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Osamu gives Atsumu a look when the news breaks that Hinata Shouyou has signed with the MSBY Black Jackals.
“What?” Atsumu shoots back even before Osamu can say anything. “Thought he’d disappeared from volleyball for good too? That he’d quit?”
“Not for a single second,” Osamu says. “Kid was hungry.”
Atsumu snorts. “He ain’t a kid anymore – and you know, he was only a year younger than we were.” He peers at Osamu. “What’s that look for?”
“It’s not for nothin’,” Osamu tells him. “Guess you’ll have someone new to toss to, that’s all.”
Osamu gives Atsumu the same look when he visits practice to deliver the team a catered lunch order of onigiri and they let him hang around to watch the drills they run through after.
What, Atsumu asks with the look he throws Osamu, all the way from the other side of the court. But the understanding that comes with spending your entire life with another person only goes so far – Atsumu isn’t able to figure out what Osamu’s thinking then.
“You know,” Atsumu says the third time he gets this look from Osamu, this time at a team dinner that Osamu’s wormed his way into, somehow, while Atsumu’s squeezed right between Adriah, the tallest guy on the team, and Hinata, who’s managed to find his way half onto Atsumu’s lap, giggling maniacally from one too many shots of tequila. “If you have somethin’ to say, just spit it out.”
Osamu doesn’t even try to deny anything. He squares his jaw, like he’s thinking about it real careful, before he lets out the same kind of sigh their mother used to give them whenever they’d gotten themselves in some trouble, even though they haven’t realized it yet. “I’d be careful of ‘im if I were you,” is what Osamu says.
“Of who?”
Osamu levels him with a gaze. Doesn’t even answer the question – just goes right to the one Atsumu was gonna ask next. “Because he’ll eat you alive.”
Atsumu doesn’t listen.
Of course Atsumu doesn’t listen – Osamu doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Or maybe Atsumu doesn’t care.
There’s something tantalizing about the shape of Hinata’s hunger that Atsumu just can’t look away from. He can feel the thrum of it beneath his veins, pounding in his ear with every look thrown his way – at games, during practice, in the insistence that Atsumu toss to him one more time.
Hinata is ravenous and greedy, insatiable even with a perfect spike, a come-from-behind win, a clawed-for championship.
Atsumu gets it. Atsumu relishes in it. So he perfects that spike with Hinata, pushes for the points to come from behind in wins with him, claws just as hard for that league championship trophy they raise high above the crowns of their heads.
And when Hinata comes at him, too, in the late nights after practice or the quiet of their road game hotel room, flushed with victory and eyes gleaming with an almost preternaturally, predatory desire, what else can Atsumu do but let him?
Hinata fucks like he plays volleyball – like it’s the last night he ever will. Like this is the last night he’ll ever get to taste the sweat on Atsumu’s skin, the bitter-salty tang of precum on his cock, the heat of his insides. He kisses Atsumu, open-mouthed and wet and urgent, like he’ll never get to taste Atsumu’s lips ever again.
Not that Atsumu hates it, but–
“Take it easy a little bit, why don’cha, Shou-kun,” Atsumu says with a soft huff of laughter, his breath catching when Hinata’s gaze pierces right through him, pins him down to bed and keeps him there. “M’not goin’ anywhere.”
“Too much?” Hinata asks, and Atsumu can see the bob in his throat, the intensity abating not a single bit as Hinata pistons his hips against Atsumu’s, leaning down to nip at his neck – hard – before laving it with his tongue.
Atsumu gasps. “Never,” he says, palm closing around Hinata’s wrist, then opening up to press against Hinata’s palm, fingers sliding between each other’s. “But we got all night, Shou-kun, what’s your rush?”
“Who says I’m in a rush?” Hinata wants to know, his smirk like a knife, gutting Atsumu open. He nips at Atsumu’s lips, nibbles down the curve of his neck, pushes the back of his thighs up so when Hinata thrusts, it goes deep, deeper than Atsumu’s felt him all night.
Atsumu can’t help groaning, and when his blunt fingernails scratch into Hinata’s flesh he can feel Hinata shivering against him, through the erratic pants, the co-mingling of their breaths, the sticky-sweaty slap of skin against skin.
“Not in a rush at all,” Hinata murmurs, and his tongue is wet in Atsumu’s ear, his heartbeat jackrabbiting against Atsumu’s chest. “I’m gonna be drinking you up all night.”
Atsumu laughs. He yanks a handful of Hinata’s orange hair, pulls it back to look him in the eye. “Ya promise, Shou-kun?” he asks, and he wonders if Hinata can see it in his gaze, how hungry he is for Hinata as well.
