Archive of Our Own

i. your back beneath the sun.

For Miya Atsumu, falling in love with Iwaizumi Hajime is a slow thing.

Aran says it’s the first time he hasn’t rushed into something like a car crash or a wildfire begging to steal breath, but Atsumu disagrees. On principle.

“Don’t say a fuckin’ word,” he grouses when he tosses the disgusting protein shake Hajime’d recommended into their grocery cart, leaning forward threateningly as Aran waggles his brows.

“I didn’t say anythin’,” Aran hums. “Yer just so predictable.”

I’m not, the childish voice inside him wants to protest. I don’t love that easily. But he can’t deny the instinct’s nestled somewhere deep, the immovable softness that comes of being born ten minutes too early. A lifetime of peeling clementines for Osamu and saving up his lunch money to buy his younger twin Easy-Bake Ovens had translated into a tender heart and one hand always stretched out, the need to give hidden beneath all his deafening greed.

He wishes Aran didn’t know him so well.

But with Hajime, it’s slow. Atsumu takes his time. He watches. He’s a setter, after all — it’s his job to observe.

So he watches the way Hajime moves. The way his mouth quirks as he ruffles Kageyama’s sweaty hair, the way his arms tense as he fills an ice bath and lectures Gao about forgetting to stretch, the way his fingers smooth over the tape on Atsumu’s knuckles, cursory and kind all at once.

Atsumu learns that Hajime is someone who gives freely, too. He sees the way the rest of the team orbits around Hajime, stumbling over themselves to earn just minutes of his warmth. He finds himself wishing that Hajime would look at him as carefully as he looks at his injuries — he wants Hajime to watch him because he wants to, not just when he’s hurt, not just because it’s his job.

It doesn’t really click until Hinata drags half of the team to the beach to play volleyball one lazy afternoon, and Atsumu’s so distracted by the husky swell of Hajime’s laugh as he keeps score that he takes Bokuto’s spike straight to the face and goes down hard, swallowing a mouthful of sand.

“Whag the fufck,” he garbles, and, horrifyingly, he hears that damn laugh drawing closer, looks up to see Hajime jogging over with a grin splitting his handsome face wide open.

“That was pretty stupid,” Hajime says, offering him a calloused hand. There’s a dimple high on his left cheek. It’s absurdly charming.

Atsumu squints up at him, still spitting sand, and he sees the way the sunlight turns the tips of his spiky hair gold, sees the way his eyes crinkle with amusement. He fits his hand into Hajime’s slowly, palm to palm, skin to skin, and he thinks oh, God, oh,

it’s

you.

Isn’t it?

ii. if you kiss me, will it be just like i dreamed it?

Hajime kisses him first.

They’re stumbling down the street one night, bellies full of ramen and good drink, when Hajime stops him, one hand light on his elbow. He takes a step forward, and Atsumu feels unsteady, all shivery skin and breathless longing. He smells like glassy sunshine and clean soap, and in a burst of mania Atsumu thinks he wants that smell everywhere: on his sheets, on his clothes, on his skin, on his tongue.

“Can I try something?”

Atsumu swallows. Please.

“Sure, Iwa-kun,” he says, playing it cool.

Hajime steps forward, sliding his hand down to the small of Atsumu’s back, warm and secure. He meets Atsumu’s gaze, eyes dark and serious, and tilts his head up to slant his mouth over his. It’s careful. Slow. He pulls Atsumu’s bottom lip into his mouth, curling his other hand around the back of his neck as he kisses him thoroughly. He tastes like fresh mint. Atsumu shivers.

It’s slow, the parting of their mouths, the way Hajime blinks up at him as Atsumu cups his face in wonder, finally daring to touch.

“You’re a really good kisser,” Atsumu mumbles, head fuzzy and eyes fixed on the soft curve of Hajime’s mouth. He imagines that mouth on his throat.

“Cheap line, Miya,” Hajime says, a low laugh in his voice, and then he’s pulling him back in, fingers threading through his hair, and they’re both smiling so much that their teeth keep clicking against each other.

Please, Atsumu thinks, running his thumbs hungrily along the sharp line of Hajime’s jaw, Please. Kiss me until I’m full of you.

iii. i’m still trying everything to keep you looking at me.

