Chapter Text
It's the quiet that gets to him the most.
At work, Daichi is always on the move, always keeping his co-workers in check (Nishinoya and Tanaka will actually cause him early hair loss and chronic high blood pressure at this rate). He talks what feels like all day, his hands are always moving. He gets his coffee in hasty sips in passing, devours his lunch while squeezing in a little more work, cheeks stuffed.
It's stressful. It's exhausting. He loves it.
But then, at the end of the day, he can already feel the dread in his stomach.
Daichi does not like coming back to his flat. It's too wide for him alone, the walls are too white, too naked, too empty. All of it is too empty. Daichi will return, and everything is the same as it was when he left.
His mug on the coffee table, the dirty dishes in the sink, his abandoned laundry in (and around) the basket. Nothing ever changes. Nothing ever welcomes him home.
(It's not really a home. It's shelter and a place to live, but it's not a home.)
Only when the radio sounds muffled from the kitchen, and the TV fills the rest of the space up with white noise, he can breathe and ease a little of the tension in his shoulders. Silence is a funny thing, it always makes him feel like he can't breathe. As if it sucks the oxygen right out of the air. He did not have that problem when he used to live with Yui.
His chores don't last long. Daichi tries to make a mess, but it's hard, when he spends every evening after work cleaning up. He's back to the windows today, still squeaky-clean from two weeks ago, but the repetitive motion soothes him. The lights are off except for the pale, ever-changing light of the TV, so that Daichi can see the gentle fall of snow outside of his window. The flakes are big and fluffy, sail to the ground slowly and undisturbed by wind, gently settling on the wide expanse of snow.
When Daichi is done with the windows, he simply keeps standing there, the rag clutched loosely in his hand, his heart beating steady and quiet in his chest as the world outside gets covered in snow. It's peaceful. But of course, it does not last long.
It always ends up like this, his thoughts roaring up, pushing forward from the back of his mind again. It makes him miss his friends and his family, way too far away. The easy company in evenings. Going out for food or a drink, or to play sports together. The social circle he used to have and took for granted, before he moved.
(It makes him doubt moving all over again.)
Yui has called every two days lately, always urging him to go out.
“It's no wonder you don't get to know anyone outside of work when you literally only ever are at work or hide away in your flat!”
“I'm not hiding away!”, Daichi snapped, met with silence. He could literally feel his best friend's unimpressed stare through the speaker.
He could not exactly explain to himself why he did not simply give in and set an end to Yui's on-going rants by simply going out. It was not as if he was shy. But, meeting new people had never been an issue in his old hometown, and here … he did not even know where to start. Going out alone sounded really lame to him.
When he thinks about it, Yui is probably right. He'll marry his job someday, and die a lonely death. Heaving a deep, deep sigh Daichi contemplates going to bed early, sudden fatigue settling deep in his bones. The kind that felt like he wanted to curl up in his bed and sleep for the next three years straight.
The sudden sound of his phone, far too loud, makes Daichi flinch, kicked out of his thoughts with warp speed nine. He does not bother picking up the rag he dropped, chuckling to himself. Yui's senses probably alerted her to broody Daichi, and now she's calling to snap him out of it. Perfect timing as usual.
Daichi picks up, presses the phone to his ear and opens his mouth to greet her with some witty comment about her motherhen senses, but gets cut off immediately by an unfamiliar voice.
“You won't believe what just happened to me, Asahi!”
“Uhm -”, Daichi starts, trying to inform the caller that he is not in fact Asahi and has no idea who on earth is on the other side of that call. But the guy (sounds like a guy) simply talks over him.
“Remember how I told you the oven is possessed?! Yeah! It is possessed! I swear, this oven is the unholy spawn of satan. There is no other explanation!”
Daichi can't help a breathless chuckle, the aggravated voice at the other end seems to be really passionate about ovens. Another attempt of informing the stranger that he has the wrong number goes unnoticed in the offended continuation of the rant.
“You know what, I dealt with it burning that cake I made for Yachi. I could cut off the egdes and save it, and dump cream and sparkles over it, and she loved it. Fine! I dealt with my lasagna extra crispy. Special crispy. Goddamn burned! And that one time it set the baking paper on fire?! Okay, at least the house did not burn down! Which is awesome, but that's not the point. I mean, I had a suspicion it was possessed. Or maybe just difficult! The problematic child of this family! No, scratch that, that's Buttercup. Can't believe she did that to my plants. But that's not the point either!”
