Chapter Text
“Why don’t you just shut the fuck up, Miya?” Kiyoomi’s voice cut through the corridor, sharp enough to bleed. “For once in your fucking life. I can’t stand you. So just fucking drop it.”
“No, I’m not gonna fucking drop it,” Atsumu snapped right back, stepping directly into his space with a furious, restless energy. “It’s one goddamn night. It’s the only room left, and Hinata already wanted to room with Bokuto. I’m so damn tired of you treating me like a piece of shit on the floor. What the fuck did I do to you that you can’t stand to share a hotel room with me for one goddamn night?”
“Everything!” Kiyoomi shouted, the raw, shocking passion of it tearing through the quiet hallway. The word ripped out of his throat far harsher than he’d intended, leaving his chest tight, burning, and desperately short of air. “I don’t like you, and I don’t want to spend a single minute alone with you off the court. You make a deliberate point to make me as miserable as fucking possible, and you have fun doing it! I am not subjecting myself to your shit. I’d rather sleep on the street.”
Atsumu let out a laugh—sharp, bitter, and echoing far too loudly against the polished walls. “Well, fucking go for it then, Omi. Your prissy ass who’s too goddamn snobby to treat me or anyone else like a human being. Go ahead and slum it for a fucking night. See how clean it is out there. Maybe you’ll actually learn some fucking manners while you’re at it.”
For a terrifying second, panic seized Kiyoomi—a brief, electric jolt at the immediate reality of grime, unpredictable strangers, and the total loss of control waiting for him outside those doors. His stomach twisted into a violent knot. His skin felt suddenly too tight for his body.
But his blood was already boiling, the sheer roar of his anger surging up fast enough to choke the panic down.
His eyes burned fiercely. Before he could blink it back, hot tears gathered along his lashes, blurring the harsh, sterile glare of the hotel lights. When he spoke again, his voice was thick with suppressed emotion—messy, urgent, and bleeding pain.
“You don’t know fucking anything!” Kiyoomi screamed, his voice cracking clean down the middle under the weight of it. His hands were shaking now, fingers curled tight into the fabric of his sleeves until his knuckles turned stark white. “Not anything about why I’m like this! So take your fucking ignorance and get the fuck out of my face!”
“Gladly, Sakusa,” Atsumu spat, his eyes dark with venom. “I hope you fucking die out there.”
Atsumu snatched the spare keycard from his pocket and whipped it across the space between them. It struck Kiyoomi square in the chest before dropping to the carpet with a dull click.
Without another word, Atsumu turned on his heel and stormed toward the bank of elevators, his shoulders set in a rigid line of pure fury. A few yards away, his brother and a couple of their teammates lingered, frozen mid-step. Their faces were caught in a painful blend of horror and deep discomfort after witnessing the entire blowout.
Kiyoomi didn’t stay to watch the aftermath.
He spun on his heel and shoved through the front entrance, the automatic glass doors barely sliding open fast enough to clear his path. The moment he crossed the threshold, the cold night air hit him, accompanied by a fine, persistent mist that immediately began clinging to his clothes and dampening the dark curls at the nape of his neck.
Nagoya glittered around him, a blur of neon lights smeared across the rain-slick pavement.
He didn’t know this city.
He hated the rain.
And he hated Miya Atsumu most of all.
Kiyoomi started walking with fast, sharp strides, having no actual destination in mind. As his shoes struck the wet concrete, the suffocating pressure behind his ribs finally cracked wide open. He let the tears fall, silent and heavy down his cheeks, where they washed away in the steady drizzle.
Contrary to what most people assumed about his cold exterior, Kiyoomi cried easily. Pure frustration was always his worst trigger, and no one in the world possessed the singular talent for frustrating him faster than Atsumu.
That was the real, unbearable problem: Atsumu knew exactly where to press to hurt him.
