Chapter Text
She’s there again, standing at the foot of Kiyoomi’s apartment. The 6 a.m. light makes her look like a ghost with her dark, sunken eyes and thready pale hair.
Not again, Kiyoomi dreads, hair standing on end, a shiver racing down his spine and a lump coming to his throat.
It was his mother.
The reaction has become reflexive and involuntary. Kiyoomi’s mother never brought home good news.
“What did he do now?” Kiyoomi hears himself ask from somewhere outside his body.
“Your brother has been hospitalised again.” Her voice is monotonous, like her expression, like her monochrome grey dress. “Your father wants to see you.”
Disquietude pools low and heavy in his gut. “You couldn’t have texted me this?”
A flash of an ineffable emotion flits through her eyes. “Kiyoomi,” she says flatly.
Kiyoomi, his mother used to say when he was younger, do not ask stupid questions.
Kiyoomi, his father would say, do not ask questions you know the answers to, it’s unbecoming of a man of your stature. Perhaps that silly ball game of yours is making you dull-witted.
“I have practice,” Kiyoomi attempts, but he knows in all respects that it’s a lost battle. His mother knows this too, for she stares him down as she’s prone to do. “I—Okay. Okay, Mother. Just. Can you just give me a little time?”
She says nothing. Kiyoomi can sense bile rising in his throat. “I need to make a call,” he hisses with desperation.
His mother relents, turning her back on him. “I will be waiting in the car.”
Kiyoomi regrets not having locked himself in his apartment. He regrets that his sense of duty overcame his urge to hide away.
Coach Foster answers his call on the second ring. “Foster speaking.”
“Good morning, Coach,” Kiyoomi greets, even when there didn’t exist a single good thing about this particular morning. “I’m sorry to bother you. I have a family emergency and won’t be able to make it to practice today.”
He neglects mentioning: or tomorrow, or the day after, knowing his parents.
The silence on the other end of the line is nauseating. “This is the second time this month, Sakusa, is everything okay back home?”
No. “Yes,” Kiyoomi lies. “I just have to be there. My… my brother has been hospitalised and my parents need me there with them.”
The concern in his Coach’s voice has Kiyoomi feeling like a fraud. “I’m sorry to hear that, please don’t worry about practice, the off-season is around the corner anyway. Why don’t you go ahead and take the week off?”
Please, no. Please. “That would be much appreciated, thanks, Coach.”
His mother has her seatbelt already secured when Kiyoomi joins her.
No words are exchanged as she ignites the engine and peels them away from the comfort of Kiyoomi’s space.
No words are exchanged at all.
Kiyoomi’s childhood home is a penthouse at the centre of Bancho, Tokyo, known as one of the most luxurious residential neighbourhoods around Japan. It’s tranquil, nearly exclusive to diplomats, business leaders, and renowned scholars.
Less than a thirty-minute drive away is the Sakusa Enterprise Skyscraper in the corporate district of Marunouchi. Sakusa Shigeru, Kiyoomi’s father, inherited it from Kiyoomi’s grandfather on his 23rd birthday.
Soon, Kiyoomi and his siblings will have to carry this tradition forth and inherit it from Shigeru.
Kiyoomi and his mother take the elevator up in silence. It has always been like this between them, their conversations brief and clinical. Sakusa Haruka never declared it, but Kiyoomi knew that she never wanted children, that having them was a societal role she had to fulfil.
Much like her, Kiyoomi’s father wasn’t fond of children either, but Sakusa Enterprise required heirs to carry its legacy.
The elevator chimed, the doors sliding open to reveal Haruka’s butler ready and waiting to receive her coat. Kiyoomi shrugged off his attempts to take his jacket, shuffling to their living room with growing trepidation. Shigeru was already there, wearing his customary disapproving frown as he sipped on his morning coffee.
“Kiyoomi,” he nods in greeting. He makes no attempt to stand up.
Kiyoomi bows stiffly. “Father.”
“Sit, Kiyoomi. We have much to discuss.”
Taking a seat in the armchair across Shigeru, Kiyoomi watches as his mother joins his father, and knows without a shadow of a doubt that he won’t like what he’s about to hear.
“Your mother must have already mentioned it, but your brother has been hospitalized, again.” He spits the word ‘brother’ like it is a curse. To Shigeru, it probably is.
Kiyoomi refrains from asking if Toshiro is okay. “I’m sorry to hear.”
“I’m sure you are.” Shigeru’s tone can be described as tepid at best, disdainful at worst. “This brings us to our current predicament. I’m renouncing him as my heir.”
“What?” Kiyoomi croaks, stiffening like a bucket of ice-cold water has been poured over his head. Oh, no. Oh, no, no, no. This is Kiyoomi’s worst nightmare realised.
Shigeru’s lips purse. “I have tried to ignore this for years. I gave him the benefit of the doubt, and that was my mistake. A junkie has no business managing Sakusa Enterprise.”
“I...” Kiyoomi can’t help it, the words die on his tongue; inarticulate in a way that was beaten out of him as a child.
