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“Yo, it’s her again.”
Atsumu’s shoulders slump as Koushi pats his back. “You couldn’t shut up about it or something?” he sighs as he steps forward.
“A man must fight his own battles,” Keiji says, returning Koushi’s high-five with a snicker.
“Good luck, Atsumu,” Tooru smiles at him. “We’ll wait for you at the side.”
She’s the fifth girl this week—not counting how many times she’s appeared—and Atsumu’s running out of patience and tact to reject them without hurting their feelings. He’s not like his friends who could easily dangle a thread of temptation in front of girls and not get swarmed in an instant, because he’s not here to do that. He’d joined the Flower Club since it was recommended to him as being the one with the fastest collection in merit points, but the only collection he’s gotten so far is in terms of girls crushing on him, and not the good kind either.
“I’m really sorry, but I cannot accept this,” he pushes back the box of chocolates, offering her the kindest smile he could muster. “I appreciate your feelings, however. Thank you.”
“If you do, then take them! I made them specially for you, Atsumu.”
Atsumu sucks in a wince. He hates strangers calling him by his given name, though this girl is practically harmless. He would’ve liked her more if she wasn’t very persistent in giving him sweet delicacies. “No, please take them with you. I really cannot accept this.”
“But—”
“I’m sorry, thank you. Goodbye.”
“Take the chocolates, nutface.”
Atsumu’s eyebrows shoot up and he turns in the direction of the new voice. It’s a male student: tall and dark-haired, with a single safety pin on his left ear. He’s glaring at Atsumu from not too far of a spot behind the girl, who’s backing away with the box clutched tightly to her chest. The other guys exchange confused looks.
Atsumu shifts his attention to the new party, head tilted in polite vexation. “What’s your business here?” he asks.
“I’ll tell you once you’ve learned some basic manners.”
Koushi whistles—he’s the only one who could—and nudges Tooru excitedly. It’s the first time that one of them is the target of a scuffle. “Bet?” he grins.
Tooru stares at him, then cracks a smile. “Please, this is a no-brainer. No-win.”
“No, there’s a win,” Keiji interrupts, the playful light in his eyes gone. “That guy’s not to be messed with.”
“How do you know?”
“Bokuto lost to him. I don’t know what they got into a fight for, but Bokuto never loses.”
“Too late for that.” Koushi nods his chin and they turn just as the new guy knocks down Atsumu with a right hook. “I’m not picking him up,” he says, feeling the pain on his own jaw.
“Stop moving, nutface!”
Atsumu grabs Kenjirou, which is a bad move because Kenjirou’s wearing one of those jackets with a jagged zip and it digs into the cuts on his palm. He retracts his hand, groaning, and punches him on the shoulder instead. “Why does your jacket feel like teeth?”
“Why did you molest the granite pavement?”
“Hey, bowlcut,” he jabs at Kenjirou’s clavicles, incessantly until he gets a reaction. “Call me ‘nutface’ again and I’ll crack your face.”
“I’m going to stop being your personal nurse if you do.”
“Alright, cut the homoerotism. Let’s talk about what happened,” Tooru claps his hands, stepping over the tangle of legs hanging off the couch. He stands in front of the coffee table, arms akimbo, and regards them solemnly like the host that he is. “Red card?”
“Wait, isn’t that too soon?” Tobio raises a hand. “He’d only made contact with Atsumu. I don’t think it’s fair.”
“I don’t think it’s fair either that Atsumu got randomly beaten,” Eita crosses his arms, resting his legs on the coffee table. His eyes momentarily challenge Kenjirou’s judgmental ones peering over Atsumu’s shoulder before he swivels them back to Tooru, crossing his ankles. “I say yes.”
“Yes,” Kenma chimes in huskily. He reddens at his cracked voice and hides behind his long hair, pulling his phone closer to his face. “If we don’t keep him in line, who knows whom he’ll go for next?”
Koushi frowns. “True, but… it doesn’t make sense. Atsumu’s the newest member of the club; why would he attack him first?”
