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It starts when Kiyoomi notices he has too much closet space.
This is alarming for numerous reasons—
number one, just over two months ago, BAE (Before Atsumu Era), he had enough clothes for them to be (neatly) bursting out of the seams of his closet;
number two, Kiyoomi can’t find his favourite wool sweatshirt with the stretched out sleeves and five millimeter ink stain under the right armpit, and;
number three, Miya Atsumu probably, definitely has something to do with it (as per the new usual).
Kiyoomi contemplates the consequences of murder (too messy, potential incarceration, inevitably disappointing his mother, Atsumu dying—in that order) as he straightens his piles of clothes and transfers an errant shirt that has made its way into his heap of pants back to its rightful place with the outdoor shirts.
He closes the closet door and taps his fingers pensively on the rough wood once, twice and—
“AAAAARRGHH.”
Being Miya Atsumu’s boyfriend is much like having a fly buzzing constantly around your head, twenty four fucking seven without any respite. You can try to swat at it as much as you want, but it will neither go away nor die and unfortunately, Kiyoomi has never mustered the heart to bring in a mosquito racquet into the mix so he always ends up kissing the fly shut instead of killing it. Motoya did always prance about saying things like make love, not war even with his consistent record of terrible English scores so maybe it's all his cousin's fault for rubbing off his terrible lifetime non-violence hippy phase onto him.
Kiyoomi heaves a sigh which is too much air and not enough vexation, and follows the source of the wail to the kitchen.
He finds Atsumu crouched on his toes on the floor in front of the sink, face buried in his hands and groaning into his palms, clogging up his pores and Kiyoomi gives it a day until a painful pimple or two to pop up on the too-sensitive skin of Atsumu’s cheeks which means he needs to check if he still has a tube of acne cream in his first aid kit because Atsumu is going to be whining and poking at the sores until Kiyoomi puts him in handcuffs, and that is leading him down a train of thought he has no intention of seeing through .
(For now.)
Instead, Kiyoomi notes with rising irritation that Atsumu is wearing a familiar faded pink sweatshirt, the sleeves covering his hands in a way that should give no person over the height of six feet the right to look like that.
“How did you enter my apartment,” Kiyoomi deadpans to be nice, instead of saying something more apt like go outside and ring the doorbell, let’s see if I willingly let you in this time (Kiyoomi would, but he firmly believes that it’s the principle of the thing that counts).
He had given Atsumu a key to his apartment exactly a week ago to get rid of the incessant knocking that would haunt his front door at three in the morning because Atsumu was bored and needed a cuddle. He regretted it after exactly two days (and one night, he will only admit begrudgingly under the threat of breathing the same air as Bokuto's gym-sweaty socks, of not-so-subpar cuddling) when he came back from a lunch date with Motoya to find Atsumu hunched over on his couch eating the last of his matcha ice cream while watching Naruto reruns on his TV.
(“Omi-Omi, I can explain.” Pause. “My TV don’t smell the way yers do.”
“They are never going to find your body.”)
Atsumu doesn’t look up from the floor.
“Omi,” he mutters. “Omi, I’ve done sumn’ terrible.”
Terrible in Atsumu’s lexicon could mean a million things. It could mean a day spent in bed or his brother blocking him on LINE after Atsumu sent him fifty three Hello Kitty stickers in a row when he didn’t get an immediate reply to which of the ten identical selfies he should post on Instagram.
Kiyoomi surveys the kitchen floor and considering he did mop it up two hours ago, crouches down next to Atsumu.
“You do a lot of terrible things,” he says. “Be more specific.”
Atsumu hunches further into himself. “Die bo,” he garbles into his (Kiyoomi’s) sleeves.
Kiyoomi pokes his side and Atsumu yelps.
“Typo,” he repeats, morosely, moving his hands away from his mouth to cover his cheeks (acne cream, Kiyoomi reminds himself). “Was sendin’ an email to the PR team ‘bout those energy drink advertisements they want us to do, all formal and stuff, and I fucked up the kanji and now they’re gonna think I’m stupid—why can’t ya edit mails after ya send them—why am I alive.”