For once, Shigeru doesn’t berate him for it. Instead, he does something worse. “I need you to step up and take over. It is time, Kiyoomi. You’re a grown man now; the time for childish ball games is over.”
“Over?” Kiyoomi is astounded. “Father, I just signed a contract with the Jackals last season.”
“Yes,” Shigeru acknowledges. “And you will do well to fulfil it to avoid legal trouble. However, I expect you to terminate it soon after. I had my assistant look it up and he informed us that the next season begins in October and concludes in March.”
There are too many words in Kiyoomi’s head, too many things he wants to say, but all that escapes his lips is a single, shivery breath. Shigeru—ignorant or dismissive of his plight—continues. “I will formally train you myself. Your degree in business and communication will come in handy but I advise that you take a short course in finance as well. Starting next April, you will shadow me closely. I’m not a young man anymore Kiyoomi, Sakusa Enterprise is at risk. My father built this conglomerate with the sweat of his brow. We will not disrespect his legacy.”
Kiyoomi finds his voice, except it shakes when he speaks. “What about Aia- neechan? She already has the necessary training—”
“—your sister is a married woman, Kiyoomi.” Shigeru’s disapproving frown deepens. “She has to look after her husband and children. Surely you don’t expect her to abandon her duties.”
“But Isamu-niisan wouldn’t mind if she stepped up—”
“Kiyoomi.”
He swallows, his throat closing up.
“Enough,” Shigeru demands. “This is not up for negotiation.”
And hasn’t that been the theme of Kiyoomi’s life?
Enough Kiyoomi, go to bed.
Enough Kiyoomi, you will spend New Year’s Eve with your family.
Enough Kiyoomi, a Sakusa must have a degree.
Enough, enough, enough.
And Kiyoomi, for once, has had enough too.
He stands abruptly. “I need to go.”
“Do as you wish,” Shigeru dismisses. “We anticipate your return at seven. We are having a business dinner this evening, and I think it would be good to get you acquainted with your prospective coworkers as soon as possible.”
Kiyoomi flees, his heart pounding in his ears.
Hadn’t he known this was coming?
Toshiro has been groomed to take over Sakusa Enterprise since the tender age of seven—Toshiro has been born to fulfil that role.
That’s another thing Kiyoomi is aware of that has never been explicitly mentioned. That Kiyoomi was an unplanned incident, that Aia, their eldest sister, was an unpleasant discovery as their parents had been hoping for a boy.
Kiyoomi, a decade younger than Toshiro, hadn’t been around to witness the full brunt of it. But he learnt, the older he got, the more he saw, just what that had done to his brother.
Nauseous and aching in his soul, Kiyoomi breezes out of the building, ignoring security and the row of neatly parked Sakusa cars to flag down a taxi. “Tokyo Business Clinic, please.”
The decision is spontaneous and desperate. Who else is going to understand, besides the person which Sakusa Enterprise is attempting to send to an early grave?
When Kiyoomi sees Toshiro, his heart bangs in sympathy. Toshiro might as well be dead for how lifeless and pale he looks, hooked up to beeping machines.
He was once Kiyoomi’s spitting image before drug abuse hollowed out the spaces under his eyes and turned him into skin and bones.
There are no bouquets, no “get well soon” cards in Toshiro’s room. The guest chair is untouched, the window curtains drawn tightly shut.
“Nii-san,” he says softly when Toshiro’s bloodshot eyes crack open.
He hasn’t seen his brother since Christmas. They were never close, nor familial, but Toshiro surprises Kiyoomi with a watery smile.
“You came to visit,” Toshiro’s chest stutters, tears overflowing his eyes.
Discomfited and still shaken from the conversation he had with his father, Kiyoomi collapses in the guest chair and starts shaking too. “You’re so stupid. So, so stupid, Nii-san. You’ve really done it this time, you’ve pushed Father into renouncing you.”
Kiyoomi’s head bows against the bed as he tries to get a grip on himself, but fails to hold back the few stray tears that escape. For the first time since he can remember, Kiyoomi is truly scared.
Toshiro’s frail palm rests gently on his head. “I’m sorry, Kiyoomi-kun. I’m so sorry.”
He doesn’t look up to see the tears he can hear in Toshiro’s voice. “I can never get anything done right, not even this,” he barks a humourless laugh. “Oh God, how does one fuck up killing themselves?”
Kiyoomi stiffens.
Toshiro continues to laugh, wheezing breaths verging on hysterical. “How does one fail at failing out of life!?”
He wrenches himself from beneath Toshiro’s hand to sit back and glare at him. “Toshiro,” he hisses blithely.
His brother looks away, tears still leaking out of his eyes as broken, dull laughter echoes in the hospital room. “Don’t sound so appalled, brother. Look at me.”
Kiyoomi doesn’t want to, but he can’t look away as Toshiro gestures at himself, at the bruises covering his arms. “It’s too late.”