It wasn't always intentional, but it was executed with devastating accuracy every single time. He pushed. He poked. He laughed—always that bright, arrogant laugh, as though the entire world were a game he was universally destined to win.
It was funny to him when he mocked Kiyoomi’s strict sanitizing habits. It was funny when he carelessly made messes worse just to watch Kiyoomi flinch. It was funny to shove him into high-stress, overwhelming situations with that infuriating grin, as if a little forced exposure would magically fix him.
All it ever accomplished was grinding salt into open wounds that never had the luxury of closing.
People always thought Kiyoomi was just bratty, being difficult simply for the sake of causing trouble. Some chalked it up to a privileged, wealthy upbringing; others just decided he was an arrogant asshole and stopped caring to look any further.
Nobody ever saw the relentless, exhausting mental gymnastics running in the background of his every waking second. Nobody saw the debilitating anxiety, or the heavy weight sitting on his lungs, or the way his heart would spike into a full frenzy over something as small as a stranger brushing against his shoulder in a crowded hall.
The panic, the fear, the bone-deep crawling wrongness beneath his skin—none of it was a choice.
Kiyoomi had been fifteen when he was officially diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder, specifically the mysophobia subtype. Only his parents and Komori knew the actual diagnosis. Everyone else just knew that something about him was distinctly off; he wasn't subtle enough to hide the cracks entirely.
But people were shallow and quick to judge. They liked clean labels that allowed them to dismiss what they didn't understand. No one ever bothered to consider that there might be a reason behind Sakusa Kiyoomi’s behavior beyond mere snobbery.
Unfortunately, Atsumu was no different.
That reality hurt Kiyoomi in a place he tried very hard not to look at directly—a dull, throbbing ache tucked deep behind his ribs that flared every time Atsumu opened his mouth to reduce him to a joke.
Because the absolute worst part of it all—the part Kiyoomi hated himself for feeling—was that Atsumu wasn't just some loud-mouthed jerk.
On the court, he was a total force. Precise, electric, and brilliantly perceptive, he was the kind of setter who could pull a victory out of thin air and make the impossible look easy. Off the court, he possessed a magnetic, shameless charisma that drew people straight into his orbit. He was handsome, charming, and perpetually surrounded by noise and easy camaraderie, as though the room naturally rearranged itself around him.
He was the ideal teammate.
So why did he have to be so utterly mean to him?
Kiyoomi’s jaw set into a hard line as he walked, his sneakers splashing lightly through the shallow water pooling along the curb. The mist had settled into a fine, damp fog that coated everything—his sleeves, his hair, and the sensitive skin at the back of his neck, making his nerves hum with irritation.
Nagoya at night felt aggressively bright.
Slick pavement reflected the vivid glare of storefronts in jagged ribbons of color. Across the avenue, the interior of a convenience store glowed in harsh, sterile white, while further down, the red steel frame of the Nagoya TV Tower cut into the overcast sky, its peak swallowed by low clouds. Cars hissed along the wet asphalt, and small groups of pedestrians moved under umbrellas in quiet clusters. The entire city hummed with a dynamic life that made his skin feel prickled and raw.
His chest tightened further.
Growing thoroughly exhausted by his own aimless wandering, Kiyoomi caught sight of a weathered wooden bench sheltered beneath the narrow overhang of a small neighborhood park. It was mostly shielded from the weather, save for a few stray droplets clinging to the edge of the seat.
It would have to do.
He approached cautiously, his hand instinctively diving into his coat pocket. The familiar, crinkling sound of a fresh pack of disinfectant wipes provided an immediate, grounding touch of familiarity.
Drawing a slow, measured breath through his nose, Kiyoomi began cleaning the surface with firm, methodical strokes. Left to right. Over the backrest. Then across the edges where the drizzle might have splashed. His movements were precise and deeply ingrained—a familiar ritual perfected over years of needing to quiet the loud, frantic noise in his head.
