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Kiyoomi learns that, apparently, it is not ideal to have a eureka moment over his buried feelings during hell week.
The words in his binder blur with the scenery outside the train window, his coffee cup long empty.
It’s a Saturday, only 48 hours after his previous exam and only another 48 hours before the next one that he had not even begun reviewing for, and yet there he is, onboard the shinkansen to Osaka. Kiyoomi is running on three hours of sleep, having sped through all his requirements last night, and is yet to board the third train ride of the day.
Kiyoomi presses the facemask further up his nose bridge and sighs, Bach blaring through his noise-canceling headphones. Kiyoomi knows it's pathetic to even attempt to study in the shinkansen, but he had no time left for his Monday exam.
So when the ways to manage myofascial pain began blurring in his head, good-old regret edges in his brain. The familiar dark clouds begin rolling in.
Then Kiyoomi remembers blond hair and sly smirks on the genkan of his Tokyo apartment. The skies clear.
It took him four seasons to get there. He is not stopping now.
The first winter was so far from cold, it almost didn’t feel like winter.
The slam of the ball resonated in Kiyoomi’s ears, palm still burning from the spike. He looked across the net, half-expecting hostile glares after Kiyoomi made a clean spike off of the twins’ quick.
Among the hundreds of possibilities, seeing Atsumu smirk as the whistle cut through the piercing winter air was definitely not on the list.
The smirk persisted even as both teams approached the net, Kiyoomi reaching under the net to grasp Atsumu’s waiting hand, both jerseys mirroring a stark number 1.
“Now that we’re no longer rivals… say, Omi-kun,” Atsumu began, slightly tugging on their linked hands as Atsumu leaned in closer, “d’ya want to go out with me sometime?”
Even with the initial shock, Kiyoomi was able to register Osamu’s “what the fuck,” and Suna’s stifled snicker while coughing up a “holy shit”. In the corner of his eye, Komori was frozen, half in surprise and half in laughter.
“Okay, my bad, that was too forward.” Atsumu giggled, letting go of the handshake. “If dating’s too much too fast, then allow me to court ya first, Omi-kun.”
Looking back, Kiyoomi didn’t know— still doesn’t know—how he managed to answer then.
“Are you really asking to court me after losing, Miya?”
Komori gasped a flippant yet amused “Sakusa!”Osamu and Suna didn’t even bother hiding their laughter this time, Gin shaking his head beside them.
Atsumu scrunched his nose at the retort, and somewhere, a traitorous part of Kiyoomi’s brain thought: Huh. Cute. “Yeah, that still sucks,” Atsumu began, the wily—yet somehow simultaneously sheepish —grin on his lips betraying his own words. “But if I get to pamper ya ‘til I get ya to say yes, that still sounds like a win to me.”
It would have ended there when their coaches yelled at both teams to bow to the stands and when they drifted off-court. Kiyoomi himself thought so, too, until he found himself walking up to the Inarizaki team, hand stretched out towards one Miya Atsumu.
Unbridled shock colored Atsumu’s eyes, as if he didn’t even expect Kiyoomi to consider it.
And yet there he was, asking for Atsumu’s number and watching the latter’s trembling fingers glide across the screen.
Once he turned back, the grin he had been hiding wrangled free, thankfully concealed by the facemask. He was several feet away when he heard Osamu laugh, saying, “Holy shit, ‘Tsumu, I can’t believe that pathetic move actually worked . Did ya pay Sakusa-san or something?”
“The hell, ‘course I didn’t! That was all charm, Samu! Not that ya’d know ‘bout that, ‘cause ya don’t have any.”
That self-proclaimed charm is how he began hearing that loud, obnoxious voice through his earphones for the rest of winter, beginning with Kiyoomi sending a bare minimum of “hi”.
No , he definitely did not flip his phone upside down the moment he hit send, and no, he definitely did not leave the phone in his room only to come back 30 minutes later, a reply lying wait in his inbox for the past 29 minutes.
