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Ah.
It’s the rush of the blinding lights and the echoes of the screams from the crowd as the music drowns them again and again and again. It’s the calloused fingers strumming the chords and the drumsticks creating a rhythm they all dance to. It’s the lyrics exploding inside their mouths, cascading down their chins like hot lava flowing out of a volcano, consuming everything in its way. It’s the feeling that flows effortlessly all around the room, the words biting them like the bloody kisses that aren’t really there, like the hands wrapping around their throats and the whimpers they gulp down when love arrives with a hi, missed me? It’s his image, a god in all of his circumstances, from the way his hair moves with the steps he takes on stage to the way he hunches over the thousands of notebooks with the lyrics he’s never shown anyone, not yet, not when there are still words he hasn’t figured out yet.
It’s how his voice sounds oh, so sweet when he talks about a love he cannot reach, a love that binds them together and makes him stay up all night daydreaming about the day he’ll be able to hold his loved one in his arms, about the day he’ll be able to say those three words he’d been gulping down ever since they first crossed paths, a love he’s never had, a love he misses dearly.
Ah, ah.
He whispers through the microphone, his voice like an angel’s blessing, a devil’s oath, everything that builds you up and tears you down all at once, everything he is and everything he’s still unsure of, everything bright and dark that lurks behind his eyes, that boils inside his veins, everything sweet and predatory that lingers in the air as he gulps them down, as he sings and sings and sings and relishes in the screams that follow his giggle, his wink and his- ah.
Ethereal, he glows in gold stage lights. He explodes in a mosaic of perfect little pieces, sweat starting to drip down his forehead, slide down his neck and slowly make their way over his chest before disappearing under the cloth of the thin shirt he wears, the shirt that is now see-through as he moves around the stage, as he comes up to him and makes him swing along to the song. His fingers ache, his mind is hazy and he can only see him , the image of an angel, the image of a devil, of everything he’s learned to be wary of, of everything he’s come to wish for, and ah, ah, ah, he’s burning bright, blinding, and all of a sudden it feels like his fingers have stopped playing.
Are you in love the way I’m in love or am I just a replacement for someone else?
He wants to cry.
The sounds drown him in the same way his eyes do.
His head drops forward as the last syllable escapes his throat, loud and hoarse, slightly cracked at the edges and they can’t help but smile, shake their heads and snort. He tilts his head back and takes a deep breath. He drops the microphone, the static echoing on the walls for a few seconds before the crowd roars, screams of his name and encore reaching them with a soft whistle, a reminder that yes, they are alive, yes, they have things to share.
His fingers ache, they beg for mercy.
He continues to play.
Bruised, bloody fingers, burning as soon as they’re lifted from the strings, a hiss breaking through chapped lips as the studio falls silent. There were no lyrics, not this time, hazel eyes burning holes in each and every one of them as they played, their hearts liquified and dripping down their chins as he watched, as he took notes, as he licked his bottom lip and carved his teeth in his own flesh, lost in thought as his brain worked with all of the thousands of metaphors and lovely words only he knew how to use.
Sun-kissed skin and threads of gold sprawled out over the leather couch on the other side of a window, eyes squinted and fingers diligently working on the words leaking from his pen, the whispers of the poets wrapping around his throat.
“What do you think he’s writing about?”
“Love, of course.”
Yes, because there wasn’t anything else he wrote about.
He wrote about lingering touches and the chaste, sweet kisses. He wrote about the heat of someone’s body over and under his, the hungry kisses and the unrecognizable, agonizing patience of the predatory fingers that wrap around one’s throat, that linger for a few seconds too long over the sensitive skin on another’s waist, on another’s thighs. He wrote about the symphonic proposals and the sugary drip of a crescendo that echoes and echoes and echoes and drowns out the sounds of their whimpers, of their whines and their whispers. You, who plays with my heartstrings, who makes my heart ring, adoration does your heart bring. He wrote about the masterpiece laid out before him at night, upon a bed of roses, a mischievous grin and a playful wink. You, the beauty I see, instills in me an everlasting energy.
