Chapter Text
"One!" Shouted a boy, golden eyes roaming across the grass as if his brother and best friends were going to jump out of nowhere, "Ready or not! Here I come!"
The sun shined gently on the small park, it was early afternoon and there was no one around. He walked with purpose, the small hand curled in the small jacket his mother insisted he and his brother wore. He checked the slides and underneath, no such luck. He didn't even have a wisp of hair under it.
The park was silent, the leaves unmoving and the wind quiet.
He hesitated before walking cautiously out of the park, his brother probably wouldn't go far but there was no boundary fixed. Kicking a bit of sand he stepped on the concrete roads, finding it strange that there was no sound anywhere, not even the sound of traffic.
Or maybe the world outside moved, he just couldn't hear it.
There was a side alleyway where his friends could be hidden, he knew Suna had a streak of finding most crafty hiding spots. He stepped towards the backstreet before a heaving sound pricked his ears.
He turned around to see a man bent over, hands pressed against the wall of someone’s house. He was wearing a brilliant maroon yukata, with a golden coat over it. The man was slender and shorter than his father, his brilliant white hair with black tinged ends framing a pale face. The boy didn't think things through before rushing over, his little shoes hitting the road before his mind caught up.
"Ya okay?"
He consciously tried to subdue his accent, even his best friends have sometimes trouble understanding him and his brother.
The man finally raised his head, and the boy blinked at his unusual fox-like eyes, its color was sparkling gold. He has heard his mother describe his own eyes as hazel but he thinks it is lacking and pale in front of such bright color.
The man smiled, closed-mouthed, his eyes kind but unsmiling.
"Ah, I must have tripped over something." His voice seems to wash over Atsumu in a strange calm way, the accent familiar.
"Next time, look!" The boy grinned wide, lurching forward to take his hand, and tried to pull him up, despite being nearly half the size of the man.
"I will be careful next time. What is your name?" The man stood up, the golden coat shimmered in the pale sun.
"Atsumu! Miya Atsumu, but ya can call me 'Tsumu, like my brother. What's yer name?"
Atsumu didn't completely understand why he felt like this man felt like family, someone he knew he could trust but he didn't question it much.
This time the man's smile reached his eyes, as he looked down at him, "You can call me Kita-san, though my whole name is Kita Shinsuke."
Kita-san's eyes strayed from his face towards the alleyway he never had the chance to go into. His eyes hardened for a second, gold gleaming like gunmetal.
"Do ya know me? I feel like I met ya before!" Atsumu tilted his head. The dark brown hair falling in his eyes despite his mother brushing it back multiple times earlier.
Kita-san focused back on him, a slender but warm hand coming to rest on his head, "Maybe we met in some other life, where you were much rowdier than now."
"That makes no sense, Kita-san!"
"I suppose it doesn't. Where do you live, Atsumu?"
"Oh, on the street ova' there! I am tryin' to find my stupid brother and best friends!" He grinned again, showing all his teeth and the hand in his head didn't move.
"Then come, let me drop you home. Don't want you to get lost, do we?"
"But I haven't found them yet!" Atsumu flailed his arms to show the urgency of his words.
"It's fine, they will return to yer home when they get tired."
Atsumu pouted but didn't protest as the hands-on his head moved to his shoulders, the touch guiding and familiar and warm. Kita-san guided him all the way to the lamppost near his front yard, before ruffling his hair.
"You go on now, little one."
"Aww, my ma would've made ya snacks if you came in!"
"Some other time, Atsumu."
Then without a warning, he was wrapped in slender arms, the golden coat tickling his nose as Kita gracefully bent to embrace him.
With a faint smell of cherries and rice and the warmth that nearly rivaled his brother's hugs, Atsumu didn't understand why he started sniffling. Kita-san cradled his head, the touch gentle just like his father's, and Atsumu felt he was overflowing with an emotion he couldn’t name. A love in-between his parents and brother’s.
He heard Kita-san whisper in the wind that started to pick up again, "I’ll guard ya, Atsumu. With my heart, I’ll guard ya from life and from death and from all that yer cursed to bear."
And then he stood up smiling, his eyes crinkling at the corner and he ruffled his hair one last time before walking away. The golden coat simmered and the red yukata flowed gently around him as he turned and vanished from his sight.
Atsumu remembers rubbing his eyes, as tears wouldn't stop flowing before making his way to his house. He wasn't even mad to find his brothers and best friends munching on snacks his mother must have gotten them. Didn't even blink when Suna confessed this was their plan all along, to hide in the twin's house.
Any other time he would have thrown a tantrum.
Sakusa had the shame to look guilty while Osamu avoided his eyes, fiddling with his hands. Atsumu's mind was far away though, searching for an answer out of his reach.
He didn't know why, but something in him didn't want to tell them about Kita-san. He just shook his head to get rid of the strange thoughts and pushed Suna's outstretched hand aside to help himself to the snacks. With a single-minded focus, he munched on the fried rice paper.
‘Well it’s not like Kita-san is gonna meet him again,’ he thought, making himself more miserable.
"Are you sure you're okay?" He looked up to see Sakusa looking at him with a stare too serious for a ten-year-old. The dense curls of his head were pushed back by the hairband of his older sister.
And suddenly Atsumu didn’t remember what exactly made him feel so down.
He giggled, "Yea, I'm sure, Omi-Omi!"
"Stop calling me that!" The other replied with cheeks red in anger, onyx eyes narrowed.