The words seem to sober him up, his laughter pettering off. “Can’t you see, Kiyoomi? It’s too late for me. I’m too fucked up. I can’t… no one wants me. I don’t want me.”
“Shut up.” Kiyoomi realises he's crying when the words come out choked. “Shut up, shut the hell up, how could you say that?”
Toshiro looks away again.
Kiyoomi has never been good with words, but he needs to say something. The urge is maniac, propelling him to grip Toshiro’s hand tightly. “Look at me. Hey. Listen. You’re my brother… I know we don’t have the most brotherly relationship out there but you’re still my brother .”
“I bet you hate me,” Toshiro croaks, and grips his hand back with his frail strength. “He’s going to come for you next… you know that, right, Kiyoomi-kun? You know he’ll never ask Aia to take over.”
It’s like choking on glass, Kiyoomi thinks, as he forces bloody words out. “I don’t hate you.”
“You should run,” Toshiro pleads. “Before he ruins you, too.”
Kiyoomi has the morbid thought that he’s looking at his future in Toshiro’s pitiful state. He banishes it with a shiver.
“I want to,” he admits. “But knowing me…”
“You’ll do it,” Toshiro concludes.
At Kiyoomi’s miserable shrug, Toshiro begins bawling like a child; and Kiyoomi can only sit and watch.
How can he comfort Toshiro when it feels like his own life is over?
Kiyoomi contemplates ditching the work dinner.
He nearly does, when he catches sight of the suit laid out on his bed. He hates this house, this room, this suit.
And yet, he finds himself donning it with tense hands, grinding his teeth until his jaw aches.
“Kiyoomi,” his father lights up when he sees him—and isn’t that something? Kiyoomi cannot remember a time in which Shigeru so much as smiled at him. “Come here, let me introduce you to Mister Martin.”
Shigeru has his arm thrown over a blond man’s shoulder in an uncharacteristic gesture of fondness. Martin is a foreigner, but when he speaks, it’s perfect Japanese Kiyoomi hears. “Nice to meet you, Kiyoomi-san. Your father was telling me about your degree in business.”
Great. Kiyoomi bows, exchanging pleasantries, and begins to hope it won’t be too bad when Martin seems more interested in Kiyoomi’s general skills than his degree in particular.
But then a tall, blonde woman joins them with a sweet smile, and both men perk up. “Anna-chan, come here, this is the infamous Kiyoomi that Shigeru-san was telling you about!”
What? Kiyoomi stares, gobsmacked, and only belatedly remembers to give a shallow nod and a greeting. “Hello.”
Anna’s smile falters slightly, before regaining strength. “Hello.”
“This is my daughter,” Martin says proudly. “She joined Sakusa Enterprise last year.”
There’s an awkward beat of silence that turns into a very awkward minute of silence when Shigeru and Martin decide to disappear.
“Um…” Kiyoomi begins with uncertainty.
“That wasn’t very subtle of them,” Anna remarks.
At Kiyoomi’s questioning look, she sighs. “I think they’re trying to set us up…”
Kiyoomi stiffens. To think his father would meddle to this degree…
“Relax, darling,” she chuckles, leaning closer to whisper. “I’m not interested. Nothing against you, of course. You’re just… the wrong gender.”
Oh. Kiyoomi finds himself relaxing with a sigh of relief. “That’s— yeah. That’s great. Good for you.”
Anna giggles. “Nevertheless… Do you want to get out of here?”
“Please.”
They don’t wander too far, opting to visit one of the bars in the Suzuki Bancho Hotel across the street.
They fit right in with the pretentious atmosphere, Kiyoomi in his overpriced suit, and Anna with her gleaming pearl jewellery and old-money aesthetic.
“Here?” Kiyoomi asks as they come to a stop at the bar. Despite the dimly lit space, Kiyoomi would have preferred a secluded booth.
Anna takes one of the stools, flagging down the bartender with a smile. “Yeah. I want to introduce you.”
The bartender, a young brunette with a lopsided smile, slides two martinis their way. “New friend?”
“Hi baby,” Anna leans her chin on her upturned palm. “This is daddy’s new victim, Kiyoomi.”
Kiyoomi can’t help it, he huffs out a laugh.
“This is Maki,” Anna gestures, her sleek red nail polish gleaming in the warm light. “ My unfortunate victim.”
“It has been truly harrowing,” Maki sighs, reaching for the shaker. “Woe is me. Competing with handsome and rich young men like you.”
“There’s no competition here, darling,” Anna purrs. “ He’s not getting into my bed tonight.”
Heat floods Kiyoomi’s face, and he clears his throat much to the amusement of the two women. “I’m not even getting into my bed tonight.”
“Where do you stay?”
Kiyoomi cringes. “Osaka. I was accosted by my mother in front of my apartment—at six in the morning.”
Maki whistles.
Anna pats his forearm in a distracted gesture, leaning closer to Maki. “Grab him a whiskey, this is going to be a long night.”
Anxiety tightens his throat. “Why?”
