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There's a twelve-hour difference between Osaka and Rio.
This means that when the moon is up in the sky from where Atsumu can see it clearly through his dorm accommodation's bedroom window, the sun would be thousands of miles away, beating down relentlessly on tanned, sweaty skin, bright, pearly whites, and an energy that pulls him in even from the other side of the world. That when Atsumu would finally exit the gym after finishing his individual practice, other people would normally be drinking their second coffee of the day. And that when Miya Atsumu wakes up for an early morning jog to and from the nearby park, somebody somewhere would be getting ready for dinner.
This awareness of the difference in time has already become second nature to him. Every time he glances at the clock on the wall, or the small numbers on his phone screen, he automatically adds or subtracts 12, and thinks, "Ah, this is what he should be doing right now." Every time he's reminded of specific schedules, like bath times and breakfasts and training, he mentally syncs it up to another schedule he's memorized by heart.
There's no set rule about memorizing, of course, or even being aware of what the other is doing, but long-distance makes it tricky to hold down a sense of normalcy. Intimacy over the phone was non-existent unless you had conversations that were free-flowing, and even that was too hard to hold down. Messages sent over the internet wasn't as fulfilling as normal, face-to-face conversation, some context being lost with the absence of body language, and even the overall tone of a sentence could be misinterpreted on the other side.
Miya Atsumu's day starts with his alarm ringing near his ear at the crack of dawn for his early morning jog. He spends between an hour to two hours doing laps around the nearby park, getting his blood pumping and his muscles waking up with some light stretching in-between. He then comes back to the trainee dormitories, showers quickly, before getting in line for a healthy serving of breakfast. There'd be group practices almost all day, gruelling drills and 3-on-3's with the senior players, starting players, second strain trainees, guest teams, etc. And it would go on until the sun would set, and Atsumu had a couple of hours to himself for individual practice until the whole gym is called for dinner, then bath time, then sleep.
Well... ideally.
But what really happens is Miya Atsumu stopping every 30 minutes from his jog to send a quick reply to Shoyo about getting some rest. Miya Atsumu taking a sneaky picture of his breakfast to send over to Shoyo (no doubt to make him miss Japanese food even more). Miya Atsumu checking his phone during practice and typing in between, typos be damned, because he's being called by the coach but he'd be damned to not tell Shoyo about his fellow teammate tripping over his own shoelaces and getting up as if nothing happened. Miya Atsumu turning down a night out with friends and a few seniors, making an excuse to stay in even though he really wanted to go out. Miya Atsumu Atsumu staying up later than he should, really, just to catch a few minutes of tanned skin, orange hair, bright smile, before he inevitably passes out with his phone in his hands and be awoken to its harsh ringing a few hours later.
Repeat cycle.
It gets physically tiring, if he's really being honest about everything, but he can't really find it in himself to care. He likes the routine (for the most part), likes being able to keep up the communication with Shoyo while he's on the other side of the world, doing God knows what. Most times, he'd message in the middle of deliveries. Sometimes Shoyo wouldn't reply and he'd apologize for taking too long, but his replies are usually short and devoid of that usual sunny energy that Atsumu had always liked.
He tries not to let it get to him, and tries his damn hardest on focusing on debuting at his chosen team instead. The MSBY Black Jackals is a fiery team in and of itself, climbing up to Division 1 in the V-League right at the season that Atsumu had been scouring which team had the most potential. The Schweiden Adlers had caught his eye first, what with the announcement of Ushijima Wakatoshi debuting as a starter player only months after being scouted. But when that was followed closely by news that one Kageyama Tobio was also seen in the same training camp, Atsumu suddenly got cold feet.
Miya Atsumu knows he's many things, but an idiot isn't one of them. He knows his capabilities more than anyone else, but he also knows Kageyama. If he was a handful to deal with during the Tokyo Training Camp in his second year, he'd be a monster to deal with now. And being on the same team would mean that Atsumu was signing up to practically be a benchwarmer, and that was something he couldn't ever stomach for the life of him.
Besides, the team had its own fair share of power. Besides, the team had its own fair share of power. For starters, they've got Bokuto Koutarou, who had debuted after months of rigorous training to a world that was practically smitten with him already. Then there’s Sakusa Kiyoomi, and although both of them were rookies and fresh scouts, they were already on the rung to debut by next season. This put immense pressure on him to maintain his improvement and to not plateau. One slip could cost him another year, and he was already itching and raring to be on the starter team.
Of course, Shoyo knows this, and he knows especially how hard Atsumu works. Because during the times where they'd actually have more than enough time to do video calls, their conversations would lull into silence and they'd end up just staring at each other.
"Tired?" he'd ask, with a small smile and wide eyes in full view of the camera. Atsumu would shake his head no, but the heaviness in his body and in his eyelids were already too obvious, and Shoyo would usually make up an excuse to cut the conversation short so the other one could rest.
But... now that Atsumu thought about it, their conversations were usually short, and on a shallower level than he was used to. When Shoyo was still in Japan and they'd meet in person, or at least be in the same timezone, they'd be able to talk for hours on end.
Shoyo would do his best impressions of Kageyama, of the freaky blocker Tsukishima, and of other members of the Karasuno Team that he (admittedly) only half-remembers. Atsumu, in turn, would be venting about how tiring it was to be the new Inarizaki team captain. He'd be lying if he said he didn't wish every day that Kita-san or Aran-san would help oversee everything, but he had to save face. And Shoyo would just laugh, reassure him that everything's fine.
It wasn't that subtle of a change that Atsumu couldn't pinpoint exactly when and how everything changed.
He knew it had something to do with Shoyo leaving Japan for Rio. He hadn't disclosed his plans to Atsumu until three months before the departure, and on the night he had finally secured tickets to Brazil. Sure, he had talked about beach volleyball and Brazilian teams and how everything must be so different on the other side of the world. Atsumu felt so naïve thinking that it was only natural curiosity and wanderlust that made Shoyo think this way, and not reading much into it until he had finally revealed he was leaving.
