Chapter Text
April 2019
Miya Atsumu : World ranking of 502nd. 0 Grand Slam titles. 0 weeks at world number 1.
Sakusa Kiyoomi : World ranking of 331st. 0 Grand Slam titles. 0 weeks at world number 1.
Head to head : Miya Atsumu 0 - 0 Sakusa Kiyoomi
---
Kiyoomi hates it here. It’s too warm, too bright and people are too loud. It’s Spain after all.
He’s sixteen, which means he has been traveling away from Tokyo and Japan to play professional tennis tournaments for nearly 2 years. He should be used to it, each week, a new tournament, a new town, a new culture, so far removed from his. But the truth is : he’s not. He misses Japan, especially the clean streets and the polite people. If he didn’t love playing tennis so damn much, he probably would have never left.
Or maybe he would have left anyway. Maybe it was better to leave to pursue your dreams of playing your favorite sport on the big stage than to leave because your parents have discovered that you are gay and they’re not happy with it. Nobody knows Kiyoomi’s…preferences but that does not prevent him from anxiously thinking about it every night in various hotel rooms.
This particular tournament is a Challenger. It’s the category just under the real thing, the ATP tour, the thing Kiyoomi has been dreaming of his whole life. It also means that the tournament is filled with both bright-eyed hopeful teenagers that see it as a stepping plate and 30-something veterans that rely on it to feed their family of four.
He knows that his next opponent belongs to the first category.
While wiping his brow with his neon-yellow wristband, Kiyoomi sits down on the bench that borders the practice court he had been playing on for the last 2 hours. Practice is officially over, his coach picking up cones right next to the net. After a quick cleaning of his screen, he starts to look up the opponent in question on his phone while stretching his left wrist. Kiyoomi is nothing if not thorough in his preparation.
Miya Atsumu, ranked 502nd in the world, the ATP website says. Next to the name, a little picture of a boy with brown hair and a big smile looks at him. Right-handed, two-handed backhand.
Kiyoomi has never played against Miya Atsumu but of course, he knows of him. Miya consistently performs great in the Junior circuit and even won the Junior Davis Cup for Japan with his twin. How can you not know the player that is known as the biggest prodigy of your own generation and who plays for the same country as you ? Kiyoomi looks at the ranking again and compares it with his own : 331st. He lets out a satisfied scoff. Who’s the prodigy now ?
A nugget of information displayed on the website attracts Kiyoomi’s eye. It’s in the “Personal details” category :
Born : Hyogo, Japan. Residence : Murcia, Spain. He immediately opens the Map application on his phone and is able to verify his suspicion. He knew that the Miya family relocated to Spain to allow their boys to train in the best conditions but he did not know that it would be so close to where he is currently standing. Maybe that Miya guy can even sleep at home tonight instead of in a stuffy hotel room, the lucky bastard.
“Worried about your next opponent ?” His coach is coming towards him, all the white cones having been retrieved from the red clay.
“Not really. If I believe the rankings, I should be okay.” He looks at his clay-stained white socks and frowns.
“I think you should be careful Kiyoomi, I’ve seen him play once when he was thirteen. He has crazy movement skills”
“So do I”
“Yeah, I know” His coach smiles, always looking between exasperation and fondness at the blunt confidence Kiyoomi often voices. “But it’s his first Challenger, that’s why he does not have a lot of points yet. You can believe me, I see the same potential in him that I saw in you. Oh and also, tomorrow be careful of his dropshots.”
After that, it’s all strategy and tactics for the match. The “Miya Atsumu” tab on Kiyoomi’s phone stays open as he leaves the court to go back to the hotel.
---
The next morning, he wakes up hungry for a win. Kiyoomi is not one to be over-confident. He perfectly knows his strength and his potential. He also knows he has an unconventional story in the tennis world, starting to train seriously only at 13 and choosing to entirely skip Juniors to enter directly in the professional circuit. It works, at least for him. He is serious and mature enough to face people twice his age.
