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without teeth
kita shinsuke/miya atsumu // ~2.5k
> piece for A Certain Happiness: An AtsuKita Zine; Pre-Timeskip, Established Relationship.
Three days before classes resume, Kita knocks on Atsumu’s door, saying they should go out together. A new year looms over them with the promise of something different than before, so Atsumu says yes even though the first thing Kita asked after Atsumu confessed his feelings to him with the backdrop of fireworks and the clock striking midnight two weeks ago was, “But let’s not be in a relationship. I don’t think we’ll be very good at it.”
Atsumu likes Kita for many reasons, but one of them happens to be this: how important it is for him to do things right. To be good at something, to do something right, is to practice it over and over until it sticks to you like second skin, something that comes as easy as breathing and like knowing the right way to swing your arms when you walk. It means shedding insecurities and worries because there’s nothing to be scared of to begin with, and romance is new territory for the both of them, so Atsumu agrees because he understands why Kita doesn’t want anything too serious yet. He thinks he’s the same.
One day, it’ll come natural to them, second skin and air rattling their rib cages with familiarity, and then they can call themselves something more. High school may be fleeting, but they can afford to wait. Kita Shinsuke is someone worth waiting for, the same way waiting for the right timing to make a solid serve or anticipating the moment the school bell rings to signify the end of the classes for the day are, and Atsumu must be the same to Kita.
The two of them take their bikes and pedal down the snowy streets that have seen better days, eventually stopping in front of a stationery store that looks like it’s been standing tall even before he and Kita have walked the earth. They’re here because Kita always buys school supplies at the start of the year and this is where he goes to, so this isn’t really a date so much as accompanying Kita on his errands. But maybe that’s a category of a date all on its own, one they’re making for themselves together.
Maybe to call it a date in the first place is wrong. They aren’t in a relationship, after all.
Still, as Atsumu waits outside the shop for Kita to finish paying the cashier for his supplies, the door swings open and Kita steps out with a post-it in between his fingers, words scribbled in his neat handwriting. Without saying anything, he hands it to Atsumu.
“Thank you for coming with me. You look good in your scarf,” Atsumu reads aloud. He glances at Kita, whose neck is bare and flushed pink. Earlier, he was bundled in his blue scarf, but when Atsumu said he would wait for him outside, finding the store too stuffy for his taste despite its homey aesthetic, Kita wrapped the fabric around him to make sure he stayed warm. “This is your scarf.”
“Exactly,” Kita replies. Atsumu tries not to blush. Kita taps the edge of the post-it note with his finger. “I didn’t have enough time to write you a love letter, so you’ll have to settle with this.”
“I thought we weren’t doing the relationship thing,” Atsumu says, because that’s what love letters are: things exchanged between admirers from a far distance or lovers pressed close together, and they’re neither of those.
“We aren’t,” is all Kita offers. He’s terrible at explaining things, Atsumu thinks, but he’s always been like that. “It’s okay if you throw it away afterwards. It’s the thought that counts.”
Atsumu recalls the care package Kita left behind that one practice, the request to take care of himself read between the lines of other gestures. This is probably the same thing, Kita saying something important to Atsumu but not outright. He wonders if this is going to become a thing between them. It’s new, but not bad.
Kita means it when he says he’s okay with Atsumu throwing away the note, because he never minces with his words nor does he believe in the idea of saying anything except the truth. But even if Atsumu has no personal affection for sentimental messages etched in paper, he keeps Kita’s note anyway, unsure about what he’s going to do with it but struck with a feeling that it’ll all make sense someday.
//
It becomes a thing between them. On Valentine’s Day, Suna accuses Atsumu and Kita of “dating” because there are post-its plastered on the inside door of Atsumu’s locker, something Suna cares about ten times more than the stack of multi-colored love letters from various admirers Atsumu also has; this is because there’s nothing new about Atsumu’s popularity.
“We’re not datin’,” he insists. “We ain’t even in a relationship.”
“Yeah, but your face,” Suna argues. “It can’t lie to me. You’re smiling.”
“So?”
“It’s without teeth. That means it’s special.”
Atsumu doesn’t know what Suna’s talking about and doesn’t ask. Unfortunately, as they make their way down the halls to head to their respective classrooms, Suna won’t let the topic go. Around them, noise bounces on the walls from excited chatter and rustling movements for confessions and gifts, something that always happens during the season of Valentine’s.
