Chapter Text
kenospia:
the forlorn atmosphere of a place that's usually bustling with people but is now abandoned & quiet
-------
Sakusa Kiyoomi stretches his long fingers out with a yawn as he steps back onto the court. His wrists twist and turn in a nervous tic he’s never quite grown out of, as he watches Hinata with tired eyes, jump up and down yelling taunts and insults across the net.
Each one is perfectly received and thrown back at him.
He lets the voices, the squeaking of shoes, the bouncing of the volleyballs across the gym fade into habitual background noise as he rolls his shoulders back and cranes his neck. They had just taken a water break and it had been long enough that now Kiyoomi is hyper aware of the thin layer of sweat that covers his body. It’s a feeling he’s more than familiar with, yet nowhere near used to.
He takes his position and imagines that it’s sometime after 8am now - an hour or so after a typical Saturday morning practice starts. There would be another rotation of drills and conditioning come this afternoon, so they often just did this - voluntary open practices that usually turned into quick rotational scrimmages intended to keep them fresh and sharp (as if they didn’t already eat, breathe, think and piss volleyball). He’s not complaining though. Because he does actually look forward to them. Especially after a hard week. And especially when he gets to make a service ace against Miya Atsumu. Watching the other squirm and pout and call threats to him from across the court is more fun than Sakusa cares to admit.
However, though it was just a game all in good fun, Kiyoomi suspects that if anyone else had walked into that gym they’d believe they were in the middle of a bizarrely early official match. Everyone was low to the ground, eyes sharp, sweat pooling off of them.
Kiyoomi blinks lazily at the very serious huddle the other team was in.
The only thing on the line for today was that the losing team treats the others to onigiri. As if Miya Osamu wouldn’t just irritatedly wave their tab just like every single time they went in there.
He stifles another yawn, well, that’s professional athletes for you.
“What’s the plan?” Hinata asks next to him, bouncing on the balls of his feet as if they hadn't already just played three straight sets.
He shrugs, “Block it?”
It was meant to be a joke, a dry commentary on the fact that there was no plan. But it had fallen flat. Apparently. Because Shoyo was looking up at him with those big brown expressive eyes, suddenly very serious, and gives a nod as if Kiyoomi had just given him instructions on how to diffuse a bomb.
He opens his mouth to explain but snaps it closed instead because he simply did not have the heart to tell him.
Hinata runs back to his position and something itches in the back of Kiyoomi’s mind.
It’s not that he didn’t take volleyball seriously. He did. Seriously enough that he was almost positive he was the only one on the team who did both their morning and evening workouts regularly (and even on their days off). He had walked in on Atsumu asleep and drooling on his own couch more than once, only managing to get half ready before passing out again. But-
He stops himself with a shake of his head. He had brought this concern to Coach Foster when they had first signed him.
The imposter syndrome, while completely unnecessary, as he now knows, had eaten away at him every single day he had been there until he had become the walking poster child for anxiety. He spent his mornings fretting and his nights overanalyzing. His dreams were filled with pseudo scenarios of Bokuto whining to Barnes about having to take it slower now because they had to work with a collegiate athlete. Or of Atsumu turning his nose up at him calling him a talentless scrub after missing a flawless tailored set just for him.
These worries had been unfounded, however, because for whatever reason the Black Jackals had been more than welcoming to him - immediately dragging him along to events and hangouts, introducing him to their favorite spots in the area. Bokuto had made it a point to tell him just how excited he was to have another familiar face on the team and Atsumu had only teased him a little when his spike had been out of bounds. But still, he couldn’t help but feel out of place. The others, he kept thinking, were hilariously out of his league and he couldn’t explain why.
It was after their first loss when he had watched as Bokuto and Atsumu held each other up in the locker room with frustrated tears and had seen the rare expression of sadness on Hinata’s face when he understood and had truly wondered what the fuck he was doing there. Wondered, why in the hell Sakusa Kiyoomi was standing in the middle of a professional stadium, next to the likes of these people, feeling only mild disappointment while they had been reduced to tears. This wasn’t college volleyball and it sure as hell wasn’t high school.
