Chapter Text
"...This is the first time."
It starts on the cusp between winter and spring.
From the other end of the sofa, Atsumu looks up sharply, hand drifting from his undercut. His slouch straightens slowly—as if Kiyoomi's whisper were a hook. Caught on the top of his spine. Gently dragging it upright.
"First time..." Atsumu murmurs. "That what?"
Hunched over, Kiyoomi looks to him. Sees him snap his gaze away the moment their eyes meet, blinking, fidgeting with his fingers. Like his body doesn't blare with signs of last night, dark over his smooth, muscled frame. Like they don't smell of each other with the pile of clothes in the corner. The tissues strewn by their feet.
Kiyoomi's heart, an abused, wandering weight, eases out his sigh.
"That we'll have...talked. Properly," he says softly. Making sure to sigh out the nose, but he can't help a lick of his lip when Atsumu, cagey, blush high on his cheeks, looks back at him. "Since..." Like a kite, Kiyoomi's attention drifts down to Atsumu's parting lips. The wind of his remaining sense whips it back up, and he swallows. "Everything."
Softly. Every sound is a tread that could wake the slumbering, beastly tension.
Kiyoomi keeps careful watch. Atsumu—headstrong, bashful, prattling, roundabout Atsumu—purses his lips. Settling back into the sofa cushions, he crosses his arms, the tendons in his forearms corded, the veins on the back of his hands prominent when they clutch at his elbows. As if he were embracing himself, wrangling the heat from escaping him.
It takes everything in Kiyoomi to stay exactly where he's seated.
"...That's one way ta put it." Atsumu huffs hard out the nose. "So?" When he mumbles, Kiyoomi fights to keep his eyes up, oily dread and hope and fear clogging his thudding heart. "Where...do we oughta start? Then."
Kiyoomi glances down. At the space between them, as he's leaned and turned towards Atsumu. Peeking over, Atsumu doesn't quite face Kiyoomi properly. But his body is turned to him, too.
Kiyoomi's laugh robs the moisture from his mouth. He swallows, trying to restore it. All his attempts lay barren.
Sakusa Kiyoomi and Miya Atsumu. Volleyballers since middle school. Rivals in powerhouse high schools.
On another cusp tilting more towards spring, they met for the first time, Kiyoomi would later recall vividly.
Kiyoomi, the watch tower of his own life, could sense it from his corner. Where the great wide stadium unfurled before him, letting him know exactly where each and every one of his adversaries and threats to his being were placed. How best he could relocate, escape routes secured in his mind, all linked in scenarios one onto the other like joints in a rope bridge on a playground—no matter how many grubby feet and soil-stained soles would march across them, they would bend and hold their weight. Flexible but firm.
The germs, palpably slimy from a crowd already, reek worse on Miya.
In their first year of high school, Kiyoomi had heard him—strident, grating on the ears in his lilt—before he ever smelled him. Honey and cinnamon; sickly sweet and artificial, even among the motley of scented gum marketed for adolescent, stink-heavy alphas.
Kiyoomi knows it in his bones: how the sweetest smelling alphas go the most sour behind closed doors.
His first year of high school—his debut on the national stage as part of Itachiyama—and he was treated to Miya's obnoxious Kansai dialect pinging off the walls everyone shared, calling out and fussing over his team, echoes ringing like tinnitus. Inarizaki wasn't kind to her underachievers, but Miya was the shining beacon telling otherwise—laughing breezily after each practice hit and his spikers grinning or bellowing their thanks, amused to the gratitude he expects, is used to, and would return generously, obsequiously.
Smiles slick as mucous and just as welcome. Toothy, easy, light-touch. Eerily perfect. He could toss a napkin he blew his nose in and a sea of fan-omegas would go into heat chasing after it. All while taking all his teammates' grimaces and barks with a laugh and a jeer, brisk and holier-than-thou, strutting out the other end just as popular.
As if any alpha were that perfect. For the ones who peacock the most, the grandiose plumage was for hiding the rot.
I see through you.
No one else did. No one else would. But Kiyoomi isn't like anyone else; would never be, the way the hairs on his arms rise in a sick heat.
Of course the day they were set to play each other—Kiyoomi's first nationals at a high school level—Miya has to make his way over and play nice.
"Hey, yer Sakusa, right? Sakusa Kiyoomi? Yer hand's gotta cramp up when ya write that all out. But maybe that's jus' me, spoiled with jus' the one-character name an' all." With his glib rambling, he runs a hand through his hair—just as brassy and cheap as his waxy grin. "Yer spikes are a freak o' nature on camera, I gotta say. Can't wait ta see that up close an' personal in-game."
In the corner where Kiyoomi tucks himself away, Miya offers his hand. Like Kiyoomi is cold, lonely litter. Would he like to be picked up and thrown away to the heap where everyone mingles? Belongs?
The hand—calloused, a setter's—stays level under Kiyoomi's baleful regard, his internal debate launched through his scorn. The stench of magnanimity reigns a noxious, honeyed cinnamon.
Might as well get it over with.
He straightens from his comfortable slouch along the wall, taking his time with rolling out the tension in his shoulder, his sigh its outlet. Then he takes out his pocket hand sanitiser, the alcohol reassuringly sharp in odour. Puts a dollop square onto his palm. Rubs it in till the sanitiser dried.
When he looks up, in Miya's laissez-faire smile: a crack.
"...Uh." His shoulders shake with a scoff. It jars with the affront knitting up his face. "The hell?"
Kiyoomi raises a brow. "What?" He holds up his sanitiser. "You want some?"
"No, thanks," he says sharply; pulls back his hand sharper. "If ya find it that gross ta touch me, I'll save ya the trouble."
Miya's once-over radiates distaste; boot-steps for eyes struggling through marshy sludge. And those shoe-sole eyes unhood to something rougher as he leans away from him. Seeing a dislike—something more sincerely ugly—leak through the cracks would be refreshing, almost.
If the leak didn't ooze like pus from a cyst, that is.
"I do that with everyone." He pockets his hands; if he doesn't have to touch Miya, then all the better. "You're not special."
Miya's face flickers with disbelief. "You braggin' about bein' a dickhead ta everyone there?"
"No." His words would drag cleaner over rubble. "I just sanitise before I touch a stranger's hand. Like a hygienic person."
At that, Miya looks aside sharpish in another snort, as fast as if he'd been slapped across the face. He's convincing acting like it, with the raised, incredulous brows, the hands he puts up like he's the one being put on the spot.
"Awright, yer majesty. Sorry no one else lives up ta yer hygienic standards—Christ."
Kiyoomi's tipping point is a close-range one. It's surprising, still, how fast Miya shoots past it.
"Satisfied now? Got whatever you were looking for out of this chat?"
"Man, if you ain't a right piece o' work. Sorry I ever came over..."
There it was; a flash of the ugliness beneath. Kiyoomi would almost preen at being right if it weren't beneath him.
A click of tongue, snap of teeth, and Miya turns on a heel. No doubt back to his team, about to commiserate over Itachiyama's hyper-mobile ace being a lone wolf. Dud alpha. Creature strange and asocial; a freak not even nature would claim as her own. No love nor care for his fellow people—only loving to play keep-away from them.
