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asymptote
n. a line that continually approaches a given curve but does not meet it at any finite distance
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Four lamp posts line the street behind his apartment where a single stoplight forces the trickle of traffic to traipse at a tempo similar to the swing of his heartstrings. Most days pass peacefully with his neighbors comprising a stray cat and two of his grandma's old bingo buddies, but the only people he ever considers inviting over apart from his siblings all live an hour away, so he gets used to the crickets chirping by the casement and allows them to keep him company.
Casual audiences always assumed that he and his teammates had grown accustomed to spells of absolute silence courtesy of a fastidious fake-blond, but contrary to the common misconception, Shinsuke doesn't feel all that familiar with the quietude. He learned early on in his relatively short-lived volleyball career that captains, especially a captain of champions, require a certain capacity for conversation, and he becomes well-versed in the art of small talk years after earning the title.
He puts it into practice on his way to the train station, stopping every now and then to chat with people his grandmother knew somehow or another. It takes him approximately three thousand and sixty-seven steps to get to the first of many destinations, and after a while, strolling along the sidewalk starts to feel a bit like sliding across the court. In some ways, it's even similar to the dedicated dancers his sister studies with at her performing arts school, except he's prancing over potholes instead of a prestigious stage.
Shinsuke recalls where each slope soars and plummets, reminiscent of his mood on rainy afternoons, but he isn't headed to the grocery store like all the times before, and the rupture in routine makes him more anxious than he wants to admit. Only two days had passed since he took down the photo pinned above his bed, carefully peeling off the blue tack on the back.
Looking at it every now and then motivates him to keep moving. Aran's loud laughter echoes in his ears, and the curve of Osamu's crooked smile elicits one of his own. He remembers Rin's arm, tired of holding up the camera, feeling heavy on his shoulders. And Atsumu, covered in sweat and cheap yellow hair-dye, smells so much like home.
Shinsuke has no recollection of the truth until he's a third year in high school and his team loses in an upset against the rising undercrows of Karasuno High. As his band of brothers bawl beside him, he gets a glimpse of a battlefield and Atsumu, battered and bleeding and not blond, struggling to stay conscious in his arms. The vision forces Shinsuke onto his knees, startled sobs slipping from his throat, and he only cries harder when he realizes the others don't mourn with him.
Later that night, Shinsuke prays to a god for the first time in a long time, and he wakes up the next morning with memories that belong to someone else—or so he thinks. More snippets of something strewed make their way into his mind. He forgets the minutiae moments after opening his eyes, but the image of Atsumu healthy and happy feels so far out of reach, and it makes him sleep through his alarm for the first time in that lifetime.
I miss him, Shinsuke realizes. How can he miss someone he sees everyday? His answer comes to him in another dream shortly after the last. He notes that Atsumu looks spiffy in a suit, but Shinsuke's features, even in his subconscious, curl into a scowl when he notices the cigar in the brunette's hand.
"That'll kill you," Shinsuke says, itching to slap it away.
"Not if you kill me first."
"Me?"
Atsumu stares at him with something of a sneer and slowly brings the cigarette to his mouth, spiteful and somewhat sad. "You."
"Why would I do that?" Shinsuke demands, shaking his head several times in defiance. "I don't want you to die, Atsumu."
"That's a pretty bold lie, even for the big boss."
"Tell me how to save you."
"You can't," Atsumu says, letting out a little laugh. "You won't."
The brunette takes a final drag of the killing thing, and then the windows shatter. It's a bullet to the chest, and the sight of Atsumu on the floor, fading faster than the flame at the end of his cigarette, shatters Shinsuke all the same.
Soulmates are one in a million, but in this lifetime, there are many millions, and therefore, many soulmates. Shinsuke prints out a list. He checks his wrists for words written in winding cursive and searches through his sleeves for scarlet strings, but his first spoken sentence to the Atsumu in this world isn't visible on any part of the blond's body, and this right here's 'Samu seems absent from his own.
Shinsuke accepts that it could be true because of the illusions. He doesn't have anything to prove, especially since he had never entertained the concept of soulmates in the past, but now that the seed has stepped into the threshold, he can't help but wonder why Atsumu never makes it to the age of twenty-five in every reiteration of their reality. It's not fair, Shinsuke thinks, and if not for his grandmother, he might have asked the gods to take him instead.
His prayers manifest in ways similar but not quite the same. Although he's aware that, at that exact moment, Osamu had just beaten Atsumu at Mario Kart for the third time in a row, he tries to imagine a life without the blond, and it turns out far too listless for his liking.
In that sense, Shinsuke very much believes in soulmates. He's only unsure if two people destined for each other have to fall in love. Inevitably, Shinsuke comes to the conclusion that, in all their lifetimes, he has not loved Atsumu in the way such a beautiful boy deserves. Not even once, not even a little bit.
