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stories-from-my-notebook · 28 days ago

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OVERNIGHT: SAKUSA K. in an empty bar on new year's eve, sakusa meets a girl, and he can't bring himself to say goodbye

tags/warnings: sakusa x f!reader, meet cute, new years, strangers to lovers, timeskip, alcohol mention, ooc sakura, background atsuhina, flirting via gossip, just lonely people finding each other

word count: 3.4k

It’s New Year's Eve, and Sakusa is alone.

Unless you count Atsumu and Hinata, tucked into a corner and drunkenly singing into fake microphones (because the bar doesn’t offer real karaoke), to an eighties pop-ballad. Or the old man stoically sitting in a cracked leather booth, gripping a half-empty glass of scotch that it looks like he’s been drinking since the seventies. Or the bartender who has not once looked up from his phone in the past twenty minutes and would clearly rather be at a better bar. Or the girl who’s collapsed onto the bartop, face hidden by her arms and her second drink empty besides her.

Which Sakusa doesn’t. So, he’s alone.

If he had his way, he’d be at home. He would be asleep by the time the clock struck midnight, and he would wake up to the new year. But Sakusa doesn’t have his way, because apparently the words no, I don’t want to go out, don’t have the same weight they used to, and two idiots will show up at your door and drag you out, anyways.

He looks over his shoulder. Two more hours until New Years, and Atsumu and Hinata are already drunk, arms sloppily thrown over each other’s shoulders, leaning on each other for support. Maybe Bokuto has the right idea, and getting into a serious relationship is the only sure-fire way to avoid nights like this.

Sakusa glances over to the bartender, who’s adjusted his position so he could plug in his phone to charge. He then glances over to the old man, and it looks like he hasn’t moved an inch, but there’s definitely less scotch in his glass now. And then, he looks to his left, to the girl who’s face down at the bar.

Sakusa eyes her, a bit. He wonders if she’s okay, or if she’s just that drunk. This thought concerns him, and it annoys him. Because if she’s so drunk that she can’t sit up, it sort of becomes his problem. He can’t just leave her here, limp and unmoving in a sketchy bar with none of her friends around.

He contemplates saying something to her, and has already decided against poking at her arm to try and rouse her. His mouth opens underneath his mask to say something, but Sakusa closes it. He doesn’t know what the proper thing is to say.

“I can feel you staring at me,” comes a muffled voice from the lump of limbs that is the girl at the bar. “I’m not passed out, I’m just miserable.”

Sakusa’s face heats up at the notion of being caught, and his shoulders stiffen up. “Um, okay,” he says.

The girl straightens up, slightly groaning as she does so. When she turns to face Sakusa, he has the thought that she’s actually pretty, if you ignore the indents left on her face from it being pressed against the bar. “Are you here alone?” she asks.

“No, I’m with them over there,” he says, gesturing behind him towards Atsumu and Hinata, answering without realizing it. “Unfortunately.”

She spins around on the barstool to get a good look at them, and when she spins back around, her shoulders are slumped and the corners of her mouth are downturned into a pout. Sakusa almost laughs at the way her expressions are so dramatized. But he doesn’t, his mouth remains pressed in a flat line.

“I’m here alone,” she explains, though she doesn’t have to, Sakusa figured. Unless she was here with the old man or the world’s rudest bartender. “I was supposed to go out with my friend tonight, but that didn’t work out,” she says, and then pauses, like she’s waiting for Sakusa to ask her about it. He doesn’t say anything.

“It’s pretty depressing,” she comments, resting her cheek on her hand, “being alone on New Year’s. I feel like a fucking loser.”

“Not that bad,” Sakusa comments, twisting his hands together in his lap. “It’s how I would’ve preferred to spend the night.”

In the corner of the bar, the singing duo of Atsumu and Hinata trails off, and the sound of their silence turns Sakusa’s head. He peers over his shoulder again to see them both, clinging onto each other, in hysterics, laughing silently as they grip at each other.

There’s a small lurch in Sakusa’s gut, though he can’t quite place it. He turns his attention back to the girl.

“Your friends seem fun,” she comments. “And you seem kind of like a buzzkill.”

Sakusa bristles, though he supposes he has no reason to be offended. All she knows about him is that he’s sitting at a bar, pouting, while his loud, drunk friends have more fun than him. “I’m not the one alone at a bar on New Year’s,” he retorts half-heartedly.