And right on the brink of them defining what exactly they were, too.
Because, see, Atsumu had stolen kisses from Hinata on their "not-date dates", and Shoyo would shyly return it. Before long, he'd be on his tiptoes, or use that freaky jump of his to steal a kiss right from Atsumu's lips before running away, laughing at the top of his lungs. Shoyo's "Miya-san" slowly changed to "Atsumu-san" and, sometimes even, "Tsum-tsum", and Atsumu has to physically stop himself from clutching his chest when it made his lips pucker into a pout, as if asking for a kiss.
Those lips that Atsumu hadn't felt on his for months now…
"Miya."
Sakusa's voice rip through his daydream of Shoyo, right as the slam of a volleyball against the floor jerks him back to reality. He has to blink a few times to remember where he was and what he was doing. It takes more than a few seconds for him to register the sweat making his shirt cling to his skin, the sting of his forearms and the palm of his hands, the familiar ache and stiffness in the joints of his fingers after overpracticing.
Sakusa must've thought the same thing too, because he only sighs and straightens, already heading back to the benches. "Good work today. I’m showering first."
"Hey!" Atsumu yells after him, right on his heels. He swipes the towel out of Sakusa's reach, and he meets the spiker's scowl with a huff. "I didn' say we were done--"
"No, you didn't. I did," Sakusa presses on and takes his water bottle. After a few gulps, he levels Atsumu with a stare. "Clearly your focus is elsewhere. So. Better to just call it a night."
Atsumu doesn't like hearing that. "Still early!"
"It's been an hour and a half since everybody else left the gym, and I'm only here because I wanted to practice more," the other man says evenly, not even shooting Atsumu a glance in his direction.
And so he does a very Atsumu thing and plops himself on the only available spot to sit on out of spite, right between the pile of towels and Sakusa’s bag on the bench. The other just raises an eyebrow at him as he pats his neck and face dry.
“I can go for a few more rounds--”
“First off, wording. And second, no you can’t.”
“Yes I can!”
“I can literally see your leg spasming from halfway across the court.”
As if on cue, Atsumu hides his left leg from under Sakusa’s scrutinizing gaze. He could still feel the spasms but doesn’t say anything to refute it. “Must’ve got good eyes, huh?”
Sakusa gives him a withering look, one that last for longer than the usual two seconds (yes, Atsumu has subconsciously timed it, what with how often it’s sent his way on and off the court), and the blonde has to physically stop himself from hunching over in an attempt to protect himself.
He’s about to open his mouth to ask him what’s wrong when Sakusa speaks. “What’s gotten into you?”
“...Huh?”
“I know you’re a hard worker. Hell, we all know you’re probably the one most likely to lock up the gym almost every night when we have training,” the curly-haired man says nonchalantly, stretching his wrists, as if he might as well have been talking about the weather. “But at this time you’d be sprinting back to the dorms and…”
There’s a pregnant pause there. It’s not intentional, far from it; but realization slowly dawns on Sakusa’s face, and whatever’s left from that sentence fell to nothingness. “Oh.”
Atsumu has to squint up at him. “Whaddya mean, ‘oh’?”
“I didn’t mean to…”
“Spill it.”
But the curly-haired man shakes his head no. “No, no. Don’t mind me. I shouldn’t even have questioned--”
“Omi, if ya don’ tell me what it is yer yappin’ about--”
An exasperated sigh falls out of Sakusa’s lips as he turns to Atsumu, fully facing him now. “Look, I get it. Relationships can be tough and sometimes misunderstandings can turn into fights. I understand that you’d want to take your mind off of it with individual training, but really, over-practicing will be detrimental to the team. My point still stands.”
Atsumu doesn't even know what to say to that. The words that form the sentence "We're not in a fight" or "That's not what happened at all" gets stuck, lodged somewhere in a tight squeeze between his chest and throat. He just stares, dumbfoundedly, at his teammate, who takes it as his cue to bid him sheepishly good night and make his hasty exit.
But although Sakusa’s guess is way off, his words still float around in his mind as his body goes through the motions of closing up the team gym and stepping into the showers. He spends minutes mentally tossing and turning underneath the showerhead. Atsumu and Shoyo hadn’t had a fight, no. The last one they had was pretty serious; it had Shoyo declining calls and Atsumu avoiding his phone for days on end while subsequently 70% of his training drills.
No, no, an argument was out of the question, and there’s little else in their relationship that Atsumu really has anything to nitpick about, apart from the most obvious things that make it hard like the distance and the time difference.
Misunderstandings, though… now those they had plenty of. Not only because their tone doesn’t translate properly through internet messages and the extent of their body language is heavily restricted to the four corners of their screen, but mostly because their relationship was something even Atsumu himself is unsure of.
Because they never really settled or established any rules or boundaries before Atsumu had decided to play in the professional leagues and before Shoyo had thrown himself headfirst on the other side of the world.
Just that they were exclusively dating, and that they’d call each other as much as their busy schedules permitted.
On normal days, it would be at the back of Atsumu’s mind, and he wouldn’t mind it one bit. This was at least something, after all. But he would be lying if he said he didn’t feel a pang of disappointment at himself for just staring at Shoyo’s back as he receded, further and further away, passing through the boarding gate and basically leaving most of his life in Japan behind to pursue his dreams.
But on days like today, when the athlete would be reminded that they were, in fact, not officially together, the topic would weigh heavy both on his mind and on his chest. It makes his lungs constrict and his stomach clench and his instinct to flee kicks in almost automatically. He doesn’t really understand it, and Atsumu tries his best to process it every time he feels it.