Nothing that Kiyoomi wouldn't already know. His defences are evidence-based, meticulously curated.
He keeps peering watch over the crowd, the fluid dynamics of the throng, and thinks: Who would want to be part of that?
It wasn't the first time he asked the world why. It isn't the world's business to give him a good answer, either—only to keep on its relentless turn instead.
Inarizaki makes for a worthwhile game. But that's because volleyball, especially at nationals, is a worthwhile sport. Kiyoomi has a better time going up against Wakatoshi and Shiratorizawa—no infantile pre-serve routine that hushes the crowd—even if Inarizaki is set on putting Itachiyama's win streak to task.
Aftermath of a point to Itachiyama; Kiyoomi saved it off of Miya's setter dump.
"Yer annoyin' in a whole new way on the court, Omi-Omi."
He pants animally out his mouth. Tongue over his bottom molars. His stare unblinking.
Fish hook into his upper lip—the taunt balls up Kiyoomi's features in a scowl. When he glowers over his shoulder, Miya's face goes cross-hatched by the net—his frustration marbled by sweat, peering like the mires of his eyes could take a bite out of Kiyoomi, already chew him up and spit him out.
"Hey, Sakusa." Iizuna comes up beside him, gives a quick wave. "Time to rotate up."
Silent, he walks away for the team's new rotation. Turns away from Miya's fierce, invasive stare.
Kiyoomi's sweat and steam feel like victory. Miya's leaves the sourest taste in his mouth.
For a stint in Japan's men's volleyball youth training camp, they were teammates. Reached a ceasefire.
Not that it stuck. First impressions lasted, and Miya Atsumu's went on like a smear that wouldn't wash with even bleach.
Kiyoomi thought Komori was persistent enough, trying to make him play nice. Miya simply takes no break, trying to recruit into the performance that is his life, like the promise of spotlights and a grand stage would be reward enough.
"C'mon—you can be honest wi' me now, Omi." Miya clucks his tongue, pushing out a cheek with it. "How far does the lone wolf act go, huh?" The cloying depth to his voice pinches his eyes, his teeth out and his smile sharp. "Far enough ta reach the stick ya got jammed up yer ass?"
Leaning against the wall in the common room, Kiyoomi scoffs.
"Cut your bullshit." His disdain pours easily from his dark, scrunched scowl. "Your fangirls aren't here to see what a good alpha you are."
Miya puts his hands up, whistles low with puckered lips.
"Hey, now—ain't no crime t'be jealous, now. Start actin' like one and ya might even have some o' yer own, even," he says, mild and glib. "Wouldn't need ta make people think ya own the wall from breathin' at it so much, then. Would ya?"
Miya looks at him expectantly, as if owed a response. Kiyoomi just glares at him. Keeps glaring, a curl to his lip when Miya's eyes start narrowing back.
"...It's a real feat. Y'know that, Omi-Omi?" he considers. An eye of his scrunches further. "That yer even more annoyin' ta deal with than y'are on the other side o' the net."
The care in his voice shines like plastic leaves as his smile fades, the glint in his eyes sharper and realer than both combined. Kiyoomi grits his teeth.
"Piss off, Miya," he murmurs. "I don't need your charity."
To his sharp, burning resentment, Miya only scoffs at him. The smell of his breath—as pleasant as vinegar—makes him reach for a face mask.
"Charity, huh?" He ticks up a brow, distaste in every wrinkle of his face, shadowed by his straw-like, cheap-looking side-part. "Pardon me fer decidin' ta give a shit," Miya sneers, turning around. "You keep on havin' a grand ol' time with that there wall, then."
As if Miya was the alpha head of their pack of teammates while Kiyoomi was the teenager going through his rebellious phase, refusing to sit at the dinner table with them. As if he was trying to get him to join in and act like a proper family. But Kiyoomi know there are no proper families, that everyone getting along is a myth, and that an effective tactic to hiding that dysfunction was sliding on the proud mask of a “caring” alpha, whose overbearingness and outbursts were evidence of all they shouldered to provide love and protection.
He turns away, walking back to where the rest of the campers are eating. Kiyoomi settles back in his corner, muttering into the mask he fastens, before Komori manages to reach him.
"He's always cleaning, that Miya," Komori hums idly. In the background, Miya practically does warm-up stretches reaching for cutlery and leftover napkins on the cafeteria table. "He might even clean up more than you do." He shoots Kiyoomi a grin. "Must be great for you. Or a challenge."
"He's overbearing."
Clinical, Kiyoomi wipes his mouth. Komori whistles.
"A challenge, then?" The question lilts on uncertainty. And an unending smile. "Who would've thought Sakusa Kiyoomi would be against someone cleaning, now?"
Kiyoomi casts a squint over to the setter carrying trays by the armfuls. The hem of his shirt sipping leftover miso. Before he fixes his mask back on his face, his nose curls with contempt.
"It's about the intention," he stands with his own tray and cutlery, "and knowing your limits."
In Kiyoomi's second year of high school, second year at the Spring Inter-High, on his list of loose ends to follow up on—
No game footage or stats available. Often subbed in during the final sets. Effect on the team unclear, but noticeable. The review bolts quick-fire as Kiyoomi stalks the path his target—shorter, jacket draped over his shoulders—trails in one of the corridors of the Tokyo arena. New captain of Inarizaki—
"Kita Shinsuke."
Kita pauses. Takes his time looking back. Blank in the face, clock face eyes—gold-rimmed, each striation a marker of the hour, pupils keeping careful count. Short-trimmed hair like a snow-topped roof, he assesses Kiyoomi evenly.
"...Sakusa." Seeming satisfied, Kita faces him more fully. "Need somethin'?"
The first time he speaks, Kiyoomi catches the faintest whiff with his mask at his chin. Jasmine, sticky rice. A gentle scent, only available in mouth spray ranges. Primarily made for omegas.
A fun fact at best; not the intel he's looking for. "When did you join the Inarizaki team?"
"Been on it since first year."
Kiyoomi's squint narrows. "What year are you in now?"
"My third."
With one hand, Kita lightly holds onto the hem of his own jacket, resting his hand there. The discrepancy grates on Kiyoomi's temple, whets his stare.
"You've never played at a tournament level before." Kita shakes his head. Kiyoomi continues. "You're captain and bench player now."
"That I am."
"Why the jump?" Kiyoomi presses. "Inarizaki's output in games have changed. Closer gaps in the scores they win and lose. Since this year. Since you joined the lineup." He leans forward instinctually, eyes peeled like it'll boost his 20/20 vision. "What middle school did you go to? What's your jump height? Reception error rate?"
"...Yer awfully dedicated," Kita remarks, even in tone, in regard again. "I ain't got any special tricks. I just sub in an' keep watch over my team." His watch-face eyes glint under the hallway lights. "D'ya do this with all yer opponents?"
"Does that matter?" Kiyoomi's snort is short-lived. "Quit dodging my questions."
