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Chapter Text

It all started with a goose. 

A goose and a boy with poorly dyed hair whom Sakusa Kiyoomi had the great misfortune of attending the same All-Japan Youth Training Camp with in his second year of high school. A boy who persistently called him “Omi-Omi” and “Omi-kun” even after Kiyoomi had bluntly stated that the boy didn’t get to call him nicknames because they weren’t friends. They weren’t even acquaintances. 

Yet, according to the goose, they were soulmates.

A modern-day romance. 

⭐️

december, 2012 —

Sakusa Kiyoomi was on his way to the train station when his cousin pointed out that a goose had been following them since they’d left the Sakusa residence ten minutes before.  

“Maybe it likes you,” Motoya joked. A mischievous grin settled onto his face. 

Underneath his mask, Kiyoomi’s lips twisted into a grimace. Geese were messy and loud and an inconvenience—everything he hated in a lifeform. “I’m sure it likes you more,” he told his cousin with little intonation.  

Motoya just laughed in response. 

The conversation ended as quickly as it had begun, the matter dropped as the two boys continued down the street. In the silence, Kiyoomi shifted his thoughts to the All-Japan Youth Training Camp: the destination he and Motoya traveled toward. As he ruminated on all the players that he would have to interact with, though, he wondered if he’d rather take his chances with a single goose than a room full of boys his age. The thought of sharing a bathroom with that many people left Kiyoomi unsettled.

He also hadn’t been assigned to room with Motoya, which had done nothing to ease his apprehensions about the camp. He’d been told something about how attending the training camp was an opportunity to meet new people and form new connections. Rooming with a teammate and a relative was apparently frowned upon. 

Instead, Kiyoomi had been assigned to room with Miya Atsumu. 

The name had sounded familiar, but he hadn’t been able to immediately place where he knew Miya from. So, after receiving the assignment, Kiyoomi had done what any rational person in his situation would have: he found out everything that he could on Miya Atsumu to determine his threat level. He’d spent a week compiling a detailed mental report in which he’d learned the following:

Name: Miya Atsumu

Age: 17

Sibling(s): Twin brother, Miya Osamu (17)

Year: Second 

School: Inarizaki High (Hyōgo Prefecture)

Position: Setter

Zodiac: Libra (Not that he believed in astrology, but Kiyoomi had been told that Libras and Pisces were compatible. But again, it didn’t matter.)

Threat Level: Medium

After learning where Miya went to school, the pieces had started to fit together. Itachiyama had beaten Inarizaki in the final round at Interhigh earlier that year. It hadn’t been until Kiyoomi had forced his cousin to find Miya’s Instagram profile, however, that he’d realized who exactly his week-long roommate was. 

Miya Atsumu was Inarizaki’s starting setter with an embarrassing serving routine and the most poorly dyed blonde hair Kiyoomi had ever had the misfortune of seeing. No. It wasn’t even blonde. It was yellow. 

(But Miya was also kind of cute… in the way that a goose was kind of cute until it followed you half a mile to the train station.) 

⭐️

When Kiyoomi and Motoya boarded the train that would take them to the Ajinomoto National Training Center, the goose remained on the platform. It stared Kiyoomi down, as if it wanted to ride the train, too, and bite him on the ankle or wherever else geese bit people. 

“There better not be any geese on the other side of the city,” he grumbled to himself, giving the creature one last look before the train took off. He could have sworn the goose winked at him, but Kiyoomi reminded himself that he was being paranoid. His nerves were working overtime to compensate for the fact that, in less than an hour, he would have to meet Miya Atsumu. Officially. 

Besides, geese couldn’t wink. Could they? 

It didn’t matter. Kiyoomi kept his eyes fixed on the changing Tokyo skyline as the city zipped by him. He found that watching different buildings come in and out of focus was a better use of his time than fixating on a goose or Miya Atsumu. His thoughts were reserved for people and things that mattered, and right now, Miya and the goose did not.

⭐️

“Is this a joke?” Kiyoomi asked Motoya after they’d disembarked from the train and had begun moving from the platform to the station. He kept his hands stuffed firmly in the pockets of his jacket, but nodded with his head toward the station’s exit. 

There, paying attention to no one but Kiyoomi, was the goose. No. It had to be a different goose. There was no way the goose from before was the goose staring at him now. 

“I told you he liked you,” Motoya teased.

“Shut up.” 

Sixteen years of life and Kiyoomi had never been forced to confront a goose before. Whenever he walked by the riverbanks near his suburban neighborhood, he always avoided the geese and they avoided him. Apparently sixteen years of luck was about to run out.

“What the fu—” He didn’t have time to complete his thought, silenced by the sound of the goose honking at him. Not only that, the creature was waddling with intent toward where he and Motoya stood. “Do something.” 

“What do you want me to do?” his cousin asked.

“Throw something at it. I don’t know. Make it go away.” 

“I don’t speak goose.” 

Kiyoomi huffed and began walking perpendicular to the goose, hoping it would keep on its current path and let him exit the station in peace. It did not. In fact, the goose appeared to be moving at an even faster pace after changing directions. No one else in the station seemed to pay attention to the murderous creature about to use its unreasonably sharp beak to tear holes in the bottom of Kiyoomi’s athletic pants.

The goose lunged and Kiyoomi swore, feeling the beak clamp against his ankle. He’d been so caught off-guard that he stumbled into a passerby. It was Kiyoomi’s worst nightmare realized. Not the goose biting his ankle, but having to apologize to a stranger for bumping into them in public. He felt undignified.

He’d been prepared to force out an apology when the stranger turned. Kiyoomi froze. Of every person living on the planet, he’d just happened to bump into Miya Atsumu. All because of a goose. 

“Hmph,” Kiyoomi muttered to himself as he assessed Miya. Miraculously, the goose had waddled off, choosing to observe the interaction from a distance after it had done its damage to Kiyoomi’s ankle. He was already considering whether he needed to go to the doctor to have the ankle looked at. He didn’t know what kind of germs lived within a goose. 

“Well, now. Sakusa Kiyoomi. Aren’t you prickly?” Miya laughed to himself as he gave Kiyoomi a once-over. “Lighten up, would’ya, Omi-kun?” 

Kiyoomi didn’t bother questioning how Miya knew who he was because that would be assuming his roommate hadn’t gone through the same process of scouring the Internet for information on him before their scheduled meeting time. As one of the Top 3 High School Aces in the country, it wasn’t hard to find information about Kiyoomi. He also happened to be wearing his Itachiyama Boys’ Volleyball Club jacket—so that could have given it away, too. Their schools had just played each other, after all. 

“It’s Sakusa. Don't pretend like we’re friends, Miya,” Kiyoomi told him curtly. 

“Whatever ya say, Omi-Omi.” 

Kiyoomi cursed the goose for bringing him and Miya together so suddenly. When he turned to look for the creature again—prepared to stare into its soul until it retreated—he noticed that it was nowhere to be found. Good riddance, Kiyoomi thought. 

Getting bit on the ankle had been bad enough, but something about the way Miya was watching him told Kiyoomi that his roommate would be worse than any encounter with a goose. 

“Whatevs,” he said, moving past Miya and walking toward the exit where Motoya was waiting with a semi-concerned expression on his face. “I’ll be taking the left side of the room,” he added with a dismissive wave of his hand. He didn’t bother watching Miya’s reaction; he would have to see that face more than enough over the course of the week. 

When he rejoined his cousin, Kiyoomi recounted what had happened. He spared no detail in describing how obnoxious he found Miya, going so far as to compare him to the goose. 

“And here I thought you were making a friend,” Motoya chided as they began walking in the direction of the training center. “Are you okay?” 

Kiyoomi shrugged, stopping to test out his ankle. Nothing felt damaged, and the goose must not have bitten him hard enough to have drawn blood. He knew he was fine, but Kiyoomi also felt like complaining about the encounter a little longer. “I’ll need disinfectant, but it shouldn’t interfere with my game. As long as I can still play, it doesn’t matter.” 

