A Third, Please
Ao3
#3: SakuAtsu meet uglies. It seems to me that most of y'all don't know just how bad of an obsession that I have with these two losers. Like, the Chaos Incarnate chat knows, and Haz knows, but outside of them, I feel like y'all have no idea. So here. A meet ugly for this challenge.
When Osamu had told Atsumu he'd set him up with a guy "about ten thousand miles outta yer league, yer welcome, scrub", Atsumu had been, of course, skeptical. And then he'd gone on the date and realized that Osamu had been understating just how gorgeous this guy was. And then the date had gone horribly, disastrously wrong. Like, Atsumu had never been on such a miserable date, wrong. Like, Atsumu wanted to change his name and flee the country, wrong. Like, Atsumu was never going to emerge from the pits of despair this date had left him in, wrong. He shuffled into the apartment he shared with his brother, sopping wet and miserable.
"I'm home," he whined, doing his best to peel his soaked sneakers off his feet. Osamu glanced up from the couch, then did a double take.
"Yer soaked," he said.
"Great observation skills ya got there," Atsumu muttered, but it was all the retaliation he could come up with. He just shook his head and squelched down the hall toward the bathroom. When he returned, considerably dryer and a hell of a lot warmer, he dropped onto the opposite end of the couch from Osamu and stared at the television.
"So I take it that didn't go well," Osamu said. His voice was quiet, feeling Atsumu out and gauging his reactions. Atsumu was too exhausted to really do anything about that just then.
"No," Atsumu said dully. "It didn't go well."
Osamu studied Atsumu for a moment, and didn't say anything else. He simply offered Atsumu the silent comfort of his presence. It was a rare show of support, considering how they would normally pick and pull at each other until they devolved into a shouting match or a fist fight. Which meant that Osamu realized just how miserable Atsumu was.
Atsumu couldn't work up the energy to be grateful. He just let himself sit in his misery, and then in the morning he moved on with his life.
Except.
It was perhaps two, maybe three weeks later when Atsumu received the first text. He wasn't sure why he hadn't deleted the message thread, except to say that it had gotten buried under all his others and he'd just forgotten about it. But when he did receive the message and the name on the contact popped up, it took him a moment of puzzling and a quick scroll through the history to understand what exactly was happening.
GREEN SCARF, DARK HAIR: [So while I was on a date last night it occurred to me that some helpful tips may be what you're needing to stop being a complete disaster and maybe even take someone on a successful date someday. I've compiled some notes for you.]
The typing indicator was going still by the time Atsumu had managed to piece together that this was his blind date being an absolute ass.
ME: [Thanks, but you really don't have to waste your time. Rest assured it was a shitty night for both of us.]
He must have been ignored, because thirty seconds later another message popped up.
GREEN SCARF, DARK HAIR: [First and foremost is this: Check the restaurant's website, at very least. Understand the level of formality involved and dress appropriately. Contrary to popular belief (or whatever it is that was going through the peanut shell that is your brain) joggers and a sweaty track jacket are not acceptable attire for a fine dining establishment.]
Atsumu closed his eyes and took a deep breath, trying to control the swell of rage rising in him. Sure, he had been underdressed. Osamu wouldn't tell him the name of the restaurant, and dropped him off in person, so Atsumu hadn't had any time to find out of there was a dress code. And in all fairness, the maître d' had let him in the door, so he wasn't that out of place. He simply closed the message thread and swiped to his contacts to change the name. If he answered, it would only serve as encouragement, and Atsumu didn't want or need any more helpful tips. He stuffed his phone in his pocket and put the whole thing out of his mind.
Osamu whistled as soon as Atsumu walked through the door of the studio. "What shat in yer bed today?" he asked.
"Fuck off, Samu," Atsumu groaned. He slumped over to the baby grand in one corner, plunking down on the bench and poking at the keys. "Where's Rin, anyway?"
