dulia

Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at http://archiveofourown.org/works/23511643.

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Category: M/M
Fandom: Haikyuu!!
Relationship: Miya Atsumu/Sakusa Kiyoomi
Character: Miya Atsumu, Sakusa Kiyoomi
Additional Tags: Canon Compliant, Established Relationship, author's oral fixation
returns for the tenth time
Language: English
Stats: Published: 2020-04-06 Words: 1802

dulia
by perennials

Summary

Heaven's aesthetic preferences.

Notes

sakuatsu week day 1. prompt: tier 3

See the end of the work for more notes

Atsumu isn’t unfamiliar with the concept of oral hygiene but he doesn’t like mouthwash so he
hasn’t used any since that one time in high school when Osamu made him gargle it after he ate a
head of garlic for posterity. It is unfortunate, then, that Sakusa Kiyoomi who has recently
consented to matters of personal invasion such as ‘hands on hands’ and ‘hands on face’ is a fan.
Atsumu shouldn’t be surprised. But he is.

“What,” Sakusa asks. He pours Fresh Citrus Listerine into the bottle cap and knocks it back like a
shot. Despite this contrived motion, the rim of the bottle cap does not touch his mouth and the
Listerine does not do something obscenely attractive like drip down the side of his chin.

Atsumu glares at him from the doorway. “Nothing,” he says. Even if he did have something to say,
he wouldn’t be able to have a proper conversation about it while Sakusa courts the devil in his
mouth. He is sure he knows this.

After all, Sakusa Kiyoomi is a man of few words. On a good day he is a man of like three words,
and on a bad day he has none. Sakusa Kiyoomi has many bad days, though you would be hard-
pressed to guess which ones they are.

Lately Atsumu has been rebuilding the skeleton of the universe anew. Like now he knows Sakusa
doesn’t like canned drinks because of the exposed aluminium lip; so what? What the fuck is he
supposed to do with that information? Dream about it? He already does this. There’s already so
much of Sakusa stuck to the roof of his mouth. It’s a miracle he hasn’t done anything terrible yet.

::

That being said, Atsumu is at heart a consistently terrible person so when Sakusa emerges from the
bathroom with a mouth full of Fresh Citrus he has not only fallen asleep, but left a drool stain the
size of a fist beside him. Sakusa wakes him up by yanking the covers off. Atsumu rolls off the bed
like a bit of crumpled tissue paper and smashes his elbow into the floor. For a second he has the
alarming and distantly-terrifying realization that he may have damaged his elbow beyond repair the
way he almost did the last time. Then Sakusa squats down in front of him, still holding the polka-
dotted covers, and throws them over his head. He herds Atsumu to the sofa at the other end of his
room.

It’s Thursday. Technically Atsumu shouldn’t be here at all, but lately he’s been feeling like a
sentimental shit and an asshole all rolled up into one. There had been no one to consult, Osamu
being lovingly preoccupied with his stupid onigiri and his stupid boyfriend, Shouyou being
Shouyou, and Bokuto being busy bouncing balls off his chest in preparation for their next match or
the bedroom. In a moment of contrived brilliance, he had decided to go straight to the source of his
problems.

“You are the fucking problem,” Sakusa tells him as he collects a fresh set of covers from his
cabinet.

Atsumu nods seriously. “That’s fair.” He rolls over onto his other side. As the panic fades and the
sleek gray leather of Sakusa’s sofa sinks him into sleep, it occurs to him that Sakusa has obliged to
let him stay over for the first time in his life. Perhaps this is something to celebrate. Behind him
Sakusa mumbles to himself about stock lists and laundry cycles as he shuffles around the room. He
turns out the lights.

::

When he declared that he was in love with Sakusa Kiyoomi, what he actually meant was that he
was in love with Sakusa Kiyoomi. For some reason it seems as if Sakusa has not interpreted this in
the same way. Sakusa probably grew up speaking French. He went to university while the rest of
them were gallivanting around a volleyball court blowing shit up; what are the odds Sakusa
majored in French? Atsumu has serious and thoughtful ruminations about this while he sets balls
alone after practice. The gymnasium is cool and empty. His sneakers make a knife-sound against
the floor.

In a dream last night Sakusa threw him, not onto the sofa, but onto the floor. Only the floor was
made of dirt and Atsumu began to sink into the thick brown gunk until only his face was still
exposed. In a dream last night Sakusa pried his lips apart and planted rosebuds in his throat and in
the morning his lungs were stuffed with flowers, he could barely breathe.

Atsumu tosses another ball, watches it fall three inches shy of the net. He thinks about volleyball
and Sakusa and volleyball in that precise order.

Maybe the thing he is feeling right now is fear. Maybe it is desire. Maybe it is both.

::

His mother used to say that impatience would ruin his plans to conquer the world. The first one
came to him when he was seven and he discovered that stag beetles could be picked up with your
bare hands. The second one came when, several weeks later, he fell out of a tree while trying to
court one of the aforementioned stag beetles and snapped his arm in half. The third was when he
discovered volleyball.

Their parents were supportive of their sons’ athletic endeavors. It was hard not to be when Osamu
made his first display of visible happiness in two weeks upon successfully spiking a ball into the
opponent’s court. It was harder when Atsumu learned how to brush his hair out of his face and
make puppy-eyes at everyone, a habit which he would forget about by the time he turned fourteen.
Yet the hardest thing of all was to see them grow into themselves and walk onto that spotlit court
with the confidence of young gods. As if volleyball were sacrosanct.

