Thread by @offmain1315

#sakuatsu Soulmate Goose AU, idk how many people know this one so a little setup & the post it came from. Every soulmate pair gets a goose day. It’s random who will be the one the goose shows up in front of & who the goose will lead to. (The gooser and goosee? That’s not right.)

The goose, being a goose, makes it hard on the person it’s leading to their soulmate. There’s usually scrapes and bruises by the end. But the goose will NOT leave it’s person alone until they reach their destination.

Ok them’s the rules, now we can get into this sakuatsu proper.

Kiyoomi has known plenty of people who already had their Goose Day by the time he’s 18. He tries not to think about his own, except to hope it’s his soulmate being led to him and not vice versa.

When he wakes up to a face full of feathers, he decides whatever fate is in charge of this thing has Motoya’s sense of humor.

It’s earlier than even his alarm is set to go off for his morning run, and Kiyoomi would like nothing more than to go back to sleep.

Unfortunately, the goose seems to sense the moment his eyes open and responds with a honk directly in his face. He shoves it onto the floor.

Trying to find any kind of silver lining, Kiyoomi thinks maybe he can find his soulmate and be rid of this thing by lunchtime.

He doesn’t get the bathroom door shut before the goose follows him in, and it honks at him through his entire shower. Kiyoomi tries his best to ignore the harsh sound reverberating off the tile. He spares an apologetic thought for his neighbors. At least his parents aren’t home.

He puts a note on the counter in case his parents are home that evening before he is, trying not to think too much about that being the case.

There’s no one in particular he suspects of being his soulmate, so it’s hard to guess where he’ll be taken.

Kiyoomi really only talks to Motoya and people he plays volleyball with. There was a brief infatuation with Ushiwaka in his first year, but no one has occupied his attention since then. Well. Not like /that/, anyway.

The goose tries to pull out his shoelaces in the he man as he’s attempting to lace them up.

“Stop it.” He swats at the thing and gets a hard bite to the back of his hand. He glares at it and doubles back to grab some extra bandages. It toddles after him, honking again.

The elevator is another disaster, but then Kiyoomi is on his way. The streets, at least, aren’t crowded in Tokyo at this hour; the sun isn’t even up yet. He passes a few bedraggled-looking salarymen and a girl about his age with her own goose, who gives him a commiserating look.

He’s seen plenty of people over the years fighting their way through the streets with an angry goose nipping at their heels or tugging them forward. He wonders if they had to walk this far.

The sun is rising as they turn down yet another street and Kiyoomi’s stomach sinks.

He had almost been wondering if this stupid thing was lost, but now he fears something worse. They’re approaching Tokyo Station.

Kiyoomi sighs and takes out his phone to text Motoya, and the goose pecks at his hand again.

“Oi, I’m still following you, stop that.” He holds his phone up higher and sends a message mostly by touch saying he won’t be in class today.

Motoya, who is perpetually glued to his phone, responds instantly asking if he’s okay.

He sends back a selfie that catches the moment just before the goose bites him again, this time on his upper arm, and captions it “Nope.”

He gets back a string of emojis he couldn’t even begin to interpret and leaves it on read, slipping his phone back into his pocket. The goose seems to be contemplating an automatic revolving door now. It starts honking angrily at it.

Kiyoomi steps to one side to open a regular door and gets that ire turned on him.

“I’m not leaving- this is the way in, you stupid-“

All Kiyoomi can see is feathers for a moment, and he presses his mouth closed while wondering how hygienic geese are. He would guess not very.

He jerks back and reorientation, and the goose has made it inside. It’s pecking the now-shut glass door and honking at him. He scowls and follows it in, elbowing away another few nips.

As they approach the turnstiles Kiyoomi realizes the problem in front of him.

How is he supposed to know what ticket to buy? Does the goose know? How does the goose even know what a train station is? Who the fuck came up with this system?

He’s glaring at the goose, wondering if he’s lucky enough that his soulmate is a train station employee, when a woman approaches him.

“Excuse me, sir,” she says. The goose honks and tries to charge at her. So much for that theory. She sidesteps it with a practiced air.