“You’re taking this better than I thought you would.” 

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I thought I’d be rushing you to the hospital, that’s all.” 

Kiyoomi scoffed in response, but he knew his cousin was right. He probably would have made Motoya take him to the hospital if it wouldn’t have meant him missing part of the camp, which was where his focus needed to be. The goose was already fading to the periphery. 

For the rest of the walk, Motoya made idle conversation while Kiyoomi brooded. It was how things usually went when the two were together, the same as it had been since they were children. Sometimes Kiyoomi wondered if he and Motoya weren’t related, if his cousin would still make such an effort to be friendly with him. 

Probably, he thought to himself. Motoya was a nice person like that. 

Kiyoomi continued walking, bracing himself as the training center came into view. He hoped the experience would be worth it. 

⭐️

By the time he made it to his assigned room at the end of the first day of camp, Kiyoomi had all but forgotten about the goose. His ankle was fine and there wouldn’t be any sort of scar. The absence of an injury meant that he could direct his attention instead to the boy who was currently sprawled across the bed on the left side of the room. 

“Yo. I thought I said—”

“You really are uptight, y’know?” Miya cut him off, bringing his hands behind his head and leaning himself against the pillow he’d propped up behind him. “Maybe if you relaxed, you’d be able to hit a better cross.” 

Kiyoomi bristled. His cross shot was good and he knew it. “Maybe if you took things more seriously, I wouldn’t have to accommodate my approach to hit your poor sets.” 

“Anyone who can’t hit my sets sucks.”

“What other lies do you stroke your ego with, Miya?”

Kiyoomi tossed his bag on the open bed, but remained standing in an effort to create an imposing presence. Miya seemed unbothered by this, which only aggravated Kiyoomi further. 

They regarded one another. Miya looked like he’d been prepared to give another insult when he was silenced by something hitting the window. The shade was closed, but the sound indicated that the crash had come from a large creature. 

“Probably just a tree branch,” Miya said. He looked startled. 

Kiyoomi rolled his eyes and took a step toward the window. “It was too loud to be a tree branch.” His tone was dry when he said it—an indication of the lack of patience he had for his roommate. “Besides, did you see any trees near the building on your way in? Because I didn’t.” 

“If yer so smart, Omi-kun, whaddya think made that noise?” 

“I told you, it’s Sakusa. And I’m going to find out.” Kiyoomi drew the shade and opened the window, letting the winter air tickle his cheeks. When he looked down, he tried to spot any sign of what could have caused the crash. He quickly got his answer, and the sight of it made him swear. “Unbelievable.” 

“What?” Miya left the bed and came to stand at an uncomfortably close distance to him. “Ha. Is that the goose that bit’cha?” 

Kiyoomi kept his eyes on the scene below, where, staring up at them, was the goose. It was illuminated by the light from a lamppost. 

No. It had to be a different goose. 

There just had to be a surplus of geese running around Tokyo. In December. That was the only plausible explanation. 

He took a step back, brushing shoulders with Miya when he did. The other boy continued to stare out the open window. 

“It’s cold,” Kiyoomi complained as he walked to his bed and took a seat on it. “Shut the window.”

“I’m watchin’ the goose, Omi-Omi.”

He didn’t bother to correct Miya on his name again, knowing it was a losing battle. “I don’t care about the goose,” he said. “I don’t want to catch a cold.” 

“I thought that was a myth.”

Kiyoomi snapped his head toward the other boy. “Just shut the window.” His tone was harsh. Miya listened. 

With the window closed, the shade drawn shut, and the goose forgotten once more, there was nothing for either boy to say to one another. Kiyoomi didn’t find engaging in conversation worth his time, and Miya must have realized this, too, because he went back to his bed and reached for his phone. 

Kiyoomi did the same, choosing to scroll through the updated player stats on the official high school volleyball webpage instead of trying to make friends with his roommate. He found that assessing the competition not only at the camp, but that he would be facing off against at the Spring Tournament in the coming month, was a better use of his time. 

At one point Miya got up to go to the bathroom, and at another Kiyoomi went to turn off the light. But the room stayed quiet, the way Kiyoomi liked it.  

Sometime after he first closed his eyes, Kiyoomi heard another crash against the window, followed by the distant honking of a goose. He rolled over to face the wall and pretended like there wasn’t a webbed-footed demon trying to break its way into the room. His attempts to ignore the noise were thwarted, however, by his roommate, who had gone back to the window and had pulled up the shade. 

“Yer friend’s back, Omi-kun.” 

“I don’t know who I hate more,” Kiyoomi said, keeping himself faced toward the wall. “You or the goose.” 

“We should give it a name.” 

“Name it yourself. I’m going to bed.” 

Miya chuckled. “How ‘bout Senshi?”

Kiyoomi tried to ignore him, biting down every indignant remark that came to him. He told himself the other boy wasn't worth it—that, if he ignored him long enough, eventually Miya would get tired of making conversation and go back to his own bed. It was the same thing he hoped for the goose waiting outside the window. 

He didn’t know how he would survive the week otherwise. 

⭐️

The rest of his time at the training camp passed much like the first night rooming with Miya. Kiyoomi practiced with the other attendees during the day and took his meals in the dining hall with Motoya, but every night he was left to deal with Miya Atsumu. And the goose, who, by the end of the week, had taken to crashing into the window every hour—on the hour—to peck at the glass and occasionally honk at them.

“You’d think it would have died,” Kiyoomi grumbled, looking out the window to where the goose waited below. 

Miya laughed at him. “Maybe it’s magical.” 

“Magic doesn’t exist.” 

“Then explain the goose that won’t leave us alone!” 

Kiyoomi moved away from the window and turned to face his roommate, who was currently sprawled across his bed flipping through the latest edition of Monthly Volleyball. 

“I can’t.” 

The knowledge that he couldn’t find a realistic explanation for why the goose wouldn’t leave Miya and him alone bothered Kiyoomi. He was a realist; he asked questions because he needed answers. But there was nothing he could ask that would explain his current situation—nothing that he would believe, that is. 

Miya set down the magazine and reached for his phone, determination wearing on his face.

“What are you doing?” Kiyoomi asked. 

“Lookin’ up magical geese.” 

“This isn’t some fairytale.” 

Miya glanced up at Kiyoomi and said, “Ya mean a story where a magical goose won’t leave two people alone ‘til they kiss ain’t real?” 

Kiyoomi stood up straighter. “What the hell are you talking about?” 

Miya showed him the Wikipedia article entitled “Soulmate Goose of Enforcement (Urban Legend)” before turning the device back around so that he could give a dramatic reading of the article’s contents. “Accordin’ to legend, the Soulmate Goose of Enforcement brings together two people who are destined to be soulmates. The goose will not leave ‘em alone ‘til they admit their feelings for one another an’ seal their bond with true love’s kiss.” 

Kiyoomi let out a bitter-sounding laugh. “You’re making that up.” 

“Now why would I be makin’ that up, Omi-kun?” Miya asked, shoving his phone back in Kiyoomi’s direction so that he could read the article for himself.

He refused to take Miya’s phone, but Kiyoomi moved one step closer to skim the page. It all seemed like bullshit, and he told Miya as much. “It’s an urban legend,” he asserted with an unimpressed shrug. Then he stepped away from his roommate—who seemed unconvinced by Kiyoomi's conclusion—and risked a glance out the window. The goose was still waiting below, ready to take flight. “It’s not real.”

“You said you wanted an explanation, so I found ya one.”

“The Soulmate Goose of Enforcement doesn't exist because soulmates don’t exist!” Kiyoomi's voice was raised, louder than necessary. He hadn’t realized how umbrageous he’d gotten trying to defend his rational thought until he saw the way Miya looked at him. He seemed hurt, and Kiyoomi almost felt bad about it. Almost.

“Neither do magical geese,” he added, quieter this time. 

Before Miya could respond, the goose took flight and began pecking at the window once more. 

