Chapter Text
After a few post-dinner drinks, Kiyoomi goes to wash his hands again. When he walks back out, only Atsumu remains there at the front of the restaurant, staring out through the glass doors with his hands in his pockets and looking unforgivably handsome in the last of the day’s light.
“Get some fresh air with me, Omi?” Atsumu asks, smiling as Kiyoomi pulls up beside him.
“I’m heading home,” Kiyoomi replies, leading the way out the door. He’s proud that his tone isn’t as sharp and jagged as he still feels inside. His doubt, his uncertainty, had been clawing at him, quietly raking sharply within, and tonight he feels flayed raw and open and wants to retreat, just for a while, to get his head on straight.
“Oh,” Atsumu says. “I thought ya were comin’ by my place tonight? To, ya know, finish what we started earlier?” He has a hint of that smile he gets, like he knows he’s going to get what he wants, like they both are. But instead of riling Kiyoomi up and getting him hot, it kills his mood past dead all the way into fucking cremation.
“I think we finished,” he says.
“Oh,” Atsumu says again, and it’s a quiet sound. He nods once, sharply, eyes stuck on Kiyoomi’s face. “Right.” He sucks in a breath through his teeth and then says, “Is this still about earlier? ‘Cause I wasn’t lyin’.”
Kiyoomi turns sharply to look at him. “And I don’t believe you.” And that isn’t quite true, but it came out the way it did, and he refuses to take it back when he sees Atsumu’s eyes narrow.
Atsumu slides his jaw around a smile as he nods. “So you do think I’m a liar. Okay. Okay.”
“What I think is that you’re an asshole,” Kiyoomi says simply. “You take those stupid photos of us and whoever else you’ve fucked, and you keep them like trophies or something.”
“Hey!” Atsumu snaps back. “You’re an asshole, too!” His brows are pulled together in a deep scowl, but in the pause of his exclamation, his expression loses its tension. It just bleeds away, along with the intensity and force of his gaze, his defensive anger, and his eyes slide away. He says then, quieter: “I didn’t think you minded.”
Kiyoomi realizes then, the electricity of his body suddenly flashing, jolting him, that he doesn’t. He doesn’t mind that Atsumu is an asshole. That isn't the issue at all, is it.
He likes it, really. All of it. He likes that Atsumu is a jerk, that he’s loud, that he’s a little too brash and too honest and too everything. He likes it so much it’s to the point of needing it. It’s to the point of a near fucking obsession. To the point of wanting it all, all of it, all for himself.
And there it is. Suddenly clear. The issue isn’t Atsumu at all. It’s Kiyoomi. The issue is Kiyoomi and what he wants and what he doesn’t have.
And staring at Atsumu looking back, a statement echoing between them but sounding like a question, uncertainty thrumming beneath his words for the first time—Kiyoomi realizes it’s another question Atsumu lets sit between them for Kiyoomi to answer. They—whatever they are—rests in Kiyoomi’s hands to keep or toss away.
“I don’t,” Kiyoomi says then in answer. “I don’t mind.”
Atsumu darts a look at him before sliding his eyes away again. He rubs the back of his neck, the fight seemingly gone out of him. “I can’t read ya sometimes,” he says finally. “Ya seem like ya want me, like you’re in this as much as I am, but then ya keep bein’ all pissed at me for no reason after, and all I got left are pictures of ya on my phone. If ya don’t want me, then why do we keep doin’ this?”
By the end of his words, Atsumu’s voice is raw, heavy, weighed down by a wound Kiyoomi hadn’t even known he’d cut and salted by his every action since they started this. Evidence of it is in Atsumu’s watery eyes.
As Kiyoomi stares, Atsumu seems to notice his own welling tears and looks away, his face flushing, his lips pursing into an aggravated scowl. “I never asked for this, ya know,” Atsumu says. “You were—I thought ya were comin’ on to me when ya first started. And I wanted—well. I know I’m obvious about wantin’ ya, so—”
“Obvious?” Kiyoomi cuts in.
When Atsumu looks up again, his eyebrows go up too, like he’s surprised. “Well, sure. I wear my heart on my sleeve, ya know?”
“Who the fuck told you that?” Kiyoomi says with an incredulous laugh.
Atsumu frowns, somehow still looking surprised. “I mean—everyone!”
“Everyone who? Your mom?”
“Yeah, actually!” Atsumu cries. “And Samu!”
“Anyone who isn’t in your family ever say that?”
The top of Atsumu’s nose pinches as his frown deepens. “Aran-kun!”
Kiyoomi doubts that. He shakes his head anyway. “He doesn’t count. He’s basically your family.”