Atsumu plays hard to get once or twice or a lot of times, but he always says I love you first, if one considers "first" synonymous to "only." Imagine, then, the sun snuffing out because a planet on the far side of the solar system system refuses to revolve around it. The thought is too sad to fathom, Shinsuke laments, because that would also mean that he is both Atsumu's first love and only love, and Atsumu deserves more than what Shinsuke can give him.
"Will you stay tonight?" Atsumu asks, one day out of billions.
"No."
"What about tomorrow?"
Shinsuke, in all those billions, never not bites with his words. "You're not doing yourself any favors by waiting up for me."
"Don't tell me not to wait for you after you show up," Atsumu says, choking or wheezing or something in between, and Shinsuke almost panics, fearing the worst before realizing the brunette had merely tried to laugh. "Even if you leave now, you can't say you weren't here."
Shinsuke never stays, not because he wants to leave, but because the hospital has visiting hours, and he's not one of the people allowed after a certain time. None of that seems to matter when the two of them sit close and share the meal Shinsuke's grandmother made the day before. Hospital food is no good, she says, and Atsumu deserves only the best. Maybe that's why Shinsuke refuses to love him.
"Not for very long," Shinsuke says, halfway out the door.
"It was long enough."
"For what?"
"For us to exist at the same time."
Shinsuke lingers and listens to the brunette's labored breaths with wistful worry. "You're strangely sentimental today."
"That's what happens when I remember how many minutes I have left with you," Atsumu coughs. "And don't tell me to stop counting. I want to remember everything about us, even the shitty parts. Memories are all we've got, you know? It'd be nice if we could have a few more of them."
God takes his lungs first, and then the rest of him. Shinsuke doesn't find out until he's the one left waiting outside Atsumu's door. His light remains for all of Shinsuke's days, because although Shinsuke never revolved his world around him, Atsumu is the sun, and the sun is also a star. Not even a black hole can devour all the constellations in the sky, and Shinsuke sees Atsumu in every single one.
Centuries ago, Greek philosopher Zeno of Elea proposed a set of philosophical problems to support the Parmedian principle of Being, that is, the multiplicity of existing things and their relation to reality. The dichotomy paradox supposes that for one to reach the end of a path, they must get halfway there. Before they can get halfway there, they must get a quarter of the way there. Before traveling a quarter, they must travel one-eighth; before an eighth, one-sixteenth; and so on.
Shinsuke decides that the dichotomy paradox directly parallels the stutter in his chest whenever he catches the blond staring a second longer than necessary. Atsumu looks at him with the same stars he had once scattered across the universe swirling in his eyes, and in them, Shinsuke sees infinity. It's an impossibility that persists throughout the shifting seasons, for the space separating them exists and will continue to exist despite the closeness of their souls and bodies.
Even if you leave now, you can't say you weren't here.
On July 5th, some decades later, Kita Shinsuke is born again. Four hundred and fifty-eight days pass without a cause for celebration, and the years continue to expire after that. Shinsuke doesn't know why it feels as though he's waiting for something to happen, but every October 5th, he picks a star from a sky full of them and makes a wish.
Miya Atsumu, born October 5th, 1995, reminds Shinsuke of tomorrow.
He still gets glimpses of their pasts, but Shinsuke grows tired of the what if's and nothing else. Here, in this lifetime, he feels a sense of security knowing that the two of them can make more of the memories they thought they never needed. Tomorrow, almost-twenty-six-year-old Atsumu will play a match at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics. Shinsuke looks forward to it, and for the first time, realizes he is in love with the starshine.
Atsumu does not, in fact, love him back.
Not in that way, not even a little bit. Hinata takes Atsumu's place as the sun, and it's now Atsumu revolving around his center of gravity. Hinata, however, falls deeply in love with the shadows, and Atsumu only dazzles with light. Sakusa, on the other hand, slithers the same way Atsumu snakes through the motions. It twists and turns and then thickens into a slow simmer, sometimes seething and scathing, and sometimes sincere and serene.
"Guess we're not meant to be," Atsumu mumbles, mortified after catching one or the other making out with somebody from their rival team at a party a few months earlier.
Shinsuke shakes his head, lips upturned in concern, but the blond translates the frustrated frown into disappointment at his drunken decisions and further retreats into himself. "Get a hold of yourself, Atsumu. Don't let that stop you now."
"'m not a homewrecker, Shin!"
"Didn't say that, did I?"
"What the hell am I stoppin' myself from doin' then?"
"Moving," Shinsuke says, sliding a glass of water towards him. "Move on, move forward. Move back a 'lil bit, if you want, but keep goin' to wherever it is you need to go."
Atsumu takes that as his cue to give Sakusa a piece of his mind. Of course, said mind includes the amygdala, and the collection of cells turn anger into adoration within the time it takes Sakusa to reciprocate. It's at that moment Shinsuke realizes that he and his gods simply have no place mingling among mortals, and all of a sudden, tomorrow feels so far away.