And no, he did not freak out that a) Atsumu replied right away and b) holy shit, he has not replied for 29 minutes .
Teeth biting his lower lip, its corners tugging upward in a smile, Kiyoomi shakily sent a reply.
The exchanges from then on evolved with the season. The text messages shifted to social media requests and chats, like melting ice. Halfway through, Atsumu dared to call, and Kiyoomi isn’t sure who is more surprised: Atsumu who hadn’t expected to hear Kiyoomi’s hello on the other end, or Kiyoomi who spooked himself by picking up in the first place.
The calls became a weekly thing, progressing until almond eyes and blond hair looked back at him from his laptop screen at least once a week, the ice melting into puddles that streamed with ease along every crevice on their keyboards, on their faces translated through pixels, and on the waves of static that carried taunts and scowls through their laptop speakers. They have carved riverbeds with their routine: Atsumu rambling for hours, going off on a stream of consciousness, and Kiyoomi listening intently from his Tokyo home. Sometimes, the two debated the most mundane of things, with Atsumu screaming at his laptop and Kiyoomi sneering in jest.
“Yer jersey is annoyin’! It’s like fighting spotlights or something!”
“If you’re blaming our jerseys for your loss, then maybe you’re not as good as you claim to be, Miya.”
“ You try fightin’ your own team, Omi. It’s blinding, it should be banned!”
“Thanks for the compliment, but we already know how strong we are.”
“That’s not what I’m saying! Yer missing the point!”
Kiyoomi learned about the intensity of winter. Sometimes, when the skies chose to be unforgiving, Atsumu would opt for a phone call or show up on Skype with faint smiles, stories shorter and less energetic. On those days, he wasn’t Atsumu, a giddy suitor on the other side of Japan. He was just Atsumu, a teenager with moods and bad days. During those calls, Kiyoomi talked a bit more. His words and stories were naturally more economical, but he tried.
On a particularly bad blizzard, a sullen Atsumu logged in with red and swollen eyes, perceptible even through the substandard webcam, chin tucked in the crease of an open textbook. Kiyoomi didn’t ask if he was okay nor did he ask what was wrongーworried he’d cross a line neither of them had fully drawn.
Kiyoomi noted the lack of gray hair and the fact that Atsumu was back on the desk and not on the upper bunk where he was exiled after Osamu realized Atsumu’s laptop camera always caught him on frame, engaged in his own not-so-subtle phone calls. Atsumu has since answered Skype calls on the upper bed, earphones plugged in as instructed.
The Hyogo end of the call was unmistakably still. So Kiyoomi opened his textbook, chin resting on the pages as he reviewed for an upcoming exam, the call quiet but for the faint crackle of static.
A little later, when Kiyoomi looked up at his screen and saw Atsumu already staring, Kiyoomi found himself baring a soft, tiny smile. Slowly but surely, the corners of Atsumu’s lips lifted. It took over an hour until Atsumu told him about a screaming match in the Inarizaki gym, hands yanking shirts and shoving bodies—an unbidden onslaught of snow that crushed everything, leaving behind only silence in its wake.
The stillness faded with time, though. Atsumu was rambling yet again, business cards from various V. League scouts in hand and two diplomas hanging on the wall behind him.
“I really want to be in Adlers, but Tokyo is so far, and Osaka’s so close to home, too. It’d be easier to leech free food off of Samu that way.”
Kiyoomi quirked an eyebrow. “So… Tokyo’s out of the option, then?”
Atsumu looked up from below his eyelashes with a challenging grin. “Probably for a team, yeah. I can win anywhere if I want to anyway. I’m still goin’ there, though. Yer not gettin’ rid of me that easily, Omi-omi.” He grins, then pauses. “Unless ya don’t want me to go.”
Oh, Kiyoomi wanted him to.
Ice long thawed, the stream then flowed through now unfrozen rivers as the cherry blossoms of spring littered familiar Tokyo streets.
True to the season, the majority of it was spent transitioning to new chapters: Kiyoomi moving only three boxes full of personal belongings to an apartment near Waseda, and Atsumu moving almost all of his possessions to the MSBY sharehouse.