A stack of papers sprawled out in front of him as he tried to come up with an answer, furrowed brows and bottom lip stuck between his teeth. Tongue poking out of his mouth and a smile when things finally made sense. A bob of his head, a tilt and a yawn. Rinse and repeat. He doesn’t look up, not even once, his eyes focused on the waterfalls his words made as black ink stained thin canvases, as he poured out his soul and his devotion towards that one person who in between day and night, rain or shine, from the beginning ‘til the end, you are my most favorite page.
Miya Atsumu, a poet of the heavens, a musician of the underworld.
Someone groans behind him, a giggle following right after. Kiyoomi tears his eyes away from him, finally, and empty space is all that greets him back. Drumsticks resting over a table, the bass left in a corner, silver and orange quickly making their ways towards the table on the other side of the glass, bright smiles on their faces and the sparks of a memory flashing over his eyes. The first time he saw that, the first time he saw him, the innocent giggles and the heads thrown back because this is so sappy, I love it , because it took him twenty seconds to agree, it took him even less to smile at the portrait of a god standing right in front of him. Why not , he said, when we already have the lyrics?
Kiyoomi doesn’t remember how they met, his teenage years being nothing but a messy, watercolor blur. He remembers thinking about the poems in his eyes, the words rolling around his tongue and the way he scrunched up his nose when he laughed. He remembers thinking that ah, so this is what the love songs are about and then ah, so this is the heartbreak people write about. It wasn’t painful, he didn’t mourn a loss, he didn’t have to. It was a cold, snowy night when he first heard him sing about someone’s hands over his heart, of the poems they wrote without using words and how the world turned into honey and caramel lozenges. His voice was deep, rough around the edges, but lovely nonetheless. Kiyoomi almost felt his heartstrings vibrating along with his oohs and aahs , with the way he tilted his head, closed his eyes and let his mind wander to a place where he’d be touching, kissing, tasting the person he wrote for.
Ah.
He blinks slowly as he puts his guitar away, the fairy dust over his lashes dissipating into thin air as he breathes in and out, slowly, once and then twice, closing his eyes for a second only to think that yes, let’s see what he’s come up with today. The first thunderous beats of his voice make him stop in his tracks, the door closing exceptionally loud behind him. It’s bittersweet, the words and the tone and everything else. Kiyoomi almost believes it to be a heartbreak song until that sudden rush of excitement washes through them and ah, ah, ah, I see how it is.
Whispers of a love, his voice echoing like an angel’s cry, all eyes focused on him, on the way his own eyes are closed and the words leave his mouth, as his whole heart is poured out for the world to see. There is no acceptance in waiting for you and I do it anyway . It feels like a signal, like something Kiyoomi can’t help but wish for. If only you’d wait for me, too , is what he thinks. And then he feels his lips being pulled up into a smile as he shakes his head. Preposterous, really.
“This is beautiful,” they say in unison, Bokuto and Hinata, their voices making Kiyoomi’s ears ring, his tongue click and his eyes close involuntarily. “Will you still not tell us who inspired these songs? We have to thank them!”
Atsumu laughs and it sounds like the quick hardening sticky drops that he pours over him, the honey that turns into amber, the sweetness that turns into bitterness when he winks at the crowd and faces Kiyoomi when he sings, a serenade that’s meant only for him, like the whole world disappears and there’s only the two of them and their music surrounding them. Ha , it’s the only thing he can think, if only.
He drops his head and Kiyoomi can see the blush spreading through his cheeks, the innocent smile and that childish gleam in his eyes when syrup drips from his tongue and saffron words, yellow and fragrant, start pooling at his feet when he opens his mouth and says that it’s a love letter , of course it is, mimicking the trembling hands and uneasiness at the pit of one’s stomach. He talks about a midnight sky and the labyrinth of freckles he gets lost in, the cold eyes that warm up to him, the voice that shakes him to his very core and ah, so this is jealousy , Kiyoomi finds out.
