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“Well, well, well, look who it is. Drinking in enemy territory, Omi-kun? That's very brave of you.”
The words are mocking. The accent thick and drawling. And the wide smile of Miya Atsumu is far too sincere considering Kiyoomi has literally shot him in the back before.
“You know exactly why I’m here,” Kiyoomi replies, reaching out with a gloved hand to take the glass of umeshu Atsumu hands him with his arrival. He’s not worried about something like a spiked drink—not from Atsumu, anyway—that isn’t his style. Kiyoomi knows well enough that Atsumu prefers toying with his prey.
Kiyoomi can’t quite tell what the curve of Atsumu’s wicked grin spells out for tonight. If he’s looking to play a game with Kiyoomi, or if he’s on guard duty too, the same way Kiyoomi is.
Their groups are rivals of a sort. Tolerating each other for the sake of business when things are going well, coldly gunning each other down in the streets when tensions are at their worst.
Tonight they’re in an Inarizaki club, firmly within their boundaries of the city, but the Adlers had been welcomed in with the red carpet rolled out. There is a deal in the making, assuming there are no surprises on the horizon.
Kiyoomi can’t afford to be playing with Atsumu while he needs to be paying attention. And yet, if Atsumu is occupied with Kiyoomi, it means he isn’t causing trouble elsewhere. It comes out a wash, really.
Atsumu winks at him, then slides into the booth seating across from him, angling himself towards the corner so that his view of the floor was unobstructed. “If you were here to protect your boss, then shouldn’t you be by his side instead of all the way over here?”
“Is Kita-san so weak that he needs protection that close?” Kiyoomi asks, knowing that even daring to breathe out Kita’s name is bound to piss off Atsumu. “Don’t insult Ushijima-san by applying the same standards. He can take care of himself just fine. He simply doesn’t like driving on this shithole side of town.”
“Ah, a glorified chauffeur,” Atsumu teases, not rising to the bait. He's in an exceptionally good mood then. Kiyoomi has to imagine Osamu must be suffering somewhere as the cause of it. “Sounds like you’ve got time to play then, Omi-kun.”
Atsumu’s foot taps into his own beneath the table. With anyone else, Kiyoomi would be plotting an immediate and painful revenge for daring to touch him. With Atsumu, he simply starts to wonder if any of the private rooms upstairs are clean enough to meet his standards. It might not even matter if he just shoves Atsumu’s face into the table and holds him down long enough for a good fuck. Kiyoomi might not have to touch a thing.
“Play with you?” Kiyoomi asks evenly, raising a disdainful brow as if the thought had never occurred to him. “I don’t think so, Atsumu.”
Atsumu has the gall to toss his head back and laugh. He’s not wearing a tie and his dress shirt isn't even properly buttoned. The stylized black and red lines of his tattoos are just barely visible through the open front of his shirt.
Kiyoomi knows all the details that are hidden away: the wings of the phoenix along his back, the chrysanthemum petals that paint his ribs, the kitsune that wraps along his bicep, and and the multitude of faint silvery scars that litter the rest of his body. Most of them are the result of knife fights from back when Atsumu and his twin were nothing more than a couple of young, untrained street ruffians, causing trouble for everyone.
Sometimes Kiyoomi wonders what might have happened if Ushijima had found them before Kita had.
But usually not for long, because Kiyoomi has long since given up on pondering about how life could be different than what it is.
Atsumu slouches back even further into his seat, if that’s possible. His eyes haven’t left Kiyoomi. A dangerous move, considering where they’re at. It’s proof that he has too much trust in Kiyoomi. Like he thinks maybe Kiyoomi would be willing to keep him safe. Like he believes Kiyoomi would give him a head’s up, if something were to happen.
Maybe he’s right.
Maybe Kiyoomi would.
“Ya sure do love playin’ hard to get, don’tcha, babe? S’real cute. I bet you’ve got everyone fooled real good. They all just think you’re some stick in the mud who doesn’t know how to have a good time.”
“It’s cute you think I have a good time when we’re together,” Kiyoomi answers, forcibly unclenching his jaw.
“Oh?” Atsumu’s eyes light up at him from across the table. “Why else would ya keep comin’ back if you’re not? Dick’s just that good, huh?”
“If you want the honest truth, I find it rather satisfying to be the one who gets to shut you up. It’s petty, I know—I never claimed to be perfect.”
Atsumu scratches his temple, a pretend far off look on his face. “That’s funny. I distinctly remember you asking me to beg for ya, last time. I guess we got pretty different opinions about what it means to be shut up.”
Kiyoomi does remember that. It would be rather impossible not to, since Atsumu had begged. Loud, too, with such fake sincerity and enthusiasm he could have rivaled the lead actor in some low-budget porno. It hadn’t been what Kiyoomi wanted, and he’d briefly considered just tucking himself back into his briefs, zipping up his pants and walking away, leaving Atsumu hard and unsatisfied.
He hadn’t left, though. Leaving Atsumu alone was proving rather difficult these days.
In fact, not playing this game with Atsumu was so difficult that even Wakatoshi had noticed the pattern last year. Kiyoomi hadn’t lied when Wakatoshi had confronted him about it. Wakatoshi hadn’t told him to stop, either.
No, he’d delivered a fate much worse than that to Kiyoomi.
