unknown - sakuatsu

the good part - part two

Atsumu has always been told he's a tad dramatic. But he doesn't think it's all that unreasonable for him to throw his phone down in haste upon being called out by name by an internet stranger. Okay, so maybe he didn't need to throw his phone halfway across the room and shriek like a nine-year-old, but old habits die hard, and this is far from a situation in which he feels remotely safe.

Any number of people in Osaka could know his name, but his phone number is hardly public information. Which means it has to be someone he knows right? Or a really dedicated stalker? Or a murderer who's been planning to stick a knife in his chest for months? Or-

In his panicked pacing, Atsumu, an actual idiot, stubs his toe on the corner of the table and screams like a child, the reality of his perfectly safe apartment becoming tainted with the sinister energy of his creepy online encounter.

Flopping down on the couch, he hugs the Naruto throw pillow Suna got him as a gag gift one year to his chest and tries to breathe - not very successfully, but he really tries. All these years playing professional volleyball under glaring spotlights and his brain is shutting down at the mere possibility of having a stalker. He thought playing a sport and being forced into piano lessons as a kid would improve how he reacts under pressure, but apparently, it's just the opposite.

He is, unfortunately, destined to be the character in a horror movie that inevitably panics and gets themselves killed off early.

Atsumu stares up at his ceiling and huffs - an irrational part of him wishes Kiyoomi were there. Just to experience it with him. Or to let the setter sit on his lap and tell him it's nothing, that he's being over-dramatic, that a stalker wouldn't be stupid enough to give themself away like that. Or maybe just to be there.

Kiyoomi has a knack for making any space feel like home. Despite his prickly outer shell, he has a soft heart that warms those who get to see it. If Kiyoomi is around, Atsumu can say with whole-hearted honesty that there's not a single thing he's afraid of.

But such confidence is lost on him now.

Kiyoomi doesn't want him. He doesn't even want to be friends. How's that for careful what you wish for?

Atsumu had wished and wished and wished that Kiyoomi would see him differently. He flirted and joked and waited and waited. So the universe in a cruel twist of fate, a perverse kind of genie, granted that all-consuming wish. But as with all cautionary tales, there is an unexpected twist, and this seems to be it.

He wanted Kiyoomi to see him differently for so many years, and now he does. Cosmic irony, a joke at his expense. Atsumu's been subject to years of teasing from his brother, his friends, his teammates. This just seems a bit too cruel. Eventually, the scales have to even out, right?

Atsumu rolls on his side as if that will stop the wave of tears that suddenly threaten to spill - in fact, it doesn't, but it does speed up the process of gravity a tad. Hot droplets fall across the bridge of his nose, unsatisfying and awkward. Crying on your side is no fun. Atsumu has found that crying in the rain is the best, the most cinematic to be sure.

But it's October. It's too cold for rain. Too dry for it too.

The Naruto pillow isn't comfortable in the slightest. In fact, it's so uncomfortable that he's considered burning it many times in the past. But then he thinks about how that's what Suna would want him to do, the fucker, and he keeps it around just in case the middle blocker drops by and needs to see the error of his ways.

Even despite the rough, scratchy, borderline canvas-esque surface of the pillow though, Atsumu still pushes his face up against it and hopes it dries his tears.