He expects her to be equally as offended as he was, but she doesn’t seem to be. She just sort of shrugs, looking deflated. “I mean, you’ve got me there.”

She removes the heel of her palm from her cheek and drags the tip of her finger along the rim of her empty glass. He’s sure she would go for another one if the bartender was paying closer attention. She looks lonely. And maybe he’s just bored. Maybe he feels bad for insulting her. Maybe he just feels the same. But, regardless, he has this odd urge to keep her company. And that odd urge makes him ask, “What happened with your friend?”

She sighs. “It’s kind of a long story.”

“I have time,” Sakusa replies.

⋆✴︎˚｡⋆

The bartender pulled himself away from his phone long enough to top off their drinks, and now Sakusa’s body feels warm. “That doesn’t make any sense,” he says, words dragged out by the alcohol in his veins.

“See, that’s exactly what I’m saying!” she exclaims. Sakusa’s noticed that the more she drinks, the more expressive she gets. She waves around her arms and speaks with her hands and slams them down on the bartop when she gets too excited. “Because it would’ve been fine if she didn’t have the money for rent one time, I don’t mind covering if she’s going through it, but obviously she did have the money, and she just wanted to use it for her stupid birthday party and then not invite me.”

Sakusa’s eyes feel heavier than they did before. There’s an hour-twenty until the new year. He’s more invested in her story-telling than he thought she would be. “So she was essentially asking you to pay for a party that you weren’t invited to.”

“Isn’t it such a dick move?” she questions excitedly, like she’s ecstatic to have someone agree with her, to tell her she’s right, even if it is a half-drunk stranger at a bar. “And, it’s like she was going for the biggest dick in the universe award, because on top of all of that, she just straight up lied to me about that stupid party and told me her parents were taking her out for dinner. Like, do you think I’m an idiot? We have the same friends. We literally live together. I’m not that stupid.”

Sakusa likes listening to her talk. She has a pretty voice. He likes listening to it, hearing when it cracks or when it rises an octave. She’s gotten prettier, too. It might have something to do with the drink in his hands, but it’s like she has this soft glow that emits from her, soft and warm. And despite her raging, Sakusa feels a smile tug at the corner of his lips. He’s abandoned his mask in favor of drinking, so it’s out in the open, there for her to see.

She doesn’t notice, though, she’s caught up in her storytelling, talking loudly to eclipse the music that plays. “And I wasn’t going to say anything at first, because I was really trying to keep the peace until I was able to move out, but then I found out that she was talking-”

“Omi!”

She is cut off by Atsumu, properly drunk and not even attempting to hide it. “We were gonna walk back to my place so me and Sho could count down the New Year there. Wanna come?”

“No,” Sakusa answers sharply. Atsumu tosses an arm over his shoulder and it nearly makes Sakusa shudder. He shoves Atsumu’s hot, sweaty arm off of him, and Atsumu pays no mind to this, just switches his embrace over to Hinata, who flanks him with his eyes fluttering shut. “Can’t you just stay here?”

“This bar sucks,” Hinata whines, head flopping onto Atsumu’s shoulders, and Sakusa can swear he sees the bartender glare at him from the corner of his eye. “Come back with us, I hate it here.”

Hinata seemed to like it plenty twenty minutes ago when he was singing his lungs out to city pop, Sakusa’s not exactly sure what’s changed since then. And while he’s trying to figure it out, Atsumu seems to notice that Sakusa’s not exactly alone at the bar anymore.

“You can bring the hot girl back with you, if you want, I don’t care,” Atsumu says, which earns him a light whack upside the head.

“Don’t be a dick,” Sakusa chastises him. He looks back at the girl at the bar, and he realizes then that he never asked her name. “I’m sorry about him, he’s a jackass.”

She has this expression on her face that seems half-way between uncomfortable and amused. “Don’t worry about it,” she says. “And you don’t have to stay here on my account. I was probably going to head home soon, anyways.”

That’s a lie, Sakusa thinks, and he’s irritated with the interruption. He wants to know what she was going to say next. He wants to know exactly how it is that she ended up here, alone. “No, you were talking. I want to hear the rest of your story.”

Hinata perks up. “Sakusa, just stay here and talk to your new friend, and we’ll just go back.”