"Missed his train," Aran answered, fiddling with the tuning pegs on his bass. "He'll be here in fifteen or so." Atsumu grunted. He let his fingers poke along the keyboard of the piano, plucking out a half-thought melody. Beethoven, probably. That was where Atsumu's fingers tended to lead him when he wasn't thinking.
"Atsumu," said Kita, appearing from nowhere beside Osamu's drum kit. "Did ya finish transcribin' that song yet?"
"Ah, yeah, mostly," Atsumu said. He dug his notebook out of his bag, flipping past the half-started doodles and concepts until he reached the song that Suna and Osamu had come up with. "I need Sunarin here ta ask him about this chord progression in the bridge. I couldn't tell where he wanted it ta fall."
Kita nodded, craning his neck to look at the transcription. Atsumu turned the book so that Kita could see it better, listening to the quiet chaos of the band setting up for rehearsal. A buzz in his pocket had him startling, and Kita took the notebook from him before he could throw it. Kita walked away with the notebook and Atsumu let him go as he dug his phone out of his pocket; the notebook was safer in his hands than anyone else's.
GREEN SCARF, DARK HAIR, RUDE AS SHIT: [A bonus tip for you today, courtesy of the absolute dreamboat I went on a date with last night: bickering with the serving staff over their recommendations is not couth, nor will it win you any points with your date. Unless you're counting how much you embarrass them.]
Atsumu rolled his eyes. He knew better. He shouldn't engage with this. But Kita wasn't babysitting him at that moment, too busy chatting with Aran, so Atsumu started typing anyway.
ME: [Tell me, do you get off on being this much of a dick? Like, is it a fetish thing, or were you just not taught how to play nice with the other kids?]
GREEN SCARF, DARK HAIR, RUDE AS SHIT: [I could ask the same of you. Seriously, what was it about that bottle that had you ready to start a physical altercation like that?]
ME: [First rule they teach you in culinary school is never pair a red with seafood. The vintage was fine, but you ordered salmon, and that red had chocolate notes. That should've been paired with a rich desert at the most, but your dinner would've gone much better with white.]
GREEN SCARF, DARK HAIR, RUDE AS SHIT: [You went to culinary?]
ME: [My brother did.]
GREEN SCARF, DARK HAIR, RUDE AS SHIT: [I thought you said he was in that sad excuse for a band with you. I didn't realize either of you would have the intellect required for post-secondary education.]
ME: [See, this conversation was going fine until you said that. Lends weight to my question, you know. Is it a fetish? Because I don't consent in that case.]
Atsumu's phone buzzed again, but just then the doors opened and Suna slouched in, his guitar strapped to his back and his bag swinging idly from his arm.
"'Bout time," Atsumu groaned, stuffing his phone in his pocket.
"Shut up, princess, I got here as fast as I could," Suna said as he set his stuff down. Atsumu just grunted. He stretched his fingers out, playing a couple of arpeggios on the baby grand before he swung out of the bench to go check the setup on his keyboard.
This was where Atsumu belonged. Not some stuffy, pretentious school, not some concert hall, here. This grungy little studio space, where he was totally free. He let himself get lost in the music, and put the asshole with the pretty curls out of his mind.
It couldn't last forever, of course, not with that dickhead insisting on texting him every time he went on a date with more "tips". But for the most part, Atsumu's life went on. Kita managed to secure them a gig at a local festival, the kind where bands had a tendency to be discovered. It was a far cry from the dive bars they'd been playing, but this little farmer's market with the best damn luck for emerging bands was exactly what they had been hoping for. It could be the gig that made them, if they played their cards right, and they only had three months or so to prepare.
Every so often, there was a text that wasn't the most assholeish thing Atsumu had ever read. Once, when Dickweed was presumably drunk off his ass, he even had a genuine conversation with Atsumu about life and dreams and the future. It was then that Atsumu learned just how much they had in common, at least in their personal histories.
But knowing that the unfairly pretty man with the unfairly horrid personality was classically trained on pretty much every string instrument out there didn't take away the fact that Atsumu didn't really have time to dive deep and find out what was underneath all that. Especially when the next day started with a text reminding Atsumu to chew with his mouth closed.