Kiyoomi processes this for a moment before grabbing one of Atsumu’s arms and pulling him up. Atsumu follows like a limp doll and slumps his head onto Kiyoomi’s shoulder, his hair tickling the side of Kiyoomi’s jaw. Atsumu is ridiculous on most days and Kiyoomi still doesn’t fully understand exactly how his mind manages to whirl into a thousand different directions at once, simultaneously making a million wild conjectures—the very qualities that make him one of the top volleyball players in the nation also manage make him one of the biggest trainwrecks housed in a human body.
It would exhaust Kiyoomi to no end if he had Atsumu’s brain, but with his own laundry list of idiosyncrasies, he doesn’t feel like he has much room to judge.
“Washed m’hands before,” Atsumu mumbles into Kiyoomi’s shirt. “Thirty seconds. Extra ten for good luck and shit, though that didn’t work out now, dinnit. Wanna smell?”
He waves the hand not sneaking up the back of Kiyoomi’s shirt in front of his face.
“I’m going to drop you,” Kiyoomi says but grabs Atsumu’s hand before it slaps him and brings it to his nose, not close enough to touch. It smells like anti-microbial handwash. He interlocks their fingers, the creases of his palm fitting perfectly against Atsumu’s slightly damp, callused one, and squeezes, letting their joined hands fall. Atsumu absentmindedly swipes a thumb across Kiyoomi’s palm and somehow manages to become even more of a deadweight than he was a second ago.
The easy intimacy still makes Kiyoomi’s heart wobble dangerously where it’s curled up inside his ribcage.
“Ya wish ya could do that,” Atsumu mutters, his lips moving against Kiyoomi’s neck. “Bitch.”
Kiyoomi exhales the ghost of a laugh and begins the arduous task of lugging Atsumu to the living room. Somehow along the short distance he ends up with Atsumu wrapped around his back like a clingy octopus, his feet dragging.
“Get on the couch,” Kiyoomi says.
“Urk,” Atsumu replies into the back of his neck.
“Okay.”
Kiyoomi hovers over the couch for a second before sitting down with Atsumu still clamped onto him. Atsumu wheezes and slaps Kiyoomi on his chest repeatedly with the arm he has still wrapped around him. “Omi, I can’t breathe you fuckin’—asshole—get off me—”
Kiyoomi slides to the side so he’s not sitting on hard muscle of Atsumu’s thighs anymore. “Are you done moping?”
Atsumu glares at him, lips pulled into a scowl and childishly sticks out his tongue. His fringe is pointing heavenwards in solidarity with the tufts of blonde hair at the back of his head. He has paired Kiyoomi’s sweatshirt with black sports shorts which are smidge too tight around his thighs and Kiyoomi would appreciate the sight if the chances of those shorts being the very ones that had disappeared from his closet three days ago weren’t increasing with every second.
Kiyoomi flicks Atsumu’s forehead and gets up to return to the kitchen.
He takes one of the five matcha ice cream tubs he had forced Atsumu to buy for him out of the fridge, along with a pair of bowls and spoons and heads back to the couch to find Atsumu flopped across the armrest, legs sprawled in different directions, flexing and relaxing his right foot so that his house slipper slaps against his sole again and again. Kiyoomi sets everything on the coffee table and Atsumu watches pensively over the mildly grating fwap-fwap-fwaps as he doles out their portions, giving Atsumu an extra scoop.
“Thanks,” Atsumu mutters as he sits up and takes his bowl. He immediately starts stuffing his face.
Kiyoomi eats his own ice cream at a more sedate pace and by the time he’s finished Atsumu has moved so that his head lays on his shoulder instead, staring listlessly at the dark TV set.
“No one’s thinking you’re stupid,” Kiyoomi offers finally. “They already know it.”
Atsumu punches him weakly. “Fucker,” he says.
“Idiot.”
“Dickhead.”
“You would know.”
Atsumu finally smiles, a sunrise blooming over the horizon, and Kiyoomi feels his traitorous heart skip a few beats and it's weird because Atsumu grants easy smirks and grins to unexpecting citizens of Japan like it's nothing but there's a specific way the corners of his eyes crinkle when he smiles like this (smiles at Kiyoomi), at dick jokes of all things, that's just. Infuriating. Heartbending.
“I meant it,” he says to stave off the heat in his cheeks. “The first part.”