“Yeah,” Atsumu agrees, “you don’t ever make new friends. We don’t wanna ruin it for you.”

Sakusa hopes she doesn’t notice the way his face starts to burn up. “I don’t trust you two to get back. You’re too drunk, you’ll end up frozen in a park by morning.”

“You know,” she interrupts, and Sakusa turns to look at her, “if you guys walked, I wouldn’t mind going with you. I could finish my story on the go.”

Sakusa blinks.

⋆✴︎˚｡⋆

She’s bundled up for the cold, a knit hat pulled down over her ears and a thick scarf wrapped around her neck several times. And even though her hands are covered by a pair of mittens, she still shoves them deep into the pockets of her jacket, trying to shield them further from the wind. Sakusa cannot stop thinking about how cute he finds this.

They walk several paces behind Atsumu and Hinata, who, since leaving the bar, have not detached from each other. Still, Sakusa can hear their laughter, and he wonders if there was a reason he had to be dragged out tonight, if it was just going to be those two all over each other.

For some reason, though, he feels more appreciative of it now.

“I think your friends are in love with each other,” she comments, voice slightly muffled from the scarf that obscures her mouth.

Sakusa scoffs. “Yeah, it’s been like this for a while. Tonight might be their breaking point.”

The wind blows between them. There’s old, icy snow on either side of them. The sidewalk is gray and covered in salt. The night looks as cold as it feels, and Sakusa can feel it run down his spine. His jacket’s too thin for the wind. He shivers, and she looks up at him.

“Here,” she says, grabbing at the end of her scarf and unraveling it from her neck. “Take this.”

“No, you don’t have to-” Sakusa starts, but is cut off when she tosses the scarf around the back of his neck, and throws the end of it over his shoulder.

Sakusa blanks, for a moment, stunned. The scarf smells warm, like cinnamon, and when it touches the back of his neck, he gets goosebumps. “Thanks,” he says.

She pulls the hood of her jacket up over her head to make up for the loss. “You looked too cold. It was making me colder.”

“So what happened next?” Sakusa questions, and she looks at him with a raised brow. “In your story. You said you were trying to keep the peace with your roommate, and then you got cut off. What happened next?”

For a moment, she looks at Sakusa, and she smiles. It feels nice to be on the receiving end of it. It eases a strain in Sakusa’s chest that he didn’t even realize was there. “Yeah, right. I was going to try and keep the peace, but then I found out she was talking to my ex-boyfriend behind my back, and that was like, the whole reason she didn’t want to invite me to her party in the first place. Which, I mean, if they’re going to talk, fine, that’s none of my business, but I just think it’s so weird to choose a man you’re not dating over your friend. Especially because no one was making her choose!”

She immediately falls back into her animated retelling, and Sakusa notices that her pace is matching his. He listens, and watches as their footprints leave faint, matching prints in the salt and dust of the sidewalk.

⋆✴︎˚｡⋆

The scarf makes him warmer. So does her voice. Sakusa gets so caught up in it he doesn’t realize they’ve reached Atsumu’s apartment.

“Hey Omi!” Atsumu calls from the front door, her and Sakusa still lagging several feet behind them. “Are you going to come up?”

“No,” he replies, “I’m gonna walk her home.”

From the corner of his eye, Sakusa can see her look up at him in surprise, her raised eyebrows hidden under the hood of her jacket. It makes him smile, despite himself.

Atsumu shrugs. He takes Hinata’s hand in his, intertwining their fingers. “Alright man, I get you. See you next year!”

Once Atsumu and Hinata have disappeared, she says, “You don’t have to walk me home, y’know.”

“Yes I do,” Sakusa counters. “It’s late, you can’t walk back alone. Plus you haven’t finished your story yet.”

She hasn’t, and Sakusa needs her too. She was in the middle of telling him about how her roommate’s mother sent her a scathing letter, and Sakusa’s too invested to give up on it now. Her mouth twists into a smile, like she’s fighting it. “My apartment’s kinda far from here.”

And despite her warning, she turns, and starts walking back in the direction she came from, and Sakusa follows, eagerly falling back into place and matching her step. “Gives you plenty of time to finish what you were saying.”

“You know, I’m surprised you actually care this much,” she tells him, half-teasing. Her gloves hand brushes against him as her arms swing. “You kinda seemed like the type who loves not caring about shit.”