In short, Atsumu was done with dating for now, especially blind dates. Especially blind dates that Osamu set him up on. But networking was the name of the game this early in the band's career, so when Kita said that Atsumu had a lunch to attend with the nephew of the festival's organizer, Atsumu didn't even question it. It didn't occur to him that Atsumu going alone was strange, or that the restaurant that Kita sent him to was a bit intimate for a business meeting, none of it. He just put on a nice shirt, organized notes and song transcriptions into an expanding file in his bag, and let Osamu drop him off at the restaurant about fifteen minutes before he was set to meet his contact.
"What."
Atsumu stood stock still, staring at the table and the man sitting at it. Dark, endless eyes blinked up at him from beneath a curtain of glossy black curls. he didn't look surprised to see Atsumu, but he did scowl at him after a moment.
"Are you going to sit, or not?" he snarled.
"Uh, yes," Atsumu said, and did pull out his chair to perch in it. "Sorry, I'm just a little confused."
"About what?"
"I wasn't expectin' ya to be the person I was meetin'," he said. "Didn't know you had anythin' ta do with the popular music scene."
"Personally, I don't," he answered, squinting at Atsumu.
"But yer aunt is the organizer fer the festival next month," Atsumu said slowly. "Why do I get the feelin' we're here fer two different reasons?"
"Because, in all likelihood, we are," sighed the other. "I asked Komori, my cousin, to see if he could get you to come to lunch with me, to apologize and see about starting over. I take it he did so in some underhanded and convoluted manner, as he so enjoys doing."
"Yer cousin Komori," Atsumu repeated. "Like, Komori Motoya? The head producer fer EJP Record Label?"
"Yeah, that's him."
Atsumu blinked, puzzling for a moment. Then he shook his head. "Well," he said. "No reason we can't do both. If yer aunt wants any info on the band, I've got it, but I don't see why you and I can't have a nice lunch in the meantime." He grinned and stuck out his hand. "Name's Miya Atsumu. Pleasure ta meet you."
"Sakusa Kiyoomi." A large, strong hand gripped his own. "I hope you took notes."
"Yer such an ass," Atsumu laughed. "Half of the stuff that happened last time was not my fault, you know."
"Well, you do look considerably more human this time," Sakusa conceded.
"That's 'cause I dressed myself. I clean up nice, it's okay, you can admit it."
"The insufferable personality, though, that's all on you."
Atsumu cracked a grin, and he could just see how hard Sakusa was fighting to keep from smiling himself.
-
When Komori Motoya had first conspired with his old friend Miya Osamu to fuck with their respective relatives, he hadn't expected this. Weeks of coming home from perfectly good dates with a bitter expression, of pulling out his phone and texting with the biggest pout on his face, of grumbling under his breath about 'stupid, arrogant foxes with their stupid, pretty faces'. He hadn't expected to be begged for a second date, to be bribed into setting one up. And he certainly hadn't expected to come home that day to find Sakusa curled up on their couch with a massive plush fox in his lap, scrolling through the website for Motoya's mom's next festival with a scowl on his face and his credit card in his hand.
"Kiyo?" Motoya asked, cautious.
"They had better be good," Sakusa grumbled. "If I put in all this effort and they aren't even good, I can't do it. I can't date someone tone deaf."
Motoya laughed. "You don't have to worry about that, Kiyo," he said. "They met at Inarizaki, after all."
Sakusa dropped his phone, staring at Motoya with wide eyes. "They what?"
"Inarizaki School of Music. That's where they all went after high school. Atsumu's a prodigy on the piano, but he plays like six other instruments, too. And he sings."
"Fuck. I need a third date."
Motoya smiled, wandering off into his bedroom to the background soundtrack of Sakusa cursing himself, Motoya, Osamu, and especially one Miya Atsumu. It seemed that his time with that band was only just beginning.












