The Sakusa Sunday Showdown

The Sunday afternoon sun slanted through Atsumu Miya’s gauze curtains, throwing a golden haze over his bedroom. It was the one day a week he actually cleaned—shoving dirty laundry into the closet, spritzing some fancy citrus room spray he’d ordered online, and making sure his sheets weren’t a wrinkled disaster. He even had a specific pillow he fluffed three times, the one positioned so the laptop camera caught his best angle.

It was Sakusa Kiyoomi Sunday.

Just the name sent a giddy jolt through his chest. They’d been doing this for about two months, ever since Sakusa moved to Tokyo for pre-season training with MSBY. Weekly video calls had turned into something more… involved. Atsumu called it “video date activities” in his head. He was a pro at it now. The lighting, the angle, the casual lean-back that made his biceps pop.

“Alright, ‘Tsumu,” he muttered, checking his hair in the camera preview. He’d gelled it back, a few stray strands falling forward in that I-just-rolled-out-of-bed-and-look-this-good way that took him forty-five minutes. “Lookin’ sharp. Lookin’ devastating. He’s gonna lose his mind.”

He clicked the icon for their encrypted video chat app—Sakusa had been insistent, muttering about “digital hygiene” and “camera vulnerabilities.” Atsumu just called him a paranoid germophobe and installed it.

The call connected. The screen flickered, and then Kiyoomi Sakusa’s impossibly stoic face appeared. He was in his apartment, a clean white-walled space that looked like dust mites never dared to enter. His hair was loose, a little damp, and he was wearing a simple black t-shirt that made his pale skin and sharp features stand out even more.

“’Sup, Omi-kun,” Atsumu drawled, leaning back with his best lazy smile. “Miss me?”

Sakusa’s dark eyes flicked over him, a hint of warmth softening the usual cold. “You’re late. Three minutes and seventeen seconds.”

“Fashionably late,” Atsumu corrected, winking. “Gotta keep you on your toes. Build the anticipation.”

“Right,” Sakusa said dryly, but the corner of his mouth twitched. That tiny movement was everything. Atsumu had learned to read it like a book. It was Sakusa’s version of a full grin.

“So,” Atsumu said, dropping his voice an octave, “what’d you get up to this week? Bet all those Tokyo ladies threw themselves at you, huh?” He was fishing. He always fished.

“I went to the grocery store. They were out of the disinfectant wipes I prefer,” Sakusa replied flatly. “And I practiced serves until Tanaka-kun told me to stop chipping the gym floor.”

“Oh yeah, real dangerous. Those poor floors,” Atsumu laughed, genuine affection bleeding through. He loved this. The banter, the way Sakusa refused to take the bait, the way he looked at him like a mildly annoying but fascinating science experiment. “Well, I did somethin’ way more excitin’. I almost tried a new flavor of onigiri.”

“Which flavor?”

“Salmon.”

“You didn’t.”

“I didn’t,” Atsumu confessed. “Osamu’s new recipe looked weird. Had a purple leaf on top. I’m not eatin’ purple leaves, Omi-kun. I got standards.”

Sakusa let out a soft huff that was almost a laugh. The sound sent a pleasant shiver down Atsumu’s spine. The conversation flowed easily, jumping from training schedules to complaining about teammates to a heated debate about the optimal gym temperature. Atsumu was in his element, basking in the full attention of the man he’d been pining over for years. The sun shifted, casting longer shadows. They’d been talking for almost an hour.

Then a comfortable lull. Sakusa’s gaze softened, his voice dropping lower. “You look good tonight, Miya.”

Atsumu’s heart did a triple axle. Showtime.

“Oh yeah?” He leaned forward, propping his chin on his hand, giving Sakusa a coy look through his lashes. “You’re not so bad yourself, Omi-kun. Ya know, I was thinkin’…”

He let the sentence hang, a sly smile spreading. This was the part he looked forward to most. He’d been planning it all week. Slowly, deliberately, he let a finger trace the collar of his tank top.

Sakusa’s eyes followed the movement. A faint pink dusted his cheeks. “Thinking about what?”

Atsumu’s grin widened. He loved how easily he could fluster the guy. He leaned back, letting his shirt ride up just a little. “Well, I was thinkin’ about how much I miss you,” he purred. “And how long it’s been.”

The pink deepened. Sakusa adjusted his laptop angle, the camera tilting slightly. “Don’t be crude,” he said, but his voice was breathier than before.

“Who, me? Crude?” Atsumu feigned offense, placing a hand over his heart. “I’m the picture of class, Omi-kun. Pure class.” He stretched, a languid cat-like movement, and let out a soft groan. “Man, this chair is uncomfortable.”

