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"And how would you feel about Miya-San setting for someone else?"
Kiyoomi takes a long moment to consider. His mouth dries, his thoughts swirl - what does he think about Atsumu being someone else's setter? No, not someone else's setter, setting for someone else - Atsumu is his setter, an unquestionable fact.
But really what is he to say? The honest truth is too filled with swear words and abject rage to be considered acceptable for mainstream television. The lie he could so easily blurt out - "he's a good setter, any spiker would be lucky to have him, blah blah whatever" - is one he'll most definitely choke on if he even attempts to say it out loud.
What comes out is a half-truth that makes him sound like a petulant child refusing to share their favorite toy.
"Atsumu is my setter," he blurts out in monotone. There's an absence of stress syllables, a lack of emotion, the utter nothingness that fills his voice should be disconcerting. He could be a robot in the skin of a human and no one would catch a hint.
Both of them stand confused at each other - the reporter wondering if Kiyoomi actually understood the question, Kiyoomi praying to every deity he knows the name of that she doesn't ask him to clarify his answer. What will result if she does will be nothing less than exactly how Kiyoomi would feel about Atsumu setting for someone else.
Atsumu is his Atsumu, his boyfriend, his setter. Everyone else can can find their own forever-person because Atsumu is taken and Kiyoomi intends to keep it that way.
The reporter shakes her head, replacing her plastic smile with a shiny new one, and for a moment, Kiyoomi breathes peacefully. However, his calm is dashed through like a steak knife through a canvas painting as the reporter tilts her head and asks,
"Have you heard about his rumored transfer yet?"
Kiyoomi swallows thickly. He has not.
What is he supposed to say to that? How is he even supposed to process that when put on the spot? Why would Atsumu transfer? Why wouldn't he know about this from his boyfriend? Why would Atsumu transfer? Why would Atsumu transfer?
Did he do something wrong? He has three years left on his contract with the Jackals. He's really found his groove within the team. He's great with Bokuto and Hinata. He and Shion get into the occasional spat but it's always worked out quickly. He loves his job and he seems perfectly happy outside of practice so...
Which begs the nagging question in the back of Kiyoomi's mind: is it me?
They'd known since they started dating that navigating a relationship while working so closely together would pose certain challenges, but Atsumu has seemed perfectly happy in the preceding months. There's nothing out of the ordinary and Kiyoomi and him haven't had an actual claws-out fight in weeks. What is he doing wrong? How can he fix it?
Kiyoomi stares, blank-faced and wrapped in the fabric of his own universe as he ponders - what would he do if Atsumu transfers teams? Would they still live together? Likely not considering the commute would be horrifyingly Would they even see each other every day? How do you do a long distance relationship? Would they even still be together is Atsumu moves to a different city with a different team? Kiyoomi can't go back to his pre-Atsumu Miya life without falling to pieces. Is this how they break up? Is he going to-
"Sakusa-San?"
Kiyoomi's focus snaps back into place - right, the interview. Not existential crisis time. He can do that later. Maybe he'll yell at his boyfriend for not telling him. Maybe he'll cry about it and beg Atsumu not to leave.
He wets his desert-dry lips in preparation of the one-word answer he's about to give.
"No."
No, he did not know. No, he doesn't know what the fuck to say to that. No, he's not having a mental breakdown in the middle of a post-game interview because that would be totally unprofessional - if you hadn't guessed, the last one is a blatant and unsophisticated lie.
No, he doesn't want his Atsumu setting for someone else.
There's a hand on his back - he recognizes the gesture as distinctly Bokuto - breaking his paralysis (as well as maybe a few ribs). Spikers tend to forget (himself included) their own strength. He playfully slapped Atsumu with the back of his hand one time and ended up spending the night helping his boyfriend nurse a bruise.
A drunk version of himself had cried about it. Atsumu refuses to let him live it down - at this point, Kiyoomi's probably going to take the teasing to his grave.
In a split second, Kiyoomi jolts into action, following his owl-headed teammate like a man possessed - with the need to run as fast and far away from this situation as he possibly can.
What he can think about is limited to Atsumu and all the adjustments he's going to have to make when the setter inevitably leaves him (he'd seen it coming from day one. People like Kiyoomi don't just get people like Atsumu. It's a fact of life, pre-programmed into nature).