Daichi has given up trying to interrupt this passionate rant. By now, he sat down on the sofa, listening to it all with a mix of fascination and mild horror, this tiny glimpse into a crazy world of possessed ovens and Buttercup, problem child who did stuff to plants. Daichi really wonders what the person on the other line even looks like, who on earth Buttercup is, and what the point actually is.
There's a small break where the stranger takes a deep breath and Daichi realises he missed his chance to interrupt as he was wondering about all this.
“So, okay! Possessed oven. God, I HATE his oven so much. I would kick it. I swear. I'm gonna balance on my crutches and kick it with my healthy foot. Watch me, Asahi. Watch me. No, don't worry, I won't do that. I won't, I'll rest a lot. And will never ever walk on ice again. God, I hate this so much. Why does ice happen to good people, Asahi. I'm good. At least I'm trying to be. And all I wanted were some cookies because I literally can't even leave the house. So I scraped up all my last ingredients and I made the perfect cookie dough. Perfect, Asahi. I think an angel cried.”
It grows continuously harder not to laugh out loud.
“And then I left those perfect innocent little cookies-to-be to the clutches of the oven from hell. They were so young. They did nothing wrong. They had a short, amazingly delicious life ahead of them. Burned to a crisp, all of them. It's a tragedy. A tragedy for them. But mostly for me. Because now I don't have cookies. I'm a desperate man, Asahi. I tried eating the burned ones. Have you ever tried chewing ashes? Don't do it. Just. Don't.”
At this point, Daichi has to admit, he's having so much fun just listening to the insanity unfolding, he does not even try to interrupt anymore.
“Jeez, Buttercup, those are not for you! I swear, this cat will eat anything. Even the ashes of once promising young cookies. Okay, anyway. I hate everything, I am still stuck in my house, slowly going nuts, and I'm having a crisis because I don't have cookies. I'm not kidding, I would eat raw sugar. But I used all of it. I need sweets because my ankle hurts and I've been stuck in here for four days in a row without any human contact, all I have are Buttercup and Princess and they are amazingly unresponsive no matter how much I talk. And I talk a lot. I am so sorry. Oh God, I'm gonna shut up now.”
Daichi is almost disappointed, seeing that he spent the past minutes shaking with barely contained laughter and would have listened to even more of this absolutely ridiculous, endearing rant about the adventures of Buttercup, Princess and Mystery Voice as they burned cookies and slipped on ice. But now is probably the time to tell he's not Asahi. That's the plan anyway.
But he opens his mouth and all that comes out is a bark of laughter.
It's actually kind of embarrassing.
“That's not funny,” the mystery caller tells him, pout audible through the phone.
“Sorry,” Daichi rasps, and just keeps laughing. He falls sideways to his side, phone squished between his ear and the sofa, eyes closed as the laughter spills out of him. It feels far too nice. Meanwhile, disaster baker is suspiciously quiet. 'I-just-found-out-I-ranted-to-a-total-stranger-about-my-life' kind of quiet.
“Oh. You're. Not Asahi.”
Calmed down enough that he can speak again, Daichi takes a deep breath, his smile settling on his face easily and wide.
“Not as far as I know, no.”
“Yeah, that. …. yeah. Wow. This is not awkward at all.”
Daichi chuckles again.
“Wow. So. You know the name of my cats. And that my oven is possessed. But not even my name. And all I know is that yours is not Asahi. … God, I'm really very sorry about -”
Now this is the rant Daichi has no problem with interrupting.
“You can call me Daichi. My oven is fairly agreeable and I don't have a cat, even though my best friend thinks I should adopt one.”
“You should. Cats are really amazing.”
“Not for plants, apparently.”
The not-so-stranger laughs, and it's warm and wonderful and makes Daichi's smile widen.
“Not for plants, no. I'm Suga. I have a family consisting of Princess, Buttercup the problem child, no more plants, and a possessed oven. We are a mess, but a very lovable one.”
“I don't doubt that.”
Daichi inhales sharply as he realises that he just voiced that thought, and rolls onto his back, blinking up at the ceiling.
“Why, thank you,” Suga tells him, voice a bit more playful than strictly necessary. It's quiet for a moment, but the silence is comfortable.
“And you really don't have a cat?”
“You would so get along with Yui. She tells me my existence is a sad one.”
“Well, she's not wrong.”
