. Komori took his time speaking, every word deliberate - nothing like that bright young man he’d met backstage. “I… I can. Not perfectly. But I can.”

“Great. Ya can help me teach Sunarin how to.”

“Wait-”

“What?” Komori stuttered out, completing Suna’s thought. “I-”

“-Don’t even have skates,” he interrupted because it was a better argument than whatever Komori could come up with. “I can’t skate without skates.”

“There’s a place to rent ‘em over there.” Osamu jutted a thumb over his shoulder. “C’mon. No excuses.”

“Uh…” Perhaps he was afraid of being beaten up by Osamu, because Komori hesitantly stood up and looked over to him, without meeting his eyes. Suna realized it was his turn to speak and, with a quick glance between the guy he didn’t know and the guy he suddenly felt he didn’t know, he replied, “Fine. If you two insist.”

“I do,” Osamu said as he stood up, which locked him into the decision. Arguing with this Osamu, this one he barely knew sounded like a terrible idea, especially in public, so he took a spot at Osamu’s left while Komori took the right and hoped there would come a point he could slip away.

There was not. Which was why he ended up in the middle, stumbling on the ice as somehow, his boyfriend and soulmate bonded over laughing at him.

Which frankly, pissed Suna off. But it was difficult to be pissed and also make any attempt to keep his balance.

Osamu and Komori clicked surprisingly quickly, even if it was at his expense. Without the boisterous energy to feed off of Komori wasn’t as loud, even if he was still a tad cheerful for Suna’s tastes. And when the two of them conspired like children to knock Atsumu and his not-boyfriend into each other, Suna couldn’t help but laugh and feel for half a second, in another world, they could be friends, judging from afar and making shady comments about annoying passerby.

It was then that he realized he might be able to like Komori, and then a moment later that even if he couldn’t read Osamu’s mind anymore, Osamu definitely had some insight into his.

The day ended better than it began, with him and Osamu and also Komori talking, even if it wasn’t perfectly smooth. Suna didn’t ask if Osamu had set anything up or talked to Komori for his sake, not after walking on eggshells for so long. Instead, he enjoyed the absence of tension between them, even if it was temporary, and went home to mess around with the guitars.

Komori was around more often after that.

Mostly for studying, to be fair. He was more bookish than either of them to Suna’s surprise and most of their classes didn’t overlap so it was just for the company. He and Osamu would go to the library or boba place or a cafe on campus, Osamu would mention Komori was in the area and within half an hour it’d be the three of them griping over school or Atsumu and Sakusa’s awkward dance around each other. It was nice to have another friend even if the circumstances were… uncomfortable  , especially another friend who matched his own odd, so-mischievous-it-bordered-on-mean streak. He learned after one study session in the library, after a couple got busted for getting handsy and Komori made a snippy comment followed by a surprising amount of gossip, that he wasn’t all big puppy eyes and smiles and that was wonderful in itself.

And slowly, through joking about other people’s stupidity and complaining about dumb professors, Suna saw how they could fit together like puzzle pieces, how there was someone else like him out there.

Around the same time, right before the winter break on a humid day in the apartment with both Gin and Atsumu absent, Osamu said, out of the blue, “Ya can leave me for him.”

“The hell?” Suna snapped from the kitchen; he hadn’t meant to but the idea of cutting Osamu off altogether was ridiculous, even then. Osamu, sitting on the couch in the living space and plucking at his guitar, didn’t waver. “I’m serious. He’s a good guy. Yer not leavin’ me for an asshole.”

“I’m not leaving you at all.” Suna narrowed his eyes. “Are you leaving me? Do you want me gone?”

“I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t like ya. Probably more than I should,” he replied, though it wasn’t bitter or malicious or anything Suna expected from a conversation like this. Instead he sounded like he was watching a home video, or looking at a baby photo album. “Ya knew it’d end like this, Rin.”

