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You should have the warm water by itself, Kiyoomi tells himself, the tea will only keep you up longer.
It's past one in the morning anyway. There isn't much hope for a good night's sleep at this point.
He settles for boiling the water in a saucepan rather than the usual kettle, if not for the sake of his sleeping teammates, then to keep his own budding headache at a minimum. He lets the dim light from the moon guide his movements in the otherwise dark kitchen. Only the sound of cicadas and the whirring of the refrigerator can be heard.
It seems to him that the only time he is not at peace is when he is left to himself. It should be the other way around. His mind should be at ease after a long day of living. He should be in his bed, sleeping. And yet, he is here. It is a wordless surrender to his thoughts.
He opens the cabinet to retrieve a tea bag. Chamomile. He could settle for a somewhat sweet earthiness tonight.
The daisy-like herb on the box reminds him of a familiar head of blond. Laughable, is what it is. Here Kiyoomi is, awake and exhausted, toeing the line between conscious and not, thinking about a teammate he ponders about far too often to be normal. He supposes perhaps it's the mystery of said teammate. Miya Atsumu, who gives himself wholly without taking back. Whose name signifies the urge to eat, a hunger that cannot be satiated. It must explain his constant need to win, something Kiyoomi has felt competitive against. Passion and greed is difficult to discern with Atsumu when you don't know him. Though Kiyoomi doesn't know Atsumu very well, per say, he feels comfortable thinking that he knows him at least a little. And because he knows him, that little bit, he also knows that Atsumu's craving is not greed. He is not selfish. Someone who is constantly thinking of others cannot be mistaken for a slave to something as witless as greed. No, Atsumu is surely passionate—one who yearns. But he is also one who can't seem to ever be satisfied.
There he goes with his overworked brain, overworking even more with over-analyzations. He's sure his heavy eyelids beg for rest, but he ran out of sleep supplements the week before and hasn't yet gotten himself more. He also doesn't quite believe he could escape the idea of Atsumu even in his sleep.
So Kiyoomi stands there then, hand on the pan handle, fingers toying with the teabag string. He's probably staring, but he's not really seeing. Awake but not quite there. Time couldn't seem to pass by more slowly. He's so engulfed in his own solitude he doesn't hear the creaking of footsteps from the hallway.
"Omi-kun?"
The words are spoken softly, quiet enough that Kiyoomi is almost convinced his sleep-deprivation conjured them up itself. He spares a glance at the entryway, and surely, there in all the moon's glory, is a tired-looking Atsumu.
Kiyoomi nearly lets himself feel bad; maybe he accidentally woke him up with some inadvertent noise, but that can't be right. Atsumu sleeps like a rock on bad nights, a boulder on good ones—a sound so small couldn't have awoken him. Still, he drags his gaze away from Atsumu's plaid pajama pants and returns his attention to the water, now bubbling. He allows a small "sorry" to pass his lips.
Atsumu must agree that an apology isn't necessary, for he huffs out a silent laugh along with a whispered Yer good, don't worry.
He pads across the kitchen to come rest his back against the counter, a considerable distance between him and Kiyoomi, and simply watches him. A gaze not quite piercing, but it's something along the line. Kiyoomi constrains himself to keep his eyes on the water. It's boiling, now; he doesn't make a move.
"Whatcha doin'?" Atsumu asks suddenly.
Kiyoomi shakes himself out of his insensibility with a blink of his eyes and moves the saucepan off the burner. "Making tea."
Atsumu must roll his eyes dramatically. It's something he would do. "Alright, smartass, sorry for askin'."
They both don't say anything else after that. Kiyoomi busies himself with getting a himself a mug, the one he always uses, to pour the water into. Atsumu just sits and watches, and Kiyoomi lets him.
When the teabag is carefully added, Kiyoomi finally allows himself to look over at Atsumu. "Can't sleep?"
