Chapter Text
His key slots itself into the lock with a glide, clinking softly as it meets resistance. Atsumu’s fingers are sweaty. He turns it. Click.
The door yawns open.
The genkan is quiet and dark, but beyond it, dim light is glowing. A rustle. Then–
Kiyoomi stands in the doorway.
“Tadaima,” Atsumu whispers.
“Okaerinasai.”
A piece of paper is crumpled in his fist, and his knuckles are clenched just as white.
“Kiyoomi,” Atsumu breathes, helplessly.
Because when he looks into his eyes, he only sees the same longing that is mirrored in his own.
Kiyoomi takes a step forward, then another, and Atsumu does too. They cross the genkan in three long strides, letter tumbling to the floor as Kiyoomi already reaches out for him. Long, pale fingers that slot around Atsumu’s own, that clamp down, grip tight with desperation. Hold him firmly.
Atsumu crashes into him. Shoulders knocking together as they both waver on their feet, an unnamed force propelling them forward until their bodies collide.
And how easy it would for Kiyoomi to bend down and close the feeble distance with his lips, how easy to melt into him like he always has. Kiss away their thoughts and their worries, kiss away everything that’s been holding them apart.
He doesn’t do it.
He knocks his forehead against Atsumu’s and closes his eyes. Stays like that.
He’s trembling, trembling like a leaf in October.
Atsumu’s voice is hoarse. “I’m scared,” he whispers, “I’m so fucking scared.”
“Do you think I’m not?”
For a moment, neither of them can talk, both choked up, both so overwhelmed with the reality of the situation, the reality of them both really, finally standing in front of each other. Kiyoomi curls his hand around Atsumu’s. “I’m so sorry,” he whispers. “For the person I’ve been.”
“Don’t be,” Atsumu says, and when he wipes away the streaks of tears on Kiyoomi’s cheeks, he only realizes that he also started crying. “Don’t be,” Atsumu repeats, softer. “Please. I wasn’t better.”
“That doesn’t matter.” Kiyoomi tries to laugh, and it’s a miserable, wet little thing and gets half-caught in his throat. “It shouldn’t have been a competition. I was cruel, and I shouldn’t have been. But I don’t want to be anymore, I don’t want to be cruel.”
He takes a shaky breath. “I don’t want to let you go,” he whispers.
“And I don’t want to go.”
Atsumu squeezes his fingers so tightly it hurts, but Kiyoomi clings onto the grasp, needs it fiercely and desperately, his last point of contact with the world. “I did want to.” Atsumu squeezes his eyes shut tightly. “But maybe what I wanted even more was to be asked to stay.”
Kiyoomi’s heart thumps in his chest almost painfully. “And what do you want now?”
“You.” Atsumu laughs helplessly. “I want ya so much, I’m scared of it. Because the last time I wanted ya this much, we ruined it all. So yeah, I’m scared. Of fucking things up, of not being enough, not giving enough, of … getting hurt again. Cause like last time, I fell in love with ya, and like last time, it won’t … I won’t…” He can’t bring himself to finish the sentence. He gulps down the wet knot in his throat. Tears burn in the corners of his eyes. His voice is broken when he talks again. “I like ya too much to have us end up like that again.”
“Like,” Kiyoomi mutters. “You like me.”
Atsumu looks up alarmed, mouth slightly ajar. “Did I–”
Kiyoomi curls into him as he giggles, and it’s wet and choked and glorious. “ Like , after all we’ve been through.”
Realization dawns on Atsumu and he blushes fiercely; buries his face in his neck. “Oh my god, was that weird? Did I ruin the moment? Should I have said somethin’–”
“No,” Kiyoomi whispers, and lays a hand to his cheek, gently stroking over his cheekbone and not relenting when Atsumu doesn’t immediately tilt his head up. “It’s … it’s good that you like me.” He smiles wryly and awkwardly. “It’s important.”
He takes a deep breath as the smile slips off his face, hand falling away to fist itself in the fabric of Atsumu’s shirt. When he talks again, it’s hesitant. “You know why I only realized so late that I was in … you know? Again?”
Their clothes rustle as Atsumu shifts in his arms, and Kiyoomi grasps him tighter, bracing himself for what he’s about to say next. He opens his mouth, but the words don’t want to come, don’t want to tumble out, and he says – “Atsumu.”
“Kiyoomi?”
“Please look at me. Look at me when I say this.”
He does. He tilts his head up, and his expression is so terribly, blissfully open that Kiyoomi has to clutch him tighter so he doesn’t just keel over.
Those eyes have haunted him, have followed him, have not let him go. Those eyes, he’ll never forget. He finds flecks of light within them.
“I like you, Atsumu.” He trembles with a swallowed choke. “I like to be in your presence, I like when you talk to me and laugh with me and stay with me. I want to hold your hand. I want to kiss your nose, I want to wake up next to you. Know that you’ll be there the next day too.”
“Kiyoomi–”
“Atsumu.”
They just look at each other, eyes wide, in – wonder.
“Atsumu,” Kiyoomi repeats, voice shaky. “I always told myself it was nothing because I didn’t feel like I felt then,” he whispers, drowning in the depth of those eyes. “And it’s true, it was nothing compared to what I feel for you now. Back then, love was exciting, and thrilling, and scary – and now it’s quiet and simple and warm and hard and still scary.” His chest is heaving, and Atsumu is pressed to it tightly.
“Is it worth it? I don’t know. But I want to know.”
Atsumu is still looking at him with that wondrous kind of softness, with that unbearable warmth. Fondness. “Oh, Omi,” he breathes.
And Kiyoomi is suddenly dizzy.
There it is, there it is, all laid out in front of them, there it is, ready for Atsumu to take. Finally, finally his.
And Atsumu – Atsumu smiles at him. It’s a slow one, a hesitant one, a beautiful one, and it’s the sun breaking through the clouds. “I want that too.”
It’s everything he’s ever wanted – and everything he’ll have.
“Holy shit, Omi, oh fuck Omi, are ya cryin’? Did I say somethin’ wrong, can I– oh my god, ya fuckin’ sap , I can’t believe ye’re really cryin’ right now over my fuckin’–”
Kiyoomi shuts him up with a kiss.
Some things do stay the same.