He was right just like usual. Suna bit the inside of his cheek hard, took a few steps, until he was where the kitchen met the living room, corrected his slouch and said, “I love you. I’m not going to just stop loving you.”

Osamu paused then, looked up to meet his gaze and for a moment it felt like the night they’d met, watching each other from across the room, curious, intrigued, allured. It made him feel whatever nameless emotion was in Osamu’s voice because it had been two years of trying not to fall for each other, of being friends and more, of not saying those forbidden words that were between them right then.

“Love him different,” Osamu finally said, hushed in what felt like ringing silence. “I won’t be mad.”

“Do you not…” He stumbled over the word love; it’d been said too many times between them in those few seconds already. “Do you not want me?”

“I want ya to be happy. I’d like to be friends with ya, someday,” said Osamu and that time there was sadness in his tone. “But I… Y’know how the soulmate thing works, Rin.”

“We could be platonic.”

“We’re not,” he said and again, if Suna’s gut said anything, he was correct. Most platonic soulmates felt no romantic attraction at all or had multiple soul bonds. Suna fit neither criteria. He swallowed and took another step into the room. “Are you breaking up with me?”

“Hard to break up with someone yer not datin’.”

“God, you’re not funny.” Suna closed the gap, knelt beside him on the couch and cupped his face. “You’re so unfunny.”

Osamu leaned over his guitar to kiss him and Suna tilted his head to accommodate. It was chaste and lingering, anything but most of the kisses they’d shared over the years, but he had no complaints other than the atmosphere.

And even then, as Suna pulled back an inch to adjust before kissing him again, he supposed there was something hideously romantic about it, about the bittersweet first ‘I love you’ and the way Osamu advocated for his happiness, about how they seemed like those baby freshmen again, fumbling and eager to taste the real world for the first time.

It was sickeningly sappy, almost saccharine, everything Suna was not. He huffed at the uneasy pressure in his chest and pressed his face into Osamu’s neck, as if to make it disappear. Osamu, sweet and patient, slid a hand into his hair and said, “I’m not leavin’ and I’m not breakin’ up with ya. I’m just sayin’ I won’t stand in yer way.”

It wasn’t what he wanted to hear. It was the right thing to say.

Suna loved him more for it, even if he hated it had to be said at all.

Chapter Text

Sakura Bye Bye

Sakusa doesn’t hate the required electives.

A lot of people do. Komori does, he loathes the singular class per year that isn’t focused on music or production, but Sakusa’s opinion varies from neutral to positive. He’s a good student in more traditional subjects and always has been. The electives serve as a break from the push and pull of music. So, when the second semester starts and he sets off through the humid chill to his Citizen Science class, he’s in a relatively good mood - which really, isn’t saying much considering how abysmal the last couple of weeks have been, but he’ll take it.

He’s surprised by his lack of surprise when he arrives in the smallest lecture hall on campus a little early, scans the handful of students scattered across the seats, and spots Atsumu Miya seated alone, near the back. It looks like he’s dozing, earbuds in and hat pulled down almost over his eyes, jacket tossed across the chair beside him and arms crossed over his chest. He looks remarkably peaceful like this, like he could be a dedicated, maybe delinquent-at-times student instead of the too-loud drummer Sakusa knows.

He only hesitates for a moment, then zeroes in on a spot in an aisle row, off to the left of the room, as far away from anyone else he can get. Aside from his usual disinterest in people, he’s somehow slipped back into that place where everything makes his skin crawl and chest tighten, where his hands are dry and raw from washing and sanitizing and there’s familiar comfort in wearing face masks.

He doesn’t think about it too much. It’s cyclic, whatever it is; it only ever disappears temporarily.

Sakusa unzips his jacket as he settles into the seat and takes out his laptop, tries not to think about Atsumu behind him, probably still napping.

Friends. They’re supposed to be friends.

The last friend Sakusa made was Akaashi, and he’s still not really sure how that happened. Akaashi also wasn’t his soulmate - which is a word that still feels out of place in relation to him - and he also didn’t get a little tipsy and a lot emotional and kiss him on some mild winter night.

