Chapter Text
Atsumu is late on his first day because a tiny child with messy pigtails and bright red rain boots had wrapped herself around his leg right outside the kindergarten gates. She looked up at him with the absolute certainty only a four-year-old can muster and declared that he looked like a prince.
Fair enough. It will have to work as a good excuse.
Miya Atsumu is the kindergarten’s new PE assistant, and somehow he arrives looking more like a celebrity athlete than someone trusted to supervise emotionally unstable four-year-olds.
Tall, broad-shouldered, and dressed in a tracksuit jacket with a whistle hanging loosely around his neck, he carries himself with easy confidence and the kind of bright smile children latch onto immediately. His dyed blond hair catches attention the second he walks through the gates, and his voice somehow manages to fill every corner of a room without even trying. Loud, warm, and impossible to ignore, Atsumu takes up space naturally, like chaos itself decided to become a person.
“Thank ye kindly,” Atsumu tells her, voice low and serious as he crouches down to gently pry her small fingers from his trousers without losing his balance. “But princes have to go to work, y’know.”
She gasps, eyes going wide. “You work here?”
“I do now.”
“Then you can’t leave!”
Before Atsumu can even form a reply to that bold little threat, three more kids swarm him like they’d been waiting for their moment. One latches onto his sleeve with both hands. Another reaches up on tiptoes to poke at the dyed streak in his hair.
The smallest one just stands there staring with enormous, watery eyes and asks in a whisper, “Are you loud?”
Atsumu opens his mouth.
A woman standing by the entrance lets out a tired laugh. “Oh good, they found you first.”
By the time he actually makes it through the doors, his shirt is already sticking to his back with sweat.
The kindergarten is pure chaos wrapped in primary colors. Tiny shoes lie scattered across the entrance in lopsided piles, some still damp from the morning rain. Down the hallway a child wails like the world is ending, full-throated and dramatic. Another kid tears past Atsumu clutching a dripping fistful of glitter glue, chased by a teacher whose face says she gave up on sleep sometime last year.
The walls are plastered with lopsided paper suns and stars with jagged edges. Scraps of construction paper cover almost every flat surface. The whole place smells like melted crayons, hand soap, and something warm and sweet baking in the kitchen down the hall.
Atsumu barely has time to register any of it before a little boy slams straight into his legs with enough force to rock him back on his heels.
“Woah there!”
The kid blinks up at him, then immediately latches on like a determined koala.
“…Ah,” Atsumu says, voice faint.
The tired teacher catches up, breathing hard. “Sorry. He does that when he likes someone.”
The boy nods solemnly against Atsumu’s stomach.
Atsumu can’t help grinning. He scoops the kid up with one arm. “Well, ain’t that lucky for me?”
“Careful,” another teacher warns as she hurries past with an armload of picture books. “If they decide they love you, you’ll never know freedom again.”
“Too late for that,” Atsumu mutters as the boy in his arms starts twisting his fingers through his hair.
The woman laughs, then stops mid-step when she really looks at him. “Oh! You’re the new assistant.”
“That obvious?”
“You still have hope in your eyes.”
Rude.
She jerks her chin toward the staff room. Atsumu manages to peel the clingy child off after promising he’ll still be around later. Inside, several teachers sit around a messy table clutching coffee like it’s the only thing keeping them upright. Someone shoves a folder into his hands without ceremony.
“Schedule.”
Another points at a basket by the door. “Extra wipes.”
A third doesn’t even glance up from the papers she’s grading. “Don’t mess up Kiyoomi’s classroom.”
Atsumu pauses. “Kiyoomi?”
Three heads turn toward him at once.
“You haven’t met Sakusa-sensei yet?” one asks.
“Oh, poor thing,” another mutters under her breath.
Atsumu snorts. “What, is he scary?”
The silence that follows is not reassuring.
“He likes order,” someone offers carefully.
“He likes cleanliness,” another adds.
“He once made a parent cry for wearing outdoor shoes past the entrance line,” a third says.
“That was justified,” someone argues right away.
Atsumu leans back in his chair, unimpressed. “Sounds dramatic. He seems like a piece of work.”
The room goes dead quiet.
Atsumu turns.
The man in the doorway is tall, dressed in dark slacks and a fitted black sweater that looks completely out of place among all the finger paint and glitter. Curly black hair frames a sharp, composed face. A small bottle of hand sanitizer hangs from his pocket, and a pack of disinfectant wipes is tucked neatly under one arm.
Those observant eyes lock onto Atsumu at once.