When he looks up, Kiyoomi has to force himself to look away from the burning figure in front of him, has to force himself not to reach for him and bathe in flames. There’s a smirk hanging from his lips, the sweet syrup still dripping from his chin, the pointy teeth threatening to eat him whole. And Kiyoomi would’ve let him.
“Gross,” he says with a swift shake of his head.
“Aw, come on!” Atsumu laughs again, teeth sinking down on his bottom lip as he tries to gulp down a smile, as he tries to get Kiyoomi to look at him again. It almost feels like a challenge. “Aren’t ya just being a dick, Omi-kun? Let people be happy and enjoy love, right?”
Yes, if I got to have you.
Sure, if I was the one you wrote songs for.
Absolutely, if only I was the one inspiring you.
But no.
Because his words are building a cage for someone else’s heart, the gold chains of admiration being wrapped around his throat as he gasps for air, as he kneels and pleads for mercy, as he bows down and whispers every word he’s never had the courage to. Kiyoomi kneels in front of a god, in front of an angel and asks for forgiveness, for tainting his image with his late-night thoughts, the thousands of scenarios he can’t help but think about, the thousands of scenarios that leave him gasping for air because ah, so that’s how he feels like, that’s what he tastes like. Miya Atsumu, he gasps, is an untouchable figure, a prince Kiyoomi can’t ever hope to reach. He sings and sings and sings and writes gentle words for a gentle being who cradles him in their arms and lulls him to sleep, gentle fingers playing with the loose strands of his hair and playing a song with his heartstrings.
Miya Atsumu, ethereal being, is an ember in the ashes of the graveyard of the teeth broken from biting down on themselves as Kiyoomi struggles to breathe. He’s the spark that creates an explosion inside his chest, the flood of emotions Kiyoomi’s never learned how to deal with, the feelings that assail him and leave him gasping for air.
No, he’s not his.
And it’s because of that, “Gross.”
Living together is chaotic, a cacophony of whines and thunderous laughter and the drums that never seem to quiet down, not even at night. It's horror movies on Fridays and pizza nights every Saturday. It’s the pile of shoes by the door that’s never been picked up no matter how many times someone (read: Kiyoomi) complains and the comfort that comes from seeing it whenever they get home after a hard day. It’s the stacked notebooks over a coffee table filled with unused lyrics and unfinished songs, filled with silly little doodles and the grocery list from two months ago.
It’s when the moon is high up in the sky, the clock yelling at him in capital letters that it’s late, late, so late that Kiyoomi finds the comfort of the silence as he stares out the window towards an endless canvas of possibilities contained in the clouds that roam free in the sky. He picks the skin around his nails and hisses when it breaks, when blood pours out and he can’t do anything other than watch. It’s the acceptance that comes with resignment, the harmonious blues that resonate along with his heartbeat.
“Couldn’t sleep?”
Words like unsweetened tea, bitter at the back of his tongue and making him flinch. It reaches for the hair at the nape of his neck, way too long now, and wraps around his throat as Kiyoomi hears him taking the three steps necessary to reach it, the other two to make space for him to sit down next to him. Fuck space , he can’t help but think, sit closer, wrap your hands around my throat and choke me to death with your unsaid words. Words like the overly sweetened tea, the honey making his throat close in on itself for a second because ugh, too sweet, too sticky, I’m going to be sick.
Atsumu sighs as he stares out the window, a lazy smile on his face. His fingers are wrapped with loose tape, the bruises telling him Atsumu has been playing the guitar. There’s sweet pride bubbling in his chest when their eyes meet, the moon blessing them with its glow for a second before disappearing behind a cloud. “You played really well tonight,” he says, his voice merely a whisper, his eyes rolling back to the stained windows before Kiyoomi can even react. His skin looks like it would burn if Kiyoomi dared to reach out to him and it was never this hard to control himself. “It almost looked like you were having fun, for once.”