He swallows the thoughts and discomfort down and instead brings up his syllabus for the semester, as if staring at the laptop’s screen can erase it all permanently.

~

Citizen science was not Sakusa’s first choice of elective but he’s always been pickier about the time than the actual class and a single, 2 PM lesson every Wednesday is a good catch.

Still, he can only be so interested in butterfly counting. As the professor tidies her things and the moderately-sized class disperses, Sakusa takes a moment to roll his tight shoulders back, as if it can coax all the stress from his muscles (though at this point it might as well have seeped into his bones).

Just as he starts to haul his crossbody bag over his shoulder and stand up, Atsumu passes down the aisle steps, one hand in his pocket and the other fumbling with his earbuds. He doesn’t say a word, doesn’t even glance up and for a moment Sakusa wonders if he’s even noticed they’re in the same class.

Then he realizes it doesn’t matter. Not when the ball is in his court, not when he’s supposed to be making an effort. Not when he’s fixing a mistake.

In the nanosecond between Atsumu passing close enough to touch and him reaching the step in the next row, Sakusa remembers he has almost negative experience starting conversations. His brain scrambles, tosses every possible thought around so they all bounce off his skull, and, very intelligently, comes up with “I didn’t pin you as a science student.”

Smooth. He almost rolls his eyes at his own ineptitude. Atsumu’s eyes flick over, but he doesn’t pause until he looks a second time, perhaps realizing Sakusa is looking back at him. Not right into his eyes - he can’t bear it, not right now, not after seeing phantoms of the face before they kissed on that messy night - but at him.

Surprise flits across his face. “I… I don’t hate it,” he says after a moment. He’s in an awkward spot, each foot on a different step, half hunched forward to untangle his earbuds, practically taking up the whole aisle. “It’s, uh… It’s fine.”

“You don’t sound very convinced.”

“Well-!” Atsumu scowls at him and somehow manages to look like a splashed cat with all its fur on end (and under his mask, Sakusa can’t help but smile). “I didn’t think there was space in yer head fer anything but music theory!”

Terribly, he’s almost right. But Atsumu can’t be any less music-crazed, at least in his own way. Sakusa rests his chin in his hand and cocks his head. “I like science, I’ll have you know. Mostly physics.”

“Yeesh, the real nerdy shit.”

Sakusa does roll his eyes this time, and a huffy quip is on the tip of his tongue but he bites it back. They’re supposed to be friends, or at least attempting friendship.

But what the hell do friends say to each other?

“What’re your classes like this semester?” He decides on after a moment too long, and hopes it doesn’t sound as awkward coming from his mouth as it feels. Atsumu cocks his head and raises an eyebrow, and Sakusa cringes at the expression and braces himself for the reply.

“Ah… Chamber music, the junior record project and jazz orchestra,” he says, thankfully (Sakusa doesn’t let out a sigh of relief, he doesn’t). It’s remarkably Atsumu - meaning, of course, they don’t share any other classes. In fact he’d bet them sharing this one is a fluke.

“What are you doing for the recording project?” Sakusa asks without thinking about it. It’s not some awkward formality; he really doesn’t know what a drum major would do for a recording project. He gets up and stretches, and when Atsumu doesn’t move or say anything, he raises an eyebrow. “Move. Let me out.”

“Right! Right-” Atsumu scrambles out of the way and seems to snap back to himself, at least enough to follow Sakusa down the steps at a pace behind. It still takes him a second too long to reply; their rhythm (or lack thereof) is painful. “Drum covers - set covers. Dunno what yet, but probably somethin’ from a game, or some old song…”

A drumset cover? Sakusa can’t fathom it, he doesn’t even know where he would start asking questions - so he doesn’t. Atsumu keeps the conversation going anyway, which he might be grateful about for the first time. “What’re ya gonna do with yers?”

