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There’s a strange burst of static electricity that ripples over Atsumu’s entire body when he picks up the coat off the floor, but what the hell, he is wearing a wool sweater. He brushes any dust off the coat before offering it back to the owner. The guy’s classically handsome, in a spoiled-Victorian-young-master-slash-feline-apex-predator way. Like all slinky-dark and exuding the air of wealth, somehow. Still fucking hot.
The coffee shop bustles around them as the man gazes up at him in his seat, eyes wide, black coffee sitting forgotten on his table. He’s got a textbook flipped to some scary-looking diagrams, a few pastel highlighters lined up neatly next to the pages. His laptop is open on a document titled C502 DISSERTATION—safe bet to say he’s a university student.
Score.
Atsumu isn’t above cheesy flirtation, so he makes sure their fingers brush when he pulls back. “Sorry ‘bout your coat,” he says, grinning. “Hope it’s not too expensive. Prolly shouldn’t drape it over the back of your chair like that.”
Victorian Apex Predator is blinking at him, clutching the coat to his chest as if he can’t believe this is real. Okay, good chances.
Atsumu plays up the charm and leans in. “Can I get you a coffee to make it up to you?”
Cue the dilated pupils. Fuck yeah.
“You want… to buy me a coffee,” Victorian Apex Predator says.
“Or a drink,” Atsumu says. “Maybe even dinner, if I’m lucky.”
“Oh,” Victorian Apex Predator says, pink creeping into the tops of his ears. What the fuck. That’s so cute.
“So?” Atsumu says.
Victorian Apex Predator runs his hands over his coat, frowning. It really does look expensive. Trim black wool, with a proper belt and round buttons. The type of coat made from real dead animals with the help of a European designer probably starting with L, like Laurent, Louis, Liam, whatever.
For the longest time Victorian Apex Predator stares at his coat with the same intensity that elementary schoolers look at Magic 8 Balls, before finally meeting Atsumu’s gaze.
“Will you be inviting me to your home after dinner?” Victorian Apex Predator asks.
Atsumu blinks. Would he? Look at this guy, ‘course he fucking would. “If you’re willing,” he replies.
The flush creeps down from Victorian Apex Predator’s ears to his neck. Fuck, how cute is that, seriously?
“My name is Sakusa Kiyoomi,” he says, stiff. “Thank you for returning my coat to me. And I would be interested in the coffee, dinner, and home visit. I like iced Americanos.”
Home visit, he says. So fucking cute. Weird, but mostly cute.
“Alright, sounds like a plan,” Atsumu says. “I’m Atsumu, by the way.”
“Family name?”
“Miya.”
Sakusa nods. “A good name,” he decides. “It has a strong meaning that suits you. I don’t suppose you have any connection with the local kitsune, do you?”
“You’re hilarious,” Atsumu says, and then he heads to the back of the line to buy the iced Americano for his date.
The coffee and dinner go well—Sakusa’s a funny guy, made funnier by the fact that he seems one-hundred percent serious about everything he’s saying, like when he suggests they go for a swim in the ocean to burn off the calories from their okonomiyaki, despite it being zero degrees and also fucking winter. When Atsumu tells him that no human could possibly survive those temperatures, Sakusa seems startled. “Oh,” he says. “How odd that you can lose all of your limbs but not be able to swim in these waters.”
“Do you want all of my limbs to be gone?” Atsumu says.
“Of course not. You won’t be able to carry me from the ocean otherwise,” Sakusa scoffs.
So: weird guy. A little obsessed with the ocean, but they’re only a few kilometers out from the shore; Atsumu gets it. Everyone who’s Osaka-born and raised is at least a little obsessed with it. Some kind of weird town trait.
After dinner, they take the scenic route from the restaurant to Atsumu’s apartment: the lit bridge over the quiet river, the worn path past the forest, up the hill that takes them to the building.
“You live close to nature,” Sakusa notes, as Atsumu punches in the code to his apartment.
