Chapter Text
11:24 PM. Hmmm.
Kiyoomi briefly wonders what the PM stands for? Past My bedtime? Personal Management? Pasta and Marigolds? Kiyoomi briefly thinks to himself that if he does not know this, there was no point of him having gone to university for four fucking years, period.
But then he thinks again and remembers his collegiate MVP status in volleyball and his (few, but cherished) friends from college and his prized Sports Medicine degree and thinks to himself again that, whoopsie there, Kiyoomi, guess there was a point to university after all.
Call him a millennial or whatever, but thoughts after 11:23 PM (Punch Me?) started to make less and less sense until it was just him thinking up fucking crazy thoughts to himself. But, Kiyoomi would not have stayed up so late if not for a good cause.
Shaking himself, he muttered under his breath, “Damn it, get a hold of yourself Kiyo. You’re not losing to that pompous asshole again.” Said pompous asshole was none other than resident big fat jerk, the self-proclaimed bane of Kiyoomi’s existence: Miya Atsumu.
Now as Kiyoomi should have realized, there were a few things that were very wrong with this statement and this peculiar situation in the first place:
1. Kiyoomi was talking to himself. Again. He only did that when he was fired up and getting the competitive (manic, according to Motoya) glint in his eye.
2. Kiyoomi was referring to himself as ‘Kiyo’. Here’s where shit gets real. Only Motoya the Hobgoblin Cousin gets to call him Kiyo. Kiyoomi hates being called Kiyo. Here he was willingly calling himself Kiyo.
3. Kiyoomi was wasting his prized sleep hours (only second in prizedness to volleyball, of course) competing with one stupid dumbass Miya Atsumu who was nowhere near as prized as volleyball, or sleep, or volleyball minus sleep.
Had he any brain cells left—even two would have been adequately sufficient because even that’s more than how many Miya has, he thinks—he would never have been challenging his high school rival/ annoyance (friend?)/ teammate-who-riles-him-up to a fucking competition to see who can get Hinata Shouyou to confess his undying love for a certain setter.
He should have known. It was 11:24 PM.
Kiyoomi could practically almost hear his cousin’s teasing from all the way in Tokyo.
Damn it.
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It started out as all things in MSBY Black Jackals start out as. That is to say: chaotic and with more amounts of banshee-like shrieking than strictly necessary. MSBY was a loud team. Kiyoomi was not aware of this when he had signed the papers Coach Foster had held out to him all those months ago.
Perhaps, if he had been forewarned, he might not have signed onto this team and subsequently their hellish behavior that came along with it (of course he would have).
On an innocuous Wednesday morning, Kiyoomi had barely just stepped foot outside the locker rooms after practice when he heard lots of yelling. Now one has to realize that with MSBY (especially in the presence of one Hinata Shouyou and one Bokuto Koutarou and one Miya Atsumu), there will be shouting. It’s a prerequisite and one that Kiyoomi can safely say he’s mostly gotten used to.
All this to say, he likes to steer clear of it. Stay a preferable 10 meters away from the Chaos Causers to avoid getting roped into another one of their Debates. Or Shenaigans, or whatever the fuck they were up to now.
Unfortunately for Kiyoomi, he had miscalculated his 10 meters and walked past them at a distance of 9.99 meters, a marginal error, but one that would cause his life henceforth to go to shit.
“Look Shou-kun, I just think that what someone wears really matters. It leaves an impression, y'know?” came the grating and ever arrogant voice of Miya Atsumu. Kiyoomi needed not to look in their direction to tell that he was wearing one of his signature shit-eating smirks.
“I dunno, Tsumu-san. To be honest, a person’s personality matters more to me. They’ve to have the same mindset as me.”
Shouyou, bless his heart, already had someone like that by his side since high school. He just needed to get his head out of his ass and confess to an ever-oblivious Kageyama Tobio, whose heart Kiyoomi also blesses, because he is nice like that and has secretly been shipping KageHina avidly after witnessing a moment between the two in his third year of high school.
(He thinks the rest of the volleyball world has been shipping them for years too, so he can be excused from this display of rather childish fan behavior.)
“So Shou-kun, gotta a certain Tobio-kun on yer mind?”
Hinata, like he does everything else, blushes with 110 percent of his being, cherry red from his face to the tip of his ears. “N-No, no way Tsumu-san, why would you ever say something like that, Kageyama’s my number one rival best frien–”
Bokuto, whose love life was certainly that of a fairytale with his beloved Akaashi, just laughs loudly and with a hearty hey hey hey yells, “Don’t worry Shouyou, my disciple. I’m sure Kageyama-kun likes you too. I just think you two should confess already!”
As Hinata’s protests grow abysmally louder, and Miya and Bokuto’s jeering seems to ramp up as well. Truly a bunch of idiots. Kiyoomi does not, under any circumstance, wish to be part of this delightful conversation. But then, with horribly impeccable timing as always, Miya hollers, “Hey, Omi-kun, do you think Kageyama likes Hinata back?”
Now, Kiyoomi may want to not be involved, but when Miya asks him stupid questions like these, it makes it hard not to retaliate. Besides, he has his own too-blunt-jerk reputation to defend, So, with his best scowl on his face, he glares at Miya from 9.99 metres away and scoffs, “Miya, I knew you were dumb, but I didn’t know you were so fucking oblivious. Of fucking course Kageyama likes Hinata, are you stupid?”
“Geez Omi, a simple yes or no would have sufficed,” says a very pouty Miya. Then he proceeds to comprehend what Kiyoomi has said and then he falls silent. The other two members of the Troublesome Three have also gone very, very still. Kiyoomi frowns. Can a guy not ship his teammate with the person said teammate has been in love with for the better part of the decade without being judged? Harsh.
But then, all three of the Gruesome Goblins start charging at him at full speed, like a herd of buffalo charging when they see a red scarf. Kiyoomi thinks he can see steam coming through Hinata’s nose. Maybe that’s because of the excessive blushing. Kiyoomi knows he will do a google search on the side-effects of long term pining when he gets home that night.
Bokuto, man-child extraordinaire, yells through the tears shining in his eyes, “We always knew you cared Omi-Omi. You pretend like you don’t, but you love all of us don’t you?” He punctuates his sentence with a loud sniffle and Kiyoomi thinks that he may have just suffered from permanent ear damage.
His ears still ringing, he turns to see Hinata, doing his infamous puppy eyes (and still blushing with his whole body). He catches only the tail end of that sentence, as the rest is still drowned out by the ringing of his ears, “--lly think so Omi-san? Are you just messing with me? Is this another one of your sarcastic jokes that I don’t understand?”
Stronger men than him have crumbled before Hinata’s puppy eyes. He needs to look away before he embarrassingly reveals how he’s shipped Hinata and Kageyama since his third year of high school and loses all of the intimidating respect he commands from this chaotic team. Looking to his right, he sees Miya in all his annoying glory. He doesn’t speak (which is where the alarm bells should have started ringing loudly in his head), but only has this mischievous, knowing look in his eyes that tells Kiyoomi this conversation is far from over.
“This conversation is over.” And with that, Kiyoomi walks away from the Headache Heathens, puts on his mask and hopes with all his being, that Miya stays away, away, away, and doesn’t speak of this (now rather humiliating) incident ever again.