Chapter Text
Atsumu Miya had exactly three priorities when he arrived at university: basketball, girls, and having the single dorm room he'd definitely, absolutely, one-hundred-percent submitted the request form for.
Except, as he stood in the housing office on move-in day, staring at a very unimpressed administrator, it became crystal clear that priority number three had gone spectacularly wrong.
"I'm sorry, Miya-san, but we have no record of your single room request," the woman said, her fingers clicking across her keyboard with the efficiency of someone who'd had this conversation a dozen times already today. "All single rooms were allocated months ago."
"But I—" Atsumu started, then stopped. Had he actually submitted it? He'd meant to. He'd had the form open on his laptop. But then Osamu had called about some relationship crisis with Suna, and then there'd been that pickup game, and then—
Shit.
"Who's my roommate?" he asked, resigned.
More clicking. "Sakusa Kiyoomi. He actually requested a single due to medical accommodations, but since he indicated he doesn't require full-time accessibility modifications, we were able to pair him with you instead."
Atsumu's stomach dropped. Sakusa Kiyoomi. He knew that name. Everyone in their athletic department knew that name, not because Sakusa was an athlete, but because he was notorious for being impossible to deal with. Pre-med, antisocial, and according to Bokuto, an absolute nightmare of a human being.
"Great," Atsumu muttered. "Just great."
The first thing Atsumu noticed when he opened the door to room 304 was how immaculate half of it already was. The left side of the room looked like it had been measured with a ruler, textbooks stacked in perfect right angles, a small container of what looked like hand sanitizer positioned exactly parallel to the desk edge, bed made with hospital corners so crisp they could cut glass.
The second thing he noticed was the wheelchair parked beside the desk.
The third thing he noticed was the person sitting at said desk, back rigid, shoulders tense, and two of the most intensely dark eyes Atsumu had ever seen turning to look at him with something between disdain and resignation.
"You must be Miya," the guy said. Not a question. An accusation.
"Uh, yeah. Atsumu. And you're..."
"Sakusa Kiyoomi." He turned back to his laptop, fingers resuming their typing. Conversation apparently over.
Atsumu stood there for a moment, his duffel bag still on his shoulder, trying to figure out what the hell he was supposed to do now. His eyes drifted back to the wheelchair, then to Sakusa's legs, which looked... normal? He wasn't sure what he'd expected.
"Are you going to stand there all day, or are you going to unpack?" Sakusa asked without looking up.
"Right. Yeah. Unpack." Atsumu dropped his bag on the bare mattress of his bed, which suddenly looked considerably less comfortable than it had in the photos online.
"So, uh, basketball season starts in a few weeks. I might have some late practices, and sometimes the guys come over to—"
"I don't care what you do as long as you keep your things on your side of the room and don't make excessive noise after ten PM," Sakusa interrupted. "I have early classes."
"Cool. Cool, yeah, that's... cool."
This was going to be a long year.
---
The first week was an exercise in cohabitation torture.
Sakusa, as it turned out, was exactingly clean, pathologically punctual, and communicated primarily in clipped sentences and withering stares. He woke up at six AM every morning, six AM, like some kind of psychopath, and went through what sounded like an elaborate morning routine that involved a lot of pill bottles rattling.
Atsumu learned quickly not to touch anything on Sakusa's side of the room. He learned this after leaving a clean towel on Sakusa's desk chair and receiving a fifteen-minute lecture about contamination and personal boundaries that made him feel like he'd committed a war crime.
He also learned that Sakusa left the room in his wheelchair every single time, maneuvering it with practiced ease through their narrow doorway, and that he had a collection of masks he wore whenever he went out, black ones mostly, though Atsumu had spotted a dark green one once.
What Atsumu couldn't figure out was what, exactly, was wrong with Sakusa. He looked fine. His legs were there, clearly visible under his jeans. But every morning, Sakusa would transfer from his bed to his wheelchair with careful, deliberate movements, and every evening he'd transfer back.
---
"Dude, what's your roommate's deal?" Bokuto asked one day at practice, whipping a basketball at Atsumu's head with more force than strictly necessary.
Atsumu caught it, barely. "What do you mean?"
"I mean Sakusa. What's his deal? Is he as awful as I remember?"
"Ya know him?"
"Unfortunately." Bokuto made a face. "He went to the same high school as my sister. He was in the prep program, thought he was better than everyone. Total stick in the mud."
"He's..." Atsumu dribbled the ball, considering. "He's fine, I guess. Kinda intense about cleanliness. Uses a wheelchair."
