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Sakusa Kiyoomi knows for certain he never should’ve given Miya Atsumu anything. Not his name when they first met, or his usual brand of hand sanitizer when he asked him one night walking back from dinner, or especially not a brush of his hand on his face that had turned into a kiss, that had turned into more kisses a couple months ago. If he hadn’t done any of those things, his heart might still be thrumming its steady hummingbird rhythm right where it was supposed to as he prepared to see Miya off for winter break.
“I’m going to mail yer Hanukkah gift to you, okay? But ya better video me when you open it,” Miya was saying, his hand holding Kiyoomi’s wrist through the three layers of his long-sleeve, sweater, and coat. “If I don’t get to see yer face when ya get it, I’m not helpin’ ya with yer flashcards anymore.” Kiyoomi wishes that he was wearing another layer or two, or that he was in one of those novelty human hamster balls right now. He also wishes his sleeves would just disappear.
“It better not be another gallon bottle of hand sanitizer,” is what he tells Miya. “And I suppose you can open your gift when I open mine too.” He is, of course, referring to the neatly wrapped package currently resting on top of Atsumu’s suitcase. It’s not too large, and the paper is patterned in leaping foxes, Atsumu’s favorite animal. (Kiyoomi wrapped the gift himself a week ago in his room. He bought a full roll of the wrapping paper, and the tightly rolled excess stands against his desk, in full view whenever he does his work.)
“Oh come on, ya loved that hand sanitizer. I mean, ya even still use it.”
“Because it was a gallon, Miya.”
Atsumu shakes his head. “I don’t know why yer givin’ this to me now anyway, Omi. It’s not like I’ve ever been the paragon of patience.”
Kiyoomi could laugh at that. A month after they’d met, only a week into Kiyoomi agreeing to have lunch with Miya after their 11AMs, Atsumu had begun to hold the dining commons door while Kiyoomi stopped for sanitizer on the way out. Two years into knowing each other, he’d sat perfectly still and waited as Kiyoomi held his hand to his face and slowly leaned in to kiss him for the first time in his dimly lit kitchen. Kiyoomi had no idea how long he’d waited in between. He was still afraid to ask.
“I think you’ll be able to contain your excitement, Miya,” Kiyoomi says drily. “It’s just a holiday gift.”
“But it’s the first Chris-Hanukkah gift I get from my boyfriend.” He draws this word out as if he’s somehow listening to the cacophony of sirens it causes in Kiyoomi’s head every time he hears it. “I think that makes it a big deal.”
Kiyoomi wonders if he can play off his flushed cheeks as a side effect of the winter cold. “Well you’re going to wait,” he tells him, “just like I’m going to wait for your thing to arrive.”
“Yeah, of course I will.” He leans a millimeter closer to Kiyoomi, who doesn’t lean back. “I know it’ll be worth it.” Kiyoomi wonders, not for the first time, how he didn’t fall in love with him sooner.
“I’m going to miss you, Atsumu,” he says, turning his hand so Atsumu’s holding it instead of his wrist.
Atsumu grins at him, and squeezes his fingers. “Well, Omi-kun,” his grin makes a decidedly evil shift. “Yer going to have to wait.”
Never mind, thinks Kiyoomi. “Never mind,” he says out loud, rolling his eyes at Atsumu’s laugh.
“It’s only three weeks, and I’ll bug ya every day like I did over the summer ‘til yer sick of me again.”
Kiyoomi reaches out for Miya’s other, waiting hand and interlaces their fingers. He looks his boyfriend in the eyes and flatly says, “you suck.”
Atsumu’s grin, which hadn’t left his face, widens. “Can I kiss ya?”
Kiyoomi chances a sideways glance toward Osamu, who is waiting in the car, looking away in conversation with Suna, who was taking the twins to the airport.
He leans forward and presses his lips to the corner of Atsumu’s smile. Before he can pull away, Atsumu kisses him back, gentle and sweet.
“I’m gonna miss ya too,” he whispers.
Kiyoomi takes a second to preserve this moment, his hands clasped with Atsumu’s, their faces a breath apart, the cold air crisp with the end of the quarter. He still wishes he’d never given Atsumu his name or phone number that first week of school. He’s also self-aware enough to know that wishes aren’t truths.
He leans back and lets go of Atsumu’s hands, ignoring how cold they now feel. “Here, take this,” he picks up and hands Atsumu his gift “and this,” the handle of his suitcase goes into his free hand. “You’re going to be late.”