Wakatoshi had looked him straight in the eye and blandly said, “Sounds like that relationship could be useful someday. You know I trust you, Kiyoomi.”
Kiyoomi wasn’t sure he trusted himself around Atsumu these days, but he hadn’t said that to Wakatoshi. He’d nodded. Left the room without another word.
He kept playing the game with Atsumu. It was impossible not to. In the beginning he could have, but it had been too long now.
Relationship was the wrong word entirely to use, though. Even “arrangement” was too strong of a label. Motoya often rather crudely called them “enemies with benefits.”
The worst was when Atsumu had once dared to refer to him as a “booty call,” straight to his face. Kiyoomi’s response to that had been to push Atsumu onto his knees and shove a hand in his hair. “Maybe if you apologize well enough with that tongue of yours, I might be willing to consider coming back again.”
Except Atsumu had smirked and pulled Kiyoomi’s zipper down with his teeth. He'd teased until Kiyoomi had fisted a hand in Atsumu’s hair and pulled hard. Later on, he'd realized that he’d given Atsumu exactly what he’d wanted.
In short, there were a lot of words to describe what lay between them.
But Kiyoomi knew the truth of it.
It was addiction.
And like addiction, it made him do stupid things. Stupid things like ignoring Wakatoshi's signal he was ready to leave for a full five seconds. Long enough to swallow back the last of his drink, put his mask back on, and savor the picture of Atsumu in front of him. “Looks like I’ll have to take a rain check on putting you in your place. Maybe you’ll find someone else willing to take on the trouble.”
Atsumu waves a hand at him in vague dismissal. “I’ll be sure to give ya all the sordid details next time, Omi-kun. Maybe I’ll even take a couple of pictures for you.”
Four years ago, Atsumu would have done it. Without hesitation.
Instead, three hours later after Kiyoomi has returned back to headquarters, he steps out of his en suite bathroom, a towel wrapped around his hips and finds Atsumu sitting on the edge of his bed.
His legs are crossed and his suit jacket is tossed to the side. There’s a fresh bruise on his cheek, but he’s still grinning. “Evening, Omi-kun. Ya miss me?”
Atsumu’s presence in his room is the most blatant fuck you to the Adler’s compound security that Kiyoomi has ever been witness to, and his heart damn near skips a beat in his chest over it. It should be impossible for Atsumu to be in his room. At least not without a pile of bodies in his wake and the entirety of Inarizaki’s impressive arsenal right behind him.
Kiyoomi should be furious. He should be sounding the alarm. If Atsumu can do this, then Inarizaki could wipe them out while they were sleeping at any point.
He’d like to believe Atsumu wouldn’t lead him like a lamb to slaughter. Would like to think that there’d be nothing fun in that for Atsumu, that he’d always pick a fight head on before subterfuge. He’d like to think he’s earned more loyalty from Atsumu than that over the years.
Except whatever Kiyoomi has earned over the years pales in comparison to the loyalty Atsumu holds for Kita. For Inarizaki. Kiyoomi knows that Atsumu wouldn’t give up the secret of the Adlers' base just for fun—but he’d do it if his Kumicho asked.
He’s probably known how to do this for ages, if Kiyoomi had to guess.
Kiyoomi doesn’t ask, “What are you doing here?”
Kiyoomi doesn’t think about the knife he has in his dresser drawer or the gun under the spare pillow on his bed.
Kiyoomi doesn’t open his bedroom door and call down the hallway for backup.
Kiyoomi doesn’t even think about what he might say to his Kumicho come tomorrow morning.
Instead, Kiyoomi steps forward, wrapping a hand around Atsumu’s throat but he doesn’t squeeze. If he had any sense left in him at all, Miya Atsumu would be dead at his feet.
If Atsumu had any sense at all, his gun wouldn’t still be in the holster at his hip and Kiyoomi would have never gotten this close in the first place.
“Miss you?“ Kiyoomi sneers. “I wish I’d never fucking met you.”
Atsumu’s leg hooks around his knee, keeping him close. A finger tucks into the waist of his towel and pulls. “Oh, really? Ya sure got a funny way of showin’ it.”
He’s not talking about the way Kiyoomi is hard under his towel. He’s talking about the way Atsumu is in his bed and Kiyoomi is seconds away from kissing him instead of killing him.
He shoves at Atsumu’s shoulder until he’s reclining back in his elbows. Kiyoomi braces a knee between his legs. “What do you want out of this little stunt, Atsumu? Did you just want to prove you could do it?”
Atsumu hums playfully, one hand raising up to touch Kiyoomi. Atsumu’s fingers trace over the black outline of the snake wrapped around Kiyoomi’s arm, then stop over his heart where the snake’s fangs are outstretched and ready to strike. “Just wanted an answer, that’s all.”
Kiyoomi doesn’t say anything as it comes together.
This is a test.
Because there are two things that any Kumicho demanded of their family: unquestioning obedience and absolute loyalty. Kiyoomi had told Atsumu to find someone else to occupy him for the night and fuck off. In return, Atsumu had shown up in his bed and made Kiyoomi choose—Atsumu or his Kumicho.
“You don’t gotta answer, though,” Atsumu says, leaning up until his mouth is just under Kiyoomi’s, hot and persistent. The temptation is never-ending. “I already know.”