The moment Maki is gone, Anna’s face grows stern. “Do you realise what’s happening?”
Kiyoomi can guess. “My father wants me to take over Sakusa Enterprise… I wasn’t expecting this right now, but sooner or later he’d want to discuss ‘potential matches’. Or whatever they do in the business world. It never really worked with my brother.”
Anna nods. “Yes. And my father and yours are close in everything but blood. If they marry us, that cements familial bonds, and I would be a Sakusa running Sakusa Enterprise.”
“A merger?”
“Yes,” Anna agrees. “Daddy’s company is already an extension of yours. And I work here.”
When she puts it that way… Kiyoomi wants to run. “I… I don’t want any of this.”
Sympathy softens Anna’s blue eyes. “I know. I read about you, preparing for this. You play for the Jackals, don’t you? You’re a volleyball star.”
“Star is overselling it, but yes I do.”
“Then you have no business letting your parents drag you here, into a world you don’t understand, to do things you don’t want to do.”
Kiyoomi’s jaw tightens. “It’s not like I have a choice.”
“Don’t you?” Anna challenges. “What’s stopping you from leaving?”
A woman standing at the foot of his apartment, haunting Kiyoomi’s every waking moment. “There’s nowhere to run.”
The realisation turns his stomach. There’s nowhere to run. Kiyoomi could get up and leave right now, and would still wake up to his mother ambushing him at his door. He leans against the counter, face in hands, and tries to breathe.
“Kiyoomi-san,” Anna says and unwittingly starts Kiyoomi’s descent to insanity with her next question. “Realistically, do you think you can do this?”
The moment the elevator doors to the Sakusa penthouse peel open, Kiyoomi stumbles out, whiskey breath curling against his mask, to come face to face with his father.
His next inhale catches. He expects a scathing remark about drunkenness or even disapproval of Kiyoomi’s disarrayed state. Instead, Shigeru steps closer to pat Kiyoomi’s shoulders with a look of pride. “How was it? Isn’t she lovely? Martin is ecstatic to see you getting along so quickly. I will have the secretary send a bouquet for Anna tomorrow.”
“Bouquet?” shivers out of Kiyoomi’s numb lips.
His father nods seriously, squeezing his shoulder. “It would be a good way to kickstart a courtship. Why don’t you ask Anna-san out for dinner? I can get you a reservation at any Michelin-star restaurant—”
Kiyoomi wrenches himself out of Shigeru’s hold. “Father,” he chokes out. “This is—that’s too much, too quick.”
Shigeru’s hands drop to his sides, and he sighs. “Very well. I will grant you some time to get to know Anna-san. But soon enough, Kiyoomi, you will have to settle down. You're twenty-four. I was running a company and had two children by the time I was your age.”
The idea of marriage in itself is poisonous enough to Kiyoomi, having grown up around a disinterested mother, and a controlling father. They had nothing to say to each other outside of sharing a dinner table and exchanging greetings and formalities the way colleagues would—they no longer share a bedroom, or go on outings unrelated to business dinners.
It was less of a marriage and more of a business agreement, and the thought that this could be Kiyoomi’s future is nauseating.
He hightails it to his old bedroom with its bland walls and impersonal furniture, stumbling over the burgundy carpet and planting face first on the bed. His head is already pounding, hangover settling in far too early.
His phone buzzes in his pocket, but he's too exhausted to check it, let alone reply to whomever was texting him.
You should run, before he ruins you, too.
Kiyoomi swallows shakily, eyes squeezing shut as he tries to ignore the tightening in his chest.
He’s going to come for you next… you know that, right, Kiyoomi-kun?
Kiyoomi twists and turns that night, riddled with nightmares, and awakens gasping for breath at midnight.
The house is eerily still around him, a ghost town with Kiyoomi as its only victim. He pads barefoot to his en suite, bile rising in his throat, and retches in the toilet bowl, the way he used to when he was seven, and his father would force him to shake hands with strangers, to give kisses to his aunties, and to leave his sanitiser behind because this is childish Kiyoomi, I will not tolerate this behaviour.
He moans, knees shaking against the cold tiles with the onset of what’s sure to be a horrible panic attack.
Kiyoomi rinses his mouth just before he starts heaving and gasping for air and then the world is closing in on him, and his vision is going dark around the corners as his heart rises to lodge in his throat.
His medicine—he needs his tranquiliser, he needs his—
Then it hits him like a barrage of freezing water.
Kiyoomi hadn’t packed anything with him.
“Oh God,” he chokes out, his knees giving out as he sinks to the floor. He doesn’t have his medicine, because his mother dragged him off the sidewalk all the way from Osaka to Tokyo.
He has no choice but to hunch over, crawling on his hands and knees to the ethanol spray bottle on his nightstand. His trembling fingers fumble but he manages to soak a tissue and bring it to his nose just as dark spots begin entering his vision.
The harsh antiseptic scent pulls him from the edge of passing out.
He needs— something. Anything to steady him enough.