He doesn’t want to be offended, because she’s right, but he is. Sakusa’s irked that that’s her perspective on him, and he’s irked that he does care so much. “I just wanna know how I ended up meeting you tonight.”

Sakusa watches from the corner of her eye as she tilts her head, and she makes this little noise of contemplation in the back of her throat that gives Sakusa goosebumps again. “It is nice to have someone to talk to,” she says. “You’re the first person I’ve been able to talk to about it. Hey, what’s your name by the way? I heard your friends call you Omi.”

He looks down at his feet. “Sakusa Kiyoomi.”

She tells him her name, and it fits her. He repeats it over in his head a few times, once under his breath. He likes the sound of it. He likes the way it feels when he says it.

“Thanks for spending New Year’s listening to me rant, Sakusa,” she tells him with a smile.

He returns it, because he can’t help himself. “No problem.”

There’s a beat of silence, the only noise being their shoes crunching against small, harmless patches of ice. She takes a deep breath. “So, anyways, when I got that letter from her mom, I basically freaked the fuck out, because so far that was like, the most insane thing to happen to me ever.”

⋆✴︎˚｡⋆

By the time she leads them back to her apartment, Sakusa hates her roommate more than he’s ever hated anyone, and he can’t feel the tips of his fingers. He keeps thinking about taking one of his hands out of his jacket pocket, and stuffing it into hers, their hands becoming one, clammy, knotted-up, warm mess. The thought makes him nervous.

“So then, earlier tonight, I got a call from her, and she told me she was moving out, and leaving me alone with the lease, but we could still go out tonight if I wanted. But at that point, I just kind of gave up, and I told her to go out without me. Then I looked up cheap bars nearby, and I ended up meeting you.”

Her timing’s perfect. She stops on the sidewalk in front of her building, and turns to face Sakusa directly. He hums. “That’s a pretty fucked up story,” he tells her.

“I know,” she replies with a nod. “It’s a great start to the new year, right?”

“At least I got to meet you,” he tells her, and he doesn’t know why he says it. He just sort of says it, naturally, and even though his cheeks go red, he doesn’t regret it.

She gives him a soft smile. “This is my place. Thanks for walking me back.”

“Of course, I was happy to.”

Her hand pulls out of her pocket, and her phone comes with it. She presses a button on the side, and the screen lights up. “It’s twelve o’one,” she tells him. “We missed it, fuck.”

Sakusa is suddenly flushed with thoughts of a New Year’s kiss, and he lets himself think them, because there’s no harm if he doesn’t say it outloud. He shrugs. “I don’t mind.”

She nods, and keeps her eyes down on her feet. Sakusa has this odd urge to grab her by the chin and make her meet his eye. He doesn’t know what it is about her, or her squeaky voice and terrible roommate and her dramatics and extravagant storytelling, but he feels like he’s been hooked by something. He doesn’t want to say goodbye to her.

Her feet shift her weight around. “I have other stories, by the way.”

Sakusa raises his brow. “What do you mean?”

She looks behind her, for a second, and then back at him. Not quite looking him in the eye, her gaze hovers somewhere around his chest. “I have a lot of stories, actually. Horrible exes. Family drama. Lots of stuff I could tell you about sometime, if you wanted to hear it.”

His chest feels like it’s expanding. “I want to hear them,” he tells her outright. “Any time you want to tell them.”

She reaches into the back pocket of her jeans, and pulls out a slip of paper. A teared up piece of the receipt from the bar. She hands it to him, and Sakusa takes it, her gloves brushing against his finger tips. “I was hoping you’d ask for my number, so I came prepared. Call me the next time you want to hear something crazy.”

Sakusa smiles. “I will.”

“Happy New Year, Sakusa,” she says, and she stands on the tips of her toes to place a soft, quick kiss to her cheek.

And before he has time to react, she rushes away, disappearing behind the front door of her apartment building. Sakusa’s hand reaches up to hover the spot where her lips touched him, and it feels numb.

He looks down at the paper in her hand. Her number, written in smudged pen ink, and a note that says, the girl slumped over at the bar who talks too much-call me if you’re into that.

Sakusa smiles, with her scarf still around his neck and folds it neatly back up, placing it in the front pocket of his jacket.

an: happy new year i love u all

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