It was with shaky hands that he had hung up his jersey that night. Sadness bit at his thoughts as he made his way towards Foster’s office. At least he might finally be able to put that fancy degree to use, he thought bitterly.
He had voiced his concerns openly, avoiding eye contact and keeping his voice low as if Miya would overhear and barge into Foster's office alongside him and kick his ass to the moon (not that he would have, Kiyoomi had been surprised to find out that his very loud and expressive setter was very respectful of privacy and boundaries - he had blamed it on living in the same three inch space of another human for most of his life, but it was still something that often amazed him). Foster had only listened to about a third of his carefully planned out speech before stopping him with a snort.
“Sakusa,” he had said, “are you happy that we lost?"
“No?”
“Did you learn something today?”
“Of course I did.”
"Are you going to work to get better tomorrow in practice?”
“Yes. But-”
“Listen Kiyoomi, Stop comparing your dedication to the others. I’m pretty sure that’s what you’re saying. You haven’t said one word about your skill level not matching up and that’s because we both know that it does. Their love for the game might just shine a little brighter, be louder and so much more forceful, Sakusa-san. But yours is just as strong. Maybe even stronger. You just wear it differently. And that’s okay. You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t love volleyball just as much as the rest of those idiots. I know that. They know that. And I think somewhere in there, you know it too. So please, don’t doubt yourself.”
Looking back he can’t help but feel embarrassed. It had been, he would realize later, his own moment of weakness after the loss. He may not have cried dramatically in the locker room or let his emotions play on his face, but he had felt it too. He had taken the loss, internalized it, used it as fuel the next week in practice, replayed every mistake, every misstep, every missed opportunity, and corrected them. In high school, his teammates would have called him crazy. In university, they would have eyed him with hesitancy. But here...here the others were working just as hard and just as diligently beside him.
Foster had been right. He wasn’t the coach of the Black Jackals for nothing. And Kiyoomi often found himself falling back to that conversation when he started to get in his own head. Confidence was just as important as skill. And here it was equally important to have both.
As the morning practice goes on, the pace of the game starts to slow. Not by much, but just enough that Kiyoomi is able to see the setups and the plays a quick moment before the others run it.
He just about rolls his eyes when he sees the familiar footing and positions of the fancy combination move that Atsumu and Bokuto had been trying (and failing) to perfect for weeks now.
It was meant to be a line shot, he thinks. At least that had been what he had picked up from their ramblings. He’s not entirely sure though because he had never seen it work. He knows Meian is about three more days away from telling them to scrap it, but they would just drown out his concerns with wild inaccurate sound effects and promises of “wait until you see the stupid look on the other teams’ faces” or something like that.
From what he understands it has a unique spin so that it becomes a line shot even when it’s intentionally hit to go out. Kiyoomi has to admit, it’s a good idea. If it was actually even possible.
They had already tried to run it three or four times this set alone, but every single time it had easily sailed right past them. They’d then all have to wait a moment before someone retrieved the ball and for the two morons to stop chittering encouragements and frustrations.
Oh well, Sakusa sighs as he takes his position on the line, just another point for them.
He’s not even thinking much of it. Just that he needs to guard the line for show more than anything, because even though they’ve all been up for hours it’s still too early to hear Bokuto’s weary whines about how “No one takes me seriously,” and “There’s no way we’re ever gonna get this Tsum-Tsum. Never in a million years. I’m not good enough. Try running it with Kiyoomi instead.”
He rolls his eyes at just the thought alone. Which proves to be his greatest mistake. His eye catches the way too bright fluorescent lights above them that seem to be doing their damndest best to roast them all alive. He brings up a hand to rub the resulting dots out of his vision. And then there’s an explosion of lights and colors and darkness.