Regulating his breathing seems impossible but his therapist once gave him a breathing exercise that’s meant to help with panic attacks, and he has nothing left to cling onto but that.
It doesn’t work at first as he keeps gasping out for air, but he keeps trying and eventually, he gets a grip on it.
Breathe in… one, two, three, four… Hold; one, two, three, four… Release; one, two, three, four… Hold out; one, two, three, four. Repeat.
It takes Kiyoomi fourteen repetitions before his heart settles and by then he's so lightheaded he can’t open his eyes.
He can’t do this.
Kiyoomi can’t live in this house—this prison—again; spending time with his father shaking hands with strangers and marrying a woman he doesn’t know.
It’s so clear he can taste it; the way this new routine would break him the way it has broken Toshiro. Frigid dinners with his parents, his father’s curt berating even at the smallest of missteps, stuffy businessmen differing to him with disdain, someone who hasn't the faintest idea how to run a company.
And worst of all, losing the only thing that matters to Kiyoomi: volleyball.
He has been pushing the thought away, ignoring it for as long as he could. But now it has escaped the cage of the darkest recesses of his mind to run rampant.
The Jackals. Oh, God, the Jackals.
Hinata would cry, if he told him. Bokuto might go non-verbal. And Atsumu? Atsumu would be pissed.
Their friendly rivalry on the court is as serious an affair to Atsumu as his career. Who scores more service aces; who stays the longest on the court during team practice. Who gives it his best and scores the most points.
And now Kiyoomi is quitting.
Atsumu would be so pissed.
Kiyoomi spent his life struggling to make a single friend. No one understood him or tolerated his set of extreme boundaries and mental struggles.
But the Jackals understood.
Kiyoomi found selfless friends in his team even though he never admits it out loud. He found it in Hinata’s infectious cheer and his boundless affection engulfing Kiyoomi to welcome him to his new home. In Bokuto’s easygoing, non-judgmental behaviour that sets Kiyoomi at ease—everything is straightforward with Bokuto. Kiyoomi’s boundaries are never questioned, only observed. Kiyoomi’s behaviour isn’t treated with derisiveness, only treated as another facet of him.
He found a friend in Atsumu too, who is brash and egotistical and hardheaded, but is someone who accommodates Kiyoomi, who sees him even beneath the layers Kiyoomi hides behind. Atsumu who opens doors for him, wipes down chairs and tables, and shields Kiyoomi with his body on public transport even as he insults him six ways to Sunday.
Can he abandon that?
The buzzing of his phone pulls him out of another spiral and back to his dreary bedroom. Kiyoomi braves opening his eyes, reaching weakly for his phone on the nightstand.
Atsumu’s caller ID flashes on the screen much to his unadulterated surprise. They rarely call each other and only text to exchange memes in the Jackal’s group chat.
He debates not answering.
But what if it’s an emergency? It’s half past midnight after all. What if someone is hurt— what if someone is dead?
Kiyoomi’s breath catches, his anxiety flaring again as he accepts the call.
“Miya? Is everything okay?” Kiyoomi winces. His voice is hoarse; he sounds as wrecked as he feels.
“Shouldn’t I ask ya that?” Atsumu’s voice crackles through the receiver. Kiyoomi puts him on speaker and sets his phone on the edge of the bed. “Where are ya, Omi? What happened? Are ya okay?”
The words lodge in his throat.
His silence must be telling. “Omi,” Atsumu says slowly. “Are ya hurt?”
Yes, but not in a way that can be healed or fixed. “No,” he says feebly. “I’m… I’m at my parents' house.”
Silence. Atsumu shuffles. “That sounded more like I’m being held hostage at my parents' house, Omi.”
Atsumu’s uncanny ability to discern the reality of a situation even when he's not there is alarming. “I… uh. That’s probably because that’s not too far from the truth.”
When Atsumu speaks again, it’s a harsh murmur. “Are ya okay, Omi?”
Kiyoomi has never been much of a liar. “No,” he whispers. “No, Miya, I don’t think I’ve ever been less okay in my life.”
He hears Atsumu’s breath catch. “What happened? Talk to me. Are ya… are ya hurt? Did they— did someone hurt ya? Y’know ya can tell me anything, right?”
“This is my burden to bear, Miya.”
“Don’t bullshit me, Omi. I wouldn’t call or ask if I wasn't sure I could handle it.”
Perhaps it’s because of his recent panic attack that has drained all his energy, but Kiyoomi opens his mouth and lets the entire truth pour out. “Yeah? Well, my brother is a drug addict, Miya. And suicidal, apparently. He— he tried to kill himself and my parents couldn’t give less of a shit about him. My father is trying to drive him to an early grave and he's succeeding… and now… now it’s my turn.”
“Your turn? Omi, what the hell are you talking about?” Now Atsumu’s voice is laced with palpable concern and Kiyoomi hates himself for being so weak.
The words are stuck again. How can he tell Atsumu?
"Kiyoomi.”
Fuck. “He’s making me quit volleyball to take over our family company as his new heir. I’m so terrified I can’t even run away.”