Atsumu sighs, as if he saw the inquiry coming. "Thoughts are keepin' me up, I guess. You?"
"Insomnia." There's no reason to hide it at this point, you know. He brings the mug up to his lips to test the flavor. It's a bit bland, but he resigns himself to it. He doesn't really feel like getting the lemon juice out.
Atsumu only nods slowly, peachy lips parted in an Ah.
Stop thinking about his lips, Kiyoomi's brain supplies, unhelpfully. It's only his luck that thinking endlessly about Atsumu caused his sudden materialization. Law of attraction, maybe. If that were the case, then it must mean there must be a pull on Atsumu's end as well.
Atsumu's looking at him again, not so subtly, but Kiyoomi has no energy left to make a snarky remark about it. He instead takes another sip of too-hot, too-mellow chamomile tea and says, "You look like you want to say something."
"Maybe I do, Omi-kun," he replies, one-sided shrug and soft smile and all. True fatigue. "Ya look like ya wanna listen."
"I'm not going back to sleep anytime soon, so I might as well."
Atsumu laughs at that, not loud enough to draw significant attention, but genuine. Hardly anything about him is, and yet Kiyoomi indulges himself in witnessing a rare sight of a different, realer Atsumu. He folds his arms over a tank-topped chest, looking down. "Just been havin' a lot on my mind lately, I guess."
Kiyoomi blows softly. "Like what?"
Atsumu glances up at him from underneath his fringe—messy—then looks away again. "I just... Sometimes I want somethin' so bad, and I know I can't have it, but that doesn't make me stop wantin' it any less. It's... frustratin'."
"Well," Kiyoomi begins, "are you sure you can't have it?" The sleeplessness makes his mouth run. He runs a thumb over the divots in his mug, comfortingly.
"It's obvious."
"Is it?"
"Yer grillin' me and for what?" Atsumu complains, drops his arms dramatically, momentarily forgetting to keep his voice down. He sighs and returns to a whisper. "I just wanna block hi—block it off from my life forever so I can be satisfied knowing it ain't there anymore."
Kiyoomi thinks back to the daisies on the box, to his name, to his hunger. You know him. "You're never satisfied."
Atsumu seems taken aback at that. Then he pouts. The versatility of his expressions at this time of night is still a mystery. He is still a mystery.
Kiyoomi pays no mind to it. To those lips. He wonders if they hold secrets. Skeletons in the cupboards instead of tea packages. Pay no mind to it. "Besides," he continues when Atsumu doesn't, "it doesn't go away just because you block it out."
"What about you, then?" says Atsumu, folding his arms once more. The pout is still there. "Ya got anything ya want but can't have?"
Kiyoomi sits silently for a while, pondering. There are many things he's wanted but couldn't have. He wants oolong tea, but chamomile is all they have. He wants desperately to get back into his bed and sleep easily for once, but he can't quite have that either. He wants to cross the kitchen to where Atsumu stands and look at him, really look at him—brush the hair off of his eyes and touch the planes of his hands. He wants, strangely, to be what Atsumu yearns. The mug feels cold in his palms. "I'm not sure. I don't know if I can have it yet or not."
"Hm." Atsumu turns to look at him, to observe him. It makes the hairs on Kiyoomi's knuckles stand. Perhaps the law of attraction bleeds into unspoken thoughts as well. To be caught in his wonderings, that is something he doesn't need. Instead, Atsumu moves in, just the slightest bit, so that only warmth radiates. There are centimeters between them. There is an infinity between them. Ever the mystery. He peers into Kiyoomi's eyes. Sees him.
"Maybe you should find out. Maybe you can have what ya want, Omi-kun."
With that, he leans away. The warmth in the air drops again, and Kiyoomi watches with a pull in his ribs as Atsumu retreats back into the obscured hallway. Into the unspoken.
Kiyoomi saunters to the fridge with his cold chamomile in hand, opens it to grab his jar of lemon juice. He pours in two tablespoons.