Eita shrugs, catching the cigarette box Tobio had tossed across. “I don’t think anyone needs a reason to attack at random. You don’t get to choose which fish to pull out of the water.” He slips one cigarette between his teeth, biting down as he lights it. “Atsumu’s probably the easiest target.”
“I know…”
“Don’t just agree!” Atsumu whines.
One of Tooru’s brows quirk. “Is that a veto, Koushi?”
Koushi nods. “I disagree. I don’t think it’s right to throw him into the sharks for that one thing. And it was just one right hook, clean, and then a swift exit. He didn’t even talk to the girl, which means he’s a total stranger.”
Atsumu exhales in disappointment, shaking his head. “So much for a friend,” he mutters, accidently biting his tongue when Kenjirou tightens the bandages around his hand. “Ow! What’s your problem?!”
“Three vetoes.”
Atsumu whips towards Keiji as his tongue throbs. “You’re not going to tell me to fight him personally, are you?”
“No,” Keiji shakes his head. “In fact, I’d rather you don’t fight him at all. Like I told you, Bokuto lost to him, and you all know how strong he is.”
“Strong enough to make you this obedient, apparently.” With a pat of finality, Kenjirou releases Atsumu and starts storing away the first aid kit as an excuse to not meet Keiji’s gaze. “What, did he beat you into submission too?”
“Hey, he’s a good friend of mine.”
Kenjirou shakes his head with a small smile. “Not good enough for me.” To Tooru, he says, “I say yes to the red card. If that guy has a problem with us, he should know not to have it. No one messes with the Flowers and gets away with it.”
The clubroom falls silent at that. Even Kenma’s phone is muted, not producing its bubbly pops. Atsumu raises his head to look at them, at his friends. All of them older and younger, all of them drop-dead gorgeous and filthy rich, and also spoiled rotten down to their bones.
Atsumu didn’t know better when he first joined the Flower Club, only hoping to collect the merit points so he could get through the rest of the semesters more relaxedly. Even with all the pain that comes with being in the easygoing club (being part of the pretty boy squad, if he were to borrow Tooru’s words), he wouldn’t exchange this for anything in the world. They’re all his closest friends, if not the only ones, and he doesn’t want them to get hurt if he could prevent it. He would go to lengths for them, but one thing he has never and won’t tolerate is their method of dealing with inconveniences, which is to mark every student who’s crossed them with a single red card as a warning that’ll unleash the wrath of the entire student populace on them.
“That’s three for the red card and three against it,” Tooru headcounts with his pinkie. “As usual, I’ll leave myself for last, so…” He turns to Atsumu. “What’s your call?”
“‘This is for the right hook. I hope you like eggs in your hair.’” Motoya snatches the red card from Kiyoomi’s hands, flipping it around to inspect it. “What the hell did you do, Omi?”
Kiyoomi doesn’t answer. He knew something must’ve happened because people were giving him weird looks the moment he stepped in the campus, but he’d thought it was limited to social media only. It never occurred to him that they’d resort to old-fashioned threats, especially not when he supposedly holds the only key to his locker. So much for privacy.
He lets out a long, exasperated exhale. His classes are brutally long today and he’d prefer not to have any trivial matter plague him. He takes back the red paper and crumples it, pocketing it for the nearest trash can on his way to the first class. “I did the right thing,” he says to Motoya, stuffing books and files into his bag. “I’ll see you for lunch.”
Kiyoomi’s ignorant, but he’s not stupid. He knows he shouldn’t have butted in the situation with the girl who keeps chasing after that nutface as he’s in no better position than she is. Even if he thought he’d done it out of justice, he’s going to be pushed down lower in the social circle. To begin with, Kiyoomi’s always been at the bottom rung, but the appearance of the red card stuck in his locker is the final blow to tip him over completely.
He sees the egg fly in the corner of his eye and catches it before it could hit him. It cracks and splatters in his hand, but at least his hoodie is spared. It’s his favorite and he’d just gotten it back from the laundry with the fragrant flower detergent. He flaps his hand to get rid of the shell and most of the egg, grimacing.
“Omi…” Motoya says shakily.
