The Colors You Make Me See: a HaikYuu soulmate AU

Sakuatsu: Bright Colors, Bright Lights

Atsumu first met Sakusa in his first year of high school. They both attended the youth Japan training camp. He found Sakusa incredibly weird. The guy never touched anyone, and clearly had a severe case of mysophobia. Atsumu had no idea how he could handle playing volleyball ball, but he did. Quite well in fact. Scary well. He was incredibly skilled.

Yet no matter how many times they pulled off an awesome combo or something, Atsumu couldn't get as much as a single high five.

Flash forward a year, and the two of them are at the training camp again.

Atsumu stepped into the cafeteria and looked around. He saw Kageyama, Komori, and Hoshiumi chatting at a table and went to join them. They seemed to have no problem with his intrusion.

As the four of them talked, somehow the subject ended up on soulmates. It was revealed that Kageyama had a soulmate, which led to the rest of them pestering him with an onslaught of questions.

"How did you meet?"

"When did it happen?"

"What's it like seeing color?"

When they finally slowed down enough for him to actually answer, Kageyama told them about his teammate, Hinata, and how they met. Atsumu couldn't help but to laugh when he talked about when it first happened, and how he just walked off. Then he started talking about colors.

"It's cool. There's this depth in things that goes beyond just darker and lighter. I'd hear people talking about how pretty stuff like sunsets and the Northern Lights were, and while I figured they'd look nicer in color, it was amazing to actually see how right they were."

"Is it really that different? It sounds so cool."

He nodded and continued, "Yeah, it is. Not everything is that great though. There are a few colors that make me want to go back to being colorblind."

Atsumu snorted, "Like what?"

Kageyama looked straight over at Komori, "Like the Itachiyama uniform. It's bright neon yellow and green. It hurts to look at."

Atsumu and Hoshiumi almost doubled over in laughter as Komori looked down at his jacket questioningly. "How does a color hurt to look at?" Atsumu asked between laughs.

Kageyama shrugged, "You know how when you look directly at a bright light, it hurts your eyes? Like the lines around it blur, and you can't quite focus on it or look at it for long? It's a similar thing with really bright colors. Not as much, but still."

"That's just weird."

They continued talking, and when they finished, they cleared their table and headed out of the cafeteria. As they did so, Atsumu went off on this story about him and Osamu from middle school. He was walking backwards and talking loudly as he headed out the double doors. Before he stepped over the threshold though, he walked into someone with enough force to almost knock them both over.

He spun around, about to say, "Watch where you're going!" despite being the one not paying attention, when he froze.

Sakusa Kiyoomi glared at him, and then they both opened their eyes wide in surprise.

Color.

For a long time, neither of them moved or said anything. Atsumu's brain couldn't process what he was seeing. There was no way this was actually happening.

He closed his eyes tightly, trying to study his breathing. Finally, he said, "Tobio-kun, you were right about the Itachiyama jackets."

A beat, and then Sakusa's voice, incredibly judgmental, "That's the first thing you say?"

"Shut up, I'm still processing!" Atsumu bit back.

The noises all around Atsumu faded out as it finally started setting in. Somewhere in the background, he heard Kageyama say, "Miya-san, did you just...?"

He nodded. Oh god, he and Sakusa were soulmates.

 and Atsumu both ended up being sent home a day early. Atsumu would have argued, but it was probably the right move. Headache and general getting-used-to-seeing-colors aside, he was struggling. He was distracted, and far from his top form after finding out because seriously, there's no way he's actually Sakusa's soulmate. And then there was Sakusa himself. Sure, Atsumu had noticed his glow up almost immediately and how pretty he looked as soon as the training camp began, but know he was seeing him with the knowledge that they were "meant to be," and being able to see him in that depth Kageyama had described certainly wasn't helping.

Weirdly, Sakusa was acting surprisingly chill about the whole thing. Atsumu had expected him to be glaring at him like a cockroach, but instead there was just this chill acknowledgement. Honestly, Atsumu wasn't sure which he prefered.

So Atsumu went home a day early, and Osamu laughed his head off for about an hour about his situation. Astumu used that time to use their computer and searched up pictures of the Northern Lights. Once again, Kageyama was right. They had a beauty that just didn't translate to the white smudges on a black sky in monotone. A thought popped into Atsumu's head, I wonder if Omi-kun would ever want to see them in person one day, and then he promptly kicked himself internally because no, it was way too soon to even think about stuff like that.

But still. Maybe, one day. He didn't hate the idea. 

This was very spur of the moment because I've been thinking of this ship too much this week. It was very self indulgent, though I have a longer Sakuatsu thing that has been MUCH more indulgent to make.

I've forgotten that copy and pasting gets rid of certain formatting things, so time to go back and fix all of that.

I hope you enjoyed reading!

With love,

Emel <3