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I notice it halfway through the afternoon session.
At first it’s subtle—an uncomfortable warmth under my skin, a tightness curling low in my abdomen that I try to ignore. Training camps are always exhausting. Multiple schools crammed into one gym, shared equipment, shared air, shared everything. I already hate it. My skin crawls every time someone brushes past me, every time I hear someone cough without covering their mouth properly.
I tell myself it’s just nerves. Or dehydration. Or overexertion.
Anything except illness.
By the time we break for dinner, the warmth has turned into nausea. It coils viciously, like something alive, something waiting. I push my food around my plate, hyperaware of every smell, every texture. Rice smells wrong. Meat smells wrong. Everything smells wrong.
Atsumu doesn’t seem to notice at first. He’s loud, animated, talking with his hands as he complains about setters from other schools and how none of them compare to him. He always does that—fills space without trying. Normally it irritates me.
Tonight, it’s almost… grounding.
“You eatin’ or starin’ it to death?” he asks, glancing at my untouched tray.
“I ate earlier,” I lie, too quickly.
He squints at me. “That’s a load of—”
“I’m fine,” I cut in, sharper than intended.
The word fine tastes bitter. A lie my body rejects immediately. My stomach twists violently, and I have to curl my fingers into my palm under the table to keep from reacting.
If I’m sick, it means something got past me. Past my precautions. Past my rules.
It means I failed.
Back in the dorm room later, the lights feel too bright. The air feels thick. I scrub my hands at the sink for longer than necessary, watching the skin redden, trying to convince myself I can wash whatever this is away.
Atsumu flops onto his bed, kicking his shoes off. “Man, that curry earlier slapped. You sure you didn’t want any?”
Curry.
The word hits me like a punch.
My stomach lurches hard, violently, and this time I can’t hide it. I clamp a hand over my mouth, my breath stuttering. Heat floods my face. My vision blurs at the edges.
Don’t panic. Don’t panic. Don’t—
“I’m gonna—” I mutter, already moving.
I barely make it to the bathroom.
The door slams behind me as I drop to my knees, hands shaking as I grip the porcelain. My body folds in on itself, every muscle locking tight as my stomach convulses.
I throw up hard.
It burns. My throat spasms, my chest heaving as wave after wave tears out of me. I gag, eyes watering, sweat breaking out across my back and neck. My heart slams against my ribs like it’s trying to escape.
This is bad. This is really bad.
Food poisoning. Or worse. A virus. Something contagious. Something dangerous.
My thoughts spiral immediately, catastrophically.
What if it spreads? What if it’s severe? What if it gets into my bloodstream? What if I end up hospitalised—isolated—intubated—
I retch again, bile this time, my body shaking uncontrollably. My breathing comes out in sharp, broken gasps between heaves. I can’t slow it down. My chest feels too tight, like there’s a weight pressing down on it.
I’m dying.
The thought is absurd. Irrational. I know that. But it feels real. Terrifyingly real.
The bathroom door opens.
“Kiyoomi?”
Atsumu’s voice cuts through the fog, suddenly close. I don’t remember unlocking the door.
I feel his presence behind me before I feel his touch—warm, solid hands settling carefully on my back. He hesitates, like he’s unsure if he’s allowed, then starts rubbing slow circles between my shoulder blades.
“It’s okay,” he says, softer than I’ve ever heard him. “I gotcha. Just breathe, yeah?”
I want to tell him not to touch me. That he’ll get sick. That this is dangerous.
But another wave hits, stealing my words.
I vomit again, body jerking violently. Atsumu doesn’t pull away. His hand stays on my back, steady, grounding, like an anchor keeping me from floating apart.
“Easy, easy,” he murmurs. “You’re okay. You’re okay.”
I’m not.
I’m sweating through my shirt, my skin clammy, my hands numb where they grip the toilet bowl. My breathing is wrong—too fast, too shallow. My chest won’t expand properly.
Atsumu notices before I do.
“Hey—hey, slow down,” he says, shifting closer. One hand stays on my back; the other comes around, resting over my sternum. “Breathe with me, Omi. In. Out. Look at me.”
I can’t look at him. My vision swims. Black spots creep in at the edges.
“I—I caught something,” I rasp. “I shouldn’t— I was careful—”
“Food poisoning,” he says immediately, firmly. “That’s all. Happens. Doesn’t mean you did anything wrong.”
He grabs a towel, wets it, and gently wipes my mouth when I finally stop retching. His touch is careful, almost reverent. He cups my face afterward, thumb brushing my cheek, completely unbothered by how sweaty and flushed I am.
“You’re burnin’ up,” he mutters, worry thick in his voice. “Jesus, you’re shakin’…”
My head feels too heavy. The room tilts. The panic, the adrenaline, the exhaustion all crash at once.
“I don’t feel… good,” I manage.
“I know,” he says softly. “I got you.”
That’s the last thing I hear before my knees give out and the world goes dark.
I collapse forward, straight into Atsumu’s chest.
He catches me instantly.
I don’t wake all at once.
It’s more like surfacing—consciousness drifting back in uneven waves. Sound comes first. A high, distant ringing in my ears that pulses, fades, then swells again. My body feels heavy, unresponsive, like I’ve been wrapped in layers of wet fabric.
There’s movement.
I register it dimly: arms around me, firm and careful, lifting my weight. My head lolls against something solid—someone’s shoulder—and my stomach protests weakly, though the nausea feels dulled now, pushed far away by exhaustion.