There’s a difference, Osamu had said once, between Hinata’s hunger from Atsumu’s.
“You eat from indulgence and excess,” he said, watching Atsumu chomp down on a fatty tuna onigiri. “You eat ‘cause you like it. S’why you play, ain’t it? S’why you stayed so close to home. You wanna have all the things you like, when you like them, and they all happen to be here.”
But Hinata – Hinata eats because he’s starving. Like it’s the last bite he’ll ever have, like he’ll lose it if he doesn’t taste more. He eats because he’s afraid he never will, and Atsumu thought he got it, he did, until –
“You signed with Asas São Paulo?”
“They’re the best team in the Superliga.”
“We’re the best team in the V.League right now!” Atsumu snaps, just as quickly as he realizes, with sudden clarity – “But that’s not enough.”
And he’s not enough.
“Atsumu-san–”
“No, you’re right,” Atsumu says, falling a step back, running back through the conversations they’d had about Ushijima signing in Poland, Kageyama going to Italy. How Hinata’s kept in touch with old rivals now playing in Argentina and Russia. “There’s always something more for monsters like you, is that it. Something bigger, something better.”
Leaving Japan had never crossed Atsumu’s mind. He wanted to be the best, right here, and bring Japan back to its volleyball heydays from right here. What was so wrong with that?
“You don’t understand,” Hinata says, and he doesn’t sound sorry, though he at least looks somewhat pained. “I thought you knew. I’ve always been greedy.”
“You’re right, I don’t. I just thought we were greedy for the same things, that’s all.”
“Aren’t we, though?”
“I don’t want just volleyball in my life, Shouyou-kun.”
“Yeah? That’s funny.” Hinata’s eyes are bright, wet with resolve. He holds Atsumu’s gaze, almost like a challenge. “Neither do I.”
“You can say it,” Atsumu tells Osamu. He may as well, anyway – Atsumu’s stuck in his car for a bit.
Osamu just shakes his head. “You’re nuts,” he declares.
“There it is – yeah, I know, I know,” Atsumu says. “Maybe I am, a little bit.”
“Maybe you are, more than a little bit.”
Atsumu laughs. “Be honest,” he says. “You knew he’d leave eventually, didn’t you? That’s why you warned me?”
Osamu arches an eyebrow at him. “Did he not?”
“Sure, but,” Atsumu shrugs. “Did you think he’d quit me, too?”
“You almost did,” Osamu points out. “Nuts, the both of you.”
“We’ll see,” Atsumu says. He glances out the window, the summer sun high in the Osaka sky. It’s gonna be cold in São Paulo this time of year. He thinks he’s packed enough warm clothes.
“Is it enough, though?” Osamu asks, his voice low and serious. “What you guys are doing – video calls every day, visits when you can sneak in the time? You’re not just compromising because you’re in over your head–”
“Do you think he would be?” Atsumu shoots back. “Or that I would? Why couldn’t he have it all? Why couldn’t I? Maybe it’s not what you’d go for, but–”
“You’re happy with it?” Osamu asks, and it’s less the belligerent nagging of a brother, now, the genuine concern coloring his tone. “You sure about this?”
Atsumu had seen Hinata just a few months ago, a too-short vacation over Christmas when both the Superliga and V.League’s breaks had aligned. They’d only had a few days – if either of them had traveled to each other they’d have spent half the time in planes. California had been something of a middle ground. They’d barely managed sleep. They took a picture in front of the Hollywood sign and even did a day in Disneyland, tried out a Japanese and Brazilian fusion spot one evening, and basically spent every waking moment with each other. Or in each other. What’s the difference.
“I guess I get it now,” Atsumu says. They’re rolling up to the Kansai International Airport Departures now. His flight’s in a few hours. “What he’s after. What gets him going.”
“And what about you?”
They’d had to take different terminals to get back home. At the airport, the last place they could stay together just before security, Hinata kissed him like he’d never be satisfied with that being the last one. And Atsumu had held on as long as he could.
“It’s not the same thing,” Atsumu admits. “We don’t – we’re not seeing this exactly the same way. But he’s getting me too, you know? There’s not one way to be together. And we both want what we got. Hey, thanks for the ride. Even though ya gave me a grillin’ the whole way through.”
“You’re welcome,” Osamu replies with a roll of his eyes, but he pats Atsumu before he heads out. “See you later, scrub.”
“Call you when I need a ride back home,” Atsumu tells him, grinning as he steps out of the car and grabs his suitcase from the trunk.
Got to the airport, he texts Hinata on LINE. The reply is instantaneous.
Can’t wait!!
The thing is, Osamu is right. This isn’t enough. Neither of them have had their fill yet.
But that’s also exactly why they won’t stop until they do.