Several minutes later, after the goose had gone back to brood in the parking lot below, Miya's voice broke the momentary silence. “We could try somethin’,” he said.

Kiyoomi didn’t like where things were headed. “Try what?” 

Miya sat up, shifted himself so that he could dangle his legs over the side of the bed, then looked at Kiyoomi and said, “Kiss me.” The expression he wore could only be described as devious. 

“No.”

“Why not?” 

“Why should I?” Kiyoomi retorted, moving to sit on the edge of his own bed. 

They faced one another from their opposite ends of the room. 

“If yer so sure that the goose ain’t magical, then kissin’ me will do nothin’. But,” Miya added as he stood up from his bed, “if ya kiss me and the goose leaves us alone…” 

Kiyoomi really didn’t like where things were headed. “I’m not your soulmate.” 

“No one has to know. Just me, you, and Senshi.” Miya nodded toward the window to indicate that the goose would also be in on the secret. 

Kiyoomi considered it. 

He’d never kissed anyone before, had never taken enough interest in any of the people he knew to bring himself that close to them physically, mentally, or emotionally. Kiyoomi also knew how much it would take for him to get to a point where he felt comfortable enough with someone to kiss them, which was why he didn’t want Miya Atsumu to be his first kiss. 

Yet, there was also a part of him intrigued by the idea. A much smaller part of him wanted to run his fingers through Miya’s hair—regardless of how much the shade of it made him grimace—as he trailed kisses along Miya’s jaw, slowly moving down to nip the skin on his neck…

Kiyoomi’s body went stiff. He didn’t know where the sudden desire had come from. Miya was messy and loud and an inconvenience—everything Kiyoomi hated in a lifeform. And yet, when the other boy reached the bed, Kiyoomi grabbed his wrist and helped guide him downward, shifting his own position so that Miya could straddle either side of his hips. 

He blamed his actions on the goose. There was no other rational explanation, no reason for Kiyoomi to willingly initiate contact with a stranger other than because he felt compelled to. That’s what he told himself when he felt Miya’s weight on top of him. 

“You better have brushed your fucking teeth,” he grumbled, doing what he could to calm himself down. Insults were easy; insults kept his walls fortified. 

“Don’t worry, Omi-Omi. I even used mouth wash.”

“Just get it over with.” Kiyoomi hoped his roommate couldn’t hear the pounding of his heart against his chest. 

You can do this, he told himself. This assurance, though, didn't change the war being raged inside his mind—conflicting thoughts of repulsion and desire and obligation leaving him confused. Kiyoomi simultaneously wanted to be kissed and wanted for the other boy to retreat back to his own corner of the room, to leave him alone until the camp ended and they returned to their separate lives. He’d never felt so unsure of anything before, and he hated it. He didn’t feel like himself. 

His attention shifted when he felt Miya’s breath warm against his face. Kiyoomi watched as he lowered his head, looking down at him with something like satisfaction spread across his lips. Kiyoomi tried not to think about it. He closed his eyes and cursed the way he felt his heart surge when their lips finally came together. 

The thing about kissing Miya Atsumu was that it was every bit as messy and loud and inconvenient as Kiyoomi had expected it to be. And yet, he let himself be kissed. He allowed their bodies to draw closer together, and eventually helped shift their positioning so that they could lay on their sides. Kiyoomi slipped one of his legs between Miya’s and wrapped his arms around the other boy’s neck, moving his hands upward until they found hold in his hair. Clothed bodies grinded against one another as warmth grew between them. 

When Miya moved from nipping at Kiyoomi’s lips to kissing along his jaw, Kiyoomi didn’t stop him. He tilted his head back and let slip a noise somewhere between a sigh and a moan when the other boy's lips reached his neck.

“For someone who didn’t wanna kiss me,” came Miya's breathless voice as he placed another kiss against Kiyoomi’s neck, “yer certainly enjoyin’ this, Omi.” 

“Shut up.” Kiyoomi opened his eyes and untangled himself from the hold he’d allowed Miya to have over him, gently shoving the other boy away when he did. “This changes nothing. I still don’t like you.” 

Miya moved closer to give him another quick kiss on the lips. “Not even a little?” 

“No.” 

“I guess I’ll just have to try harder next time,” Miya said as he sat up, looking down at Kiyoomi with an expression that only complicated the feelings he wouldn’t dare let surface. 

Kiyoomi also sat up. “Like there’s going to be a next time,” he told him. Then he turned his back to Miya and let his feet hang off the side of the bed. From his position, he couldn’t tell if the goose was still waiting in the parking lot. 

Did he want it to be gone?

He told himself it didn’t matter. 

“I’m going to clean up,” he said a moment later, implying that he needed to wipe any trace of Miya off of his skin. 

“Prickly as ever,” the other boy teased. “And to think we just shared a moment.” 

“No one’s ever going to know.” Kiyoomi stood up from the bed and walked toward the door, not bothering to check to see if the goose was still there. It didn’t matter; even if soulmates were real, and even if by some chance the universe had decided he and Miya Atsumu were such, they’d kissed. According to Wikipedia, that should have been enough to get the goose to leave their lives for good. 

“Hey, Omi-kun.” He kept his back turned, hand on the knob, when Miya spoke. “Senshi’s gone.” 

“Oh whatevs,” Kiyoomi said, leaving the room before his totally-not-real-soulmate saw the flustered blush on his cheeks.

It was all just one big coincidence, he decided as he walked down the hall. And after tomorrow, he and Miya would go back to living their lives separate from one another. The kiss would come to be nothing more than something stupid Kiyoomi did as a teenager.

It wouldn’t become the moment when he realized that he could see a future in which he fell in love with Miya Atsumu, a near-stranger and a pain-in-the-ass. That was just unrealistic, and Sakusa Kiyoomi was a realist.

⭐️

He left the Ajinomoto National Training Center the next day without seeing a single goose. In the time between finishing at the camp and moving into his team’s hotel for the Spring Tournament, he’d also been free from the creatures. 

All good things must come to an end, though. 

“They must really have a thing for you,” Motoya teased, pointing to the goose waiting on the sidewalk outside of the hotel. Kiyoomi and his cousin had finished unpacking their things in the team room and had been about to go for a walk when they encountered the animal. 

“I’m going back inside.” 

“Aw, don’t let the goose get to you.” 

The problem, though, was that the goose already had gotten to Kiyoomi. Whether or not the creature that had begun waddling toward him was Senshi (he couldn’t believe he’d remembered the name Miya had given it), it was still a reminder of what he had done. And whom he had done it with. 

He wasn’t going to tell Motoya that every goose was now a reminder of how his first kiss had been tangled in a bed at the Ajinomoto National Training Center with Miya Atsumu. Telling his cousin meant the secret moving beyond the three people who shared it. Or, two people and a goose. 

This is ridiculous, Kiyoomi thought to himself. Now he was talking as if the goose had observed his and Miya’s kiss. Or rather, kisses. 

“I’m going to take a bath,” he decided, turning to walk back into the hotel. 

He was stopped by two things. First, the sound of the goose honking; and second, an all-too familiar voice shouting “Senshi’s back, Omi-kun!” with more excitement than necessary. Kiyoomi turned. Both the goose and Miya were almost upon him. He spared a glance at Motoya, who looked confused by the entire encounter. 

Kiyoomi was grateful that his mask covered most of his face. He could feel the warmth on his cheeks despite the January temperature. Before Miya or the goose reached him, he closed his eyes for a count of two to try to compose himself. There was no reason to react in the manner that he presently was. It was just Miya. 

“This where yer stayin’?” Miya asked. 

The goose remained close by, observing the encounter. 

“Why do you want to know?” Kiyoomi responded with a question of his own. 

Motoya took a step forward. “Sorry he’s like this. Our team’s staying here.” He pointed to the hotel behind him. 

“Looks like we’re neighbors, Omi-kun. We’re next door!” Miya gestured to the building on the other side of Itachiyama’s hotel. 

Kiyoomi turned back around and walked toward the entrance of his hotel. “Whatever,” he said. The automatic doors opened and he stepped inside. 