Because it’s at that exact moment that the great Bokuto Kotaro finally manages to hit Atsumu’s “super awesome totally cool” spinning serve just exactly right. And sends it perfectly down the line at Kiyoomi.
-------
Atsumu watches it happen in slow motion.
He follows the ball leave his finger tips, sees the exact moment Kiyoomi is dazed, feels the second Bokkun finally gets his hand on the sweet spot of the ball.
“Omi!” he cries out just a second too late, whole body cringing when he hears the impact.
He’s crossing the court and ducking under the net before he even knows what’s happening. He gently pulls the other’s head onto his lap when everything seems to rush back in like a lens refocusing. He feels the sweat from his dark curls against his hand as he does his best to push them out of the way. He wipes his fingers off on his shorts before quickly retuning them to the pale face.
“Omi? Hey! Kiyoomi?”
He feels Barnes standing at his back and hears Bokuto wailing guilty in the distance, “Oh my God. Oh my God. I killed him!”
There’s a brief moment when he wonders who exactly he should be comforting, thinks about poor Akaashi who’s definitely going to have to clean up that mess, feels a little guilty for sending him home like that, when there’s a slight twitch in his arms and all of his attention is focused back on Kiyoomi.
“Omi?”
The trainers are suddenly surrounding them both and then everything happens in flashes that go by like lightning or pass through like hurricanes. Atsumu hardly even registers it when official paramedics rush into the gym as well, too focused on all the noise and commotion everywhere else.
When they carefully take him out of his arms and lay him on the stretcher the lens refocuses again.
“Is he gonna be okay?” He hears himself ask, “Can I go with him?”
“He’s going to be fine, Miya,” he hears Foster say with a hand on his shoulder. He’s still on his knees, looking up at everything happening around him like a child. He can’t quite remember when Foster even got there, which he thinks is a testament to all the chaos around them.
Warm hands pull him to his feet and wrap around his shoulder, “Come on. Let’s get cleaned up. Then we can go see him.”
Atsumu knows he can be dense at times, but he hears the orders under the gentle words (thank you Kita-san), so he just nods and lets himself be led away.
“Has anyone called Komori?”
-------
When Sakusa comes to it’s to another bright light. He groans, turning away. There’s a scuffle beside him and he cracks an eye open to see what it is.
He is in, what he assumes to be, a hospital room. Bare white walls surround him, the air which smells of clean plastic stays heavy in his sinus, and there’s a soft consistent beeping coming from somewhere behind him.
His mouth is dry. It tastes dull, like he hasn’t brushed his teeth in a week. And his head feels like it simultaneously weighs 800 pounds and nothing at all.
“Kiyoomi?”
He turns towards the voice. A young man peers over him. He assumes he to be a nurse or a doctor or someone of equal status, so he nods.
“Oh, thank God you’re okay! Tsumu said you went down hard and I didn’t know-”
“What?”
He cuts him off with a furrowed brow and hand to his forehead. The guy was too loud. It was irritating. His abrupt question seemed enough to derail him, though.
“Could you get me some water?”
“Oh. Right, yeah. Yeah, of course,” he says, scrambling to his feet, grabbing a cup and pitcher that had been left on the counter.
He drinks it in silence, dark eyes staring at the man who, for some reason, hasn’t left yet. He takes in the light brown hair and the thick bushy brows and frowns. He knows his gaze is heavy, laced with something more threatening than welcoming, but for whatever reason the other doesn’t seem to mind.
“Right,” he says suddenly, placing down the glass. The other quickly sits at attention, tucking his legs beneath him and sitting up straight, “What happened?”
But after all that effort the other man seems to deflate, “You...don’t know?”
“No,” he bristles, “of course not.”
“You got hit in the head by Bokuto-san. Tsumu said-”
“Who?’
“B-Bokuto-san? Kiyoomi...do you...what do you remember?”
