Archive of Our Own ^beta

Things used to be simple. Or so Atsumu was told. 

They used to be straightforward when this whole thing started. One mark, one soulmate, one person for life. You found them, they loved you, and sure, sometimes they died before you found them but even that had its clarity. What mattered in the end was everyone deserved love and all you had to do, was wait. 

Some thought this limiting, a haunting reminder that your agency pales before the inexplicable red string of fate, coming to strangle you in the middle of the night. But what if I hate him? What if he chews loud, and farts, and wears shoes indoors? I am more complex than a dating profile! I contain multitudes that fate might overlook. 

Not Atsumu. For as long as he can remember, Atsumu was determined to love the ever-living fuck out of anyone fate destined for him. For they’d be his wholly and he’d be theirs fully, and the bloating in his chest, that growing balloon of need-want-must would ease, its air shared between two mouths.

“What am I supposed to do with this?” Atsumu asks his doctor, an older woman who specializes in “particularized” cases or what Atsumu calls the loners and the losers. He had met plenty of Nons but not many share his current affliction.

He rolls up his sleeve to reveal an arm littered from wrist to shoulder in a dozen or so tattoos, soul-marks, big and small, some detailed, others sketches, abandoned half-way through, but all equally valid.

“It’s... unusual.” Yeah, no shit. “Sometimes, it malfunctions.” 

Yeah. No shit.

“For some people, it’s harder.”

“Maybe you’re inherently unlovable,” Osamu taunts after the fifth mark surfaces, a crescent moon, and the occasion is more a running gag than something to worry over. 

The panic of the multiples has been medically put to rest. It’s a glitch, but not life-threatening. Amidst the confusion, Atsumu decides to make the best of his “disability” and twist it into something worth flaunting. Fate branded him a heartbreaker, and at fifteen, he lives up to the label.

“Wouldn’t he have no marks then?” Suna says, “And Nons find love.”

“Fate is like, well, shit,” Aran imitates, scratching his head. “I don’t know who deserves this evil child so lemme just throw everything at the wall and see what sticks.”

“No one does,” Osamu laughs. He tosses an arm around Atsumu’s shoulders and play-fights him. “It is too great a pain for one human to bear. Besides, Tsumu ain’t exactly settling. He’s too busy getting every girl in his class to sing his praises.”

Atsumu nudges him away with a practiced smile. “Don’t sound so jealous.”

“You know what they say, setters have magic fingers,” Aran jokes.

Osamu cringes, “Who says that?”

“Aren’t you gay?” Suna asks Atsumu underneath the jeering and laughter. “You shouldn’t force it.”

“Yeah,” Osamu interjects, “If you chilled a bit, things would happen.”

Osamu has Suna so he’ll never understand because for Osamu, it was simple. 

He got his budding-mark at eleven (a fox), matched Suna’s at fourteen (another fox) and they fell in strange, silent love, while Atsumu watched from the sidelines, too young to understand the extent of changes to come. 

They dated for months before Osamu proposed. On the court, of course, after a win and with the help of everyone. Suna said yes, and it was the first time Atsumu had seen him properly emote. The two of them together looked like kids playing house. Osamu moved out so Suna could move in. All before their high school graduation. 

Traditional, their mother called it. When two people are meant for each other, there is no reason to wait.   

Atsumu used to hate being around them, and still does occasionally, not that he can avoid it. They play on the same team, share the same friend-group. Osamu and Suna can’t “exist” without each other, and as much as Atsumu misses having his brother to himself, he has learned to make space for Suna to love him more, or “better.” 

On his most bitter days and because they spend a lot of them together, Atsumu wonders what it might be like to kiss Suna. They’re similar after all, Osamu and Atsumu, shared everything growing up, a fondness for high-stakes, their love for attention. 

Suna might want him just the same or not tell the difference. Atsumu finds himself fantasizing even as Suna has eyes for no one but Samu. He wonders if that’s part of the problem, his shameful thoughts, as new marks simmer to the surface.

Some marks are simple. Atsumu meets Sakusa Kiyoomi the morning after watching a fresh mark manifest. The two black dots on Atsumu’s ring finger are undeniably his.

Atsumu clings to them for months, the clarity, their placement, Kiyoomi’s own tat, not matching but relevant, grid-like like tiles—they meet in a bathroom their first game as second-years who’ll eventually inherit the Inarizaki vs Itachyama grudge.

When Kiyoomi looks at him, Atsumu’s stomach lurches and the balloon threatens to pop. When Kiyoomi talks to him, Atsumu imagines his dry voice when he dies, pleading for Atsumu to stay. 

Atsumu loves him like a first love, loves the tragedy of it all, the long-distance aches, missing him so much it hurts, crying when they fight, crying to make up, how sharp and fierce and necessary everything feels when it’s about them.

They have differences surely, and Kiyoomi is difficult about mostly everything. He doesn’t chew loudly, or fart, or wear shoes indoors but he’s particular in ways Atsumu never considered useful. Likes things squeaky clean and obsessively organized. Thrives in routines and enjoys being silent.

Three dates in, Atsumu says “I love you” and means it. 

Kiyoomi—who only recently accepted the notion of them together, forever, with a lifetime to navigate—stands to use the bathroom and never returns.

He texts Atsumu to tell him he left, he’s in a cab home, and he can’t do this. They’re breaking up. It’s over. Then, once there, takes the same cab back, kisses a frazzled Atsumu in the mouth, and they move past it. They have sex. 

If this is a test from the universe, Atsumu vows to ace it. After all, he had promised fate he would love anyone made for him and this was his chance to keep his word. Or else, or else. 

So he makes lists on his phone of things Kiyoomi likes and doesn’t, how he wants stuff done, what he loathes asking for, clean hands, kisses (lips dry, no tongue) space when they sleep. Two blankets, one just for him, for his face to tuck under. 

Atsumu loves him. With every detail he memorizes and every secret they share. He works and because of him, their relationship does, and Kiyoomi unfolds like a flower, wilting to spring blossoms in one night’s passing. 

Atsumu earns him.

“He ain’t right for you,” Osamu says, frosty since the introduction when Kiyoomi lingered on the handshake, giving Atsumu a look that spelled ‘save me.’ 

Osamu hardened instantly and none of Atsumu’s whispered requests: “Baby, please, make an effort with him, he’s my brother, please...” had done anything to thaw the tension. Kiyoomi bristled under judgment; Osamu judged him inadequate. 

“Love is supposed to be easy,” Osamu insists, “And you’re always bending over backward to make him happy.”

If Atsumu had known staying the night would mean them on the couch, deconstructing his relationship, he would have declined and gone home with Kiyoomi to gently fuck his brains out.

“How’s me wanting my boyfriend happy a bad thing? You always have some negative shit to say. It’s like you don’t want me happy.”

“Not true,” Osamu snaps, “Who’s been handling your freak-outs? Who d’you call when he breaks up with you and you lose your shit every other fuckin week?” Osamu rolls over on his stomach to look at him seriously. “I don’t want him hurting you.”

“He was nervous to meet you. You didn’t exactly help.”

“He’s,” Osamu gestures strangling the air. “I don’t like him. He’s too poshy.”

Atsumu rolls his eyes. “I don’t remember giving you an armchair critique on your choice of soulmate.”

“That’s ‘cause Rin and I never fight—”

“That’s weird!” Atsumu yells, “You’re weird, you’re supposed to argue, everyone argues! It’s normal to argue. It’s not normal to whatever you guys do.” 

Osamu kicks at him. “Don’t call my husband weird.” 

“I’m calling you weird.”

They both look at Suna, who raises his hands like ‘I’m not touching this with a ten-foot yardstick,’ and stands up to leave. “Kinda hungry all of a sudden.”

“What do you think?” Atsumu stops him, sulking. “You hate him too?”