Being dragged to a stage, having to play until his fingers bleed and his ears are ringing, arms burning and muscles yelling in pain. The bright light over his head, sweat dripping down his back and making his skin sticky and gross. The cries he gulps down as Atsumu writes love letters to someone he can never be, the skin like porcelain, ivory, milk and honey, the kisses that pacify . The way Atsumu burns a bright yellow, seamed and sewn together with a fiery passion that urges people to kneel and bow, to sing along and cry because there’s nothing else they could do when he bounced and sing about curls that dance, calm, he whistles as he works, nectar on his lips and the way he says my name.
Fun, sure.
“You’re not really one to compliment, though,” Kiyoomi whispers back, a smug grin on his face to hide the hurricane inside his ribcage, throwing everything around and yelling, yelling, yelling everything Kiyoomi can’t ever bring himself to say. Who do you write for and why can’t it be me. “What happened with the brat you usually are?”
He snorts, shaking his head and letting his eyes fall back down to his fingers. “Shouyou-kun tried teaching me some chords today. It hurts like hell, I have no idea how the two of ya handle it for so long.”
Kiyoomi laughs, the sound louder than usual because today isn’t about running away, not anymore, not when he’s at an arm’s length, not when he’s speaking so tenderly, with his hands wrapped around Kiyoomi’s ankles as he pulls him down, down, down until they’re both drowning in the rich blue sea. Their fingers, calloused and bruised, flip over a notebook’s page where Atsumu has poured out his heart, where he wrote about the tenderness in his voice when they’re alone, the eyes that shine just for him, the chapped lips that would, one day, feel so soft against his neck, against every bit of skin he could find and ah, ah, ah, ah, Kiyoomi wishes, he wishes hard , he wants and wants and wants and he knows it will be futile to persevere, knows it will be futile to dream but he does it anyway because there’s nothing else in the world he’s ever wanted this much.
It wasn’t like this with his first or second love. It wasn’t like this when he got his first guitar, when he spent thousands of nights groaning in frustration, bruised fingers curling over thick, heavy books as they carefully feathered over the notes, over the chords he already had memorized. Hissing, he’d try again and again and again, to build a melody of his own, to write a song with every word he had been gulping down until the sun was already high up in the sky and his eyelids are heavy with the weight of all of the sleepless nights he’d been piling up. Playing for someone is an act of selfless love, they said.
Teach me, Atsumu asked him once, when they were still young and had no other care in the world. Teach me how to touch someone’s heart with the stroke of a chord. As if he needed an instrument to do that, Kiyoomi remembers thinking, as if he ever needed anything other than being the bastard he was, with the cocky grins and the tongue poking out of his mouth as he giggled a soft come on, Omi-kun!
He remembers when Atsumu first picked up his guitar, eyes like a child’s, lips curled into a bright smile as he played a few chords lazily, fingers trembling and eyebrows furrowed in concentration. You’re doing good, Kiyoomi praised and praised and praised, the foreign words lingering on his tongue for way too long, bitter and weird as he gulped them down, as he choked them out and winced. That’s not what yer face tells me, Omi, ya can be honest with me if I suck.
“You just get used to it,” Kiyoomi tells him.
You get used to the strain in your muscles, the pain in your fingertips, the pain inside your chest. You get used to the voice that lulls you to sleep as he can’t sleep when it’s midnight and the rain pours right outside your window. He sleeps with his bedroom door open and you start to do the same just so you can hear him better, just so you can memorize his words and the songs he’ll never let anyone else hear. It’s like he’s singing for you, like it’s a secret between the two of you except that he doesn’t know you know and you cherish those moments because it feels like a gift you weren’t expecting.
You get used to projecting and pretending the porcelain skin and gentle eyes he talks about are your skin, your eyes, your touch that brings him up and tears him down, your kisses that leave him breathless and begging for more and you can’t help but wish for the day when he’ll say your name along with the chorus, when he’ll blush and laugh and shake his head and do that adorable thing he does with his tongue as he apologizes to the crowd and confesses his love to you because yes, finally, and I love you more.