For the first time since he had blinked open his eyes he tries to think back. But...to his surprise, and utter disappointment, there’s nothing there. He keeps reaching for impossible shapes in the distance that he knows are there but aren’t. He keeps reaching. Keeps searching. Keeps looking. He knows they have to be there somewhere. Right?
He’s not sure how long he sits there glaring at his hands like they’re the ones at fault. Like they are the ones who placed him in this strange sterile room with nothing but four white walls to give him answers.
He stays that way though before he hears a gentle, scared, “Kiyoomi?” He looks up, eyes meeting the other man’s for perhaps the first time, “Do you know who I am?”
He doesn’t even have the chance to say no before the guy is on his feet reaching for a button that’s somewhere over Kiyoomi’s head.
It only takes a moment for a line of doctors and nurses to come flooding in.
“Do you know your name?”
“When were you born?”
“How old are you?
“What year is it?”
He’s poked and prodded until he’s exhausted and irritated. He’s asked a series of (annoying, useless) questions that he gets right. Every single one of them. Until they ask him why he’s there.
“I hit my head. I’m assuming.”
“That’s right. Very good Sakusa-san,” a too friendly nurse chirps beside him as she notes something down on her clipboard.
Kiyoomi wants to break that clipboard.
They all converse quietly for a moment before the doctor steps forward. She tells him that he’s lost his memory. Like it hadn’t been obvious at that point. And that had been pretty much the extent of it. A slight concussion, but nothing too (physically) damaging. They would keep him overnight to see how he does, see how he “adjusts” but there was no internal bleeding, no broken bones, no damage to anything else. Just...the memory.
Which proves to be becoming more and more of an issue.
He’s not sure he can think about that yet. Not without going absolutely insane. It’s like he was just dropped there in the middle of this world with nothing. He lost his entire life. His entire self. He hears words about someone that he doesn’t know but everyone else does. Where should he even start? He had twenty something years to make up for. How is he supposed to be Sakusa Kiyoomi if he doesn’t even know who Sakusa Kiyoomi even is?
Sure he knows....some stuff. Like his childhood address (for whatever reason), his name, his age, his phone number. But everything else, faces, events, interests, are all fuzzy to him. It makes his stomach knot.
They tell him that brain injuries are tricky. That sometimes the memories come back in pieces and sometimes they come back not at all. They say it could take hours, months, weeks, years. They may all come flooding back tomorrow, or when he’s 37 taking his dog (probably not) on a walk. And Kiyoomi is suddenly glad that he (apparently) has good insurance because he probably could have looked this all up on Google later himself.
The doctor eventually leaves and the good samaritan parade follows. He’s finally left alone with Motoya Komori, his cousin , with orders to eat, rest, and hydrate (as if he would ever eat something that had come from a hospital cafeteria , who knows what kind of specialized germs crawl through there on a daily basis, just the thought of it makes his palms sweat).
As the thoughts start to swirl around in his head he starts to feel caged in. He feels irritated. Angry. Annoyed. Confused. Everything is finally settling in. Like heavy sediment at the bottom of a hazy pond. His skin feels too big for his body and his heart feels too small. He’s itchy and jumpy and wants nothing more than to sprint straight out of this place, decency be damned. He just wants to get away from their prying eyes, stupid questions, the persistant beeping that’s coming from somewhere that he can’t quite see.
Because they all seem to know something he doesn’t. And that’s who Sakusa Kiyoomi is.
Luckily, or maybe unluckily (he’s not entirely sure yet), his silent spiraling is brought to a grinding halt when a blonde head pops its way into the room.
“Omi-kun? Are you alright?”
The voice makes something stir in his chest. He looks up, eyes narrowing as he inspects the man that had shuffled in a few steps but still stands by the door. He’s in a sweatsuit, hair still wet from what Kiyoomi assumes (hopes) was a shower, and his soft brown eyes are trained on him. He wears a hesitant expression, like he’s not so sure he’d be welcome and Sakusa briefly wonders why that is before Kamori is speaking for him.
He wonders how long he had been staring if his cousin had felt the need to step in.