"We're playin' against Argentina," Atsumu says, squinting at him through the screen. "I'm not sayin' I'm nervous, but I'm definitely gonna throw up if I see Sho-kun make googly eyes at Tobio-kun for the damn near millionth time."
Shinsuke wipes the sweat from his brow, chuckling at the blond's petulant pout. "Didn't you give Hinata those same googly eyes everyday for over a year?"
"'s not the same thing."
"And how 'bout Sakusa after that?"
"So what if I had a 'lil crush on Omi-kun," Atsumu retorts, rolling his eyes. "Have ya seen him? He's a pain in the ass, but it's a pretty nice fuckin' ass."
Shinsuke gestures to the couch behind him, or more specifically at the tuft of silver scarcely visible from where the blond sat. "Bokuto doesn't have any idea what's comin' for him."
"Ya already know I don't like him like that, but even if I did, he's 'bout as taken as it gets."
"Isn't he with one of his old teammates from high school?"
"His name's Akaashi."
"That's real special for them."
"Cutest of the bunch, if I'm bein' honest."
"And from your reaction, I'm sure it's 'cause this Akaashi knows how to be subtle."
"It seems a 'lil too good to be true sometimes," Atsumu shrugs. "Wonder if their old team ever expected that from their captain and his superstar setter?"
Shinsuke raises a brow at his words, but he grins because Atsumu notices a second after him, and it makes the blond blush brighter than the national team's jersey on his person.
"Yer comin' to the match, right?"
"I'm plannin' on it."
"Good."
"It's just me, y'know."
"'course you'd say that," Atsumu snorts, shaking his head. "C'mon, Shin, yer gonna watch a match in person for the first time in forever, and it's at the fuckin' Olympics! Ain't that somethin' else?"
"Never said I wasn't lookin' forward to it."
"Try showin' it 'very once in a while!"
"You're the one playin' on the main stage."
"That should just excite ya even more," Atsumu says, beaming at him. "Haven't ya waited long enough to see me again?"
Two minutes before the next train arrives, his grandma calls to ask if he has everything he needs for a weekend trip. Shinsuke assures her with a smile she can't see, his own eyes fluttering shut as a breeze brushes through his hair. He's spent years committed to memorizing every crevice of a city that becomes an amalgamation of his ambitions and accomplishments, but the lack of adventure has made him far too complacent.
Day after day, routine runs rampant, slapping snooze and sleeping in for six minutes before stirring to the slivers of sunlight sifting through the blinds. Atsumu and his adventures give Shinsuke an excuse to chase after some of his own, and he appreciates that more than he knows how to express.
His grandma promptly hangs up with an I love you, and after repeating the words, Shinsuke pockets his phone and boards the arriving train. He sits in a corner somewhere, pretending to sleep. It takes eight hours to get to Tokyo. Shinsuke counts the seconds until the next stop, and he keeps counting until the numbers run out.
I want to remember everything about us, even the shitty parts. Memories are all we've got, you know? It'd be nice if we could have a few more of them.
Just before arriving at his destination, Shinsuke gets a call that reminds him he's traveled halfway across the country in the span of a few hours. It unsettles him for only a second before he decides that something about that feels oddly comforting, perhaps because he knows that more of those moments will come, and they will no longer arrive in such predictable patterns.
"Yer gonna be late!" Atsumu whines, his voice discernible despite the static from the speaker.
Shinsuke pays no mind to the stares he receives after the blond's outburst and smiles at his screen. "Didn't I tell you not to wait up for me?"
"Yer seriously jokin' 'bout this twenty minutes before the match starts?"
"What's got you so worked up?"
"How're ya gonna know where to go if ya end up gettin' here next year?"
"Have a 'lil faith in me," Shinsuke says, seeing the stadium on the horizon. "I'll find you wherever you are, Atsumu."
Looking around at all the bustle and buildings, Shinsuke can't help but think that he doesn't belong here. Even the clouds look a bit different from the ones he's used to seeing, less like shapes and more like silhouettes, but somehow, that tells him he's exactly where he needs to be.
Yes, Shinsuke believes in soulmates, and he is very much in love with his, but the nature of their relationship exists to keep existing. Happy endings simply do not happen to things without an end. For now, Shinsuke promises to close the distances he can reach. It's not far, and it's not forever, but it's enough for him and Atsumu to exist at the same time. Shinsuke finally understands that sentiment, now more than ever.
Haven't ya waited long enough to see me again?
Only all of eternity, Shinsuke muses, and with a smile, he walks the path that leads him home.
postscript
i wrote bits of this for a writing class a few years ago and turned it into another project shortly thereafter but i revisited the story last week and for some reason could not stop thinking about kita so i ran with the idea and what u just read was the result (i just wanted an atsukita fic where kita doesn't break tsumu's heart for no reason)
thank u for reading!