"I don't mean to. Just never happened ta me before." On his small, schooled lip—a delicate curve. "Havin' someone as strong as you make a fuss over me."
Kiyoomi's frown tints with confusion. An unknown variable on a national-level team—the captain, no less—acting humble does not compute. Inarizaki have never been dark horses in the race; that Kita Shinsuke would tacitly assume himself to be lesser comes off as another distraction. Camouflage to the potential he brings out of his team—Kiyoomi just needs to ascertain his methods through raw data.
But of course he can't account for the unforeseen.
"HEY...!"
The volume makes Kiyoomi wince on reflex; a bellow streaks hot from behind him down the hallway. Pungent cinnamon—sickeningly sweet, lining each huff like an assault.
Kiyoomi hooks his mask up over his nose by the time Miya storms in.
"Atsumu—"
Kita blinks when Miya plants himself in front of him. Namely: firmly in-between Kiyoomi and him. His nostrils flare over bared teeth, dagger eyes. The repulsion already has Kiyoomi scowling.
"What the hell're you doin', cornerin' Kita here?"
The display drips with dramatics—all soaked in the squared shoulders, the rolling chest. The arm Miya has out in front of his captain, like that'll shield him from anything. The whole scene screams of protective, possessive alpha to the rescue. Ready for any face-off, come hell or high water.
"Seriously?" The scoff shooting out of Kiyoomi is involuntary. And unimpressed. "You're that territorial?"
"I asked you a question. An' you better gimme a goddamn good answer fer why yer harassin' my captain."
There's a rumble to Miya's chest, cold flashes in his eyes. Kiyoomi's own chills over.
"We were talking," he says, clipped. "So you can take back your baseless accusation."
"Baseless? You go on after Kita like a damn creep, get him alone and all up in his space...?" His barbed wire voice swells, wrinkling Kiyoomi's temples with its volume, the creases to Miya's scowl trenches of war. "An' you wanna call that baseless?!"
"Enough."
A chilled blade—one that freezes Miya. Even Kiyoomi tenses at Kita's voice, its unexpected cut as he steps forward.
"That was out o' line, Atsumu," Kita says. "You pay Sakusa an apology. Now."
His gaze brooks no argument. Miya's throat bobs under its weight.
"But... Kita, he—"
"—Was addressin' me as an opponent. An equal. You came an' escalated the situation inta something it wasn't. With an accusation that ya don't throw around lightly, either."
Kita speaks no louder, but Miya flinches like a snail looking for its shell—each full stop another bullet hole in his defences. His discomfort has a smile playing behind Kiyoomi's mask.
But then Kita turns to him. And bows.
"Pardon my junior, Sakusa." Even directed towards the floor, Kita's mumble carries with quiet strength. "I hope you can find it in you ta forgive him."
That ticks up Kiyoomi's brows.
The mortification that splashes across Miya's face runs deep and pink, mouth agog and dry of excuses. Even Kiyoomi can't find the inner pleasure at it, faced with Kita's sincerity—of a team captain personally apologising for one of his own to him.
It's moving to see; something in him moves, being able to.
"...You're a credit to your team, Kita."
Kiyoomi means it. But the look Miya shoots him—black-hot with distrust—tastes sweet as toffee and sticks dirty like tar. He takes it in stride, his conscience clear, stance unshaken. So he basks in how Miya, blushing easily with chagrin, pivots towards him, humiliation tight in the fists by his sides.
"...M'sorry fer my behaviour." He bows gingerly, but at the waist. "An' t'you, Kita." He turns and bows, this time holding it at the trough. "Fer doin' wrong by you. Too."
The final word is an afterthought, tacked on after a gulp—clumsily roping Kiyoomi in to the apology, making the unspoken do the work so Miya doesn't have to go to the effort to. A piss-poor display, but one holding as much value for Kiyoomi as a muddy banknote on the sidewalk—to be picked up with protection and dealt with by the authorities.
"Sorry I couldn't answer yer questions, Sakusa," Kita says. "M'sure you'll get what yer lookin' for in-game, if we play."
His jacket flaps once as he starts turning away, his setter in tow—a murmur of him being able to help him bring snacks back for the rest of the team and Miya grumbling his agreement.
For a moment, Kiyoomi watches them leave. Takes in how even shrunken and apologetic in frame, Miya still has Kita in lockstep with him. The chill of the air conditioning, of the high-powered vents filtering out all the air, pools slow on Kiyoomi's collar bone, meanwhile. Crawls in a drip down his legs, planted still as the Inarizaki duo's footsteps retreat. Only echoes of company left—only Kiyoomi left in the wide corridor, cheering crowds and volleyball strikes a world away.
Then, when Kita isn't looking—his watchdog setter looks back in a keen, guarded glare. His jaw tense in his side profile before he turns back away. The theatrics draw another huff out of Kiyoomi's nose.
A shame, he thinks as he turns back to find his own team. That that gentle, omegan scent had to be so overpowered by Miya Atsumu's.
Karasuno eliminates Inarizaki from the bracket.
Anyone watching their match bears witness to Miya pointing to Karasuno's wing spiker, swearing one day he will set for him. Swearing to offer support to him, even in their final loss of the tournament.
Nothing but dramatic.
Kiyoomi squints at the display from the stands. Then, as the Miya twins tussle following their walk off-court, he treks off after Komori, off to their next game.
It's a chillier winter when Kiyoomi enters the V League signing onto the MSBY Black Jackals. But, for a moment, he smells something pleasant entering the locker rooms.
Wintergreen. He sniffs again, something stronger, more herbal cupping the sharp mint. And ginseng.
Yet when he turns around, he finds Miya Atsumu, brighter blonde than ever.
"Geh." Miya's nose squashes the moment he walks into the changing room. "Shoulda smelled it comin', fuck—" he waves by his face with a scowl, "ya never let up with that goddamn sanitiser."
Hackles rising, Kiyoomi mouth sours to the point of rot. Of course, he thinks bitterly. Someone like Miya couldn't keep things professional—couldn't stop their visions of social harmony and being the alpha leader to keep everyone in line. Forget that he's the best setter in the league, that Kiyoomi himself made MVP among the entire collegiate men's volleyball team.
In Miya's eyes, he'll always be the errant alpha who needs steering back on track.
"Shut up." Rumbling into his mask, he barely turns back. "You knew I was joining."
"Yeah, but had ta see it ta believe it, I'm afraid," Miya snipes. His own locker rests on the other side of the room, at least. "Didja know makin' nice, strikin' up sponsorships, an', oh, I dunno, talkin' ta folks is part o' the whole deal? Or didja manage ta slap on a clause in yer contract, givin' ya asshole right-o'-way?" His locker door opens, taking the brunt of Kiyoomi's glare. "Then again, you'd need ta have people skills ta do that," he sneers, "negotiatin'."
Kiyoomi shuts his locker door. The bang resonates.
"Does it really fuck with you if you don't make sure people brush their teeth? Shit all right? Or do you keel over if you don't butt into everyone's business?"
He scowls at Miya again, who watches this time with a hard-set jaw.