“Alright, Omi.” He bumps his sneakered toe against Kiyoomi’s left boot. “I’ll see ya soon.”
“Likewise.” Kiyoomi bumps his foot back.
Kiyoomi stays outside to watch Atsumu load his suitcase into the trunk, then pile into the backseat, grumbling to Osamu about shotgun privileges. He holds Kiyoomi’s gift in his lap.
Suna rolls down his window and waves at Kiyoomi, calling out a cheerful “Bye, Atsumu’s boyfriend!”
The brothers drop their argument to wave at Kiyoomi too. As the car pulls out, Atsumu blows Kiyoomi a kiss through the window. He hopes the car is simultaneously close enough to see him roll his eyes, but too far to see him blush.
As he turns to get his bike to ride back to his apartment, he feels his phone buzz in his pocket. ‘byeee omiomi!!’ the text message reads. ‘expect updates on every step of my flight. dont want u forgetting about me yet!”
Kiyoomi drops his phone into his pocket and unlocks his bike. He was in love with an idiot.
The whole love thing, Kiyoomi thinks to himself on the train ride home, is just excruciatingly embarrassing. He’s able to list out exactly how as he placidly looks out the window, paperback forgotten on his lap.
Mostly, it came down to who this messy, fluttery feeling was directed toward. This issue was pretty self-explanatory, but especially aggravating to Kiyoomi after he and Miya’s years of bickering. When he had first told Komori, under threats of murder if this conversation ever left the room, that he was pretty sure he maybe kind of wanted to ask Atsumu out, Komori had snorted and said nothing but a muttered “Jesus Christ.” Kiyoomi figured that reaction was apt.
If he really thought about it though, his real embarrassment wasn’t just who he was in love with, or even that he knew almost without a doubt that he’d fallen first. It was that he’d stopped minding when Miya rested his head on his shoulder, or that he left crumbs on the counter when he visited for dinner, or how he’d curl around Kiyoomi in bed on the weekends, leaving his legs numb and making him wish he could peel off all his layers until there was nothing left but his skeleton and nerves. That was the worst part of being in love with Miya Atsumu, Kiyoomi decided. He’d annoyed his way through his labyrinthine walls, trying his hardest to understand him until he didn’t have to anymore, like Kiyoomi’s intricacies were something to admire instead of solve.
Kiyoomi flips the pages at the corner of his book and watches the outside go by. Komori had been right. Jesus Christ.
He’s in love with his stupid boyfriend, Miya Atsumu, who doesn’t quite understand him and likes him for it anyway, and he’s going to have to tell him before he figures it out for himself.
Atsumu’s gift arrives the Tuesday before Christmas, during the second full week of winter break. It’s a medium sized box, not very heavy, with Kiyoomi’s name written in Atsumu’s chunky block letters on the shipping label. He’d drawn smiley faces in both of the O’s.
“It’s here,” he texts Atsumu, glancing in the mirror behind his door before setting the box down on his desk. His hair looks fine, his face: normal. He’d already video called Atsumu a few nights ago, when a texted debate about whose family was more insufferable (Kiyoomi had cited his uncle, who’d had two glasses of wine and started ranting about cybersurveillance, and Atsumu had brought up Osamu because “hey, we’re genetically identical, and I’m self-aware”) had escalated past typing. Atsumu had fallen asleep on the call, his phone leaned on a pillow next to his head, eyelashes fluttering gently, leaving Kiyoomi no choice but to wait until Atsumu’s phone died to hang up.
This call was more important though. It was official; they’d planned it beforehand. Kiyoomi had put a package from the outside on his desk even though he’d need to wipe it down later, and he’d put a sweater on over his old tie-dye high school class t-shirt, and he was going to say “I love you.” He’d decided on this last fact during his train ride home and had refused to dwell on it since.
“i said call me,” is Atsumu’s response. “wtf is this u kno i cant read”.
Kiyoomi leans his phone against his desk lamp and hits the call button.
The call rings long enough for the tinny Facetime ringtone to start to echo in Kiyoomi’s head. He glares at his disgruntled face on the screen. He’s about to hang up, text Atsumu a huffy response, when he picks up, showing a blank ceiling and replacing the ringtone with the sound of rushing water.
“I was literally pissing, are ya serious?” Atsumu’s voice comes over the sink. “Ya couldn’t have waited like thirty seconds to call?”