“You can pick up a Soul Goose Pass at the help desk by the Marunouchi Entrance. It will allow you to board the train you’re led to and pay once you board.”

Kiyoomi could kiss her, soulmate be damned. Instead, he nods and murmurs his thanks before heading the way she’s pointing.

Unfortunately, the help desk is apparently not in the same direction as his train. The goose tries to block and trip Kiyoomi at first, and then moves to grabbing the back of his jacket in is bill and trying to drag him.

He creates a system of shoving it and sprinting as far as he can before it catches up. It’s slow going, but it works. Thankfully, the growing crowds give them a wide berth.

By the time he’s wiping the pass clean, he’s exhausted and irritable. And he’s not even on the train yet.

The way back toward the train platforms is comparatively easier. The goose seems more content to be headed in the right direction, though it does keep throwing suspicious glances back at Kiyoomi.

Once again Kiyoomi’s stomach sinks when they arrive at their apparent train. A Shinkansen.

Kiyoomi squints up at the digital screen. Kakogawa? Isn’t that down by Kobe?

He boards (with more jostling and honking), finds a seat near the front of the train, and collapses into it.

Kiyoomi’s mental process is already a loop of “fuck this day” when an announcement comes on that they are about to depart, estimated time of arrival, just over three hours from now.

Kiyoomi presses the heels of his hands over his eyes until he sees stars.

The goose stares at him quietly for all of fifteen minutes after they start moving. Kiyoomi is almost ready to believe it will be happy with them moving at speed toward his soulmate, when it spreads its wings and jumps into his lap.

“Absolutely not,” he says, shoving it back.

Honking sounds louder in an enclosed space. He almost misses their chase through the station just for the acoustics swallowing up the sound in a vast hall filled with bodies.

It’s the first time Kiyoomi ever remembers missing being around a crowd.

“Shut up, shut up, we’re /going,/ okay?” he hisses. The goose hisses back. “I cannot be going where you want me to go any faster than I currently am.”

He doesn’t know if Soul Geese understand Japanese. He’s suddenly wishing he’d done a lot more research on the phenomenon.

If his goose does understand him, it just doesn’t care. It keeps honking and grabbing at his sleeve and flapping in his face for the next hour and a half.

Kiyoomi tries everything to calm it down on the range of “glaring” to “verbal abuse.” He’s out of ideas.

At one point, feeling on the verge of a breakdown, Kiyoomi darts down the aisle to the bathroom and wrestles the door shut just to not have to look at the fucking thing for a few seconds. He would normally rather burn off his own skin than enter a train bathroom, but. Needs must.

As soon as he locks the door, a cacophony of honking and flapping are audible from the other side. He doesn’t remember much being in the hallway, but he hears the unmistakable sound of shit being knocked over.

Kiyoomi runs his hands down his face and gives himself 10 seconds staring into his reflection before he swaps out his mask for a new one, takes a breath, and steps back out.

The goose doesn’t quiet down upon seeing him, but it does chase him back to his seat.

Kiyoomi tries to just count out his breathing as the goose starts to settle. After another few minutes, it lowers onto the floor and rests its head on Kiyoomi’s thigh. His hands itch to shove it away again, but as it’s actually being quiet, he stops himself.

Another few minutes, and he hesitantly puts his hand over the goose’s snowy head. It blinks up at him but otherwise doesn’t react. Kiyoomi breathes out a sigh he’s been holding in since he got up.

For this one quiet moment, Kiyoomi allows his mind to drift to whoever’s waiting at his destination. He doesn’t know anyone in Kakogawa, he doesn’t think. But by the end of the day, some strange girl or guy will be linked to him by fate. His empty stomach flips over.

Kiyoomi only realizes that his exhaustion won out when he’s being pecked awake again. His eyes are bleary, and he doesn’t quite remember where he is, but once again there’s a goose on top of him.

A honk jostles him fully awake, but also throws the goose off his lap.

He realizes they’re stopping, pulling into Kakogawa Station at last. Kiyoomi stretches when he stands, and the goose bites at his hip where his jacket rode up.

Kiyoomi scowls and makes his way to the exit, the goose waddling along behind him.

His stomach growls as they’re passing a newsstand. His goose has taken the lead again, and he spares a glance sideways.