You get used to the questions to yourself late at night. Why do you love him? Was it because of the easy smiles and goofy laughter or because of the nights he spent crying on your shoulder over something you never truly understood? Was it because of the way he touched you, opened you up and made a home in your heart without ever asking for permission or was it because he tiptoed around you when you asked for space, because he said sorry, I didn’t mean to when your fingers brushed accidentally, when you bumped into each other and fell down on your knees? Why do you love him? Or, better yet, how could you not? Who does he write for, and why can’t it be you? Why is he longing for someone else’s touch when you’re always standing right beside him, when you’re the one he stares at when he sings, when…
“Who do you write your songs for?”
Atsumu looks a bit confused as he stares up at him again. His eyebrows are furrowed and his lips are sealed shut in a straight line, his cheeks slightly pink as he shivers, as his hands curl into fists and he takes a deep breath. “Why?”
“No reason,” Kiyoomi tells him. “It’s just something we think about. You’ve never mentioned a lover and people ask us in interviews and on social media. It’s just, it would be nice to know. I think.”
His cheeks burn red hot and he clenches his teeth, biting down on the guilt and anguish that slowly climb up his throat with their prickly fingers, scratching his muscles raw, the pain shaking him and making him muffle a whimper with a cough as he looks away, up at the moon and the stars and how they mimic the freckles that spread across his cheeks and the bridge of his nose when he’s out in the sun for far too long, the sun leaving kiss marks over his skin as if it’s mocking him, mocking the desire that makes his skin crawl and the blood boil inside his veins.
Miya Atsumu, the god who goes up in flames and dances around the ashes of the worlds he has destroyed, who rises in the morning with a yawn and teary eyes, who climbs up Kiyoomi’s bed and giggles childishly as he whispers a morning to ya, Omi-kun, what shall we have for breakfast today? Miya Atsumu, the man who makes his heart skip a beat when he smiles so tenderly, when he hops and almost trips, when his voice cracks and they have to start over.
“The night is pretty,” he replies.
Kiyoomi snorts. “It is,” he says back. His throat itches with the words he can’t bring himself to let out, with the words he’s been gulping down for so, so long. But you’re prettier. I love you.
“You know…”
His stories always start like this, the flicker of a flame, sparks of a memory and the laughter that bursts out of his chest when he starts talking about his childhood and how the Miya twins were troublemakers by heart . When he talks, he glows pink and when he sings, he glows yellow and golds and that one thing that is so inherently his Kiyoomi doesn’t even have the words to describe. He glows Atsumu in every sense of the word and he blinds everyone who dares to get too close, the yellow light that danced over him, lashes drooping downwards as he held the mic as a lifeline, as he whispered and whispered and whispered before a scream burst through, before his voice cracked and he poured out his soul over the crowd gathered in front of them. With your uncanny ability to turn my blood into liquid gold, I can still taste the honey that poured from your lips as I drowned in each sacred kiss.
Maybe it’s the leftover adrenaline from the gig earlier that night or maybe it’s because his heart has been locked up inside the silver box Atsumu now holds in his hands oh, so tenderly. Or maybe it’s because he’s a pawn on the evil schemes of Fate, maybe Kiyoomi didn’t really want to resist and let himself be dragged along by the leash wrapped around his throat, trotting behind him and relishing in the praise that followed soon after. Pathetic, really, truly pathetic, and yet.
Yet, Kiyoomi couldn’t help but wish for more when Atsumu smiled at him like he’s doing now, when he let his body fall forward and his head rests against his shoulder, when bleached locks tickle the sensitive skin on his neck and Kiyoomi has to gulp down a giggle.
“I thought I knew everything about ya,” he whispers, his fingers playing with a loose strand on Kiyoomi’s pants. “I thought big, mean Omi-kun wouldn’t ever be playing with us. Omi-kun, the big, stuck up, full-of-himself jerk who actually agreed to hang out with us while smirking that stupid smirk of yers.”
Kiyoomi snorts, “Is that you just trying to roast me, now?”
“I haven’t finished,” he giggles softly, his voice dying out in the middle. Kiyoomi feels him shivering, feels him gulping and for a second or two he allows himself to hope, allows himself to hold tight to that belief, to the thousands of daydreams and stupid, stupid smiles he can never gulp down, not when Atsumu smiles at him like that , not when he comes closer and rests his chin on the crook of his neck because, surely, friends don’t do that, do they? “My point is that big, mean Omi-kun is actually a lot softer than ya look, ya know? I don’t think it’s something ya notice often, but yer actually really gentle and caring. Still a bit full of yerself, not gonna lie, but it’s part of the charm.”