“He’s okay. Uh, kind of.”
“Kind of?” The man echoes, eyes shifting nervously between them.
He distantly hears Komori fill him in on the details, hears the small shocked gasp of “what” the new stranger lets out in response, but he lets the sounds fade away as he delves back into his thoughts, eyes drawn to the blonde’s handsome profile like a magnet.
Because for the first time since he had woken up to this new world a certain kind of peace had fallen over him. It feels as if he had been awaiting the arrival of his man. And while his mind might not know who this person is, everything else about him does.
Though he’s aware that this man’s gaze is questioning and pointed, he doesn’t feel scrutinized under it. Though he’s a new addition to the equation, someone else Kiyoomi doesn’t know in his space, the irritation in his chest had quelled. Everything felt settled, everything felt right. Like maybe he actually was who everyone was claiming him to be. For the first time in this very short life Kiyoomi feels okay.
He wonders who he is to him.
To make him feel such a way and so immediately. To come see him in the hospital so deliberately yet to wear that hesitant look upon his face as he did so. He knows he knows him. Somehow. So he’ll say as such.
He narrows his eyes again and the stranger freezes like he had been caught doing something he wasn’t supposed to, “I know you.”
He says it with such certainty that it shocks even himself.
The man jumps at the words and Komori snorts into his hand as he sinks down into his chair.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” he laughs like he’s on the verge of hysterics, “Of course. Of fucking course you do.”
They both look at him before their eyes drift back together. The blonde smiles sheepishly, seeming to quickly recover from the shock of the statement.
“Ya sure do, Omi,” Kiyoomi immediately notes the accent. And the nickname, “Is it all coming back to ya now?”
He shakes his head. Komori groans.
“Well,” he laughs quietly, “it is true. Ya do know me. We’re teammates, I guess,” he rubs the back of his neck with a shrug, “I’m Miya Atsumu. It’s nice ta meet ya.”
-------
Sakusa Kiyoomi had been in love with Miya Atsumu ever since his second year of high school. Though, if you had ever tried telling Kiyoomi that you’d immediately be leveled with a glare that could collapse mountains. Trust him, Komori knew first hand.
Kiyoomi was...a bit of an asshole. Not always in a bad way though. Well, sometimes in a bad way.
He was just a little sharper and more prickly than most and was pretty fricken blunt on his best days. He had a weird thing about germs and crowds and people and especially when they all came together.
He had never been one to make friends easily and had always been more comfortable on his own. The only people he had ever seemed to take any interest in were Komori (who he had grown up with) and Ushijima Wakaatoshi, and even that had been born out of rivalry.
Everyone else, Komori observed, seemed to be more of an inconvenience than anything. Like germy obstacles that he had to figure out a way around. He had scared off more than a few interested parties with a simple cut of his eyes and a twist of his lips.
So when Miya Atsumu, the setter of Inarizaki, had come bounding towards the two of them, shooting out of the freely mingling crowd, to introduce himself to the two outsiders (clearly not deterred by the unwelcoming energy Kiyoomi was giving off) with that megawatt smile and a clap on the back, Komori was sure his cousin was going to have a mental break down right then and there.
But instead Kiyoomi had just watched him with wide eyes. He had pulled out hand sanitizer, offered some to Komori who shook his head, but said...nothing.
This behavior had persisted throughout the week. He observed him, learned him, seemed to be taking careful notes of everything the other boy said and did. At first Komori had thought that his cousin had just identified another rival. And he wouldn’t have been wrong in doing so. Miya Atsumu’s reputation preceded him. In more ways than one. He frankly didn’t think much of it. Actually thought it might be nice to hear about Miya Atsumu’s stats instead of Ushiwaka’s for once.
It only took about half of the training camp for Komori to figure out what was really going on.
It had started on the court as most things do.
The two had been going back and forth all morning, trading quips and insults and half baked threats. It had started during warmups and continued throughout their stretches and morning drills.