Silence greets him with a deafening intensity.
And then, “What?”
“I should’ve known,” Kiyoomi whispers dully. “From the moment he forced me to go to college or be cut off. From the moment Nii-san started missing family dinners. The son he wanted failed him, and now it’s time for plan B, the son he never intended to have might as well fill his shoes.”
Atsumu’s cool shatters in the next moment and with it Kiyoomi’s comatose state. “Over my dead fucking body, Omi.”
The vehemence of the declaration renders him speechless. “What?” he ekes out.
“Do you want to run your father’s company?”
“Miya—”
“—Do you want to or not?” Atsumu demands.
Kiyoomi gulps. “No.”
There’s a moment of silence and then a clatter and a jingle of keys. “I’m coming to get you.”
Kiyoomi jolts upright, his jaw going slack. “What?”
“I’m getting ya out of there.”
“Where would we even go?” he splutters. “I can’t go back home—”
“—anywhere. Nowhere. Wherever you want, I don’t give a shit. I’m coming to get ya.”
Kiyoomi’s mouth works but no words come out. He has wanted to run all day. If he could, Kiyoomi would run until the soles fell off his shoes trying to escape. But Kiyoomi has nowhere to go so he stays.
And now Atsumu rendered that moot.
“You can’t fix this, Miya.”
“Bull. Shit.” His tone is resolute. Final. Kiyoomi has no choice but to believe him.
“I’ll be there before sunrise, hold on tight, Omi.”
The line goes dead.
Kiyoomi stares at his phone like it’s alien.
I’ll be there before sunrise.
It takes him a minute to realise he's crying as tears drip off his jaw to splatter on his clenched fists. Atsumu is coming. Atsumu with his fiery eyes and hard-headed nature has made a decision and he is coming.
Kiyoomi knows, perhaps more than anyone, that when Atsumu sets his mind to something, nothing short of a natural disaster can stop him.
And now Atsumu has set his mind on freeing Kiyoomi.
Despite the bleakness of the situation, a small flicker of hope blossoms in his chest.
Atsumu is coming.
It’s chilly outside. Kiyoomi is underdressed for the 14 °C weather, the gym bag slung over his shoulder holding only a volleyball, a change of socks and basic toiletries. He stole one of his remaining, old jeans that still fit from the closet in his childhood room, but it did little to ward off the cold wind when it barrelled into him.
Atsumu’s Dual Cab Isuzu D-max was parked across the street. He's standing outside in a pair of dark jeans, paired with a grey hoodie and a jean shirt jacket. When he sees Kiyoomi at the foot of the building, he straightens from his lean against the navy blue car’s door.
He looks bedraggled, blond hair whipping every which way, and eyes set in a tired, droopy frown.
He waits for Kiyoomi to join him, untucking his hands from his hoodie’s pockets as he takes a tentative step closer to peer at Kiyoomi’s face. Kiyoomi flinches back at his intense stare.
“Were ya crying?” Atsumu asks softly.
Shame fills his body and Kiyoomi looks down, wishing he could hide his face from Atsumu’s all-seeing gaze. “Doesn’t matter.”
Atsumu begins to reach out, pauses as he seems to think better of it, then tugs his sleeve down to cover his hand before he uses his knuckles to tip Kiyoomi’s chin up. “Hey.”
Kiyoomi’s breath catches. “Miya?”
“It’s okay. It’s going to be okay.”
The sincerity in his amber eyes steals Kiyoomi’s breath. When Atsumu’s hand falls away, it leaves a bereft chilliness behind. Atsumu moves to open the backseat door and pulls out an oversized grey hoodie much like the one he's wearing.
“Here,” he says, pressing it into Kiyoomi’s hand. “Wear this ’fore you catch a cold. Is that all you have with ya?”
Kiyoomi looks down at his gym bag and feels small and insignificant. He nods, letting Atsumu pry it from his hold to toss it in the back seat. “Come on, get in.”
The passenger seat is comfier than Kiyoomi expects, and a glance behind shows a decent amount of leg space in the backseat.
There’s a rumbled, dark green blanket on the seat behind Atsumu, a neck pillow and another gym bag much like the one Kiyoomi had been carrying.
Atsumu slides into the driver's seat and shuts the door behind him. It sounds like finality as the dim silence of the car engulfs them. The click of their seat belts slotting in place sounds like safety.
Sitting there with Atsumu, separated only by a small centre console in the darkness of a slowly ending night, Kiyoomi finds that he can breathe again. “Thank you for coming,” he whispers, not wanting to break the comforting hush or think too hard about what he is doing.
“Anytime, Omi,” Atsumu responds quietly, but his voice is self-assured and clear. “Where to?”
“I… I have no idea.” He clenches his hands in his lap, ashamed yet again of his own weakness and subservience.
Atsumu hums, pushing the start button and pressing down on the gas pedal. The engine ignites, and the dashboard lights up. The radio resumes playing a foreign song, so lowly that Kiyoomi barely catches the soft tune. “Okay.”