“You said to call you. I don’t know what you expected.” Kiyoomi stares at his own face in the corner of the screen as the water shut off.
“Yeah, whatever.” Atsumu picks up his phone and the top half of his head appears in the frame, which shakes as he walks from the bathroom to his room. Kiyoomi hopes Atsumu doesn’t catch the way the corner of his mouth twitches up at the sight of him. “I’m so excited to open yer gift. The fuckin’ fox paper has been taunting me for days.” He sits down at his desk and stands the phone against something, reaching down to pull the present off the floor and into his lap.
“It’s seriously not a big deal, it’s just a gift,” Kiyoomi mutters. “You’re just impatient for no reason.”
“Okay, just for that I’m opening mine first. I was thinkin’ I’d let you go first, let my boyfriend appreciate my thoughtful and generous Hanukkah gift first and all that, but fuck you, clearly ya don’t appreciate me enough to begin with.” He’s smiling though, and Kiyoomi figures that if he risked a glance back into his corner video, he’d be smiling too.
“Fine. Don’t let me stop you.” He shrugs at Atsumu and leans back in his chair.
As Atsumu starts peeling back the wrapping paper, delicately picking the tape off the sides, the usual background rush of Kiyoomi’s brain rises into a fever pitch.
He had spent two weeks trying to come up with a Christmas gift that wouldn’t scream “woefully inadequate” and “completely thoughtless and inconsiderate and indicative that you have no idea what people like” out at him. His initial brainstorm list came up empty, and when texting Komori for advice resulted only in “your boyfriend sucks so whatever you get him will work fine,” Kiyoomi had resorted to stalking Atsumu’s Instagram likes and following for three days. When that gleaned no new insights–except for his username in the likes of a disturbing number of Italian cooking videos the week before finals–he’d switched tactics and backread two months of tweets from Atsumu’s account that he adamantly refused to follow. He’d had to stop reading when he got to the night they first kissed.
“did u guys kno that if u start wearing a bike helmet to impress a boy not only will it keep you from dying when u bike home in the dark but he might even kiss you. this is just a fun fact,” read his last post from that night.
The replies had all been from Atsumu’s friends, a couple “TEXT ME”s scattered among nearly a dozen incredulous congratulations. One of them stood out, a comment from Ojiro Aran that refused to stop bouncing around Kiyoomi’s brain, which read “Only took you two years of posting your stupid Spotify links. Congrats tho.”
The temptation to scroll back and read every single one of Atsumu’s tweets starting from the night they’d met was too strong. Kiyoomi had closed the tab instead and resigned himself to picking out a gift the old-fashioned, two-or-so-years-of-pining way.
That same gift now sits on Atumu’s lap as he methodically tears off the paper. Kiyoomi sort of hopes he’ll hate it so that he’ll never be expected to give another gift again. One disappointment now would probably be easier than enduring the conflict of gift giving ever again. He knows he’ll have no such luck as soon as the last of the paper is folded aside and Atsumu looks down at the box.
“Ya remembered!” Atsumu exclaims gleefully, holding the package of a new humidifier in his hands. “That was so long ago, I can’t believe ya didn’t tune me out that one time.”
“Well your face was covered in blood, it was kind of a memorable experience,” Kiyoomi responds drily. “But you like it right?” He resolutely doesn’t look away from a point on the lamp right above his phone.
“Are ya kidding me? Yer about to save me from another winter of those stupid fuckin’ nosebleeds, this is the best.”
Kiyoomi finally looks at Atsumu’s face on the video and feels momentarily dizzy at just how fond he looks.
“It’s also a diffuser,” Kiyoomi tells him. “You, uh, kept mentioning you like the soap in my bathroom so I tried to find an oil that smells the same.”
“No way.” Atsumu opens the box and pulls out the bottle of aromatherapy oil. His brows furrow as he unscrews the cap and sniffs the contents. Kiyoomi wonders for a second if the floor underneath him has dematerialized when Atsumu looks back up and beams, saying, “it smells just like you.”
He thinks he’s a little lightheaded when he responds. “Hey, Atsumu?”
Atsumu’s eyes crinkle in a smile at his name. “Yeah, Omi?”
“I love you.” He’s probably actually lightheaded, he realizes. He takes a breath. Better. “Just thought I should tell you by now.”
This time he doesn’t avoid looking at Atsumu, who’s turned pink from his cheeks to his ears. He buries his face in his hands and squeaks something unintelligible out.