Normally, Atsumu would revel in the affection and romantic fantasies sent his way like any boy would, but this year he doesn’t feel as enthusiastic. He wonders if this is what it means to be in a relationship-not-relationship, like what he has with Kita, and he doesn’t think he enjoys it very much. He wants to relate and be just as cheerful as the rest.
“Those were a lot of post-its,” Suna continues. “I didn’t know Kita-san was that talkative. He must have a lot of important things on his mind.”
It’s not a lot; they’re just an accumulation of little things that Atsumu never found time to set aside until they became near unnoticeable. Kita doesn’t actually say a lot either, and despite what Suna may assume, the messages aren’t usually important. They’re trivial, given across the span of random days, like pointing out that Atsumu should fix his footing when doing a serve to minimize potential injury, telling him to not forget an after-school consultation with his teacher, complimenting the way he fixed his hair on a certain day because Kita was able to see Atsumu’s eyes. He leaves these things everywhere too—on top of Atsumu’s desk, stuck to his thermos as they practice in the indoor court, slipped inside his locker.
Kita never actually tells Atsumu any of these things, never gives these notes directly, but it doesn’t mean he doesn’t mean it. It happens often enough that Atsumu thinks Kita has given up on saying things outright entirely, letting his actions speak louder, letting them test the waters of what it’s like to be in a relationship but not really. It’s practice, maybe, for Kita; something to do over and over until he gets it right, and it’s not like it’s out of the ordinary to begin with—he’s been giving Atsumu notes even before Atsumu confessed.
It’s not like Atsumu hates it, because it’s a Kita thing to do, and he likes Kita for Kita. But a part of him still can’t help but wonder how long they’ll have to keep on practicing until they finally decide they’re good enough. He wonders what even defines good enough, because whenever he thinks they’re on the verge of passing that threshold, nothing has changed.
“Did Kita-san get you anything for Valentine’s?” Suna asks.
“I told you, we ain’t like that.”
“So that’s a no.”
It technically is a no until later in the day, when Atsumu returns to his classroom after buying something from the vending machine during lunch break. There’s a piece of folded paper on his desk with Kita’s familiar writing. Atsumu picks it up and unfolds it, wondering if it’s a love letter.
It’s not. Instead, it’s music recommendations, a list of different songs from different artists with arrows drawn to the margins of the paper, where Kita puts down comments about his thoughts on the song, like why he picked them or what mood each melody brings. Atsumu doesn’t recognize most of them, and it occurs to him that he never pegged Kita as the type for music until this moment.
It’s a little silly to look at, and definitely not a love letter despite the event being Valentine’s—they both know what love letters are supposed to look like, both from personal experience and common sense, and this certainly isn’t it. But the unconventionality of what Kita had written down for Atsumu warms his heart in a way no confession letter praising his charm and wanting to get to know him better has been able to. It makes all the difference.
“I knew you were bad at romance, but I didn’t think Kita-san was too,” Osamu later comments. “Maybe all your nastiness is rubbin’ off on him.”
“Take that back! And we ain’t in a relationship anyway.”
“But do you wanna be?”
Atsumu scowls. “That’s different.”
“Is it?” Osamu sighs. “So? Whatcha gettin’ him for White Day?”
“Who says I gotta get him somethin’? We ain’t in a relationship.”
Osamu rolls his eyes. “Forget I asked. I hope your gift sucks ass.”
It’s the thought that counts, Kita said, and he never said it again, but Atsumu thinks the message has been emphasized over and over again with these post-its and this sort of love letter, all these actions speaking louder and carrying more weight than words ever could. Kita probably won’t mind whatever Atsumu gives, won’t think it’s something like ass, in Osamu’s crude terms, but Atsumu still wants it to be good.
The problem is that he’s stumped on ideas, unsure how to say something without actually saying something, what it means to walk the line of relationship but not really and make sure he doesn’t cross it.
The only way to really know is to just do it. That’s the point of practice, after all.
//
“Are these for me?” Kita asks Atsumu on White Day, staring at the box and its contents.
“No,” Atsumu immediately says, before clearing his throat. “Not if you don’t like it.”
