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Kiyoomi doesn’t hear the door open behind him over the music outside, nor does he hear it close again.
What he does hear is a subtle-not-subtle swear and a mild crash as the couple of flags stacked near the doorway topple over.
Kiyoomi closes his eyes. Air in through the nose, four counts. Air out through the mouth, eight counts.
“Miya,” he levelly says. “Why are you in my closet?”
He doesn’t know which Miya this is, not without looking, but either one would be a nightmare.
“Stole ‘Samu’s phone. Scooch over,” Miya says. Atsumu, then. The worse option for a multitude of reasons, not excluding his smile and how it makes Kiyoomi want to punch him in the face with his own face. Also not excluding his goddamn boner jokes (low brass, fucking disgusting.)
Kiyoomi only moves over because Atsumu is dripping with sweat and Kiyoomi would rather die than get even more teenage boy sweat on him. He still whacks Atsumu in the side with the butt of his rifle, though, and makes sure to tip the pile of sabers into falling on top of his pretty little (big) head.
The color guard’s closet is barely big enough for one average-sized boy, let alone a Kiyoomi-sized boy, let alone a Kiyoomi-sized boy and an Atsumu-sized boy. Their shoulders brush- both are in tanks, so it’s unpleasant enough that Kiyoomi debates using his rifle to knock Atsumu out and shove him out into the hallway. It would be so, so easy. His head’s big enough that it would be nearly impossible to miss, even if Kiyoomi wasn’t already known for his remarkable ability to club certain people in the back of the head during practice runs.
But also tomorrow’s a competition, and the guard instructor would probably kill him if he dented another rifle or flagpole. Not to mention the low brass captain’s inevitable and goddamn terrifying look of disappointment if his trombone section leader was down with a concussion on the day of the biggest competition of the year.
So Kiyoomi just scowls and nudges Atsumu away with his rifle, just hard enough to maybe leave a bruise. “Go hide in the percussion room.”
“Banned.”
“You’re also banned from the guard closet. Get out.”
“Uh, and risk getting my head smashed in with a mallet? Absolutely fucking not.”
“I could smash your head in with a flag.” Kiyoomi wiggles the closest flag. It wasn’t folded correctly, of course, fucking first years. He scowls and shoves his rifle in Atsumu’s direction. “Hold this.”
Atsumu accepts the rifle with a salute and a lazy smile. Oh, how Kiyoomi would love to wipe that smile off of his face. Preferably with his lips, but his fist would do just as well.
Kiyoomi gets to work on fixing the flag as best he can in the limited space he has. And then he has to do another, and another, because the guard captain this year has spent more time with the drum major behind the bleachers than teaching first years how to fold their damn flags properly. They’re going to get wrinkled, and Kiyoomi will be damned if they get points off for something as stupid as that tomorrow.
Halfway through his fifth flag, Atsumu clears his throat. “Uh, can I put this down now?”
He wiggles Kiyoomi’s rifle.
Kiyoomi shakes his head. “If you’re going to be in here interrupting me, you’re going to make yourself useful.”
“Was I interrupting you? I thought you were just putting your shit away for tonight.”
Today is a longer practice than usual. They have their usual after school practice, but tonight they’re practicing until nine with a break from five to six for dinner. Kiyoomi has plans to run home long enough to shove some instant noodles in his mouth before coming back and getting some extra practice in on his own. He’s never been the best with sabers, and the guard instructor, for whatever fucking reason, decided the entire second movement would be sabers. For dramatic flair, supposedly. It’s probably because she’s been bingeing that new samurai drama (she spams the group chat every Thursday night.)
“I was doing inventory,” Kiyoomi says. “Emphasis on was.”
“Am I that distracting?” Atsumu asks, knowing like he already knows the answer. His eye twitches like he wants to wink.
The answer, of course is, yes, he is distracting, especially in such tight quarters with his biceps showing.
The answer Kiyoomi gives, because he would rather stick an oboe through his eye than admit that he has a crush on fucking Miya Atsumu, is, “You have two minutes before I call Kita-san.”