Atsumu winces, his expression contorting and Kiyoomi finally breathes. “Ugh. I don’t wanna think about it anymore.” He nudges Kiyoomi’s side gently. “Distract me.”
“Okay, then.” Kiyoomi tugs at Atsumu’s sleeve until his hand lays on his lap. “Let's talk about this. Why are you stealing my clothes.”
He watches in morbid fascination as splotches of colour bloom high on Atsumu’s cheeks.
“Can we just have sex instead?” Atsumu asks the hand in Kiyoomi lap, his shoulders hiking up guiltily.
"I don't think you're wearing anything you bought with your own money right now.” Kiyoomi feels like it is a symbol of remarkable restraint that he manages to sound only slightly incredulous. “And I know you’re not wearing underwear under those shorts. Gross.”
Atsumu groans loudly and Kiyoomi starts as he falls forward into his lap, face first. His fingers automatically tangle into Atsumu’s hair.
“Is it a crime to wear yer boyfriend’s clothes?”
“You’re not wearing,” Kiyoomi corrects. Boyfriend, he thinks. It’s a lot different hearing it said out loud than thinking it in the deep recesses of your mind. Get a hold of yourself, he thinks again. “You’re stealing.”
“Yer the one still doing the laundry, don't worry. Dunno what yer being so annoyin’ about.”
"So this is you being lazy. Huh." Kiyoomi tugs on Atsumu’s hair when he feels fingers wiggle underneath his thighs and pinch.
"Jus' feels nice," Atsumu mumbles. He turns so that he’s laying on his back. Kiyoomi brushes back the hair stuck to his forehead so that they spike up again and Atsumu is back to looking like a low-budget Super Saiyan.
Said low-budget Super Saiyan tilts his chin up in defiance and squints his eyes in a way that reminds Kiyoomi of his grandmother when she stubbornly tries to read the morning newspaper without wearing her prescription glasses. "Ya got a problem with it?"
Kiyoomi turns the question over in his mind, examines it from all possible angles. He considers: the soft yellow of Atsumu's hair contrasts nicely with the pink of the sweatshirt. He considers: thighs. He considers: Miya Atsumu.
"No," he decides. "You look passable."
Atsumu pinches his thigh again and Kiyoomi hitches a leg up in response. Atsumu cleverly settles back into his lap with only a few half-hearted shoves to Kiyoomi’s chest.
"You look passable," Atsumu repeats in an annoying high pitch. And then, almost inaudible (embarrassed, in Atsumu-speak): “Thanks.”
“Stop making it weird.”
Honestly, if he really considers it, Kiyoomi thinks Atsumu would make an okay Super Saiyan.
Atsumu looks at him, crinkled nose, furrowed brow, budding pimples and all.
“We’re dating, ya sorry bastard” he says. "Sucks to be the one to tell ya, but this is already weird.”
Kiyoomi watches him, feeling a little-lot helpless. He thinks of how this is a thing of dreams, something he had never thought could happen to people like him—a boy in his lap, with hair the colour of dandelions and a smile sharp enough to break skin. But here he is. Here they are. Someone still trampled their way into the weeds of Kiyoomi’s heart, weaved a nice little throne for themself and proceeded to plant their butt right on top of it, refusing to budge. It makes everything feel off kilter and Kiyoomi isn’t used to uncertainty but he thinks he doesn’t mind it if it’s with Miya Atsumu.
And now he's uncertain about that revelation.
Atsumu watches him back, his mouth twisted in a little grimace as if he is scooping out the thoughts in Kiyoomi's mind like matcha flavoured ice cream, as if he doesn't like the taste of overthinking and mooning—a gigantic hypocrite move in itself.
He finally breaks (first, as per the new usual)—
“Will ya just kiss me already, do I hafta do everythin’ around here by myself, ya stupid idiYAAT—”Atsumu sputters out an ugly snort-laugh as Kiyoomi digs his fingers into his sides.
“Asshole,” he says breathlessly, like he’s said a million times before and will say a million more if Kiyoomi has any say in it.
Kiyoomi's lips twitch upwards as Atsumu hooks an arm around his neck and pulls him down into a kiss.
He supposes he's not against having a little more closet space.