Barring Osamu, Suna knows him best, has been around him the longest, and because Samu’s bristled by their innate sibling rivalry and his own claim over Atsumu’s time and attention, Suna’s probably more objective. 

“If he’s your soulmate,” Suna shrugs. Essentially the beginning and end of any relationship debate. Complete faith in the red string agenda. 

Kiyoomi has a soulmate.

It is not Atsumu.

Their breakup is matter-of-fact. Kiyoomi doesn’t cry. Atsumu does for both of them. Ugly, wet sobs, choking back snot. He screams and screams. Crumbles into himself. The neighbors must be terrified, the drama of it all!

“It’s not that I don’t love you,” Kiyoomi keeps repeating, “I love you, I love you.”

The first time he has said it, with the same mouthful of air he’s telling Atsumu it’s over for good, forever, done-done, not fake-done, no take-backs, no back-togethers. Kiyoomi is abandoning him. 

Atsumu doesn’t know where to put all his pain. There’s not enough space for it anywhere. It’s like a pipe inside of him has burst and he’s drowning from within. If he only breaks skin, it might leak out and he’d be saved.

“Are you sure?” He sobs, clutching at Kiyoomi’s shirt as Kiyoomi helps him off the floor and carries him to bed to fall apart some more. “How can you be sure? I’m sure about you. We were sure about this.”

“No. You were.”

He’s barely out of the building, a bag filled with forevers clutched safely in his chest, his lifejacket in an ocean of grief, when his phone rings. It’s Kiyoomi. 

“Baby,” Atsumu whines, pleading, begging, “Please don’t do this.”

Kiyoomi says nothing. He’s having a panic attack. 

Atsumu shoves aside all of his pain to talk him through it. “You’re okay, I love you, you’re okay, listen to my voice, you’re gonna be fine, I’m right here, I got you, nothing will ever happen to you as long as I’m alive, I got you.”

Hearing Kiyoomi suffer for every breath seeds in Atsumu a rage for the world capable of shredding it to pieces. It’s not that he’s foolish, they’re both in pain wanting this—how can it be fair to not take that into account when making these decisions, how can it not matter in the scope of things, how hard they’re trying, how bad they want it, is it not enough to want it?

Kita’s the first to know of his relationship ending. He takes one good look at Atsumu, eyes puffy, hand bleeding all over the hallway and pieces it together without having to ask. 

It’s late, too late for a casual visit, too big of a burden to place on someone who’s mostly just his captain, but Atsumu has nowhere else to go. He can’t face Osamu and sleeping at home would mean looking at the parts of his room Kiyoomi has touched and rearranged. Someone’s going to have to clean the blood off the kitchen counter. His mom will be furious. 

“Cry,” Kita tells him, holding a cold towel to his hand. Atsumu’s numb, knows he’s dissociating when Kita gently reprimands, “Stop thanking me, it’s okay. You’ll be fine.” 

His ring finger is smashed, bruised but not broken, looks worse than it feels, and it feels terrible. He can’t play for a week, maybe two, depending on how well he cares for it or if he’s inclined to hurt himself further—that’s the underlying message no one dares bring up. Osamu’s worried, Suna’s worried, the coach is worried, Kita too, but he handles himself better and keeps a straight face when Atsumu falls apart at the slightest nuisance.

“You’ve always been so fucking dramatic,“ Osamu teases, “You self-obsessed asshole. I can set too, you know? We’re fine without you.”

Atsumu appreciates the jabs. It’d have been worse if Osamu walked on eggshells. He expects the smugness too, the I-told-you-so to come, the trust-me-I’m-your-brother, I-know-you-I’m-your-brother. He’ll learn to be okay with it, like he learned to laugh and accept everything else life has thrown him. Expect heartache, his doctor had told him. He’ll laugh at that too. 

In some future wedding toast, they’ll croon at how hard Atsumu fell for someone else’s soulmate. Ushijima’s soulmate. Clerically, it makes sense. Someone ultra-talented like Kiyoomi deserves someone ultra-talented like Ushiwaka, someone strong and confident, who doesn’t cry and need pity hugs. Atsumu’s pathetic to have tried. Regrets nothing. He’d do it all again, try harder, so hard he’d break this whole system to be with that bitch boy. 

“Stop talking about him like that,” Osamu says. 

“Like what?”

“Like you don’t hate him.”

“I don’t. I love him.” Osamu’s face says it all. “I ain’t gonna stop loving him like a light-switch just ‘cause some asshole up there day-drinks at work and fucked up his one job. Die mad about it.”

In some secret meeting, Atsumu’s not invited to pitch in, the team must have agreed he can’t be trusted alone because he has a chaperone everywhere, including jogging and the bathroom. Osamu wants him to stay over or he’ll tell mom, who’s blissfully unaware and asking Atsumu when “that pretty boy” will come over for dinner.

Osamu sleeps in the pull-out couch, curled up against Atsumu like they did when they were kids. Night after sweaty night of Osamu jolting awake every time Atsumu scrambles out of bed to use the bathroom.

“Wasn’t trying to hurt myself,” Atsumu mumbles one night, when they’ve gone through their usual routine of wrestling each other for the wall-side and whining over the knots they’re getting, sleeping on this shoddy setup. 

“I’m not a crazy person. You can relax.” 

Osamu huffs self-consciously. “I know that.” 

“Then stop suicide-watching me.”

”I’m not.” 

The last time they had a brotherly-talk with actual vulnerability was a year ago when Osamu had gotten drunk and confessed he felt weird about getting married and guilty saying it out loud. That nothing would be the same and he wanted to be young and free and alone with Atsumu to take over the world. “Before you know it, he’ll be your world,” Atsumu had advised.

“I wanted an excuse not to see it,” Atsumu admits.

He remembers that night in sharp fragments, some of which—the artery-grazing ones right next to his soul—he has yet to pull out. Getting home, getting trashed, trashing his room, punching at himself, scratching, the meat tenderizer in his shaking hand, fingers splayed on the counter.

Four times, he’d done it. 

Osamu grabs at his hand. His finger is all but healed, bloody bandages replaced with sports tape. Aran calls it his mood ring, his theory being the color of the wrap is in direct correlation with Atsumu’s feelings. Red = pissy, green = tired, blue = sad. Yellow means good. Because they all know, yellow means him.

“We can cut it off?” Osamu suggests, wincing immediately.

“I didn’t,” Atsumu chuckles, “I can’t exactly go pro with nine fingers.”

Osamu’s expression grows serious. “If you go pro, when, he might be there.”

“He will be I’ve no doubt. He’s better than me. He’s ranked. One of the top aces, you should see him spike—” 

“It won’t matter,” Osamu stops him, “Cause you’ll have your soulmate and trust me when I say, you will never think of him again. He’ll be just some dude.” My first love. “You’ll cringe at this.”

Atsumu doesn’t believe him but smiles. “I already do.”

“You can stay with me for a bit,” Kita suggests.

They sit outside on the grass, sharing Kita’s lunch, or Kita’s pretending to, taking one or two bites before letting Atsumu wolf down the rest. It’s not that Atsumu’s too depressed to eat. Osamu cooks for both. He just loves eating and Kita must have noticed. Like he has noticed Atsumu’s miserable with Osamu. They’ve barely slept in three weeks. 

Atsumu flushes, “I couldn’t. I’ve already burdened you too much.” 

They haven’t talked about that night, nor the morning after when Atsumu woke up in an unfamiliar room, groggy, voice gone, and snuck himself under the covers to cry on Kita’s chest. Kita had held him so, so tight. If Atsumu wasn’t broken, he’d have shattered right there in his arms.

“Nonsense.” Kita claps him on the back, leaving no room for refusal. “Do it for Suna. So he can have his husband back. I think the lack of... quality time is making them grumpy.”