Before he knows it, he finds himself already sitting on the edge of the bed, a towel draped over his still-damp hair. It’s dark inside his room at the Black Jackals dormitories, and he’s thankful every day and every night that each player had individual rooms instead of bunk beds to preserve any privacy that the team members would need. Atsumu stares down at the phone in his hands, the brightness of the screen in stark contrast with the dark surroundings.
‘Shoyo-kun', it says at the top, with a little emoji of a chick to accompany it.
The messenger app says that Shoyo had been online not too long ago. Seventeen minutes ago, to be exact. ‘I guess that’s not too bad,’ Atsumu thinks to himself as he presses the call button.
After about seven rings, the call is picked up. It's a few seconds later that he sees a familiar face in his screen, and he feels the heavy burden on his chest grow significantly lighter.
"Hey," he greets, and Hinata Shoyo gives him only an energetic wave and then a finger held up. One sec.
Usually, that meant Shoyo was in the middle of a job. True enough, a few seconds later Shoyo disappears off-screen but Atsumu can clearly hear his voice shout, "Obrigada!" at whoever it was he was delivering to.
"What's up?" He asks, after a few minutes, when he's resting against a wall. It's not as clear but he looks to be suffering a bit in the heat as he pulls at the front of his shirt to try and fan his face.
"Nothing, I just..." Just wanted to say hi. Wanted to see how are you, how've you been. Did you miss me like I missed you? What's going on with you?
Atsumu tries to swallow it all down and ask the feeler questions. How his day was going, how many deliveries he's had, and Shoyo woul answer to the best of his ability, but it was usually short answers since he was feeling out of breath and he kept drinking from his water bottle.
At some point, Atsumu finds himself not knowing any more questions to ask, apart from having Shoyo regale one story where he had mixed up a guy's order from halfway across the city.
"It was hell," he complains, slumping and pouting. Atsumu finds it cute. "And I didn't have anyone to help me so I had to do it all again."
"I'd have helped you if I were there," he says, shifting to a more comfortable position to lie in as he watches Shoyo from his screen.
That somehow triggers a laugh from Hinata. "What? Why would you be here?"
"...What do you mean?"
"What are you, like, my boyfriend or something--"
As soon as Hinata says that, he immediately clams up and doesn't look at the screen.
Atsumu feels his heart just got squeezed out from between his ribcages and then wrung dry. He doesn't know what he had expected, but it definitely wasn't that, and God does that stings.
"...I think I'm gonna go call it a night," he says after a few minutes of silence.
"...Yeah," is all Shoyo can say. "It's getting pretty late, anyway."
They try to look into each other's eyes, but finding something else to fixate on on the screen. And before they know it, they've been staring at each other's reflections on the small screen of their phones in silence for all of five minutes now. Their unsaid "good night"s hung in the air, but something in them was compelling them to keep their phones on. As if a second more would somehow calm the riotous thoughts inside their heads and their hearts.
It's Atsumu who opens his mouth, the question he's wanted to ask already dangling heavily at the tip of his tongue. "...Shoy-"
"Gotta go, Atsumu-san," the other says, and with a press of a button, the line goes dead.
A solemn "Fuck" slips out of Atsumu's lips, and his phone flops pathetically on the mattress right beside him. Atsumu's attempt to ask their relationship status, crashed and burned once again.
“‘Samu.”
“Mm?”
“...I need help.”
“Oya?” Atsumu hears the smugness in his voice without even seeing that irritating smile on his twin’s face. To be fair, the blonde himself had made sure he was turned away from where Osamu was standing behind the counter of his now-deserted restaurant.
Atsumu could visit Onigiri Miya at whatever time and place he could, but tonight -- with his head filled with thoughts of a man with tank skin and a bright smile -- he decides to visit right at closing time. He keeps to the counter, quietly eating his onigiris with his cap pulled all the way down so no one disturbs his peace.
Osamu, for the most part, does business as usual, greeting customers as they enter and as they leave, taking orders and delegating tasks, all while he molds onigiri after onigiri in his hands like it was already second nature. For probably the nth time, Atsumu stares at his brother’s handiwork, knowing that each grain of Hyogo rice and each ounce of whatever main ingredient added would be quality-controlled to the highest degree.
Atsumu could list down all the details that made him and his twin similar and different from each other. But what he sees now, as customer after customer trails out of his establishment, was that Osamu had sureness - in each and every motion and decision. What he does, he does to his best, every damn time.
And Atsumu is left wondering how he manages to execute that every single time.
“Soooo.” And it’s with a half-teasing, half-patronizing lead that Osamu starts the conversation. He does this stance that has him leaning over Atsumu’s personal space, both hands on the counter as he leans against it. There’s a smile on his face, but being with Miya Osamu from literally since they were in the womb has Atsumu knowing that that smile wasn’t one-hundred percent kind and sympathetic. You know. Typical sibling behavior. “What gives? What does the great Miya Atsumu need his civilian brother’s help for?”
Atsumu grits his teeth, then mumbles something out.
His twin, ever the one to prod at Atsumu’s weakness, leans even closer and cups his ear with his hand. “Haaa? Come on, I can’t hear you~”
“Dating.”
And, as if in slow motion, Atsumu sees the reaction it has on his brother’s face. First, his eyes widen when his brain finally registers the word. Then, he fully faces Atsumu, looking shell-shocked as ever.
Finally, he leans back, with a grin that reaches from ear to ear, and he honest to God starts to laugh.
And in his embarrassment, Atsumu clambers over the counter and starts bunching up his twin brother’s shirt in his fists, screaming bloody murder even though he feels his cheeks warm and the tip of his ears grow hot.
With all their bickering and their noise, they don’t register the sound of the door sliding open, the flap of the entrance curtain as someone crosses the threshold. Akaashi Keiji is a man of minimal movement and of even lesser unnecessary noise. So he stands by the entrance, just staring at both Miyas -- one with a smug expression on his face while the other was scrambling to strangle him for it -- for all of a minute before he actually makes his presence known with a small cough.
