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Kiyoomi is mean.
He’s always been mean. Everyone knows he’s mean.
This time he’s gone too far.
He can tell by the way Atsumu’s cheeks flush, like he’s been slapped.
Maybe the words were an assault, a physical blow, and Atsumu can feel it just as physically.
He turns away from Kiyoomi after his face is painted red, before Kiyoomi can see his eyes well up with tears. He assumes that’s what’s coming next. He’s seen Atsumu lose it over less.
This isn’t less. It’s more. It’s more and it’s mean and Kiyoomi can’t help himself, couldn’t let the barb slip a little less viciously. Couldn’t turn it into a joke by softening his delivery. He’s too tired and too angry and too pent up, and it isn’t Atsumu’s fault that he’s any of these things, but Atsumu’s the one who becomes his whipping boy.
“Y’re an asshole, Sakusa,” Atsumu says, not even turning toward him to deliver the half-hearted insult. He walks out of the locker room, which has gone silent. Atsumu’s footsteps echo off the metal as he walks down the hallway.
“Fix this,” Meian says, and he’s looking at Kiyoomi as he delivers the command. The slam of his locker breaks the spell they’re all under. Nobody else talks to him, but at least they’re all chattering with each other.
Kiyoomi gets dressed and heads to the dorms. He’s only in his first year with MSBY, and Atsumu’s in his fifth, has the respect of everyone on the team, especially their captain. Kiyoomi knows he should treat the setter with respect, too, but it seems impossible.
There’s just something about Atsumu that gets under his skin, that makes him want to scratch and tear and draw blood, as if that would improve their relationship somehow.
It usually does. Atsumu matches him bite for bite, parries his thrusts, counters his jabs. Like iron sharpening iron, their insults have gotten even more vicious over the three months they’ve been teammates, and usually they’re both good sports about it.
Kiyoomi’s punch was under the belt this time, and he’d felt it as soon as it had landed, felt Atsumu’s soft underbelly, had known he’d gone too far.
Today at practice, Atsumu coached him the entire time, giving him pointers as if he’d just picked up a ball. Sure, Kiyoomi hadn’t spent the last four years playing professionally, but he’d still been captain of the top university team in the entire fucking country.
Worse than his advice during practice, Atsumu followed him into the locker room, and after showering, he’d kept going, as if there were something written in Kiyoomi’s frown that invited additional ‘constructive feedback.’
Atsumu paused only to put on a shirt and take a breath, before launching right back into it, and Kiyoomi lost his temper.
“You’re a control freak,” he spat.
“Tell me something I don’t know,” Atsumu laughed.
“Your inability to let someone else make a goddamn decision is probably why you’re single,” Kiyoomi said, and once sharp words met flesh, he couldn’t stop himself from twisting the knife. “That’s why you’ll stay alone forever.”
Then the hurt look, the red cheeks, the mumbled insult, the hasty retreat.
“Fix this.”
Too quick, Kiyoomi’s standing in front of their apartment building, and even sooner than that, he’s in front of Atsumu’s door. He knocks, hoping Atsumu’s asleep, or at the very least willing to ignore him for a few hours and then pretend nothing’s happened. Kiyoomi’s a coward that way.
“Come in,” he hears, muffled and quiet, as if it’s being spoken into a pillow covered in tears.
Well, this isn’t what Kiyoomi was expecting, but now he’s in Atsumu’s room. It’s cluttered with posters and photos and knickknacks, but strangely tidy, as if Atsumu spends time keeping it clean, putting everything in its place. Just like a control freak would.
Kiyoomi shakes his head. He’s a fucking asshole.
Maybe he’s jealous that his own dorm is still bare, as if nobody lives there, and Atsumu’s room is a home.
“O—Sakusa?” Atsumu says, rolling over to regard the Kiyoomi-shaped shadow haunting his doorway. “Thought you were Bo or Shou.” He turns back to the window. “I’d rather not talk to you.”
“That…makes sense.”
Kiyoomi doesn’t know what to do with himself. He looks toward the safe harbor of the door and considers making a break for it.
Then Atsumu gives a pathetic sniffle and Kiyoomi knows he’s the reason why, and he remembers Meian’s demand that he fix it.