“Hajime,” Atsumu tries for the first time one afternoon, barely a whisper, and he can taste the hunger that flares in Hajime’s eyes, the bitter, acrid bite of it slicing through his stomach as Hajime braces himself over him, arms straining as he stares down at him.

“Hajime,” Atsumu says again, and he hardly dares to sink his teeth into the intimacy of this name, hardly dares to part his lips around the breathy exhale of Ha-, the honeyed roll of -jime. He scrapes his nails through the bristly hair at the base of Hajime’s neck, and Hajime groans, leaning down to press his nose into his collarbone.

“Hajime,” he sighs, and it spills out of him like an incantation, the hot slide of Hajime’s tongue pulling his name from the deepest parts of his stupid, helpless heart. “Hajime,” and it rises over them, filling the soft air of Hajime’s bedroom, three syllables remade by the old ritual of Hajime’s mouth on his, the embrace of two bodies learning to be lovers again.

iv. i think i’ve seen this film before and i didn’t like the ending.

“Haji-kun?” Atsumu asks, and they’re twenty-six, and he’s had a bit too much to drink, and Hajime’s standing in his doorway, looking at him like he’s breaking his heart. Atsumu’s a little confused, because when he’d called Hajime twenty minutes ago and stuttered something incomprehensible, Hajime had hung up on him and Atsumu had poured himself another glass and thought Oh, well. But for some reason, Hajime’s here, standing in front of him with his chest heaving and his eyebrows pulled together in that adorable frown. “What’re ya doin’ here?”

“Atsumu,” Hajime says, and he’s got that determined look on his face, and Atsumu backs up, a little worried. “You didn’t ruin anything.” He steps over the threshold of Atsumu’s apartment, slow, careful, like he’s approaching a wounded deer on the side of the road, and he catches Atsumu there, cups his face in his hands the way he’s done hundreds, no, thousands of times.

“Ruin what?” Atsumu fumbles at the phone in his pocket with slack fingers. He must’ve said something really stupid this time. He knows he always loses his filter around his sixth or seventh glass, but it’s only ever made Hajime laugh and look at him fondly, not the way he’s looking at Atsumu now, face white and pained.

“...Me and Ushijima. Do you remember what you said?”

“Oh, fu—” Atsumu swears and tries to look away, but Hajime holds his face still, eyes soft where his fingers are steel. “Listen to me, you idiot. Just listen. What I had with him doesn’t have anything to do with us. Because I love you now. Now, and tomorrow, and the day after that, for as long as it takes until you get it, and then after that, too, until you’re sick of how much I love you.” Hajime presses his forehead against Atsumu’s. His voice is quiet. “I know you only said it because you’re drunk and you lost that game last week, but you’ve got me. Every last bit of me. I’m right here. Now and forever, for as long you’ll have me. Okay?”

Atsumu swallows. His breath probably smells like shit. Hajime smells earthy and familiar, like fresh rain on asphalt. He must’ve run straight here from the station. Atsumu can picture it: the desperate slap of Hajime’s sneakers on concrete, the fluorescent blur of streetlights outside.

“Yer too damn earnest,” Atsumu mumbles, but he means I’m sorry, I love you.

“Only because you’re such an idiot,” Hajime says, but he means What for? I love you. Atsumu closes his eyes. His chest aches. Am I really allowed to love you this much? He takes a small step forward, and Hajime reads his mind like the kind, annoyingly perceptive boyfriend he is, and folds Atsumu into his arms. Atsumu buries his face in his shoulder and they stand there for a long, long time, swaying quietly to the patter of rain outside and the sigh of moonlight through his windows.

v. i didn’t have it in myself to go with grace.

Four months after their first kiss, Hajime goes back to California to visit some of his college friends. He doesn’t invite Atsumu, and Atsumu doesn’t ask.