Amidst all the changes, Kiyoomi found one consistency: that somehow, Atsumu is simultaneously an asshole and an endearing suitor. The trademark Miya Atsumu sass bled through every interaction no matter the medium, like when he poked on Kiyoomi’s choice of taking up sports science in Waseda and called it “running away”. Then there’s the gentleness lacing Atsumu’s Kansai-ben—not so foreign anymore yet still steadfastly warm—when Kiyoomi told him about his family’s unsubtle disagreement with Kiyoomi going pro, the degree a compromise and a quiet surrender.
Kiyoomi learned that both sides came with Atsumu, like cherry blossoms that made everything scenic but also stubbornly stuck to everything .
Atsumu lingered on the crooks and crannies of his phone and his laptop. He was everywhere, hands wringing out petals that clung to every fiber of his being and—well, shit , Kiyoomi didn’t mind.
Which is why he could not even bring himself to be annoyed when Atsumu flaunted his black MSBY jersey over Skype, or when Atsumu caused chaos on-campus when he visited wearing his gold bomber jacket, only a few days after MSBY announced their new hotshot setter that everyone in Twitter thirsted over.
“Hi, Omi-kun.”
The petals reached his Tokyo apartment. Kiyoomi thought it felt right, like it belonged there.
The door opened.
It became a tradition. Every day-off, Atsumu rode the shinkansen with an assortment of offerings. Once, it was a basketful of cleaning supplies just when Kiyoomi had run out. Several packages of umeboshi followed, the only thing that kept Kiyoomi up during his all-nighters, a quiet companion like lingering sakuras. Sometimes, it was food prepped by Osamu, or a movie ticket, but sometimes, it was just Atsumu, hands as bare as the day he was born.
The door still opened.
Kiyoomi learned that he loved cherry blossoms, a fascination born with tiny toddler hands pressed against the window as the first petals sprouted on high branches.
A love that faded with age, only to be rekindled with a text that says “I’m here”, a quick peek at a peephole, and a door that never failed to open for one Miya Atsumu.
The summer heat persisted until the cherry blossoms turned back to dust.
Kiyoomi learned that the warmth of the earth rooted him, forming routines as four soles tread a desire line from Waseda classrooms and from Osaka gyms, both leading to a meek Shinjuku apartment. The heat kept Kiyoomi on the move all the time, fingers tapping impatiently, waiting for the end of class, feet eager to go home. Head buzzing as he finished all his requirements to leave the day free, hands dancing to a tune of unlocking and opening his door.
Atsumu was the same, too, with soles darting across the genkan and into Kiyoomi’s tiny kitchen, ready to recreate Osamu’s recipe of the week, and hands flying from knives to pots to pans. It began when Kiyoomi opened the door, a cup of instant ramen on hand and a deep frown on Atsumu’s face.
“Please tell me that’s not yer lunch.”
Kiyoomi stood still, guilty. The two empty cups of coffee in his living room wasn’t looking good, either. “It’s my brunch?”
“Wow, yer helpless.”
Kiyoomi learned just how hot summers truly are. Standing beside Atsumu on the kitchen counter, Kiyoomi noticed the rolls and stretches of Atsumu’s muscles for the first time as he deftly rolled the noodles, dri-fit nearly hugging his biceps and polyester shorts barely covering the now defined curve of his thighs. Kiyoomi hoped his red cheeks were mistaken as heat from the blistering sun or the steaming ramen Atsumu set in front of him.
Summer wasn’t always nice, Kiyoomi learned. It can be too suffocating, sweat clinging to his skin, the humidity making it hard to breathe. And if it wasn’t the heat, it was the rain—
Raindrops on his genkan from a wet umbrella. “Miya, no, leave the umbrella outside.”
Heat clinging in his skin, sticky and stifling. “Why is there a pan here? Miya, no—put it on the second cabinet.”
The summer air, low-hanging and heavy. “I told you, don’t put your feet up on the table.”