"...Maybe the concept o' carin' 'bout others is a real head-scratcher fer you, Omi," he mutters. "But it's called bein' a decent fella. Ain't all that hard t'do."
A gunshot scoff leaves Kiyoomi—shakes his body like recoil.
"Save your breath." Disbelief winds tight around his contempt. "I don't need a lecture from an obsessive people-pleaser like you."
The locker door slams.
Miya's nostrils flare. His fingers flex flat over his locker with his snarl. Kiyoomi glares back. Their breaths grip a sharp, acrid note at the edge; holding a lever to the guillotine suspended over the empty room.
Then others in the team start filing in.
Miya's shoulders immediately drop. A flash of the eyes and his smile is sprouting, his grin all clear skies and sunny. A glimpse of which Kiyoomi catches before turning, conversations turning to background noise. Miya busily grinds the mill of niceties, greeting Bokuto, asking Hinata how little Tobio's doing, Meian about how the wife and kids are.
Miya's yapping laugh sprays his breath all over the room. Kiyoomi wrinkles his nose to himself.
It's an unfortunate, architectural necessity that has Kiyoomi weaving through the benches and people on his way out, wading through the smell of warmth and good cheer stuffing the changing room. It has Miya walking by on his way back, with Kiyoomi catching his tones—lower and sharper—while stalking past.
"Yer lucky we're teammates."
Kiyoomi thinks likewise. But his mouth tastes tart, his breath loaded and not one he wastes. Especially not on registering any agreement or accord with someone as false, conceited, and sycophantic as one of the V League's most beloved, eligible alphas, Miya Atsumu. And it certainly isn't luck that will keep him setting to Kiyoomi.
So he keeps on walking. Because it was only a matter of time before the other shoe dropped in front of everyone else—a fragment of the true alpha Miya was behind closed doors.
A month into joining the Jackals, Kiyoomi tries to find his inner peace, just minding his business. Sitting on a bench in a precious break during practice.
"Damn, Omi, those wrists of yours are crazy! I'd ask you to teach me, but mine would probably break if I even tried...!"
Bokuto booms with laughter, each peal like one of thunder as he glows under the gym lights like he's enjoying a good, god-given shower. Their training so far has been hard, rewarding, but Kiyoomi gives a tired sigh into his bottle, the water a cool douse of reprieve for his fried brain.
"It would," he mutters after swallowing.
"You don't sound too concerned about that," Bokuto grins. "You won't be gettin' rid of me that easy, now, even if we are teammates."
"I'm sure."
"You're pretty honest, aren'tcha?!"
The merry bark catches others' attention, the volume of it jolting Kiyoomi. The acoustics of the stadium send the reverberations battering at him top-down and from the sides, pushing in his shoulders, tightening the seam to his lip. Instead of emanating like satisfaction, his sweat starts closing in on him a shrink-wrap.
As Kiyoomi looks away, he catches Miya glancing back, unbidden.
A long lick of heat prickles antsy at his nape, the feeling mutual when Miya flashes a harsh squint, eyes rust-coloured under the indoor lights, before he goes back to talking to Hinata and Tomas. The upturn of his nose—that one, slanted angle—rises like an uneven step existing just to trip Kiyoomi up, tightening the vice of his jaw.
"Oh, yeah. Tsum-Tsum's been tryna talk more with Tommy"—Kiyoomi's attention snaps to Bokuto, who keeps on talking—"but it's pretty hard to do if Hinata's not there interpreting for the both of them."
Looking over at the group, his hands on his hips, Bokuto hums. Meanwhile, Kiyoomi gives a derisive snort.
Of course Miya would try something like that. The thought snakes viper-quick through his head. He might pass out if he didn't.
"Man, I gotta learn s'more languages," Bokuto sniffs before he palms at his own jaw. "You think three'd be enough?"
Miya bows back in a laugh, rocketing its droplets towards the gymnasium ceiling. Hinata and Tomas grin at him like they're thankful for its mist.
Glare narrowing, Kiyoomi drains the last of his water bottle.
"—An' that's why, like, I can't...get a place out of Osaka, here! But the rent! Y'know? It's so...bwaaah...! Y'know...?!"
The MSBY Black Jackals kneel or sit or sprawl themselves on cushions by the low restaurant tables, throngs of conversation crowding the air; a crush of alpha men bellowing or barking, the smell of merriment beery all around. Hinata ruffles at his hair harder, a regular bird's nest after his fingers are through with it. Then, he rolls his head along the low table, lined with succulent meats, table-installed barbecue cookers, tall glasses pearling with condensation as he tries to peter his barbed tufts out.
Two months after joining MSBY and at the far corner of the table, Kiyoomi just looks aside as he nurses his tea.
"Uh...yeah. Sure is...bwah, there, Shouyou." Patting Hinata's shoulder from the side, Miya gives a good-natured, if strained chuckle. "I mean, cost o' livin's always a bitch ta deal with, that's fer su—"
"—MAN, I know whatcha mean, Hinata...!"
Making even Miya flinch, Bokuto barrels in on Hinata's other flank fast enough to almost shoulder-check him into the domino line of their teammates beside him. Kiyoomi, pulling a face, huddles up in the sadly not-too-distant corner, clutching his tea like a distress radio that will signal his location to a lifeboat.
"S'like—I check my bills for the month..." Bokuto goes on, fingertips pressed all along the sides of his face as he focuses intensely as Hinata looks up, spirited and enthralled, blinking one eye then the other. "—An' then I do the math, and it's all like...GUUUU, and I think to myself... Is it really this much just to live my life here...?!" He massages new dents in his temples, his squashed eyes blowing wide—treasure chests cracking open over the corals of his cheeks as he stares hard at Hinata. "Which then goes all like, RAAAGH! Y'know...?!"
Hinata slams the table with two hands as he sits up, a wave of laughter rumbling from the rattle, drinks nearly toppling off the edge. Like in the gatherings his father would go to before, Kiyoomi thinks. Hitting the bottle with his colleagues.
A great family man, they would say. An absolute riot. Surprisingly messy.
An irony, really, that it applied so similarly at home. Being a man who only let himself go in front of family. Who would riot in an entirely different way. Whose messes Kiyoomi became seasoned at cleaning.
"Oh my god, Bokuto! S'exactly that!" Hinata points, shaking his hand emphatically, as Bokuto nods faster and faster with intent, tightening brows. "S'exactly like NRRGH"—his hands shoot up and Miya swerves away wide-eyed, chin folding into his neck as he gets an arm out to defend the drinks—"and GWOHHH and UWAAGH...!"
"EXACTLY!" Bokuto booms, wrapping an arm around Hinata's shoulder as he jostles it. "You get it, man...!"
Delivery aside, Kiyoomi could respect the sentiment. His parents were generous with the money they sent him, but he kept that squarely in his savings account. With his savings from childhood, part-time work, gifts, and now sponsorships and his career, rent was manageable. But his current place, with all his requirements, still had a lot left to be desired.
Kiyoomi's smartwatch buzzes. Flashing it a look, he takes in the notification before he stands.