"Yeah, some chronic illness thing," Bokuto said dismissively. "My sister was in his year. Said he was sick all the time, always missing school. Still made top of the class though, which was annoying as hell for everyone else."
"Ya have beef with a guy because he got good grades?"
"I have beef with him because he's an asshole," Bokuto corrected. "He told my sister her college essay was 'pedestrian and uninspired.' Who says that?"
Kuroo jogged over, stealing the ball from Atsumu's hands. "Are we talking about Bokuto's weird high school nemesis?"
"He's not my nemesis—"
"Ya literally just called him an asshole."
"Well, he is!"
Atsumu watched them bicker, a smile tugging at his lips despite himself. This, at least, was familiar. Bokuto and Kuroo had been best friends since middle school, had chosen this university specifically so they could play together, and their dynamic on the court was magnetic. Atsumu had been lucky to get recruited here, to get to play with them.
"Anyway," Kuroo said, spinning the ball on one finger, "how are you handling living with Mr. Personality? Has he critiqued your life choices yet?"
"Only about fifteen times," Atsumu admitted. "But mostly he just ignores me."
"Classic Sakusa," Bokuto said. "Hey, speaking of roommates, Akaashi says hi."
"Akaashi doesn't know who I am, and he's not your roommate."
"Yeah, but if he did, he'd say hi." Bokuto ignored the second part of the reply.
Atsumu laughed. Bokuto was ridiculous about his boyfriend, had been since they'd gotten together in high school. It would be annoying if it wasn't kind of endearing.
"When's he visiting again?" Kuroo asked.
"Next month. I'm gonna take him to that new café downtown, the one with the—" Bokuto continued talking, but Atsumu's attention drifted.
He'd been at university for exactly nine days, and he'd already figured out that college was different from high school in ways he hadn't expected. The basketball was more intense, the classes were harder, and his roommate situation was... complicated.
But he could handle complicated.
Probably.
---
The first time Atsumu saw Sakusa without his wheelchair was two weeks into the semester, at eleven PM on a Tuesday night.
Atsumu had stayed late at the gym, running drills until his legs shook and his shirt was soaked through with sweat. He'd stumbled back to the dorm in a daze, his mind still on basketball, on the way his three-pointer kept veering left, on how Coach had looked disappointed during the scrimmage.
He'd opened the door to room 304 expecting to find it dark, Sakusa already asleep.
Instead, he found Sakusa standing at his desk.
Standing.
On his own two legs.
Without the wheelchair, without anything supporting him.
Atsumu froze, his hand still on the doorknob, his gym bag slipping from his shoulder to the floor with a dull thud.
Sakusa's head snapped around, his eyes wide, actually wide, which was an expression Atsumu had never seen on his face before. For a moment, they just stared at each other.
Then Sakusa's legs buckled.
"Shit!" Atsumu was moving before he'd consciously decided to, crossing the room in three long strides, his hands reaching out to catch Sakusa before he hit the ground.
"Don't—" Sakusa started, but Atsumu already had him, one arm around his waist, steadying him. "I said don't touch me!"
Sakusa shoved at him, and Atsumu let go immediately, stepping back with his hands raised. Sakusa grabbed the edge of his desk, breathing hard, his knuckles white against the dark wood.
"Sorry," Atsumu said quickly. "Sorry, I just thought- I thought ya were gonna fall."
"I can handle myself," Sakusa bit out. He was still gripping the desk, his legs visibly trembling now. After a moment, he carefully lowered himself to sit on the edge of his bed, his jaw clenched tight.
Atsumu stood there uselessly, his heart still racing. "I didn't... I thought ya couldn't..."
"Couldn't what? Walk?" Sakusa's voice was sharp, defensive. "I can walk."
"But the wheelchair—"
"I use a wheelchair because I have a chronic illness that causes muscle weakness and fatigue. I can walk short distances, but it's painful and exhausting." Sakusa pulled his legs up onto the bed with careful hands, his expression tight. "Not that it's any of your business."
"Right. No, yeah, totally not my business." Atsumu ran a hand through his sweaty hair. "I just... didn't know."
"You didn't ask."
"Ya don't exactly invite conversation, dude."
Sakusa's glare could have stripped paint. "Maybe because I don't want to discuss my medical history with my roommate who leaves protein shake bottles on every available surface and thinks deodorant is a substitute for showering."
"Hey, I shower!"
"Eventually."
They fell into silence. Atsumu shifted his weight, suddenly aware of how disgusting he probably was right now—sweaty, gross, taking up space in this tense moment. He bent to pick up his gym bag.
