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What do we mean when we talk about personality?
What is your personality?
It's the way you get along with other people around you
And with your changing environment
You want certain things from other people and your environment
The way you go about getting those things
Reveals your personality
For all intents and purposes, Atsumu should be having a good time.
They’ve just finished their first away game of the season, against a team based in Shibuya that had just climbed up the ranks from Division 2. It was a landslide win taken in three sets, the poor bastards. Atsumu hadn’t gone in taking the game any less seriously than any other match, but before he knew it, it was all over and he was trailing back into the locker room to clean up before dinner.
And yet.
The win leaves something unnecessarily bitter in his mouth. They won, but as Atsumu drags his feet through cleaning up and changing, all he can think about is how easily they’d snatched it up. It’s hardly earned. I barely tired myself out, can I even say we won the damn thing—
A slammed locker beside him pulls him out of his thoughts, and he looks right up into green eyes that pierce right through him. “Hurry up. The rest of the team already left for dinner.”
The doubts get shoved to the back of Atsumu’s mind while he stands dumbly with his sneakers in his hands as he watches Omi leave. Or not. Omi stops just before the door and turns back around with an infuriating, perfectly raised brow. His sneer is visible even behind the mask. “I said—”
“Yeah, yeah. I’ll be right there. Heard you the first time!” Atsumu hurries to pull his sneakers on without bothering to undo and re-tie the laces. It’s a tighter squeeze than he expects and he catches himself with one hand on a bench while he hobbles and tries to shove his foot in. Fuck. I can’t even get these shoes on myself, how the hell did we just pull a win?
“Miya, if you just—”
“I’ll be right there, dammit!” The words come out sharper than he intends them to be, but Atsumu’s sneaker slides on with the next yank. His sock rolls under his heel and he ignores it, not wanting to admit defeat. When he reaches for his second shoe to put it on, he doesn’t bother to look up when he hears Omi push the door open and exit through it. No point, if the guy didn’t even bother to say anything. Omi’s a big boy, his ego won’t shatter.
Was a dick move anyway. He was just trying to help. For once. Fuck, that’s being a dick, too.
Atsumu’s nostrils flare at the sudden thought and he kicks his heel into the row of lockers in front of him, willing the harsh rattle of metal to exorcise his mind of the beginnings of an unpleasant spiral. Nothing. He kicks again, and the dull throb in the sole of his foot is reminiscent of the soreness he usually feels after a hard-won 5-set match. It’s satisfying enough for him to leave the locker room.
He’s surprised to find Omi waiting in the hallway with his hands in his pockets, looking as though he’s waiting for an apology that isn’t sitting on the tip of Atsumu’s tongue. They stare for a moment before Omi’s shoulders slump even more than Atsumu thought possible with a sigh of, “So. Are you done?”
“Yeah,” Atsumu huffs, running a hand through his hair with a lopsided smile. “Obviously I’m done getting dressed. Pesky shoes finally decided to get with the program.”
It’s not what Omi means. They both know that but neither of them are going to push it further, and they silently agree to start catching up to their teammates.
•••
When he makes it back to his hotel room after the very late dinner, Atsumu’s sock has scrunched down to his toes and makes the front of his shoe unbearably tight.
There’s an itch of pain just behind his ears from Bokuto’s hollering over the past hour. His joy is usually infectious and endearing, but tonight, it felt grating. Yet, Atsumu played along with a grin the whole while.
Good sportsmanship, right? He’s had to learn that. His shitty attitude from high school could never fly in the pro circuit. Regardless of whether or not he cares about what people think of him, he’s learned that getting along actually matters.
Play hard, play well, play nice.
That’s the mantra he’s been going by the past few years, swallowing down fire and offering playful sparks instead, and it’s what he had to remind himself of throughout dinner when the rest of the team was just trying to enjoy themselves.
A hard clap on his back over dinner praised him for his hard work. Hardly work. They know that, why are they bluffing? Do they think I’m an idiot, or are they satisfied that easily?