The sharp, clean scent of isopropyl alcohol rose up, cutting through the damp air, and his rigid shoulders lowered a fraction of an inch.
He kept wiping until the sharp edge of panic in his chest dulled into something tolerable. He kept going until the trembling in his fingers died down, and until his wild, erratic pulse settled back into a steady rhythm.
Only when the space met his standards did he allow himself to sit.
The moment his full weight hit the wood, however, the fragile composure he’d worked so hard to rebuild shattered completely. The weight of the evening crashed over him all at once.
A broken, wet sob tore out of his throat before he could clamp a hand over his mouth. He folded forward immediately, tucking his face into his arms to muffle the sound as his shoulders shook with the force of his weeping.
He hated this. He hated Atsumu. He hated the way his own mind worked.
Rain tapped softly against the concrete around him. A nearby crosswalk chime began its steady, rhythmic beep—unbearably peaceful compared to the wreckage inside his head.
Why couldn't he just be normal?
The question surfaced with familiar, poisonous clarity—a thought he had spent years trying, and failing, to bury.
Why couldn't he handle something as basic as sharing a room for one night?
Why did the mental image of Atsumu’s damp, sweat-stained workout gear tossed casually onto the carpet make his skin feel like it was breaking out in hives?
Why could he still vividly recall the exact feeling of horror from the last time Atsumu had left stray hairs scattered near the bathroom sink without a second thought?
Why couldn't he just force himself to endure it like anyone else would?
His fingers dug violently into the fabric of his sleeves, his knuckles aching from the strain.
Because he had tried. God knew he had tried, over and over again. And it never worked.
After sitting on the damp bench for what felt like hours, a profound, heavy exhaustion settled into Kiyoomi’s bones.
The temporary relief he’d bought himself with his cleaning routine had long since evaporated, allowing a cold, familiar anxiety to seep back into his thoughts like water through a crack. His eyes burned from weeping, his neck ached from remaining coiled in a tight defensive posture, and his mind refused to give him a moment of peace.
All he could fixate on was how many random people had occupied this exact bench before him. How many strangers. How many dirty coats. How much lingering grime was pressed into the wood beneath him right now. His fingers twitched restlessly against his arms. Real rest was completely out of the question.
The city around him had gradually quieted as the hour grew late, though Nagoya never truly slept. Tires continued to hum over the wet roads, a sub-surface train vibrated softly through the ground beneath his feet, and neon signs cast distorted, colorful reflections across the slick concrete.
It was overwhelming.
Kiyoomi pressed his palms against his face, his breathing catching in his chest.
He could just turn around. The thought hit him with sudden, unwelcome force. He could swallow his pride and walk back to the team hotel.
Instantly, his stubbornness flared up to block it. The image of Atsumu—arrogant, loud, and likely already sprawled out across one of the beds without a single care in the world—made his stomach twist with bitter resentment.
No. Absolutely not.
There was no way he was going back there just to give Atsumu the satisfaction of being right.
Setting his jaw, Kiyoomi tried to focus on a logical alternative. He would find another hotel. A clean, quiet room somewhere down the street where he could lock the door, sanitize the space, and finally catch his breath. The temporary plan gave him a brief second of relief.
Then his stomach dropped straight to his shoes.
His wallet.
Kiyoomi froze, every muscle locking up at once.
He had left his jacket hanging in the lobby.
The detail rushed back with sickening clarity. He’d taken it off the moment they arrived, feeling suffocated and overheated from the long trip and Atsumu’s non-stop chatter. He had draped it over the back of an armchair near the entrance without thinking.
And then the argument had exploded.
“Oh—” A small, hollow sound escaped his throat.
His heart began to hammer against his ribs as a fresh wave of panic hit him—hot, sharp, and suffocating. His breath came in short, shallow gasps as the reality of his situation pinned him to the bench.
No wallet. No identification. No cash. No place to stay.
The remaining threads of his self-control began to fray completely.