Atsumu sighs loudly through his nose. “Well, whatever. I’m just sayin’, I’ve been in this from the start, and it ain’t fair for ya to keep stringin’ me along if ya don’t really want me. I thought I’d be good with that, because I like ya, but this is—enough’s enough, Omi. All right?”
“You don’t—” Kiyoomi cuts himself off this time.
“What?” Atsumu says tiredly. When Kiyoomi doesn’t answer right away, Atsumu juts his jaw forward. “I don’t what?”
“You don’t really show it, though. That you even like me.”
“Huh?” Atsumu says, eyes blowing wide. “We fuck all the time!”
It’s Kiyoomi’s turn to sigh. “That’s not—Atsumu.”
“What!”
“Sex,” Kiyoomi starts, but then he pauses. He adjusts. “Sex alone isn’t—it can’t be—”
“What, I’m not enough for ya? That what you’re sayin’?” Atsumu says, baring his teeth in a smile.
“That’s not what I’m saying. I just—I don’t want to just be someone you fuck and take nudes of whenever you want.”
Atsumu’s eyes dart across his face, like he’s trying to read between the lines, and Kiyoomi is at a loss. He doesn’t know how else to say what he wants, what he needs. He isn’t sure what Atsumu reads on his face then, but Atsumu laughs awkwardly all of a sudden.
“It’s not just—I like ya with clothes on too, Omi-kun, for fuck’s sake,” Atsumu says. He pulls his phone out and waves it in Kiyoomi’s face. “This is seriously about the pictures we take? Ya wanna see what else is saved in my phone then? Fine. Here are all of the fuckin’ photos!”
When Kiyoomi just stares at the phone shoved in his face, he finds that he doesn’t want to see them then.
Atsumu’s eyes go hooded, defiant, before he grabs Kiyoomi’s hand and slaps the phone into Kiyoomi’s palm. “Look,” he says. There’s a command there in his tone, unlike the kind that Kiyoomi is used to when things get heated between them in a different way. And though this time Kiyoomi doesn’t want to follow Atsumu’s command, he does. He always does.
So he swallows. And he looks.
They’re photos of the past few months. And the vast majority of them are of Kiyoomi. Bare skin and lewd, indecent. But more than that, there are photos he hasn’t seen.
Unsure, unsettled, Kiyoomi scrolls through the camera roll, pulling up the unfamiliar photos one by one. And each one unravels the tension in his chest that he’d been holding onto for days and weeks and months now, replacing wire-taut anxiety with warmth.
There are candid shots of him during practice: lining up a serve with a concentrated frown, quirking a smile at Hinata and Bokuto across the court, looking off absently while grabbing some water.
There’s one of when they were in the supply closet, but afterward, when his clothes were back on. He was straightening his shirt, eyes cast down, bottom lip caught between his teeth. There’s another one of him in line at the cafe earlier, mask on as he ordered at the counter, eyes crinkling with a grateful smile at the barista. There are selfies of them together in the restaurant earlier—outtakes of Kiyoomi half-lidded with his earlier frustration, Atsumu side-eyeing Kiyoomi fondly as he pulled him closer.
And as he continues looking through old and newer photos, Kiyoomi recalls that, despite the way he may act in bed—and often out of it, if he’s honest—Kiyoomi hadn’t asked first. It was Atsumu.
In true Atsumu fashion, he had been loud, annoying, and persistent when Kiyoomi first joined the team. He would trail Kiyoomi persistently under the guise of helping him out.
It was Atsumu who had brought him in closer to the team. It was Atsumu who followed him to his apartment sometimes, started up a movie on his phone as Kiyoomi answered emails and fucked around hoping he’d leave. But Atsumu wouldn’t leave, and they’d sit there and finish the movie together, curled around the phone late into the night.
And when Atsumu came onto him the first time Kiyoomi went over to his hotel room, a hand on Kiyoomi’s thigh, leaning a little too close, a question in his expression, Kiyoomi answered in kind.
Still, everything about their first time together was belied by Atsumu asking again, and again.
The first time, unlike all the others, didn’t involve photos or commands. Instead, it had been tentative and exploratory. Atsumu had opened him up slowly, and each thrust when they finally fucked was a gentle press in, no matter how urgently Kiyoomi had dug his heels into Atsumu’s ass to pull him closer, to make him move faster.
It had also been the first time he’d called Kiyoomi “baby.” He’d frozen after saying it, breath hot and wet between them, and had asked, “Is that okay?” as if Kiyoomi hadn’t clenched around him at the endearment, hadn’t felt the soft tone of Atsumu’s voice wash over him, warm in a way that stuck with him even after he left later.