Atsumu’s swallowed down the food that threatened to get stuck in his throat and tongue pressed to the roof of his mouth, dampening the flames until the laugh and “Thanks,” he let out was easy enough to his teammates’ ears.
Play nice.
Wash, rinse, repeat all the way back to his room. Their room, because he’s sharing it with Omi.
“You look like you ate something foul.”
Omi, who has probably never thought to follow the saying, play nice, deadpans. It’s infuriating for reasons that don’t make sense. Nothing that Omi ever says really stabs that profoundly. They definitely knock him down a peg or two, or keep him at arm’s length, but he’s never gone so far as to insult Atsumu in a deeply personal way. No, Atsumu’s fury is riding on the coattails of envy.
The bastard seems capable of walking the tightrope of allowing himself to not give a shit, while giving just enough of a shit that other people don’t give a shit.
Atsumu ignores him in favor of kicking his shoes off, sighing in relief when his poor, cramped toes can finally get some wiggle room. Something that feels good, finally.
Showering feels even better. It’s a quick affair, meant more to cool his head off rather than actually get clean, but Atsumu thinks his day might be turning around by the time he’s almost done getting ready for bed.
Of course, Omi’s already tucked under his covers when Atsumu makes it back out into the room. The bastard has made settling in to sleep a science. Rooming with him enough times means Atsumu is keenly aware of how Omi will always duck out of dinner early to do whatever isolated ritual he has so that he can avoid talking right before bed whenever Atsumu makes it back to the room.
“Good night.”
Atsumu isn’t sure he heard that right. He isn’t sure he heard anything at all, because Omi usually never bids him good night when they room together, but it’s not as though some random ghost said that. Right? Either case is equal parts reasonable and equal parts baffling.
“G’night, Omi-kun,” he decides to say, closing his eyes when only silence follows.
•••
The next morning is peaceful.
Too peaceful.
Five seconds of enjoying warm sunlight on his face is all Atsumu gets before it clicks that the light is fuzzy and not blinding, and that he woke up without an alarm. Sitting up so quickly that he gets tangled up in his covers and falls off of the bed and onto his ass, the first thing out of Atsumu’s mouth on what was supposed to be a relaxed morning is a string of curses. When he finally gathers his bearings and can stand up on his own, he scans the room and realizes two things:
Omi has left the room already, his bed neatly made.
The clock on the nightstand reads 10:03am.
The time window for a hotel-provided breakfast has passed.
No problem. No problem! He can just go to a coffee shop and grab something there to eat, it’s not like he’s strapped for cash.
The day isn’t beyond saving.
Well, it isn’t, until it is. The powers that be seem to have been against his side for the past day, maybe for being ungrateful for winning.
Things are alright, at first. Atsumu makes it to a coffee shop down the block from the hotel without incident, gets in line, and makes a list on his phone of different spots in town he might want to stop at while he has time to spare. Which is, admittedly, more time than he really needs to do anything. There isn’t much he has in mind, and some of the guys mentioned meeting in front of the hotel at night to check out a club nearby, so maybe he’ll pencil in a nap in the early evening before he gets ready.
The sandwich he gets even tastes delicious as he bites into it on his way out, and the coffee is- Well, it could be better. Atsumu should’ve probably added less sugar at the self-serve station, but he’s stuck with it.
Not for long, though, because he doesn’t even get halfway through the cup while heading to a nearby park before the rest of it ends up spilled all over himself. Some worked-up, clearly terrified college-aged kid is apologizing for bumping into him and bowing while pedestrians move around them and all Atsumu can feel is hot hot hot.
The drink had had some time to cool, but fuck it was still hot.
And it was dripping off of his new (not new new, but new enough that it hurt) sweater he’d put on less than an hour ago.