Just when the season was about to bear down on him with its intensity, the heat dissipated. Atsumu was back on his genkan, lines free from the frustration of past chaotic visits, hands free of any gift but a smile.
“Hey, Omi-kun. Lemme toss to ya.”
Kiyoomi learned about the soft intimacy of summer as written on Atsumu’s skin, the sunlight dancing with every movement as he tossed a ball tailor-made for Kiyoomi.
The sweat was freeing this time around, relieving their bodies from the burdens of the season.
They kept going until the sun hung low, trying out quick after quick. They matched up most of the time, but sometimes Kiyoomi would jump too high, or Atsumu would set too low.
“Come on, Omi-kun, I thought you were supposed to be a hotshot collegiate player or something.”
“Well, if only you’d set better , Miya.”
A grin almost as blinding as the summer sun. A soft, tiny smile as subtle as a cool gust of air after an unbearable day in the heat.
After one too many tosses, they laid down the gym floors, sunlight streaming through the windows and coloring their already flushed bodies, heads side by side.
“That… was better than I thought it’d be,” Atsumu began, still grinning. Kiyoomi hummed in response, eyes closed as he tried to even his breath.
Kiyoomi turned his head only to see almond eyes, almost golden in the sunlight, already staring back. Kiyoomi smiled and basked in the glow that is Miya Atsumu, whispering, “Thank you for today, Atsumu.”
The sound of his first name elicited a different smile. It wasn’t blinding, no, Kiyoomi thought. This is… soothing. Like sunlight after an excruciating day of classes, or the hiss of ocean waves after a long semester, or opening the door and seeing Atsumu—
Kiyoomi’s mind stuttered as he stumbled on the thought. An acceleration, deep within his ribcage. A flurry, a need to run, to move that Kiyoomi couldn’t even associate with adrenaline.
Oh.
Kiyoomi learned about the persistence of summer and its tenacious sunrays, chasing away shadows and lighting up long-suppressed feelings.
So he started running.
Fall lived up to its name: a beautiful descent.
Some people in Japan contemplated mortality in the spring with the Sakuras’ short-lived lives. Kiyoomi never understood why when autumn was right there, its alternative name literally a synonym of sinking, and plummeting, and spiraling—
Kiyoomi underestimated college. Balancing schoolwork with volleyball was already hard enough, fatigue straining his muscles, but college brought a newfound struggle for his brain. It was hard memorizing the origins and insertion of muscles when his own were tense from practice, the joints he is studying screaming in pain.
The Skype calls were his sanctuary for a while, the way looking at the orange and crimson leaves fell from his apartment window soothed him. Tokyo looked warm but felt cool. It was perfect.
Until it wasn’t.
Soon, the stress made Atsumu’s previously endearing munching over Skype annoying, the chewing sounds suddenly grating over his earphones. The tiny hums of the most random of songs were suddenly distracting, taking his concentration off of the page he’d been struggling with for the past hour.
Kiyoomi learned he liked looking at the autumn leaves but only on the other side of the window. Only when it kept to the other side, and not when Kiyoomi had to sweep leaves in front of his doorstep. Not when they littered the sidewalks, the constant crackle clouding every single one of his senses.
He had begun muting their calls on particularly bad nights, his words a scarcity on busy school days. The stress was a mound of red leaves that made it difficult to see where he was walking, but he was glad it was there. He was glad for the crinkling leaves that was Atsumu talking about Bokuto’s shenanigans, momentarily taking his mind away from school like much needed white noise. Atsumu came with leaves that covered everything, but should Kiyoomi slip he’d be there to cushion the fall.
Looking back, Kiyoomi should have said that out loud, should have said anything .
Because on an October afternoon Atsumu opened the door to a drunk Kiyoomi.
It was a particularly hellish week and the volleyball team, which were mostly seniors, impulsively decided to drink. Kiyoomi went along, the stress of balancing schoolwork, training, and everyday Skype calls piling up, and the idea of inebriety suddenly sounded nice.