“Are you two in the middle of a moment, or--”
“Keiji!” Osamu excitedly (and, to Atsumu’s offense, all too easily) pushes the blonde aside as he goes to the swinging half-door that lets him out from behind the counter. The bespectacled man has enough grace to smile and side-step his boyfriend, who had fully intended to greet him with a big ol’ smack on the lips, but placates him with a sweet little peck on the cheek instead.
“Good evening, Osamu, Atsumu-san,” he says warmly, in a voice as smooth as velvet.
“Keiji-san,” Atsumu greets half-heartedly, nodding to him in recognition before slinking back into his seat by the counter, head in his hands.
Keiji just laughs under his breath as he takes up space on the stool two seats away from him, just to be polite. “May I ask what this, uh... commotion is all about?”
Osamu, already shaping a ball of onigiri in his hands that steals Keiji’s attention for all of five seconds, is quick to appease him with information. “Well--”
“Don’t,” Atsumu hisses, but his twin doesn’t listen. As usual.
“Tsum-Tsum here asked me for dating advice,” he says.
Keiji blinks a few times in confusion, before turning in his stool to face Atsumu. He doesn’t know whether it’s the lighting overhead, painting shadows across the editor’s tired face and making his dark circles and the angles of his face more pronounced, or the experienced, dead stare coming from steel blue eyes that washes over the setter like a bucket of ice-cold water. Whatever it is, it makes Atsumu want to look away.
“Is everything not going smoothly with Hinata-san?” he asks, after a few seconds of silence.
Atsumu gulps, audibly. Embarrassing. “That’s n-not necessarily- wait, hang on, how do you know--”
“I’m dating your twin brother, so of course I know,” Keiji answers him easily, waving his question away like it was painfully obvious. A smile spreads on his face as Osamu places three different onigiris on a rectangular plate in front of the editor, who quickly thanks him before starting to eat.
Further embarrassed, Atsumu has half a mind made to stand up and leave. “I can’t believe this--”
“Tsumu, sit down.” With a surprisingly strong grip, Osamu pulls him back down on the stool, then leans over. “What’s got you all worried ‘bout Shoyo-kun, then?”
The blonde considers even telling the truth, already feeling more shy by the second. Keiji pipes in after swallowing a mouthful of onigiri. “If it makes you feel any better, Atsumu-san, I can give my two cents on the matter.”
Atsumu’s eyes flit from Osamu to Keiji, back and forth. Even with a smidge of amusement on his twin’s face, both of them showed concern, honest and sincere. “What’s wrong?” Osamu prods him, resting his chin on his hand.
And before he knows it, he starts spilling everything. It starts slow, like the trickle of sap from a spile in the middle of winter, and Atsumu really doesn’t know what direction he’s taking. He tries to do it chronologically, with the vaguest of details to preserve their relationship’s (if it can even be called that) privacy, but enough to give context to Keiji who’s mostly out of the loop.
But then it starts getting more and more convoluted, because Atsumu starts adding in the details whenever it pops in his head. He has the habit of messing up his hair the more he talks, and even when talking to both Osamu and Keiji, he doesn’t meet them in the eye, preferring to talk to the wooden floor. By the time he’s finished giving his tell-all, his hair is sticking out every which way, his stomach has flipped five times over, and he’s definitely, definitely drained.
He finishes his long-winding story, which peters into a weak “so…” and a helpless gesture. His hair is sticking out every which way, his stomach has flipped possibly five times over, and he’s definitely, definitely drained.
Atsumu tries not to let the deafening silence from his audience of two get to him. He doesn’t raise his head, but he lets the story that he airs out settle down on all of their shoulders, seeping into every corner of Osamu’s establishment.
When it finally weighs heavy enough, though, he chances a peek at his twin, and sees Osamu’s arms folded over his chest. Like him, he’s looking down on the floor, leaned back against the far wall, brows furrowed in thought. He still retains that habit of biting the inside of his cheek when he’s turning things over and over in his mind, but he doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t look remotely ready.
Atsumu’s eyes roam from Osamu to Keiji, who had finished off his second onigiri but had left the third on his platter. He’s leaning forward on the counter, his ink-stained fingers drumming against the wooden panels as he hums to himself. Both of them look deep in thought, and Atsumu wonders if they’re thinking of ways to help, or just thinking how to gently break it to him that he was, indeed, fucking things over to the highest level and that he wasn’t just overthinking things.
It takes some time before one of the three actually speaks up, and to Atsumu’s surprise, it’s Osamu.
“Look, I’m… I’m tryin’ to be unbiased ‘bout this,” he says, uncertainty coating his words as he drawls out the syllables, trying to buy himself time. Out of the corner of Atsumu’s eye, he sees Keiji tilt his head to the side when his boyfriend speaks; a silent show of support. “I mean, I think Shoyo-kun’s great. Made ya feel butterflies and giddy like a schoolgirl, right? But… this is… hard. ‘Specially since I’m your twin an’ all.”
“Thanks fer yer support,” Atsumu grumbles, but it lacks all of his usual bite. Osamu might not have given anything solid or concrete, but he definitely appreciates the sentiment.
“If I may,” Keiji interjects, voice soft. When the blonde faces him, he sees that there’s a slight smile on the editor’s face. It was respectful and not patronizing. “Could I give my two cents on the matter? I may not say what you want to hear, though.”
‘Always so damn polite,’ Atsumu thinks, but he appreciates how respectful Keiji could be despite not sugar-coating any of his words.
The editor leans forward, threading his fingers together before he talks. “What both of you have is a difficult situation. You’re exclusive but you’re apart, and even when you’re dating, it feels like you’re not.”
“...Yeah,” the blonde finds himself mumbling after a few seconds of silence. He takes his cap off finally -- it’s black and nondescript except for the logo of the black jackals on the front and three distinct scratch marks on the back, embroidered in gold thread. When cornered, Miya Atsumu tends to pick at things. Right now, his nails are scratching against the embroidery.