"Thank you for organising the dinner, Captain." After reaching the captain and catching his attention, Kiyoomi nods politely at him. "I'll be going now."
"Oh, sure thing, Sakusa! You have a good one, ya—oh!" With a ruddy beam, Meian throws up his hands at the next round of beers being brought around on tray, cheers rippling through the party room. "Ahh, terrible timin' there! Just when the party's gettin' started...!" he guffaws. Kiyoomi just inclines his head, starting to head off. "Awright, y'big lugs—let's get these drinks around! Someone handle that table—"
"—On it, cap!"
Miya bounds to his feet, giving a two-finger salute when Meian points at him with a grateful grin. The server dips in quick bows of gratitude as Miya brushes it off with a broad smile and a warm chuckle, cradling bottles of beer like rowdy children before he starts walking down and passing them off himself. Every time he crouches and sets down a bottle, he gives a quip or a laugh, humouring the little jabs, ribs, and snickers of their teammates, most more far gone than he is. Dropping off a round of bottles, he doubles back to the server to pick up some more.
His shirt had practically guzzled a can of beer from the others' antics, a shot of sake from when a second-string player slipped. Miya always laughed it off, like he'd wring the drink out into his mouth just to make the others howl.
Kiyoomi rolls his eyes before he gets another text.
Relief takes to him wearily—an old, familiar friend, waiting on him every time he managed to come up with an excuse to leave. He could practise his bumps till they were perfect. Germs and the convolutions of team bonding were to be avoided.
Just as he finishes sending a reply on his smartwatch, he looks up to Miya, with swaying momentum, stopping fast and unpleasantly close to him.
His good cheer wipes to a frown in an instant.
"Ya mind scootin' there, Omi-Omi?" Face-to-face with Kiyoomi's growing grimace, Miya juts his head aside. "Yer in the way."
Miya grooms himself to eerie, airbrushed perfection. The low lights conspire to hide any blemishes or spots he might have. That mint and ginseng of his tinges with beer, even with his mouth closed in a snarl.
Kiyoomi, wishing he could just seal Miya's mouth shut, shoots him a dirtier look. "You're the one getting up in my space."
"Bite me, rich boy."
Miya clicks his tongue. Teeth gritting, Kiyoomi just takes one step to the side.
But then Miya also takes one step. To the same side.
Kiyoomi sidesteps the other way. Miya matches him. Heat stabs at his mouth. Chuckles ripple the room. They flash each other another glare.
"You're not fucking funny, Miya," he snaps under his breath. "Get out of my"—Kiyoomi steps aside, watching their feet, temples throbbing when, with a low cuss, he's mirrored again—"way—"
"'Course it'd be this easy ta piss you off," Miya mocks, as if a tendon doesn't twitch at his jaw when they shuffle aside, matching each other again. Someone else snorts. "Don't—just fuckin'"—another step—"stay still—!"
Kiyoomi hisses. "You stay still—!"
"Do the hokey-pokey next...!"
With Inunaki's call from the side, claps and laughter rumble the room. Warmth crawling up the back of his neck, Kiyoomi glances at his wrist, his smartwatch buzzing again as they keep stepping in little jerks and shifts. The smell of beer, browned meats, and Miya's tart breath through his pursed lips dig into Kiyoomi's patience further and further, mining its abused reserves for all their worth.
So, in a flash, Kiyoomi grabs him by the arms.
Squawking like a caught chicken, Miya stiffens in his grip. In another life, Kiyoomi could head-butt the idiotic, agog look on his face. In this one, it's all the better for Kiyoomi to lift and push him aside, like a pencil of a compass and he is the pin stabbed into the ground.
"Hey! What're ya—?!" He wriggles around. "Let...! Go o' me...!"
Around them, the Jackals start howling with laughter. Lip twisted nastily, Kiyoomi dumps him like refuse on collection day.
"There."
With one more yelp, Miya stumbles a little on his feet. Kiyoomi hopes he trips before he takes out his pocket hand sanitiser, rubbing his hands clean of Miya as he walks away.
Maekawa Kaede. Political science major in Osaka City U. Intramural badminton player.
Punctual, too. Which Kiyoomi values in a sex friend.
He's on the taller side for an omega, but that suits Kiyoomi's tastes. Prefers a gentle touch, no knotting inside, scent running on the sweeter side—things Kiyoomi either doesn't mind or prefers less so. But he listens to what he's told, tells him exactly what he wants, and is on the quieter side even after the both of them have gotten each other off.
Importantly, Kiyoomi always switches the ventilator in his room on to full power immediately after they finish, and Maekawa doesn't take it personally.
Neither of them like to waste time in building up or winding down to things, everything they know about each other built through breadcrumb exchanges. The last of which start with Maekawa saying—
"I'm suspending my studies."
By the switch to the ventilator, Kiyoomi stills. The stink of their breaths and sex swirl indolently through the room.
By the time the insistent, reassuring whir of the vents come to life, he turns around, blinking at Maekawa who leans down at the side of the bed, picking up his clothes.
"Oh." Kiyoomi furrows his brow. "So that's gone through, then."
"Yeah," Maekawa chuckles. The rhythm to it is a little breathy, an echo of what he sounds like in bed. "Bit of a relief, honestly. I think it's kind of what I need," he admits, rubbing at his hair. Kiyoomi hums, thinking of the occasional bags under his eyes when they would meet up. Ones they left unpacked, for the most part. A belt buckle clinks as Maekawa picks up his trousers from the floor. "But it does mean I'll be going back home for at least a year." He shrugs. "Assuming everything goes to plan."
"Chugoku," Kiyoomi says tentatively, searching his memory. Maekawa looks back with a nod, a little hum. "I'm glad for you."
"Thanks."
Even with the sweat towelled off his body, Kiyoomi feels its shadows clinging to his skin. Glancing at his bathrobe, then Maekawa, he gives a light pout.
The lines between sex friends were always muddied by sex itself. Like people comparing period pains to getting kicked in a balls, it's a well-worn debate whether ruts or heats were worse. From Kiyoomi's opinion of the data, they are more similar than not, neither especially rewarding.
Kiyoomi's own rut lasts one to two weeks, the pre-rut period ranging anywhere from one week to a month, and onsetting once every year. The motley of medical preparations aside—from the chemical suppressors to the scar-forming compounds that spiked during rut, supplements for regulating the body after intense keratin production and muscle gained during rut suddenly lost, among others—it was another matter to have someone involved with your rut. Even the minimal, platonic involvement of preparing easily digestible meals—whatever would suit overgrown fangs and split open gums—smelling salts, rut masks, and maybe even a collar was a considerable burden to bear.
The sex might have been pleasant up to this point, but he wouldn't ever ask Maekawa to help him through his rut. And he doubts he would assent to doing the same for Maekawa's heats.
It feels cold, though, to not offer some parting hospitality. New beginnings with spring on the skyline.
"Would...you," he clears his throat, hesitant as Maekawa gets his shirt on, "like some tea? Or—"
"It's all right," he says, a smile to it. "I appreciate the gesture, but there's no need for it. I'll just be on my way and leave you to clean."
