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Kiyoomi doesn't celebrate Christmas, and there are good reasons behind his decision.
Reason number one: it's a stupid made up holiday. This is how Kiyoomi feels about all holidays, actually. That they're, in reality, just random days someone somewhere a really long time ago proclaimed to be special. They don't actually mean anything in his not so humble opinion, and they're basically just massive money grabs for a capitalistic society gone rogue.
Reason number two: Christmas is actually a wholeass bummer. People say it's the most wonderful time if the year when really there's more deaths, accidents, and all around bad shit happening than almost any other time of the year, not to mention the winter depression that hangs over people like a storm cloud they just can't shake. What holiday could possibly be worth the doom and gloom that Christmas brings?
Reason number three: Tradition. Tradition is just your family's way of telling you to do something and not question it - at last that's the prewritten course Kiyoomi's life seems to have followed every year with Christmas thus far. Tradition makes no logical sense and often times comes with negative connotations (at least for him). And yet, for some reason, he's forced into it almost every fucking year and for what? Tradition says he has to visit his family and so he does. But he gets the sweet reward of absolutely nothing mixed in with a little bit of homophobia for his efforts.
And finally, reason number four: bad association. Kiyoomi wouldn't deign to admit it out loud, but this might be the number one reason he hates Christmas and the days leading up to it.
How is he expected to feel about it when Christmas consists almost solely of his family not-talking over dinner that's long been sitting cold because his mother and father have been arguing over it for forty minutes even though neither of them even made it?
How is he supposed to feel when his parents pry into his "girlfriend" (a constructed illusion, by the way) and congratulate him for "making the right decision" after his little "gay scare" in high school?
How is he supposed to feel when the only person that talks to him like he's an actual human being is the aging butler Francis whose salt and pepper hair has long since turned decidedly toward salt ("I was thinking of dying it, but Marnie said I looked good this way." - at least someone is happy around the holidays, had been Kiyoomi's unconscious thought).
How is he supposed to feel when the one person he might actually tolerate the holidays for is the one person he can't have with him?
When he finally arrives home, the apartment is warm and smells like a not entirely unpleasant combination of vanilla, cinnamon, and honeysuckle - because Atsumu can't pick scented candles to save his life - and Kiyoomi breathes a sigh of relief, shaking the excess snow from his curls. Lots of people "go home" for the holidays, but Kiyoomi comes back to it.
This is how it always is with Kiyoomi. He makes the drive out to see his family on the other side of town on the twenty-fourth and is back before midnight, never spending longer than an four hours away from his boyfriend. It's not because he couldn't stand the week away from Atsumu - it would be tough but he would manage - but rather that it would feel wasted without his setter there.
They get one credible week off from work. Kiyoomi will be damned if he's not spending as much of it as humanly possible with Atsumu.
He looks up only to come face-first with Atsumu barreling down the hallway toward him in his socks and Kiyoomi's hoodie. Strong arms wrap around his neck, steadying the body they're attached to on Kiyoomi's broad frame.
"Hey," is what Atsumu provides him with, a wink with one pretty to eye accompanying it. Kiyoomi let's himself indulge in the comfort of being Home, surrounded by mismatched candles and Atsumu's warm presence rather than ice cold marble hallways and silently familiar faces from his past. He likes his present much better.
"Hey," Kiyoomi shirks his jacket and shoes, letting Atsumu drag him around by the hands to their couch. He scans the apartment with a frown - Atsumu always has a lot of free time during the holidays because his family meets earlier in the week seeing as his parents take an annual vacation.
Christmas decorations - stockings, tinsel, even an enormous tree that must've taken him hours to set up - sit shiny and sparkly and new all around their apartment, and Kiyoomi finds dissatisfaction in the sight. If there was ever a time he wanted to be reminded less of the holidays he grew up with as a kid, it would be on the actual day of. And yet Atsumu's filled the apartment with rampant memories from his childhood.
Decorations that mean nothing, warmth that's fabricated for a picture perfect facade.
"I thought I told you I didn't want to celebrate Christmas," Kiyoomi knows he shouldn't be grumpy. It is surprisingly nice, and Atsumu looks so adorably satisfied with his handiwork, but the words escape him before he has a chance to think about how cold his voice sounds.
Atsumu is, as he always is with Kiyoomi, undeterred, merely sitting himself and his boyfriend on the couch covered in all their softest blankets. Kiyoomi appreciates the thought, especially considering he knows Atsumu is a human furnace which means that the blankets are probably for Kiyoomi's benefit.
"Well, Omi. I know ya saidja didn't wanna," Atsumu acknowledges as he folds strong thighs in a surprisingly flexible crisscross position. Kiyoomi unconsciously follows his lead, draping one of the fluffy blankets over his shoulders - he'll thank Atsumu for the gesture later, maybe when the setter can't hear or see him. "But I gotcha a present, an' I wanted the apartment to be nice an' warm fer ya."
I know ya didn't wanna go, the words are unspoken, but Kiyoomi can hear them in between the syllables of the ones he does say. But then again, has Kiyoomi even wanted to visit his family - they might as well be strangers at this point. Atsumu makes him feel at home.
Kiyoomi keeps his mouth shut because he knows for a fact that his words will likely not reflect the thoughts swirling through his head - dammit, I chose the one person on this fucking planet I don't deserve.
He knows rationally, that anyone he chose he would probably have the same feeling about. But then again, he was always going to choose Atsumu whether he knew it or not.
"So, basically I put up all this stuff fer ya, an' yer gonna like it because I also gotcha a gift that took me a really long fuckin' time ta find," Atsumu pulls a small, flat cardboard box from the coffee table and Kiyoomi frowns - he literally explicitly told Atsumu not to buy anything for him (the tradition of gift-giving is one Kiyoomi finds a pointless expense).