Keiji hums thoughtfully before continuing. “What’s running through your mind right now? And the exact thoughts that you have about your relationship with Hinata-kun.”
He exhales sharply, a burst of laughter that felt too airy or too sad to be mirth. “That’s kinda the problem, ain’t it? I don’ want to rush ‘im. I don’ want to scare ‘im off. A lotta things could go wrong and I feel like I’m already doin’ a real bad job at whatever… this - ‘” he says, with a vague gesture of his hands, “ - is.”
Keiji falls silent, mulling things over. He looks like he gets it, and he drums his fingers on the countertop, trying to find a solution to a complex problem.
Somehow, it validates Atsumu. That the one thing that has been keeping him up for nights and has eaten away at the back of his mind wasn’t just something small and dismissible. If someone as logical and as smart as Keiji was having a hard time, then it must mean some idiot like him would probably go over the problem for days or weeks on end, which is exactly what he did.
But it makes him all the more worried. Is there really no solution to this? “Aaaaaah, fuck,” he swears, slumping over the countertop and resting his head in his crossed hands. He wants to rip his hair out from sheer frustration.
When Atsumu kept hitting dead ends in terms of training and volleyball, he always stubbornly persisted, and somehow that had worked for him every single time. The concrete wall that was hindering his path would somehow break apart after enough number of kicks and punches, and then he can go on after conquering that obstacle.
But with Shoyo, it was different. Atsumu didn’t meet a concrete wall, but it felt more breakable. Like a glass pane; one wrong push or nudge would send it keeling from its hinges, breaking into a million pieces, and there’s nothing he can do to repair it.
He hears footsteps and the shifting of cloth before he feels a finger prodding at the top of his head. Osamu’s voice follows through, mumbling. “Never seen you down bad like this.”
“Thanks,” he manages to grumble out in reply, although it must’ve sounded more like old-man grunting.
“But Keiji’s right, though - you gotta think ‘bout whatcha really want with Shoyo-kun,” he muses.
It takes him only a second to reply. “That’s easy. I wanna make us… official.”
“Have you ever brought the topic up?” Keiji interjects, looking more like an interrogator now with all his seriousness plain on his face.
Atsumu shakes his head. “Wanted to, but couldn’t… Wasn’t a good time.”
“Do you think Hinata-kun doesn’t want it too?”
“I… maybe?" The exhale comes out shaky, and Atsumu has to consciously stop himself from picking at the fraying ends of his ripped jeans. "I dunno, I... used to think that, sometimes, but… he’s the one who brought up the whole exclusivity thing in the first place?”
Keiji sighs and rubs his face. He looks so tired doing that, so much that Atsumu already had an apology ready at the tip of his tongue, but the editor starts talking. “This reminds me of one of the storyboards I had to edit last week. The two protagonists were both in love but kept dancing around each other because they weren’t sure if the other was sure of dating them officially.”
“Well, hey, maybe that’s what’s happening here with you an’ Shoyo-kun,” Osamu offers, nudging his twin’s shoulder good-naturedly. In a bro way. It felt odd but the sentiment lingers.
“Could be. It’s possible,” Keiji agrees, half-shrugging.
Atsumu just whines a bit more. “Not really reassuring… Do they get together in the end, at least?”
“It’s still in serialization, but it’s coming to its end… I think I heard the mangaka say that they plan to do the climax with a grand gesture from one half of the couple.” Keiji smiles at this point, the apples of his cheeks going pink. “You know. Something romantic to help clear away any doubts.”
“Well then, there ya go!” Osamu slaps Atsumu’s back, almost sending him forward with sheer force. “Ya just gotta give him a grand, romantic gesture!”
“Easier said than done,” Atsumu coughs out, trying to straighten out on his bar stool. “I mean, ya got any ideas? Yer not exactly Mr. Romantic here. No offense, Keiji-san.”
"None taken," Keiji replies, and there's an indignant squawk of 'HEY!' from his boyfriend, which he dismisses with a soft laugh and a wave of his hand.
"But in all honesty, Osamu-san was... quite romantic."
"Oya?" Atsumu teases, cocking an eyebrow. The effect was immediate: Miya Osamu, who probably only got flustered whenever Kita-san or Aran-san gave him the rare acknowledgement during practice or in-game, turned red as a tomato.
"Keiji--"
"The key to doing romantic gestures, Atsumu-san, is knowing your partner."
Keiji tilts his head towards Osamu's direction, and Atsumu sees the affection on his face clear as day. Smitten and in love and sweet. He usually sees the editor tired and/or stressed while mulling his thoughts. This felt refreshing.
"What exactly did he do?"
Osamu hisses, a last resort to being saved from an embarrassing anecdote. "Keiji, baby, don't--"
But his boyfriend, ever the lowkey petty one, seems intent to share. "He tried being smooth by leaving sticky notes on my usual orders of onigiris because he somehow found out I saved them. After a while it spelled out 'I like you, date me'."
Atsumu bursts out into laughter, at the same time his twin lets out a groan as he sinks behind the counter, disappearing from view. Keiji continues on, unfazed. "The point is, the point is -- it should be something meaningful to the both of you."
"And ya can't half-ass it," Osamu adds. His cheeks are still pink but he peeks from below the counter with a determined glare. "Ya can't be doin' it all wishy-washy. Ya gotta commit."
"Says the one who confessed through a bunch o' sticky notes," Atsumu retorts, sticking his tongue out just to drive it home.
Keiji sighs, a bit fond, as he shakes his head. "Now, now, let's not argue. But... theoretically, it could work. What means the world to Hinata-kun?"
And all three of them, in unison, reply: "Volleyball."
"Jinx," Keiji and Osamu say at the exact same time, like an inside joke only couples use. Atsumu pretends to gag.
"Right, right..." the blonde mumbles, putting his cap back on as he thinks.
