Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

ACT I: The Inheritance Problem.

When Kiyoomi was seven years old, there was a boy. He doesn’t remember his name now, or what he looked like, or even how he had met him. In the grand scheme of things, the boy had been—was, still is—completely inconsequential. Kiyoomi had known him, though—if briefly—had let him into his life before everything else had happened, before he had come into awareness of who he was and what that meant for the people he allowed himself to associate with.

The point is, when Kiyoomi was seven years old, there was a boy.

The boy hadn’t been particularly kind or particularly mean. He hadn’t been particularly good or particularly bad. He hadn’t been particularly anything at all, just a brief, passing acquaintance that time should have sanded over entirely. Except that one day—despite being as unimportant and forgettable as he was—the boy had gotten tired of Kiyoomi asking him whether there were germs in the sandbox. The boy didn’t want to wash his hands every time they came into the classroom after having been anywhere else and he certainly had no intention of wearing a mask, even when Kiyoomi plaintively asked for him to do so while they played. One day, the boy had evidently tired of all of that and pushed Kiyoomi over into the sandbox at recess. Instead of apologizing or explaining or being contrite in any way whatsoever, the boy had stood over Kiyoomi’s shocked little body, his own bland little face pinched with disgust, and said, “You’re such a freak. Who’s ever gonna want to be soulmates with a freak?”

As far as traumatizing childhood experiences go, Kiyoomi knows, objectively, that this registers about as high as someone pulling on a little girl’s pigtails and saying that her dress looks ugly or getting picked last for a game in gym class. Subjectively, however, a part of him has always wondered if that faceless, nameless little boy was right.

Is it because he’s a freak?

Is that the reason why he’s 31 years old and has never found his soulmate?

Was it always inevitable that he was going to lose everything, or is it something personal? Is it fate? Some incomprehensible and cruel cosmic joke? Or is it something else? Something that is fundamentally just…him?

It doesn’t matter, Kiyoomi supposes. The reason why makes no difference at all.

He grips the side of the sink and stares at his pale, bleary-eyed reflection in the pristine bathroom mirror.

He’s about to lose everything either way.

Sakusa Atsuko is a tall woman. It’s not entirely surprising; Kiyoomi did not come by his height from his father who, at his most straight-backed, comes up just past the jut of his wife’s chin. Kiyoomi and his three siblings tower above their father, each battling for height as another marker of genetic superiority. It’s funny because they share the same genetics, or so Kiyoomi has always thought. He has not often won many battles of any type of superiority against his three older sisters, but in this he finally gets the dominant hand. At over 6 foot 2 inches, Kiyoomi is the tallest member of the Sakusa family by far, except when—

His mother straightens.

She is, in a technical sense, smaller than Kiyoomi. Sakusa Atsuko is the kind of tall, thin woman who can only be described as willowy or elegant, and she has used that to her advantage her entire life. She is long-limbed and dignified, as lovely as she is the very vision of grace. She has commanded the attention of every man and every woman in every room she has ever walked into.

It has served her well for nearly four decades.

“I am sorry, Kiyoomi,” his mother says. “But it is the law.”

Until now.

Kiyoomi had once contemplated being a mama’s boy. His mother had had him later in life than most and she had already been running the company for years by that time, so it hadn’t really taken. One of his first memories is of him at age four, asking his mother if he could sleep with her and his father in their room because he was scared of the monsters under his bed. In response, his mother had squatted down in front of him, touched his little face, and said, “Monsters aren’t real, Kiyoomi. And if they were, you are much too old to be asking me to protect you from them.”

His mother wasn’t terrible, he later understood. She was just professional before she was kind, practical before she was tender. She was the CEO of one of the most preeminent technology and entertainment conglomerates in all of Japan, after all.

Kiyoomi bites his tongue and almost says nothing. Then, he can’t help himself.

“It has nothing to do with my ability to lead.”

His mother—her lithe frame lit by the glow of the afternoon sun beyond the enormous floor-to-ceiling windows of her enormous corner office—stands overseeing Tokyo, with her back to her son.