“Sakusa-sensei,” someone says, like they’re making introductions to minor royalty.
Sakusa gives the room a single nod before his gaze returns to Atsumu.
“The new assistant?”
His voice is quiet. His tone is controlled in a way that makes Atsumu suddenly conscious of how much space his own presence takes up.
“Ye. That’s me,” Atsumu says, flashing a grin. “Miya Atsumu.”
A beat of silence.
Then Sakusa says, “You’re blocking the emergency exit.”
“Eh?”
A sigh. “Just step aside.”
Atsumu glances behind himself.
He is, in fact, blocking the emergency exit.
Damn. They weren’t kidding.
“Right…” he says, stepping sideways.
Several teachers hide their smiles behind their mugs.
Sakusa doesn’t react. He walks in, sets a stack of fresh worksheets on the counter with precise movements, sanitizes his hands, and leaves again without another word.
Atsumu stares after him.
“…That’s him?”
“That’s him,” a teacher confirms.
Atsumu hums low in his throat.
Interesting. And cute. An interesting kinda of cute.
“...Sir, you know you’re speaking out loud?” A teacher says with an amused chuckle.
“Well, yer didn’t hear lies. Should I follow him?” Some teachers open their mouths to answers him, but before he makes up his mind he lets out a confident laugh and starts walking. “Ah! This smells like adventure.”
Not even ten minutes later, Atsumu witnesses his first Sakusa Classroom Incident.
Not an Indiana Jones adventure, but it got close.
It starts with screaming. Real, gut-wrenching sobs.
A little girl sits on the floor by the art shelves, crying so hard her whole body shakes. One sock is twisted halfway off her foot while the other kids hover nearby, unsure what to do.
Atsumu moves without thinking. “Oh no no, hey sweetheart, what happened?”
She only cries harder.
He crouches in front of her, already feeling out of his depth. He can face down massive crowds and flashing cameras, but one heartbroken four-year-old is quickly turning him into a useless mess.
“Uh— d’ye want a sticker? I can find a sticker—”
A shadow falls over them.
Sakusa kneels smoothly beside him.
The whole classroom seems to hold its breath, not from fear, but from focus.
Sakusa reaches out and carefully straightens the bunched-up sock on the girl’s foot, fingers steady and gentle.
“There,” he says, voice even. “That was uncomfortable, wasn’t it?”
The girl hiccups.
He wipes her wet cheeks with a clean tissue.
Then, completely serious, he asks, “Do you think dinosaurs wore shoes?”
The girl stops mid-sob.
Atsumu stops too.
“…What?”
“A Tyrannosaurus rex would struggle,” Sakusa continues, tone thoughtful. “Very small arms. Difficult laces.”
A tiny sniffle breaks through.
Sakusa tilts his head slightly. “Velcro might work.”
The girl lets out a shaky, watery laugh.
Just like that. So easy. How?
Atsumu stares, something warm and unexpected twisting in his chest.
Because the strict teacher everyone warned him about is now kneeling on a paint-splattered floor, calmly debating dinosaur footwear with a room full of wide-eyed kids gathered around him like he’s the most interesting thing they’ve ever seen.
And Sakusa doesn’t even seem to realize he’s done anything special.
The rest of the morning unfolds in loud, colorful disorder.
Atsumu helps with painting time, breaks up three separate crayon wars, and somehow ends up wearing a paper crown that says MR. TSUMU in wobbly, aggressive letters.
Sakusa moves through it all with quiet efficiency. He catches a boy before he face-plants into a shelf. He redirects a brewing tantrum with a single calm word. He remembers every single child’s name and preference without hesitation.
Atsumu keeps catching himself watching.
Sakusa catches him right back more than once.
Near the end of the session, Atsumu reaches across a low table to help a kid with their paint water. Another child yanks excitedly on his sleeve at the same moment.
His elbow knocks straight into a pot of blue paint.
It lands directly on Sakusa’s sweater.
The table goes silent.
Atsumu freezes.
A vivid smear of blue now stains the black fabric.
Slowly, Sakusa looks down at the mark.
Then up at Atsumu.
The silence stretches.
“…Miya-san,” Sakusa says at last.
Atsumu lifts both hands. “Ye make it sound like I killed someone.”
One kid giggles. Then another.
Sakusa closes his eyes for a brief second, like he’s swallowing down a sigh, before muttering, “You’re very loud…”
But there’s something dangerously close to amusement tucked beneath the words.
Oh.
Oh that’s a bad start already, Miya Atsuu's hearbeat tells him.