A large crowd has surrounded them, holding eggs and cartons of them. Some are even holding full bags of flour and heavy balloons, the sight of which snaps Kiyoomi into alertness. Before those things are launched at him, he grabs Motoya’s wrist and pushes through an opening in the crowd, ignoring his unlocked locker. His Tuesday timetable is brutal, but he’s thankful for it because all of his materials are stowed in his bag.
Nowhere feels safe. When he’s not attending classes, Kiyoomi’s often tucked himself away in the deepest corners of the library, but he doubts the librarian will let him in, considering that the whole campus is after him. His right hand is also sticky and stinky from raw egg, and he vows to throw one back at that nutface. Right now, he’s got to make sure neither he nor Motoya get turned into cake batter.
There’s absolutely nowhere Kiyoomi could think of hiding in. Not only is he an outsider socially, he’s also still alien to the university’s layout. The library is his only haven and it’s not even an option. Kiyoomi’s starting to feel bad for dragging his innocent cousin into the grave he’d dug for himself and begun to slow his steps once they’re in the clear, when he’s yanked into an alley.
Motoya slams into him from the impact and they hit the brick wall in a tangle of arms and heavy breaths. Kiyoomi keeps his egg-stained hand away from touching either of them, but holds it up for their savior to see. “Thanks for the egg on my hand, nutface,” he glowers. He’s tempted to smear what’s left of the slimy egg on his face, but the bruise stops him. Besides, he’s not mad. Not yet, not enough to punch the flower boy a second time.
“Before you hold a grudge on me, let me explain myself.”
“I think I already know what you’re going to say. I’m rich, so I get to do whatever I want whenever I want at my bidding. Am I right, trust-fund baby?”
The air is knocked out of Kiyoomi’s lungs as he’s pushed back on the wall, his airway restricted by the arm pressed over his neck. The flower boy glares up at him, his long lashes flitting in the sliver of sunlight. “Do not call me a trust-fund baby,” he snarls, teeth gritted.
Motoya hesitates to deescalate the situation, which Kiyoomi doesn’t blame him for. He feels even more sorry for him now, because he knows how hard Motoya had worked to get here, and he’d selfishly destroyed it for a random girl. On hindsight, maybe Kiyoomi should’ve turned a blind eye to it, as her life’s probably ruined the moment he intervened uninvited. He wasn’t expecting to be thanked, so maybe that’s why he didn’t see her at the bus stop today.
The flower boy pulls away, his intimidating air dissipating just as quickly as it’d appeared. “I wasn’t the one who sent the card. It sounds like a load of bull, but I really didn’t.”
Kiyoomi fixes him with a suspicious stare, which he reciprocates evenly. Lying through body language can be perfectly mastered, but Kiyoomi could tell that’s not the case for him. The Flower Club is known to be a group of spoiled rich kids who rely on their money and looks to get away with basically everything, but none of them has gone out of their way to tell their red card recipients that they didn’t send it. If that’s their new tactic, deterring their victims by toying with their hearts, then it’s sick and twisted of them, but Kiyoomi has a hunch that this one in particular is not quite like the others.
“Then, did you write what’s on it?” he asks.
“Huh? Oh, the egg comment? Yeah, I did.” He shuffles back to avoid Kiyoomi’s raised fist, hands up in surrender. “But it was only a passing remark! I was joking when I said it. I didn’t know they’d actually write it on the card.”
“Even if you’d kept your mouth shut, they’d still have done it, wouldn’t they?”
The flower boy’s shoulders sag and his hands fall to his sides. “Yeah… I was too late to stop them. I’m sorry.”
Kiyoomi’s ignorant, but he’s not uninformed. Upon being granted scholarship into the prestigious university, Motoya became his de facto informant, his unofficial guide when it comes to the notorious Flower Club. The unhealthy amount of information that was unloaded on his first day is still swimming in a muddled pool in his head, but one thing that’s always stuck out is the Flower Club’s patent lack of manners. They’re total bad boys, like bad bad. Don’t-cross-them-at-all bad. They’re the type to make you walk the plank because you walked in front of them.
