here are some half-formed sakuatsu thoughts for y'all in the wake of chapter 394:

i'm super pleased with the confirmation that sakusa is a character who makes snap judgments of people based on his first impressions of them. he decides he respects ushijima and iizuna ON SIGHT.

conversely, he holds onto the fact that hinata was a star player who couldn't take care of his body for over six years. he makes opinions quickly and seems to hold onto them until—who knows, really, what the threshold is for changing sakusa's opinions. we don't really see that.

you know what else we don't see? sakusa's first impression of atsumu.

and atsumu is a TOUGH character to pin down. he has traits that sakusa would respect (like the work he puts into improving himself as an athlete), but there's his Personality to consider which is complex.

atsumu as a teen was, at times, loud-mouthed and downright MEAN. he was also selectively perceptive (he saw everything that happened on the court but could not care less about what people thought of him). he had shitty sportsmanship but that was tempered by how hard he'd worked.

so maybe, just maybe, when sakusa—a person who's quick to decide what he thinks of anyone and everyone—first met atsumu, he was confronted with that complexity. a mixed bag of things he respected and loathed. when first faced with the duality of atsumu miya, how did sakusa react?

i'm thinking maybe, just maybe, he was so thrown by the entire encounter that it stuck with him, lingering in his mind to the point that it annoyed and frustrated him so much that he came to associate Annoying and Frustrating with atsumu entirely. (and thus: banter)

sakusa—who's prone to making snap judgments—meeting atsumu—who can be all at once diligent, bratty, confident obnoxious, confident, clever, vain, and perceptive without changing gears—is like sakusa thinking he bought a 50 piece puzzle only to find it's actually 5000 pieces.

and, you know. he has to finish anything he starts. he has to see through the process of judging atsumu miya, all the way to the end.

and maybe that's the story of how sakusa falls first.