Kiyoomi’s nails dug sharply into his arms through his shirt as his breathing turned ragged. He felt utterly trapped, foolish, and hopelessly stranded in an unfamiliar city. A heavy, suffocating feeling of doom settled over him.
He had no idea what to do next.
And what he hated most of all was the horrifying realization that his only realistic survival option was to walk back into that hotel.
-
Across town, the moment Atsumu had turned his back on Sakusa, the adrenaline rush hadn't faded at all. If anything, the rage inside him had morphed into a restless, thrumming tension.
His heart was still beating wildly in his ears as he crossed the main foyer, his shoulders tightly hitched and his hands curled into white-knuckled fists. The glass doors hadn't even finished sliding shut behind Sakusa before Atsumu was aggressively slamming his thumb against the elevator button.
The whole area felt stifling. Too quiet. Too many people watching.
He could feel their heavy gazes—Bokuto’s rare, stunned silence, Hinata standing awkwardly to the side, and the rest of their teammates putting on an awful job of pretending they hadn't just witnessed a massive blowout. The scrutiny made a defensive heat rise straight up his neck.
“What are you all lookin’ at?” he growled toward the room, not even bothering to turn around. “Mind your own damn business.”
Nobody said a word, which only made his temper flare higher.
The elevator arrived with a soft chime. Atsumu stepped inside, his heel coming down hard enough to send a sharp shock up his leg. Osamu slipped in right behind him without a word, and the doors slid shut with a smooth, quiet click that felt infuriatingly peaceful compared to the storm in Atsumu's chest.
For the first few floors, the silence between them was deafening.
Atsumu glared at his own reflection in the brushed metal walls. His hair was messy, his mouth set in a hard scowl, and his eyes still flashed with lingering anger.
God, Sakusa knew how to drive him insane.
The lift stopped at their floor, and Atsumu pushed out instantly, pacing down the carpeted hallway so fast it felt like he was trying to outrun his own thoughts.
He headed straight for his assigned room, Osamu trailing close behind. The door had barely latched shut before Atsumu snapped.
“What the hell is his problem?” he demanded, his voice raspy and sharp as he began pacing the narrow space between the beds. He shoved both hands into his blonde hair, pulling at the roots in frustration. “Seriously, Samu, I’m askin’ ya. What the fuck did I even do this time?”
Osamu didn't answer immediately, and the hesitation alone made Atsumu’s jaw tighten.
“Well?” Atsumu snapped, spinning around to face him. “You were standin’ right there. I didn’t even start it!”
Osamu leaned his back against the wall by the entryway, folding his arms in his usual calm manner. His expression was impassive, but his eyes were far too observant.
“I saw it,” Osamu said quietly.
Atsumu let out a harsh scoff, turning on his heel to pace again, the restless energy under his skin making it impossible to stand still.
“He acts like I personally ruined his entire life,” he muttered, his voice dropping an octave, though the bite remained. “It’s one room. One night. We’re on the same damn team. Am I really that awful to be around that he can’t handle sleepin' in the same room as me?”
He let out a sharp breath through his nose. “I wasn’t even bein’ that mean.”
The defense sounded flimsy even to his own ears.
Osamu’s left eyebrow twitched up slightly—a subtle gesture that made Atsumu’s posture instantly go rigid.
“Don’t look at me like that,” he warned, his tone defensive as he tried to drown out the sudden knot forming in his stomach. “I’m serious! He does this constantly. He acts like I’m the worst guy in the world just for breathin’ the same air.”
Osamu paused for a moment before speaking. “You do talk about him a lot.”
Atsumu stopped dead in his tracks and whipped around. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“It means what I said,” Osamu replied calmly. “You pick fights with him more than anyone else on the team. You’ve been doing it since the day you joined MSBY.”
Something tight clenched in Atsumu’s chest. He narrowed his eyes to hide it.