Atsumu’s face pales dramatically. “You wouldn’t.”
Kiyoomi nudges a spare flagpole with his toe so that it falls down onto Atsumu’s shoulder. “I think you know the answer to that.”
“You are a cruel mistress, Omi-kun.”
“One minute.”
“What? No!” Atsumu claps a hand over his mouth, glancing at the door, and hisses. “You’re a bastard. No wonder you’re stuck in here doing inventory alone.”
“I volunteered, actually,” Kiyoomi shrugs. “And you’re the one whose only friend is your brother.”
Atsumu scowls. “We are not friends.”
“What did you do this time?”
“Why do you automatically assume that I did anything?” Atsumu demands. He pauses, considers, and says, “Don’t answer that question. But it’s his fault.”
Kiyoomi raises an eyebrow. Atsumu raises his own eyebrow. He looks goddamn criminal like this. Despicable. Thank God Kiyoomi grabbed his mask out of his backpack before coming to do inventory. If Atsumu had to see the smile on his face, well. Kiyoomi might impale himself with his own saber.
Kiyoomi didn’t hear Atsumu enter, but he does hear his brother lock the door. He also sees his brother lock the door through the narrow, rectangular window above the door knob.
“Miya,” Kiyoomi says, fist curled in the fabric of this poor first year’s flag so tight that it might as well tear off of the pole. Whatever smile he had a moment ago is gone, replaced with what feels like pure terror but what probably looks more akin to rage. “Give your brother his phone back. Right now.”
“What? No. Why?” Atsumu asks. He glances at the door, following Kiyoomi’s gaze, and freezes. “Oh my God.”
“It’s for your own good,” Osamu says, voice muffled through the door. “Just gotta do it.”
“Open the fucking door!” Atsumu demands, face growing red. He slams on the window with an open palm. “Osamu, this isn’t funny!”
And Osamu fucking grins, a direct mirror of how his twin looked not five minutes ago. Only his smile makes Kiyoomi want to knock his teeth in with his own timpani mallets.
“Nah, it’s kinda funny. Hate to do this to you, Omi-kun. Really.”
Kiyoomi rolls his eyes. “Don’t say things you don’t mean. Just let me out of here before you leave.”
Osamu clicks his tongue. “Sorry, can’t do that. I’ll bring you dinner, though. To make up for it.”
“What?”
This can’t be right. Can’t be happening. Kiyoomi is going to wake up from his post-algebra nap and go to practice and not get locked in a tiny closet with his crush.
Osamu waves, waggles his fingers, and turns and leaves.
Atsumu slams on the window again, yelling for his brother to come back already, he’ll give the phone back, fuck, dude, you’d better sleep with one eye open tonight.
It’s quiet in the hallway. When did it get so quiet? Everyone must have left for dinner. Leaving the two of them locked in this closet for an hour.
Kiyoomi takes in a deep breath through his nose, and drops the flag he’s holding against the wall, sitting down on the floor beside the pile of fallen sabers. He puts his head in his hands, and sighs.
“He’s an asshole,” Atsumu announces. “A bastard. A cockwaffle.”
“A dickweed?” Kiyoomi dryly offers. “Pickledick?”
“Pickledick?” Atsumu announces. He whispers it to himself, and says, louder, “He’s a goddamn pickledick.”
“Funny, because he called you that during practice today.”
Atsumu swears and knocks a flag over, presumably with Kiyoomi’s rifle, which he is still holding. The flag pole hits Kiyoomi right on the head, and he snaps his head up and shoots an unapologetic-looking Atsumu a glare.
“This is all your fault,” he says. “You could’ve just given him his phone back. Or did your pride not allow it?”
Atsumu has the nerve to look guilty- as good of a look on him as any, looking down at the tiled floor like a sad puppy. He mutters something that Kiyoomi can’t quite pick up, but what sounds an awful like, “I don’t have his phone.”
“I’m sorry.” Kiyoomi frowns and leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees and narrowing his eyes. “What did you just say?”
“I said that I… don’t have his phone?” Atsumu awkwardly laughs and rubs the back of his neck. “I stole it, but then I kinda stuck it in Akaashi-san’s backpack. It was a prank!”