Kiyoomi feels a little like he should apologize, like maybe he should’ve kept his turmoil of emotions from spilling all over everything.
“Is that okay?” He says instead. It comes out a lot softer than he intended.
“Sorry, sorry,” Atsumu says, still flustered. “I just can’t believe you said it first.”
“What.” He’s not sure if he should be annoyed or accept that he probably deserved that.
“No, no, not that it’s bad that ya said it. I mean, I also- I’m just surprised that you-” Kiyoomi’s eyebrows must be doing something because Atsumu’s hands come back up on his face. “God, I’m diggin’ myself into a hole here. Can ya just read the letter in yer gift?”
Kiyoomi reaches across his desk for his scissors and pulls the package toward him. He tightens his hand on the scissors’ grip, reassuring himself. It was okay. He’d told his boyfriend he l- well, he’d told him what he’d meant to say for weeks now and it had gone fine. It wasn’t his fault Atsumu wasn’t ready to say it back yet or whatever was happening, after all, it had only been three months, with two extra years before that, and okay, maybe he was glaring at the packing tape holding the box together to keep from spiraling.
He gets the box open, unfolding the flaps to reveal a folded piece of paper nested in a mess of bright yellow tissue paper. He holds it up to Atsumu, who nods, nervously chewing on his lower lip.
“Just read it in yer head, okay? Y’know it’s probably really bad and ya might hate it so…”
He trails off when Kiyoomi pointedly unfolds the paper card and looks down to read it. Most of it is taken up by a black and white printed photo collage of the two of them, interspersed with various pictures of ferrets in hats clearly ripped off Google images. Kiyoomi notices a couple photos of them laughing at Osamu’s bizarre waffle constructions at dinner from their first year, screenshotted off Komori’s Snapchat story, despite his reassurances that “no Kiyoomi, I’m not posting this, promise.” Right in the middle is a picture Hinata had taken just a few weeks ago. They’re in the library, Kiyoomi’s brow furrowed at the Stats notes in front of him, free hand laying on the table between him and Atsumu, their fingers just barely touching. Atsumu is unabashedly staring at him, grinning like Kiyoomi studying for his Data Science midterm is the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen. Hinata had sent them both the picture, and Kiyoomi had made it his phone wallpaper, figuring that at least the way it made his chest and face feel uncomfortably warm would make him stay off his phone.
At the bottom of the page, in the smaller, messier version of Atsumu’s handwriting is a note. “Hi Omi-Omi!” it reads. “Happy Chanukah! (I didn’t even have to look up how to spell it this year.) I still can’t believe I’m getting to write you this card as your BOYFRIEND and not as a friend that got his friend a gallon jug of hand sanitizer for no reason (there was a reason. The reason was that I was already totally whipped for you and I’m telling you about it on this dumb card that’s black and white because nobody refilled our color ink and not out loud because it’s honestly cringe that I’ve liked you for so long.) I hope the rest of your break is great and cool and that you don’t miss me too bad. Also enjoy your gift, it’s kind of genius if you ask me. Anyway, don’t freak out about this because it’s NOT a big deal but. I love you. Atsumu.” He’d drawn a little smiling fox next to where he signed his name.
Now Kiyoomi understands why Atsumu had to hide behind his hands. “Since last December?” is the first thing he can think to say, the rest of whatever part of his brain controls intelligent thought too tangled to parse.
“Around then, yeah. I don’t think I realized it until, like, the spring but yeah. I don’t care though.” A sliver of his infuriating smirk is back. “Yer the one that said it first.”
“Everything’s a competition with you, what the fuck is your problem.” Kiyoomi feels warm, like something had come home to settle in his chest. “If you’re playing it that way, at least I said it out loud instead of writing it all out in a letter like some kind of pussy.”
“Only you would get mad that I handwrote ya a whole romantic letter, with pictures, saying I love ya.” He pauses for a second and laughs. “And look! Now I said it out loud and everything too, so ya have nothing on me.”
Kiyoomi knows without looking at his corner of the screen that his face is unspeakably fond. “You suck and you’re stupid, so I’m only going to say this once, but I really miss you.”
Atsumu stares blankly from his screen. “Sorry, you froze for a sec, what did ya say?”
“I said I miss you,” Kiyoomi repeats, glaring at his boyfriend’s pixelated face.