“It’s fine,” Kiyoomi said. But it had been more than that. And he’d held on more tightly to Atsumu, after that.
But the aftermath, as Kiyoomi slid out of Atsumu’s bed, intent on catching a shower and finishing up the movie they’d interrupted, Atsumu said, “Catch ya later then?”
And it was a simple phrase, offhand, and it shouldn’t have meant anything. They would see each other later for sure—at evening practice, at the press junket and the match the following day, at Bokuto and Akaashi’s for drinks to close out the week.
Later, Kiyoomi thought. And he hadn’t known then that there would be a series of them, of laters in this way.
But at the time, he’d stepped out of Atsumu’s hold, the warmth of his hands falling away from Kiyoomi’s sides. And Kiyoomi was cold in their absence.
He had read later as apart when, in the in-between, and the before, and for a brief moment after, he dared to hope it meant together. But that wasn’t this—them. At least, at the time, he hadn’t thought so.
And so he had committed to stepping away—mentally, emotionally, if not physically.
But looking at these photos, seeing snapshots of himself outside of the heat of the other captured moments between them, Kiyoomi feels suddenly, wonderfully, like a complete and utter fool.
When he looks up, Atsumu’s pretending he’s not side-eyeing Kiyoomi and snaps his eyes away to look down the street. He scrubs a hand over his bristled jawline. Kiyoomi only notices the awkward silence between them when Atsumu breaks it. “I told ya,” he says. “I like ya. All of ya. Clothes off, on, whatever. Doesn’t matter.”
Kiyoomi clicks so the screen goes dark and hands it back, and Atsumu speaks hurriedly again as he takes it, as if Kiyoomi has made a decision, as if something is changing. And it has, but perhaps not in the way Atsumu thinks.
“It’s not just sex,” Atsumu says quickly, white-knuckling his phone. “It’s not, okay? I thought—we hang out too, don’t we? We got coffee together earlier. And I wanted—if ya want, I mean, I can try to—” Atsumu takes a breath and then makes a frustrated sound. When he speaks again, he sounds begrudging, almost belligerent. “Look, what is it ya want from me then?”
Kiyoomi just stares back at him, suddenly noticing cool air as he sucks in a breath through his teeth.
He’s smiling.
He still has the urge to leave—to run—but he’s hesitating because this might be it, an end to it, right here, right now. But it also could be more than that. It could be exactly what he wants.
So he stays a moment longer, and he says, to clarify, “You keep saying that I’m your favorite.”
Atsumu draws up to his full height, squaring his shoulders like they’re about to have it out, but his expression is tight, like he’s trying to hide that he’s upset. “Yeah. What of it?”
Kiyoomi swallows. He eyes the way Atsumu’s lips are pulled into a thin line, takes in the aggressive posture of his shoulders, like he’s defensive and ready for whatever change is coming, even if he won't like it. But it’s clear he’s not shying away from it, either.
And Kiyoomi hates it. He hates that he doesn’t see the slow smile, the soft smile, or even that smile. It’s not attention in the way Kiyoomi wants, but he doesn’t want that attention anymore anyway, not if it’s not his alone. So he lays it out.
“I don’t—want this,” he says quietly. “Not if there are others.”
Atsumu full-on scowls. “And I fuckin’ told you there aren’t others! I don’t know what else ya want me ta say here, Omi. If ya don’t want me, just fuckin’—”
“Of course I want you. I only ever want you!” Kiyoomi snaps, because the direction Atsumu’s going is so far off base that Kiyoomi doesn’t even want to entertain it.
Then he looks away at his own outburst, can’t stand that sharp pinprick of Atsumu’s attention when his eyes widen and a smile tugs at the corner of his lips, even through the remnants of his confused and defensive scowl.
“Then what the hell—”
“But why do you keep saying it?” Kiyoomi cuts in.
Atsumu frowns at being cut off, and he pauses. His eyes dart across Kiyoomi’s face. “That you’re my favorite?” he asks.
Kiyoomi doesn’t answer, just shrugs lightly.
And Atsumu suddenly deflates, his eyes stilling and holding on Kiyoomi’s, as if he’s found an answer he’d been searching for. His eyes go soft then.
It’s like Kiyooi had wanted, but under the intensity of it now, perhaps more so than in the times before, he’s nearly overwhelmed by it. He glances down, because he can’t look at him, not when Atsumu’s looking back at him like that, as if he can see it all—that Kiyoomi’s been stripped bare, layers discarded, there to be seen—and only by him. It’s how he always looks at Kiyoomi, when it’s just them, and sometimes, like tonight, at a table full of other people who have no business knowing anything of the sort.