Atsumu laughs. He’s not wrong. 

“I... really couldn’t,” he shakes his head. “I’ll go home. I’m okay, don’t worry about me, Kita-san. I’m gonna pull through for the team. It was a lapse.” 

“Do it for me then,” Kita says, “I liked having you around.”

“No, you fucking didn’t,” Atsumu snorts, but he can’t help but smile because only Kita would pretend to want to watch your cry your brains out so you can feel less guilty doing it in his strong, capable arms. 

Kita’s smiles are so certain. Like truth. So sweet. “I’d love it if you stayed.” 

He must feel Atsumu wavering, wanting badly to say yes, because he makes it easier for Atsumu to allow himself to. “We’d be even, you know, if you did me this favor.” 

Atsumu looks down at his half-eaten rice. “How’s that a favor though?”

“You would be the kind of man to make me beg,” Kita says at no one, at the sun. He stands up before Atsumu has mustered up the performance needed to convince him he can’t. When he wants to. But he can't. 

Kita pushes back his hair. “I’ll see you tonight.”

Days with Kita are some of his best, long the same way summer memories imprint in your mind as endless strips of sepia-colored film, serrated by the occasional blackout and nights you miss before they’ve even ended.

Kita’s a Non. He never had a mark or wanted one to start with, thought them childish and inconvenient, borderline non-consensual, much to Osamu and Suna’s annoyance. 

Atsumu has known him for years. If they were soulmates, it would have happened, so they’re not... and that’s precisely why Atsumu has never considered him before and is kissing him currently, lips wet with beer. 

Fuck fate, fuck marks, fuck falling for a person because some entity tells you to only to take it back when you’ve made it your core. When he straddles Kita against the couch, it’s because he wants to. When Kita kisses back, Atsumu knows he can never lose him.

They don’t “date.” No labels. Kita won’t allow it. It’s too soon after and Atsumu’s still raw, on-and-off suffering. Missing him with every good memory in his body. 

It’s the sweet ones that prevail—the fights first sacrificed. Warm baths, warm breaths, those cloudy, Sunday mornings when they’d wake up next to each other with no other engagements, and Atsumu would count the moles on his back, until he flipped around sleepily, smiled and said, “Kiss me.”

They don’t date but they go on dates. Kita shows him new places, places close to his heart. Atsumu inhales him. Days with Kita are days where everything is possible once again, and Atsumu falls in love with that first. 

“I can’t wait for you to fuck off,” Osamu snarls at Kita when he finds out, courtesy of a badly-covered hickey. He stomps out mid-practice, a deeply-embarrassed Suna in tow, bowing all the way to the door. 

“Stop it,” Kita chastises Atsumu’s eye-roll. “He’s right.”

And yet, Kita indulges him. He holds him at night and talks him to sleep, cooks him meals, teaches him to help, to let go, to scream at the top of his lungs in some faraway field where it’s just them, the sun and the world. 

He shields Atsumu from questions on the court, the doubt of what they’re doing, what indeed, and does it all without pushing Atsumu to get over it. Cry, he says when Kiyoomi uploads a picture with his soulmate and Atsumu’s forced to admit just how well their lines match up when they hold hands, one perfect grid,  a map across two bodies. 

Atsumu misses those hands, those fingers on his thighs, spreading him apart, gagging him for words. He misses kissing them each morning when Kiyoomi would push his smile away, whining about morning breath and holding back laughter. 

The mentality among mark-believers has always been one of easy shedding. You realize someone’s yours, you fall for them instantly and forever. You find out they aren’t, immediately let go. It burns to hold on. It’s magic to let go. How deep can unmarked love be anyway? Atsumu should be done. 

“It’s not your fault he didn’t choose you,” Kita tells him.

“He has a soulmate.”

“He could still choose you...” His knuckles graze Atsumu’s jawline, cupping his cheek, pulling him into a kiss. “Nothing in life is off-limits when you want it bad enough. You just gotta do it.” 

It’s a foreign concept Atsumu isn’t sure helps him cope. To stop loving Kiyoomi, he needs to not have him. Kita tells him he could. Kita wants him to choose, choose him, not Kiyoomi. Atsumu has, but what was really the choice? To love or be loved?

Osamu thinks Kita’s being cruel. Atsumu’s fragile, an open wound, and Kita’s profiting from his confusion. Never mind Atsumu telling him he’s not a helpless child or mentally incapable of making decisions for himself. (Osamu: “Yeah, not very good ones.”) 

It’s one thing for Kita to stray, another to drag poor, little, “suicidal” Atsumu into his philosophy of heartbreak and chaos. (“Not having his mark got you here. Didn’t you suffer enough? You wanna fall in love with another asshole who’ll drop you?”) Never mind it’s Kita they’re talking about. 

Kita, who despite being only a year older, has, on more than one occasion, acted as their protector, their guardian, Osamu’s rock, the person he went to for relationship advice. Now has overnight turned into some overnight man-whore, on a mission to crush what’s left of Atsumu’s emotional stability. 

“He’s a predator,” Osamu rants at their weekly dinner. “He’s preying on you—”

“No, he’s not!” Suna slams his hand on the table. “Can you calm the fuck down and stop being such an annoying, fucking dipshit?”

Osamu flinches. Atsumu inhales a rice-grain and chokes for survival and comic effect, knocking his fist against his ribcage. Osamu and Suna manage to glare at each other the entire coughing spree. 

“I don’t wanna do this every time I’m here, guys,” Atsumu gasps, gulping down the rest of his wine and reaching for the bottle.

“Apolog—”

“No,” Suna says stubbornly.

Atsumu looks between the two over the rim of his glass. Osamu’s biting his cheek, which he does when he’s beyond pissed, lethal. Atsumu has been on the other side of a few of those and didn’t come out unscathed. Suna eats, as if he doesn’t care that Osamu’s leg bouncing up and down is shaking the whole table. 

“Apologize for calling me names,” Osamu repeats icily.

Atsumu picks invisible lint off his lap, wonders if it’d be too obvious to reach for his phone, has half a mind to start whistling to remind them he’s in the room, and this (incoming divorce settlement) isn’t something he should be part of. 

“No,” Suna spells out, “Dipshit.”  

Atsumu stays the night (to protect them from each other) despite wanting nothing more than to grab his jacket and sprint into the night as soon as Suna stands and flashes Osamu the middle finger, slamming every door between the kitchen and the bedroom. Atsumu yanks Osamu back on the chair when he jumps up to follow. 

They finish the food in silence. Then wash the dishes and straighten up the room. Osamu hands him pajamas. He’s shaking. Atsumu feels like he witnessed something he was never meant to know, though of course, they’d fight, everyone fights. 

But the viciousness of it... flying off the handle at the brush of a nerve, that pent-up, razor-thin, targeted spite, familiar enough to make Atsumu recoil—I hate you, Kiyoomi would lash out, I hate how you speak to me, you make me feel fucked in the head, you gaslight me, you abuser! Knowing just how to hurt him.

It’s Suna, who joins him on the pull-out couch. Atsumu’s busy texting Kita warnings to avoid Osamu for the rest of the week (or life) when he hears someone pad towards him in the dark. 

Suna pulls the covers up and crawls next to him. In the tight space of the couch, with no boundaries between them, Atsumu can feel everything... fingers on his shirt, his sniffles, his heartbeats, he’s swallowing back tears. 

He wishes, again, to disappear. “You okay?” He asks.

Suna sighs shakily. “Fuck,” he choke-laughs.

Atsumu laughs with him. “Yeahhh...” It’s awkward between them. Atsumu sits up on his butt. “I can sleep with him. You can have the couch. I was starting to miss hearing him snore anywa—” Suna yanks him down by his shirt. “Um?”