"Ah..." With that, Kiyoomi's shoulders loosen. "All right, then."
When he puts on his glasses, Maekawa straightens his shirt. He pops in some perfume gum, masking the smell of his breath and the way Kiyoomi's would linger there, too. Kiyoomi's nose only squishes at it since it's the brand that sponsored Miya—thankfully, Maekawa's is peach-flavoured, and not the stronger ginseng or wintergreen Miya stocks on, as if he stuffs his face with medicinal toothpaste when no one's watching.
Kiyoomi could make a motto out of it: leave it to Miya to ruin something he likes.
"I'll probably come back at some point—if not next year, then sometime just to visit." Soft as his voice is, it still breaks Kiyoomi out of his stupor. "But, if I don't...well. It's been fun, Sakusa. I had a nice time."
With an amicable smile, downturned eyes as light as opals, Maekawa shoulders on his backpack. There's a small slant to Kiyoomi's mouth; a smile more in the softening of his eyes than anything else.
"I did, too," he says, content and honest. "I'll see you out, at least."
Maekawa acquiesces with another hum.
No hugs or kisses are exchanged. They have each other's number, and the little nod and wave Maekawa gives before making his way down the corridor makes for just the right send-off for the two of them. Not too emotional, not too detached, not too drawn-out, not too abrupt. Perfectly moderate. Just right for the intermittent, quiet association they had. For however many months they did.
After Kiyoomi shuts the deadbolt and latch, he cleans himself and his room the most thoroughly he has in a long while.
By the time his head hits the pillow, the room smells just like himself again. Just as it should.
Traffic in town is ungodly the next morning.
Kiyoomi's commute to the gym makes taking public transport a 50/50 as to whether he makes it on time, unless he decides to wake up an extra hour earlier and arrive half an hour before morning conditioning sessions. The journey is only slightly less arduous by car, but the choice between Osaka's morning rabble and the comfort of his own, regularly cleaned sedan is already a no-brainer.
But when he jogs into the gym and Coach Foster only gives him—along with his ever-present, placid smile—a raised brow, Kiyoomi considers burying himself in a hole. The glances a couple of his teammates send him add a dig each to the effort.
"I'm sorry, Coach," he mumbles. Foster's eye twinkles a little, a question in it. "I got stuck in traffic."
"I figured it'd be something like that," he chuckles. "You're the last person I'd expect to get ahead of yourself at a gathering."
Kiyoomi's brows rise. "I didn't know you knew about that."
Foster gives another laugh: full and from the chest. "Why do you think I made this conditioning session optional?"
In a quick sweep of the room, Kiyoomi registers only a fraction of the team is present. Including Meian, who spots Barnes in the far corner, but with a complexion so washed out that the gym's fluorescent lights make him ghastly. Among the other first-string players, Bokuto and Hinata chat happily in-between their respective sets, giving Kiyoomi a frisson of genuine second-hand fear to reveal deeply jealous curiosity, driven to discover exactly how they bounced back from drunkenness so cleanly as to attend an optional morning workout session on the other side of town.
He wills himself to breathe through the nose. The knowledge that they are exploiting the resilience of their youth at the expense of their future constitution is the only thing that calms his vengeful will to interrogate them until all their secrets are laid bare. No winning formula to overconfidence, he remembers.
Meanwhile, whipping weighted workout ropes on the side, Miya puffs loud and long through a narrowed mouth. The offence of his sweat and minty ginseng scent wrings a grimace out of Kiyoomi.
"Miya arrived the earliest of the lot." Though it snatches Kiyoomi's attention, all he sees is Foster studying the setter warmly. "Designated shepherd of the night again, it seems."
Startled, Kiyoomi nearly snorts.
"No...one put him up to it," he says, swallowing down the urge. "If you're worried about that."
"I'm aware." He frowns. "The boy worries me anyway."
Foster draws out his words, a gravitas to them when he sighs long out the nose, his thin lip flattening further.
At a loss for words, Kiyoomi blinks at the ground. Why could Miya cause anyone to worry? He was the perfect alpha, wasn’t he? Caring for his teammates when they didn’t ask, overbearing and territorial. An object of attraction for omegas everywhere.
Before he can make something of his confusion, Foster slides him a simple glance, his lip slow to quirk up. "I don't suppose you're one to look out for him, are you?"
Kiyoomi's expression smooths over. "I'm not. Miya's his own responsibility. I believe that of everyone."
At that, his coach tips back in a full-throated laugh, mirth lighting up his face. With it, a smoky, herbal waft tickles Kiyoomi's senses.
"Oh, incredible. That's some honesty I don't get every day!" he says through chuckles, beaming. "Makes me glad to be coaching this team, it does."
Confusion rears its head once more. Whether Kiyoomi likes it or not, the look on Foster's face earlier when he looked at Miya sticks in his mind's eye like rheum.
"—Oh, would you look at that!" Foster coos at his smartwatch. "My granddaughter left me a message on her way to school!" Giving it a quick couple of taps, he glances up at Kiyoomi, still smiling strong. "I know you're not the type to make a habit out of being late, Sakusa. Consider it water under the bridge. You go on with your workout and don't mind me."
With a short bow and thanks, Kiyoomi wades deeper into the gym. Taking his time with the smell—familiar, if muggy—he takes out one of the yoga mats in the corner.
On his way to the anti-bacterial spray and the wipes, he drifts close to the others near the lat machine and pulleys.
"Hey, Omi! I almost thought you wouldn't be joining us this morning!"
Hinata aims him a wide wave with a grin to match, his blueberry gum slowly losing its potency. Though the nickname is slightly more innocent in his hands, or perhaps just anyone other than Miya, Kiyoomi still huffs.
"I was always going to join." Muttering, he picks up fresh paper towels. "Just ran late."
He checks the quality of cleaning fluid, a reassuring bite to the scent of it. Hinata, for some reason, stays hovering near him.
"Oh, long night, huh?" On the way to the water fountain, he hums thoughtfully. "But I thought you left earlier than us?"
"Hinata, can'tcha read between the lines?" Bokuto cocks up a brow, a knowing note to his crow. Kiyoomi can already feel his brows flatlining. "He went to the drinking party Coach was at!"
"Whoa!" Bent over at the fountain, Hinata turns around open-mouthed. "Coach went drinking, too?! He must go hard!"
"That didn't happen," Kiyoomi says.
"Hm?" Bokuto's brows wrinkle together. "But why were you laughing with Coach, then?"
In the background, Miya scoffs. Under the harsh gym lights, Kiyoomi notes with a squint, something of his comes into real relief—slim, dark bags under his permanently cowled eyes.
Which Miya openly rolls at him. With a sneer as inviting as rotten meat.
Kiyoomi clicks his tongue before looking away, curiosity fizzling away.
"I guess it was more like Coach Foster laughed," Hinata muses, shrugging before hitting the pulleys again. Which made Kiyoomi remember that avoiding the pain of engaging in conversation is a straight shot into the ache of others talking for him.