“Easy… gotcha,” a voice murmurs close to my ear.
Atsumu.
The recognition is comforting enough that I let myself drift again, awareness blinking in and out. I feel myself being laid down, mattress dipping beneath me. Fabric rustles. The smell of detergent and clean cotton fills my nose, grounding, familiar.
A hand settles against my temple.
Warm. Steady.
The ringing fades. My thoughts unravel, slipping loose as sleep pulls me back under without resistance.
I wake with a sharp inhale.
My eyes fly open, heart hammering as panic claws up my throat before I can stop it. For a split second, I don’t know where I am—don’t know if I’m sick, if I’m alone, if—
“Hey, hey, you’re okay.”
Atsumu’s there immediately, sitting on the edge of the bed. His hands hover for a moment like he’s unsure, then one settles on my shoulder, firm but gentle.
“You’re in the dorm,” he says quickly. “You passed out, remember? I carried you back. You’re safe.”
The words cut through the haze. I blink, vision clearing enough to register the familiar ceiling, the narrow bed, the dim light of evening filtering through the curtains.
My chest loosens.
“I—” My throat is dry. “I panicked.”
“I know,” he says softly, without judgment. “Anyone would.”
He reaches for a water bottle on the nightstand and twists the cap, holding it out to me but not forcing it closer. Just there. Available.
Before I can respond, his expression shifts—something brighter, almost triumphant.
“Oh! Guess what.”
I eye him warily. “That doesn’t sound reassuring.”
He grins anyway. “You are not special.”
That earns him a faint huff from me despite myself.
“A bunch of people are down with the same thing you’ve got,” he continues. “Kita went down earlier, Tarohama too. Terushima was absolutely miserable—”
“Good,” I mutter.
He snorts. “Even Coach Ukai from Karasuno. They’re sayin’ it’s the curry from lunch. Bad batch or somethin’.”
The tension I didn’t realize I was holding finally releases. My shoulders sink into the mattress, breath evening out as relief spreads through me, slow and heavy.
Food poisoning.
Not a virus. Not something I caught because I wasn’t careful enough. Not something that will spiral out of control.
“I see,” I say quietly.
Atsumu watches my face closely. “Feel better hearin’ that?”
“…Yes.”
He relaxes too, like he’s been waiting for that answer. “Good. ‘Cause I was about to go give that chef a piece of my mind.”
I turn my head slightly to look at him. “You were not.”
“I absolutely was,” he says seriously. “Aran had to stop me.”
The mental image slips past my guard, and a short, surprised sound escapes me—half laugh, half breath.
Atsumu’s grin widens. “There it is.”
He shifts, then lies down beside me on the narrow dorm bed, careful not to crowd me too much. The mattress dips again, warmth pressing along my side.
“I got you a bucket,” he says, nodding toward the floor. “Just in case. Water, too. And anti-nausea meds.”
I blink. “Meds?”
“Yeah. Aran came by,” he explains. “Brought ‘em from Kita. Figured you’d need ‘em more than he did at the moment.”
“That was… considerate.”
He shrugs, suddenly a little sheepish. “Didn’t wanna leave you alone.”
My throat tightens at that.
“And I slept,” I say after a moment. “The whole time?”
“Like the dead,” he replies fondly. “Nearly three hours.”
Three hours.
I push myself upright immediately, alarmed. “I shouldn’t—”
“Bad idea,” Atsumu says at the same time, moving just as fast.
He catches me around the shoulders and gently but firmly guides me back down onto the pillow. “You clearly needed it. Don’t stop your body from restin’, yeah?”
I scowl faintly. “I don’t like being unconscious.”
“Yeah, well,” he says lightly, “your body didn’t ask for your permission.”
I hesitate, then let myself sink back against the mattress, conceding. “…Fine.”
“That’s my good patient.”
I glare at him.
He laughs, eyes sparkling. “By the way—”
He leans closer, peering at my face with exaggerated scrutiny. “Your hair’s curled even more over here now. All sweaty and gross.”
“Stop,” I mutter, heat creeping into my cheeks.
He doesn’t. “Kinda impressive, actually. Like it’s evolvin’.”
“Atsumu.”
“I mean it! If you get any curlier, we might need hazard tape.”
I shove at his shoulder weakly. “You’re insufferable.”
“And yet,” he says smugly, “you’re laughin’.”
I realize he’s right only after the sound slips out again—quiet, but genuine.
“Come on,” he says, softening. He lifts the water bottle again. “Drink. I’m your nurse for the time being.”
I eye him. “You?”
“Hey, I can be professional.”
“I don’t mind,” I say honestly.
He freezes for half a second, then looks away, ears faintly pink. “Y-yeah, well. Lucky you.”
I take a careful sip, the cool water soothing my throat. Atsumu watches closely, ready to intervene if I falter, but I manage fine.
We talk after that.
About nothing.
About the gym being too cold, and the beds being too narrow. About Terushima’s dramatic groaning echoing down the hallway earlier. About how Kita apparently apologized to the nurse for being sick.
The conversation drifts, easy and unforced, words overlapping softly in the dim room. Atsumu’s voice becomes a constant, calming presence, anchoring me as the exhaustion creeps back in.
At some point, my eyes start to close.
“Hey,” he murmurs. “You fallin’ asleep again?”
“…Mm.”
“That’s okay,” he says quietly. “I’m right here.”
I let myself believe him.
Sleep takes me gently this time.