Not at all. But Daichi pushes that thought aside – actually, it's not even hard to forget about all of this with Suga's (now) calm, pleasant voice on the other end.
“Why is everyone even so fixated on cats? Dogs seem much more loyal.”
“One time when I was sick Princess stayed at my side the entire time. I mean, she nearly choked me lying down next to my face and snuggling up, but. She sure tried. So, no, cats are loyal. Don't you dare say anything else, I will fight you.”
“With that ankle of yours?” Daichi bites his lip, wondering if that one was too far.
“... that was low, Daichi.”
Suga's voice is still playful, and Daichi has never loved the sound of his own name more.
“You told me my existence was sad.”
“I said your best friend was not wrong.”
“That's pretty rude. I thought you were one of the good ones?”
“Only when I'm adequately supplied with sugar. Anyone discovers their dark side in times of need.”
“Cookie need?”
“Cookie need,” Suga confirms with a grave voice, and Daichi laughs again.
“Jeez, at this rate I would go out and get you cookies myself.”
“And I would love you forever. Alas, your existence is not the only sad one. Just a little worse, because at least I have cats.”
There's a small tug in his stomach, something that whispers that maybe, Daichi wouldn't have minded to toss common sense to the wind and buy some cookies and go meet this guy and his strange family of cats and possessed household appliances.
“Well, I have a plant.” Daichi sits up a little, staring at the silhouette of it against the warm glow of the street lamps from the window, wondering how much it wilted by now and if he can still call it a plant when it's only about 12% alive. “That counts. And no cat killed it yet. I sort of did, but -” And he smiles when he repeats that sentence back at Suga. “That's not the point.”
“No. No, no, no. Daichi, are you telling me that you have the opportunity to grow plants in your flat and you just let them die? Get up. Water this plant, now. It pains me that you would not appreciate this opportunity.”
Daichi actually does, in mild disbelief over it. Phone in one hand, he gets a glass with the other, fills it with water and hears Suga's satisfied hum on the other end of the line as the rushing filters through.
“You're actually doing it,” Suga tells him, grinning, a hint of mischief in his voice. Daichi wonders if there would be a twinkle in his eyes.
“I don't want you to come beat me up with your crutches.”
He pours some water over the dried up earth and the windowsill (whoops) and leaves the glass, still half full with water, next to the plant. Maybe next time he will remember watering it. (Probably not.)
“Aw, that's harsh. I swear, I'm a pleasant person to be around.”
Daichi licks his lips, not doubting Suga's words for a second. But he feels like teasing him anyway.
“Unless you don't get your cookies.”
He plops back down on the sofa, reaches for the remote and turns the TV off, suddenly annoyed by the background noise of it.
The apartment is as empty as it was before, yet it does not feel like it – simply with Suga's voice there.
Maybe he should turn the light on, though …
“I deserve cookies, Daichi. Besides, usually they're one quick trip to the store away. It's all fault of this damn weather. Blame the snow and the ice and the cold, not me.”
“Oh, surely it's all out of your control.”
“I'm glad you – Buttercup, for the last time -”
Daichi chuckles to himself as he hears the muffled sounds at the other end of the line. Suga keeps talking and talking, not to him, but to his cat.
“Listen, I told you – paws off the table. Jeez, look at that. That mug was so pretty. Don't give me that look, you're guilty, you have to stand up to your mistakes. I will not pity you. Now off you go, I don't want you to get splinters into your paws, c'mon, time to skedaddle. Princess, stay where you are! The kitchen is closed until further notice!”
Suga takes a deep breath, and hesitates for a moment in which he clearly notices that Daichi is still laughing about his monologue.
“It's been a long four days,” Suga tells him, a little flustered, but mostly defiant. Daichi can almost imagine him folding his arms in front of his chest. (Except he has no idea what Suga looks like.) (But if he looks anywhere near as beautiful as his voice sounds, damn.)
He really, really likes listening to Suga's voice. And weird antics.
This phone call should have probably ended about 30 seconds into having the wrong number. At least Daichi had never started a conversation with a random stranger, in all his 26 years of life. But for Suga, he'll make an exception. Suga does not feel as much of a stranger as he is supposed to feel like.
“Honestly, being injured is the worst. I'm a barista, I'm used to talking to people non-stop and being in motion. Now I can't work, I can't go outside in this horrible snow, I can't go to training. It's driving me insane. But I probably shouldn't complain that much to a stranger, huh? Sorry for that.”