“A prank,” Kiyoomi repeats, voice flat.
“Yeah! Stick his phone in his crush’s backpack, make him go and talk to him about food and shit. I was helping!”
“Your brother has a crush on Akaashi-san?”
“Uh, yeah, it’s pretty obvious. What, you guard kids too good for our drama?”
Atsumu’s judging him. Oh, God, Miya Atsumu is judging him. Judging him. He has no goddamn room to talk after making assistant drum major his freshman year and not paying attention to anyone but the drum major and his brother. Besides, he isn’t even correct. Kiyoomi, whether he likes it or not, hears everybody’s drama, because Motoya likes to be in everybody’s business. He and the twins’ friend, Suna, supposedly run the band’s underground news ring.
The problem is that Kiyoomi is more oblivious than a blind and deaf cat. He didn’t know about his own crush on Ushijima from the trumpet section until his weird clarinet friend cornered Kiyoomi after practice one afternoon and asked if he was staring out of jealousy or attraction. He didn’t know about his own crush on Atsumu until just a week ago when Motoya told him to his face that he was glaring less harshly than usual.
Kiyoomi could say that.
Instead, he says, “I thought your brother and Suna-san were together.”
“Oh, they are, but ‘Samu’s got two hands, and Suna wants someone to give his extra lunch to,” Atsumu replies. He snorts and shakes his head. “They’re a fucking mess. I dunno if you caught it earlier, but Akaashi-san offered Suna a sip from his water, and Suna nearly smacked him in the face with his slide he was nodding so fast.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“They’re disasters! I’m just trying to help, but nooo, I’m the bad guy.” Atsumu pouts, it’s adorable, and he leans against the door and slides to the floor. The two of them are so close that their legs just barely touch. “So, yeah, no phone to give him. No phone to call for help, either, ‘cause he stole mine before practice. I haven’t seen it since.”
“And I left my phone in my backpack.” Kiyoomi knocks his head against the wall gently. “So we’re stuck here for an hour.”
“Could be worse. He could’ve pulled this after practice.”
“I think we would kill each other if we were stuck in here overnight.”
“I dunno what you’re talking about. I’m a goddamn delight to hang around.”
Kiyoomi obviously can’t agree, so he rolls his eyes. “Sure. And I eat ass on the weekends.”
“Party Omi?”
“Throw yourself in front of the band bus.”
“You’d miss me, I know it.”
Kiyoomi would. He very much would. It would be too quiet, and he doesn’t like being alone with his thoughts. It’s easier when he’s distracted by bright hair and a bright smile and the smoothest voice on this side of the Pacific Ocean asking if he did his homework because, wow, turns out it was actually due.
But he can’t say that. Not because he doesn’t want to (he doesn’t), but because even thinking about doing so makes his mouth clamp shut and his palms sweat. He’s never confessed to anyone. And his first isn’t going to be the most annoying piece of shit he’s ever had to deal with. He likes to think he has more dignity than this, having an unrequited crush on the boy who keeps trying to get away with stealing all the clarinets’ reeds and hiding them in poor Hinata Shouyou’s instrument locker. At least let him get over it peacefully. But, no, here he is, in hell.
“I hate looking at your face,” Kiyoomi sniffs. There isn’t as much bite to his words as he wishes there was. “Turn around so I don’t have to look at you. This is bad enough already. Don’t make it any worse than it has to be.”
“Ouch.” Atsumu makes no attempt to move, and instead stretches his arms forward with a light groan. He pokes Kiyoomi’s forehead. Kiyoomi smacks his hand. He wishes he could hold it. “I could say the same about you. I hate your face, too. I’m glad you cover it up all the time.”
“I’m a generous man.”
“You’re sixteen.”
“I’m older than you.”
“I’m a year older than you.”
“I.” Kiyoomi blinks and scowls, looking away, hoping his mask hides his growing blush. It’s the heat, two teenage boys stuck in a tiny room with only a couple small cracks between the doorframe and the door for air. “Shut up.”