The locker room burns hot with the after-buzz of a landslide win. But all Kiyoomi can think about is what the desolate wasteland of life after Atsumu Miya will be like.
He's going to have to pay full rent, dig all of Atsumu's nicknacks out of the crevices of his apartment, the little things that make Kiyoomi's apartment his home. He'll have to get rid of anything and everything they bought together. He doesn't have a single fucking clue what he's going to do with all of Atsumu's clothes-
"Omi ya'okay?"
A set of callused fingers punches at his elbow, the barest form of physical contact that somehow still sends comfort coursing through his body like the warmth of a shower spray over knotted muscles.
"Yer kinda out of it. Normally yer at least a little less robotic than usual after we win," Kiyoomi doesn't even have it in him to lash back at the jest. So he just nods and asserts in as even a tone as he can muster,
"I'm fine."
"Whatever ya say," is what he says, but hazel eyes are stuck to Kiyoomi like he's the most interesting jigsaw puzzle in the world and Atsumu just can't stop trying to figure him out.
Kiyoomi is silent after that, not an unusual occurrence for him normally, but he's detached, extracted himself from the present to worry about the future. Atsumu obviously motices, but Kiyoomi can see in his eyes how he's trying hard to hide his concern.
The setter fiddles with callused fingertips, worries at his bottom lip as though it's offended him, darts his eyes all around - though they always trail back to Kiyoomi, somehow. Atsumu never stops moving, truly. Even in sleep, he's restless. But when he's nervous his fidgeting goes into hyperdrive, a hundred small movements a second, like a frightened rabbit.
Even as they walk home, Kiyoomi isn't blind to how Atsumu has to forcibly pace the speed at which he walks just to keep from bouncing too far ahead of his boyfriend. He holds Atsumu's hand just to keep him tethered, and not because he's feeling possessive, not because he thinks that maybe if he holds on tight, he can keep Atsumu by his side (right where he should be) forever.
It's dark when they get home, the apartment smells like Atsumu's shampoo and Kiyoomi's body wash and the lemon disinfectant wipes they keep for the spiker's benefit. It smells like home, feels like home. Kiyoomi wonders if it will stay that way should Atsumu leave.
The lights flick on, the door closes, shrouded in privacy, Atsumu seemingly feels emboldened to say,
"What's happening? Yer turnin' into a hermit again, like totally non-responsive an' in yer own world," Atsumu knows him too well, Kiyoomi decides. No one has ever known his every ridge and crevice, but Atsumu knows exactly where to poke and prod to get the truth out of him. It's annoying. "Who hurtcha an' who do I needa punch?"
"What if it's you?" Comes out totally the wrong way. Great, now it sounds like Atsumu did something wrong and a misunderstanding is seriously the last thing Kiyoomi needs when he's having mental breakdown.
"Still applies," no one can ever accuse Atsumu of being dishonorable, however stupid he may act, at least he has a few strong morals. But then there's a drop. The joking is a thing of the past and worry takes it's place on the canvas of Atsumu's face. "Is...is it me?"
It's not you, Kiyoomi wants to say, but it is him. Not in the way he thinks, Kiyoomi's not mad, but he doesn't know how to articulate this feeling. Like standing on the edge of the Grand Canyon, leaning over the ridge of it and tempting gravity to pull you down, Kiyoomi feels seconds away from becoming a bloody splay on the ground - emotionally speaking, of course.
He decides to go with the question that's been plaguing his mind since the interview. Honesty is the best policy - really it's Kiyoomi's only policy because he knows no other. The only other option he has is to run the fuck away. But Atsumu is looking at him like he's on the edge of breaking and he can't manage the cowardice.
"Are you leaving?" Kiyoomi stares at his boyfriend, the knot in his soul growing with every passing second, a mess he doesn't have a clue how to untangle.
"What?"
"Are you transferring teams?" The words feel like choking out a bowling ball, scratching his throat. He wants to swallow them down and store them away for later. He doesn't.
"Why- Why wouldja ask that?" Atsumu looks hurt, thus by extension, Kiyoomi hurts too. Kiyoomi opens his mouth to say something, buf nothing comes out. He figures it's a good move, his silence, because Atsumu fills it seconds later with, "No. No Omi 'course I'm not transferring teams! Who toldja I was? Was it 'Samu?"
