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Kiyoomi should’ve thought that there was something strange when he opened his apartment’s front door to Miya Atsumu holding a bucket of KFC and a small box of strawberry shortcake in his hands.
“Merry Christmas, Omi-kun!” Atsumu says with a sheepish smile before moving past Kiyoomi to walk into the genkan.
Kiyoomi frowns.
“Merry Christmas,” he answers reluctantly.
It wasn’t the visitor that caught him off-guard—the blond swung by his apartment more often than he cared to admit—but rather the timing. He didn’t really expect Miya at his doorstep on December 24th, Christmas eve, the evening after grueling morning practice with the rest of the Jackals. It’s not that they set dates for every time they met up to fuck, but Kiyoomi thought Christmas eve would’ve been the rational exception, considering the nature of the holiday—
“I’m home,” Atsumu calls out to the empty hallway, slipping out of his shoes and putting on the guest slippers. Kiyoomi only rolls his eyes in response. Sorry for intruding, he mentally corrects, but doesn’t bother to say the words out loud.
“Why are you here.” Kiyoomi asks, voice flat. He takes the chicken and cake from Atsumu to set them down on his sad excuse for a dinner table; Atsumu expertly navigates his small kitchen, getting plates and forks and a knife to cut the cake with from the dish rack above the sink.
Apartments for single men in Japan are small, with no real room for two men taller than six feet and Miya’s attempts at holiday cheer. Still, they manage to move together in perfect synchronicity, like they’ve eaten dinner here many times before.
(They have.)
“Why else would I be here?” Atsumu retorts quickly, narrowing his eyes as he sets down the dinnerware on the table. Kiyoomi uncovers the bucket of chicken and scrunches his nose at the scent of fried chicken suddenly wafting through the air. “’Ya need a reminder? Sometimes I drop by, get ‘ya to kneel on all fours on your bed and I fuck ‘ya just the way ‘ya like—”
Kiyoomi sits down, with only the slightest pink tinging the tips of his ears. It’s barely proof of how Atsumu’s words affect him. Atsumu takes his seat on the opposite side.
“That doesn’t explain the chicken,” Kiyoomi says plainly. He takes one of the small, plastic-wrapped towelettes from the bag containing the chicken and wipes his hands thoroughly. When they first met back in high school Atsumu hardly even bothered with basic dining etiquette; tonight, Atsumu does the same.
“Just ‘cause I wanna fuck ‘ya tonight doesn’t mean I want ‘ta stop following my Christmas traditions,” Atsumu says by way of explanation. “Besides, I just picked these up on the way here. On impulse.”
Atsumu takes a chicken leg from the top of the pile and sets it atop his plate. Kiyoomi blinks twice before wordlessly doing the same.
Kiyoomi isn’t stupid. He’d also grown up in Japan—KFC-branded chicken buckets and entire cakes were things you had to order ahead of time, what with every household in Japan suddenly hankering for the exact same thing at the exact same time. Christmas meals strictly following tradition comprised plans made in advance; otherwise, dinner would be bento and a modest slice of cake bought directly from the nearby 7-11 store.
He never saw the appeal in preordering a too-large serving of fast food that his coach would kill him for the next day, nor the excitement in lining up in the bitter cold just to claim a six inch cake. It used to be fun when he was a child, when the frivolous plans were made by his family and all he had to do was to show up and eat. At the end of the day, Sakusa Kiyoomi is just like any other Japanese boy—the chicken and cake were tradition in his household until his siblings started to move to live their adult lives in cities far away.
Christmas in Japan isn’t at all religious, nor is it necessarily festive, but it has its own set of strange customs. Customs Kiyoomi hadn’t adhered to for years—he hadn’t had KFC for Christmas since he moved out for university when he was eighteen. He hadn’t thought it wise to buy that much food for himself when he just lived alone, and no friend or teammate or acquaintance had really thought Kiyoomi important enough to be part of their elaborate Christmas eve plans—
Well. It makes sense. If not family, Christmas eve is for couples taking leisurely strolls, fingers intertwined while walking along the city’s brightly lit shotengais.
But.
Miya Atsumu, his teammate and his fuck buddy of a little bit less than a year, evidently thought him as—
No. To assume that would be a leap in logic.
But it wouldn’t be irrational to conclude that, for some reason, Miya Atsumu planned to spend Christmas eve with him. Christmas eve, an established night of romance and cheap traditions. The bucket of chicken sits on his dinner table as proof, as does the small box of strawberry cake beside it.
Kiyoomi tries not to think too hard about their implications.
“What will coach say if he catches us eating this shit?” Kiyoomi says while biting into his food instead of betraying his tumultuous thoughts. It’s difficult to admit, but the chicken tastes delicious and nostalgic all at once. As a professional volleyball player, he doesn’t let himself indulge in unhealthy food often; as an adult who lives miles away from his family, he doesn’t practice Sakusa family traditions whenever he’s just alone.
“Dunno,” Atsumu says. He contemplates for a moment, and then replies mid-chew. “Foster’s prolly just gonna say Merry Christmas?”
It makes Kiyoomi laugh. Many things about Atsumu make Kiyoomi laugh these days, and there are so many more things about Atsumu that make him smile. Atsumu gives him a grin in return, one with two perfect rows of white teeth bared.
There are many questions Kiyoomi wants to ask. Like, Why are you here, Atsumu, when Japanese Christmas eves are meant for couples? and, Why did you lie and say tonight is impulse when it’s obviously not? and, Are you really just seeing me when we never agreed to be exclusive?
Instead Kiyoomi asks, “So what are your other Christmas traditions?”
And without missing a beat, Atsumu answers, “Have you ever been to the Kobe Luminarie?”
Kiyoomi shakes his head. Atsumu looks at him with barely concealed pity. Kiyoomi just rolls his eyes.
“I’ll take ‘ya next year, if ‘ya want. The lights are so pretty, and the food stalls are pretty decent; Ma and Pa liked taking me and Samu there, ‘s just a train away—”
Atsumu assaults him with sentences, but a singular phrase is loud as it rings in Kiyoomi’s ears. Next year.
Before Kiyoomi could even interject, Atsumu suddenly exclaims, “Ah! But wait, ‘ya don’t like crowds—"
“Ask me out next year then,” Kiyoomi quickly interrupts, and because he sees all things through, even the most impulsive of decisions, he adds, “Like an actual Christmas eve date.”
It’s a challenge: stop dancing around me.
Stop dancing around us.
Atsumu only shrugs, taking the knife to start work on the Christmas cake. It’s a clumsy job, the edges of the slice jagged and crumbly as he plops it onto Kiyoomi’s plate.
Atsumu responds to Kiyoomi’s challenge in kind.
“Why wait? ’M asking you out now.”