“Yeah, because he’s always got an attitude whenever I’m nearby,” Atsumu countered sharply. “I could say a simple 'good morning' and he’d glare at me like I spat on his shoes.”
His hands clenched at his sides. The initial rage was beginning to curdle into something far less comfortable—a heavy, sinking feeling he couldn't push away.
“I just don’t get it,” he said, his voice losing some of its sharp edge, sounding genuinely frustrated. “I don’t know what I did to him that’s so unforgivable.”
The confession felt dangerously close to the vulnerability he’d been trying to hide all evening.
Osamu’s expression softened slightly—not with pity, but with a quiet, familial familiarity. He’d heard this exact tone from his brother before.
“You don’t always gotta do some grand terrible thing to get under someone’s skin, ’Tsumu,” Osamu said softly.
Atsumu’s jaw set hard. “So what, I’m just his personal villain for no reason at all?”
Osamu didn't bite. He didn't yell or escalate the argument.
Which only made Atsumu feel exponentially worse.
“He looks at me like…” Atsumu trailed off, dragging a heavy palm over his face as frustration flickered again. “Like I do it on purpose. Like I wake up every morning plannin' ways to ruin Sakusa Kiyoomi’s day.”
He let out a dry, humorless laugh. “I’ve got better things to do with my time.”
The silence settled over the room once more.
Then Osamu spoke, his voice low and undeniable: “You went too far back there.”
Atsumu’s back went rigid. “Oh, come on.”
“I’m serious.”
“I didn’t—” Atsumu caught himself, his voice pitching up in defensive frustration. “He was screaming at me too, in case you forgot!”
“Yeah,” Osamu nodded slowly. “After you kept pushing him.”
That hit a nerve, hard.
“I wasn’t pushing,” Atsumu snapped, though the authority in his voice was rapidly crumbling into pure defensiveness. “I was just talkin’. There’s a difference.”
Osamu simply held his gaze. And that steady, knowing look made an awful, twisting guilt settle deep in Atsumu’s gut.
“You’ve been riding his ass for weeks,” Osamu added quietly. “I’ve seen it when I come to watch your matches. I know how you two have been acting lately.”
Atsumu opened his mouth to shoot back a quick response, but no words came out. His chest felt constricted.
“He pisses me off,” Atsumu muttered weakly, his hands dropping uselessly to his sides as the fight drained out of him. “He always has. That arrogant superiority complex of his—”
“Do you actually hate him because you think he considers himself better than you?” Osamu asked calmly.
“He acts like he’s better than everyone.”
Osamu hummed quietly, neither agreeing nor pushing the point, just letting the statement hang in the air. Atsumu hated how well his brother could read him.
“He just gets on my damn nerves,” Atsumu mumbled, staring down at the floor as the prickle of shame spread down his neck.
“Whatever, ’Tsumu,” Osamu said with a quiet sigh, pushing off the wall and heading toward the door. “Just try to sleep it off. Try bein' a bit nicer to him tomorrow.”
Atsumu scoffed out of sheer habit. “I will if he will.” The words lacked any real bite.
Osamu just rolled his eyes, turning the door handle. “Get some rest, idiot,” he said softly, and stepped out into the hall.
The door clicked shut, the sound ringing loudly through the silent space. Atsumu was left entirely alone in the quiet room that had been reserved for two.
It felt wrong.
The atmosphere was too still, too empty. On the far side of the room, the second bed remained perfectly made, its crisp white sheets untouched—a glaring visual reminder of the person who should have been there.
Atsumu felt a sudden tightness in his throat. The last lingering drops of adrenaline had completely evaporated, leaving behind a hollow, uncomfortable ache. It was the kind of restless feeling that made staying still unbearable, yet gave him nowhere to direct his energy.
He rubbed the back of his neck, his jaw clenched tight. A heavy realization settled over him—he didn't deserve to be sitting here in this warm, clean room while the secondary bed sat empty because of a fight he had escalated.