“Wait, wait I missed that can you-”
“Fuck you.”
Atsumu laughs and Kiyoomi smiles because while he’s not going to laugh at his own expense, Atsumu is glowing at him through the screen and he can’t help but think, just for a second, that he’s incredibly fucking lucky that this laughter is just for him.
“Okay, we got all that corny shit outta the way, now open yer present. I didn’t go to three different stores lookin’ for that neon yellow tissue paper for nothin’, so ya’d better appreciate it.”
Kiyoomi rolls his eyes and pulls the nearly blinding paper out of the package to reveal a shoebox.
“I dunno how to wrap things all nicely like you do and Samu wouldn’t help me, so enjoy yer extra paper” Atsumu explains. “Also I wiped down the outside of the shoebox before packin’ it.”
Kiyoomi kind of wants to dissolve. “Cool.” He drops the cardboard box onto his floor along with the tissue paper and places the shoebox in front of him. He flips the lid and pushes aside the rest of the packaging to reveal a pair of bright yellow Converse that very nearly rival the tissue paper now littering his carpet in color. “Oh my god.”
“Yer always complainin’ about how all yer shoes are too expensive to wear out, and if I hafta see ya in Crocs in public one more time I might do something we’ll both regret. Look, they’re even your color.”
“I have shoes that I wear, are you serious?”
“Winter boots and whatever is going on with your Nike problem doesn’t count. And none of them are bright fuckin’ yellow.” Atsumu looks smug.
Kiyoomi sighs. “It’s not a ‘problem.’ You just can’t comprehend the cleaning rotation.” Atsumu just smiles at him expectantly. “You’re right, though. None of them are bright yellow.” That’s as good as saying he loves the gift, and they both know it.
“You can finally have something to match that awful jacket of yer’s, really rock the whole traffic safety look.”
“You’re unbearable,” Kiyoomi tells him, twisting one of the shoes’ laces around his finger.
“So are you. And yet.”
“Yeah. And yet.”
They both sit there for a moment. Kiyoomi is going to need to wear his new shoes through the next few rainy days to get the fresh white rubber to look tastefully worn and he has to figure out what part of his apartment wall he’s going to tape the photo collage up on and he loves Atsumu and Atsumu loves him back. Jesus Christ.
“So-”
“When-” They both start at the same time.
“No, what?” Kiyoomi backs down.
“Nothing, I was just gonna say to try the shoes on later. I got yer size, but just in case, I think I can return ‘em if they don’t work. Also send me a pic of them with the jacket.”
“No picture. You have to wait to see me in person because of that traffic safety comment.”
“Ya suck. I’m gonna be thinkin’ every runway employee at the airport is you ‘cause of those fluorescent vests now, yer getting my hopes up.”
Kiyoomi is glad he promised to only say it once, or else he’d let another “I miss you” out with no regard for the personal consequences. “I’m hanging up,” he snipes instead.
“I know yer joking, but actually I do hafta go,” Atsumu shrugs apologetically “‘S almost dinnertime here with the time difference and everything, and if I don’t go help out in the kitchen Osamu might kill me on our parents’ behalf.”
“That’s fine. Hope you don’t get killed, I guess.”
“Aww Omi-kun, it’s nice to know ya care.” He grins at Kiyoomi’s glare and it’s just like any other time since they met except it very much isn’t. “I’ll call ya tomorrow though.”
“Fine. Bye Miya.”
“Byeee Omi, love you!” He hangs up before Kiyoomi can get the last word in. He’s terrible. Kiyoomi can’t believe he has to wait another two weeks to see him again.
He takes his new shoebox and puts it on top of the suitcase of things to take back to school with him. He’ll have to remember to try them on later tonight, but he already knows they’ll fit. He should probably pick up the box and paper from the floor and figure out what to do with them, but right now, all he wants to do is sit at his desk with the letter and stare at the little fox drawing next to Atsumu’s name.
He wishes he could bring himself to want the heavy feeling inside his chest to be regret, over giving Atsumu his number freshman year, or ever meeting him in the first place, but he knows he’s too many rolls of wrapping paper, too many aromatherapy humidifiers and late night phone calls and “love you”s in for that wish to mean anything.
Whatever. He opens his phone and feels the usual twinge at Atsumu’s face on his wallpaper before quickly opening the Messages app. “This is way better than the hand sanitizer btw,” he texts Atsumu, then sets his phone aside to wait for a response.