You were his manager. Professional, poised, and always in control. Atsumu Miya was your client, a star athlete with a magnetic charm that drew everyone in—including you.
It started innocently: late-night strategy meetings, shared laughter over coffee, and the occasional lingering glance. You knew he was married, that he had a family waiting for him at home. But the lines blurred, and before you knew it, you were entangled in a web of secrecy and desire.
He would come to you after games, his presence filling your apartment like a storm. In those moments, you felt alive, cherished, and wanted. But as dawn approached, reality would set in. He would leave, returning to the life he had built with someone else, leaving you alone with the weight of your choices.
You tried to end it, to reclaim your dignity and peace. But Atsumu had a way of pulling you back in, with sweet words and empty promises. He would say he needed you, that you were the only one who truly understood him. And you believed him, every time.
Or at least, you tried to.
You stood across from Atsumu in the privacy of his hotel room, your hands trembling as you said, “This can’t keep happening. You have a wife. A kid.”
He leaned back on the bed you’d shared too many times, arms crossed, lips curled into that same boyish smirk he used on the court.
“And? You knew that from the start.”
“I thought I could handle it,” you confessed. “But it’s eating me alive. I can’t sleep. I can’t look at myself in the mirror.”
“So what? You’re just gonna walk away?”
“Just like that?”
You nodded slowly, afraid, but firm.
And that’s when his voice changed. Cold. Calculated.
“Don’t forget whose contract you're under.”
“Don’t forget I can take you down with a single press statement.”
You stared at him. The air in the room turned thick. Suffocating.
“You don’t know what I’d do. You really think they’ll believe the woman who slept her way into my inner circle? They’ll eat you alive.”
“Why are you doing this?” you whispered.
“Because you’re mine,” he said. “You don’t get to walk away from this unless I say so.”
He stood, took your face in his hands.
“You knew the rules, pretty girl,” he murmured. “You knew I was never gonna come home to you. But you let me in anyway.”
And when he kissed you, you let him.
Not because you wanted to.
But because you felt owned.
After that night, you stopped trying to end it.
You smiled in press conferences, clapped during interviews, and handed him water during practice like nothing had happened.
But every time his hand brushed yours,
you remembered how dirty you felt.
How your love had been reduced to a secret.
A threat.
You watched his wife post photos on social media—laughing, glowing, holding their child in matching outfits—and you sat alone in your kitchen, eating nothing, drinking wine, replaying his voice saying,
“You don’t get to leave.”
You stopped wearing bright colors.
Stopped painting your nails. Stopped meeting your friends.
Because the other woman doesn’t get to have a life.
She waits.
She hides.
She folds herself smaller and smaller until she fits inside the silence between someone else’s happiness.
You weren’t living—you were surviving. Moving through days like a ghost, haunted by a love that was never yours to begin with.
You read every comment under his family’s posts.
“Perfect couple!”
“Power duo!”
“Lucky wife, lucky man.”
And you would break down in the shower—biting your hand to muffle the sobs because your neighbors were starting to notice.
You kept a folder in your phone. Screenshots of his texts.
“You’re the only one who understands me.”
“I can’t breathe without you.”
“I’ll fix this. Just… not now.”
You’d read them when the guilt threatened to tear your ribs open. As if those empty words could patch the holes.
One night, he called. You hesitated before answering. You were curled up in bed, mascara streaked, trying to convince yourself to block him.
“Hey,” he said, like everything was normal.
“Are you still there?”
You swallowed the lump in your throat.
A pause. Then his voice softened—just enough to slice through you.
Because it didn’t matter how broken you were.
As long as you were still his.
That night, you woke up from a dream where he kissed you in public.
And it hurt more than any nightmare.
Because you knew it would never happen.
There’s a unique kind of pain in waiting for someone who never chooses you.
You told yourself this was temporary. That he just needed time. That he loved you in ways he couldn’t show. That it wasn’t your fault.
“He needs me.”
“He can’t leave his family right now.”
“It’s not just sex. I mean something to him.”
And slowly, the lies started to taste like blood in your mouth.
You saw him at a charity event with his wife—her hand tucked into his elbow like she belonged there. She smiled up at him with the kind of trust you used to dream about. And he smiled back, like he hadn’t kissed you in the hallway of his hotel room just hours before.
Your legs nearly gave out.
You went home that night and stared into the mirror for so long you forgot who you were looking at. You didn’t see a woman anymore. You saw a ghost. A shell of someone who used to laugh, dream, and believe she was worthy of love.
You started keeping wine in your drawer at work.
You stopped responding to your mother’s messages.
You flinched when his name popped up on your screen.
You didn’t answer. You just stared at the message for hours. He never followed up.
You were addicted. Not to him—but to the feeling of being wanted, even if it was only behind closed doors.
You wanted to believe you mattered.
You were just a convenience. A placeholder. A hidden ache in his otherwise polished life.
And now, the ache was yours to carry.
You were gone long before they found your body.
The first thing that disappeared was your laugh. Then your appetite. Then your voice during meetings.
You stopped showing up to practice. On Monday, no one noticed. Tuesday, someone muttered a joke: “Guess she finally got sick of Atsumu’s attitude.”
By Wednesday, worry began to ripple through the team.
By Thursday, silence turned heavy.
And by Friday morning, the captain demanded someone check on you. Just in case.