It’s as if he’s looking at Kiyoomi like Kiyoomi’s his favorite, as if he’s the only one—and perhaps not only in this moment even, but always. Like he’s about to snap a photo, call him ‘baby,’ and hold him tight after his cums until he comes down, all the way down, satisfied.
And the idea of that is nearly as frightening as the thought of being one among many.
“Because it’s true,” Atsumu says.
His words almost feel redundant, like he’s hammering home a point that had long ago been nailed down. And he says it so simply that Kiyoomi just slowly shakes his head, still staring back, trying and failing to catch a lie he knows then he will never find.
Atsumu coughs out a laugh. “I don’t know why ya don’t believe me, but it’s the goddamn truth. I mean it. You’re my favorite. Not—not what ya seem ta be thinkin’ though, because you’re an idiot.”
Kiyoomi frowns.
Atsumu just smiles and smiles, like he could go on smiling for days in that sweet, soft way. “You’re just my favorite person, Omi,” he says. “Period.”
And his tone seems to imply that this isn’t the first time he’s said it, as if he’s been repeating it for weeks, like Kiyoomi should have known this, and should have known it all along
Kiyoomi is about to step forward to kiss him, but then the asshole goes and smirks, ruining the moment.
“What,” Atsumu says, “ya think I go around callin’ just anyone my ‘baby’ in bed?” He pauses, and his smirk becomes a little mean. “Or in the restroom?”
“Shut up, Atsumu,” Kiyoomi snaps.
Atsumu laughs. “Least you’re callin’ me by my name again.” He swings an arm around Kiyoomi’s waist and tugs. “C’mere.”
And Kiyoomi, unfettered, tethered, goes.
“You’re all I want too, ya know,” Atsumu says. “All the fuckin’ time. Ya drive me crazy, Omi.”
Atsumu waits, as if Kiyoomi might possibly have something to say to that, as if Kiyoomi might possibly have anything else in him to give, before he shrugs. When Atsumu looks away, Kiyoomi watches the handsome lines of his face ease as he glances down the street. Atsumu tips his head in that direction, his lips tipping up in turn with an alluring invitation.
“Walk with me a bit longer?” Atsumu asks again.
And this time, when he leads—as if it hadn’t been a foregone conclusion since the very first time—Kiyoomi follows.
Around them, the city grows quieter as Atsumu takes them to the pedestrian walkway overlooking the river. Beyond them, the sky is a wash of yellow and orange, pink and purple.
When they pull to a stop, Kiyoomi takes a step away, breathing in the dewy scent of the evening. He gazes at the sun sinking over the water, still feels Atsumu radiating body heat as he leans one hip on the rail by Kiyoomi’s elbow.
“Hey, look at me, would ya?” Atsumu says.
Kiyoomi doesn’t really think about it, just turns to look at him.
Click.
Kiyoomi stares as Atsumu lowers his phone. “What was that for?” he asks.
Atsumu smiles down at his phone. “Ya looked good,” is all he says.
Kiyoomi’s heart fumbles in his chest. It’s not that he’s turned on, despite the nearly Pavlovian response he seems to have now for the sound of that artificial camera shutter. It’s something else entirely.
“But I have my clothes on,” he says snidely, unable to help himself.
Atsumu stares back at him, confused, but Kiyoomi watches as the memory of this afternoon at the cafe pings there behind the bright, burnt-sugar brown of his eyes.
Then Atsumu laughs. His eyes narrow with the smile that overtakes his face as he pockets his phone. “That ya do,” he says softly. “And I told ya I liked ya with your clothes on too, didn’t I? Just look at ya, baby.”
He reaches out.
Kiyoomi doesn’t move, transfixed by the way Atsumu is looking at him, just him. He takes in the calm, familiar smile that spreads like sunshine across Atsumu’s face, even as the light fades around them. Atsumu’s thumb grazes over Kiyoomi’s cheek below his eye, his palm rough as he skims it down to cradle Kiyoomi’s jaw, but it’s as gentle as his smile, as if he’s holding something precious.
Baby, Kiyoomi thinks. His heart stops flipping in his chest, full, sated. And he settles beneath that sharp gaze, under which he feels laid bare, exposed, seen. And he thinks again of later and next time, but later and next time in the way Atsumu means together.
And he leans, fully and wholly, finally at ease and satisfied, into the warmth of Atsumu’s hand.
The way Atsumu looks at him then is reminiscent of being in-between moments, like the befores and the afters, slow and soft and gentle. Like he was letting Kiyoomi have this. Like he wanted it too. Like he wanted this to last past a single captured moment.
And it lasts.
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