“An original song, a remix and a cover,” he lists off as they exit the lecture hall and fall into step with one another. It’s a bit strange walking side by side with someone but he tries to ignore it in favour of rattling off the assignment that’s been stuck in the back of his head since day one. “A remix of something classical, probably, an original piano solo and…”

“A cover,” Atsumu hums. He seems to get legitimately serious about these things - music things - and Sakusa can’t tell if he’s confused or endeared by it all. They pause at the building’s back exit, just before the door, but the cold comes through anyway. “A cover of what? What kinda music do ya like, Omi-kun? I never asked.”

What kind of music does he like? It feels like it’s been a long time since he’s listened to something for pure enjoyment rather than inspiration or to force himself to relax. Sakusa leans against the door and sifts through his playlists.

I like what I hear you humming, he realizes with a start. Whether it’s some obnoxious electronic genre or rock or something slow and sweet, it sounds lovely through that ridiculous soul bond.

“Instrumental,” he says after a moment, which is true, but like hell he’s saying anything about their bond. Friends or not, there’s something intimate about mentioning it he isn’t quite comfortable with. Atsumu clicks his tongue at that answer, like he expected it all along. “Man, Omi, yer not even tryin’ to hide how lame yer interests are.”

“I’m not a liar.”

They step out into the brisk afternoon and an awkward silence falls over them, Sakusa’s words suspended in the air. He isn’t a liar; the entire pre-new year debacle was an exclusion of information, never a lie.

It’s a technicality. But Sakusa will take what he can get.

It can only be a couple seconds of pause, but it seems much longer before Atsumu says “Come to a rock concert with me and Osamu sometime, bet it’ll get ya into cooler shit.”

“No.”

“Man, no flexibility, huh, Omi?” It’s a jab, but there’s no follow up, none of the spunk from when they met.

Sakusa starts to wonder if he’s done some irreparable damage, when his phone pings with one of his few unmuted contacts. He pauses in his tracks and hopes something terrible hasn’t happened.

It’s from Yugo, a simple, one-line message: Marisa’s headed to the airport today.

Sakusa swallows hard. He hasn’t spoken to any of his family since the holiday and he isn’t expecting any of them to reach out.

Of course, though, it’s Yugo to be the one to break the silence.

“Hey,” Atsumu says, snapping him back to the disgustingly dreary campus. He’s stopped a couple paces ahead to look back over his shoulder, head cocked. “Ya look like ya saw a ghost.”

“Mhm,” he hums, glancing back to the text; there’s no follow-up, no question or request but it’s obvious what the implication is.

Sakusa doesn’t want to think about not seeing her off, but he also doesn’t want to think about her flying back across the world thinking he’s upset with her.

He doesn’t want to think about it at all.

“Serious, Omi, y’okay?”

“Yeah.” He shoves his phone back in his pocket and keeps walking, even when Atsumu takes a second to clue in. “It’s nothing.”

“If yer sure…” Atsumu says as he catches back up and they reach the street, and he sounds so much like a dejected puppy Sakusa takes pity. “It’s nothing,” he repeats, stopping at the street corner; it’s the middle of the day, quiet before the afternoon rush, just them and the odd other student nearby. “My sister’s going back overseas today.”

“Ya got a sister?”

“A sister and brother,” he says, but his voice sounds faint to his own ears. He looks up at the drizzle, tries to imagine Marisa up there alone, as if she isn’t an adult capable to taking care of herself.

As if she hasn’t been there already.

Suddenly, Sakusa wants to cry. He’s not a crier, he can’t remember the last time he cried, but looking into the dark clouds seems to have shifted something in him.

Atsumu moves a little closer, enough to feel his body heat, but not close enough to touch. “So yer gonna go see her off?”

“No.” He blinks rapidly and clears his throat. The thought of seeing his family right now is nauseating.

“I mean…” Atsumu hesitates for a split second. “It seems like ya wanna.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Omi…”

“It’s none of your concern,” he snaps without thinking and Atsumu retreats. Sakusa doesn’t look to see his expression. “I’m going home.”