"—Wait," Bokuto gasps, "you made Coach laugh?" he whispers in earnest, the momentously insignificant point trapping him. "How'd you do that?! Every time I try doing something, the fans laugh, but he just gives me a look and Meian hits me!"
Kiyoomi simply sighs as he wipes down the gym mat.
"Because you have no sense of restraint," he says flatly. "Frankly, none of you do. The fact you're even here training after drinking last night is beyond me."
"God." Miya speaks like his throat were clenched, distaste loaded in every wave of sound as he passes by to refill his water bottle. "Even when ya pretend ta give a shit yer so judgey."
Kiyoomi's eyes fight to not roll back and disconnect from his optic nerve.
"Because I am judging them," he mumbles while scrubbing down the mat. "And no one asked for your input." He rubs at one spot harder. "As usual."
"Oh, I'm sure you'd jus' piss yerself with joy if everyone could just shut up an' sulk in the corner the way you do," Miya drawls. The rhythm pinching and twisting at Kiyoomi's patience. "But so sorry—we don't live in yer little antisocial fantasyland. An' thank fuck fer that."
"Your nose must be so clogged from butting into other people's shit." Kiyoomi turns back, levelling him a glare. "Maybe it can finally fall off from that obnoxious gum you chew all the time."
"At least mine has a scent," Miya mocks. "Who in their right mind chews nothin' but scentless gum?"
"It is a health product meant to clean your spit," Kiyoomi draws out, getting to his feet, lording every centimetre he has over the infuriating, fake-blond setter who has the gall to just square his shoulders. "Not an excuse to stink out everyone in a 50-foot radius for your asinine fashion sense."
Bokuto looks between them again. "Uh—"
"Like hell yer gonna make me look like the odd one out here," Miya snaps while peering back at him, hard and nasty. Just the look of him—the flash of irritation crossing his features, his true, tainted colours showing beneath his forever cheery façade—beats at Kiyoomi's temples. "You gonna tell me ya got scentless toothpaste, too? I bet you'd use bleach ta wash out yer mouth if ya could."
"Of course you'd think that," Kiyoomi scoffs, crossing his arms. "You probably think a toilet cleans itself."
Bokuto's neck tenses with his frown. Miya throws up a hand, his laugh dry.
"O' course. Of fuckin' course," he sneers, no trace of a smile to it. "No one but the great Omi-Omi can take any care o' themselves, but god forbid you do a damn thing about it. Sulkin' in the corner, lookin' like you'd rather be in fuckin' solitary than deal with any of us. As if we'd love ta talk ta some dead weight lone wolf who'd rather clean his own shit." He scoffs a noise as if nauseated, his voice hardening, his smell sharper. Kiyoomi blinks. "Jus' admit yer a regular sociopath an' go back ta the corner ya came from. Like anyone would fuckin' miss you an' yer shit attitude anyway."
A chill washes over Kiyoomi. Bleeds slow down, throughout his chest cavity.
Winter rolls back for one last encore and it doesn't stop with him. Bokuto goes stock still, looking to Miya with growing shock.
"Tsumu..."
Blinking once—twice—Miya's mouth falls open a hair. He looks around the gym, having gone silent, stares speaking volumes, his arms loosening from their tight belt over their chest.
His actions catch up to him, finally, now that he's noticed everyone else watching. Because that's what matters, in the end. The team. The group. Everyone, as a must, but no one in particular, no one in-between. Certainly not Kiyoomi, who washed his hands of the ones who smile too easily, the ones that everyone loves, and thus so did everyone do the same with him. He who knew he would never be like, be with, anyone else.
And yet, Kiyoomi still burns.
"Wai—...I..." A laugh leaves Miya; he swallows just as fast. "I didn't—"
A scoff punches out of Kiyoomi. Harsh and short, Miya's gutless mumbling lost to it.
"The one time you're honest, huh?"
Everyone looks fast at him—to his pinprick murmur, quiet and piercing. Miya finally flings his muddy brown gaze to him. Kiyoomi would scrub if off till he bleeds.
"I..." Thick in the voice, Miya swallows, eyes darting across the floor like water slowly fills the room. Kiyoomi would clutch him by the throat and drown him. "Hey, I...didn't mean ta—"
"Maybe I should admit it." Kiyoomi's mouth scorches. "You'd love that, wouldn't you? Just the broken, dud alpha you need to make you look like such a fucking saint."
His every word sizzles in his growl, jaw a pressure cooker. Deep and raw, it scrapes a layer of skin off of his throat, his breathing chafing it hot. The air, flash-frozen, heats lightning fast, cracking the glass of Kiyoomi's throat, the remark crawling from the pit of his gut. Flames roar in his chest, cold enough to scar, whipping heat waves through him. The last time anger consumed him so wholly, Kiyoomi can't recall.
It should feel good. Miya's nastiness is out for all to see. Finally, it all comes exposed: the cracks in the perfect-alpha mask, and what hides behind it.
But, to Kiyoomi's disbelief, vindication doesn’t feel good. When it seeps into his bones, it just hurts.
Concern twists Bokuto's lip, his hands stalling as he raises them. "Guys—"
"Look, I never meant—" Miya clears his throat, shame scrawled over his face, up to his ears. "Omi. I..." He wets his lips, blinking fast. The nickname grates bloodied over Kiyoomi's eardrums, pounding with his pulse. "I'm sorry—"
"Fuck you."
"—Hey." Meian is over in a flash, stern as he steps between the two of them. "Enough. Yer lucky Coach ain't here ta bench the both o' you from the next game." He looks over at Kiyoomi. "What he said was uncalled for, Sakusa, but you needa cool it."
Catching his mouth open, Kiyoomi closes it so fast his teeth click. Balling his fists, one white-knuckling the sanitiser bottle he was holding as he exhales hard, breath still warm. Why anyone—let alone Foster—would worry about Miya is beyond him. Leave it to Miya to make him a mouth-breather not knowing better. Leave it to Miya to not know how to leave anyone alone and make it his problem.
Leave it to Miya to ruin everything.
"...I don't need this."
Spitting under his breath, Kiyoomi turns on his heel. Slams the spray bottle on the table, the legs shivering as he storms off.
"Hey," Miya, weakly, speaks up. "Omi, wait—"
Meian and Bokuto mutter to him, quick and cautious. Warding him off as if Kiyoomi were dynamite. Damaged goods. Made to be left alone.
Good, he thinks, hot with spite.
Just as he should be.
Kiyoomi gags tasting his own breath.
His mouthwash foams cloudy, splattering his bathroom sink. The whole car ride back home and still he knew no peace. Just an indignation that dug its nails into him till it cracked his bones, viscous anger bleeding out of him. He can feel it in his wrists, even—that unbearable, toxic heat.
He knocks down his toothbrush cup.
It clatters loud and hollow on the floor. Kiyoomi's focus gyres onto the clear cup tipped on its side. The sad droplets spittle from his lip onto the tiles. The heat and heaviness of his breath streaming through his nose. His grip on the bathroom sink.
With a consuming sense of calm, all of Kiyoomi's shadowy umbrage dissipates.
