Spray-paint and Skateboards (SakuAtsu Dancer AU)

Chapter 45: Emo-Girl

By the time Atsumu got home, it was already one o'clock on Wednesday morning. He quickly took a shower and went to bed because he could miss one day of lectures, but two is a different story.

He woke up at six o'clock and decided that five hours of sleep was enough – he'd survived on less before. After throwing on a quick outfit of light ripped jeans with gold chains on the belt, a flowy cropped white t-shirt and white high-top Nike sneakers, he grabbed his canvas with his art piece and left the house on his skateboard.

He met up with the others, and they headed off to university, foregoing their race since Atsumu and Akagi both had their art pieces with them.

It was around midday when Akagi and Atsumu sat down in the back corner of the art studio to continue their art pieces.

They were talking mostly about mundane things, like the theme of that Friday's dance competition – which was heartbreak – and ideas to make their performances even better. The rules of Uprising were strange. The team that won the competition would dance again in the next week's competition as well until they were beaten. Since Manic was the reigning champions of Uprising, they would dance every single competition without fail until a team good enough came along to upstage them, though other teams would feature periodically as non-competitive performances.

As Atsumu finished wiping the red paint from his hands, he inspected his painting and smiled. He'd captured the person's likeness perfectly. The prompt or topic was 'a saviour' and Atsumu chose to paint the person who saved him back in high school – not literally, but figuratively – when his mother had first been diagnosed with cancer.

He had just continued his painting with his headphones on, working on some of the finer details when a shadow was cast over his canvas.

Atsumu furrowed his brows and turned to look up at the person behind him while Akagi subtly watched from the corner of his eye and wiped his hands off on a damp rag.

An unfamiliar girl stood before Atsumu with her phone in her hands as she rapidly typed something. Atsumu narrowed his eyes and looked her up and down. She was chewing pink bubblegum and periodically blew bubbles with it, and she was dressed like a trashy emo kid from two-thousand and six who listened to the song Can You Feel My Heart by Bring Me The Horizon on repeat daily.

"Can I...help ya?" Atsumu asked as he lowered his headphones to around his neck, unsure of what she was doing there.

She let the massive pink bubble pop onto her lips and Atsumu internally cringed while he watched black lipstick stick to the bubblegum as she collected it back into her mouth.

Suddenly, she looked down at him and shoved her phone into his face, "This you?" She asked.

Atsumu blinked in confusion before his eyes settled on the image on the screen. It was Komori's Instagram post from the day before – the one of him and Sakusa on the beach.

"Uh... Yeah?" Atsumu answered hesitantly.

The girl frowned and looked him up and down, "I didn't think the Sakusa Kiyoomi would go for someone..." She paused, chewing her gum obnoxiously loud, "Like you," she finished with a disgusted tone.

Atsumu cocked his head to the side and raised an eyebrow, "What's that s'pposed to mean?" He asked lowly.

The girl rolled her eyes and scoffed, "Come on, you can't be that dense," she commented, "I know that they say that blondes are dumb but I didn't think that applied to the guys too," she sighed, "And here I thought you were kind of cute."

Atsumu took a deep calming breath and his gaze darkened, "It's bleached," he clarified through gritted teeth, "An' if ya'd be so kind, could ya explain to me why ya decided to so politely mention a false stereotype regardin' my hair colour?"

The girl huffed, "Bleached, natural – whatever – blonde is blonde, but that's not the point," she waved her hand in his face flippantly, "I came to see what all the rage about Sakusa Kiyoomi getting a cute boyfriend, but you're not quite what I expected."

Atsumu narrowed his eyes, "An' what did ya 'expect'?" He asked carefully, barely hiding the venom lacing his words.

She laughed, a loud and annoying cacophony of a giggle, "Oh, you see, Sakusa has this whole, you know, dark and mysterious thing going on," she said dreamily, "He's so athletic and absolutely gorgeous," she gushed, "And when you see him, he almost never smiles, he always avoids fans at the Black Jackals' fan events, and he just has this overall stoic and unapproachable vibe to him. You, however..." She paused as if finding the right words, "You're just some blonde fem-boy art nerd who does gymnastics on the side. I mean, look at what you're wearing! I'm struggling to even comprehend what Sakusa sees in you. You're like the opposite of him! You're so girlish that I bet you don't even know the first thing about volleyball."

Atsumu was silent for a minute or two, so Akagi stepped forwards hesitantly and gently placed a hand on Atsumu's shoulder, "Tsumu...?" He called quietly, "Should I call the others?" He asked softly.

Meanwhile, the girl watched with a growing smirk on her face, thinking that she'd won this, "Aww! You're so weak that you need your little gaggle of weirdos to save you?"

Atsumu gently shrugged Akagi's hand from his shoulder and shook his head. It was about time that he faced his demons and fought his own battles. He'd had enough of people judging his sense of style and his hobbies. This time, he wasn't going to sit back and let Bokuto and Kuroo take care of it like they always did. He was not about to let his father's ideologies be forced upon him again, especially not when the words came from an irritating Wednesday Addams wannabe.

This time, he wasn't going to let society's slander slide. He was going to stand up for himself for the first time in a long time.

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I'm in a very chill mood rn and lowkey just wanna make drama so that badass Atsumu can appear 😛

Anygays, bye!
-CrackshotReaper

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