He turns on his heel to leave and doesn’t know whether to feel relieved or dismayed there are no steps behind him. Sakusa puts his head down and fumbles for his earbuds.

“Omi!” Atsumu calls just before he starts his music. Sakusa pauses but doesn’t look back, scared to see his expression. The knot in his gut tightens.

“I… If it were ‘Samu, I’d go,” he finally says. It drifts on the chilly breeze like he isn’t quite sure about talking - which isn’t like Atsumu at all. Sakusa grips the wire of his earbuds tighter, but doesn’t turn around.

He hopes his voice carries, that Atsumu hasn’t walked away when he says, “I’ll see you later.”

There’s no reply. He doesn’t wait to hear one.

~

The apartment is empty when he returns. He can imagine Komori’s at the airport, which is probably for the best, as rips off the mask and washes his hands in the kitchen sink. He hasn’t checked his phone since the text from Yugo and he doesn’t want to.

Instead, he kicks off his boots, shrugs his jacket and scarf off in his room’s doorway and sits at the keyboard. Water dribbles off his fingertips as he holds theme above the keys.

Nothing comes. His fingers are silent and it infuriates him even more.

His one crutch. It’s like the universe is laughing at him.

And really, maybe he deserves it. If he starts thinking too hard, all he sees is Marisa’s crestfallen face and feels sick to his stomach.

Because Marisa and Yugo and his mother and father… They’re good family. They try their best. They’re dysfunctional - but he supposes every family is, at least a little.

His fingers fall into a chord before the memory is fully formed, but it’s one of a middle school Marisa and him in their childhood house as she sings along to a poppy idol song she so loved back then. He doesn’t remember the name, but the lyrics are there, in her still-squeaky preteen voice.

Sakusa takes the phone from his pocket and swipes to open the camera, without unlocking it. He doesn’t want to see Yugo’s text again. Not right now.

Instead, with the memory stuck in his head and his fingers still cold and damp, he presses record audio and begins to play.

~

He has to wonder if Atsumu knows what the bubblegum-pop song and lyrics are from, or who they’re going to.

Chapter Text

Heart and Soul

Atsumu does not like this new not-friendship between them at all.

He wouldn’t put up with it if it were someone else - if it weren’t his soulmate. Even after their whole agreement to try and be friends at least, it somehow feels like every time they talk they’re getting further apart.

He doesn’t even know how that is possible. Atsumu takes the seat next to him in the science lecture and makes small talk during breaks and after class and they talk about music in that awful, shallow way that frustrates him more than anything else. Worst of all is that he doesn’t know how Sakusa feels about the whole thing; maybe this is just his idea of friendship and they’ll be stuck in this pointless hell forever.

When he says all this to Osamu over dinner, he is met with an unimpressed deadpan stare. “Ask him, maybe,” he replies, and he sounds tired - looks tired. Atsumu wonders how much of it has to do with Suna. “Both of ya sound ridiculous.”

“Yer not helpin’.”

“And?”

Atsumu sends the glare right back at him, but maybe it is a little mean to expect him to help. He’s not exactly sure what’s going on with Suna and Komori, but it seems like a mess in its own right.

Still, the flippant reply pisses him off, so Atsumu leaves his plate of curry half-finished, flips the hood of his sweater up and takes off into the chilly January night. He doesn’t know where , but with his worn, splintering sticks and the itchy feeling of frustration in his chest it’s pretty obvious where he’s going to end up.

He swipes his student ID to open the door to the music building’s basement, and the beep of it unlocking is a small comfort.

Atsumu didn’t like the basement in his first year; it was too dark and damp, peeling paint on the walls and creaky doors and probably haunted for little, fresh-out-of-highschool him. He avoided it for awhile, until it became clear his best shot at getting on a set would be one of the old practice rooms at some ungodly hour.