One glance at Hinata Shoyo and a lot of people would think that the only thing that ran through his mind was volleyball and getting good at it. Only through years of knowing who Shoyo really is -- in the most quiet moments, the lows in between the highs, the off-seasons and vacation periods -- does Atsumu know who Shoyo truly is.
Someone who's probably as persistent and stubborn at him to get better. Someone who does everything he can to achieve something once he puts his mind into it. Someone who didn't get scared of a lot of things that would scare a normal person, especially if, for him, it could be used as a stepping stone to get one step closer to his goal.
Apart from that, he's warm and he's kind. He may have been rough around the edges when it came to saying what needs to be said, and at times it came across as too forward. But the message carries through, and Shoyo never sugarcoats anything, which is something that Atsumu secretly is thankful about.
He's not materialistic and he appreciates a lot of things that has sentiment. He shows him the cow-themed phone case Kageyama bought him as a gift, the handy little keyring of common phrases in Portuguese that Yamaguchi and Tsukishima had gotten him, the small tanuki-shaped coin purse that Yachi had bought him for Christmas before he left for Brazil, the wallet that Natsu had bought him to remember her by abroad.
And even when it came to gifts, he liked and valued everything but always gravitated more to anything that meant something significant. He had bought a griptok in the shape of a fox and showed it off to Atsumu through a selfie when the latter had graduated. Atsumu had given him everything that he might want or need, bought him thin clothes to wear when he expected high temperatures in Rio, shoes that the store had recommended for running in the san, a heavy-duty bag that he could wear wherever.
But he doesn't forget how, out of all the gifts that Atsumu had given him over time, he always smiled the widest and his eyes shone the brightest when he holds onto the keychain on his bag, the one next to Vabo-chan that the Karasuno team had bought him. The keychain was of a plastic make, big enough to hold a photo of him and Shoyo that was taken in a photobooth somewhere in Tokyo. Both of them smiling into the camera, making a heart with their hands.
Something full of sentiment. Something full of meaning.
Something... something...
When he finally straightens, both Osamu and Keiji turn to him.
"Finally got an idea, Tsumu?" His twin asks, smirking.
Atsumu nods, brain already working at a million miles a minute. This and this and this, he thinks to himself.
And then he utters seven words that make everyone in the establishment, even himself, wonder what exactly he's getting into.
"I'm gonna need to learn basic Portuguese."
The plan was simple, really.
Atsumu asks Shoyo whether he liked him the same way and if he wanted to move forward with whatever they have. If Shoyo agrees, then everything would be worh it. And if Shoyo draws a clear line and says that they can't go any further than that, then Atsumu just has to deal with that, accept it, and decide where to go from there.
It sounds simple, but the logistics of having them in a long-distance relationship, having timezones separate them, is enough trouble to last Atsumu a lifetime.
So he does something so big and so impossible that even his own twin's eyes bug out of his head when he gives him a heads-up just hours after he executes his plan.
"...Where are ya?" Osamu asks, suddenly wary. He had good reason to be, seeing as Atsumu had his phone flush against his face and was picking his nose.
He did everything to annoy his twin, but the composition of the call was weird. "Tsumu, spill it."
"What? I jus' need some emotional support, s'all." Atsumu's sentence ends in a mumble, and he's looking away, clearly hiding something. His eyes flick up when he hears a disembodied voice talking.
Osamu squints into the screen when he hears it through the call. To him, it's indiscernible, but it was alarming nonetheless. "Miya Atsumu, you've got five seconds --"
But he doesn't finish his sentence. He cuts himself off when his blonde twin sheepishly leans away and shows him the background of where he was. It was all white and there were a lot of windows. Shops lined the walls left and right, and there were people milling around, walking to and fro.
"...Yer jokin'."
"You told me to do a big romantic gesture--"
"I didn't mean fly to Brazil?!"
He should've expected this. Osamu was usually the more practical one between the two of them, and he was usually the one anchoring Atsumu down when his ambitions made him feel like Icarus flying headfirst into the sun. There's disbelief and frustration and panic; a myriad of other emotions that rapidly change from one to another that Atsumu quietly watches.
But when he finally settles, it's with the one emotion that makes Atsumu feel like he's punched in the gut.
Worry.
"When ya said ya wanted to learn Portuguese," his brother mumbles, hand brushing back his hair from his face. "I didn' think it was 'cause of this."
A laugh bubbles up from his chest, but it feels half-hollow, half-empty. "Yeah."
"Tsumu, this is a big risk."
"You told me to take a big risk."
"I didn't think you mean this big," Osamu stresses. "Have ya even thought it through? Does Shoyo-kun know?"
"'Course not--"
"'Course not," Osamu echoes, shaking his head in disbelief. "Where are ya even gonna stay? And for how long?"
"That... depends," he mumbles, scratching the back of his head. "I got a reservation at a hostel for the night, and I plan to stay fer a week but the visa's good fer a month. If all goes well, I might stay at Shoyo-kun's place and cancel the hostel thing."
"And if it doesn't go well?"
"Then I'll stay my sorry ass in Rio de Janeiro for all of three days before flyin' back," he says sternly. In his mind, he thinks that if he said it out loud, in the most determined way he can, he'll be able to convince himself.
The look on his twin's face says that if convincing could be weighed, he would be as light as a feather.
"Ya sure about this?"
And it's that one sentence that sends all the thoughts that he had been trying to keep locked in a box in his mind free.
"Honestly? Samu? No. Not one fuckin' bit. I told Shoyo-kun I wouldn't be able to call tonight because we were at a weekend trip and wifi's shit. The Portuguese was fer Pedro, his roommate, and I could barely talk ta him apart from telling him that I'm Shoyo's... whatever, and that I'm comin' and ta keep it a surprise. And I've no idea how this is gonna go, I've no idea what to even say to him, 'cause I haven't seen him in months, and I don't know what I'm going to do if he... if he says..."