“Just,” Suna mumbles, looking ashamed. Atsumu has to strain his ears to hear above his own panicked heartbeat. “I can’t sleep without him,” Suna confesses, forcing another chuckle, “I miss him too much.” Atsumu laughs out of sheer relief. 

“I’m being petty, I know, but...” he half-shrugs.

“You’re gonna go back, got it,” Atsumu helps, “Good, that’s good.”

They stare at the ceiling, shoulder to shoulder. Atsumu opens his mouth to speak but Suna beats him to it. 

“We do fight,” he says, “Since you seem to think we don’t.”

Atsumu would be an ass to remind him it’s Osamu, who thinks that. He doesn’t need to be a twin with a special mental link to know Osamu’s in pain. He’s terrible with conflict, would burst into tears when their parents fought, have baby panic attacks until Atsumu touched his face and calmed him. The divorce was rough.

“He doesn’t mean it. He loves Kita. He’s trying to protect me because I fucked up last time and... He’s scared I’m gonna do it again. I suck for putting that on him. On both of you.”

“I know,” Suna says.

Atsumu wets his mouth, has his eyes squeezed shut when he blurts. “He’s... Our dad, the insults, he called us names—”

“I know, Tsumu.”

Atsumu lets out the breath he’d been holding. He rubs his hands on his face. “Are you guys gonna be okay?”

“Always.” 

Atsumu exhales, “Thank fuck. I don’t think I can lose another set of parents.”

Suna punches him on the side. “The thing about marks, why he pushes them so hard, is you know this is your person, and just that lets you overcome everything. Because you can compromise, and talk, and love your way through problems when you’re essentially stuck with this person for life.”

‘Stuck’ isn’t a romantic word. ‘Choose’ is. ‘Fight for’ is. ‘Need’ and ‘want’ and and ‘die for’. 

“Like you and Samu,” Suna says, “You can fight and disagree, but at the end of the day, what choice do you have but to love him unconditionally and forgive him. Learn to be better for him, and he for you? Marks are like blood. Takes a lot to break them. Certainly more than the idea of another person coming along.”

“You’re being ridiculous,” Atsumu says on their way to school the next day. “You don’t think he cares about me? About both of us?”

“I think he cares, I think he loves you,” Osamu says, “Didn’t poodle-face-Sakusa?” Atsumu sulks. “Do you love him?” Osamu asks, “Do you know how long he’s loved you for?”

“Could you live with that?” Kita asks, fingers combing through Atsumu’s hair. 

In their months together, Atsumu discovers he loves having his hair played with. He loves a lot of things he’d been missing: physical validation, being eaten out, hours lazing in bed swapping spit, kissing and caressing, nosing at cheeks, Kita’s weight on his chest after a grueling practice where they can’t be fucked to shower, spending so much time with a person they become your usual.

“Without,” Kita elaborates, “Could you live without the certainty of a mark? With only your feelings to confirm it?”

“How do you know you’ll never get one?” Atsumu asks.

“I don’t want one.”

“So?” Atsumu snorts, “It’s not like you can decide.”

“I can,” Kita smiles, “I know myself best. I think the universe must know that too because it’s not exactly testing me, is it?”

He stretches his arms up towards the ceiling for Atsumu to see. Soft, pale, luminescent skin—a stark contrast to Atsumu’s graffitied limbs, marks in the twenties, dark, angry, now on both sides. Atsumu lays his arm on top of Kita’s and threads their fingers, bringing their hands close to his chest, against his heart.

“Do you love me?”

Kita hesitates. “Close your eyes.”

Atsumu does. Kita rolls him on his back to move from under him. Atsumu stretches starfish on the bed, wiggling his toes in anticipation. “What will you do to me, Kita-san?”

Kita’s weight lifts off the mattress and he rummages through drawers, shoving things around. Atsumu’s tempted to peek. “Don’t cheat, sweetness,” Kita says.

Atsumu squeezes his eyes shut. The bed dips and Kita’s warmth settles next to him. His lips tickle Atsumu’s nose. He kisses smiles all over Atsumu’s face. Atsumu grabs his shirt and pulls him into a real one, tongue grazing the inside of his mouth.

“Now?” 

“Not yet.”

Kita’s fingers slide down his arm, barely touching, making all of his hair rise up. He wraps his hand around Atsumu’s wrist. Something wet and scratchy slides across his flesh, the tip of a marker. “Not yet,” Kita reminds him. Atsumu stays very still, guessing, grinning wide enough to break his face. 

“Open, darling,” Kita murmurs. 

Atsumu looks into his eyes first for they’re right above him, shimmering gold, the sun endlessly setting for Atsumu to witness. Kita smiles down at him. He’s holding a sharpie. When Atsumu glances at his arm, he sees a giant, black heart scribbled in between his other tattoos. His heart sobs. 

Kita blushes, “Is it any realer now?”

“You’re unoriginal,” Atsumu teases, voice gushy.

“I’m not an artist,” Kita defends, blushing deeper. “Or I’d have given you something beautiful. Like you.”

Atsumu shudders. He runs his fingers on top and some of the ink lifts off, staining his pads. He smirks, springing up and reaching to swipe at Kita’s lips. Kita fights until Atsumu overpowers him with his size, squishing him against the mattress between his knees. He uncaps the sharpie with his pointy teeth. 

“I’m gonna fuck you up,” he threatens.

Kita laughs. “Go ham.”

They scribble all over each other, flowers, stars, volleyballs, dicks... stripping clothes for more canvas and blurring lines, skin against skin when they make love on the blemished sheets. Kita rocks into him ever so gently, stretching him, pulling, worshipping his body, capturing the gasps off his lips. Atsumu’s chock full of him and his adoration. He’s complete.

The drawings take weeks to wash away fully, not that Atsumu’s in a hurry to scrub them off. The smile on his face is as permanent as the marker.

Osamu drags his feet all the way there. Suna has to physically pull him the last few steps. When he stands before Kita and Atsumu, their hands currently filled with jerseys and cones, he flushes red and bows. 

“I’m sorry for disrespecting you. I shouldn’t have said what I did. I lost my temper and it was wrong of me,” he mumbles, “But—” He tries to straighten, only to have Suna shove his head back down. Atsumu bites back a giggle. Osamu sighs, letting his hands hang loose. “Just... please take care of him.”

Atsumu’s almost touched. For Osamu to fold, things must be changing for the better. He must recognize and feel how happy Atsumu is. Kita ruffles Osamu’s hair and accepts his apology. 

After, Atsumu watches Suna cradle a sulky Osamu against his body, showering him with love and praise, and remembers his words, how they make each other better. Unconditionally. He remembers Kita’s too, his question, is feeling enough?

As if sensing Atsumu stretching their ties to a fraying point, Kiyoomi calls in the middle of a random night, startling them both awake. Atsumu looks at his phone, then Kita, not knowing what to do. He’s drowsy with sleep (and hope!) and fear that makes him nauseous. 

The name on the screen reminds him he never bothered to change it. Kiyoomi continues to be his “pretty baby”. Atsumu is not sure if he should be horrified or glad to have never thought of looking for it. 

“Go ahead,” Kita ushers. 

Atsumu thanks him and thanks the phone for continuing to ring. He curls into himself, tucking the device against his ear. 

“Hey, can you breathe?”

Kiyoomi sounds the same: “Yeah... are you okay?” 

“Mhmm, you?”

“Yeah.”

Their last words were over the phone. These are not much better but they can at least replace the sound of Kiyoomi gasping and whimpering in the depths of Atsumu’s nightmares. Losing him over and over again and waking up face soaked, Omi’s name on his tongue. Kiyoomi’s okay. He’s safe. 

When Atsumu slides the phone on bedside-table to cuddle back against Kita, his heart thrums awakened. He digs his face into the pillow, smiles, knows he won’t be able to sleep, buzzing in adrenaline. 

