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Kiyoomi will never understand Miya Atsumu.
He is loud, brash, and seems to actively seek hatred from the general populace. He does not care what anyone says and is impossibly blunt, no matter who he is talking to. He charges headfirst into everything without ever thinking about the consequences.
That was Kiyoomi’s first impression of Atsumu when he first met him at the Annual Japan Youth Training Camp. He had wrinkled his nose when Atsumu had wiped his newly washed hands on his shorts, cringed in disgust when Atsumu started talking with his mouth full of food, and flinched away when Atsumu tried to high-five him after a good play. Atsumu had shrugged it off and never tried to touch him again.
And it is here where the conundrum starts. Because for all the disrespectful words and anger-inducing jabs, Miya Atsumu is just as careful and considerate.
He would spend hours on end perfecting a set rather than using a much lazier alternative because it would be easier for his sets to be spiked. He keeps his whirlwind of a mess to his side when they have to share a room during away games. Sure, his dirty clothes are unfolded and scattered all over the place, but they have never been left on Kiyoomi’s side of the room. Even when he stumbles into the room past midnight, tipsy and making unintelligible noises, he never collapses on Kiyoomi’s bed or intrudes into Kiyoomi’s personal space.
For all the lines he has crossed, Miya Atsumu has never crossed Kiyoomi’s.
This is what keeps Kiyoomi awake at an ungodly hour, Atsumu snoring away on a bed several metres from him. The sheets he lies in are not his own, but the quilt thrown around his shoulders is. He sinks further into it, leaning his head back against the headboard of the hotel bed. If he sneaks a glance at Atsumu occasionally, watching his sleeping form toss and turn, no one is none the wiser.
Kiyoomi does not know when his attraction towards the setter started. He refuses to call it a crush, like Komori does, because Kiyoomi does not do crushes. Wakatoshi was admiration and Hinata was fondness. Atsumu… worship, he decides.
Atsumu is like a God, faraway and untouchable. It is the first time Kiyoomi has ever felt fear feeling things more than impassivity and repulsion. He does not know how Atsumu works, cannot take him apart like he can analyse the path of a volleyball, or a particularly impressive play. Atsumu is something strange that deviates from the order and rules that shape Kiyoomi’s life. He is something that cannot be classified.
Maybe it is not fear that Kiyoomi is feeling. Maybe it’s curiosity. No one knows; hell, not even Kiyoomi does.
Kiyoomi does a mental run-through of the list he has made about Miya Atsumu. It is easier to go back to what you’ve always known when faced with something dangerous and unfamiliar.
What I Know About Him:
- He is an Asshole.
- He can be nice, but only Sometimes. Other times he is A Jerk.
- His brother is nicer than him, but only A Bit.
- He jokes around and thinks he is Funny. (He is Not.)
- He respects my boundaries but otherwise constantly Gets On My Nerves.
- He is An Idiot, but a good one. (Sort of.)
- He means No Harm.
- It is Easy to talk to him because he Means What He Says.
- He is Straightforward. (I think that is a Very Good Quality. No need to Beat Around The Bush.)
- I Like him. He is easy to dislike but I do not like things that are Easy.
Kiyoomi concludes that there is not much he knows about Atsumu, despite popular belief. If Atsumu were a book, he would be one in an indecipherable language that Kiyoomi is still learning everyday. It feels, sometimes, that he knows everything and nothing about Atsumu.
Take yesterday, for example. Kiyoomi had gone to the konbini near the hotel after a match to buy drinks for everyone. He had been about to buy two apple-flavoured soft drinks when Atsumu had told him over the phone that he hates the taste of apples because they are far too sweet for him. It was then that Kiyoomi had found out that Atsumu heavily prefers savoury flavours to sweet ones.
Kiyoomi had walked out with one apple-flavoured soft drink.
It is unexpectedly small things that Kiyoomi is discovering about him, things that make Kiyoomi want to learn more. He wants to know everything there is to know about Atsumu, and then some more, and that is what terrifies Kiyoomi.
Kiyoomi squeezes his eyes together harder. If he thinks hard enough, it is easy to forget that the warmth surrounding him is not a quilt, but a pair of strong arms, as strong as the person they belong to.