This flower boy, though? Kiyoomi has a hard time picturing him in that image, though it’s mostly because the picture itself is ridiculous. It’s the apology that stops him short, because it’s out of character. He doesn’t think that’s a personality trait in any of the Flower Club boys whom Motoya had portrayed in excessive exaggeration. “I’m guessing I didn’t just pick a fight with you, but with the entire Flower Club. Am I right?”
“Yeah, I’m sorry.”
Kiyoomi searches for a chink on the flower boy’s face, any potential crack that would unravel the fact that his intervention is part of an ambush plan. His eyes flit to Motoya, who looks like he’s about to pee on the spot. He sighs—it’s all up to him now. “Why do you refuse her chocolates every time?” he asks, changing the subject.
“Chocolates? You mean from yesterday?” Kiyoomi nods. “Oh, I don’t like them. Chocolates, I mean.”
“Then why didn’t you tell her that?”
“Because I didn’t want to hurt her feelings!”
Kiyoomi makes a disapproving face. “You’re not a very good Flower Club boy, are you, nutface?”
“Stop calling me ‘nutface’, I’m Miya Atsumu!”
“Okay, Miya Atsumu, is there any way to make your crazy followers stop throwing eggs at me?”
Miya Atsumu thinks about it, his facial muscles twitching tensely and screwing to the center. “They’ll stop after a week, I suppose,” he says after a while.
“A week? Where do they get all those eggs from? Do you stockpile them while you pick out a random person to send the cards to?”
“I don’t know, okay? It’s not like I wanted this to happen either.”
Kiyoomi shakes his head, turning away. His class has definitely started, but he’s lost the determination to head there. The egg has hardened on his hand and he’s got flour on his pants; seven hours of class in that state will ruin him faster than the week-long bullying could. It’s not in his personality trait to lie low, but he knows it’s best to skip the entire day if he wants to avoid the worst of it.
“All because one guy can’t say no to chocolates,” he grumbles under his breath. “Toya, I can’t meet you for lunch, sorry. I want to wash these off before they become permanent stains.”
“It’s okay!” Motoya stutters, fiddling with his fingers. “Um… can I ask you something, Miya?”
He turns, a little confused. “Yes?”
“If you didn’t want to send the red card, why was it sent anyway?”
Kiyoomi doesn’t like that the question is what makes him avoid their eyes. “It was through a voting system. For every person that they have problems with, they’ll gather and vote to decide if they should send a red card. The majority wins, even if the problem doesn’t concern them.”
“And you’re in the minority?”
Miya Atsumu shakes his head reluctantly. “It was a tie. They just wanted to make an example out of you, the scholarship kid, because you’re relying on their funds. If they wanted to, they could get you expelled, but that’s not what they want.”
Now Kiyoomi feels would be a justifiable time to punch him. He doesn’t—instead, he fists Miya Atsumu’s collar with his clean hand and pins him against the wall. “Do they want me to drop out on my own? Because I’m not going to, so tell your pretty little friends that they can do whatever they want and I’m not budging.” He lets go and starts to walk away, then stops and says over his shoulder, “If she approaches you again with more chocolates, just tell her you don’t like it. Don’t make other people waste their money like you do.”
“It doesn’t look to me like it’s affecting him at all.” Tooru hums a short tune, pirouetting to face the others. “Has he messed with you after the red card was issued, Atsumu?”
“No, not at all.”
“He must be a fast learner,” Keiji quips from the kitchen, where he’s icing cupcakes with Koushi and Tobio watching. “Too bad he picked another fight with Bokuto and lost. Lady Luck doesn’t give second chances.”
Hearing that pauses Atsumu’s reading, which is subtle but doesn’t go unnoticed. “What? You seem worried, Atsumu,” Eita points out from the beanbag by the wall, a cigarette dangling precariously between his lips.
“I’m not.”
“Instead of picking on others, how about you stop smoking here?” Kenjirou plucks out the cigarette and squashes it in the ashtray, eliciting a squawk from Eita. “Go endanger your health where no one cares. We’d like to breathe in this room.”