Atsumu wants to scream. He wants to curse his coffee, his stinging skin, this random stranger, and his drowsy under-caffeinated brain. He doesn’t. The coffee is an inanimate object, ditto for his skin and his brain. The stranger, while sentient, looks like she might have a heart attack if Atsumu so much as raises his voice above a reasonable speaking tone, so he slaps on a placating smile and pinches his sweater away from his chest to try and soothe some of the burn. “Don’t even worry about it, ain’t no skin off my back. Didn’t like the damn coffee too much, anyway.”
Before he can get caught in another round of apologies, Atsumu turns on his heel and heads back to the hotel, dumping the empty paper cup and his half-eaten sandwich. He isn’t in the mood to eat anymore.
In the half hour that he’s been gone, maintenance has begun on the elevators nearest to the entrance. Meaning, Atsumu has to walk into a separate wing of the hotel, take those elevators up to the 9th floor, and walk back through five hallways just to get to his room. The walk isn’t what bothers him, it’s the now-lukewarm coffee dripping down his torso and soaking into his underwear that has him jamming his keycard into the lock by the time he gets there.
•••
The mini-bottle of body wash he packed slips from his hands into the shower. It bounces off his knee, bursts when it smacks against the wall, and Atsumu’s useless to watch while what’s left of it drips down the tile.
Hotel bar soap it is.
It dries him out to the point of his skin feeling stretched tight over his limbs, sandpaper as he gets his clothes back on.
•••
He goes to fix up the bed he left unmade earlier, figuring he might as well if he’s going to end up spending most of the day in the room anyway. It’s infuriating that he can’t get the duvet to lay down as neatly as Omi’s.
Atsumu fluffs his pillows, punches one, and fluffs it back up.
•••
Construction starts up outside and the jackhammers dig right into the sides of his head. Going out would make it feel louder. He abandons his plans of exploring Yoyogi Park.
•••
The noises coming from the room next door in the middle of the goddamn day are worse than any racket from a construction zone, so he leaves.
•••
Atsumu explores Yoyogi Park. It’s beautiful. He steps in duck droppings.
•••
His room service dinner is cold by the time it gets to him.
•••
The vending machine down the hall eats his change and when he returns, the door’s locked. Atsumu sits on the floor for an hour before Omi gets back to open it for him, silently seething.
•••
He’s feeling explosive tonight.
Usually, Samu would argue that he’s always on the verge of combustion, but Atsumu has a gut feeling that tonight is one of those nights where he might seriously blow his lid off.
To the untrained eye, it hasn’t even been that bad of a day. It was just a day full of little shitty things that he could normally laugh off.
That might be the worst part of it all.
The only thing he can place is a gnawing deep in his chest that’s threatening to eat its way out the more he tries to shove it down, but what’s the alternative? Blow up anyway? Atsumu’s weighed his options, and his best bet is to just try and enjoy himself rather than feed that hungry little worm chewing him up inside.
Going out bar hopping with a few of the Jackals gives him a good excuse to wash everything away. A few drinks here, a dance or two there, hours spent losing himself in music that reverberates through every loose limb— Atsumu thinks a night out in the city might be exactly what he needs to turn everything around.
Getting ready goes off without a hitch and Atsumu almost feels stupid for being excited about something like that. No, none of that shit. Tonight’s gonna be a good night, and you’re gonna have fun.
“I’m gonna have fun.”
Omi hums from where he sits on the edge of his bed, adjusting the cuff of his sleeve. It’s curious, the fact that he’s joining them. Atsumu can count on one hand the amount of times that Omi has gone out with the rest of the team for drinks, and every time, he ends up tucked away in a corner of the bar. He isolates himself from all of the action and commotion, just watching everyone and sipping through whatever his cocktail of choice is that nice. Seems like a waste of money and a fun venue, if you ask Atsumu.
Both things he has no intention of wasting tonight.
There are enough of them going that they end up split between two ride-shares, and Atsumu is caught between Inunaki and Shoyo on the way to the club, jamming along to top 40s hits on the radio that they only know half of the words to.