These days, walking down the long, dim hallway is a little like going back home to the country. Atsumu hums an absentminded tune to himself and scratches at grain in the wood of his sticks. A trumpet warming up drifts down the hall, but otherwise, the only sound his the squeak of his wet boots on the floor. He doesn’t give the other doors a glance, heads right to the end of the hall to the room he spent so much of first semester in. The light is on when he reaches it but the room is silent, so Atsumu opens the unlocked door.

And-

And Atsumu feels like he’s been set up by the universe itself when Sakusa, seated silently at piano, looks up when the hinges of the door squeak. He’s masked and gloved, hands in his lap, illuminated in the uneven artificial overhead lights and somehow still looking beautiful.

Sakusa blinks at him once. “Miya.”

“Uh - sorry, I’ll just-” Atsumu spins on his heel and swallows the lump in his throat. “I’ll nab another room.”

“No, it’s fine.” Sakusa’s tone is back to what it was before they played together or went skating or kissed. Atsumu clenches his hand around his sticks. “I’m not playing anyway.”

“I shouldn’t-”

“Stay,” he says, firmer this time, and for the billionth time in the last few weeks, Atsumu wonders what his endgame is. He couldn’t read Sakusa for shit before everything went down, but now it’s like looking at a stranger.

Because that’s kind of what they are, isn’t it? He doesn’t know the names of Sakusa’s siblings or the neighbourhood he grew up or why he started playing music. He doesn’t know why Sakusa’s so touch-aversed or why he doesn’t sing, what his blood type is or his favourite colour.

Staring at the doorknob, Atsumu wonders if he even wants that.

Instead of dwelling on it, he takes a deep breath and turns back into the room. “Why’re ya here?”

“To play,” Sakusa says, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world, but he’s still sitting with his hands in his lap and Atsumu’s never seen him play with gloves. There’s a heavy, awkward pause before Sakusa asks, “Why are you here?”

“Why d’ya think?” He forces a smile on his face and walks past the piano to the set without meeting Sakusa’s eye. Somehow, seeing him with the mask is more unsettling than seeing him without it these days. “To play. Duh.”

Sakusa does not reply. He doesn’t look at him as he sits on the creaky stool, doesn’t move at all. Atsumu is left staring at the sharp angle of his shoulderblades through the longsleeved top.

Atsumu is sitting in his safe spot, feet on the pedals and sticks in hand, and he feels like he wants to die. At least when one of them plays, there’s something , something that isn’t pregnant tension reminiscent of high school.

He cannot sit here in silence. Not tonight.

“Teach me somethin’,” he blurts out, springing up from his seat. His sticks clatter loudly on the snare drum’s head. “A song or somethin’.”

Sakusa glances over his shoulder. Even with so much of his face hidden, his eyes show more than enough. “What?”

“On the piano.” Atsumu doubles down and leaves his sticks at the set to make his way over. “Ya taught me last semester, so teach me somethin’ now.”

“Miya…” Sakusa rolls his eyes as he approaches, and Atsumu expects to be coldly rejected, or glared at until he backs off, or for Sakusa to simply leave without another word.

He does not expect masked and gloved Sakusa Kiyoomi to scoot to the very edge of the piano bench and look at him like he’s a fool. “Are you going to just stand there?”

“No, I…” In a stroke of genius, Atsumu shuts his mouth and sits down. He tries not to take it personally when Sakusa shies away, even when he leaves plenty of space between them.

“Here,” Sakusa says when he’s quiet, and reaches for the pen and notebook of staff paper atop the piano. Atsumu watches him scribble down a few lines of music silently, then he places it on the music rack. “Fine. Play.”

“What?” He doesn’t mean to come off like a whiny child, but Sakusa brings it out of him. “It’s not even on the staff! It’s just one line of notes!”

“You wanted to learn.”

“Yeah, but-”

Sakusa looks at him pointedly, eyes sharp enough to shut him up. “So learn.”