He takes a shaky breath and starts pacing around, holding the phone at arm's length. From the corner of his eye, he could already see other people staring at him, and steering clear of him in case he exploded on them too. Osamu just loudly sighs.
"Calm down."
"Samu, for fuck's sake--"
"No. Ya calm down. Ya decided this, Tsumu," Osamu hisses, bringing his face nearer to the screen. "What did I say, hm?"
"...What?"
"What did I say when I told you how to do romantic gestures?"
"...to commit."
"Right! To commit. And this is whatcha want, right? Ya wanna commit to Shoyo-kun?"
"...I do."
"Then ya don't have to worry."
Atsumu stops in his tracks, then checks the screen in front of him. It's full of flight numbers from different airlines going to different places in the world. There's a row that glows green, and he recognizes his own flight number.
Boarding gate A5.
It was time.
"What if he says no?" Atsumu whispers, becuase that's the one thing that he worries about. The one thing that's holding him back from boarding that plane that would take him halfway across the world.
Osamu pauses for a little while, but shakes his head. "M'not gonna say anything stupid and tell ya that he won't. There's always a chance that he will. But... ya gotta be proud of at least takin' that risk. There's nothin' wrong about it. If he says no, then... his loss. You haul your ass back home to Japan, and if ya swing by the restaurant... I'll feed ya fer free."
"Samu..."
"Yeah, big guy, ya heard me right."
And for the first time in the entire duration of the call, Osamu finally offers a smile. A wide grin, to be exact, and it bolsters Atsumu's confidence. Making him smile, too. Just like the way they'd use to encourage each other on the court.
"Go on, then, scram. And get a fridge magnet on the way home, alright? Keiji likes those typa things."
Atsumu hangs up the phone, then tightens his hold on his passport and boarding pass. He tells himself that it's okay. Draws tiny little men on the palm of his hand and eats them, which makes a toddler (who he hadn't known had been staring at him and his blonde hair) giggle. Atsumu gives a small smile to the ground assistant that scans his boarding pass, and he tries to focus on the color of the sky when he makes his way down the ramp, onto the tarmac, up the steps and into the large plane that was waiting for all of them to board.
He straps himself into the window seat and tries to stretch his legs as much as he can. His phone pings, and Atsumu types up a quick reply to Sakusa -- the only one to know of his actual plan when he had asked for a week-long absence from training from the team. It was just a message to send good luck, but Atsumu feels a hundred percent better knowing that some people, like Keiji or his brother or Sakusa , were all rooting for him to go through with this, no matter what.
When he closes the messaging app, he finds himself staring at his wallpaper. It's a picture of him and Shoyo, arm in arm, with big smiles on their faces. It was the last photo that he and Atsumu had taken together before he had shown him off to the airport. Excitement and nervousness were on Shoyo's face, clear as day.
But on Atsumu's was a smile. Not sure but not uncomfortable. It doesn't reach his eyes, and he remembers thinking what tomorrow would be like if he doesn't let Shoyo know how he felt before he left. But before he could do or say anything, Shoyo had kissed him goodbye and crossed the threshold into the departures area.
Not this time, he thinks.
So when the plane finally pulls away from the terminal and the seatbelt sign glows neon overhead, Atsumu doesn't think twice. He closes his eyes and waits for the plane to finally take off before looking at the view from outside the window.
The mainland of Japan was rapidly shrinking into a uniform mass of color, and wisps of clouds stared entering his view until it was only that and the orange-red of the skies as the sun sets over the horizon.
In approximately 25 hours, he'll be on the other side of the world, in a country he's never been to, trying to understand a language he's never spoken before, to try and ask the one he's longed for all this years if he can actually, really call him his.
Please, Atsumu pleads, like a silent prayer as the seatbelt sign goes off and the plane plateaus, sailing smoothly through the skies. Please, say yes.
"Pedro? Onde estamos indo?" (Pedro? Where are we going?)
"Vá em frente e confie em mim." (Just go forward and trust me.)
"Você me cegou, mas eu confio em você o suficiente --" (You've blinded me, but I trust you enough--)
Atsumu has already seen him; how could he miss him when he's got orange hair that sticks out from anywhere? Even in the bright and sunny landscape of Rio de Janeiro, Shoyo-kun draws stares. Maybe it's because of how he talks or how he walks; maybe because of how he looks.
Maybe it's because of how he's currently walking forward with no care in the world, his eyes covered by his flatmate Pedro, who's trying to excitedly mouth words to Atsumu when he recognizes him almost immediately.
Sadly, though, Atsumu doesn't read lips very well, and nor did he ready enough English to tell him to 'go back, hold on, wait just a minute because my heart is gonna explode out of my chest at any moment if you keep coming closer' --
But without any cues to stop or turn back, they kept getting closer. Atsumu has half a mind to run back inside the airport and hide for a few minutes (or maybe the next hour). But when he hears the familiar voice that he's only ever heard from the tinny speakers of his phone, his thought process just halts in its tracks.
"O que está acontecendo, hm?" Shoyo says in between a laughter that rings in Atsumu's ears, down to his chest. "O que há com essa surpresa?" (What's going on? What's with the surprise?)
"Eh... Shoyo..." Pedro mumbles, because he's not really sure how to say anything. He peeks over Shoyo's shoulder, up at Atsumu, but he's too shell-shocked to even do or say anything, let alone figure out what to do next.
"Vamos, me mostre! Quem é esse?" (Come on, show me, who is it?)The excitement is clear on Shoyo's face and voice, and before Pedro knows what he's doing, he's prying his fingers off of his face.
"Mostre-me, mostre-me -" (Show me, show me-)
And as if in slow motion, Atsumu sees Shoyo's eyes open and blink to adjust to the brightness of the sun. He looks around for a few seconds, but then his eyes finally lock onto Atsumu.
Miya Atsumu, who's standing right in front of him.