“I can feel you judging me.”

“Not judging,” Kita says, “Worrying.”

He hugs Atsumu to himself and tucks his face in Atsumu’s back, ready to let it go. Atsumu owes him an explanation.

“He gets anxious. And feels compelled to do something about it.”

“What’s he anxious about?” Kita hums.

“Many things. Me. Something happening to me. When it’s like this, at night, he thinks something might happen to me and panics about,” Atsumu swallows the lump forming in his throat. “Last words and stuff. If I reassure him, he’ll go back to sleep. He can’t control it and I don’t want him to suffer.”

“You must be very important to him,” Kita says, and he doesn’t sound jealous. 

Atsumu shouldn’t want him to be. 

Kiyoomi keeps calling, always at night, until Atsumu loses his patience.

“Don’t you have a fucking soulmate to do this to?!” He screams into the phone.

“Sorry,” Kiyoomi says and it’s the last Atsumu hears of him.

Until the camp. 

“You’re going,” Kita says, “You love volleyball. You want to make it a career. There’s no question you’re going to attend and show them all you can do. I’m telling you, as your captain, that you’re going.”

Atsumu cracks a smile. “What about, as my boyfriend?” 

Things had been good between them. The label was in question. A possibility. Kita no longer corrected him when Atsumu slipped up. Privately, to himself, smiled hearing it. Osamu too had been quiet. 

If he stayed, he’d move forward. If he went, he’d slide back. 

“As your boyfriend, I’d want you to be sure.”

Atsumu tries bravely to avoid him. He keeps his head down, eyes on the floor or across the net, thinks of everyone as nothing but players, teammates, tools. When they’re on the court, pawns, setups, weapons to use, and coordinate. 

He’s here with a goal, to be a better volleyball player. 

Sakusa is one of many hitters he’ll set for and block against. That’s it. Some dude. A stranger. They dated when they were children! Sakusa has grown up. He’s probably due to get married. Atsumu’s no longer pathetic. He’s Kita’s boyfriend, Kita’s darling and sweetness, Kita’s love. 

There’s no reason they can’t work together. As weapons.

But all the rationalizing in the world doesn’t help the fact that the minute they lock eyes in the hallway, Kiyoomi whispers, “Tsumu.” 

...and Atsumu opens his arms to receive him without question. Kiyoomi tackles him into a hug, pressing against him, thigh to chest, when he can’t bear to touch anyone else. He’s still safe with Atsumu, still okay lowering his mask and tucking against his neck, breathing against his breaths. 

So much has changed and yet it’s changed nothing.

“No one has ever loved me like you loved me,” Kiyoomi confesses. 

They sit in the cafeteria long-closed, the only two in a room of echoes. During the day they eat with separate friend groups but the nights are impossible. With no games or practice, and most people passed out, like planets, they gravitate towards each other. 

Atsumu gulps down tears of exhaustion and reaches for his hand, pressing on the beauty mark in between his thumb and his pointer. Kiyoomi wrings his hands so frequently, few know it’s there. Many dreams have been of this, touching him, tracing his flaws.

His voice cracks when he asks, “Does he love you good?”

“He’s my soulmate,” Kiyoomi says, “I can’t imagine life without him.”

“Right.” 

Atsumu retrieves his hand but Kiyoomi chases for it, grabbing onto his forearm. Their foreheads almost knock into each other with the proximity. Atsumu can smell his shampoo. He shouldn’t have come. Not at the camp, not here when Kiyoomi had asked if they could talk and without missing a beat, Atsumu had said: “Always.” 

“It’s new,” Kiyoomi points out, thumb on the blazing red, crown and cloak mark tucked in the crook of Atsumu’s elbow. 

The most intense and detailed of all his tattoos, sticker-like in quality. Atsumu nods, choking on a smile because it shouldn’t be this endearing that Kiyoomi remembers when Atsumu himself has stopped giving a fuck since Kita. Kiyoomi knows him better than he knows himself, and vice versa. They’ve studied each other, committed to being in love. It might not have been easy but it was real.

Kiyoomi presses harder, manicured nails dipping into his skin, as shadows dance across his face with the furrowing of his brows. He’s annoyed, Atsumu reads, but nervous about it. Something’s bothering him that shouldn’t and he’s furious it does. He was always too proud to admit the human side of his emotions, the jealousies, the weakness. Atsumu remembers the first time Kiyoomi had asked: “Do you find me attractive?”  

“I won’t be angry,” Atsumu reassures him. You can tell me anything, is the unspoken sentiment, which usually calms Kiyoomi down but not this time. He frowns harder, averts his eyes. Maybe Atsumu is being ‘too much’ again. You suffocate me, you micromanage me, you’re worse than my sickness, you make me sick.

“Kageyama,” Kiyoomi whispers finally, “The other setter. Karasuno’s setter.”

“What about him?” Atsumu asks.

Kiyoomi clicks his tongue. “He used to go by the nickname ‘king of the court’ back in middle school...” He shrugs. “And this...” He taps on Atsumu’s skin. “Is probably his mark.” The grip on Atsumu’s arm is tight enough to make his fingers pale. Atsumu says nothing of it. 

“He’s probably your soulmate,” Kiyoomi mumbles, adding a jilted: “Figures.”

Kageyama? Atsumu had noticed him in practice. Everyone had. He was new, a first-year. They’d spoken a few times. Atsumu teased him a bit, as Kageyama blinked back, perpetually lost. He had the bluest blue eyes. But there was nothing grand about their meeting, reminiscent of Atsumu’s other attempts. The orchestra had skipped, no cherubs or doves, no fireworks for display. Kageyama brushed against him and was just another body. 

“I always thought it’d be an ace who got to have you,” Kiyoomi says, curling his shoulders in—his shell—he’s mortified with himself. 

He had said this many times in their relationship. “You’re an ace,” Atsumu would remind him, and Kiyoomi would smirk and say, “That’s why you’re mine, baby.” 

“It’s weird that he’s a setter like you,” Kiyoomi decides. The pout looks soft on his face. He wears everything well, even unmerited jealousy. If he had his mask on, Atsumu might have missed it but Kiyoomi wants him to see. 

Atsumu touches one of his curls and tucks it behind his ear. With his hand so close to Kiyoomi’s forehead, the matching dots make his heart leap like the first time he noticed. Why not, he wonders, having run out of what-ifs.  

“It’s a good guess,” Atsumu says, leaning over to plant a chaste kiss on Kiyoomi’s forehead before standing up to head to bed. Kiyoomi lets his arm slip away. Atsumu wishes he wouldn’t, wishes he would stop wishing for things that hurt him. 

“You won’t do anything about it?” Kiyoomi asks, hopeful. 

“No.” 

Kageyama is a prodigy. He’ll go far in his career, likely surpass Atsumu himself, or they’ll be great rivals that bring out the best in each other. They were all chosen to be there but Kageyama has that thing about him, the whiff of a winner. 

Atsumu sees him set and the professional jealousy that carves him inside is surprisingly missing. He’s kind of... proud. Maybe Kiyoomi is right, and this is meant to be his boy. It’s certainly a softer warmth—Kiyoomi scorched him—but maybe that’s what love is all about. 

“It’s not this,” Suna once told him, mimicking a jagged mountain range of steep ups and deep downs. “It’s this,” he’d said making his finger flat-line along the horizon. “That’s real love.” Looks fucking dead, Atsumu used to think. 

At lunch, Atsumu sits alone. Kageyama seeks him out. His tray of food shakes in his fingers, as he asks to eat with Atsumu and tucks right next to him in a table with plenty of empty seats. Atsumu suspects rumors of his mark have circulated because in between bites, he can feel Kageyama’s eyes on him, searching.

“Miya-san... I like how you set,” is Kageyama’s style of conversation.