Eita’s offended gaping mouth curls upward to an amused smirk. “You seem like you’ve got a stick up your butt. What’s up, Kenjirou? Need me to ease it out for you?”
Tooru groans. “Stop flirting with everyone! You’re our most promising member with the future of a doctor; you can’t throw it away for a bunch of lowlifes like us,” he cries petulantly, throwing himself over Kenjirou in a drunken manner. “If that’s what you like, at least go for the better ones.”
“Get off! Don’t kiss me!”
“You’re all disgusting,” Koushi hollers from the kitchen, Tobio munching on one iced cupcake beside him. “What about that girl with the chocolates, Atsumu? I haven’t seen her in a while.”
“Yeah, did you finally tell her off?” Keiji adds.
Atsumu shakes his head, remembers that they can’t see him because of the couch, then says, “I just told her I don’t like chocolates. She got me a mini cake instead and I accepted it. That’s it.”
“‘That’s it’? What a buzzkill!” Eita grouches, kicking at the floor with his boots. “I was expecting something steamier, or even dramatic, like maybe that guy secretly likes her and he wants to show her that you’re a wimp by beating you up.”
“I’m not a wimp, and he doesn’t like her.”
It’s the wrong thing to say. Atsumu shuts the book he’s holding and throws it on the table as a series of hooting and whistling ensue.
“How do you know that he doesn’t like her?” Tooru wiggles his brows once the commotion has died down, smushing his cheek on Kenjirou’s shoulder. “Did you exchange numbers with her?”
“Atsumu… you can’t just leave us out of the loop like that,” Koushi tuts in mock disappointment. “Cheeky boy, is that why you’ve been so quiet for the entire week?”
“No, it’s nothing like that,” Atsumu protests weakly.
“Maybe you like him.”
Everyone’s head swivels to Kenma, who’s perched on the window seat without a device. He jumps at the attention, hugging his knees closer as he stares back at them.
“Where’d that thought come from?” Tobio asks with a burp, muttering a quick excuse me.
Kenma only points out the window and they run over to look outside. The Flower Club is situated at the top floor of the main hall, a vantage point that allows a wide panoramic view of the campus courtyard. From five stories up, it takes a little bit of finder’s magic to identify a specific figure, but Sakusa Kiyoomi is not hard to spot with his starkly dark outfits. They find him on the right, sitting on a bench with the chocolate girl, both of them sharing a packet of cookies. She gestures for him to lean in, which he hesitates, and swipes a finger over his lips. Sakusa Kiyoomi leans back in surprise, then breaks out into a smile so wide it’s out of character.
The last contact Atsumu’s made with him is when he’d pulled him and his friend into the alley last week, which is great because honestly speaking, Atsumu’s afraid of him (Bokuto is hellishly strong, meaning Sakusa Kiyoomi is also on the same level of Hercules as him). It was Atsumu’s one and only encounter with him that wasn’t entirely hostile, which says a lot because they haven’t had many encounters and both of them had ended with Atsumu mostly pissing him off. Seeing that unbridled show of joy on the face of someone he’d thought to be the gloomiest is quite the whiplash.
Again, Atsumu’s not as subtle as he thinks himself to be, because Koushi notices his frown. “Hey, did he mess with you again?” he asks gently, placing a hand on Atsumu’s arm.
“He probably stole that girl right under your nose while you rejected her continuously. Girls like underdogs like that,” Eita scoffs, crossing his arms with a shake of his head. “Shall we send him a second red card?”
“No!” Atsumu freezes. The objection slipped out too soon, too quickly. They turn back to him in puzzlement. “I mean, no, it’s not necessary. He didn’t do anything wrong. If anything, he’s indirectly helping me by occupying her time.”
“Not good enough,” Kenjirou turns with a smile, a rare sight and one to be feared. Being one of the eldest members, he possesses a large amount of power in the issuance of red cards, but what makes him daunting is the simple fact that he’s the one who’d established Flower Club. He’s also the one who has the largest share in the entire university, which in turn made him the unofficial leader of the eight of them. Eita had gotten a taste of Kenjirou’s wrath and he refuses to talk about it, not even with how nonchalant he acts around him.