Kiyoomi feels stupid, dumb for the prologue of tears burning behind his eyes, childish for the tantrum he was fully ready to throw. He throws his hands over his eyes, pressing the heels of his palms over his eye lids in an attempt to halt his stupid biological reaction to being in love.
"No! No- It... after the game," he tries and fails to sort through the tangle of thoughts that is his brain, the panic and the worry mixed with the embarrassment and the definitely not-tears dampening his eyelashes. "In the post-game interview, the reporter asked me if I knew about the possibility that you were switching teams and I..."
The dots connect across Atsumu's expression, full lips part with a realization Kiyoomi's not privy to, and he waits. He waits for the dismantling of his fears and it comes on a sparkling sigh that makes Kiyoomi's chest tingle with relief.
"Omi...oh, baby, okay. No, I'm not transferrin' teams, promise," Atsumu pulls the spiker's hands from his face, wrapping callused fingers around his wrists and pulling Kiyoomi's hands to his waist. With a gentle touch, Atsumu cups his boyfriend's face. Kiyoomi watches as a gentle smile pulls on his lips. "Remember a couple a' weeks ago when we had that little argument about the shower thing?"
Kiyoomi leans into the touch of Atsumu's palms against his cheeks and nods in confirmation.
"Well, I was havin' lunch with 'Samu an' ventin' ta him about it," Kiyoomi knows - they hate each other but they love each other, and each needs the other as much as they need air. The Miya twins are their own breed. Kiyoomi wouldn't be surprised if Osamu knew everything about him by now.
"He asked me if I ever considered switchin' teams ta make things easier on us an' I said no, obviously. But this kid caught the question in his phone and it totally blew up on Instagram."
Atsumu rolls his eyes to emphasize the point and Kiyoomi melts - he tries to keep how expressive he is to a minimum (old habits die hard), but the relief he feels is palpable, so he lets a sigh slip from his lips just this once.
"I promise ya I'm here ta stay," Atsumu lets the spiker fall into strong arms, Kiyoomi ducks his head into the crook of his boyfriend's neck and lets himself be persuaded into contentment for the moment.
A question, just a small insecurity, still burns at the back of his mind though. His first instinct tells him to shove down the point of weakness to the darkest corner of his souls and never think about it again (even though he knows that plan will fail miserably). But the rational side of his breaks through - they're laying it all out now, he'd be a fool to let this slip through the cracks.
"Do you...? Think it would be easier on us?" He really hopes Atsumu says no, because if he says yes that means he gets tired of Kiyoomi and if he gets tired of Kiyoomi that means he might leave and if he leaves then-
"Do I think it would be easier not ta see the man I love every day? Wow, tough one," his sarcasm-laden voice is music to Kiyoomi's ears, a sign of normalcy. Not to mention the 'man I love' part, which makes his heart leap in his chest like it's the first time he said it.
Atsumu pushes him away just a few inches so that Kiyoomi can see the sincerity in his eyes. Kiyoomi bites his lip to stop the smile that wants to stretch his lips when the setter presses a gentle kiss to try tip of his nose.
"Omi, yer my baby an' my spiker, I wouldn't wanna set fer anyone else," a chaste kiss pressed to over eager lips follows up his statement, sweet and uncomplicated. And Kiyoomi is grateful for the excuse not to say much. He might just word-vomit praises, which only ever ends with relentless teasing.
"You're assuming I was hoping you'd stay," Kiyoomi snorts, just to keep his sanity intact, a constant struggle when Atsumu seems to be dead set on dismantling his carefully crafted control. Melting it like candle wax to an open flame.
"Ya wound me babe," another kiss, another chance for Kiyoomi to break - and he does this time a little, just a little, wrapping an arm around his boyfriend's waist and pressing, leaning into the warmth. Atsumu rubs soothing circles into Kiyoomi's cheekbones as they part, a gentle, "Ya know I'd never leave ya," on his lips.
Kiyoomi sighs into the gentle moment, the sweet slowness of the seconds that pass. Loving with Atsumu, being with him, is an experience filtered in honeyed caramel and soft sunshine, one he never wants to stop living in.
"Yeah I know."
And it's true. Kiyoomi might be an insecure, jealous, occasionally possessive asshole, but he knows at the end of the day that Atsumu is his boyfriend, his setter, his Atsumu.