It takes two hours before he’s sick of his surroundings.
The first few drinks he knocks back are easy enough—two rounds of shots with the boys to get the night started, but after that, everyone seems to have split off in different directions when Atsumu turns back around from ordering his third drink.
A cocktail meant to be sipped gets chugged down and the mixer does jack shit to the double shot in the glass, searing a line down his esophagus. It’s stupid, he knows he shouldn’t be taking one drink after another without a break but at this point, who cares? Not like there was anyone around to stop him.
The bartender is already far off, working on someone else’s drink so Atsumu doesn’t think it’s worth the trouble to call them over and wait for another, opting to push off of the counter towards the dance floor.
Ah, there it is.
Liquor pumps through his veins, nitroglycerin thrumming under his skin to the bass of a song he can hardly hear the lyrics to.
Dancing by himself is alright, he thinks, until he’s not by himself.
That’s the shitty thing about clubs: When you’re dancing alone, people think it’s an open invitation to get their hands all over you.
The passage of time is hazy. Atsumu can’t tell how long it takes before a pair of hands tries tugging his wrist one way, but he flicks them away. It’s not long after that that someone else feels up his back like they know him.
Atsumu hates that—people pretending that they know him.
To avoid snapping at someone and getting kicked out of the bar, he stumbles his own way out, strobes and kaleidoscopic lights making the path unclear as he shoves through the crowd. He’s looking for the exit, for space, clarity, for a fucking break.
Half-numb fingers grip the cold metal of a doorknob, and the cool night air that hits Atsumu’s face extinguishes the flames sitting under his cheeks.
He needs a smoke. He’s not a smoker, but he’s smoked before. The first time, on the roof of Inarizaki High with Suna and Samu, the three of them shared a cigarette that Suna snatched off his old man. It was just to know what it felt like, a moment of teenage rebellion in the final months of their third year before they were expected to firm up into adults, and Atsumu can still remember the way he was convinced he was going to hack up half a lung over the edge of the roof from just one puff.
The other times that followed were mostly bummed off of one night stands who offered. Those experiences aren’t as memorable.
Now, though, there’s no one standing around outside to bum a cig off of. Just his luck. It’s a Saturday night outside of a bar in the heart of Shibuya, and not a damn person is around smoking.
“Goddamnit!” Atsumu hunches over and grinds the heels of his palms into his forehead, ignoring the few people who bother to turn their heads at him for a second as they pass. He’ll be a wisp in their mind come morning, he doesn’t care what they think. The tequila tells him that as he drops into a crouch and takes a shuddering breath.
Alcohol rushing through his system combined with the heat in his veins could be enough to set him alight, eating him up until he’s burnt to a crisp and the wind of passing traffic carries the small pile of ash away.
He hears him before he can see him.
Heeled boots tapping against concrete as they approach gets Atsumu to pull his face out from behind his fingers, and he finds the toes of said boots have come to a stop in front of him. Eyes trailing up, up, it’s none other than Omi who’s left the club and found him outside. Alone. Omi’s alone. He’s alone, probably looking pathetic, dejected—
“Are you done?”
Omi’s eyes are softer than they were last night. Atsumu wouldn’t call them warm, not by a long shot, but the drinks numbing both their defenses make it difficult to ignore the true intent of his question. The breath he takes in as he stands is full of polluted city air. It’s the closest he’ll get to a cigarette, sobering in how unnatural it feels soaking into his lungs.
“Yeah, I’m- ’m done. So fuckin’ done righ’ now.”
He half-expects another one of those harsh sideways looks characteristic of Omi whenever anyone says anything vaguely distasteful in his presence. A hum is all he gets in response while Omi taps away at his phone, presumably ordering them a ride back to the hotel, either unaware or uncaring of the fact that Atsumu’s blood is simmering just below its boiling point.
