Chapter Text
Sakusa Kiyoomi has always had trouble sleeping. Ever since he was a kid. He never was able to sleep through the night as a baby, waking up every three to four hours. It continued into his childhood and his teens and got worse when he got to high school.
He was diagnosed with insomnia when he was twelve and given remedies to help it, but those often left him feeling drowsy and disoriented the next day.
Once he got to high school and became so widely known in volleyball, he knew he needed to get his sleep under control, and he did a really good job for a while. He practiced proper sleep hygiene, making sure he was always comfortable, clean, and relaxed for bed. He made sure all screens were off an hour before he went to bed at minimum. He took his medication like he was suppose to and took care of his overall well being.
He was doing good. He would only have one or two sleepless nights a week and those were usually manageable if he was able to use his free period to nap since he always stayed ahead on his class work.
Then he went to college and everything fell apart again. His coursework was much more difficult, he had to pull all nighters more often to study, and his sleep routine simply fell apart. His first year in university was one of the most difficult times of his life. He seriously regretted not going straight to the pro league out of high school. He was constantly exhausted and struggled more often than not. Though you’d never know by his grades or performance on the court. The only time anyone suspected something was wrong with Sakusa was when he accidentally snapped at one of his teammates more than usual.
His second year wasn’t any better. He still couldn’t maintain a healthy sleep schedule, even with his meds, he just couldn’t get the sleep he needed. He had tried everything. How that it was the summer before his final year of college, he was determined to find something to help him sleep. He had finally figured out what study habits work for him, he doesn’t need the all nighters anymore. He just needs to be able to sleep.
He was talking to Komori on the phone for their weekly FaceTime when Komori’s boyfriend, Suna Rintarou, joined the conversation.
“Have you ever tried listening to ASMR, Sakusa-kun?”
“What the hell is ASMR?”
“It is a type of sound and visual stimulation that makes you relax and makes you feel tired. I use it all the time on nights before games. There are like, thousands of YouTubers who do it”.
Sakusa considered this. He was willing to try basically anything at this point.
“I’ll have Toya send you over a few of my favorite videos. These are the ones I listened to when I first got into it. I won’t send you anything weird”.
Weird? How could sounds that are meant to be relaxing be weird? Sakusa didn’t even want to ask.
Only a minute later, a thread of video links came through his messages with his cousin. It was already late and he was ready to sleep so they hung up and he clicked on the first video.
The video was of a young woman, she was speaking English, but she was whispering into a microphone and it made Kiyoomi cringe. He immediately clicked out of it and went to the next video. Another woman, this time she was speaking but softly. He liked that even less than the whispering. He didn’t make it past her introduction.
By the fifth link he pressed from Komori, he was ready to give up. That was until he heard the soft whisper of a man. He spoke slowly and softly into a small handheld device with two microphones on the top that he called a tascam - Kiyoomi would have to look up what that is later - the mans voice was soothing and calm and he was speaking with a Kansai-ben dialect.
“Hi, everyone. Welcome back to my channel. It’s ASMR T-S-M-U here. On tonights video, I wanted to test out my new tascam microphone that was gifted to me. I figured we could do a mic test with some tapping, scratching, whispers and maybe a bit of mouth sounds if we’re feeling crazy”.
The creator didn’t show his face, he wore a mask and a black baseball cap, but he had really pretty brown eyes and a really soothing voice, Kiyoomi realized.
He watched the short video, only fifteen minutes, and by the end of it, realized he had been struggling to keep his eyes open. He felt like he was about to pass out then and there. He knew he shouldn’t sleep with his phone on the bed, so he turned the video off for the night and laid his phone down on his desk beside him before laying his head down to sleep.
As he started to doze off, he thought of that soft voice and those pretty hands tapping gently on the front of the little microphone box. He was curious to see what could come of this new discover.