He considers this for a moment. Atsumu could refuse, could bicker some more, could just go back to the drums and start whaling on them until he can’t hear his own typhoon of thoughts anymore. He could blow up and yell, would demand to know what the hell they’re doing here, pretending they aren’t soulmates and they haven’t kissed.

But Sakusa blinks at him, challenging him, watching from the other side of the piano bench. Atsumu’s still not used to seeing him back in the face mask, but Sakusa is still unfairly pretty with it, from the sharp edge of his jawline to the inky eyelashes that fan over the exposed sliver of his cheekbones.

He wishes this entire thing went differently, from the very beginning.

Atsumu places his hands clumsily on the keys and begins to work out the song. He’s rusty - why would he play piano unless he needs to? - and plays with only his pointer and middle fingers, but the melody seems simple enough, and slowly, within a few minutes, it starts to take shape.

C, B, A, B, C, D…

The song is familiar. He doesn’t know what it is, but he’s definitely heard it before.

Atsumu’s so lost in his own head, he startles when Sakusa moves in his peripheral vision, then stops altogether when gloved hands play a major chord.

He looks up. Sakusa meets his gaze. “What? Keep playing.”

“What song is it?”

“Keep playing,” is all he says, then his eyes drift down, back to the keys.

So, Atsumu does. This time, Sakusa accompanies his shaky attempts, matches his inconsistent tempo surprisingly well with a one-and-two-and reminiscent of drumming. It’s awkward, trying to fit together like this, like missing a power socket over and over, but Sakusa repeats his chord progression without a moment’s hesitation.

And the second they finally slide into place alongside each other is dreamy. Atsumu has half a mind to be ashamed playing a the same four notes has him melting like ice cream, but he forgot this feeling existed - the feeling of being seen, of being known through music.

The feeling that he and Sakusa are on the same wavelength, even if they never really are.

He doesn’t know how long they play in that languid haze before Atsumu speaks. “I hate this,” he says, without stopping the practiced path of the melody. “What’re we doin’?”

Before Sakusa, Sakusa not playing along with him, Sakusa before that stupid party would have played dumb. Instead, there’s a couple bars of music between them, then he says, “Doing this right.”

It’s firm and resolute, feels like nails on a chalkboard against the cheery background of this song. Atsumu watches own his fingers move over the keys, until the song loops back to the start. “What’s that even mean? Ya plan to befriend me and then take me on a date? Court me like I’m a fuckin’ prince from the middle ages?”

“Do you have an issue with that?”

It isn’t us, he wants to scream, but what is them? They weren’t anything before it all fell to pieces; hell, Atsumu would hesitate to even call them friends.

E, D, C, D, E, F…

“Is that whatcha want?” He doesn’t realize he’s picked up speed until they nearly fall out of rhythm and Sakusa has to adjust. “To treat me like some pretty princess?”

Out of the corner of Atsumu’s eye, he sees the corner of Sakusa’s eye crinkle in what looks like a silent laugh. “You already play the part of a spoilt little girl well enough.”

Atsumu almost laughs aloud at that, and his fingers stutter for a moment, but he doesn’t even have to think about where to fall back into Sakusa’s easy rhythm. “Ya make it hard to like ya sometimes.”

Maybe, outside of this practice room, if they weren’t both sitting on the wooden piano bench with a foot and a half of space between them, it would have landed poorly. Hell, Atsumu still thinks it will, but just like before the new year, Sakusa replies without a missed beat. “The feeling is mutual.”

He scoffs like he’s offended; maybe he should be. Instead of snapping something back, though, Atsumu says, “Ya never told me the song’s name.”

“Do you really not know it?” Sakusa looks over at him, and there’s a glimpse of that overexpressive face from last semester as he furrows his brow, incredulous. “It’s Heart and Soul .”

“We ain’t all obsessed with Western music.”

“Shut up,” Sakusa says, but there’s no bite to it. Atsumu decides he might be onto something, and lets himself get lost in the honey-thick, pillow-soft feeling of a proper duet.

The feeling, he realizes, as the melody repeats, really is mutual.