As if sending this, the goose swivels its head around to look at him.

“Is this place close, or are we about to wander through a city for another two hours?”

The goose honks. He’s not sure what he expected.

He decides to risk it just so he doesn’t pass out on the streets of an unknown city with no one but a damn goose knowing where he is.

He ducks into a store and grabs the first protein bar whose label he recognizes. The goose is already in attack mode right behind him.

People are staring and the bites are getting closer to hitting their mark, so he just tosses ¥400 at the cashier and makes a break for the exit.

This whole ordeal seems to have riled the stupid thing up again, as it’s now pulling on his jacket the whole way to the street exit. Kiyoomi swats at it with one hand while tugging down his mask and shoving the protein bar in his mouth with the other.

They don’t have to walk far, as it turns out- at least, not compared to the trek through Tokyo this morning. Just 20 minutes and a shortcut through a park later, they’re in a residential area.

Kiyoomi can’t think or feel anything but relief that this whole ordeal is nearly over.

They get to the front door of a small house, and the goose turns around to face Kiyoomi head-on and let out one final honk at him.

“I hate you, and this has been miserable,” he says as he raises his hand to knock.

A familiar face answers the door, under unfamiliar hair.

“…Aren’t ya that Itachiyama wing spiker?” Miya asks. The other Miya- Osamu? Kiyoomi isn’t sure he’s spoken to him directly before. He looks down at his goose, then back up, and nods.

“I am. Is this…”

“Tsumu!” Miya calls over his shoulder. “It’s fer you!”

Kiyoomi’s forehead wrinkles. He’s not really sure what’s going on, and his brain feels like an overheating hard drive. He looks back down at the goose, which has started flapping again and is trying to bite Miya’s legs now.

Miya kicks at it and mutters “definitely for Tsumu.”

“Whadya mean it’s for me, who even- Sakusa?” Atsumu appears in the genkan, his hair damp like he just got out of the shower. Osamu steps aside and then back into the house.

“What’re you doin’ here?” Atsumu asks. Kiyoomi stares at him, then waves his hand at the fucking goose in front of him, as if there’s some other explanation for it.

Atsumu looks like he’s processing as slowly as Kiyoomi is. He looks between Kiyoomi and the goose a few times.

Kiyoomi is staring down at the goose, himself.

“Are you kidding me?”

The goose doesn’t respond. Kiyoomi, for the first time that day, doesn’t care. He could throttle the damn thing.

“You wake me up at 4 a.m. - you drag me on the goddamn Shinkansen and harass me for three hours-“ Kiyoomi has never harmed an animal, but he feels close. He jabs a finger in Atsumu’s direction. “I’m going to see him in three fucking weeks at Nationals! You couldn’t have waited‽”

The goose is ignoring him now in favor of waddling slowly toward Atsumu and pushing its head up into the palm of his hand. Atsumu pats it, and when Kiyoomi looks up he’s smiling.

“Aw, Omi-Omi, could ya just not wait ta see me?”

“I would have been fine seeing you in 3 weeks.”

Kiyoomi scowls and crosses his arms, and that’s when it hits him that Miya Atsumu is his soulmate.

“Aren’t you at least going to invite me in?” His own voice sounds far away. Atsumu raises an eyebrow, still smiling.

“C’mon in, Omi-Omi, can I get ya something to eat? Ya got a feather in your hair, by the way.” He plucks it out of Kiyoomi’s hair himself, and twirls it in his fingers.

Kiyoomi steps in and shoves off his shoes. He feels heat creeping up his neck.

“Wait,” he says as a thought occurs to him. Atsumu pauses from leading him farther in, presumably to the kitchen. “Why aren’t you at school? It’s a Wednesday.”

He gives Atsumu a suspicious once-over, checking for signs of illness that would have him home sick.

“We’re skippin’ today, don’t flip out, I don’t have a fever.”

“You’re skipping? In your third year?”

They make it to the kitchen, and the goose hops up on a chair. Atsumu pets it again and rolls his eyes at Kiyoomi.

“What are ya, my mom?”

“No,” Kiyoomi says slowly. “Apparently, I’m your soulmate.”

[/end]