But there’s something that looks like a smile on Kita’s face as he picks up one of the paper cranes Atsumu placed inside the box. The collection isn’t that diverse—Atsumu only had enough time to learn how to fold cranes and lucky stars, but they look endearing in their tiny size since Atsumu used the post-its notes Kita gifted him, something Kita knows because he can see the edges of the characters he scrawled at random places in the origami.
“This is romantic,” Kita remarks.
“Is that not what you want?”
“I didn’t say that.” His tone is thoughtful. “I wanna say it’s creative or resourceful, but more than anythin’, you worked hard for this.”
“‘Samu called it cheap,” Atsumu admits. Osamu also said it was literally returning something Kita had gifted Atsumu, not at all something he deserves to get from Atsumu, especially when Kita is something more. In the start, Atsumu panicked about it, wondering if Osamu was right, but he’d taken the risk anyway.
Now, he remembers that he doesn’t need flashy, obvious romantic gestures to show how he feels for Kita, to let him know that he’s important to Atsumu; a matter of not always saying things outright.
“Do you think it’s cheap?” Kita asks.
Atsumu shrugs. “He said it’s not a very boyfriend thing to do, but it’s not like he’s your boyfriend.”
“Are you sayin’ you are?” Kita’s gaze flickers to him. His eyes glint under the afternoon sunlight illuminating the classroom. They’re the only ones inside, the day long over and the hallways void of students. The room is well-lit from the sun despite how it’s almost time to make room for the moon. The chairs are messily aligned and not all the chalk notes have been erased from the board.
It’s not a very romantic place to give someone a gift. Boyfriends probably put a little more effort into things like these than what Kita and Atsumu are doing. Yet Atsumu finds that he doesn’t mind. Maybe to care about things like practice and waiting to be good enough to be in a relationship are irrelevant to begin with because they’re already good, right from the start, just by simply being themselves. It wouldn’t be the same if they held themselves up to the standards and labels of others, to do things expected of them as people in a relationship. They work best when they’re their unconventional selves, only understood by the other, because that’s what it means to be together. They have passing post-it notes, practical presents, handmade offerings, all these subtle affections that mingle with the air their lungs suck in, that stick to them like second skin.
“Maybe not,” says Atsumu. “Maybe it doesn’t really matter.”
This time, Kita says nothing. But he does smile, the kind of smile that’s without teeth.
> piece for A Certain Happiness: An AtsuKita Zine; Pre-Timeskip, Established Relationship.
Three days before classes resume, Kita knocks on Atsumu’s door, saying they should go out together. A new year looms over them with the promise of something different than before, so Atsumu says yes even though the first thing Kita asked after Atsumu confessed his feelings to him with the backdrop of fireworks and the clock striking midnight two weeks ago was, “But let’s not be in a relationship. I don’t think we’ll be very good at it.”
Atsumu likes Kita for many reasons, but one of them happens to be this: how important it is for him to do things right. To be good at something, to do something right, is to practice it over and over until it sticks to you like second skin, something that comes as easy as breathing and like knowing the right way to swing your arms when you walk. It means shedding insecurities and worries because there’s nothing to be scared of to begin with, and romance is new territory for the both of them, so Atsumu agrees because he understands why Kita doesn’t want anything too serious yet. He thinks he’s the same.
One day, it’ll come natural to them, second skin and air rattling their rib cages with familiarity, and then they can call themselves something more. High school may be fleeting, but they can afford to wait. Kita Shinsuke is someone worth waiting for, the same way waiting for the right timing to make a solid serve or anticipating the moment the school bell rings to signify the end of the classes for the day are, and Atsumu must be the same to Kita.
The two of them take their bikes and pedal down the snowy streets that have seen better days, eventually stopping in front of a stationery store that looks like it’s been standing tall even before he and Kita have walked the earth. They’re here because Kita always buys school supplies at the start of the year and this is where he goes to, so this isn’t really a date so much as accompanying Kita on his errands. But maybe that’s a category of a date all on its own, one they’re making for themselves together.
Maybe to call it a date in the first place is wrong. They aren’t in a relationship, after all.
Still, as Atsumu waits outside the shop for Kita to finish paying the cashier for his supplies, the door swings open and Kita steps out with a post-it in between his fingers, words scribbled in his neat handwriting. Without saying anything, he hands it to Atsumu.