Atsumu seems to sense his thoughts before he even has the chance to articulate them,
"An' yes, before ya say anythin', I know ya told me not ya get ya anythin' but ya kinda said not ya buy ya anythin' an' I didn't," Kiyoomi scrunches his eyebrows but takes the box from him regardless. Much like a lot of his teammates, Kiyoomi finds that Atsumu's thoughts, more often than not, come out in half-baked sentences not thought fully to fruition.
Kiyoomi hesitates a moment, staring at the plain looking box in his hands, trying and failing to beat back the burning affection welling in his chest. He doesn't understand, sometimes, Atsumu's dedication to being like this - sweet, thoughtful, loving. Kiyoomi knows he's not half as good a boyfriend as his setter is.
It should make him feel competitive, but instead it makes him feel like the luckiest bastard on the face of planet earth, makes him wonder what kind of person he was in his past life to deserve this kind of reward. Which makes him resent the loss of his edge - where did his razor-sharpness go and why did it leave him? Dating Atsumu Miya is like the feeling of having pulled off the perfect crime, Kiyoomi having gotten something that he never deserved and that never should've been his.
"Excuse me, stop starin' an' open it," Atsumu prods him with a foot on the knee and Kiyoomi sends him a harsh look he certainly doesn't deserve. Among the hailstorm of positive emotions that swirl in his chest, there is still the underlying annoyance of Atsumu having not at all listened to him that Kiyoomi's desperately trying to hang on to, if only to keep his sanity in check over the beating of his heart.
So he opens it - because unlike someone he can follow orders - and nearly chokes when he sees what's inside.
Folded neatly, exactly how he had taught Atsumu (because the man, for however pretty he might be, is completely useless at laundry), is the setter's old Inarizaki jersey. And whether he wants to or not, Kiyoomi knows exactly why Atsumu gave him this.
His throat burns, his chest feels heavy, his head hurts, and he senses the prologue to tears fast approaching as he looks - doesn't dare touch - the pristine black fabric.
Kiyoomi isn't keeping time in his head, but however long he was silent for must've been too long for Atsumu's liking because the pseudo-blond suddenly cuts in with a tone that, if Kiyoomi was listening closer, he would realize is damn close to being worry, maybe fear.
"Omi? Do ya hate it? Cause I can easily return it. It just came from my closet it's not like-"
"Why did you give this to me?" It comes out far more accusing than Kiyoomi means for it too, in fact he feels so tender at the moment that, if Atsumu were to reach out and touch him, he might crumble entirely.
"Well, 'cause ya gave yers ta me. An' I thought, like, if I have a piece of you, ya deserve ya have a piece of me too...remember?"
And, oh, Kiyoomi remembers.
("Omi! Can I have this?" Atsumu holds up Kiyoomi's old high school jersey to his torso, fanning the neon colors reminiscent of lemon-lime soda across tanned skin - Kiyoomi grimaces.
Those colors don't look good on anyone, and yet Atsumu manages to make them work somehow. The jersey was always destined to be his one day, but since he's asking so nicely, Kiyoomi figures, why not?
"You really think I care what happens to that piece of shit?" He decides on rather than admitting that that 'piece of shit' was an integral part of him for as long as he can remember. Rather than admit that it makes his heart tingle to think Atsumu will be the keeper of that part of him.
"Well if yer gonna be like that then I'm keepin' it regardless," Atsumu says, snatching it to his chest before folding it neatly away into his drawer - Kiyoomi admires the addition of the lime-green and neon yellow to Atsumu's drawer. It feels like a natural fit, like it's finally found a home to appreciate it. "It looks better on my anyway."
Kiyoomi can't argue with that logic.)
"So like, if ya don't want it then I don't really gotta good use fer it-"
"Shut up, it's mine now you don't get a say," Kiyoomi hugs it too his chest, swiping the box off his lap so he can appreciate the fact that the jersey smells like Atsumu - like vanilla and raspberries and something else that doesn't have a name even though Kiyoomi knows it as holding a piece of his heart.
He can feel Atsumu's smile even thought he doesn't dare to lift his eyes up enough to see it - that would be just a little bit too much, because he might shatter into a million pieces and do so willingly if he saw that smile. He can picture it in the same way you can picture sunshine on a rainy day or the gold at the end of the rainbow.
Atsumu jumps him then, unreasonably strong setter arms nearly strangling him to death as he sends both of them crashing backward onto the couch cushions. Kiyoomi wraps his boyfriend in a hug, nestling his face into dyed blond hair that shouldn't be softer than clouds but somehow is - what the fuck is softer than clouds? Atsumu's hair, apparently.
Kiyoomi finds the perfect blend of exhilaration and comfort in the moment that surrounds him - exhilaration because, holy fuck this is his life and he gets to live it and have this perfect man all to himself and no one can take that from him. Comfort because this is his home, this is where his home is, in their apartment that smells like a hundred pleasant things, none of which really go together not that it really matters. With Atsumu.
And he forgets to care that they're surrounded by Christmas decorations because he can feel Atsumu's heartbeat against his own, and Atsumu's nosing at the spot just under his jawline that makes him sigh with contentment.
This stupid moment is perfect, Kiyoomi wouldn't trade it for anything.
"I love you, 'Tsumu," Kiyoomi whispers against the crown of his head, wrapping himself around his setter as if it's possible for them to be any closer. If he ever knew any words to be more true, they were likely a fallacy.
"I love ya too Omi."
Kiyoomi can feel the curve of full lips against his jawline, and he can say with absolute certainty that, for all the reasons there are to hate the holidays, this will rise above them as the one reason to love them.