The others sidle away, watching anxiously as he talks to Atsumu. “We don’t need reasons to send red cards, you know that, right? Though, since this is caused by your reaction, maybe there is a reason to send this second card.”
“No message on the card?” Tooru, Kenjirou’s righthand man, asks. “Just plain old ‘you’re dead’, is it?”
Kenjirou hums thoughtfully. “Why don’t we change things up a bit? Make this… steamier, as per Eita’s words. Let’s send it to her instead.”
A loud silence washes over them as his words sink in. Atsumu’s hands ball into fists, but he can’t bring himself to say anything. He’s too afraid, too terrified of being the odd one out for not sharing the mob mentality.
Tooru frowns. “Why her? It’s not going to sit right since she did nothing beyond giving Atsumu sweets, and now she’s left him alone.” He pauses, his lips pursing uncomfortably for a split second. “It might scare the other girls away, too.”
“I don’t care if it does. They were never serious in the first place, all of them gold-diggers.” Kenjirou looks out the window again. “Something’s not adding up about those two. They didn’t know each other, but now they’re together. Doesn’t that sound suspicious to you?”
“It’s missing some holes, sure, but it’s none of our business, Kenjirou.”
“It’s all of our business. If not for our money, where would they all be?” Kenjirou looks at Atsumu squarely, unblinking. “If we sent them both red cards, then we’d also find out which one Atsumu likes.” He raises his hand. “I say yes.”
Atsumu has to bite down his mouth to prevent any more objections. Regardless of whether the voting results for the first red card was a tie or a veto’s win, if Kenjirou says ‘yes’, then it’s a ‘yes’. Atsumu forces himself to keep his eyes levelled on him while the others raise their hands, one by one, and therefore concluding the result of the voting.
“Kiyoomi, what is this…?”
He pockets his phone to look at what Kanoka’s holding and his heart feels as if it’s dropped to his gut. Her hand is quivering, yet she holds onto the red card so hard that a crease has formed. Kiyoomi takes it from her, flipping it over to check the other side. Thanks for the velvet cake, it says in sarcastically beautiful cursive. He should’ve smeared the egg on Atsumu’s face when he had the chance.
“Do you have any other classes after this?” he asks her, warily eyeing the people around them. They aren’t cornering them immediately like before, but they’re watching closely.
Kanoka shakes her head absently. Her eyes have gone out of focus and her lips are shaking.
Kiyoomi curses in his head. His attendance is bad enough with the magnificent truanting last week, but he’s not going to leave her alone. He balls up the red card and throws it on the floor, ignoring his personal value to not litter since the entire university is one giant trash pile anyway, and then takes her hand. “Come one, let’s go,” he urges softly. “We can’t be where there are many people.”
Unlike before, the other students are keeping their distance, but they’re faster to act. The egg hits Kiyoomi on his shoulder with a wet crack, exploding all the way up to his hair, and he sucks in a breath. It’s an old shirt, though the quality appears otherwise, so he doesn’t have to fret about washing it, but he’d just washed his hair. He’d just learned how to style it too and he’s happy that it looks decent.
Kanoka gasps. “Kiyoomi!”
The blast of dry air takes him by surprise, but his first instinct is to shield Kanoka. He pulls her into him and pushes her face onto his chest, angling his body so that most of her is covered. Some of the gas slips into his nostrils and he coughs, burying his face in the crook of his elbow. If they’re lucky, the person with the fire extinguisher will get bored and stop shooting it at them, presenting an opportunity for escape. That is, if they’re not yet cornered by an arsenal of eggs and flour catapults.
Kiyoomi knows he’s suffocating Kanoka, but he can’t risk loosening his arms. She’s got some of the worst luck in the world—being picked on for being too tall as a kid, having her first love misunderstand her attempt at confession and getting indirectly rejected, and now whatever this is called. Her persistence to give Atsumu chocolates stemmed from her need to thank him for helping keep her mother’s catering business afloat. He’s a regular customer who would always buy in bulk every week, and Kanoka only knew it was him after a year passed and their telephone number had to be changed. Atsumu had walked into the shop himself to place the orders, so naturally, she jumped at the chance to thank him. Little did she know, they both go to the same university, and it’s when she’d seen him a couple of times that the idea of giving him chocolates came to her.