He would have kept walking, but the sound of the goose honking caused him to turn. It looked as if it were going to go for his ankles again. 

“What do you want from me?” He looked down at the creature and glared at it with distaste. Then he stopped and straightened himself, realizing how ridiculous it must look for him to be yelling at a goose as if it were a sibling he didn’t want to play with. 

I’m losing it, he thought. And because Kiyoomi needed someone to blame, he decided that Miya Atsumu was the reason for his change in behavior. 

“Hey, Motoya-kun,” Kiyoomi heard Miya say to his cousin. “Do ya mind givin’ us a minute? I wanted to ask Omi-kun somethin’.” 

“Sure. I’ll see you back in the room,” Motoya said, directing the last part at Kiyoomi. He managed to walk past the goose and through the hotel door without being honked at or bitten. 

Bastard, Kiyoomi thought as he stepped outside of the building and looked from Miya to the goose. “What do you want?” He asked. 

“So, it didn’t work,” Miya began. “What if we tried something else?” 

“No.” 

The goose honked and Kiyoomi bristled. 

“Fine,” he amended, and the goose started to waddle away, distracting itself with some shrubbery while Kiyoomi and Miya talked. “Just tell me your plan.” 

“I read the rest of the Wikipedia page, and just kissin’ won’t get the goose to leave us alone. We have to fall in love.” 

Kiyoomi felt his composure wavering. His hands, which he’d tucked in the pockets of his jacket, balled into fists. “You’re still acting like we’re soulmates? And that this goose is trying to set us up?” He tried to keep his voice down, not wanting any of his teammates or the opposing teams who might be lingering to hear him talking nonsense. 

“Well, yeah,” Miya said. “That’s how the Soulmate Goose of Enforcement works.” 

“This is all bullshit.” His patience was nearly spent. “None of this is real. I think you’re just trying to distract me so I won’t play my best. This is all some set-up to make me embarrass myself.” He turned back around, not caring that the goose had begun honking again as it waddled over. 

“Omi—”

“You better hope we don’t play each other, Miya, because I will win. I’ll be the one to embarrass you.” He said it with his back turned. 

If Miya said something in response, Kiyoomi ignored it. 

He wouldn’t let Miya ruin his concentration. Kiyoomi was there to win, not to listen to a boy who claimed that a goose had marked them as soulmates and that their only choice was to fall in love. As he walked toward the elevator, he told himself that he would never fall in love with Miya Atsumu. 

No matter what a goose (or his heart) said. 

⭐️

When Kiyoomi arrived at the Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium for the opening ceremony the following morning, he was in a bad mood. The way he felt stepping off the bus, though, was different from the general discontent he typically experienced. Things were getting to be too much for him. He felt anxious and irritable; feelings brought on by the unknowns piling up around him. 

He’d slept poorly the night before—a result of having to share a room with his entire team, coupled with the restless thoughts that wouldn’t quit his mind. And when he had managed to fall asleep, Miya Atsumu had infiltrated his dreams. Kiyoomi couldn't remember all the details, but could recall enough that the thought of them caused that same desire he’d felt before he and Miya had kissed to come back. That small tug at his heart wishing for more. 

Then there was the upcoming ceremony itself that stirred his anxiety. He watched bus after bus unload players and coaches and spectators, hundreds of bodies all making their way to the same place Kiyoomi walked toward. He’d been told that the teams would wait in the lobby until it was time to begin. The knowledge that he would be around that many people in that environment for an undetermined amount of time was overwhelming. 

As he walked, Kiyoomi began mapping out the best way to part with his team in favor of finding a quiet corner away from the noise. He wanted to hide until it was time for the teams to line up. He’d been so preoccupied with trying to find a solution to one problem that he hadn’t heard the honking until the goose was upon him. 

Not here, he thought miserably, feeling the nerves working their way through his body. Because where there was a goose, there was a Miya Atsumu. And sure enough, Kiyoomi turned his head in time to see the rest of the Inarizaki team walking toward the same entrance as Itachiyama. 

He realized he was staring. Flustered, he turned his head back around and pretended like he hadn’t seen Miya’s expression when their eyes briefly met. He’d seemed excited, like he still wanted to talk to Kiyoomi regardless of the way he’d been treated the night before. 

He’s persistent, Kiyoomi thought. It was a trait that he himself strived for, fueled by his desire to finish what he started instead of leaving a project incomplete or a goal unmet. He tried to ignore his own hypocrisy, how he faulted Miya for a quality he admired about himself. 

Kiyoomi kept walking until he was in the building. Then, his mission became finding a place to hide until he heard the announcement to line up. Even Motoya didn’t try to stop him when he shoved his hands further into his jacket pockets, put his head down, and walked through the gymnasium’s lobby until he found a secluded spot to be alone.

From his corner, Kiyoomi saw faces both familiar and unfamiliar. Some belonged to people he’d met at training camps, others were those of opponents from past tournaments. There were also those that he’d become familiar with after scouring the Internet for information on their statistics and playing styles in the event of a potential matchup. 

Kiyoomi liked to be prepared. 

In situations like the present—when the world felt a little too loud—he was able to distract himself by running through the mental profiles he’d built for the players that passed by. Even if the sight of the crowd caused his anxiety to build, Kiyoomi was able to mitigate some of his intrusive thoughts by reassuring himself that he could pick out countless faces in the swarm of people. Knowing who stood before him and what threat level they possessed let him relax just the slightest bit. 

Still, he did his best to keep his head down. Making eye contact was an invitation to begin a conversation, and Kiyoomi was not in the mood to talk with others—especially not the boy in the maroon-colored jacket walking toward him.

“That jacket doesn’t match yer personality, Omi-kun,” Miya said. “It’s too bright.” 

“What do you want, Miya?” 

“Just sayin’ ‘Hi’ to my soulmate.”

Kiyoomi narrowed his eyes, taking one step closer to Miya so that no one around them would hear their conversation. “Don’t call me that.” 

“But it’s what’cha are.” 

“Don’t you have a team to be with?” Kiyoomi asked, quickly trying to change the subject. 

Miya grinned. “Don’t you?” 

He cursed the way his insides jittered, a feeling different from his every day anxiety. This was something new, something unwarranted. Kiyoomi didn’t know how to control his heart when he saw the way Miya looked at him with that wide-spreading grin on his face. There was no system he’d spent years developing to calm himself down from looking too long at Miya Atsumu’s stupid face like the tactics he’d perfected for easing the nerves that came with being in crowded areas. 

Miya Atsumu was an uncharted territory Sakusa Kiyoomi didn’t know how to navigate. 

“Tsumu,” Kiyoomi heard a voice call then. Whoever had said it must have been addressing Miya, whose grin became a look of agitation when he turned his head toward the source of the voice. “Kita-san said to get over here.” 

Kiyoomi followed Miya’s movements until his own eyes landed on the person who must have called out. There, standing a few feet away with an amused expression on his face—the kind reserved for when someone knew their sibling was about to get scolded—was Miya Osamu. He knew they were twins, but Kiyoomi was still struck by how much the two resembled one another. 

At least his brother’s hair isn’t yellow, he thought to himself in a desperate attempt to calm down. There was no need to swoon over a boy whose hair was the color of mustard. 

It was when he began walking in their direction, though, that Kiyoomi noticed the little things that separated Miya Osamu from his brother. Like the way he parted his hair, or how he carried himself with more ease—as if he wasn’t determined to always operate at 120.

“Sorry, Omi-kun, I gotta go.” 

Kiyoomi gave a “Hmph” in response, not sure what else to offer. His thoughts were a jumble, his mind disoriented. He couldn’t stop thinking about how easily he’d been able to find the things that separated one twin from the other; how, subconsciously, he must have been committing Miya Atsumu to memory. 

He was grateful when Miya walked away without saying anything else to him, already beginning to bicker with his twin as he went. Kiyoomi didn’t know who he was becoming, and he couldn’t figure it out with the source of his problems standing in front of him. He needed time to think.

The Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium, though, was not the place to confront the feelings Kiyoomi didn’t know how to put into words. So he pushed them aside, retreating further into the corner as he tried to reorient himself. He was there to play volleyball, and he was there to win. Piecing together the way he felt about a boy who was only in his life because of a goose was not how he needed to be spending his time before the opening ceremony. Self-reflection would have to come later; his priorities needed to be elsewhere. Miya was nothing more than a distraction that needed to be stopped. Kiyoomi had to remind himself of that as he watched him disappear from his line of sight alongside a group of boys in maroon-colored jackets. 

⭐️

When he arrived back at the hotel after the first day of the tournament, Kiyoomi went straight to the team room. He’d told Motoya it was because he wanted to study film on tomorrow’s opponent, which wasn’t a total lie. Buried underneath his partial truth, though, was another reason: he didn’t want to run into Miya...or the goose—but right now the other boy was at the root of Kiyoomi’s problems. 

With the ceremony behind him, Kiyoomi was left to deal with the memories of talking to Miya in the hallway of the gymnasium, was left to deal with the surge of jitters that overcame him when he’d first seen Miya that morning. How ridiculous he felt in retrospect. 

He took to the corner of the room that he’d carved out for himself the night before, letting his back rest against the wall as he pulled out his phone. Kiyoomi had been prepared to type tomorrow's opponent’s name into his Internet browser when impulse took over. Instead of searching for the school, he pulled up the results for the Soulmate Goose of Enforcement and began to sift through them. 

The articles he skimmed varied in the information they provided, which was of no solace to him. Some claimed that the goose was only meant to introduce soulmates to one another, others said it would not leave them alone until they kissed and fell in love. Kiyoomi read one testimony where a person had driven across the country to find their soulmate because the goose demanded it. The phenomenon was also not something that happened to everyone. Not everyone had a soulmate goose. 

If not everyone has a soulmate goose, Kiyoomi wondered to himself, does that mean not everyone has a soulmate?

The thought pissed him off. 

He didn’t understand why he, of all people, had been selected by a goose to have a soulmate. The longer he thought about it, though, he wondered if the conflicting testimonies surrounding the Soulmate Goose of Enforcement further proved that soulmates as a whole did not exist. That maybe he and Miya Atsumu weren’t soulmates after all. Maybe they were just two boys who had really bad luck. 

It all seemed like nonsense, and yet Kiyoomi was running out of willpower to claim that the goose that appeared whenever Miya was near him was an ordinary creature. If it were, it wouldn’t still be trying to force the two together when Kiyoomi was doing everything he could to push them apart. 

As he sat there, reading through stories of people like him—people who had been coerced into love by a goose—he began to wonder why his attempts to push Miya away never worked. Another thought, buried just deep enough that Kiyoomi prevented it from fully surfacing, was: Why was he insistent on pushing Miya away? 

Why fight what appeared inevitable? Was that what Miya was doing?

It was a lot to think about while sitting in the corner of a room filled with his teammates coming and going and carrying out their own conversations. 

Kiyoomi locked his phone and shoved it into the pocket of his athletic pants. He stood up soundlessly and pulled a mask from his jacket pocket, slipping it on before walking across the room. It was relatively empty—the Third Years taking their turn in the bath—and Kiyoomi was able to leave without having to talk to any of his teammates. 

Even Motoya remained seated on his futon. His expression was one of concern, but when Kiyoomi shook his head at him, he knew not to follow. 

Once in the hallway, Kiyoomi began to assess where he could go to be alone. The goose—and possibly Miya—would be waiting outside, and he couldn’t risk an encounter with either. Not when they were the source of the questions he couldn’t yet answer. The lobby would be full of people moving about, and possibly where other teams would be congregating. Kiyoomi would not search the Internet for information on the Soulmate Goose of Enforcement with that many wandering eyes around. 

He settled for an alcove below a window at the end of the hall. His teammates returning from the bathroom would be able to see him if they looked in his direction, but they’d spent enough time around Kiyoomi to know when he wanted to be left alone. It was the safest he could get given his limited options. 

He sat with his shoulders slouched forward, his hands hanging loosely in front of him. Underneath his mask, his lips formed a tight line. 

He’d left the room to think, but now that he was alone, Kiyoomi didn’t know where to begin. He reached into his pants’ pocket to pull out his phone, deciding that the best place to search for answers would be in the stories of those who had also been plagued by a bothersome goose. 

He clicked through more testimonies and articles that attempted to prove the validity of the Soulmate Goose. What his search left him with, though, was a patchwork of information Kiyoomi was forced to piece together. 

It seemed like the goose could appear at any time, and not even the first time “soulmates” saw one another, which could explain why Kiyoomi didn’t recall any geese pestering him at Interhigh. The goose hadn’t been ready to bring him and Miya together, or something like that. 

It also seemed like the goose only appeared when “soulmates” were about to meet, which would explain the near-month of freedom Kiyoomi had experienced when he and Miya had finished at the training camp. If that were the case, he only had to make it to the end of the week. Then Miya would go back to his home and Kiyoomi would return to his. 

Of course, there was the chance that he was misinterpreting everything and Kiyoomi would be forced to board a train to Hyōgo, stuck there until something in him changed and he decided that Miya Atsumu was the person he wanted to love. 

No, he thought bitterly; he wasn’t given a choice. 

It wasn’t about if he wanted to love Miya. The goose had decided that Kiyoomi had to fall in love with him, or risk a life of ankle biting and dodging a villainous animal anytime his supposed soulmate was near. It didn’t matter if he and Miya never saw each other again; it was the knowledge that Kiyoomi would have to live his life always worried that a goose could appear at any moment and drag him back to someone who was still but a stranger to him. 

That, Kiyoomi realized, was why he didn’t believe in soulmates. Or, why he didn’t want to believe in them. It was the unfairness of it all—the idea that the universe had predetermined who he was meant to fall in love with. 

And of course the universe had given him Miya Atsumu. 

Kiyoomi also didn’t understand why he was being forced to fall in love at all. It wasn’t a concept he was familiar with. He knew that there were people who probably loved him—his parents, his siblings, Motoya—but Kiyoomi had spent so much of his life alone that he’d learned to live without love. Even with his cousin, Kiyoomi sometimes wondered if Motoya stuck around out of love or just because he was nice. Or, did he remain near Kiyoomi out of familial obligation? 

If he were ever to fall in love, Kiyoomi wanted to do so on his own terms. Love was about vulnerability, about being able to open yourself up completely to someone else—things he wasn't comfortable with. When he was ready to reveal every piece of himself to someone, ready to lay himself bare until all of his secrets had been exposed, he wanted to choose who he shared himself with. 

A goose could not force him to open up to anyone, much less Miya Atsumu. 

He wondered, as he sat there confronting the thoughts he always pushed down, how Miya appeared so casual about the entire thing. Kiyoomi couldn’t imagine why Miya would continue to make every effort to talk to him if he didn’t feel obligated to. 

Miya, Kiyoomi decided as he put his phone back in his pocket and stood up, was only acting the way he did toward him because he felt compelled to. He pretended to flirt with Kiyoomi because the goose had given him no other option. Kiyoomi couldn’t see the possibility of Miya falling in love with him on his own terms. 

It wasn’t pessimism, it was being realistic. That was what Kiyoomi told himself when he slipped into the team room and retreated back to his corner. He also told himself that every jitter, every time his heart surged when he remembered kissing Miya, had been the goose getting into his head. 

His feelings—however he defined them—were built on an unstable foundation. If by some chance he actually felt something for Miya Atsumu, it was because he felt obligated to. 

(That was the lie Sakusa Kiyoomi told himself before he went to bed that night.)

⭐️

Kiyoomi was unsurprised that the goose was waiting for him on the sidewalk leading up to the hotel when he returned after the second day of the tournament. He was also unsurprised to see Miya not far off, pacing outside of his own hotel with his hands shoved in the pockets of his jacket in a way that mirrored how Kiyoomi typically walked. Miya and the goose—no matter how much of an inconvenience—were a part of his life now, a fact Kiyoomi needed to accept.