Like a bear who felt the slightest wisp of winter breeze, hiding in hibernation. Like a man overwhelmed with a head and a heart cowering in the face of change, folding.
“Don’t ya have an exam the day after?” Atsumu answered, hanging the gold jacket on the coat rack and slipping off his shoes at the genkan. Kiyoomi waved his hand dismissively. “I’m fine. I can still study.”
“No, I don’t think so.” Atsumu went straight to the kitchen, filled up a glass of water, and pored through his fridge, mumbling something about not having enough ingredients. He then opened a cabinet, took a pack of instant ramen, and boiled some water. “Did ya drink with your senpais? They didn’t pressure ya, did they?”
Everything was grating to Kiyoomi’s ears. Atsumu wasn’t an exception then. A bear lashing when forced out of sleep. “No, they didn’t. I’m an adult. It was my choice. Why do you care anyway?”
A beat. Beautiful orange skies before the bareness of trees. “I’m just worried, that’s all.”
The wind that blew all the leaves away. The final blow. “You won’t understand. You’re not even in college.”
The sound of the water hissing and boiling permeated the silence.
There was only scuffling later. Eyes still closed, Kiyoomi didn’t know what was happening, didn’t know of the bite of his words until he heard Atsumu’s footsteps walking away.
“I already poured hot water in the instant ramen. Eat it before it gets cold.” A squeak against floorboards. “I’m not going to beat around the bush. I know ya hate that. You’ve been shitty lately. Maybe it’s the stress, I don’t know. I know I’m courtin’ ya, but… the point is to hopefully build a relationship one day, right? So… I can’t just be the only one reaching out here. I’ll give ya space. I might not visit for a while, or call.”
Sobriety broke through Kiyoomi’s haze. He managed to crack open an eye. Atsumu was sitting on the genkan, his back to Kiyoomi as he tied his shoelaces. “Deal with your academics or whatever it is that’s botherin’ ya. The season’s startin’ anyway. I have to focus, too.”
The trace of alcohol in his veins evaporated the moment Atsumu looked back. Gone was the golden glint in his brown eyes. No sunlight, just bare trees and cold, dry autumn air. “If ya don’t want to continue this, please just tell me.”
It took a while for his body to react. By the time he’d made it to the genkan, Atsumu had turned the corner, framed by falling leaves, all scarlet and auburn.
That day, the door that had always been open, slammed shut.
A gold MSBY jacket was left hanging by the doorframe.
Beautiful descent, indeed.
The second winter was cold.
Kiyoomi knew that was how winter worked, but it still felt like the world was off its axis.
Kiyoomi learned that the cold was unyielding.
True to Atsumu’s promise, Kiyoomi had no Skype calls to answer and no chats or texts to reply to. He poured his all into volleyball and schoolwork, adjusting to the workload. Kiyoomi wanted to say it was easier not having to find non-existent time for daily video calls, but it wasn’t. He had time now, but at what cost?
It only felt empty, the frost too constricting.
Kiyoomi avoided footage of every MSBY match. He even avoided his social media accounts and chalked it up to focusing on his exams.
Hours after that fateful autumn day, Kiyoomi sent a text apologizing for lashing out only to receive an “it’s fine” and more silence. Was that what he was truly sorry for, though? Kiyoomi didn’t know and didn’t want to face the question until late January when he caved and watched a livestream with his teammates.
He watched as Atsumu, torso nearly parallel to the ground, sent a perfect toss to Bokuto who hit a clean cross. He watched that grin shine miles away from Tokyo, an absent sight on their now offline Skype accounts.
Clarity cracked through the frozen lakes of Sakusa’s mind, a long buried chest resurfacing.
He whipped out his phone and bought a shinkansen ticket for the next Saturday, head racing to schedule every class and every requirement.
Kiyoomi learned to reach out, to yank himself awake from his emotional hibernation.
Kiyoomi learned to stop running away.
So he began running home.
Kiyoomi mulls over everything he has learned over the past four seasons as the shinkansen steadfastly careened to Osaka.