“It—what does that have to do with me?” Kiyoomi continues. He’s trying to swallow back the anger he feels, the frustration, the—hurt. There are a hundred different emotions warring for dominance and he is on the verge of losing the Sakusa war to control them all. “I graduated from the University of Tokyo with honors, while working. I have spent every moment of every waking hour at this company since. I am the Vice President of Business Development. I help manage an entire new division of Itachiyama. And I earned that title without the weight of my name. I did it on my own.”

His mother says nothing and for the first time since he was four years old, Kiyoomi feels like he might cry.

He doesn’t, of course. There would be nothing more humiliating to Atsuko.

“I have earned my inheritance,” Kiyoomi says through grit teeth.

At this, his mother finally lets out a sigh. For a moment, when she turns on her heels, Kiyoomi’s mother almost looks her age. There are fine lines by her eyes and the corners of her mouth, and her once dark hair, gracefully pulled back into a bun at the nape of her neck, is more silver than black. A few loose, grey curls hang by her temple. His sisters have his mother’s eyes, but Kiyoomi has her nose. She looks down the line of it at him now. Where he has two spots on his forehead, just above his right eye, his mother has a mole just below the right curve of her lip. Sometimes, it’s like looking into a slightly warped mirror.

“Be that as it may,” Atsuko says. “The Board is traditional. You know what it means to them that you are unbound, Kiyoomi. They think it makes you irresponsible. Unfit.”

Kiyoomi can feel his back teeth grind out of frustration.

“How? How could it possibly matter,” he says, “whether I’ve found—whether I’m bonded. Why would that make me unfit?”

What does having a soulmate have to do with running a multibillion yen conglomerate fucking corporation?

“You know it’s a mark in our society to not have a soulmate,” his mother says calmly. Which is all the more enraging, because what kind of bullshit belief is that? “They think you will be easily distracted if you don’t have a bond.”

“And you told them no,” Kiyoomi says, staring at her. “You told them that rule was outdated. Regressive. Offensive.”

“You’re young, Kiyoomi,” his mother says. “Without a steady partner—without a family—”

“When have I ever been distracted?” Kiyoomi nearly hisses. He swallows his venom when his mother arches her silver-specked eyebrows carefully. “I don’t need anyone to handle me. I am capable of doing this on my own. You know that I am.”

Sakusa Atsuko is not a soft woman, but that does not mean she is a passionless one. She hides her love behind walls, but that is not to say it is not there. Her expression softens, just a hint.

“This is a long road,” she says. “It will ask an unimaginable amount of you. You should not have to do it alone, Kiyoomi.”

“But I will,” Kiyoomi says. He tries not to sound desperate. He tries not to sound as young as he suddenly feels. Fighting for his birthright—his legacy, his family’s company—from the woman who raised him, the woman who had sat down at dinner with him just a year ago and said, Kiyoomi, I’m growing tired. “If that’s what it takes, I’ll do it whatever way I can.”

His mother sighs and moves away from the window. She straightens the skirt of her dress and shakes her head.

“What it will take is a soulmate. Their minds are made up.”

“What would they do instead?” Kiyoomi asks. His stomach is churning, his jaw aching from the tension. “This is our family’s company. It belongs to a Sakusa.”

His sisters have already found their partners, have long since joined the boards of other companies and political families. To hand them Itachiyama Group would be to hand another family—their husbands’ families—a say in something that is not theirs. His sisters have never wanted the family legacy like Kiyoomi has anyway. They’ve never worked for it.

It has to be him. It was always supposed to be him.

“Your sisters are out of the question,” his mother says. She is an unreadable wall normally, but the faint edges at the corners of her mouth turn down now—the only sign that she is as frustrated as he is. “I don’t know who they will nominate instead.”