He doesn’t see the way Atsumu is blushing, too, just slightly. Instead, Kiyoomi focuses on the pile of sabers next to him. One has a chink in its handle. Infinitely more interesting than Atsumu’s face is.
“I spy with my little eye something… yellow.”
Kiyoomi doesn’t hesitate. “My shirt. You’ve done it already.”
Atsumu throws his hands in the air. “What do you want from me here? We’ve done everything in here!”
“Not everything,” Kiyoomi says. “I spy with my little eye something brown.”
Atsumu takes a moment to look around the closet. “Uh. Your shorts?”
“No.”
“The flags?”
“Also no. Open your eyes for once.”
“They’re open, they’re open!” He takes another moment. “...your eyes?”
Kiyoomi fights yet another oncoming blush and shakes his head. “My eyes are black.”
“Really?” Atsumu leans forward, suddenly interested. Kiyoomi backs up a little. Atsumu leans forward a little. “Stop moving. I need to see.”
“Like hell you do.”
Kiyoomi doesn’t move. Neither does Atsumu. Neither blinks.
Eventually, Kiyoomi clears his throat and says, “The answer was your eyes, actually. Your turn.”
“My eyes? Why, Omi-kun, I didn’t know you cared.”
“I don’t.”
“But you stared into my eyes long enough to know their exact color.”
“Your brother and I share an instrument in the winter and spring. You are twins. I know your eye color.”
At the mention of Osamu, Atsumu’s attitude falls flat and he flops back against the door again. “I’m going to kill him. For real this time. No threats, all action. That’s me, Action Atsumu.”
“Moronic Miya,” Sakusa says. He rests his cheek in his palm.
“Awesome Atsumu.”
“Mediocre Miya.”
“Says Shitty Sakusa.”
“Kickass Kiyoomi.”
Atsumu mouths Kiyoomi to himself and shakes himself. “Whatever. Hey, you wanna help me kill ‘Samu?”
Kiyoomi grimaces. “Do you know how many diseases are spread through contact with infected blood?”
“Oof, yeah, sorry. What if we strangle him?”
“That could work, but I’m worried about him fighting back.”
“We could drug him and tie him to a chair. Suna’s got a great kidnapping chair in his basement.”
“He’s got a what, now?”
Atsumu claps his hands together. “I spy with my little eye, something blue.”
Kiyoomi rolls his eyes at the sudden change in subject, but plays along, anyway. “Is it the gum at the bottom of your shoe?”
“No!” Atsumu blinks and lifts his foot up to look at the bottom of his shoe. “Shit, when did that get there?”
Alright, so it’s not the gum. And it’s not the tape on Kiyoomi’s rifle, either, because Atsumu keeps insisting that it’s indigo. Apparently, there’s a big difference. It’s not the third movement’s flags because Atsumu has done those three times already.
It could be…
“Is it your boxers?”
Atsumu suddenly chokes, doubling over and nearly smacking his foot against his forehead.
“What?” he wheezes.
Kiyoomi smiles. He can do that with Atsumu not paying attention. He’s working on a theory, slowly.
“It was a joke,” he says. “Osamu’s boxers are blue today.”
This time Atsumu does whack himself in the forehead with his own foot. “Stop talking about him, oh my God!”
He sounds pained, even through what’s probably supposed to be laughter. This is revenge for this whole situation, and not just Kiyoomi trying to make Atsumu laugh.
He doesn’t know how long they have been in the closet (hah.) After their initial conversation died off, it was silent for a bit, and then Atsumu suggested a game. It’s been a dozen or so rounds since then. It’s probably only been half an hour. This is torture. Atsumu’s complained at least a billion times already that it’s too hot, and he’s tried taking his shirt off completely at least five times. The only thing keeping his shirt on right now is Kiyoomi’s insistence that he doesn’t want to see him shirtless (which is the exact opposite of the truth, and he’s pretty sure that Atsumu knows it because he keeps making excuses to stretch enough to ride his shirt enough that his midriff shows.)
“The answer’s your eyes,” Atsumu groans. “Never speak of my brother’s underwear again. Please. I am literally begging you.”