The lesson is so simple Kiyoomi is annoyed he overlooked it like an idiot. The world moves as planned, one season from the next, unrelenting in its punctuality. The ground freezes and thaws to make way for the cherry blossoms. The sun reaches its peak in the summer, overbearing yet sought after despite its intensity, the only reprieve from the heat is the harsh tsuyu with its rain showers and puddles that soil his shoes. Then the world is painted orange, beauty disguising the decay as trees shed their leaves and the cold winds begin drifting to make way for the snow. All of it connected in a music humans had no choice but to dance to.
Atsumu is music his body longed to find the rhythm to.
And Kiyoomi was foolish to ever attempt to stop himself from moving.
Wasn’t that the point of the sport he loved so much—to connect? Wasn’t that his whole philosophy? When a meteorite hits someone in the head or a bad fall happens midgame—or when a boy inevitably falls in love with warm, hazel eyes and even more loving and caring hands—you don’t pity them or say sorry. Most of all, you don’t run away. It doesn’t change anything—doesn’t change the inescapable slope and the consequential fall he had long set himself on since that first Interhigh.
You just face it. You just do your best in everything—today, tomorrow, and until as many days as the world would let him.
As many days as Atsumu would let him.
This is Kiyoomi anchoring his feet from running. Kiyoomi, facing the music.
This is Kiyoomi, no longer hiding.
It took him four seasons.
It took him so long. Still, he got there.
Despite his relentless feelings, college is just as persistent, too. Which is why Kiyoomi is sitting as near to the court as he physically can, noise-cancelling headphones on as he shoves in his head the range of motion of every single joint in the human body.
His nerves are alight, foot tapping and fingers drumming mindlessly against the binder on his lap. What if Atsumu didn’t want me here? What if he didn’t want me back?
He looks at his phone, a text sent after months of silence. There is no reply.
What if I fucked it up?
A persistent tap on his shoulder pulls him out of focus. The woman is pointing to the court, words drowned out by Vivaldi.
Kiyoomi takes off his headphones and glimpses a tuft of blond hair. He leans forward in his seat and sees Atsumu practically climbing the barricade, upper body hauled as high as he can over the wall.
“You didn’t tell me you’re comin’!” Atsumu pouts, voice straining from tiptoeing over the barricade. “You’re here.” His voice is loud enough to break through the noisy gym, Kansai-ben softened with a genuine smile.
Kiyoomi pulls down his facemask and smiles. The cherry blossoms have bloomed and then withered under the summer sun, Tokyo streets painted in orange and then white as the chill made its way to his genkan, and now the cherry blossoms have grown back.
I’m here . It’s about time.
Kiyoomi rolls his eyes. “Then it wouldn’t be a surprise anymore, idiot.”
How he manages to speak, he doesn’t know. Kiyoomi just feels the relief blooming in his chest. He isn’t mad.
One move, testing the waters. “If you win, maybe today I’ll say yes, Atsumu.”
Atsumu practically beams from below, and Kiyoomi’s heart dances to its tune. He does not stop it this time. “I’ll win this one for ya even without that . Watch me.” The idiot then winks before turning back, and Kiyoomi feels his face heat up. White hair streaked with black breaks the line-up, grinning widely and hands waving wildly towards Kiyoomi. “Sakusa! You’re here!”
The sudden awareness that everyone was looking at him hit all at once, and Kiyoomi could only manage a sheepish smile and a tiny wave. He sees Atsumu giggle from his spot. Kiyoomi grunts from his seat on the stands.
The seasons change. This doesn’t have to.
Kiyoomi lingers in the stands for a while before snaking his way to the locker rooms only to be blocked by a guard. He’s about to leave when a familiar voice speaks.
“He’s with me, he’s fine.”
Kiyoomi turns and sees brown roots sweeping over gray hair. He has never seen Osamu look so scary, even as he shows him the way to the locker room.
“Ya fucked up, Sakusa-san.” Osamu deadpans.
Kiyoomi winces as he walks beside Osamu and bows his head. “I wasn’t even expecting him to take me back.”