“Yeah, a good view’s always a bonus.” He’s a professional athlete, which means that a boring environment is a drag when he goes out jogging. “‘kay, it’s a little messy—”
Atsumu gets the door open, but before he can make some grand gesture to welcome him in, Sakusa inhales, marches in, and hangs his coat on the rack, shoulders set straight like he’s getting ready for a fight. Then he spins on his heel and sets his gaze on Atsumu. Sakusa’s expression is indecipherable. Somewhere between I’m going to punch your lights out and let’s fuck on the floor.
Atsumu eases the door shut behind him and toes off his shoes. “Sakusa,” he starts to say, but is interrupted by Sakusa grabbing his wrist and hurling him past the coffee table and to the gray leather couch—and yeah, okay, totally, couch sex, Atsumu’s so fucking onboard. He can’t help the tiny groan in his throat when Sakusa shoves him down into the cushions and swings his leg over Atsumu’s hips.
“Kiyoomi,” Sakusa demands, once he’s nice and settled.
“What?”
“Call me Kiyoomi.”
God, this guy is Atsumu’s every fuckin’ dream. “Okay,” he manages to say in a normal voice. “Atsumu, then. And Kiyoomi’s too long. How about Omi?”
“Earn it,” Kiyoomi growls, like the spoiled young master he definitely is. It’s the last thing he says before he leans down to kiss Atsumu, nimble fingers undoing the button on Atsumu’s jeans, and—suffice to say, Atsumu fucking earns it and then some, alright.
Atsumu wakes to furious buzzing. Angry wasps—no, that’s his phone. He squints at the sunlight peeking through the curtained windows, then at his phone rattling on his bedside table.
He flips it over and scrolls through his notifications. Two missed calls from Osamu. Seventy-five texts, starting at about 10 PM from the previous night.
Oh. Fuck.
The latest messages, with Osamu having reached the pinnacle of his anger which has apparently carried him into the morning, are not very charitable.
you
little
fuck
bringing a housewarming gift my ASS
YOU BETTER BE DEAD IN A DITCH WTF
WHERES MY KNIFE SET
GIVE ME MONEY
FUCK YOU
GIVE ME MOENY
TSUMU IF YOU DONT RESPOND
i shouldve made rin copy your key when i had the chance
what are you even doing
ARE YOU ALIVE
YOU SERIOUSLY BETTER BE DEAD
Atsumu sighs and heaves himself up from the bed, taking care to not wake Kiyoomi beside him. He’s buried under his lion’s share of blankets—no wonder Atsumu woke up cold—and has his head submerged in a pillow. Atsumu checks him for signs of life: warm, breathing, marked up to hell and back.
It’s time for damage control.
He shrugs on a pair of sweats and trudges out to the living room, collapsing on the couch. He allows himself a few moments of peace before he hits the nuclear button and calls Osamu.
First ring pick-up, straight into shouting.
“YOU FUCKER,” Osamu says. “DOES MY HOUSEWARMING PARTY MEAN NOTHING TO YOU. GIVE ME MONEY.”
“Can you not yell,” Atsumu hisses. “I’ve got—whatever, I’ll give you some damn money, can you chill now?”
A suspicious pause. “Why,” Osamu says.
“Why what?”
“Why do you want me to be quiet?”
“Why do you need to ask? Shove off.”
Twin telepathy isn’t a thing, but sometimes, it really is a thing, because the next thing Osamu says is, “Oh, fuck, you seriously ditched my housewarming party to fuck someone?”
“I didn’t ditch, I helped you pack and move,” Atsumu says. “I just… neglected to come to the celebration part.”
“Tsumu. You left to pick up coffee and dropped off the face of the Earth for sixteen hours.”
When he says it like that. “Okay, yeah, I ditched, but the sex was really good—”
A disgusted noise.
“—and it’s not like you haven’t ditched me! You only wanted me to come so you could steal some bills from my wallet anyway.”
“And any gift cards,” Osamu says, the shameless fuck. “So, what, they’re sleeping in your bed now? You gonna kick them out?”
“His name is Omi,” Atsumu says pointedly.
Another pause, longer this time.
“You’re telling me his name?” Osamu says.
