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Kiyoomi is a perfectionist. It’s one of the things Atsumu loves about him, one of the things they have in common. They’re always pushing themselves to their limits, pushing each other to do better, to be the best they can. When it comes to their sport, their craft, near enough isn’t good enough.
Most people think that this is an overarching personality trait for Kiyoomi, that it applies to everything he does. They don’t realise that his perfectionism only comes into play in certain circumstances. There are plenty of things that he just doesn’t care about at all.
Exhibit A: packing. Kiyoomi’s deep disregard for proper packing technique becomes glaringly apparent when he and Atsumu are getting ready to move in together.
Kiyoomi is very much a “throw random stuff in a box until it’s full and plaster some tape over the top” type of packer. When Atsumu arrives to help him pack up his apartment, there are cardboard boxes and plastic storage tubs full of the most random assortment of items: socks, spare chargers, university textbooks he refuses to throw away, a single spoon, an unopened box or surgical masks.
It’s chaos.
Atsumu makes an executive decision.
“Scoot,” he says, shooing Kiyoomi away from the box of haphazardly stacked pots he was about to throw his balled-up Itachiyama jacket into.
Atsumu takes over with focused serenity, tipping the contents of surrounding boxes out onto the floor and cracking his knuckles expectantly.
He starts by making small piles of like items. All the clothes in one pile, kitchen items in another, keepsakes and decorative items in a third.
“Where’s yer butchers paper?”
Kiyoomi stares at him blankly. “My what?”
Atsumu prays to the gods of home organisation for the strength to get through this day. “Hop on down to the hardware store round the corner and get me some will ya? I don’t want any of yer stuff breakin’.”
Kiyoomi looks bewildered by the request, but shrugs his assent and heads out the door. When he returns, Atsumu has already filled two boxes with plastic Tupperware containers, stacked neatly in a Tetris-like formation that permits little movement. He receives the butchers paper gratefully, and Kiyoomi watches with curiosity as he sets about wrapping bowls, glassware, and picture frames with the precision of those professional gift wrappers you find in malls during the holidays.
Atsumu’s careful hands deftly manoeuvre the paper around object after object, noting down their contents on an itemised list on the side of each box. In the cracks and crevices, he stuffs rolled up tea towels and face washers, creating a buffer to prevent any of the items from banging against each other in the move.
Kiyoomi knows he’s out of his depth here, knows when to step back and let Atsumu shine. Instead, he uses his superior height to fetch items from the highest, deepest shelves in the apartment, creating little stacks on the ground in front of Atsumu. He quickly learns to mimic Atsumu’s sorting system: fiction books in one pile, non-fiction in another, chargers and hardware in a third.
Atsumu smiles at the production line-type setup that has taken over Kiyoomi’s tiny living room, at the way his boyfriend dutifully sorts things into categories and replenishes Atsumu’s stack of butchers paper when it’s running low.
On the court and off, they make a good team.
The move goes without a hitch—everything makes it to the new place in one piece, already sorted into logical categories. It’s satisfying, seeing the fruits of your labour laid out before you in perfect order.
When it comes to unpacking, though, that’s Kiyoomi’s domain. Atsumu has spent enough evenings in bed beside him as he watches tutorials for Pinterest-worthy pantry organisation to know that simple like-goes-with-like categorisation isn’t gonna cut it here.
“Make a list of the containers ya want,” he tells Kiyoomi, resting a hand gently on top of his boyfriend’s head where he sits cross-legged on the floor, eyes glued to his laptop. “I’ll go pick ‘em up for ya.”
Teamwork.