“Well, he’s always been an idiot.” Osamu pauses, leveling Kiyoomi off with a piercing stare. “Ya better make up for it, because if ya do that again—”
“I know. I’ll do better. I’m not running away anymore.”
Osamu hums then points to the room on the right. “He’s usually the one last out, so he’ll still be there.”
“You’re not coming, Osamu?” Osamu looks back and shrugs, hands shoved in his pockets. “Nah. Figured I’d give ya two some space .” Kiyoomi cringes at the lack of subtlety of the reference. Osamu only laughs, facial features softer now, and Kiyoomi allows himself to breathe. “Don’t fuck up this time, Sakusa-san.”
Kiyoomi enters the empty locker room and sees Atsumu facing the other wall, drying his hair with a towel.
Kiyoomi wastes no time and covers the distance in quick strides, arms wrapping around Atsumu’s slender waist. “I’m sorry, Atsumu. I’m sorry,” Kiyoomi whispers, forehead resting on the curves of Atsumu’s spine.
Atsumu holds his hands and loosens his arms, turning around to face him. “Omi—”
“Wait, no, listen. I was a jerk. I didn’t mean to demean your choice to go pro right away. Fuck, I wanted to do that. And look at you, it’s your first season and you’re…” Kiyoomi chuckles and shakes his head, staring longingly at brown eyes. “You belong here.”
Black meets hazel, hands cradling the dip in Atsumu’s hips like they were always meant to be there, and the ice from the past three months melt away. The river runs again, and maybe, they don’t have to brave the cold alone anymore. “I’m sorry for snapping and running. I was too stressed and then I realized I like you and I just flipped—”
“Wait, what?”
“—and I know that’s not an excuse. You deserve better. So much better. I want to be that. I will be that. If you’ll have me.”
Atsumu looks at Kiyoomi in awe, his hand roaming Kiyoomi’s cheek and a smile blooming on his lips. “Ya like me?”
Kiyoomi rolls his eyes, unable to quell his smile. “I do.” Atsumu stills and looks at him in disbelief. Kiyoomi holds his hand and presses Atsumu’s knuckles to his lips. “I like you, Atsumu.”
Atsumu thumbs Kiyoomi’s lips, stroking every bump and curve. “I like you too, Kiyoomi.” A finger under Kiyoomi’s chin. “I’ve waited…” A tug, lips now only a breath away. “…so long.”
Kiyoomi closes the distance, an answer, as lips bear a love realized over 12 months of environmental education. Four seasons to learn how to love one Miya Atsumu.
Four seasons to love Miya Atsumu right.
Panting as hands roam underneath Kiyoomi’s jacket, Atsumu smiles against his lips. “Other scouts might not approach you anymore after today. Ya okay with that?” Atsumu caresses the gold fabric of the jacket, once forgotten on a freezing genkan, eyes glinting at the knowledge of the letters printed on its back.
Kiyoomi shrugs, tugging the jacket closer to his body. “It’s fine. I decided on a team a long time ago.”
It becomes a dance they mastered through even more seasons, most of them choreographed through shinkansen rides hurtling from Osaka to Tokyo and vice versa. Compromises were made for Kiyoomi’s frozen lake for a mind, Atsumu’s fiery summer moods, spring flowers and autumn leaves rising and falling with highs and bad days, their occurrences spanning beyond their respective seasons.
Kiyoomi passes his exam and masters the art of studying in the shinkansen and the stands. Kiyoomi experiences a new eureka moment with every new tidbit learned about Atsumu, with no care for hell weeks or tournaments or final exams.
Loving Miya Atsumu was never ideal. Nor was he ever the ideal man to love the Miya Atsumu.
But Kiyoomi had four seasons of learning for thatーand he has many more seasons to come.
There are more lessons to learn, more compromises to be had, but they made it.
The last shinkansen ride halts three years later as Kiyoomi walks into the MSBY complex, Atsumu waiting by the net one last time with a smile saying, “Welcome home.”