Kiyoomi is too focused on the first bit of that statement to think about agreeing to the second half.
“My eyes?” he asks.
“Yeah.” Atsumu pokes his head up, just a bit, just enough to give Kiyoomi a look he can’t quite place. “Your eyes are blue. Like, really dark blue. Really dark blue.”
“Huh,” Kiyoomi shakily says. He’s blushing again. The mask might not be able to hide this one. Help.
He shakes himself and crosses his arms.
“Who’s staring into whose eyes now?” he challenges.
Atsumu, surprisingly, looks back down at the ground. “Well, uh. Shut up.”
It’s quiet. Kiyoomi can vaguely hear the band director down the hall talking with the guard instructor about something. It’s beyond hope that they come and rescue he and Atsumu considering all the screaming Atsumu has done, but maybe, just maybe, some divine being will intervene in this torture session.
“Your eyes aren’t brown,” Kiyoomi softly says. Shut up. Stop talking. Don’t speak. “They’re almost golden. Like honey.”
“Omi-kun, that’s pretty gay,” Atsumu snorts, no bite to it.
“I’m a boy in color guard. What the fuck else do you expect from me here?”
“Fair enough. Just… honey? Is that the best you could come up with? No poetic shit?”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Kiyoomi says. Atsumu nods, accepting the apology. “Diarrhea, then.”
Atsumu snaps his head up with a bark of laughter. God, his smile is wonderful. It’s a shame that it doesn’t match the rest of him (it does.)
“You’re really something else,” he says, shaking his head. He looks tired, and Kiyoomi wonders if it isn’t actually related to the practice they just finished. “You know that, right?”
“Uh,” Kiyoomi intelligently says.
“You wanna know why I stole his phone?” Atsumu asks. He doesn’t wait for Kiyoomi to answer before continuing, staring into the blank space above Kiyoomi’s head. “He was going to text you.”
“We text,” Kiyoomi feels the need to say. “We’re friends.”
“He was going to text you about me.”
“Ah,” Kiyoomi says, as if that makes sense. Wait. “Wait, wha-”
“He knew I didn’t have his phone when he locked us in here. He found it almost immediately because Akaashi-san’s a fucking narc.”
“Then why did he…” Kiyoomi doesn’t even need to finish that sentence before he realizes. He’s seen enough movies, read enough manga to know why. “Oh.”
“Yeah. He’s been threatening to do this for weeks.”
“Weeks?” Kiyoomi weakly asks. He hopes he doesn’t sound as hopeful as he feels. Or maybe he does.
“Yeah.” Atsumu nods. “Weeks.”
“Oh my God,” Kiyoomi says.
“So, uh, sorry?” Atsumu awkwardly laughs and scratches his cheek, a half-smile on his face that doesn’t quite meet his eyes.
This is unbelievable. And Motoya told him he didn’t have a chance, that Atsumu had a crush on someone else, as far as he knew. He looked sad as he said it, and he went ahead and gave Kiyoomi the broccoli from his lunch as a consolation. Kiyoomi had just shrugged at the time and taken it in stride. What else is new with him? Ushijima had his weird clarinet friend, and Atsumu had his mysterious crush.
Except Kiyoomi had forgotten at the time that Motoya is just as oblivious as he is and needs Suna to confirm romance gossip for him before writing up the papers every week.
Kiyoomi laughs. He laughs hard enough that he might cry, and then he does cry, just a little, because he is still a teenage boy and emotions are goddamn difficult to control. Atsumu looks mildly disturbed, and like he, too, is about to cry. And Miya Atsumu is not allowed to cry. Not a goddamn chance in hell that Kiyoomi would ever let that happen.
“This is unbelievable,” Kiyoomi giggles, he goddamn giggles, and Atsumu shrinks back a little. “You have a crush on me? I’ve had a crush on you since last spring!”
“What?” Atsumu asks. “No. Absolutely not. You don’t do crushes.”