“Okay?”
“I told ya,” Atsumu says as he peels out of the parallel parking. “I don’t care. We can go anywhere or nowhere at all.”
“You’re just gonna drive nowhere?” Kiyoomi finds himself saying in disbelief.
“Ya wanted to run, so we’re runnin’,” Atsumu confirms, like he hadn’t just driven five hours to reach Kiyoomi.
As they hit the highway, Kiyoomi notices the empty energy drink can in the cup holder, another clue that Atsumu hadn’t slept all night.
Guilt eats at him again. “Are you sure you can still drive?”
To his surprise, Atsumu grins. “Are ya kidding? ’Course I can. We’re goin’ on an adventure.”
There’s a lump in Kiyoomi’s throat that he can’t seem to swallow down. “Why’re you doing this?”
“What do ya mean, Omi?” Atsumu glances at him out of the corner of his eye as he changes lanes and takes the next exit.
“Why would you go out of your way to come and get me?”
Atsumu frowns. “What d’ya mean?” he repeats. “Do I need a reason? You’re my friend, of course I’ll come. That’s just what friends do.”
Kiyoomi swallows again, trying to dislodge his heart from his throat. “Miya…”
“Y’know, Samu even offered to come along. Said we can switch drivers to catch naps in between. Said something about giving yer dad a piece of his mind.”
Kiyoomi has only met Osamu a grand total of three times, and each one of them had been at Onigiri Miya. He hardly knows him, or anything about him other than the fact that he's dating EJP’s Suna Rintarou, owns a restaurant, and is apparently the polar opposite of Atsumu when it comes to temperament. “He—he did?”
“’Course,” Atsumu says again, like it’s obvious why his twin brother would care about Kiyoomi at all. “And he would for anyone else I care about. Just as I would for anyone he cares about. My people are his people too, and vice versa, that’s just how it works in the Miya family.”
Kiyoomi wrenches his eyes away from Atsumu’s side profile and the way the streetlights turn his eyes a dark amber. “That must be nice,” he mumbles. “My family and I, we’re not… we’re not really like a family.”
Atsumu hums again, changing lanes to overtake a sleek Hyundai Sonata. “D’ya wanna talk about it? It’s not like we have much to do, or anywhere ta go. It’ll prolly help me stay awake.”
“It’s not a pretty story,” Kiyoomi cautions, wondering if he owes Atsumu the details now that he has appointed himself as Kiyoomi’s saviour. “Or a short one.”
“Eh,” Atsumu shrugs one shoulder. “Doesn’t need ta be. And as I said, we have all the time in the world.”
We have all the time in the world.
Kiyoomi releases a long, heavy sigh. “I guess… What do you wanna know?”
“Hmm… ya said somethin’ about yer father drivin’ yer brother to an early grave—is he okay? Has he gotten the help he needs?”
Kiyoomi leans his head back against the seat and squeezes his eyes shut as images of his brother flash in his mind’s eye. The way he had looked so broken, a husk of himself. “He’s been hospitalised. They’ll probably send him to rehab… my father couldn’t be bothered to visit. I doubt he would’ve even agreed to pay for it if he wasn’t worried about his own reputation being smeared by Toshiro.”
He can almost hear Atsumu’s teeth grinding. “That’s… so fucking fucked up. How can anyone care so little about their own children?”
Kiyoomi shrugs feebly.
“I’m so sorry, Omi,” Atsumu says, voice shaking in anger. “You and yer brother deserve better.”
Perhaps. Toshiro certainly doesn’t deserve the hell he's living through. He wonders what Atsumu’s life must have been like growing up, if he had strict parents or a controlling, unyielding father like Kiyoomi’s. “What’s your father like?”
Atsumu’s hands clench around the steering wheel, knuckles blanching, before they forcibly relax and he releases a soft, sorrowful sigh. “Pa was… a character. A child stuck in an adult’s body. He had the biggest heart and the youngest soul… He was the coolest person I ever met.”
Was.
As if reading his mind, Atsumu’s voice dipped into a murmur. “He died when Samu and I were seven.”
“Oh.” Kiyoomi swallows thickly, his own fists clenching. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to bring up painful memories.”
“Nah, ’s okay, Omi. I just never really told anyone about him.” Atsumu reaches for the glove compartment without taking his eyes off the road and pulls out a worn, sun-bleached picture.
He hands it to Kiyoomi, who takes it with careful fingers to peer at the three figures grinning at the camera. He recognises Atsumu and Osamu, faces still round and cherubic. Atsumu is missing one of his front teeth but grinning so widely at the camera that his eyes are wrinkled shut. In his hand is a transparent plastic bag housing a goldfish.
Osamu sports a bandaid on his cheek but he's grinning just as wide with his own goldfish secured in hand.
Between them is a man who appears to be in his late twenties, arms thrown around both boys to pull them closer. Kiyoomi takes note of the wild bleached blond hair, the dark thick brows framing ocean blue eyes, and sees Atsumu in him. “Is that him?”