Kiyoomi’s not good at apologizing. He’s lived his life understanding that it’s a necessary evil. They’re forced on him by parents, teachers, or coaches, after he’s done something that really wasn’t that bad.
He doesn’t understand the point. Being an asshole is his most consistent personality trait. If people don’t like it, they can just not spend time with him, or, if they’re forced to, they can ignore him. There are options.
Meian had told him to fix it, but he hadn’t told him to apologize. Kiyoomi could explain, maybe, help Atsumu understand what he’d done that had put him over the edge.
“I don’t like it when you coach me.”
There’s a sigh from the cocoon on the bed. “I know, please go.”
“I just want to explain—”
“That y’re a dick?” Atsumu laughs bitterly. “Don’t need t’explain that.”
“You should know why—”
“Why y’followed up an attempt at helpin’ ya improve, with a personal fuckin’ attack on my character?” Atsumu says, sitting up from the bed, his hair stuck in every direction, his face red with tears, his eyes shining in anger. “There’s no fuckin’ reason for it!”
Kiyoomi takes a moment to think, which is new for him.
None of his other teammates affect him the way Atsumu does, so he’s never treated any of them the way he treats Atsumu. But the man in front of him has a point. Why did he feel the need to say such a hurtful thing, about Atsumu the man, not Atsumu the teammate or Atsumu the volleyball player? Atsumu’s right. It was a dick move.
“I’m sorry,” Kiyoomi says, and it might be the first time he’s said the words and meant it.
“What?”
“You can stop your tricks, I’m not saying it again,” Kiyoomi grumbles.
“Fuck you, I didn’t hear.”
“I said I’m sorry,” Kiyoomi nearly yells, and he feels a strange pressure in his chest and throat.
But if apologizing is a rare occurrence, tears are even rarer.
“I don’t accept y’r apology,” Atsumu sniffs.
Kiyoomi is so shocked by the words, he lets out a tiny squeak. “The fuck?”
“I can tell y’don’t mean it!” Atsumu wails, flopping back into the blankets and turning away from him again. “Probably forced t’say r’somethin’,” he mumbles into the pillows.
Kiyoomi feels the need to explain again, to make Atsumu understand that he should treasure this actual apology, because it’s his first and last. From now on, Kiyoomi’s just going to ignore him, and look into transferring to a team with a less moody setter. “I meant it.”
“No, y’don’t,” Atsumu says, and there it is, the itch that makes Kiyoomi crazy, the tone and the words that make his skin crawl with rage.
“And you think you know shit about me?” Kiyoomi says, his hands balling into fists, as if their argument would come to blows.
“I know you don’t apologize,” Atsumu says. “I know y’think y’re an asshole and that the world needs t’just accept that, as if the world owes you a fuckin’ thing. So yeah, I think y’r apology’s a fuckin’ lie.”
Kiyoomi marches around the bed, putting himself in Atsumu’s line of sight. “I’m not a fucking liar.”
“Never said y’were.”
“You said my apology was a lie.”
“Doesn’t make ya a liar.”
“Why are you like this?” Kiyoomi hisses.
“Why are you like this?” Atsumu asks, but he’s not being sarcastic, throwing Kiyoomi’s words in his face. The question is genuine, and for the second time in the last five minutes Kiyoomi takes a moment to consider.
It’s a bit overwhelming, to have to think about any of his thoughts or feelings. Usually he operates on instinct, autopilot, a missile uncaring of the collateral damage his explosions will bring.
Why are you like this? he asks himself. “I don’t know,” he answers in a whisper.
“Bullshit,” Atsumu says, his golden eyes peering into the depths of his soul.
“Excuse me?”
“Y’re a smart motherfucker. Figure it out.”
“I—”
“College educated, a monster on the court, sharp as a tack, don’t tell me ‘I dunno,’” Atsumu says, and there’s fire in his words but not the kind that burns.
“I never thought of it before,” Kiyoomi thinks, and the itch under his skin that Atsumu’s words give him is still there, but even more strongly now, flaying him open, and he doesn’t like how this feels either.
“Have a sit, have a think,” Atsumu says. “Got all the time in the world.”
Kiyoomi knows the words are true. They don’t have anywhere to be.
Every muscle in his body is screaming get out.