Unconsciously, his eyes drifted back toward the entrance.
Where was Sakusa right now?
The realization hit him like a physical blow. Because despite Sakusa's stubborn pride, Atsumu had a sickening feeling that the guy had actually meant what he said. He was likely somewhere out on the streets right now.
Atsumu stood motionless for a long moment, staring at the closed door as if expecting it to open. It remained shut. The quiet pressed in on him, heavy and oppressive, and his gaze slid back to the untouched bed. His brain involuntarily began constructing scenarios he really didn't want to visualize.
Sakusa out in the dark. In the cold rain. Pacing beneath some harsh streetlight with that tight, miserable expression he always wore when his environment wasn't completely under his control. Shoulders pulled up tight, hands buried deep in his sleeves, his sharp eyes filled with that familiar, frantic discomfort.
Atsumu let out a long, slow breath through his nose.
God, the guy was meticulous about everything. He always had been. The disinfectant wipes, the rigid physical distance he maintained, the way his entire body would visibly lock up if someone accidentally brushed against him in passing. Everyone else on the team treated those quirks as minor oddities. Atsumu had always assumed Sakusa was just being snobbish, high-maintenance, and impossible to deal with.
But tonight had been entirely different.
Atsumu dragged his hand down his face, his irritation giving way to a much heavier weight. Even he wasn't dense enough to miss what had happened. Sakusa had routines and boundary rules that were deeply vital to him, even if nobody else understood them. Atsumu still didn't fully get it, if he was being completely honest with himself.
But he knew with absolute certainty that Sakusa hadn't been faking that raw, panicked reaction in the hallway.
Which meant that wherever he was right now... he was likely spiraling.
The thought made Atsumu’s stomach drop.
Either Sakusa was wandering through the cold rain, tight-chested and overwhelmed, or he had managed to drag himself into some unfamiliar lobby, forcing himself through a check-in process while barely holding his composure together. Neither scenario brought Atsumu any satisfaction.
If Sakusa weren't so infuriatingly stubborn, he could be right here. Safe. Dry. Free from whatever nightmare he was currently navigating outside.
The defensive thought surfaced automatically, an easy reflex.
But it didn't hold up.
Because beneath that lingering irritation was a truth he couldn't walk away from: Atsumu was the one who had hurled the keycard at his chest. He was the one who had told him to go slum it, who had told him he hoped he died out there. His jaw clenched as a sour taste filled his mouth.
He ran a hand over his neck again, the anger completely gone now, replaced by a deep, undeniable guilt. Sakusa certainly didn't make things easy—he looked at Atsumu like he was something filthy half the time, as if sharing a five-foot radius was an intolerable offense. That kind of treatment got under Atsumu's skin fast, and he wasn't built to just take it quietly.
Still.
His gaze returned once more to the empty bed.
Sakusa was his teammate. At the end of the day, regardless of how difficult, reserved, or frustrating he could be, he was part of MSBY. He was someone Atsumu was supposed to support, both on and off the court.
When Sakusa had first joined the team, Atsumu had actually wanted to be his friend. For all his rigidness, Sakusa was an incredible athlete, someone remarkable to play beside. But Sakusa had built a solid wall around himself, and every attempt Atsumu made to break through had been met with cold rejection. So yeah, Atsumu had let resentment take over. It felt easier to fight back.
But telling him to go slum it... telling him to go die out there... that had crossed a line.
Atsumu let out a heavy sigh, his shoulders slumping as the last bit of fight left his body entirely.
“...Damn it,” he muttered into the quiet room.
The hardest part was that he still didn't fully comprehend what went on in Sakusa’s head. He didn't understand why small things triggered such massive reactions, or why sharing a room felt like an insurmountable nightmare to him.
But sitting alone in the quiet space, Atsumu knew one thing for certain.
Whatever internal battle Sakusa was fighting... Atsumu had made it infinitely worse tonight.