Daichi blinks, his attention zeroing in on that one part that caught his attention.
“Training?”
“Ah, yeah. I still play volleyball in my free time. I mean, unless I sprain my ankle.”
Two brightly coloured exclamation marks flash up in Daichi's mind without him wanting them to. Volleyball. There's a volleyball team here? It has been so long since he last played …
He had not realised how much he missed it until he ended up on his sofa, listening to a stranger mention it in passing, and got hit with sudden nostalgia like a bag of volleyballs swung at him. Hard.
“Which position do you play?”, he asks, not able to stop himself.
“I'm a setter! Do you play too?!”
Daichi finds himself sitting up, leaning back against the sofa properly. He cranes his neck so he can see a stripe of the world outside through the window. The snow keeps falling still, and from there on out, they keep talking and talking. It's the easiest thing in the world, a little like breathing. Almost a reflex, their back-and-forth of answers and questions and teasing remarks.
Daichi knows about at least thirteen different occasions on which Buttercup had destroyed something, and that one time Suga fell over Princess while carrying hot soup.
Daichi tells Suga about the time Yui broke her right, and Daichi his left arm during the Gummy Bear Incident all the way back in high school, and how everyone had still called them Double Cast at their reunion party. (Suga laughs so hard Daichi can hear him bang his hand on the table and wheeze for two minutes straight.)
About four hours later, Daichi has smiled so much, his cheeks hurt from it, and he feels warm and at ease like he hasn't since he moved here.
His head leaned against the sofa cushion, it gets consistently harder to stay awake, though. When did it get so late … ?
The living room around him is still dark, even though he did not really notice, not until now, not until Suga said “I should probably go to sleep soon. Princess has been sending me glares from the bed for the past hour or so.”
“Yeah, same for me. Minus the cat.”
“Which is very sad.”
“You cat people are insufferable.”
“Awww, Daichi, I thought you liked me a little by now?”
A little more than he should, probably. Daichi bites his lip, refusing to answer that question truthfully, or at all.
“Go to sleep, Suga.”
“You, too, then.”
He can still hear it, that smile in this wonderful voice, and Daichi does not want Suga to hang up on him. He does not want this weird thing between them to end. It's like a spell, a tiny touch of magic in his lonely little life as of late, and the spell will break way too soon. Pop like a soap bubble.
“Thanks for brightening my evening, Daichi. I thought it would be ruined without cookies, but I have to say, you quite saved it for me.”
You have no idea how much you brightened my evening
“Same for you. Thanks … for the talk.”
Now or never. He has to ask Suga if they can talk again, maybe. But the seconds pass and the silence grows longer, stretches until it wears so thin it turns awkward, hesitant. After an evening of feeling at ease, it's quite the change.
“So, yeah,” Suga says, clearing his throat. “Good night, Daichi.”
“Good night, Suga.”
The pressure to say something, to save this, to keep Suga in his life skyrockets until it chokes Daichi right up.
He needs all the words in the world, but none of them will fit his mouth right.
Neither of them hung up yet, only white noise filtering through. By the time Daichi finally works up his courage, takes a deep breath to steel himself, he can hear Suga sigh, and then hang up.
The silence settles around him heavily, and Daichi does not feel like moving, does not feel like flicking on the light.
The phone in is hand is still warm from holding it for so long.
When he curls up to sleep under his blanket, pants kicked off and everything else as it was, too tired for an actual evening routine, the echo of Suga's voice keeps lingering in his mind, whispers him a lullaby.
Daichi nearly oversleeps his alarm clock the next morning. When he stumbles into the kitchen, bleary-eyed, he feels like everything about today is going to go as slightly wrong as the way he got up. The radio is still going, and Daichi turns it down to a muffled background noise because he is too tired for music, and maybe because he tries to recall the sound of Suga's laughter.
The fact that he keeps thinking about the man all day only shows how lonely and pathetic Daichi really is. (Or how wonderful Suga.)
There's even less to do than yesterday in the evening, so nothing really distracts him from the phone, sitting there like a taunt, like a temptation.
Daichi wants to call Suga, and talk to him again. Hear his voice and make him laugh and listen to those ridiculous cat stories of his.
He wants it so bad it aches, somewhere deep inside him, getting worse the longer he can't bring himself to pick up the phone.
I'll call him tomorrow, he tells himself.
(He doesn't.)
Maybe Suga will call me.
(He doesn't.)