“I don’t, you’re right.” Kiyoomi leans forward, grinning, knowing that Atsumu can tell when he smiles even with the mask covering his mouth. He’s more observant than he lets on. Indeed, Atsumu’s eyes widen fractionally, and his smile widens and tightens back up into that glorious mess that it normally is. “You’re the exception.”
“And Ushiwaka,” Atsumu comments. He’s blushing. Both of his cheeks and the tips of his ears are a nice dusty pink. “But mostly me, right?”
“Unfortunately.”
“Cool!” Atsumu chirps. His voice cracks, and he claps a hand over his mouth and swallows. “Ignore that. Keep telling me how much you love me.”
“Hmm,” Kiyoomi hums, tapping his cheek right above his mask for emphasis. “Or I could tell you that Osamu’s voice cracks stopped last month right after training camp.”
“Oh no,” Atsumu says, the color from his face slowly draining. “‘Samu’s never going to let this go.”
Kiyoomi’s mouth twists into a frown that contradicts how he feels. This is great. This is wonderful, even. The best news of his short life. But also… fuck Miya Osamu. He and his brother are more alike than either of them would like to admit.
“We don’t tell him,” he says, surprising himself. “Give it a week. We don’t act any differently than we normally do.”
“Please stop hitting me with your rifle,” Atsumu says, begs, like he does at least once every time they speak.
“Never.” Kiyoomi smirks. “But hear me out…”
Kiyoomi finishes explaining himself, and Atsumu just grins and claps his hands together and compliments him and, well, if Kiyoomi pulls his mask down just long enough to let Atsumu properly see his smile, well. That’s between the two of them.
Atsumu collapses onto the bench next to Kiyoomi and immediately holds his hand out. Kiyoomi, accordingly, drops a sprig of broccoli into his palm. Atsumu shoves it into his mouth without a second thought.
Motoya blinks and looks between the two of them with a confused expression. “Miya-san?”
“Hey,” Atsumu says, his mouth full. Kiyoomi elbows him in the side. Atsumu elbows him back. Motoya reaches out and takes Kiyoomi’s bento so that it doesn’t fall to the ground in their battle. “Have you seen ‘Samu anywhere?”
“No. Why?”
“Oh, no reason.” Atsumu yawns and holds his hand out for more food. Kiyoomi smacks his hand away. “Omi-kun is rude. He should mind his manners and be a good kouhai.”
“Miya should remember that we are in the same class and I have last night’s homework for him to copy,” Kiyoomi lightly says.
Atsumu whines, and Kiyoomi stifles a fond smile. Luckily, years of being a complete hardass have trained him well. Motoya hardly notices, too busy staring at Miya Atsumu like he’s grown two heads.
“Is the other Miya-san alright?” he asks. “You didn’t lock him in a closet again, did you?”
“Nah.” Atsumu shakes his head. “Akaashi-san was just asking for him, that’s all.”
Motoya perks up, his devilish little journalist-wannabe ears twitching hungrily. “Akaashi-san? Really? They haven’t spoken since your phone thing last week.”
It’s true. They’ve both avoided each other like the plague, especially after Osamu had come to release Atsumu and Kiyoomi from their prison and seen that nothing had changed between them. It wasn’t mutual, Atsumu had said, and apparently he’s a good enough liar to be able to get away with it even with him and Kiyoomi sitting together during breaks and walking each other to and from practice and class every day for the past week. Apparently, he felt bad because neither prank had worked. Atsumu said that Akaashi had returned Osamu’s phone without a word. Motoya said that Akaashi had fully run away from Suna in the hallway after lunch two days ago.
Of course, Kiyoomi feels a little bad. But he’s also a spiteful man. He had to be locked in a dirty, sweaty, humid closet for an hour with a dirty, sweaty, disgusting low brass member. It turned out well, but, like. Fuck that.
Kiyoomi nods and takes his bento back from his cousin, who seems more than willing to give it up. “Yes, I was there. I thought you knew.”
“Oh, no, I didn’t. Don’t.” Motoya fully pulls a tiny notebook and pen out from his back pocket. “Tell me everything. Now.”
Atsumu smirks and leans back against the back of the bench, arms behind his head. “Well…”