“You’re good too. For a first-year,” Atsumu returns the compliment with a wink that has Kageyama bubbling his water.

They talk volleyball to pass time. Atsumu leads, guides him, asks about Karasuno’s sudden success, how they beat Ushijima. It must have been great to witness. He owes them a big thank you for knocking Shiratorizawa out of the running and subsequently, Atsumu’s near-future. Perhaps Atsumu would have fought him if he had seen him at Nationals. Ushijima had done nothing wrong, been extra respectful of the situation. Still, Atsumu hates him.

“We have a strong team,” Kageyama brags, “You can meet them if you want.”

A little quick for family visits but Atsumu admires his guts. More so when Kageyama reaches out and lays his hand on Atsumu’s forearm. It’s so un-casual, he’s so awkward, that Atsumu finds it sweet. He has never been pursued by someone this unconfident in what they’re doing and the fact that Kageyama is sucking it up and doing it anyway... he’s impossible not to root for.

“I’m sure we’ll play each other if you say you’re that good,” Atsumu says, standing to clear his plate. 

They’ve yet to talk about the obvious and Atsumu wonders if Kageyama will be brave once more, thinks it sadistic to keep expecting him to. 

“I...” Kageyama starts, stopping him. “...don’t know how to do anything. I don’t know if I’m supposed to ask you out or how to do that,” Kageyama grumbles.

Atsumu smiles and slumps back on his seat. 

It’s not unusual for kids to be taught at a young age that they should make a move the minute they see the mark matching. It’s the “right” and “good” thing to do, the “manly” thing to do. If you don’t, you’re a coward and you’ll miss out. What’s the fear? They’re your soulmate! They can’t really reject you.

“I like eating in restaurants,” Kageyama tries, “We could go eat somewhere after this week? Like a date, I mean.”

“You’re cute,” Atsumu says, “Very cute, I’m very flattered. But I’m seeing someone and my ex is right there,” Atsumu gestures without looking in the direction where the invisible daggers are lodging into his back. “Bad timing?” He shrugs.

“But, soulmates?” Kageyama argues, confused. 

“I know,” Atsumu interrupts, “I know.”  

Kiyoomi is restless the remainder of the day. Atsumu knows he’s being looked at with the scrutiny of a cop gathering evidence or perhaps planting it to make his problems go away faster. 

Kageyama isn’t the type to give up and his efforts to get Atsumu’s attention are never subtle. During a spike Atsumu sets for him, his shirt flutters up and Atsumu sees it—the bright, brilliant crown, stamped on his flat belly, circling his bellybutton. A match, for certain! He misses the blocked ball retrieval, too gawked at the sight. 

“I’m sorry, I’ll try harder,” Kageyama apologizes, bowing. 

Atsumu’s reeling. “No, it’s my bad, baby,” he slips, and every player in Japan has a reaction to it. Kiyoomi cracks half his knuckles in one go. Kageyama boils.

(Everyone but Atsumu himself.)

“Maybe you’ll start sucking and we won’t have to do this ever again,” Kiyoomi jeers before a three-on-three, where Komori’s left defusing the tension between the two. 

“You mean, you hope,” Atsumu says.

Later that night, Atsumu holds him in his lap and accuses him of being selfish.

“I told you, didn’t I?” Kiyoomi snaps, nestled against Atsumu’s chest without regard that he’s grown taller in their time apart and is now the bigger of the two, crushing Atsumu with his put-on muscle weight. Ushijima must have him on a workout regimen. You have literally and physically outgrown me, Atsumu thinks, but you’re still my baby.

“I want that for you. I want you to find your soulmate.”

“Well, I wanted you,” Atsumu mumbles against his shoulder, swinging them back and forth on the tire-swing, surprised it hasn’t given up yet with two grown men abusing it. 

It’s Kiyoomi who found the playground and dragged Atsumu from a night of troubled sleep to show him. They sprint through rained streets, race across the monkey bars, and get stuck in the tube slide before testing out the swing.

“Why?” Kiyoomi asks, swaying his legs. “I know your brother hates me.”

“So? Are you dating him or me?”

“Neither,” Kiyoomi reminds him.

He leans back to look at the sky, almost collapsing their balance and dropping them on the wet ground. Atsumu reaches for the structure to hold them upright. His other hand circles Kiyoomi and lays on his lap, caged inside Kiyoomi’s fingers. 

It’s painfully familiar, very much pushing it. If Kiyoomi had done this with someone while they were dating, Atsumu would be broken. If Atsumu had, Kiyoomi would have threatened three breakups before Atsumu had gotten a word in. Why the fuck are you so damn insecure?! Me? Why the fuck do you feel the need to show off your tongue to everyone and their mother?

They’re both so selfish. Is this love, Osamu would mock him, being an ass? Is it? If your soulmate is your soul, your eyes for their being alone, then why is it so difficult to let this go? Why can Kiyoomi lean on him and look at him, make him feel lucky for every silence they share?

“How do you think it knows?” Atsumu thinks out loud. Kiyoomi shrugs. “Don’t you ever wonder how it happens? Who decides?”

“Magic.” 

“You’re magic.”

Kiyoomi squirms in his embrace and elbows him in the gut. They wobble dangerously on the swing. Atsumu pretends to let them drop backward and Kiyoomi yelps, clutching onto him for safety. “Shut up,” he snaps. He’s smiling.

“Does he know about me?” Atsumu whispers. 

“Can you say it one last time?”

“It wouldn’t be true.”

“Say it anyway.”

“I love you.”

“I love you too.”

They hug goodbye for a minute too long for people with boyfriends, the amount of time needed to mourn the fact they won’t see each other until they’re forced to by tournaments and logistics. They’re kept apart and together through fabricated boundaries, invisible fucking strings.

Kiyoomi clings to his hoodie and promises him he’ll win. Nationals are close. “I’ll miss you.”

Atsumu whispers back, “I don’t give a fuck anymore. If you need me, you call me.” 

When they rip apart, Kageyama’s waiting for him. 

“Your ex?” He guesses. Atsumu nods. Kageyama shrugs past it. “Will you give me your number?” 

Atsumu plugs it in, while Kageyama fiddles with his bag’s strap. Atsumu hands him his phone. “You’ll hug me too?” Kageyama ask-says. 

Atsumu laughs and wraps his arms around his shoulders to bring him close, chasing a jolt that never sparks. This is his match and he needs to obey but it’s hard to ignore that it feels nothing like what he seconds ago went through, letting go of Kiyoomi.

His phone beeps as soon as he gets on the train. Kid wastes no time. Atsumu unlocks it but it’s not Kageyama texting. 

“Tsum, I’m sorry...” Kiyoomi types. Atsumu’s heart squeezes. It’s the kind of text that inspires terror. The loading bubbles continue so Atsumu lets him finish. “It must have hurt so bad... because it’s so damn rough seeing you with him... even though I know it’s right and you need him. So I can’t imagine what you went through back then... I’m sorry.”

Atsumu swallows and replies. “You regret being with me this week?”

“Do you?” Kiyoomi says.

They leave it at that.

“Is it him?” Kita asks when Atsumu turns away from his lips their first night back. Atsumu missed him, his touches, wants to gather him up and squeeze him to his soul but something’s off, and it’s not Kiyoomi either. 

Kita rubs his arm. “You should fight for him,” he says, voice only slightly wavering, “If he means so much to you.” 

“I can’t,” Atsumu sighs. He turns on his back and takes Kita’s pain head-on. “For the same reason, I can’t keep doing this with you.” 

Kita waits patiently for him to explain. Atsumu shows him his arm and points to the crown tattoo. 

“It’s him. I met him.” He groans. “It’s all of them. I guess. I want this to make sense. I feel like it has to, like there’s a point to this, to him hurting me, me hurting you, I don’t fucking know. I want it to be real... I want what they have. I’m... I’m sorry.”