That is another thing that Kiyoomi has recently found out about Atsumu. As much as he puts on a childish act in front of everyone, Miya Atsumu is strong. He is not strong like Wakatoshi, whose physical strength is almost unparalleled. Instead, it is the dedication that he has towards volleyball and the singular intensity that he faces everything he does with that is something else.
Like a God, Kiyoomi thinks.
One day, if he is lucky enough, Kiyoomi wants that gaze to be turned on him. Not the lazy half-smirk, eyes hidden under hooded lids. He wants eyes burning with passion, a smile that could set the world on fire, a piercing stare that could tear its way right through Kiyoomi’s soul.
Kiyoomi thinks he has seen it once or twice, when Atsumu had pulled off a difficult set or served directly into the spot he’d wanted. He had asked Atsumu later in the changing room whether the only thing he felt emotion towards was volleyball. Atsumu had laughed and told him: “I like a lot of things, Omi-kun.” Kiyoomi had not understood a word of what he said.
Hinata had told him later that Atsumu probably liked his brother and onigiri too. Bokuto had chimed in to tell everyone that Akaashi really liked onigiri too, and he said Osamu’s onigiri was really good, and his favourite flavour is—
Kiyoomi had tuned them out. It was easy to ignore them, in that sense, like he could treat their arguments over who would win in an onigiri eating contest, Kageyama or Akaashi, as background noise. The problem was that when Atsumu joined in their discussion and said that Suna would probably win since he has most likely eaten the most onigiri amongst all the contenders, Kiyoomi found himself clinging on to every last word.
There is something so unimaginably thrilling about having someone who is your complete opposite—an uncontrollable, wild and violent force—uproot everything you have ever thought you have known about yourself. It is like when Kiyoomi had stumbled upon a lighter when he was five and accidentally turned it on, watching the flame lick away at the air until his mother had found him and taken the lighter away. She had told him it was dangerous because he could have burned himself.
Now, at twenty-five, Kiyoomi is playing with a different kind of lighter.
Kiyoomi lets himself release his death grip on his quilt and open his eyes. Atsumu mumbles something incomprehensible in his sleep. He turns to face Kiyoomi and the moonlight from the window catches the long curl of his lashes, throwing a strangely ethereal light over his face. For a brief moment, Atsumu looks like something otherworldly, something straight out of Kiyoomi’s dreams. He looks immortal. He looks like a God.
The moment passes, and the moon is hidden by passing clouds. Atsumu’s face is cast in shadow.
It is dangerous playing this game. It is betting with the devil and seeing who loses their heart first. Kiyoomi is hanging on by a thread, unravelled from a piece of silk that is his feelings for Atsumu. When the clouds pass and the moon is hanging brightly in the night sky, when the sharp edge of Atsumu’s cheekbones are traced by the moonlit sky, when his lips are no longer curled in a forced smirk but hang loosely open, Kiyoomi sees the devil reach over with a pair of scissors to the cut the string.
He only remembers the snap. He does not remember the descent.
While understanding him is not, falling for Miya Atsumu is easy. It is not something that is hard and fast. It is more of the moments before you hit the jagged rocks after you are pushed off a cliff, when you are just free-falling through the air. When you are no longer tethered to hard ground and you are subject to harsh winds that blow you around like a puppet. When you are no longer in control of yourself and helplessly tumbling towards certain disaster.
Kiyoomi wonders when worship had become love. Perhaps it was when he had walked out of the konbini holding his apple soda in one hand and iced green tea in the other. Perhaps it was when he found that he could feel Atsumu’s presence in a room and he found himself wanting to hear the lilt of his kansai dialect over and over until he had memorised every curl of every vowel and consonant. Perhaps it was when the lighter no longer was a toy, but a weapon.
Loving Miya Atsumu is so, so easy. Kiyoomi closes his eyes and lets himself fall.
-
He blinks open to Atsumu sitting on the edge of Atsumu’s bed, staring at the floor. Kiyoomi sits up groggily and ignores the ache in his neck after sleeping on it. Before he gets a chance to say anything, Atsumu beats him to it.