"For what it's worth," he said, straightening, "I wasn't... I mean, I don't think anything bad about the wheelchair. Or whatever. Ya do what ya gotta do."
Sakusa looked at him for a long moment, something unreadable in his dark eyes. "How magnanimous of you."
"I dunno what that means."
"Of course you don't."
Atsumu felt his face flush. "Ya know what? I was tryin' to be nice, but forget it. I'm gonna go shower, since apparently I offend yer delicate sensibilities."
He grabbed his towel and shower caddy with more force than necessary and stalked toward the door. Behind him, he heard Sakusa sigh.
"Miya."
Atsumu stopped, his hand on the doorknob. He didn't turn around.
"Thank you," Sakusa said quietly. "For... before."
Atsumu looked back over his shoulder. Sakusa was lying down now, staring at the ceiling, his expression carefully neutral. In the lamplight, he looked younger somehow. Vulnerable.
"Yeah," Atsumu said. "No problem."
He left before he could say anything else stupid.
---
After that night, things shifted in a way Atsumu couldn't quite articulate.
Sakusa still ignored him most of the time. He still made passive-aggressive comments about Atsumu's side of the room (which was not that messy, thank you very much). He still left in his wheelchair every morning and came back in his wheelchair every evening.
But sometimes, late at night when he thought Atsumu was asleep, Sakusa would stand up. He'd walk to his desk to grab a book, or to the bathroom to brush his teeth. His steps were slow, careful, and sometimes he'd pause to lean against the wall or grab onto furniture.
Atsumu never said anything about it. He'd pretend to be asleep, his breathing even, while he watched through barely open eyes as Sakusa moved through the room like a ghost.
It felt private, somehow. Like something Sakusa didn't want witnessed.
So Atsumu didn't witness it... officially.
But he noticed other things, too. He noticed that Sakusa took a truly alarming number of pills, different bottles, different times of day, carefully tracked in a little notebook. He noticed that some days Sakusa looked exhausted before he'd even gotten out of bed, his face pale and drawn. He noticed that Sakusa's hands sometimes shook when he was writing, and that he'd pause to flex his fingers, working out some invisible stiffness.
"You're staring," Sakusa said one evening, not looking up from his biochemistry textbook.
Atsumu jerked his attention back to his own homework, an essay for his sports psychology class that he'd been pretending to work on for the past hour. "Was not."
"You were."
"Was thinkin'. There's a difference."
"Thinking requires brain activity."
"Wow. Hilarious. Ya should do stand-up." Atsumu tapped his pencil against his notebook and internally tore himself apart at the fact that he just said that to a wheelchair user. "Actually, hey, I have a question."
Sakusa's shoulders tensed. "What."
"It's not about... I mean, it's just a regular question." Atsumu twisted the pencil between his fingers. "Do ya ever come to games? Basketball games, I mean."
"Why would I do that?"
"I dunno. School spirit? They're actually pretty fun."
"I don't find sports 'fun.'"
"Ya don't find anything fun."
"I find many things fun," Sakusa said coolly. "Just none of the things you find fun."
Atsumu grinned. "Ya don't even know what I find fun."
"Basketball. Parties. Girls. Protein shakes." Sakusa finally looked up, one eyebrow raised. "Am I missing anything?"
"Video games. And I'll have ya know I'm very complex."
"Complex. Right."
"I am! I have, like, layers."
"Like an onion?"
"Exactly like an onion!" Atsumu pointed his pencil at Sakusa triumphantly, then paused. "Wait, are ya makin' fun of me?"
The corner of Sakusa's mouth twitched. It wasn't quite a smile, but it was close. "Would I do that?"
"Ya absolutely would."
They looked at each other for a moment, and something warm unfurled in Atsumu's chest. It was the closest they'd come to an actual conversation, and despite Sakusa's barbs, it felt almost... friendly?
Atsumu's phone buzzed, shattering the moment.
A text from Bokuto: party at sigma chi tomorrow night!!! you better be there
"Let me guess," Sakusa said, back to his textbook. "Party?"
"Yeah. Ya could come, if ya wanted."
"I'd rather contract smallpox."
"Smallpox doesn't exist anymore."
"Exactly."
Atsumu laughed despite himself. "Yer so weird."
"Says the person who owns five identical pairs of the same basketball shoes."
"They're good shoes!"
Sakusa didn't respond, but Atsumu could have sworn he saw another almost-smile.
Progress, he thought.
Weird, unexpected progress.