The white noise of the city streets swells in Atsumu’s eardrums now that he isn’t consumed with his own thoughts. Atsumu isn’t exactly from the backcountry, and Osaka is definitely nothing to scoff at, but Tokyo is something else. Always has been. The lights are damn near blinding and Atsumu can see where Omi’s phone automatically switches to day mode from the sheer brightness.
It’s a lot. It’s too much. What’s more overwhelming: The suffocating nightclub filled with throngs of bodies meant to lose yourself in, or a city so loud and larger than life that feels like it’s built to swallow up the weak-minded? Atsumu’s too drunk to decide on an answer. Too drunk to even process the question he’s asking himself while he stares at the fluorescent lettering advertising perfume on a screen too high to reach. Leroy Jealous.
“What?”
Atsumu tips his head to his shoulder to look over at Omi, who seems relatively unfazed. Neon reflects off his cheekbones and the faint shine of his leather gloves. He’s so still, so steady, that just looking at him seems to quiet things down for Atsumu. “You’re such a city boy. I can see it all over you.” Painted in vivid brights, even against his dark clothes.
Just then, Atsumu thinks he might have actually caught Omi off-guard, but then he’s the one taken by surprise when he’s suddenly being tugged toward a sleek black car that he doesn’t remember seeing pull up to the curb. “Come on, this is our ride.”
He’s less ushered into the vehicle and more shoved into the backseat, his seatbelt strapped on for him when he makes three attempts and misses the clip each time. There’s no skin contact, but Omi is so close, touching him for seconds at a time—for what? To help him? It feels unreal. It probably is. This is all probably a not-bad/not-good dream that he isn’t gonna know how to feel about in the morning; he’ll just be glad to be getting back home to where he does know how to feel about things.
“I’m stupid,” he starts, cheek pressed against the cool glass of his window. Whether it’s condensation or sweat on his skin, he doesn’t care. “Stupid, an’ a dickhead.”
Atsumu’s eyes roll to where Omi sits beside him. Omi, who still has a hand on his elbow and nods for him to continue. “‘M always findin’ some way to ruin a good thing for no damn reason, an’ I can barely stand to not spread all my-” He gestures vaguely with a flailing hand and Omi whacks it down where it nearly hits him in the face, earning a dry laugh from Atsumu. “Ya see? I can barely stand not spreadin’ all my shit around.”
The driver looks at them through the rearview mirror briefly. They pretend not to notice, or they don’t.
“It doesn’t matter, anyway.” The gloved fingers around his elbow squeeze at a particularly sharp turn, and doesn’t loosen even when the car steadies itself out. Atsumu isn’t sure if he should be staring at Omi’s hand or into those too-dark, too-green eyes that stare right through him, but he settles for turning his gaze to the carpeted floor. “People aren’t mind-readers, they don’t care about how you feel. The way you move through the world speaks more on your character than your actual thoughts. I know I could never be bothered to care so much about covering up what I feel for the sake of others.”
As far back as Atsumu can remember, which isn’t very far at the moment, this is the most that Omi’s ever said in one breath. It’s the most he’s ever touched him. The most he’s ever helped him. If he can remember anything good about tonight, it’s that it’s been full of firsts for him and Omi. All pleasant, all gently tugging away at the knot in his stomach until all Atsumu can do is slump into his seat with a little curl of his lips.
The fire has smoldered. Soot still coats the inside of his skull, but it can be wiped away when he wakes up later. Now, he relishes in the coolness.
“Yeah.” The smile on Atsumu’s face is a tired one. It’s small, and his brows droop with it, but the muscles of his face still have to work overtime to make it happen. That almost makes it feel more honest than half the smiles he’s given in the past 24 hours. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. I guess your personality isn’t too rotten either, Omi-kun.”
Did you ever want, so much
To make a good impression on someone?
What did you do?
How accepted was your personality?
Did you ever feel alone, out of place
When you wanted very much to be part of the group?
What did you do?