They didn't know the real reason you stopped coming in.
They didn’t see the messages. The threats.
“You think I won't say you came onto me first?”
“I’ll ruin you. You’re nothing without this job.”
“Don’t be stupid. You knew what this was.”
He was scared. You were a liability now. And that made him dangerous.
You lit a candle that night—your favorite scent, the one that reminded you of soft rain and second chances. But the room still felt like a cage.
The rope had been hidden in your closet for a week.
You chose the scarf instead.
The blue one. The one Atsumu said looked “pretty, but desperate.” You laughed it off back then. But now it seemed fitting.
You moved the chair quietly.
You didn’t cry this time.
Not when you tied the knot. Not when you stood on the chair. Not even when your fingers trembled so badly you had to redo the loop twice.
There was only stillness. And the letter on the floor.
You looked around one last time—not because you wanted to stay, but to remember.
The framed photo of you and the team.
The leftover instant noodles.
The dent in the wall from when you threw your phone at it after he said “you’re just a phase.”
Then you stepped off the chair.
Your body twisted. Your toes grazed the floor—but not enough.
And finally, finally, everything went dark.
They found you the next morning.
She was cold. Gone.
There was no blood. No noise. Just a body and a letter, folded in two.
Another dropped to their knees.
He was in the gym. Laughing at something on his phone. Until someone came in, pale-faced, clutching the crumpled letter.
They didn’t need to say it.
I don’t know how to say it in a way that can ever make it okay,
I never meant for any of this to happen.
I never meant to hurt anyone—
Neither did your children.
I let myself believe he loved me.
Maybe he did, in some quiet, hidden way—
but he always went home to you.
That should’ve told me everything.
I stayed because I wanted to be loved.
Even if it wasn’t mine to have.
And now I can’t look in the mirror.
I see your smile in my dreams,
and I feel like a monster.
He said I’d ruin him if I told the truth.
he ruined me by making me live a lie.
I don’t expect you to forgive me.
But please know I never hated you.
You had the life I prayed for in the dark.
Don’t teach your children to hate me.
Just tell them I was someone who made a terrible mistake—
and couldn’t find a way out.
Please don’t hate yourself.
That day, practice was canceled.
Your name was never announced publicly.
Atsumu didn’t show up for a week.
When he returned, no one looked him in the eye.
Not because they knew the truth—but because they could feel it.
There was blood on his hands.
And he couldn’t wash it off.
Atsumu had never heard silence like this before.
Not in the locker room. Not on the court. Not even in his own mind.
It was the kind of silence that follows a scream no one heard.
Fans noticed your absence first.
“Where’s the manager?”
“She used to be in every game day post.”
“Hope she’s okay, she hasn’t posted anything in weeks…”
But when your name vanished from the staff credits, and the team’s social media suddenly went dark, the speculations began.
Reddit threads. TikToks. Anonymous tips.
People guessed you were sick. That maybe you were fired. That maybe—just maybe—something worse happened.
And then the whispers turned to roars.
By the second week, #WhereIsShe was trending on Twitter.
That’s when the team’s PR team knew they couldn’t keep it quiet anymore.
A short, sterile statement was released.
“It is with great sadness that we confirm the passing of one of our staff members.
We ask for privacy during this time. We are mourning alongside her loved ones.”
They didn’t mention your name.
They didn’t say how you died.
They didn’t say what they knew.
They never said it was suicide.
And they sure as hell didn’t say it was because of him.
But the fans… some of them knew.
Screenshots surfaced—Atsumu liking your old photos. A blurry image of the two of you too close behind a gym door. Cryptic tweets that you had posted and deleted weeks before it happened:
“Secrets rot everything.”
“Being someone’s second choice is worse than being no one at all.”
“I hope I was more than just a mistake.”
And still, he said nothing.
Because what could he say?
That he used you?
That he gaslit you?
That he made you beg for affection in private only to treat you like a stranger in public?
There was no press conference for that kind of grief.
He tried to return to the court.
But every time he stood on it, he saw you.
Standing at the sidelines with your clipboard. Grinning when he made a clean serve. Holding back a smile when he winked at you behind his water bottle.
Now he just sees empty space.
And in the locker room, someone had taped a photo of you on the inside of your old locker.
No one knew who put it there.
But no one dared take it down.
He started drinking more. Staying later. Talking less.
But no one said your name.
Even when he had nightmares where you appeared—your feet dangling, that scarf tightening around your throat, your eyes wide with a question that could never be answered—he still couldn’t say your name.
Because saying it meant facing what he did.
Atsumu stood on the balcony of his expensive condo one night, phone in hand, staring at an old photo of you he’d saved secretly. The one where you were laughing at something he said. Candid. Pure.
Because where would he send it?
What inbox would receive an apology from a man like him?
You were gone.
And he was still here.
Living.
Winning.
Rotting.
And still—
your name was never mentioned.
But every time someone asked him,
“Do you ever think about her?”
Because the truth was unbearable.
The truth was:
He thought about you every single day.
And it never stopped hurting.
hey my loves! i was out of the city for a bit, i stayed with my friend and her aunt, met some new people, partied (with dogs, yes), drank a little, lived a lot. it was amazing. so here’s an atsumu angst i wrote on the ride home, because of course i did. HEHDHAHDHASH