What surprised him, though, was the expression on Miya’s face when he caught sight of Kiyoomi. He seemed upset, bothered by something that caused him to walk in silence across the stretch of sidewalk that connected the two buildings together. Kiyoomi almost missed the way his heart would jump when Miya called out to “Omi-Omi.” Almost. 

It’s not real, he tried to remind himself. 

“I’ll see you upstairs,” he quickly said to Motoya before beginning to walk in Miya’s direction, meeting him halfway. 

The goose followed, but kept more distance than usual in its pursuit—something Kiyoomi was grateful for. 

“Looks like I won’t be takin’ ya on that date, Omi-kun,” Miya said when it was just the two of them (plus a goose) on the sidewalk. The typical vigor he carried with him—both in his speech and the way he walked—was missing. 

“You never...I never agreed to a date,” Kiyoomi responded curtly. A piece of him hoped that if he maintained his usual temper, it would bring out the Miya he had begrudgingly come to tolerate. The one who made his heart beat in new and confusing rhythms. “What’s your problem?” 

Miya sighed. “We lost today.” 

Ah. 

“Darn.” There was no sympathy in Kiyoomi’s voice. He’d seen some of their match against Karasuno and had already been aware of the outcome. Besides, Kiyoomi didn’t believe in pitying someone for something as mundane as losing a volleyball match. 

Miya took his hands out of his pockets, letting them fall to his sides in discontent. “At least pretend to feel bad for us!” His voice was a whine; there was a trace of his usual self in there. Kiyoomi hated the way hearing Miya talk like that caused a tiny smile to form on his lips. He was grateful the other boy couldn’t see the expression he wore underneath his mask. 

“Why would I feel bad? My team’s still in the tournament. Even if you hadn’t lost, I would be rooting for you to lose. I came here to win.” 

“I’ll beat’cha next year! Mark my words.”

“If your team makes it that far.”

“You just wait, Omi-kun.” 

Kiyoomi sighed, knowing that complaining about his team’s loss wasn’t the only reason Miya had been waiting for him to get back. “You’re being weirder than usual. What do you want?” 

“Uh...” Miya looked nervous as he reached back into the pocket of his jacket to pull out what looked like a napkin. “Here.” He tried to hand it to Kiyoomi, who didn’t immediately take it. It looked used—dirty. 

“What the hell is this?” 

Miya pulled the napkin back, studying what must have been someone’s handwriting on one side of it. “A napkin. But I wrote my number on it.”

Oh. 

“I figured since we’re soulmates and all, if Senshi ever tries to bite‘cha, just gimme a call and I’ll come talk some sense into him.” He laughed, but it felt forced. 

Kiyoomi stared at him, trying to take in everything Miya had just said. He’d written his phone number on a napkin and was now shoving it back in Kiyoomi’s direction so that they could stay in touch. Because they were soulmates who had been marked by a goose. Even after his revelations from the night before, it was still a lot for Kiyoomi to handle. 

Miya looked like he wanted to say something else, but instead he stood there, uncharacteristically quiet, while he waited for Kiyoomi to take the napkin. The goose had also begun to make its way toward them, giving a single honk to signal its arrival. 

“I think Senshi wants ya to take it.”

“Fine.” Kiyoomi grabbed the napkin and shoved it into his jacket pocket without glancing at the number written in ink across it. 

Miya took a step closer, the same devious expression he’d worn the night they’d kissed—which now felt like years instead of a few short weeks ago—forming on his face. He seemed renewed, impassioned once more. “Now, how ‘bout a goodbye kiss?” 

“No.” 

“C’mon, soulmate, just one?”

“You’re the worst person I know.” 

“But accordin’ to Senshi, I’m yer worst person.” 

The line was so terrible, Kiyoomi couldn’t help but laugh. It was a genuine sound that he let out, something so rare for him to do. The way Miya looked at him, though, brought Kiyoomi back to silence. His expression was smug—the realization that Kiyoomi had laughed at one of his lines no doubt inflating his ego. 

“Whaddya think, Senshi? I think Omi-kun is startin’ to like me.” 

“Shut up, Miya.” 

But his words had some validity to them, which only left Kiyoomi feeling frustrated and confused. Maybe he was starting to like Miya; maybe he was realizing that he’d been quick to judge the boy who—despite his faults—was able to make him laugh in a way that was new and refreshing. Maybe the goose had nothing to do with it at all, and Kiyoomi was learning what it meant to have someone in his life beyond his cousin that he enjoyed talking to. 

Bantering with Miya made Kiyoomi feel a little freer, like he could begin to lower the walls he’d built up around himself. 

A large part of him, though, still worried that everything he felt and everything about the way Miya acted when they were together was a lie, fabricated by the goose now distracting itself in the shrubbery. 

He needed to keep his heart guarded. 

“Hey,” Miya said, his voice enough to pull Kiyoomi away from his thoughts. He still wore a smug expression on his face. “If ya make it back here next year, I’ll take ya on that date, Omi-kun.”

“Don’t worry about me. If you make it back here, I’ll go on your stupid date.” 

Was this flirting? Kiyoomi couldn’t help but wonder as he watched the way Miya’s grin widened when he said, “It’s a deal.”

“Try not to lose.” 

“Better pack a suit, Omi-Omi. I’m takin’ ya somewhere real fancy.” 

Kiyoomi was definitely blushing underneath his mask. He’d never felt that way before, and he realized that he didn’t hate the feeling. It didn’t change the fact, though, that the thought remained in the back of his mind that everything he and Miya appeared to be working toward could so easily come crashing down. 

Things were moving too fast; Kiyoomi needed time to calm down and assess. He needed a plan. 

“Goodnight, Miya,” he said, deciding that it would be for the best if he left things where they were instead of wading deeper into unfamiliar waters. He turned and began the walk back to his hotel. 

“G’night, Omi-Omi. One year from now—get ready for the best date ever!” 

Kiyoomi kept his head down and shoved his hands into his jacket pockets. He had to bite his lip when one of them found a hold on the napkin with Miya’s phone number on it. Deciding how long to wait before he texted him, though, would have to be a project for another night. 

For now, he needed to push his feelings aside and prepare for the rest of the tournament. 

This is why you’re here, Kiyoomi reminded himself as he slipped back into the team room. Don’t lose sight of that. 

⭐️

Kiyoomi didn’t understand why the goose was waiting for him outside of the Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium on the third day of the tournament. Miya was gone; he should have been on the bus back to Hyōgo to wallow in defeat. He didn’t think the universe was so cruel that a goose would force him to leave behind the tournament in favor of following a boy back to his prefecture. 

(He hoped the universe wasn’t that cruel.)

The presence of the goose, therefore, could only mean—

“Good mornin’, Omi-kun.”

So maybe the universe wasn’t cruel enough to make him travel across the country for Miya Atsumu, but Kiyoomi still sent silent curses to it for bringing them together outside of the gymnasium. Again. He thought he had finally caught a break, a chance to live Miya-free. 

(A chance to work out his feelings.)

“I thought you were leaving.” 

“Turns out we paid for the week, so we’re stayin’ for the week.” For someone who was standing outside of the tournament as a spectator, not a competitor, Miya seemed happy. 

It made Kiyoomi suspicious. 

“Which means,” Miya began when Kiyoomi didn’t say anything. “I can take ya on that date.” 

Kiyoomi froze. “No,” he said quickly, panic setting in. He’d thought that he would have an entire year to prepare for a date with Miya Atsumu, not a few hours. He hadn’t had time to come up with a plan. 

The goose honked and came to stand dangerously close to Kiyoomi’s ankles. Time was up; there would be no plan. 

“Fine.” Kiyoomi looked from the goose to Miya. “If we lose today, I’ll go on a date with you. Tonight.”

He tried not to focus on the elated expression Miya wore, tried to tell himself that this was all still some elaborate joke even when he knew it was his reality. 