“It’s not wrong to believe.” Kita pets his hair. 

There’s no dramatics this time, no sobbing and smashing. All ten of his fingers survive, his heart, less so. He’s weak with grief, a numb kind of sadness, lathered in acceptance that it will hurt for a long time and that’s fine and it’ll be fine eventually. Underneath it all, there’s freedom from the need to be in love. 

Osamu and Suna go from weekly to monthly, his mom to daily. He stays late to practice and finds solace in Aran and the boys, has the kind of fun that isn’t sexy or romantic. In his contacts app, Kiyoomi becomes “Sakusa” and “angel” becomes “Kita”. He turns it off before bed. 

His marks breathe. No tape on his finger or long sleeves in the summer. Like the birthmark on his stomach and the stretch marks on his ass, the art becomes part of him, something he just has, that’s just...there.

He packs everything into boxes that stack neatly in his closet. Samu, Sakusa, Kita, whatever came before, whatever comes next. 

Osamu helps him re-paint. With his mom pitching in, he buys himself new furniture, a nice big boy bed, a couch that fits three, flatscreen for his games when the guys come over. The room becomes one that they no longer once shared, with Samu’s bed acting as an extra closet, but Atsumu’s own for the near future. 

When Samu moved out, the hope was Atsumu wouldn’t be too far behind. They did most things together. Samu walked and Tsumu followed. Samu set and Tsumu surpassed him. There’d be no point in remodeling the room if Atsumu would soon get married and get his own place with his own husband. Now, what to expect?

The second year is ending. Unlike the rest of the marks, which reach a final stage moments upon appearing, Kageyama’s mark, the mark, as Atsumu has started thinking of it, evolves. It improves its detail and throws roots, spreading up his arm like a virus. Early marks fall under it, never to be seen again. 

“Maybe you should give him a chance?” Osamu floats out, more hopeful than Atsumu himself, despite being the one who said if Atsumu left it alone it would happen. 

He doesn’t push as much anymore, probably afraid of losing more time. They barely see each other out of practice and school. Atsumu doesn’t know how to tell him that they’ll be close again soon, that he misses him, that it’s Atsumu’s fault for not being a better brother capable of looking at Osamu with eyes of joy and pride, not envy. 

“You think?” Atsumu asks, “He’s cute. I don’t know.” 

He has told no one of the other mark, the one hidden under Kageyama’s shirt. 

“What’s the worst that could happen?” Osamu shrugs.

“I lose what’s left of my emotional stability?” Atsumu echoes his words. 

Kageyama orders peppermint hot chocolate with extra whipped cream. Atsumu wipes the milk mustache off his upper lip and laughs when Kageyama wants seconds.

He has grown taller, bolder too, must have gotten enough instruction from his upperclassmen to make all the right moves. Asks Atsumu plenty of questions about himself. Acts shivery when they’re outside so Atsumu offers him his jacket, a puffy Inarizaki wind-breaker he never gets back. 

Drinks finished, they walk to a nearby park that Kageyama tells him has a lake and ducks. In the summer. It’s winter. “But it’s pretty?” “Ok.” 

Kageyama’s hand sweats inside his own. His nose is pink from the cold. He looks small in Atsumu’s clothes. Atsumu could love him. On paper, they’re compatible... I guess? They both love the sport and want to go pro. They both... set. It’s weird. 

Atsumu has a hard time understanding, knows he can’t be analytical about mystical stuff like soulmates and true love, but shouldn’t there be something that binds them? A theme, a pain, an emotion. Shouldn’t that thread be more than a sport that both Sakusa and Kita used to also play? 

“You should kiss me,” Kageyama says, blinking his intense blue eyes. He’s on a mission to lose his lip-locking virginity. As they’re standing on a snow-covered bridge, a prototypical pretty place, the time is now. 

Atsumu wants to adore him, praises him mentally any chance he gets, look at his jawline, those eyes, his shy, little smiles—I can love you, I can love you. I did it once, I can do it again, I can put the effort into making you love life, love love, love me.

“I should."

“Do it then or I will,” Kageyama huffs.

Atsumu inhales the puff of steam coming out of his lips and closes the distance. He tastes sweet like the drinks, fits around his body without Atsumu having to look up or lean down. I can love you, he thinks, forcing himself to feel.

When Atsumu meets Hinata Shouyou, he has gone through enough first-loves to predict the symptoms with frightening accuracy. He knows how his heart will yearn, how he’ll kindle with immeasurable bliss, that if he catches Hinata’s eyes and holds them long enough, he’ll blink tears from wet lashes. 

He knows if he allows it—the hope, the newness—he’ll fall again, to break again, to burst up, mad at the world, a pain for his team and family.

So he doesn’t look at all. 

He stands up from the bleachers one serve into Karasuno’s match against Tsubakihara and walks out of the gym, heading for the hostel. It’s best he meets no one new for the sake of having any unmarked skin left. The marks are now everywhere, his stomach, his legs, getting difficult to hide. He’s a lovesick monster. 

The tattoo that appears on his wrist post-Hinata, something Atsumu expects (there’s a new one almost daily) leaves him speechless. 

He has gotten good at anticipating, expects apricots and marigolds, the color orange, sunshine, birds, wings, lightning, fast like little Hinata, a crow perhaps, or something literal like his name, the most embarrassing of all options. 

It’s a fox.

Like Osamu’s singular tattoo. Suna, Atsumu thinks, and “no, no, no,” and hates everything about the world and how it proves itself more wretched with each passing day. Truly fuck it, at this point.

“It’s you,” Suna says, staring at the mistake. 

Atsumu has been hiding it from everyone as well as he can with something so visibly-placed. He is re-bandaging his wrist when Suna walks in the bathroom, the last person barring one, Atsumu wants seeing it, someone Atsumu has decided to avoid sharing a space with. Suna can’t be vice-captain. They can’t even be friends. 

“I know because I have a similar mark,” Suna corners him. 

“My marks are broken. They mean nothing,” Atsumu reminds him, flinching away when it looks like Suna’s going to reach for it. 

He does and his hands are cold like he just washed them. Atsumu thinks back to Kiyoomi, then his early wonderings about Suna, that if it’s either him or Osamu who get to be happy maybe it would be fair to fight him for love. He feels sick.

Suna’s fingers press against his pulse. “It’s yellow and a fox, with your jersey number,” he taps the drawing. Atsumu squints, having missed it. “It represents you, like mine represented your brother.” 

“Meaning what?” Atsumu snaps, laughing without humor. He thought for a second Suna would drop the love of his life for his damaged ass! “I’m my own soulmate? I need to learn to love myself before I can love anyone else? I’m gonna be alone forever?” He scoffs, “This is bullshit. I don’t know why I even bother.” 

“You want to be in love—”

“Fuck love. I wish I could scrape them all off my body and be happy knowing I will never feel like shit for anyone ever again.” 

“Miya-san, Atsumu-san,” Kageyama calls out, “Did you see us play?”

They haven’t spoken since Atsumu refused a second date. Atsumu turns to lie and comes face to face with a bursting supernova.  

“Hi,” the red-head says, undeterred by the last time they did this, where Atsumu ignored him in favor of Kageyama, pretending not to hear. “I don’t think we’ve met—”

“This is Hinata,” Kageyama gestures in passing, “Miya-san, did you see me set?”

“Hi,” Hinata talks over him. “I’m Hinata Shouyou.” He juts out a small hand for Atsumu to shake. Atsumu stares at it, very much afraid. “It’s nice to meet you, Miya-san. Kageyama said you were at the Training Camp with him. You must be really good. Better than our setter, I bet,” he flirts, long lashes, and smiling so perfectly Atsumu wants to end him. 