“Thank you for coming with me. You look good in your scarf,” Atsumu reads aloud. He glances at Kita, whose neck is bare and flushed pink. Earlier, he was bundled in his blue scarf, but when Atsumu said he would wait for him outside, finding the store too stuffy for his taste despite its homey aesthetic, Kita wrapped the fabric around him to make sure he stayed warm. “This is your scarf.”
“Exactly,” Kita replies. Atsumu tries not to blush. Kita taps the edge of the post-it note with his finger. “I didn’t have enough time to write you a love letter, so you’ll have to settle with this.”
“I thought we weren’t doing the relationship thing,” Atsumu says, because that’s what love letters are: things exchanged between admirers from a far distance or lovers pressed close together, and they’re neither of those.
“We aren’t,” is all Kita offers. He’s terrible at explaining things, Atsumu thinks, but he’s always been like that. “It’s okay if you throw it away afterwards. It’s the thought that counts.”
Atsumu recalls the care package Kita left behind that one practice, the request to take care of himself read between the lines of other gestures. This is probably the same thing, Kita saying something important to Atsumu but not outright. He wonders if this is going to become a thing between them. It’s new, but not bad.
Kita means it when he says he’s okay with Atsumu throwing away the note, because he never minces with his words nor does he believe in the idea of saying anything except the truth. But even if Atsumu has no personal affection for sentimental messages etched in paper, he keeps Kita’s note anyway, unsure about what he’s going to do with it but struck with a feeling that it’ll all make sense someday.
//
It becomes a thing between them. On Valentine’s Day, Suna accuses Atsumu and Kita of “dating” because there are post-its plastered on the inside door of Atsumu’s locker, something Suna cares about ten times more than the stack of multi-colored love letters from various admirers Atsumu also has; this is because there’s nothing new about Atsumu’s popularity.
“We’re not datin’,” he insists. “We ain’t even in a relationship.”
“Yeah, but your face,” Suna argues. “It can’t lie to me. You’re smiling.”
“So?”
“It’s without teeth. That means it’s special.”
Atsumu doesn’t know what Suna’s talking about and doesn’t ask. Unfortunately, as they make their way down the halls to head to their respective classrooms, Suna won’t let the topic go. Around them, noise bounces on the walls from excited chatter and rustling movements for confessions and gifts, something that always happens during the season of Valentine’s.
Normally, Atsumu would revel in the affection and romantic fantasies sent his way like any boy would, but this year he doesn’t feel as enthusiastic. He wonders if this is what it means to be in a relationship-not-relationship, like what he has with Kita, and he doesn’t think he enjoys it very much. He wants to relate and be just as cheerful as the rest.
“Those were a lot of post-its,” Suna continues. “I didn’t know Kita-san was that talkative. He must have a lot of important things on his mind.”
It’s not a lot; they’re just an accumulation of little things that Atsumu never found time to set aside until they became near unnoticeable. Kita doesn’t actually say a lot either, and despite what Suna may assume, the messages aren’t usually important. They’re trivial, given across the span of random days, like pointing out that Atsumu should fix his footing when doing a serve to minimize potential injury, telling him to not forget an after-school consultation with his teacher, complimenting the way he fixed his hair on a certain day because Kita was able to see Atsumu’s eyes. He leaves these things everywhere too—on top of Atsumu’s desk, stuck to his thermos as they practice in the indoor court, slipped inside his locker.
Kita never actually tells Atsumu any of these things, never gives these notes directly, but it doesn’t mean he doesn’t mean it. It happens often enough that Atsumu thinks Kita has given up on saying things outright entirely, letting his actions speak louder, letting them test the waters of what it’s like to be in a relationship but not really. It’s practice, maybe, for Kita; something to do over and over until he gets it right, and it’s not like it’s out of the ordinary to begin with—he’s been giving Atsumu notes even before Atsumu confessed.
It’s not like Atsumu hates it, because it’s a Kita thing to do, and he likes Kita for Kita. But a part of him still can’t help but wonder how long they’ll have to keep on practicing until they finally decide they’re good enough. He wonders what even defines good enough, because whenever he thinks they’re on the verge of passing that threshold, nothing has changed.
“Did Kita-san get you anything for Valentine’s?” Suna asks.
“I told you, we ain’t like that.”
“So that’s a no.”
It technically is a no until later in the day, when Atsumu returns to his classroom after buying something from the vending machine during lunch break. There’s a piece of folded paper on his desk with Kita’s familiar writing. Atsumu picks it up and unfolds it, wondering if it’s a love letter.