“Yeah? Why?”
“Are you concussed?”
“What?”
“Or,” Osamu says, voice taking on an unpleasantly smug tone, “are you in love?”
“I’m not—” Atsumu tries to defend, only to be interrupted by Osamu shouting, “Yo, Rin, fucker says he’s in love with some dude from the coffee shop!” and that’s his cue to hang up, so he does, then blocks Osamu for good measure.
Self-care’s all the rage these days, right? He tosses his phone into the cushions and starts to head back to his bedroom.
“You didn’t take my coat,” Kiyoomi says, when Atsumu returns. He’s sitting up in the bed, curls squished flat on one side of his head, plucking at the stray bits of lint on Atsumu’s blankets. His eyes are still bleary with sleep. Fucking adorable. It probably hasn’t been long since he woke up. Atsumu takes a moment to appreciate his kiss-swollen mouth and the bite marks left on his body—Victorian young master carries marks easier than a peach, who knew—before he remembers that he should respond.
“Is there some reason why I should take it?” he says. He sits down on the bed to kiss Kiyoomi good morning, smiling when Kiyoomi blinks at him, bewildered. He brushes his hand through those lovely curls and presses another kiss to Kiyoomi’s nose, just because he can. “Shower’s open if you want it,” Atsumu says. “I’ve got an extra toothbrush by the sink that’s all yours, too.”
Kiyoomi’s face flickers. “You’re… giving me more gifts?”
“If you call a toothbrush from a pack I got at 7-Eleven a gift, then yeah, sure.”
“You don’t take my coat and then you give me more gifts. Do you know what this means?”
“It means you should eat breakfast with me after you shower.”
Kiyoomi sucks in a quiet breath. Okay, Miya. Dial it back.
“You don’t have to feel obligated or anything,” Atsumu says. Shit, play it cool. He’s not a fucking high schooler, this isn’t his first time having someone over, and it’s not his first time trying for a second date either. Just. Play it fucking cool, Miya. “Y’know, I had a really great time last night. If you’re up for staying…”
He trails off, unsure of how to proceed. But then Kiyoomi says, “We’ll discuss this after breakfast.”
Atsumu can’t help the grin. “Shit, yeah?”
“Yeah.” A short pause. “By the way, my family will be out of our estate until next month.”
Weird change of topic, but Atsumu can roll with it. “That so? How’s the thread count on your bed at home, Omi?”
“Better than this,” Kiyoomi says, wrinkling his nose.
And well—isn’t that a dare? Lucky thing it’s Saturday morning. No practice, no obligations, not even anything with Osamu that he forgot, which leaves the whole weekend free to fuck Kiyoomi on every surface of that empty house of his. Probably has better lube than what Atsumu’s got too, who knows. Either way, it sounds like a plan.
All this for picking up a coat off the floor. Hell fucking yeah.
The afternoon house visit turns into lunch, and into another dinner together, and into another night with the best sex Atsumu’s ever fucking had, like, seriously, where the fuck did Kiyoomi even get that flexibility, and—
“Oh, shit,” Atsumu blurts over the phone, a week and a half later, when Tuesday rolls around and he’s on his way to picking up Indian takeout to eat with Kiyoomi later. “Ohhhh, fuck.”
“What?” comes Osamu’s voice, pissed at the interruption of his latest customer service tale.
Atsumu will feel sorry about that later—maybe, or actually, he won’t, who’s he kidding—but he stops in his tracks to stare at his feet. “Samu,” he says, strangled. “I think I’m dating someone.”
“No fucking way,” Osamu says, instant.
“I’m not kidding. I’ve had Omi over at my place for like, the past week—”
“Omi? That guy you ditched my housewarming for?”
“Don’t sound like a jealous wife, you fuckin’ creep, and yeah, that Omi.”
“Oh wow.”
“Shut up, I know. Oh my god. This is the sixth time I’m grabbing dinner for us. Does this mean we’re dating?”
“Probably?”
“Probably?” Atsumu screeches. “Whaddya mean, probably? It’s a yes or no, fuckhead!”