And Atsumu’s way to show his appreciation is to send people to tyrannize her. All because of some chocolates. Forget the egg—Kiyoomi’s going to do worse than a single hook to that nutface.
The longer the fire extinguisher is fired, the dizzier he feels. Kiyoomi can’t distinguish white noise from the whoosh of the blast, but he thinks it’s stopped. There’s a shout and a couple of screams, and then a resounding clang. Something’s going on, something unprecedented, and Kiyoomi can’t tell. He can’t move, can’t breathe, and he’s too afraid that it’s not over. With what remains of his strength and consciousness, he prioritizes Kanoka, who’s begun sobbing.
“Kiyoomi…” she whimpers against his shirt, tugging at it. “I’m sorry…”
Kiyoomi thinks he responded, maybe said something like don’t be, but he can’t hear himself. He must’ve unknowingly inhaled more of the gas than he’d thought because his senses are leaving him one by one. What he does know is that he’s blacking out and someone’s cut the bullying short, because that someone catches him before he falls.
Atsumu’s going to be ostracized for this, he just knows it.
He had no idea how he’s going to find two people whose radars he’s been trying to stray out of, until he saw students running to a point. All he had to do was follow them to get there before they did, and also brace himself for a potential red card to appear on his desk. Hopefully they’ll be nice enough to not shoot him with a fire extinguisher.
He guesses there’s one good thing about this situation and that is his basic knowledge in looking after a physically abused person. The origin story isn’t fancy, as he’s the one who had to patch up his brother and himself after every fight they get into since their mother refused to. She said it’ll serve as a reminder that every action has consequences, and that if they intend to follow through with the execution in spite of that, they have to take responsibility for it. This is Atsumu’s way of taking responsibility for what he’d done, and though it’s not entirely his fault, he blames himself for it. He could’ve done something about the red card, spoke against it and vetoed until his voice was hoarse, but he didn’t. That lack of action also has consequences, and it’s probably why Kiyoomi is still lying on the guest bed unconscious.
Kanoka sits on a chair on the other side, her eyes red-rimmed and her hair wet from the shower. Atsumu sneaks glances at her when she’s not looking, turning away when she is. He can’t bring himself to look at her, his apology hanging miserably off the tip of his tongue.
“Atsumu, can I tell you something?”
He’s not expecting to be spoken to until Kiyoomi wakes up and does more than a hook to his face, but this beats the elongated silence. He nods. “Go ahead.”
“Kiyoomi was the one who suggested I make velvet cake for you. He said that’s what you like.”
Atsumu’s brows furrow, but he doesn’t say anything. Privacy is hard to come by as a Flower Club member and he doubts it’d taken Kiyoomi longer than a minute to figure that out. “He did?” he smiles, though for what, he doesn’t know.
Kanoka hums agreeingly. “He said I should try a different approach, that maybe you don’t like chocolates. And he was right.”
She laughs lightly and Atsumu allows himself to look at her, which lasts for a second because he’s tearing up. But for what? “That’s what you’d expect from a scholarship student,” he says, clenching his knuckles until they’re white.
“I don’t think I should be the one to say it, but he also said thank you.”
“‘Thank you’? To whom?”
“To you, Atsumu. He said he’s thankful that you helped him last week, and that he’s sorry for punching you.”
A tear falls. Atsumu wipes it away under the pretense of rubbing his face. “As he should be. It really hurt.” He can’t endure any longer; if he stays, he’s going to blow up. Atsumu stands, hands in his pockets, his peak nonchalance when he’s breaking on the inside. “He’ll be fine. The doctor said he’ll get up soon, so don’t worry.”
“Thank you, Atsumu,” Kanoka smiles up at him.