It gives Atsumu time to think, and he’s not sure he likes what he comes up with. Because before Hajime (because his life is divided into before-Hajime and after-Hajime), Atsumu used to think he was only made for obsession, the lethal, white-hot force of it driving him onwards and upwards, leaving Osamu to chase his own kind of happiness. But with Hajime, he’s learned he doesn’t need to be alone. He used to think he’d leave everyone behind in his mad sprint for the sun, but Hajime’s been right here, in his bed and his kitchen with his steady hands and his crinkly-eyed smiles, teaching him that happiness can be a tin of herbal remedies hidden behind his miso packets, a blanket tucked over him when he falls asleep on the couch, a steaming cup of tea waiting for him every morning. Atsumu knows he loves messily. (Osamu always complained that he was too overprotective, that he needed to learn how to like people without giving so much of himself away.) It’s nothing like Hajime’s blunt grace, but Hajime’s still here, meeting him halfway, a warm hand on his back guiding him away from the lonely path of an imploding star.

So when Atsumu wakes to his phone ringing at seven in the morning, alone in his bed and eyes still gritty from sleep, he lets himself think, Hey, you bastard, I think I’m falling in love with you.

“Hey,” he says into the phone instead, rubbing his face drowsily. “How’s the food?”

I miss you, he wants to say, and God, Hajime drives him insane, because he says it for them both, always too honest, too kind, too comfortable with Atsumu’s weakest moments.

“I miss you,” Hajime says, and it comes out blunt, not romantic at all, but Atsumu clenches his fist in his pillowcase anyway. He wants Hajime to picture him in bed looking cool and calm and very handsome. He doesn’t want Hajime to see him as he is, longing for his touch so badly he shakes.

“Yer such a sap, Iwa-kun,” he teases, picturing the tiny smile Hajime always gives him when he’s just woken up, eyes barely open as Atsumu drops a kiss on his forehead before he heads out for his morning run.

“We had lunch at my friend’s favorite ramen place and I thought about you,” Hajime says, and if Atsumu closes his eyes and tunes out the crackle of static, he can pretend it’s just another morning, Hajime’s voice raspy and close as he asks Atsumu what he wants for breakfast.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I thought about you sitting under the lights with me. You’d get a kick out of this place. It’s incredible — they only play these American disco songs, on this old jukebox and everything.” There’s a pause. “I know it’s early for you, but they played this song, and I had to call you…”

Atsumu turns his face into his pillow.

“Sing it for me.”

Hajime laughs, but it’s a soft thing, blurred by distance and affection.

“Are you serious?”

“It’s seven in the mornin’, Iwa. I think I deserve a lullaby.” And you’re so far away.

“Alright,” Hajime says easily, and Atsumu pictures the smile tugging at his mouth, the dimple in his cheek. He starts to sing. Atsumu opens his eyes.

          The first, my last, my everything,
          And the answer to all my dreams,
          My sun, my moon, my guiding star…

vi. are there still beautiful things?

Atsumu’s watching Hajime across the room, leaning his head on Osamu’s shoulder as his brother tries to shove him off fruitlessly.

“‘Tsumu. Can ya stop starin’ at him all lovesick and gross while yer heavy head is on me. It’s givin’ me an ulcer.”

“Fuck yer ulcer,” Atsumu responds cheerfully, but he sits up, if only to get a better view of Hajime. He’s talking to his high school friends on the other side of the room, waving a beer animatedly as he tells them a story. Atsumu presses his shoulder to his brother’s, his own friends warm and close around him, and he marvels at how things work out, how this man, barely on his periphery in high school, has become someone he loves so much he hardly knows what to do with it. Somehow, their lives, so distant at the root, have grown together, the branches of home twining far, far above their heads.

Hajime turns around and catches his eye, and he leaves Kentaro with a light fist to the shoulder, making his way across the room to meet Atsumu halfway.

“Hey,” Hajime says, pulling him close and pressing a dry kiss to his temple. “I was just talking about you.”

I’m gonna love you forever, Atsumu promises. I swear it.

Atsumu grins at him, sly, giddy with the weight of Hajime’s eyes on him in a room filled with all the people they’ve ever loved most. Osamu’s challenge doesn’t matter anymore. This is the happiest he’s ever going to be. No one will ever touch this; no one will ever know the wordless joy of having Hajime, here, solid and open-hearted, smiling at him like he’s the first person he’s ever seen.

“Yer always talkin’ about me, Hajime.”

Hajime smiles.

“Yeah. Yeah, I am.”