“How should I know?!”
“You’re the one who’s in one!”
“Well, Rin and I never really talked about it,” Osamu says, defensive. “We just fucked—”
“I’m hanging up.”
“You asked, fucker, and anyway, we never made a big deal out of it. It was just, like, one day he woke up and was like, ‘We should have our one year anniversary be on April Fools, ‘cause it’ll be funny,’ and I was like, ‘Yeah, alright’ and then we were dating, I guess, and now we’re engaged.”
Jesus fucking Christ. This is worse than he thought. Atsumu searches for a good alley to mope in, but all of them are filled with trash and flies, and it’s not exactly the type of smell he wants to be bringing into his house, especially with Kiyoomi and his fussiness around. He’s never met anyone with a more sensitive nose. Like a fucking animal or something. “Fuck,” he says instead. “Are we doomed? Are we shit at relationships?”
“Speak for yourself. I’m stable and shit.”
“You just told me how you tripped and fell into one, dumbshit.”
“You’re the dumbshit, Tsumu. How the fuck do you fuck someone for over a week and buy them dinner half a dozen times and not know if you’re dating?”
“Oh, you fucking hypocrite,” Atsumu hisses, before he thumb-smashes the end call button, swiping through his contacts to block Osamu for good measure. Then he unblocks Osamu, sends a text that reads btw u are so not best man for my wedding fuck off die, and blocks him again.
Okay.
Dating.
It’s not like he has commitment issues—see: a promising career in professional volleyball—but if Kiyoomi has them, then he should talk it through with Kiyoomi to figure out where they’re standing, right? He should be better than Osamu, because he is better than Osamu.
And the thing is. He means to do the adult shit. Talk it out over dinner. Be respectful of boundaries and take it as slow as Kiyoomi wants—only for the plan to be derailed by Kiyoomi grinding his heel into Atsumu’s crotch halfway through the meal like the nymphomaniac he is, so that was a bust. Then Atsumu revised his plans to do it the next morning, but discovered that Kiyoomi had disappeared sometime before dawn. His coat was still there on the rack, though, which meant he’d be back for it eventually. And he was back, the next day—and then he told Atsumu that his parents were back in town and that Atsumu should meet them, so he got ready in an actual suit to meet Kiyoomi’s parents, and then—
Kiyoomi brings it up first, a month later.
What do you think about these?
(picture attached)
(picture attached)
(picture attached)
Atsumu stares. He nudges Bokuto beside him on the bench and tilts his phone so Bokuto can see. “Hey, what’s this look like to you,” he manages to choke out.
“Hmm?” Bokuto squints; he’s in dire need of glasses. “They look like… those round things on cans? The pulling things.”
“Right, that’s what I thought, thanks.”
“No problem!”
Atsumu turns back to his phone and stares a little longer, before he can finally scramble together the brain cells to respond.
omi
those are rings
Yes?
I thought we should get married in human customs as well.
Oh dear god. There’s so much to unpack there.
But first:
HUMAN??????????
“I thought you knew!”
“How was I supposed to know?!”
“You returned my pelt to me! You gave me courting gifts! You fed me and invited me to your home! And then you fed me again! And then you met my parents! That means courtship, engagement, and marriage!”
Atsumu isn’t one for dramatics, but he needs—something. A fainting couch. A cold compress. Three bottles of whisky. “Oh fuck,” he whispers. “This makes… so much sense. So the swimming in the ocean thing—”
“Selkie mates swim together to bond.”
“And the smell thing—”
“Our noses are sensitive.”
“And the sex?”
A long pause, before Kiyoomi sets down his quilting needles on his lap and stares hard at the floor. “You’re hot, and you have a nice penis,” Kiyoomi says.
Okay. At least one thing in the world still makes sense.
“You proposed to me,” Kiyoomi says, still not looking at him, but now he sounds hurt. “You’re the one who suggested it. I went along with your courtship because—my siblings said no human could ever be trusted to return a selkie’s pelt to them, but you did, and I thought I could trust you to know what that meant. I even asked you if you knew what you were doing when you offered to feed me after our first night together, so you could back out if you wanted to. But you said—” Kiyoomi’s fists curl in his lap, and he blinks, looking more miserable by the minute. “You said you wanted me to stay. You said that, not me.”