And Komori, for the life of him, could not figure out what Sakusa was doing. He had spent the better part of an hour last night whining about how annoying, inconsistent, and irritating the blonde was (and if Komori was being honest, he could not remember the last time his cousin had ever spoken so passionately about anything other than volleyball and Ushijima in the last 5 years).
And yet there they were. Spending every minute together. If Kiyoomi wasn’t next to Komori or hiding in some cold corner somewhere he was next to Atsumu - sitting at the same table during meals, running the same courses in the mornings, doing drills together, etc. Though it had been Atsumu who seemed to be constantly seeking out Kiyoomi it was his cousin who had seemed to accept his fate (see: not running away). However, from what Komori could see, Kiyoomi was still being his regular self. He would wonder how long Atsumu’s efforts would last, but from where he stood, it looked like the Miya twin was actually enjoying Kiyoomi’s prickly company, casually calling to him over his shoulder or pointing something out on his phone. It looked like they were old friends.
Komori just didn’t quite understand it. Kiyoomi was blunt. If he didn’t like someone he said so. And he didn’t like Miya Atsumu.
Or so he had claimed. His actions were so backward, so off kilter, and out of character that Komori was not above considering alien abduction as the cause. Fortunately for him, he doesn’t have to call any conspiracy theorists or the government because it’s only about a day later when everything becomes so painfully clear.
They’re at the evening round of practice games. Tsumu sets a ball and Kiyoomi spikes it with a sound that sends excited shivers down Komori’s spine. Except it’s out. Only by a centimeter, but it’s out. Atsumu calls out a taunt at him, something whiney about how good of a set it had been and what a waste of a point. And Kiyoomi had turned on his heel and glared at the blonde like he had just killed his entire family. But instead of freezing up or shrinking under the ice that Komori could feel from where he was standing, Atsumu had just laughed the stare off with a wave.
“If you keep frowning like that Omi Omi you’ll have wrinkles by 25.”
Komori waited on bated breath for the inevitable blow up. For the too harsh, too true words he would always seem to find when upset. But they never came. Instead, he lobbed the ball at the blonde, who easily batted it away with a childish laugh.
“Don’t call me that.”
He had said it in a way Komori had never heard before. He frowned as he tried to place it. It sounded almost....fond? And oh. Oh.
His cousin had a crush on Miya Atsumu. Of all people.
After that, it’s almost too painful to watch. Their bickering, he comes to learn, is flirting. Their taunts, he discovers, are the way they push each other to be better and always have just a hint of awed respect to them. And Komori doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry when he sees the way Kiyoomi looks at the other boy come Friday.
He’s completely mesmerized. Eyes soft as clouds like Miya Atsumu himself had hung the moon.
But as he said, Sakusa Kiyoomi was kind of an asshole. And instead of telling Atsumu he felt all of those ooey gooey gross feelings for him, or even just, you know, asked for his phone number or social media or something, the two had a big blow out fight on the last night of the camp and ended their week long not-a-relationship with a bang. And instead of using words to say that the distance between Tokyo and Hyogo sucks and that they would miss each other or whatever they had decided to create the distance themselves.
Which, knowing what he knows now, had been kind of fitting. Because Miya Atsumu was a bit of an asshole, too.
Things had been tense between them since. Well, as tense as any lingering high school drama can be once you are (a) still in love with the other party and (b) in your twenties and playing in a professional league. They had eventually created a place where they could be civil. And from what Kiyoomi had told him over the phone not a month before, the two might even be able to consider themselves friends.
He had been nervous once Kiyoomi had told him who he was planning on signing with, unsure of what was to become of his cousin once he was subjected to being around the one person that Sakusa had totally definitely not ever had feelings for.
So that’s why, when Miya Atsumu himself walks into their hospital room at 2:53pm and Kiyoomi’s hard distrustful eyes he’d been sporting ever since he had woken up had instantly softened like butter, Komori knew that things were about to get a whole lot more complicated.