“Well, aren’t you confident?” Miya teased. 

“I know my team and I know my own abilities.” He took a step past Miya. “Now, if you'll excuse me...some of us have games to win.” 

He could hear Miya’s laughter, but didn’t dare turn back around. He felt the heat on his cheeks as he entered the building. 

Things had started out well for Kiyoomi when gameplay began for the day. Itachiyama had won their first match and had advanced to a quarterfinals matchup against Inubushi Higashi. 

He felt alive.

Miya Atsumu and their agreement about a potential date hadn’t crossed his mind all morning. Presently, the only thing that mattered to him was how he performed on the court. Kiyoomi knew he wanted to stand there the longest and play without regret. 

When he and Motoya warmed up together before the game, Kiyoomi noticed that his movements were lighter. He felt even more receptive to his body and his surroundings than normal. He found it easy to pass the balls Motoya sent his way, and found it even easier to hit them for his cousin to dig.

This, Kiyoomi realized, was what it meant to be at the top of his game. 

It was what he had worked toward, the reason why he spent long hours practicing his sets and his passes against a wall in a gym corner by himself. Even if his primary role was to be a hitter, he wanted to be versatile enough that he could step in wherever, whenever. He was the Ace, after all—a title he had earned through his own dedication to the sport. 

Kiyoomi’s serves during warmups were equally as powerful; when he visualized a target, he managed to hit it. He told himself not to become overconfident, but he could tell that the way he was performing during warmups would bode well for the match itself. 

And he had been right, initially. 

Itachiyama took the first set 25-22, and had been up in the second until the mistakes began to pile up. They lost 20-25.  

The third set remained close. Itachiyama would score a point, then Inubushi Higashi would counter. Kiyoomi continued to perform how he always did: he remained confident in his abilities as a hitter and a server, and helped his teammates wherever else he could. As the set progressed, however, he began to notice that something was wrong with Iizuna—the team’s captain and setter. 

Iizuna was favoring one foot more than the other, and he was slow to get the balls not passed directly to the setter slot. When his feet left the ground, his landings were awkward. 

Kiyoomi could tell he was injured. He looked to his coach to call a timeout, but Iizuna waved him off, likely sensing that Kiyoomi had noticed something was wrong, but didn’t want to draw attention to the problem. 

How careless, Kiyoomi thought. He expected better from his captain.

The set continued. 

Then—with the score 27-28 in favor of Inubushi Higashi—Kiyoomi watched as Iizuna went to set the ball. Everything happened in slow motion: a pass from Motoya to the perfect spot; Iizuna jumping up to perform a quick set to the middle. The ball was blocked, but it wasn’t the other team’s play that drew Kiyoomi’s attention. 

Iizuna was on the ground, his ankle having finally given out. 

The ball rolled across the court. The whistle sounded. Itachiyama lost the set 27-29 and was eliminated from the tournament. 

When Kiyoomi walked off the court, he felt his frustration build—not because his team had lost, but because he could hear words of pity coming from a crowd of confused spectators. From people who had likely never stepped foot on a court before. He hated being pitied. 

Kiyoomi played every match with the knowledge that he could lose, that each match point could be his last. He practiced hard and perfected his skills so that, when the losses came, he could walk off the court without regret. His philosophy was the reason why hearing whispers from spectators about how “Sakusa-kun was really good today, but his team still lost” made him bristle. 

He knew that he’d played well, just like he knew his team had lost. They were two statements that could coexist in his mind because he was already thinking on how he could improve for the matches that would come in the future. Today’s loss did not mean the end for him. 

As he meandered down the hall toward where his team had left their bags, he kept those thoughts at the forefront of his mind. While he and his teammates collected their belongings, Kiyoomi listened to them talk about the match, but offered little of his own commentary. 

He disconnected himself from the chatter until it fizzled into a series of worried gasps. Kiyoomi turned then to see Iizuna being helped over to the bags by two other members of the Itachiyama team. Pain etched itself across the captain’s face. 

Kiyoomi also noticed that he was crying. 

There was something about such a raw display of emotion that Kiyoomi didn’t understand. He wasn’t someone who cried; he saw no point in it. As long as he continued to pay proper attention to himself—finishing what he started in order to live a life without regret—there was no need to cry over something like going out with an injury in your last high school match. 

He told as much to Iizuna, who had singled him out for the “judgemental look” Kiyoomi had apparently given him. He thought he’d kept his features neutral, but the way his captain regarded him evidenced that his expression had been anything but. 

“I’m allowed to be upset, Sakusa. People are allowed to be pissed off when something happens to them. You can’t judge us for that!”

Kiyoomi waited a moment before countering Iizuna’s accusations toward him, wanting to carefully consider his words. “I can understand having regrets if you didn’t practice enough or prepare properly beforehand,” he began. “But I know neither was the case with you, Iizuna-san. So I had to wonder—”

“Right,” his captain shot back. “Neither was the case! And that’s why it hurts even more! Duh!”

Oh.

They entered a back-and-forth that ended with Iizuna reiterating to him that he needed to learn how to consider the emotions of others, a statement that caused Kiyoomi to pause. 

He wasn’t sure how to do that, didn’t know how to offer counsel to someone who was sad or frustrated or anxious. He knew, too, that it would not be something he learned how to do in a day. The longer he thought about it, Kiyoomi wondered if he would ever learn how to do it. The process seemed a lot like being vulnerable. 

He wasn’t ready to share that level of intimacy with someone. 

His thoughts were interrupted by his coach announcing that the team had some time to walk around the venue before the bus would arrive to take them back to the hotel. Most of the other matches had finished for the day, and the team was advised to wait in the lobby. 

Kiyoomi saw that as a sign to get away from his still-crying captain and his teammates who hadn’t yet accepted the loss. He scanned the group for Motoya and gave him a nod; his cousin nodded back and the two took off in the direction of the bathroom. 

They made it halfway down the hall when the sound of “Omi-kun” caused Kiyoomi to stop and turn. 

Shit. 

He told Motoya that he would catch up to him after he dealt with Miya, not wanting his cousin to observe whatever interaction was about to be had. 

“Looks like we’re both the losers this year.” 

“It’s one loss.” Kiyoomi stared at Miya, daring the other boy to challenge him before he could finish his thought. “I played how I always do, so I don’t want your pity.” 

Miya seemed caught off-guard by this, as if he'd been expecting to hear Kiyoomi complain about his team’s surprising upset. “I wasn’t—”

“Then why are you here?” 

The other boy—appearing at a loss—opened and closed his mouth once before settling on something to say. “Kōrai-kun won.” 

It took a moment for Kiyoomi to place the name. Hoshiumi Kōrai, the Second Year outside hitter from Kamomedai—they had been at the same training camp the month before. It was unsurprising that his team had won their match. Kiyoomi was also silently pleased that Hoshiumi’s win meant that the team that had beaten Wakatoshi finally lost. 

“Anyways, I was gonna come here to bother you—”

“You’re always bothering me.”

Miya feigned offense. “What I’m tryin’ to say, Omi-kun, is that I know a deal’s a deal, but I think we should hold off on the date.”

Oh. 

Whatever Kiyoomi had been expecting Miya to say, calling off the date wasn’t it. “Okay.” 

“Can ya at least try to act upset?”

“Why?” 

Miya tilted his head back and groaned before looking back at Kiyoomi in defeat. “Because I’m sayin’ that ya don’t get to go on a date with me yet!”

It was the worst possible thing for him to say at the same moment Motoya rejoined them in the hallway. 

Kiyoomi felt his body tense, panic setting in over the knowledge that his cousin—even if he hadn’t heard everything—had likely heard Miya loudly exclaim that he’d intended to take Kiyoomi on a date.

“I’m going to the bathroom,” Kiyoomi said, turning around and brushing past his cousin without saying anything further. If he ignored the situation, nothing would come of it. He wouldn’t have to explain anything to Motoya about soulmate geese or dates or Miya Atsumu. 