Miya Atsumu, with his shirt sleeves folded up from the heatand humidity.
Miya Atsumu, who's got a backpack and a small carry-on rolling luggage, standing tall yet wit shoulders hunched as he tries to look casual and not nervous.
Miya Atsumu, who fails to do just that and just... stares. Back at Shoyo, who looks like he's got the wind knocked out from his lungs.
"A...tsumu... san..." He says after a while, and it still sounds like the air in his lungs hasn't really come back in, enough for him to function properly.
For his part, Atsumu doesn't really know how he expected Shoyo to react to him being there. His thoughts for the last 25 hours had been consumed primarily of what he was going to say or how he wanted Shoyo to react to the question he's been asking of posing for the past several months.
But for the last two minutes, Shoyo just stands there, and the four feet apart that separated them now (compared to the thousands of kilometers that they had been used to before) still stay as four feet.
And then it suddenly hits Atsumu that maybe he had made a grave mistake and this was all a stupid decision, and why did he even do this, why did his friends not tell him to reconsider, he should just go home, forget confessing, forget Shoyo --
"Atsumu-san--" He hears Shoyo talk again, and this time the four feet between them suddenly decreases. He sees Shoyo take one step closer, a tentative one, his arms reaching out for him. When he speaks again, it's in Japanese. "Atsumu-san, is it really you--"
"Yeah," he whispers, then clears his throat because he hadn't realized just how dry his mouth and his throat had gotten. "Yeah, it's m--"
"Atsumu-san--"
Before he knows it, Shoyo's running up to hug him. Atsumu has to step back a few pace just for him to steady themselves and stop him from falling when Shoyo finally has his arms wrapped around his midriff, and the distance that had bothered them both oh so much became nothing.
"What are you even -- you lied to me, you said-- "
"I know, I know." Atsumu can't help the chuckle that escapes his lips, as an arm wraps around Shoyo's shoulder and his fingers card through his wind-swept hair. He leans back to look at him, and how Brazil changed him -- tanned skin making freckles show up on the surface of Shoyo's sunkissed face; toned arms and legs and a back that seems to have gotten wider since the last time they've seen each other; maybe even a difference in height? Atsumu couldn't really tell that much but--
And then he's being met with lips on his own, a bit chapped and dry but familiar all the same. Atsumu's eyes widen marginally before they flutter close and accept it, pressing small kisses against Shoyo's lips. They were smiling, and both of them could tell. Somehow, it still feels like the first time they ever kissed, with Shoyo pressed against his chest and Atsumu leaning down, cradling the back of his head as he leads.
When they finally part for breath, the first thing that comes out of Shoyo's mouth is, "Sorry."
The blonde just blinks at him in confusion. "'Sorry'...? Fer what?"
"Atsumu-san, I'm not an idiot," the shorter one says in-between bouts of soft laughter. "I know, we were kind of on vague or cold terms lately... And you came out all the way here, and I'm not even prepared, I didn't even dress up or get you anything -- "
"That's -- Shoyo-kun, hey-- " And before Shoyo could turn to Pedro to ask him if he was in on the surprise, Atsumu cups his face to keep him facing him. "Shoyo."
"Wha-- eh?"
"I... didn't come to Rio just to visit you."
"Oh?" Confusion flickers onto Shoyo's face, and he sees it fall a little with disappointment. "Oh, you're here on a... on a trip, or--"
"Wha-- no, no, I--" He can't help the loud groan that escapes through his lips. "Look. Shoyo-kun."
"Hm?"
"Hinata Shoyo."
"...Yes?" Shoyo asks, suddenly nervous, because Atsumu doesn't really use his full name with that cadence unless he's going to say something very, very serious. Those eyes that look like they reflect the sun's rays into a glimmering pool stare back up at him. Trying to understand. "Atsumu-san, what is it?"
Miya Atsumu had a speech. After hour six of straight sleep, he wasn't able to do any more, and he had busied himself on the notes app of his phone, composing and editing and scrapping more notes of speech starters that just didn't feel right. Only when they had begun their descent into Rio did Atsumu finally find the words to say, and how to say it. He's written and re-written it so much that by the time he places the final dot on the final sentence, he's had it learned by heart.
But being faced by Hinata Shoyo right here, right now, in the flesh, all of the words fall away. His mind falls apart, and when the mind fails, his heart takes over and leads.
"I love you."
Three words. Plain and simple. He sees Shoyo's eyes widen at the sudden confession, sees his cheeks go red. "Atsumu-san--"
"I wanna be with ya, Shoyo-kun. I don't wanna wait for you to go back to Japan."
"It might take me another year --"
"And I'll love ya just the same," Atsumu insists, squeezing Shoyo's arms in encouragement. "Not once I've loved you less in the time we spent apart. I'm ready to commit... and... I somehow... hope that... you'd feel the same."
At this point, Atsumu can't even face him anymore. He's staring at a spot right above Shoyo's head, and he can't bring himself to look at him as the silence stretches after his confession.
But then, in a small voice, he hears Shoyo say, "I do."
"...Eh?"
"I do. Feel the same way," he mumbles, more into Atsumu's shirt since he's trying oh so hard to hide the fact that he's red-faced and blushing. Still, the tips of his ears give him away. "And... I really wanted to say this before I had to leave Japan, but I thought it would be cruel since I'd be leaving you...
...but I love you too, Atsumu-san. I really do."
Four words. Four sweet words that Atsumu has only ever dreamt of hearing from Hinata Shoyo, the man that he had been dating for years in a relationship he can't really put a label on.
Just as there's little to no space between their bodies now as opposed to their thousands of miles apart just two days ago, so is there little to no doubt that their feelings are reciprocated.
And in Rio de Janeiro, where the sun shines brighter and where Hinata Shoyo has shone the brightest, does Atsumu find the warmth and comfort and stability he had been looking for all his life, and seals it with a kiss while everyone else in the airport bore witness.