In a half-hearted bid to prove his mother wrong, Atsumu purchased a small pot of African Violets
and installed them on his side of the windowsill. Osamu thought the dissonance between evil
shitfaced Atsumu and the flowers was hilarious and laughed at him for a week. Throughout that
week Atsumu watched his violets religiously, doing the watering thing and the sunlight thing and
the ignoring his asshole brother thing all at once.

By the fourth week the African Violets had been moved to a plastic pail because their pot had been
smashed to pieces by an Atsumu who had been fiddling with a volleyball in his room. By the fifth
week they were African Violets (dying). At the start of the sixth, his mother mercifully ducked into
their room while the twins were at school, retrieved the African Violets (dying), and passed them
along to a friend.

So fine, maybe his impatience does fuck shit up sometimes. Nevertheless, he thinks Sakusa may
simply fuck him up altogether. Statistically speaking, this is both more likely to happen, and a
much more depressing thought.

::

“What’s that?”

“Yours.”

“Huh?”

“Mouthwash. Listerine. For you.”

“If this is an early birthday present I’m never talking to you again.”

“No, it’s,” Sakusa wrings his fingers together like a dishcloth. “It’s an excuse.”

::
Sakusa Kiyoomi’s consent is a hard-won thing. While he had recently given it with regards to a
few matters of personal invasion, he has been sullen and reluctant about the rest. Atsumu considers
this as, hovering over him on the bed with the striped covers, he reaches for the corner of Sakusa’s
mouth. He has a pretty mouth, soft lips, is a hundred percent the kind of asshole that applies lip
balm twice a day. He has an objectively pretty face. Atsumu knows this. He dialled up god one day
while Sakusa was sleeping in the seat beside him on the bus, and he said so.

The first kiss Sakusa consents to in this strange new arrangement is by no means Atsumu’s first,
but it is the first time he feels like he is doing something he shouldn’t be. He has to ask several
times before he can even bring himself within striking distance of Sakusa’s left palm. Like: are you
sure about this? Are you sure about this? Are you really, completely sure about this?

Sakusa makes a low noise at the back of his throat and it sends Atsumu’s conscience cartwheeling
out the window. “Yes.” He gestures at the bathroom. “Listerine.” He gestures at the space between
them. “New sheets.”

Atsumu doesn’t understand a fucking thing. He tells him so.

“Look,” Sakusa says finally, pushing his hair out of his eyes and making a face at him like
Atsumu's just told him he's celibate after sucking him off in the bathroom of a nightclub. “If you
don’t want to do this, I’ll—”

At which point Atsumu does push him down into the bed with the ugly striped covers, because
he’d rather do the pushing now than let Sakusa do the pulling later. What if Sakusa’s into biting or
teeth-sucking or something? He’s still convinced Sakusa studied French at university, which means
that for all he knows, he could secretly be a vampire. Atsumu’s not a fan of blood. He sees enough
of his own.

He allows himself a moment to appreciate Sakusa like this with his toilet paper complexion and his
brows still pinched, his expression calm as death. How can he communicate to this boy who has
good days and bad days and gone days, days for planting gardens between your teeth, that he’s not
here to punch his heart in?

Sakusa brings his hand up to the side of Atsumu’s face, drags his nails lightly down his cheek.
“What,” he says.

Atsumu shrugs. “Nothing.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“You don’t have to.”

Sakusa swipes at his nose. He smells like citrus and soap and the brand of shampoo he goes out of
his way to purchase from a supermarket a few train stations away.

“—Though you can if you’d like,” Atsumu continues like an asshole, not realizing that Sakusa has
fisted a hand in his shirt until he drags him down and fits their mouths together, and what the fuck
is he supposed to do with the knowledge that Sakusa Kiyoomi kisses like this? Dream about it? He
already does this constantly. This is just one more entry in a long list of reasons why he's going to
hell when he dies; because he took one look at the boy with the mask and the clammy,
claustrophobic heart and he thought he looked pretty. He thought he seemed careful, and wanted to
dig his nails underneath. He thought: I want to hold his face up to the light like an offering, and see
which parts of it heaven likes the most.
 ::

Hands on hands/face/lips. Or teeth?

End Notes

talk to me on twitter or tumblr

hello i came back from the DEAD where i have been eating ass in slow increments of 3
asses per day. i was Not going to write anything for skstksu week bc i looked at the prompt
list properly for the first time at 3 a.m. last night but i didn't end up sleeping enough
anyway so i was like hey what the fuck let's just Go For It. it doesn't really make reference
to anything but it is in effect a spiritual sequel to dog dog dog, so if you'd like to see the
getting together side of things and sakusa's thoughts on canned drinks, please check that
out.
thank you for reading this fever dream production. i'd love to hear from you but the faulty
lighting fixture in your bathroom is good too. we are finally engaging lockdown here
starting on wednesday so i am prepared to never see the sun again, etc. in these trying
times, i hope you are taking care of yourself and sleeping lots. please let me know if life is
being unkind to you and i will send it a molotov cocktail in the mail.

have a good one

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