“Omi,” Atsumu tries. “I didn’t—”
“You deceived me. You wanted to use me and throw me away.”
“Of course not!”
“Then what?”
“I just—I didn’t know,” Atsumu says weakly, and Kiyoomi glares at him.
“What’s next? You’re going to say that you don’t know why I’m quilting, either?”
Atsumu’s blank stare is all the response he needs, and Kiyoomi balls up the quilt in question and hurls it at his chest.
“Fuck you,” he cries. “You inconsiderate, stupid, human—”
“Baby—”
“Don’t call me that! I’m not your—whatever, if you want to get a divorce, then—”
“Can selkies even get divorced?” Atsumu blurts.
“We mate for life!” Kiyoomi damn near howls, shoving past him to the entryway so he can grab his coat—pelt off the rack. “I can’t divorce! I have no choice but to die, or regrow a new pelt to devote to my next beloved, but that’s asking a selkie to strip the flesh off their bones and die anyway, and you—you—you don’t even know, or care, or—!”
Kiyoomi makes as if to rip his pelt in half, and that’s when Atsumu scrambles to stop him.
“Okay, okay, don’t—gimme that,” Atsumu says in a rush, wrestling the pelt from his grasp, and Kiyoomi gives it to him easily, slumping against the wall. He curls into a ball with that flexibility of his, reeking more distress and heartache than a widow on her fourth dead husband. Atsumu takes care to set the pelt aside, tugs an arm around Kiyoomi’s shoulders, and tucks his head under his chin.
“Baby,” he says again. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
Depressing silence.
“You weren’t kidding about that kitsune thing, were you,” Atsumu says, just to confirm.
“Your name means shrine,” Kiyoomi snaps, because apparently he can’t help himself, even in the throes of anguish. “How do you not know? I checked your lineage after we got married. The Miyas are descended from the provincial gods of trickery and nonsense and have foxes as their servants.”
Yeah, that checks out. “Oh. Well. Sorry. Samu and I don’t really talk to our dad’s side, so we never knew about all that.”
“Okay.”
Atsumu waits, but nothing else comes. Alright—no better time for that adult conversation than the present. “Y’know what’s funny is that I was going to ask you if we were dating,” he begins.
Flat: “Like human courtship.”
“Yeah, but longer than selkie courtship, I think.”
“And then what.”
“And then—I dunno, if you were up for it, I guess we’d be dating, and we’d see where that takes us, and if it took us somewhere good, then we’d get engaged and maybe married. That’s how human courtship works.”
“So complicated,” Kiyoomi mutters, dark.
“I think I’m uncomplicating it, actually. Most people talk about it when they’re ready to move onto a new stage—” There’s a dissatisfied noise, and Atsumu grins. “I mean, there’s houses and taxes and shit. Cohabitation. Whatever. But apparently that’s not the Miya way.”
“And what way is that.”
“According to Samu, we fuck—like a lot—and then we fall in love, we move in together, we never leave, and then we’re engaged.”
That gets Kiyoomi’s attention: he peers up at Atsumu, suspicious, so Atsumu brushes a curl behind his ear and kisses him on those two lovely moles.
“I’m serious,” he says. “I’m better than Samu, though, so I think we can do it better.”
“Stop speaking in riddles.”
“I’m saying, let’s get married this weekend, Omi.”
Kiyoomi doesn’t respond. Atsumu rubs their heads together and kisses his ear, and yup—there’s that blush.
“I liked the third ring, by the way,” Atsumu says. “I hope you have them on hold.”
Kiyoomi turns his head away. “Holding is for the poor and miserly. I bought all of them.”
Atsumu bites down on his laughter. “What would I even do with the other two?”
“I’ll build them into my quilt.”
“That another selkie custom?”
“No,” Kiyoomi says. “This is ours.”