He sits down on the floor.
Atsumu’s facing him, and he pulls back the covers and rolls out of bed, sinking to the floor in front of him, his legs crossed, a kid at storytime. “I’m a good listener,” he says, folding his hands in his lap, waiting patiently, as if he owes Kiyoomi anything.
He doesn’t owe Kiyoomi a damn thing. Not after how Kiyoomi’s treated him.
Kiyoomi tries to think about the last time he’d talked to someone, about anything important, and had them listen. Probably his cousin, at one of their forced sleepovers.
“I guess it’s easier to be mean,” he begins.
“Y’guess?” Atsumu laughs. “C’mon, be honest with yourself.”
Kiyoomi follows the instructions. Damn Atsumu to hell. “It’s easier to be mean.”
“Easier than what?”
If that isn’t a sentence that could be answered a hundred different ways. “Easier than getting to know people. Easier than relationships. Easier than opening up. Easier than vulnerability.” That heavy feeling’s back in Kiyoomi’s chest, and he hates it.
“Easier t’make them hate ya, than tryin’ t’make friends?” Atsumu asks, and it’s almost gentle.
His words cut deeper than any insult. Right to Kiyoomi’s core. “Fuck, I—”
“Oh, Omi,” Atsumu says, and he crawls forward, as if he’d sit in Kiyoomi’s lap. “Can I—”
Kiyoomi must be broken, because he nods, and that’s all the permission Atsumu needs to wrap his arms around him and hold him close, and Kiyoomi’s chest might explode, he can feel the pressure crawling up his throat and—
“Just let it out,” Atsumu whispers, and that’s it. The dam’s breaking, Kiyoomi along with it, and Atsumu’s holding him as he cries, he sobs, he knows he’s unlovable, that everyone knows he’s an asshole, that he’s mean because he doesn’t know how to be nice.
He’s not like Atsumu, able to make friends, invited out for drinks, respected. Able to be surrounded and protected by their teammates, cared for.
Kiyoomi’s going to die alone and unloved. His greatest fear, the very thing he’d thrown in Atsumu’s face.
“No, y’re not,” Atsumu whispers into his ear, as his kind hand pats his head, as his strong arms hold him tight.
Kiyoomi’s past embarrassment at saying the words out loud. He wonders how coming to “fix it” has devolved into this, telling his darkest secret to someone he can’t fucking stand.
“I’m sorry,” he nearly howls, at the person who’s been a receptacle for all his insecurities, ever since he’s come to Osaka.
“I accept your apology,” Atsumu says, shushing him in comfort. “I accept you, too, Omi.”
If that isn’t the most beautiful thing anyone’s ever said to him. “What?”
“I’ll say it as many times as y’need,” Atsumu says with a laugh that isn’t mean. “I accept you. For who y’are. Y’don’t haveta worry ‘bout me decidin’ not t’be y’r friend, okay? I like ya as an asshole, and I’ll like ya when y’re whatever comes next. I promise.”
“You like me?” the words might as well be in a different language, the way they’re throwing Kiyoomi into a swirl of confusion.
“Yeah,” Atsumu says. “A whole helluva lot. Y’re funny and smart and a damn good volley player. What’s not t’like?”
Kiyoomi answers the question by burying his face in Atsumu’s shoulder, grabbing two handfuls of the t-shirt he’d been sleeping in. “I’m sorry.”
“I accepted y’r apology.”
“I’m sorry for misjudging you, for being annoyed by you,” Kiyoomi explains. “I’m sorry I made you responsible for how I feel about myself.”
“Oh.”
“Oh.” Kiyoomi sniffles one last time, pulling back to look Atsumu in the eyes.
“I accept that, too, then, I guess,” Atsumu says.
“You ‘guess?’” Kiyoomi asks. His smile is watery but it’s there.
“Hey, not everyone can be smart and funny and beautiful,” Atsumu shrugs. “Some of us just gotta settle for two outta three.”
“Don’t forget talented,” Kiyoomi says, and Atsumu’s eyes are nearly glowing, now. With happiness, with something else Kiyoomi can’t name.
“Oh I think I like nice Omi,” Atsumu says with a smile, as he tucks a stray curl behind Kiyoomi’s ear. “I think I like him a lot.”