Ah.
Kiyoomi stops functioning for a second or maybe three hours, his heart unsure of what rhythm even means, his hands shaking from where they rest over his lap and his throat suddenly dry, his lips painfully chapped, almost bleeding from the strain when Kiyoomi opens his mouth and then closes it again because what the actual fuck. Atsumu isn’t looking at him, his hands curled into fists over his thighs, his eyes focused on the moon peeking from behind the endless sea of clouds that envelop it in a tight, tight hug as if they’re the only things keeping it from falling victim to gravity’s pull and ah , Kiyoomi gulps, this is nothing like the love songs he writes about.
“Did,” he tries, his voice cracking and dying down in the middle. “Did you just say I’m charming?”
“See?” Atsumu laughs, closing his eyes and snuggling closer. “It’s just… ya never hold back. Not with the snarks, not with the compliments and yer actually the only person who ever tries to one-up me in that. Props to ya, Omi-kun, yer a real catch. That or I just happen to find that really, really attractive.”
I feel like a music box only coming alive to your touch.
With your golden fingertips, lighting me up and bringing the song to my lips, letting me live.
It’s hard to breathe, hard to think, hard to exist when all he wanted to do was scream and let it die down under his blankets, the frenetic rhythm of a loverman’s heart, the trembling of his hands and the choked groan he lets loose when he imagines Atsumu huddled at the studio in a ridiculous hour in the morning when he knows no one will intrude, wearing the glasses he insists he doesn’t need to wear, the glasses that make his eyes look adorably huge. He imagines him sitting on the floor with his notebooks and stacks of music sheets sprawled out on the floor, over the table, everywhere else he could find. He imagines him thinking about the perfect metaphors and oh.
“And now I don’t even know why I’m telling ya this whole thing,” he laughs, the warmth of his presence suddenly disappearing from Kiyoomi’s shoulder, the absence of him making Kiyoomi muffle a whimper. “But it was boiling inside my chest and it hurt and I just… I needed to say it. Because it feels like I’m a quitter if I don’t, it feels like I’m a coward and just writing about ya isn’t enough anymore.”
Fuck.
Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.
Kiyoomi isn’t sure what he looks like right now, but it’s probably not good. He feels his cheeks heat up at the same time his hands grow cold, at the same time his throat starts closing in on itself, a prickly lump settling right in the middle of his windpipe and it’s so fucking hard to breathe . He lets his mouth hang open and then decides to close it only to let it hang open again because what the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck. He almost wants to laugh, almost wants to ask him why, why, why over and over again because You, the beauty I see, instills in me an everlasting energy is far from the truth when he’s this wrecked by a confession that hits him like a truck, that drowns him in a sea of doubt and euphoria and it’s so conflicting Kiyoomi isn’t sure if he even knows how to swim anymore.
“It’s fine if we brush it off as a midnight talk kind of thing, Omi,” Atsumu whispers to him, to the moon, to all of the gods and ghosts that linger in their living room this late at night while Bokuto and Hinata sleep safe and sound upstairs, unaware of the tsunami that slowly approached. “It doesn’t have to mean anything, ‘m just letting ya know.”
“That… the songs are about, uh, me?”
He wants to cry when Atsumu nods, still staring at the moon, at the constellations he used to describe Kiyoomi’s moles and freckles and the whirlpool of them that make me lose my mind when you hold me close, tender, and dissipate like an illusionist’s dream. He wants to cry when he looks back at him with teary eyes, with his bottom lip stuck between his teeth because I wonder what it would feel like, to feel you without a wall between us again and again, if the sound of your voice would lull me to sleep or release the beast inside of me.
A nod.