He has time before his match at noon, so he chooses to stay in his room to re-read the last issue of Tennis Magazine. He contemplates the pictures and reads the interviews but he knows he still has a long way to go to make it in the pages. What would it feel like to fulfill his life-long dream of being World No.1 ? What would it be like to win a Grand Slam ? Would he cry ? Laugh ? Kiyoomi does not know and does not hope too much. Being 331st in the world at 16 is not a guarantee for anything. But he’s going to work for it anyway. Again and again. Tenaciously.
“Shit”. He has to get down to the stadium.
---
Kiyoomi arrives alone in the locker rooms. His coach is already heading to the player boxes in preparation for the match. He begins his meticulously prepared warming-up routine by a few rounds of stretches, followed by some cardio and then he opens his bag to fetch the kit chosen by his new sponsor. It’s when he is face down in his bag, in the middle of changing that he hears the telltale noise of the door opening followed by loud footsteps and equally as loud voices.
When Kiyoomi looks up the voices stop and he is met by two identical faces. Wait no, not identical, they have different colored hair. He recognizes the smile and the brown eyes and realizes that these are the infamous Miya twins, but with horrible dye-jobs. But in that case, which one is the one that he is supposed to play against in less than twenty minutes ?
The one that sports a nearly-full head of mustard-blonde hair offers his hand and says, in a very accented Japanese “Hi-ya, Miya Atsumu”. Well, that settles it.
“How did you know I even speak Japanese ? We currently are in the middle of Spain” counters Kiyoomi with a raised brow. He does not shake the hand offered to him.
“You think I’m stupid enough not to know who I’m fuckin’ playing against ?”
“Tsumu means ‘Nice to meet you’. I’m Osamu by the way.” interjects the other twin, Osamu seemingly. He is wearing a perfectly amicable smile while his brother is making a face that Kiyoomi cannot decipher. It’s probably not a positive one.
“Nice to meet you too, Osamu”.
This seems to make the blonde twin even grumpier. Osamu swiftly pushes him by the shoulders towards a bench on the opposite side of the locker room while Miya grumbles something that sounds suspiciously close to an indignant “And I don’t even get a hello ?”. Kiyoomi smiles.
Kiyoomi continues to change, his back turned to the bench where Miya is probably doing the same thing. Being a gay teenager playing professional tennis meant being somewhat desensitized to the sight of the male body but this time, while turning around to put his socks on, Kiyoomi cannot help to look at Miya’s shape. He’s a bit shorter than him but where Kiyoomi is thin and lanky, Miya is built with sturdy thighs and honestly impressive arms for a fifteen-year old. His tan skin is likely the consequence of hours and hours spent training under the southern Spain sun. You can still see a bit of acne on the apples of his cheeks, a youthful detail that contrasts with the broad shoulders that shake while laughing at something Osamu said.
Realizing he had been staring, Kiyoomi quickly shifts his gaze. He should really be more careful. He has a match to win, anyway.
---
Kiyoomi quickly realises that he should indeed have been worried. Miya is several months younger and ranked well below him but by the way he hits the ball in this first set you would not know it.
The pace is brutal. Miya’s forehand is an incredible weapon that pushes him to the back of the court, scrambling for purchase on the red clay. Sure, Kiyoomi is a hard-hitter, with an incredible power and spin in both his backhand and forehand but Miya is moving like no player Kiyoomi has ever faced before. He’s creative, hitting defensive passes from crazy positions but also attempting volleys, dropshots and all sorts of strokes that make the few Spanish people gathered in the audience “ooh” and “aah”. The public definitely takes a quick liking to the twin. One greatly-placed lob followed by a pumped arm and a “Vamos !!” is all it takes to make them jump out of their seat and chant “Miya ! Miya !”. Kiyoomi cannot fault them, the stuff they are seeing truly is compelling.
Miya wins the first set 6-3.
In the beginning of the second set, Kiyoomi starts to notice he has a slight advantage in terms of focus. Miya seems a bit distracted and starts making more errors. On the contrary, mental fortitude has always been one of Kiyoomi’s strength. From a very young age his coaches always praised him for his tenacity and right now seems like a good time to profit from it. He starts hitting harder, longer, tries different variations in zones and it works. Atsumu makes mistakes, not a lot, a line missed by a few centimeters here, a shot that’s a bit too weak there. But it’s enough.