Kiyoomi stood in front of a mirror that hung above one of the sinks, able to enjoy exactly 10 seconds of silence before the door opened and Miya joined him in the bathroom. 

“Ya ran off before I could even explain myself.” 

He watched Miya through the mirror’s reflection. “Then explain.” 

“I spent all my money.” 

“What the hell are you talking about?”

A pause, then: “I’m sayin’ that I can’t take ya on a date because I can’t pay for it, and Samu won’t lend me any money because he says I won’t pay him back.”

Kiyoomi turned to look at Miya, not just the reflection of him that he’d been studying in the mirror. The other boy seemed genuinely embarrassed by this, as if he was having a harder time admitting it to himself than he was to Kiyoomi. Miya, he was learning, wasn’t the type to appear vulnerable. He put up walls just like Kiyoomi. 

The realization that the two had another thing in common came as a shock.

(But it was a good shock.)

“Okay,” Kiyoomi said, unsure what else to add. He’d never gone on a date before, and he’d never been in a situation where he couldn’t pay for something. “Is that it?” 

Miya blinked. “I don’t understand you, Omi-kun.” 

“I’m not going to pity you.” 

“Good thing I don’t want yer pity.” 

Kiyoomi sighed, wondering if he would come to regret what he was about to say. “You better save up for next year.”

That got Miya’s attention, whose smile began to spread across his face. “It’s a date!”

“Don’t get cocky, Miya. You have to make it to the tournament first.”

“I’m not gonna lose, Omi-kun.” 

“We’ll see,” Kiyoomi said as he maneuvered around the other boy toward the door. He walked out of the bathroom with his head down; he wouldn’t give Miya the satisfaction of seeing the traces of a smirk that lingered on his lips.

As Kiyoomi walked through the hall, he wondered what he had to lose by agreeing to go on a date with Miya Atsumu. Probably a lot, he decided. Still, there was that persistent tug at his heart telling him that he might have something to gain. 

⭐️

The night passed slowly. Coach gave a talk about the season, then the Third Years expressed their gratitude for being able to play alongside everyone. All eyes were on Iizuna, whose ankle had been wrapped to protect the sprain he’d suffered during the match. Tears were shed and hugs were given. Kiyoomi tried to stay away from the overwhelming displays of affection, but even he was pulled in—begrudgingly—by his Senpais. When Motoya cried, Kiyoomi was ready to offer him the napkin in his pocket until he remembered it had Miya’s number written on it. 

He decided it was best to leave that tucked away. 

Team chatter turned into team dinner, which then turned into the Itachiyama boys wandering through the neighborhood and reflecting on the season as they made their way to the hotel. 

Kiyoomi walked in the back with Motoya, who had yet to comment on what he’d likely overheard that afternoon. He knew his cousin wasn’t the type to pry too deeply into his life, but Kiyoomi could sense that the words were waiting just below the surface. The air had become heavy between them, the weight of secrets left unshared sitting uncomfortably on Kiyoomi’s shoulders. It wasn’t as if he and Motoya were often open with each other, and when they were, his cousin talked while Kiyoomi listened. It was just the way things had always been. 

But something told him, as they walked with unsynchronized footsteps toward the hotel, that opening up wouldn’t be the worst thing he could do. In fact, it might be nice to have someone he trusted help him navigate the beginning stages of falling in love. 

Wait. 

Falling in love? Was that what was happening? 

He stopped walking, pulled away by the realization he’d come to. 

“Everything okay?” Motoya asked, pausing a pace ahead of him. The rest of the team paid no attention. 

“No.” His voice wasn’t bitter when he said it, but sad. He couldn’t handle the realization that, despite everything—despite trying to convince himself that a goose had fabricated anything he might be feeling toward Miya Atsumu—he was still falling in love. And it felt real, felt genuine. 

“We can talk about it, if you want?” 

Kiyoomi didn’t know what he wanted. He’d thought opening up to Motoya would have been a way to clear his head, to find some solace in the feelings that couldn’t be suppressed. Now that he was presented with that option, though, Kiyoomi realized he was scared. He didn’t know how to open up, didn’t know how to talk about his feelings. 

“Not here,” he said when he began to walk again. The team wasn’t too far ahead, and Kiyoomi knew that questions would be raised if he and his cousin returned after the rest of the group. “Later.”

“Later,” Motoya repeated. 

Kiyoomi had been too busy mentally rehearsing what he wanted to say to his cousin on the walk back that he hadn’t noticed there wasn’t a goose waiting for him outside of the hotel. He would think on the implications of that realization later when he laid in the dark on his futon.

For now, he pulled Motoya into an unoccupied set of chairs in one corner of the lobby and scanned the room for any lingering bodies that could potentially overhear what Kiyoomi was about to say. Only when he was sure that it was safe did he feel comfortable starting his confession. 

“Have you heard of the Soulmate Goose of Enforcement?” His voice was barely a whisper. 

“The what?”

A little louder: “The Soulmate Goose of Enforcement.” 

“Is it a new manga?” 

Kiyoomi was beginning to think opening up wasn’t for him, that he should continue keeping everything to himself. Motoya hadn’t questioned why Miya would have been asking him on a date, so Kiyoomi should have just lived in blissful ignorance that his cousin hadn’t heard anything after all. 

He hated spilling his feelings, but Iizuna’s nagging voice from earlier that day told him to continue. Just as Kiyoomi needed to consider how others felt, he needed to consider his own emotions, too.

“No. It’s a goose that leads you to your soulmate.”

“The goose…” Motoya’s eyes grew wide. “You found your soulmate!” 

“Shut up.” Kiyoomi looked around nervously, wondering if anyone had heard Motoya’s too-loud exclamation. “I think I did. If they exist.” 

“And?”

“I can’t figure out what’s real and what’s this goose messing with my head.” He began to occupy himself with his hands, studying the way his wrists bent at a perfect 180-degrees instead of observing the elated expression Motoya wore. 

“So, this is what I’ve got,” he heard his cousin say. Kiyoomi still chose not to look at him. “You and Miya Atsumu are soulmates because a goose said so, and now you’re thinking you’re in love with him, but you don’t want to be in love with him? Or, you’re not sure you’re in love with him because you think the goose is messing with you? But you’re going on that date, right? So you can fall in love for real? God, that’s confusing.” 

Kiyoomi looked up. “It’s a fucking nightmare.” 

“Well, does he know how you feel?” 

He gave a single “Ha” in response, the idea that he would tell Miya how he felt a humorous concept to him. Kiyoomi was still having doubts about opening up to a relative. He didn’t know if he would ever be ready to tell the root of his problems how he felt. 

Motoya leaned back into his chair. “Okay, so you haven’t told him. Has he said anything to you?”

Had he? Kiyoomi's mind began a supercut of every interaction he’d had with Miya, searching for some sign that the other boy felt the same way he did. “I don’t think so,” he said. He couldn’t be sure; every time he thought Miya might have been flirting with him, Kiyoomi didn’t know if that was just his personality. Or, if it was the goose. 

“And you’re not going to talk to him?”

“No.” 

“Well,” Motoya sighed. “I know you’ll logic your way out of this eventually. But, if you like him—and not just in a weird ‘the goose made me do it’ way—I think you should go for it.” 

Kiyoomi hadn’t expected the support Motoya was presently giving him. Though, he couldn’t put into words what he had expected. It was his first time sharing his feelings with someone; he didn’t know the protocol. “I have a year to figure it out,” he said eventually. 

“Unless the goose comes back sooner,” Motoya countered with a wink. 

“Shut up.” When Kiyoomi said it, though, he meant it teasingly. His body relaxed. It felt good to have someone he could trust helping him navigate the uncertainties that lay in the future. “I’m going to bed.” 

They stood up from their chairs then and began the walk toward the elevator, quietly joking with one another about geese and Miya Atsumu. The conversation left Kiyoomi with a lingering smile when he fell asleep that night. 

Maybe falling in love with Miya Atsumu would be okay.