It was a lie. The chair was very comfortable. He’d bought it specifically for these calls. But the groan had the desired effect. Sakusa’s jaw tightened. He licked his lips, a nervous gesture that drove Atsumu insane.

“Then get on the bed,” Sakusa said, the command tight and controlled.

Got him.

Atsumu’s heart hammered. He moved the laptop to his bed, settling back against his specially fluffed pillows. “You’re the boss,” he murmured, low and smoky now. The playful teasing was over. This was the main event.

For the next twenty minutes, the conversation devolved into hushed whispers, punctuated by sharp breaths and quiet intense commands from Sakusa. Atsumu was a performer by nature, a showman on the court, and he brought the same energy here. Vocal. Loud. Dramatic. He let out long moans, whispered Sakusa’s name like a prayer, painted a verbal picture of exactly what he’d do to him if he was in Tokyo right now.

He was so lost in the moment, so focused on the way Sakusa’s voice strained, that he completely forgot one crucial detail.

It was Sunday.

And on Sundays, Osamu was usually out back smoking or taking inventory. But today, he and Suna Rintarou had finished lunch early. They were bored.

“Hey, ‘Samu,” Suna said from the couch, phone in hand. “You think your brother’s still on his weird important call?”

Osamu, finishing dishes, shrugged. “Dunno. He’s been up there for an hour. It’s Sunday. Probably talkin’ to that volleyball blogger he likes.”

“The germophobe one?” Suna asked, flat voice carrying a hint of amusement.

“Yeah. The one with the curls. He’s obsessed.”

“Let’s go ask him if he wants to watch that new horror movie,” Suna suggested, already getting up. “If he says no, we can make fun of him for being scared.”

Osamu dried his hands. “Fine. But if he’s in a mood, I’m blamin’ you.”

They took the stairs two at a time, easy rhythm between them. Atsumu’s door was closed. They heard a faint low murmur of voices, muffled by the thick wood.

“Oi, Miya!” Osamu called, hand on the doorknob. He didn’t bother to knock. They never did. “We’re gonna watch a movie. You in or out?”

Sudden silence from inside. A beat of dead air. Then a high-pitched frantic voice from the laptop speakers: “Miya? Miya! Is someone at your door?”

Osamu frowned. He’d never heard the blogger’s voice before. It sounded tight. Stressed.

“Atsumu?” Suna asked, suspicion lacing his voice.

No answer. Just frantic rustling. Osamu snorted. “He’s probably watchin’ somethin’ weird. Let’s just bust him.”

Before Suna could protest—or agree—Osamu pushed the door open.

The scene burned into their retinas with the searing permanence of a brand.

Atsumu was on his bed. Shirtless. His chest flushed deep red. His cheeks the color of a ripe tomato. His hair a complete disaster, sticking up in wild spikes. His laptop was open, propped on a pillow, screen facing them. On the screen, the face of a very handsome, very wide-eyed young man with dark curls. Also shirtless.

And Atsumu’s hand was… down the front of his shorts.

Time stopped. The silence thick enough to cut.

Osamu Miya, the stoic unflappable twin, froze mid-step. His mind went completely blank. Like the universe hit a hard reset, and he was stuck at the loading screen. His brain refused to process what his eyes were seeing. A blue screen of death.

Suna Rintarou, hands in pockets and lazy smirk on his face, stopped walking. His smirk didn’t so much disappear as it… shattered. Crumbled into pure unadulterated shock. His eyelids, usually half-mast, were wide open. A tiny strangled sound escaped his throat, somewhere between a laugh and a gasp. His jaw actually dropped.

On the laptop screen, Sakusa Kiyoomi turned a shade of white that rivaled his apartment walls. His eyes were dinner plates. His mouth hung open in a silent scream. “WHAT THE HELL?!” His voice broke through, tinny and sharp. “WHO IS THAT?! GET OUT! GET OUT RIGHT NOW!”

In the center of it all, Atsumu looked like a rabbit caught in high beams. His eyes huge, pupils dilated. His brain screamed millions of panicked thoughts. No no no no no.

Time resumed.

With a sound that was part scream, part sob, part war cry, Atsumu launched himself. He scrambled forward, grabbed the laptop lid, and snapped it shut with a loud CLACK just as he—in his panic—pulled the charger cord. The laptop tumbled off the bed, bounced once on the floor, and landed face-down with a sickening thud. A muffled “MIYA!” came from the cracked case, then silence.