When Kiyoomi is leading 5-3, he notices something odd. Just before serving, Miya’s tongue slightly peeks out of his mouth on the left side. The serve goes wide, with a lot of effect. On the next point, his tongue is visible on the right side. The serve lands right in the middle of the court.
Oh fuck yes, I’ve got him.
On a set point, Kiyoomi has an occasion to test his little theory. Just as Miya launches the ball into the air, Kiyoomi sees his tongue on the left. Quickly, he adjusts and just as he predicted, the ball goes wide and perfectly collides with Kiyoomi’s racket. He puts all his strength, all his body into it, angling the ball towards the net. It’s a return winner.
Kiyoomi wins the second set 6-3.
This new information turns out to be really useful in the third set since Miya who seems clearly vexed by the loss of the second set jumps back into the game with increased intensity and passion.
Right now, it’s a fight. Two gladiators in the arena, each of them refusing to bow down in the dirt. But in the end, Miya comes out on top. He’s more aggressive, makes less mistakes and has the ability to step up his level during the important moments.
At some point in the third set, Kiyoomi feels like he has to stop and watch. To observe the talent of this kid with awful blonde hair and muscular thighs who is running around the court grinning like a mad-man while also hitting incredible shots. It’s now incredibly clear he has charisma and he plays with the public in a way that should be cocky but is somehow charming. The crowd is pulled into the orbit of this prodigy when Kiyoomi can only look and try to resist the gravitational force.
In the stands, Miya Osamu is watching with a neutral expression on his face, as if this is just another day for him and his brother is not currently playing a level far above what a fifteen year-old should be able to do.
The last game is close. Miya is serving for the match and Kiyoomi uses his little tongue trick to the maximum of his ability, but in the end, Miya closes it out with a stunning dropshot that ends just after the net. Kiyoomi can only shake his head and scoff. What the hell was that just now ?
Miya wins the third set 6-3.
And thus, the match is over. It's clear, for somebody younger than him, Miya is just better. The descriptions of the prodigy he’s heard before were not exaggerated. He’s special, Kiyoomi's saw it with his own two eyes. There’s so much road left to the top but somehow, Kiyoomi is sure Miya will make it, one way or another. It would be absurd to think otherwise.
The reality should hurt and it does, but only a little. Seeing Miya so far ahead of him, so happy on the court, so communicative, it makes Kiyoomi want more.
He’ll never be like him, they have such different personalities and playstyles. Kiyoomi is calm, organised, closed, sometimes cold, hell, he’s been called a cyborg many times in his life. But right now, he wants. He’s not sure what he wants, after all, he’s only sixteen. Maybe right now he wants to smash his racket on the ground, maybe he wants to punch Miya in the face for beating him but this match made him ache for something more, and that’s a sentiment he has never felt before.
When he jogs to the net to shake hands with Miya, he finds him already waiting. He seems happy, relaxed, a complete opposite of his grumpy behavior from the locker room.
Instead of just shaking his hand, Miya puts his strong arm around Kiyoomi's shoulders and taps his chest with his free hand. The touch instantly burns through Kiyoomi’s shirt and his sweaty skin but he definitely does not that have time to think about that.
“Dang, ya had me scared for a little while there” Atsumu says with a little laugh. “You know how long it’s been since somebody my age took a set from me ?”
“No, I don’t”
“That was a rhetorical question Omi-Omi. It means it’s been a really long time.” Atsumu answers with a crooked grin and a tilt of his head.
“Omi-Omi ? What the fuck does that mean ?”
This time Kiyoomi is furiously whispering, hoping nobody can pick up on their conversation.
“Whatever Omi-Omi. See ya next time ! Somewhere else than a Challenger I hope !”
And then he leaves with a little wave and a wink. Kiyoomi stays there, dumbfounded while Miya is joined by his brother and the rest of his team, talking loudly about the paella restaurant they want to visit after that.
On that day, under the spring sun of Spain, Kiyoomi learns two things : Miya Atsumu is an infuriating piece of shit but he also is a very special tennis player and Sakusa Kiyoomi will do whatever it takes to play against him again.
---