He crouches to a squat, staring at the lone cup. Like he were wading through water, he picks it up. Cleans it till under a hot tap till the steam opens his pores and the water bites his fingers red, a thought running in a numb loop through his head.
Reset.
Days pass. Training goes by.
Any talks between the team about the upcoming spring season or hanami plans chills over when Kiyoomi and Miya are in the same vicinity. Kiyoomi already doesn't go out of his way to interact with Miya anyway. But his fingers twitch hotly every time the setter even teases his periphery, and he doesn't trust himself not to spike the nose off his face every time a volleyball's leather stings at his palm.
His displeasure rolls off him in a steady pulse with his heat and sweat, body a furnace from the training and practice games Foster puts all of them through. On the court, he can channel that. Kiyoomi would rather pack a sleeping bag for a dumpster than let Miya get in the way of him playing volleyball.
It helps that Miya makes himself scarce, ducking away whenever he so much as drifts near. Kiyoomi chews on the thought like bitter, stale cud, spreading deep and slow through the inside of his mouth. Not even the Miya Atsumu, wonder socialite and alpha extraordinaire, would go out of his way for an edge case like Kiyoomi.
Coward.
When the team breaks for water, Meian waves him over.
"Hey. Sakusa," he says. "A moment?"
Kiyoomi blinks. Sitting on the bench, Meian gives a tired smile, body language spent and open. For all his boisterousness in gatherings, he was always reasonable, dedicated, and responsible for the team. As far as alphan gum ranges in scents went, he always went for common flavours, drugstore brands that appealed to the mass market. Woodsy, calm-after-rain scents that didn't idle past their welcome.
He joins Meian on the bench. "Captain?"
"...Well, I won't beat around the bush," Meian sighs, working his jaw in one palm. "I wanna talk t'you about the other day in the gym."
In a wayward glance, Kiyoomi sighs. A tired sort of dread rolls along his gut, taking its time. His tongue buzzes, potential energy dripping from the thing. But he holds it tight, clenching and relaxing his fists.
"T'be clear, I ain't about ta defend Miya fer any of it. I'm no mollycoddler like that," Meian says, trying for a smile. "But what he said about'cha... Made it seem like we all think that of ya or somethin'. Like yer some sorta burden on us." Growing pensive, he shakes his head. "I wanna make it clear that he ain't speakin' fer any of us on that. Sure, ya like keepin' ta yerself. But yer a crackin' spiker, an' ya make the effort ta show up even where ya don't have to. Hell," he laughs, an oaken scent drifting with it, "you can be damn funny, with the way ya handled Miya durin' the dinner."
Kiyoomi pulls a small face. Presses his fingers together, hard. "He was in the way."
"Simple as that, ain't it?" Meian chuckles quieter. Kiyoomi didn't mean it as a joke. Outwardly, he just shrugs. "Point is, yer a good kid. If Miya's got issues with you, that's somethin' he's gotta deal with. But no one else here's got a problem with you and whatcha wanna get up to."
Meian looks over. Sincerity pools quiet and intense in his eyes—in the one or two shadows of smile lines that'll deepen with time.
Taking it in, Kiyoomi sees on the distant bench Miya facing away and hunched over—phone in hand as he tries burying his head into the crook of his elbow. Bokuto, sitting with him, talks with a complicated sort of expression, looking huge and out of place staying still next to him. Or as still as he can with his tapping foot and whip-like arms. Hinata idly does tossing practice standing next to him, too close not to be listening in. Even the others on the team, scattered as they are, seem to orbit ever so closer to Miya and his impression of a plaintive mollusc.
Even though he's the one owed an apology, everyone gravitates towards the alpha that just must be having an off-day.
"...Thank you, Captain."
Kiyoomi's mouth sours as he mumbles. Meian cracks a wider smile.
"Hey, what else m'I good for, huh?" he teases. "We ain't a team fer show, now."
He gets up his hands and crooks his fingers to claws, opening his mouth for a wider grin showing teeth. The Black Jackals pose. Kiyoomi's face prickles, warm and awkward as Meian gives him an expectant bounce of his brows.
Looking around furtively, Kiyoomi pops open his mouth a hair. And makes little claws with his hands.
At Meian's snickers, he swallows and quickly puts his hands away.
"There's a good Jackal," he says, light-hearted. Kiyoomi fights down a pout. "I ain't about ta offer a good word fer Miya here, but it's soundin' like he's figurin' out how ta talk t'ya 'bout the whole thing. And... Well." Meian tips up a hand. "Yer adults. You can sort it out. An' if not, then there are more official channels for it. But..." He blows out a breath, shrugging. "Better if it don't come ta that. Unless one of ya's thinkin' 'bout switchin' up with teams, yer gonna be playin' together either way."
Kiyoomi takes stock of his time with the team. Of the sort of game he wants to play. The life he wants to lead.
A path, clear and true, unfolds before him as he takes his careful, sure steps. Rocks, twigs, errant debris stand in his way. A tool, a rake, a shovel—he makes his own tools to manage his own messes. Now, an undergrowth of Miya pervades the path—has done so for a long while—planting its spores in his bronchi, spreading with his every breath in and rough one out.
He catches himself looking over at Miya, because Kiyoomi sees him looking back.
A flash of brown, lined black and gold. Miya's eyes widen before they shrink in a look away—his Adam's apple bobbing hard, his posture tenses in a clenched, ill-looking curve.
Guilt isn’t a familiar look on a sycophant like Atsumu; Kiyoomi doesn’t know if he should take it at face value or assume this is another ploy of his.
Finally, Kiyoomi sighs out the nose. Rears back till the gym lights pour down on his face, the wide stadium thrown into stark relief.
"I'm aware."
"...Hey."
Kiyoomi looks aside from his locker. Miya stands a good distance away, looking as stiff as a flagpole, his mouth the flag wobbling in the wind.
Kiyoomi only cocks a brow at him. Miya then closes his mouth. Clears his throat.
"I... Uh. Wanna talk ta you...properly." He lets out a long breath. "Is 'at... That all right? By you?"
When Kiyoomi inhales, it's to the whir of the vents working double time, flushing the stink and sweat and smell of everyone else that had gone home for the day, because Kiyoomi is meticulous in his post-training routines. Miya, usually one of the first to disappear, had dawdled, less effusive in his parting greetings for everyone.
Miya hadn't said a word about any of it. Until now with his chewed lip and doleful eyes. The only sign that anything was wrong with him was the growth of his nails, the slightest bit unkempt. On a setter, though—on a prim, cleanly alpha like him—it was glaring.
"The boy worries me anyway."
Kiyoomi closes his locker room door. The clang makes Miya blink, his gaze darting between Kiyoomi and the floor nervously—a skittishness that Kiyoomi would note with mockery on any other day. On this occasion, he just takes his time with the key to his padlock, the cool metal and jingling keeping his attention.
There are types who leave a mess lying around. Kiyoomi isn't—won't be—one of them.
"Sure."
When he pockets his keys, he faces Miya head-on. For his own sake, Kiyoomi would do this: to get back fully into the game he loves and hear out the setter who, he could freely admit, did his job of letting him play it.