Atsumu hums.
“You look a lot like him,” Kiyoomi offers gently, tracing his fingers over the younger version of Atsumu. “You look so happy, you and your brother.”
“It was our first time visiting an amusement park,” Atsumu recalls, and although his voice is fond, it holds so much heart-wrenching sadness that Kiyoomi’s chest feels as heavy as a rock. “It was also the last picture we took together.”
“Oh.” Kiyoomi’s breath catches as he takes in the pictures again.
“Because a week later, when Pa was making us dinner ’cause Ma was late—she’s a nurse so she overtimes a lot—we hear a thud in the kitchen, and when I go ta check, he's lying on the floor... The left side of his face had gone all droopy. I tried… I tried to ask him what’s wrong but he couldn’t speak…”
When Kiyoomi chances a glance at Atsumu, he finds him chewing his lip bloody.
“Miya, you don’t have to tell me about this—”
“It’s okay,” Atsumu chokes out.
It’s not okay. “Stop the car.”
“Omi?” Atsumu manages.
“Stop the car,” Kiyoomi commands again. It takes a moment, but Atsumu complies, the car rolling to a stop at the side of the road. “Now take a deep breath.”
The skies are beginning to turn indigo as they near sunrise but Kiyoomi can hardly pay it attention. Atsumu’s fists have loosened again, and although his eyes are glistening, he appears calmer. “Do you still want to talk about it?”
Atsumu chuckles wetly. “Might as well finish what I started…”
“You don’t have to,” Kiyoomi reassures again, but Atsumu shakes his head.
“We’re already having a heart-to-heart… might as well, y’know. It’s about time I tell someone about this,” Atsumu whispers. “Couldn’t even tell Ma ’cause I was terrified she’d hate me for not bein’ able to save him. If I’d known how… but we were just kids, never saw someone have a stroke before. When Pa started convulsing, we freaked out. Didn’t know what was happenin’ or what to do.”
Atsumu wipes fleetingly at his eyes. “We called an ambulance eventually, but by the time they got there… it was too late… too much damage happened in the time Samu and I were too frozen ta do anything. They— they declared him brain dead th-the moment we reached the hospital—there wasn’t anythin’ we coulda done. Doc said he wasn’t th-there anymore, even when we could see his chest moving.”
When Atsumu fails to choke down a sob, Kiyoomi lurches forward without a second thought, body moving on instinct. He takes hold of Atsumu’s shoulders and leans over the centre console to hug him. “I’m so, so sorry,” he says, squeezing at Atsumu’s wide shoulders. “It wasn’t your fault. You were just a kid, Miya. It wasn’t your fault, you know that right?”
Atsumu breathes wetly against the side of his neck, shoulders shaking, but no noise comes out of his mouth. “Miya.”
“Sorry, Omi, didn’t mean ta cry,” Atsumu pulls away from him to wipe his face. “I thought it was, back then—blamed myself for years, but I know now that it’s not.”
Kiyoomi leans back in his seat with a soft breath, and is surprised that his skin is not crawling with the itch of touching another person.
Perhaps sleep deprivation has caused Atsumu’s mini meltdown.
The guilt is back and stronger than ever. “Why don’t you take a small nap?” He coaxes gently. “We can both catch some sleep.”
Atsumu releases a weary sigh. “I guess. Small nap sounds good.”
It takes a minute, but Atsumu switches off the car and reclines his seat all the way back. When he grabs the blanket in the backseat and spreads it open, Kiyoomi is surprised that Atsumu uses it to cover him too. “Cozy up, Omi,” Atsumu says, wiping at his face once more. “Promise I’ll be good as new when I wake up and we can go on a real adventure and have fun. We’ll take care of ya, okay?”
“Miya, stop,” Kiyoomi sighs. “It’s okay. I’m not going to crumble if you need a moment. I brought it up.”
Atsumu nods a little. “Thanks, Omi. Night.”
“Goodnight,” Kiyoomi says, and turns his head to watch the sunrise, unsure why his chest is twisting itself into a mangled knot.
And when he looks back, Atsumu is fast asleep, having passed out from sheer exhaustion. The bags under his eyes are a weary purple, spelling his lack of sleep and how far he had pushed himself to get here.
To be by Kiyoomi’s side.
Kiyoomi swallows and looks away again as a nameless emotion rises in his throat.
What has he done to deserve such a kind and selfless gesture?
His arms are heavy with exhaustion yet bereft with the sudden absence of a warm body. Kiyoomi doesn’t remember a time he has ever hugged Atsumu, or anyone for that matter, much less of his own volition.
Yet, it was he who reached out. Kiyoomi stews in that, wondering if the loss of Atsumu’s signature smile and cocksure grin had done it. If the shock of seeing his vulnerability had taken hold of Kiyoomi’s body.
He shuts his eyes tight and tries to sleep. Perhaps when he wakes up again, all would be right with the world and this would have been a horrible dream.