He nods, not trusting his voice to not waver. With a wave, he exits the room and leaves them alone to get fresh air. Atsumu leans on the door, catching the breaths he’d unknowingly held back. His friends have gone too far this time, but is he ready to bear the weight of being an outcast? There should still be some leftover perks with being an ex-Flower Club member, but it’s humiliating to be known as someone who’s kicked out of the elites. He’s also made an enemy out of the only other person he knows outside them, which doesn’t leave him with much in terms of friendship. He’s met with a dead end and he doesn’t know from who to ask help.
For the first time ever, Atsumu feels the loneliest even though he’s got everything he could ever ask for, and lets himself cry.
“What do you wish to achieve from us going on a trip?”
Atsumu sucks in a warning breath, shooting him a look of distress. “I just explained it to you. How are you a scholarship student if you’re slow like this?”
“My scholarship is only for academic purposes, not playing house with someone like you.” It’s a jest and Kiyoomi knows Atsumu knows it too, but he feels a twinge of regret after saying it. “I didn’t mean it like that,” he follows up.
“I know. You’re just being annoying.”
Kiyoomi kicks him under the table, sipping his drink.
It’s been a month since the fire extinguisher incident, which Atsumu’s lucky enough to not get kicked out of the Flower Club for. After a satisfying boxing session with Atsumu as the punching bag, Kiyoomi forgave him for his mistake in regards to Kanoka’s red card. One thing led to another and they’re sort of friends now—if Atsumu calling him to hang out at odd hours of the night and Kiyoomi kicking him every five minutes counts as being friends. They’d unanimously agreed to fake themselves as boyfriends in order to stop the next issuance of red cards to both Kiyoomi and Kanoka, as there’s a rule that the Flower Club is prohibited from touching anyone with relations to a member. It’s a stupid rule because the Flower Club should be prohibited from touching everyone, but that’s just how the world is. Money and looks make the world go round, apparently.
I mean, what can money not buy?
Air, nutface.
“Come with me to the trip, Omi. If I show up alone, they’ll get suspicious and think we’ve broken up or something,” Atsumu moans grumpily, bouncing on his booth like a child throwing a tantrum. His aggressive pout pulls out a chortle from Kiyoomi, who hides his laughter behind a sleeve. “Don’t laugh at me!”
“If only Toya and Kanoka could see you right now, they’ll stop thinking that you’re intimidating when you’re just a chihuahua.”
“You’d badmouth me to other people? What kind of boyfriend are you?”
“Not yours, that’s for sure.”
“Ironic of you to say that, when we’re clearly holding hands on the table.”
Kiyoomi kicks him again, but Atsumu had foreseen it and catches his leg between his. It’s easy to tell when Kiyoomi’s let down his guard because he doesn’t react well to Atsumu’s one-liners, mostly romantic ones. “Let go,” Kiyoomi grunts, trying to pull out his leg. “People can see us.”
“Let them feast their eyes, then. I’m not letting go until you say yes.”
“Okay, fine. I’ll go. Nutface.”
Atsumu enters a selective hearing phase when he’s asking for something and his free hand punches the air triumphantly. It’s both annoying and cute at the same time to watch him act like a little kid, but Kiyoomi will never admit it to him. Some things are better kept to himself.
“Let’s go shopping for clothes after this. I already have an image of what we’re going to wear,” Atsumu enthuses with shiny eyes. His eyelashes flutter as he blinks rapidly, something he unconsciously does when he gets excited. That’s also annoying and cute, but mostly annoying because Kiyoomi’s eyes hurt looking at him.
“Can’t we just stay in the hotel instead? I hate the sun and sand.”
“My goodness, Omi, aren’t you a bold one? We need to follow an order; it’s another Flower Club rule that you must obey—”
“It’s just us two here, nutface. Who’s going to penalize me if I do this?”
“Do what—”
The other patrons of the patisserie are too busy being with their own lovers to feast on their lovey-dovey act, but they do spare a glance at their table when Kiyoomi pulls Atsumu for a kiss. Sure, money and looks make the world go round, but in Atsumu’s world, only love does, and it’s love from Kiyoomi.