Atsumu was now panting, kneeling on his bed in only his shorts, clutching a pillow to his bare chest like a life raft. He looked from Osamu’s frozen horrified face to Suna’s wide disbelieving one. His own face cycled through a rainbow: pure horror, deep soul-crushing embarrassment, then blazing incandescent rage.

“WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU TWO DOIN’?!” he shrieked, voice cracking. “GET OUT! GET OUT! I’M GONNA KILL YOU! I’M GONNA KILL BOTH OF YOU AND HIDE THE BODIES WHERE NO ONE WILL EVER FIND THEM!”

Osamu finally woke from his stupor. His body moved on autopilot, hand reaching behind him grabbing a fistful of Suna’s shirt. “Sorry,” he muttered, flat and robotic. “Our bad.”

Suna still hadn’t blinked. Staring at the spot where the laptop fell. “The movie,” he managed to choke out, voice strangled. “The horror movie. Never mind.”

“Yeah. Never mind,” Osamu echoed. He took two steps backward, dragging a stupefied Suna with him. He reached back, found the doorknob, pulled the door shut with a firm click.

The sound of the latch engaging seemed to break Suna’s trance. He let out a shaky exhale. “’Samu.”

“Don’t,” Osamu said, holding up a hand. “Don’t talk. Don’t say a single word.”

“Was that… the germophobe?”

Osamu’s eye twitched. “I said don’t.”

They stood in the hallway for a long moment. The only sound was Atsumu’s muffled frantic keening from the other side of the door, followed by scrambling and the clatter of the laptop being retrieved.

Back inside, Atsumu was having a full-blown existential crisis. He snatched the laptop off the floor, hands shaking. The screen was cracked, a spiderweb of black lines spreading from the bottom left corner. He fumbled to open it. The camera was still on.

Sakusa’s face appeared, pixelated and blurred through the cracked screen. He looked pale, a vein throbbing in his forehead. He was clutching a glass of water, and from the look on his face, he’d just narrowly avoided a cardiac event.

“It’s fine,” Atsumu said immediately, voice hysterical. “It’s fine! They’re gone! It was just my brother and his friend! They’re idiots! They don’t knock!”

Sakusa took a long slow sip of water. He closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them, some shock had faded, replaced by a simmering awkward fury. “Are you… are you insane? You yelled. You were loud. How did you not lock the door?”

“I didn’t think I’d need to! They never bother me on Sundays!” Atsumu wailed.

Sakusa pinched the bridge of his nose, supreme exasperation. He let out a long shaky breath. Then, incredibly, his shoulders began to shake. A strange strangled sound escaped his lips. A laugh. A horrified, disbelieving, utterly flummoxed laugh.

“Oh my god,” Sakusa whispered, pressing a hand over his mouth. “Your brother just saw you… with me… like that.”

“Don’t remind me!” Atsumu groaned, burying his face in the pillow he was still clutching. “I’m gonna die. I’m gonna move to Antarctica. I’m gonna join a hermit monastery.”

“You’re a professional athlete,” Sakusa said, voice trembling with suppressed laughter. “You can’t join a monastery.”

“I’ll fake my death. It’ll be fine. Osamu can have the shop.”

Sakusa finally let the laugh out, a full breathy sound so rare and beautiful it almost made the entire horrifying experience worthwhile. Almost. “Your face was so red,” he choked out. “You looked like a tomato.”

“Omi-kun, please,” Atsumu begged, muffled. “Stop. I’m scarred for life. My therapist is gonna need a therapist.”

They stayed on the call for another ten minutes, a strange awkward therapy session where Atsumu apologized profusely and Sakusa oscillated between furious and hysterical. Eventually, they agreed to call it a day. The moment the call ended, Atsumu threw himself face-down on his bed and screamed into his pillow for a solid minute.

Dinner that night was the most excruciating experience of Atsumu Miya’s life. He shuffled into the kitchen and sat at the table, not making eye contact. Osamu was buttering bread with the grim intensity of a bomb disposal expert. Suna was poking at his rice with chopsticks, uncharacteristically silent.

The only sounds were scraping cutlery and the hum of the fridge.

Finally, Osamu broke the silence, voice flat. “You want that last piece of fish?”

“No,” Atsumu mumbled.

“Suit yourself.”

Silence.

Then Suna spoke. “So,” he said, totally deadpan, “is that the germophobe you’re always talkin’ about?”

Atsumu’s head snapped up. A vein popped in his temple. “If you ever, ever mention what you saw today, I will salt the earth of your onigiri shop, Osamu. I will put NOPE in the filling. I will tell everyone you use canned tuna.”