“How long were ya starin’ at me before ya went to sleep?” Atsumu asks quietly. His eyes do not lift to meet Kiyoomi’s slightly widened ones.
Kiyoomi does not think his heart has ever pumped this fast before. Not even during a match. “What do you mean?” He is pleased to hear that his voice only trembles slightly.
“Don’t play dumb with me,” and he shivers at the low timbre of Atsumu’s voice, “I could feel ya borin’ a hole into my face up until I fell asleep.”
“Maybe I was plotting ways to murder you without you waking up,” he tries.
Atsumu sighs suddenly, like he is tired of something. Maybe it is of playing whatever strange game Kiyoomi is trying to win.
He crosses the room quicker than Kiyoomi’s eyes can follow and before he realises it, Atsumu is standing in front of him, hands dangling from his sides. He gestures towards Kiyoomi’s bed. “Can I…?”
Kiyoomi nods. He does not trust himself to speak.
He did not have to worry, because Atsumu fills the silence for him. “I like ya. I’m tired of pretendin’ like I don’t overthink every time yer remotely nice to me, or when ya actually pay attention to what I’m sayin’ because I know ya don’t listen whenever Shoyo-kun and Bo-kun talk. I’m tired of replaying that one time ya asked me if the only thing I felt emotion towards was volleyball, hopin’ that maybe ya wanted to hear me tell ya that no, actually, I feel emotions towards ya too. Good emotions. A lot of them. And I’m sorry if ya don’t feel the same way, because—“
If loving Miya Atsumu was easy, leaning forward to close the gap between their lips is even easier. There is a small gasp from Atsumu before his fingers are coming up to tentatively grip Kiyoomi’s shoulders, giving Kiyoomi space to back out. While Kiyoomi would usually appreciate this, backing out is the last thing he would want to do now, so he lifts his arms and winds them around Atsumu’s neck, pressing them closer, and it is then that Atsumu begins to kiss back.
Kiyoomi had forgotten. He may not know a lot about Atsumu, let alone come close to understanding him, but:
- He is Straightforward. (I think that is a Very Good Quality. No need to Beat Around The Bush.)
Kiyoomi learns something new today: Atsumu kisses like he does volleyball and everything else—he pours everything he has into the kiss, burning wickedly as he sucks Kiyoomi’s bottom lip into his mouth. Strong setter arms move to wrap around Kiyoomi’s waist, and the quilt lies forgotten between them. His tongue licks at the roof of Kiyoomi’s mouth and he whimpers when Kiyoomi slides his hands up Atsumu’s neck to grab a fistful of golden-blonde hair and tug hard.
When he pulls away to breathe air into his lungs, he nearly forgets what he was supposed to be doing when he sees Atsumu.
For however soft he looks when he is asleep, there is nothing gentle about the line of spit still connecting their mouths, or the poorly hidden desire in his eyes. Through the thin cotton shirt he has on, Kiyoomi can feel his skin burning to the touch, like a hot wire pulled taut that could snap at any moment. His hair is mussed partially by sleep and partially by Kiyoomi’s fingers. Kiyoomi’s mind goes blank, save for one word: Beautiful.
Beautiful not like a work of art, one that hangs in a museum and whose sole purpose is to be admired by visitors, but like something that you feel you do not deserve to see, like you are unworthy of even casting your eyes upon it. Beautiful not like cherubs and angels, but like something untouchable that cannot be described with words alone. Beautiful not like something pleasing to the eye, but like something radiant and dazzling and everything Kiyoomi has yearned for.
Atsumu ducks and bumps their noses together. “Yer starin’ again,” he teases.
“I can’t help it,” Kiyoomi blurts, and wishes he could take it back, but the look on Atsumu’s face is worth it. His cheeks are flushed high, his eyes widen imperceptibly, and the hands that have been creeping up Kiyoomi’s back still.
He exhales and leans his forehead against Kiyoomi’s. Kiyoomi can smell, very faintly, mint and nutmeg. “Yer killin’ me here, Omi.”
“That’s the plan,” Kiyoomi laughs breathily.
Atsumu snorts and presses their lips together again.
-
Kiyoomi scratches everything off his list.
What I Know About Him:
- He is my Boyfriend.
- I Love him.