“Hey,” Kageyama huffs. 

Atsumu nods along, knows he should be a dick and leave him hanging. Just walk away and play the asshole. It worked well at the beginning. Innocent moments like these get him relapsing. On his self-invented love scale that goes up to three, Hinata’s a three, a triple-threat, charming, talented and beautiful. A surefire, crush-worthy baby-boy of doom that’s precisely the type of person Atsumu loves to fool himself worthy of. Atsumu wants, and wants. 

And Hinata waits, and waits, beyond the awkward stage of holding your hand out for someone to accept. Like Kageyama, he has no problem putting himself out there. Unlike Kageyama, he is confident it will work. Something in his demon eyes screams, you will acknowledge me. 

Spellbound, Atsumu gives him his hand. The panic that shoots up his arm is violent. Hinata must feel it too because they do that thing that happens when you brush against someone and electricity sparks, zapping you both. It hurts. 

“Woah,” Hinata acknowledges, eyes black like a hole that within holds galaxies. 

“Hi,” Atsumu sighs, resigned. 

Hi, future obsession, future love interest if I’m lucky, sob story if I’m not, future everything and nothing, future me looking back at this moment, wishing I had done more to avoid needing you without even having known you. Hi.

Hinata grabs his hand again, probably testing if it’ll re-happen. It doesn’t.

“Don’t be weird, moron,” Kageyama snaps at him. 

But Hinata doesn’t let go, crushing his fingers tighter. “Ow, hey?” His gaze is trained on Atsumu’s wrist, where Atsumu notices, the fresh mark peeks out the bottom of his undershirt. Atsumu hurries to pull his sleeve down, embarrassed.  “It’s uhh—”

“How?” Hinata asks, smiling wider. Facing it, Atsumu could faint. Atsumu should leave. Atsumu is a fucking fool. Osamu’s right, he’s so dramatic. No matter how badly he’s burnt, he can’t stop wanting to reach out again, tickle the flames and feel things so big, bigger than he might ever become.

Hinata’s hand circles his wrist and drags him along. “Come with me.” 

“No, wait, my brother, he... needs me to... not be here,” Atsumu rambles. 

“Leave him alone,” Kageyama shouts from behind. “Why are you being so creepy today?”

Hinata pulls harder until they’re running. He looks back at Atsumu, breathless. “Real quick. It’s important. I have to show you something.”

“I drew this,” Hinata rambles, shoving a notebook against Atsumu’s nose. “I drew the fox. I drew it and it’s on you, a real soul-mark. It’s the same fox. See.” He points at the paper. “It’s the exact same.” 

It is. The exact same fox. The same lopsided ears, bushy tail and cheshire grin. Judging by the date underneath the doodle, it was drawn before his mark appeared, when the teams first arrived to practice. Scribbled underneath the fox, in rushed school-boy writing, Atsumu’s last name and a heart. 

“Why?” Atsumu tries to understand.

Hinata blushes, looking down. “I umm... I draw everyone... well, ok.” He rubs his neck, before fidgeting with the notebook, rolling and unrolling it, which would explain the creases on the pages. He must have had it for a while. “You’ll think this is creepy, like Kageyama said, but this hasn’t happened before so maybe, I could tell you and it’d be fine,” he laughs awkwardly. 

Atsumu is not amused. “Hinata.”

“I draw everyone who I think might be my soulmate,” Hinata blurts, wincing one of his eyes shut, as he waits for Atsumu’s reaction. 

“Huh?”

“I draw tattoos, marks. I have no marks at all, really wish I did sometimes, or... all the time, haha, or not,” Hinata rants, “I draw what I think might be the mark I’d have if someone, like a person was my soulmate—oh, this is dumb and you look... horrified.”

“No, no, just confused,” Atsumu admits. 

Hinata sighs, seemingly embracing whatever rejection he expects will follow. Atsumu knows that feeling, the preemptive tensing in your body in preparation to get hurt.

“When I saw you I thought you looked like a fox and I don’t know much about you, anything, so I tried to go with what I did know, like your jersey number and your hair...it's, it's blond,” he gives up, shoulders slumping.

“What are you talking about?” Atsumu thinks out loud. “Wait, you draw everyone?”

“Not everyone. People who might be my soul—hey!” 

Atsumu yanks the notebook from his hands and flips through the pages, filled with drawing upon drawing, big and small, some detailed, others sketches, abandoned half-way through. Hinata pulls it back before he can check the dates. “That’s personal,” he mumbles. “Why are you smiling?”

Atsumu paces back and forth, laughing like a crazy person. Then stops abruptly and tears off his jersey to peel away the undershirt.

“What are you doing?” Hinata chuckles. His head swivels left and right to see if anybody else is noticing. He opens his mouth to say something else but the comment gets lost in his throat at the sight of Atsumu. Right?! Atsumu wants to scream.

“Wow, you’re hot,” Hinata says, ogling Atsumu’s abs. 

“No, you pervert.” He reaches out his arms. "This. Look at this, the marks, seem familiar? Fuck!" 

Hinata’s eyes roam his skin, slowly widening in realization. “It’s... all of them? You have all of them? Every single drawing.” 

“I hate you so much,” Atsumu shakes his head. No, fuck that, shakes Hinata instead, grabs him by the shoulders and shakes him. “Do you know what you’ve done to me?!” He wails, probably attracting security.

Hinata smiles sheepishly. “In my defense I also knew it was you, at first sight. I loved you at first sight.”

“You thought it was everyone at first sight!” Atsumu bellows, “Apparently you can’t meet one fucking person without thinking they're your soulmate.”

“No, no, look,” Hinata says, poking at Atsumu’s bicep. “Strong, you’re very strong, you’re probably very strong, huh?” 

“Focus, please. I know I’m hot.” 

“You’re so hot,” Hinata concurs, “I really wanna kiss you, aaaand that’s probably creepy.”

“Focus!” Atsumu snaps, “But also, you can... later, or now. Probably later. What was I saying? What were you saying?”

“Uh,” Hinata hums, “Oh! I was saying, not everyone. Some of them are unfinished,” he shrugs, “I gave up.”

“Some are very finished,” Atsumu points out.

Hinata looks at the mark without Atsumu having to guide him. Kageyama. The one person Atsumu felt no real chemistry with despite the tattoo being so intricate that even Sakusa bought into it. Hinata must have loved him, every detail on that drawing must have killed him to add in. Atsumu knows that too.

“Yeah,” Hinata swallows, “Some I was very convinced,” he admits, “I thought for a long time it was him. I kept thinking, I guess.”

And it kept growing because of it. Atsumu can’t begin to feel jealous when the only thing his mind can process is bliss. It does make sense. It makes complete sense. Every single thing. He knew it would. And it does. He wants to cry and yell and kiss this artistically-challenged idiot in that rosy mouth of his.

“He already had a mark so you copied his tattoo,” Atsumu guesses.

Hinata nods. “But we’re friends now, nothing else.” He searches Atsumu’s face, concerned. “It’s not that—I’m over it. I’d like to not be over you.”

Atsumu touches Hinata's hair, his face, his round cheeks. “I don’t think you can be, to be honest.”

“Because you’re so hot,” Hinata nods thoughtfully.

“No—”

“Oh! Because we’re soulmates. We are soulmates, right? You were going to say that. But really, I said it first, or thought it first.”

“Look,” Atsumu breathes.

They watch in awed silence as the first-ever mark appears on Hinata’s skin, his small wrist, where his gentle heart beats against his pulse—the exact same matching spot as Atsumu's fox, tying them. My forever love, Atsumu thinks.

“It’s... It’s...” Hinata’s eyes are full of wonder. “It’s a heart,” he deadpans. “It’s just... a heart. No! This is so boring—”

“Very unoriginal,” Atsumu says.