Osamu didn’t look up from his plate. “Don’t threaten me with a good time. And it’s not a threat if you can’t follow through. You can’t even boil rice.”

“I CAN TOO BOIL RICE!”

“You left the water on last week. Almost flooded the kitchen.”

Suna snorted into his fist, trying to hide a smile.

Atsumu glared at them both, ears burning. “You two are dead. You hear me? Dead men walkin’.”

Osamu simply took a bite of his bread, completely unbothered.

The next morning, Atsumu was nursing a cup of coffee in the living room, still traumatized, when his phone buzzed. A text from Sakusa.

Omi-kun: Your brother owes me a new screen. I choked on my drink when I saw his face. It’s cracked.

Atsumu blinked. He read it again. And then, to his own surprise, a laugh bubbled up. Tired and shaky, but real. He typed back.

Atsumu: lmao wdym u choked

Omi-kun: I was taking a sip of water when the door opened. I saw your brother’s frozen face. It was the funniest thing I’ve ever seen. The water went down the wrong pipe. The laptop fell off my lap.

Atsumu: omg omi are u ok

Omi-kun: My screen is cracked. I am sending your brother the repair bill.

Atsumu: lmaoo send it to him. i hope it costs a million yen

Omi-kun: It does not cost a million yen. But it is expensive. I’m holding you personally responsible.

Atsumu: :( what about our next call??

Long pause. Atsumu’s heart sank. He’d ruined it. He’d ruined everything.

Then a new message came through.

Omi-kun: Get a lock for your door. A good one. And maybe soundproof the room while you’re at it.

Atsumu’s grin was so wide it almost hurt. He ran into the kitchen, where Osamu was washing a pan. Suna sat at the table, scrolling on his phone.

“Oi! Osamu! Sakusa says you owe him a new laptop screen!”

Osamu didn’t turn. “For what?”

“You broke it! When you barged in!”

Osamu finally turned, slow and unimpressed. “I didn’t break it. You did. When you threw it across the room.”

“It was a controlled fall!”

“Your screams were not controlled,” Suna said, not looking up. “The neighbors probably think we have a banshee infestation.”

Atsumu sputtered. Osamu turned back to the sink, shoulders shaking. Suna’s lips pressed together, fighting a smile. The tension from the night before finally lifted, replaced by familiar comfortable disdain.

Atsumu leaned against the counter, crossing his arms. Watched Osamu wash the pan. Thought about Sakusa’s text. Thought about the look on Osamu’s frozen face.

And then he started to laugh. Loud, barking laughter that filled the whole kitchen.

Osamu looked over his shoulder, a smirk finally breaking through his stoic mask. “What’s so funny?”

Atsumu just shook his head, wiping a tear. “Nothin’. Nothin’ at all.”

Suna looked up, flat eyes holding a glimmer of mischief. “So, are we never speaking of this again?”

“Never,” Osamu agreed.

“Never,” Atsumu echoed, voice still thick with laughter. He pointed a finger at both. “But if either of you breathes a word of this to anyone, I will end you. I will make your lives a living hell.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Osamu muttered, drying his hands. “You’re terrifying.”

But as he walked past Atsumu, he clapped him on the shoulder, brief and silent. We’re good. Suna gave a lazy wave and went back to his phone.

Atsumu’s phone buzzed again.

Omi-kun: Also, you owe me. Next time I’m in Osaka, you’re paying for dinner. And I’m picking the restaurant. A clean one.

Atsumu: deal. pick anywhere u want. i’m just glad ur not mad.

Omi-kun: Oh, I’m mad. But I’ll get over it. In about six months. Maybe a year. Seriously, get a lock.

Atsumu grinned down at his phone. The embarrassment was still there, a warm aching lump in his chest. But it was overshadowed by a deep overwhelming fondness. For his idiot brother. For his sarcastic friend. For the perpetually grumpy germophobe who apparently had a sense of humor after all.

He pocketed his phone and grabbed his volleyball bag. Practice in an hour.

As he passed Osamu’s room, he poked his head in. Osamu was tying his shoes.

“Hey. Thanks,” Atsumu said, gruff. “For, ya know… not makin’ a bigger deal out of it.”

Osamu looked up, expression unreadable. He stood and walked past Atsumu, patting him on the head like a little kid. “Don’t mention it. Literally. Ever again.”

And with that, he walked down the hall, leaving Atsumu standing there, shaking his head with a rueful smile.

He’d never be able to look Sakusa in the eye for at least a month. And he’d definitely be locking his door from now on.

But for now, life was good. A little awkward. A little mortifying.

But good.