A shy, unsure nod as he lets a shiver rock him, as he drops his head and lets his hair cover his face and the pink that quickly spreads through his cheeks. Ethereal, untouched, at an arm’s length. Ripped around the edges, really, but a masterpiece nonetheless. He reaches for him, trembling fingers and burning lungs, a choked whimper escaping his lips once he touches his skin, once he lifts up his chin and forces him to look, look at me, I’m here, there are no walls between us. Kiyoomi smiles, the warmth of a lonely tear sliding down his face, mimicking the ones that now taint Atsumu’s cheeks.
“Do you want to know what I thought about you?”
Atsumu bursts, a laugh making spit flow out of his mouth, everywhere, and the tears suddenly stop when he sniffs and shakes his head, when he stares straight into Kiyoomi’s eyes and smiles that fond smile only he knows how to. And then, “Would I ever want to?”
“You looked perfect,” he replies, Atsumu squealing under his touch, closing his eyes and trying to run away. Kiyoomi is faster, wrapping one arm over his shoulders and bringing him closer, closer, closer, until his face is buried in his chest and Kiyoomi can feel his warmth, until he can feel his hands clutching at his shirt, his nails digging into his chest and ah . “You were an asshole, you are an asshole and it makes me want to punch you sometimes. But you’re also caring and sweet and it makes me mad, how much I like you. The stupid smiles and the stupid nicknames and, fuck, the winks and everything else. The way you glow when you’re on stage and how you dance around me, how you look at me and it feels like the world burns. I hate you for making me such a sap but I don’t think I would’ve had it any other way.”
“That almost sounds like a confession, Omi.”
There’s playfulness in his voice, that strain Kiyoomi’s grown so used to hearing first thing in the morning as he walks in the kitchen to the loud conversations and giggles and hums that come from the three loud housemates he’s found himself with. There’s a hint of doubt, of insecurity, of all the things Kiyoomi’s grown used to hearing late at night when they can’t sleep, when the moon watches over them and makes sure their secrets are well-kept. There’s love in his voice, the kind of love that sets a world on fire, the kind of love that causes earthquakes and tsunamis, the kind of love that Kiyoomi wouldn’t mind drowning in.
“I thought that’s what we were doing?”
His voice dives into a whisper as he buries his head further into Kiyoomi’s chest, as he snuggles up to him and lets Kiyoomi wrap his arms around his body, as they melt against each other like the tangled mess of broken strings Kiyoomi’s thrown out a few days ago. Atsumu whispers words Kiyoomi can’t understand and his name and a few more unrecognizable words as he soaks his shirt with tears. And then he laughs, the sound echoing in an empty, dark living room, the moon swirling with a thousand shades of silver and the clouds whispering their names when they pass by and Kiyoomi starts laughing, too.
Sinking, it seems, was the only thing they could do. Sinking further into each other’s embrace, further into a relentless sea and drowning in their very unspoken confessions, the thousands of words they’d gulped down for so, so long before. Sinking into the cold floor of their living room as their bandmates slept soundly one floor up, as they dreamed and dreamed and dreamed.
Atsumu feels warm and inviting as he melts against his chest, Kiyoomi finds out, his hands burying themselves into soft golden strands that glow bright and mighty when he’s on stage, when he shakes the world with his voice and leaves everyone gasping for more. Miya Atsumu, a kaleidoscope of everything Kiyoomi still has to pick up from the wooden floor, the tens of thousands of tiny little pieces he’ll gladly spend the rest of his life putting together.
“Hey?”
“Mm?”
Kiyoomi will learn all parts of him one day.
He’ll split him open with a knife and tie his hands up with the broken strings on his guitar, bruised fingers travelling through soft, freckled skin, lips brushing against his cheeks, the tip of his nose and his neck and then down, down, down until Atsumu doesn’t have any other choice but to surrender, to bow his head down for the first time in his life and allow Kiyoomi to break him, to piece him back together only to break him again in a never ending cycle of discovery, a never ending cycle of birth and rebirth as they find out what loving and being loved back means, as they find out what happiness truly looks like.
And he chuckles as he asks: “Can you sing for me?”
A smile is all he gets as an answer.