It’s not. Instead, it’s music recommendations, a list of different songs from different artists with arrows drawn to the margins of the paper, where Kita puts down comments about his thoughts on the song, like why he picked them or what mood each melody brings. Atsumu doesn’t recognize most of them, and it occurs to him that he never pegged Kita as the type for music until this moment.
It’s a little silly to look at, and definitely not a love letter despite the event being Valentine’s—they both know what love letters are supposed to look like, both from personal experience and common sense, and this certainly isn’t it. But the unconventionality of what Kita had written down for Atsumu warms his heart in a way no confession letter praising his charm and wanting to get to know him better has been able to. It makes all the difference.
“I knew you were bad at romance, but I didn’t think Kita-san was too,” Osamu later comments. “Maybe all your nastiness is rubbin’ off on him.”
“Take that back! And we ain’t in a relationship anyway.”
“But do you wanna be?”
Atsumu scowls. “That’s different.”
“Is it?” Osamu sighs. “So? Whatcha gettin’ him for White Day?”
“Who says I gotta get him somethin’? We ain’t in a relationship.”
Osamu rolls his eyes. “Forget I asked. I hope your gift sucks ass.”
It’s the thought that counts, Kita said, and he never said it again, but Atsumu thinks the message has been emphasized over and over again with these post-its and this sort of love letter, all these actions speaking louder and carrying more weight than words ever could. Kita probably won’t mind whatever Atsumu gives, won’t think it’s something like ass, in Osamu’s crude terms, but Atsumu still wants it to be good.
The problem is that he’s stumped on ideas, unsure how to say something without actually saying something, what it means to walk the line of relationship but not really and make sure he doesn’t cross it.
The only way to really know is to just do it. That’s the point of practice, after all.
//
“Are these for me?” Kita asks Atsumu on White Day, staring at the box and its contents.
“No,” Atsumu immediately says, before clearing his throat. “Not if you don’t like it.”
But there’s something that looks like a smile on Kita’s face as he picks up one of the paper cranes Atsumu placed inside the box. The collection isn’t that diverse—Atsumu only had enough time to learn how to fold cranes and lucky stars, but they look endearing in their tiny size since Atsumu used the post-its notes Kita gifted him, something Kita knows because he can see the edges of the characters he scrawled at random places in the origami.
“This is romantic,” Kita remarks.
“Is that not what you want?”
“I didn’t say that.” His tone is thoughtful. “I wanna say it’s creative or resourceful, but more than anythin’, you worked hard for this.”
“‘Samu called it cheap,” Atsumu admits. Osamu also said it was literally returning something Kita had gifted Atsumu, not at all something he deserves to get from Atsumu, especially when Kita is something more. In the start, Atsumu panicked about it, wondering if Osamu was right, but he’d taken the risk anyway.
Now, he remembers that he doesn’t need flashy, obvious romantic gestures to show how he feels for Kita, to let him know that he’s important to Atsumu; a matter of not always saying things outright.
“Do you think it’s cheap?” Kita asks.
Atsumu shrugs. “He said it’s not a very boyfriend thing to do, but it’s not like he’s your boyfriend.”
“Are you sayin’ you are?” Kita’s gaze flickers to him. His eyes glint under the afternoon sunlight illuminating the classroom. They’re the only ones inside, the day long over and the hallways void of students. The room is well-lit from the sun despite how it’s almost time to make room for the moon. The chairs are messily aligned and not all the chalk notes have been erased from the board.
It’s not a very romantic place to give someone a gift. Boyfriends probably put a little more effort into things like these than what Kita and Atsumu are doing. Yet Atsumu finds that he doesn’t mind. Maybe to care about things like practice and waiting to be good enough to be in a relationship are irrelevant to begin with because they’re already good, right from the start, just by simply being themselves. It wouldn’t be the same if they held themselves up to the standards and labels of others, to do things expected of them as people in a relationship. They work best when they’re their unconventional selves, only understood by the other, because that’s what it means to be together. They have passing post-it notes, practical presents, handmade offerings, all these subtle affections that mingle with the air their lungs suck in, that stick to them like second skin.
“Maybe not,” says Atsumu. “Maybe it doesn’t really matter.”
This time, Kita says nothing. But he does smile, the kind of smile that’s without teeth.