Kiyoomi’s brain nearly whites out at the thought. Someone else instead. A non-Sakusa at the helm of Itachiyama, a group that had started with nothing but the five yen in his great-great grandfather’s pocket. A wisp of a wild dream that he had grown—brilliantly, ambitiously, ruthlessly—and that his son had inherited from him, and his son from him, and his daughter after. The idea of a stranger in their family’s proverbial home was gutting, nearly unthinkable; the thought of someone unknown, unrelated, taking from him what Kiyoomi had been dreaming of—what he had been training for—his entire life, repugnant.

He looks at her blankly now—his mother, his hero—and sees the cracks in her veneer. She looks tired then, as regretful as she had at the dinner table when she had so quietly and completely upended their entire lives.

“Give me a fighting chance, Mother,” Kiyoomi says. He curls his hands into fists. “I can prove myself. I’m willing to fight for it.”

His mother studies him plainly, her expression, as ever, assessing. He knows she’s going to deny him before she even speaks; reads the resignation and certainty at the corners of her familiar mouth.

He doesn’t let her say it.

“Just one chance. I promise I won’t disappoint you.”

There’s a knock at the door.

“Sakusa-sama,” his mother’s secretary says. “They’re ready.”

Atsuko nods to the woman at the door. She fixes her hair in the reflection of the window and then steps out from behind her desk.

“Come,” she says to Kiyoomi when she reaches the door. “And face your unmakers.”

The Board of Directors for Itachiyama Group has the pulse of a room of corpses. They mostly look like a room of corpses too: seven old men with thinning white hair, baldpates, and liver spots—most the age of Kiyoomi’s father and one likely nearing his century—a middle-aged woman who looks as though she is unsure how she ended up in this room, and his mother.

Kiyoomi walks in behind her, his throat nearly closed with nerves, but years of Sakusa family training wipes clean any residual sign of emotion. If his mother is unreadable and regal, Kiyoomi is closed and glacial. He inclines his head in respect to the board members and then stands behind her as she takes her place at the head of the room.

“Good evening,” she says and the men hem and haw and eventually murmur good evening back. “Thank you for joining us for this special convening of the board. We have a few matters of business to attend to, but first, Maeda-san will read the minutes from the last session.”

A young woman with long, dark hair and blunt bangs moves forward from where she has been standing in the corner of the room. Kiyoomi knows his mother’s new secretary rather well. She had been a teaching assistant in one of his graduate-level business courses and he had eventually spoken for her when she had applied for the position.

Maeda Keiko is capable and straightforward and not afraid of making men angry at her. That’s why his mother respects her so much.

Kiyoomi lets his gaze fall around the room as she begins her report. Most of the men here he has known in some capacity his entire life. The board members are deferential to the Sakusa family, but that isn’t to say they don’t carry their own prestigious backgrounds. By and large the room is made up of some of the most powerful and wealthy men in all of Japan. They have been honored to eat at the Sakusa family dinner table. They have sat in the Sakusa family parlor and taken an audience with Kiyoomi’s mother and father.

At least two of them attended Kiyoomi’s own college graduation.

They all look at him now with looks of sharp suspicion and barely hidden contempt. It’s like being in a room full of sharks; they play-act at respect only so long as they don’t taste blood in the water.

Kiyoomi feels his spine stiffen, his jaw tense with anger. All of these men look at him and see the weakest link in the Sakusa family tree. He isn’t their hope or someone to respect—to them, he is just a chance to topple an empire.

“—in the bylaws.”

Suddenly every pair of eyes is on him.

It’s only then that Kiyoomi realizes, with a start, that he hasn’t heard a word of what has been said around him. Somehow, they had swiftly moved on from old business to the most pressing issue at hand—him.

“I understand that,” his mother says. “I have read them myself.”

“Then you agree,” a balding man with cruel, beady eyes who has tried on no less than three occasions to arrange a marriage between his unbonded daughter and Kiyoomi, says. “What more is to be discussed? It is written as clearly as day.”

“Nothing is written so clearly, Noguchi-san,” Kiyoomi’s mother says politely. “As a lawyer, I’m certain you will agree.”

Noguchi-san pauses, his face pinched as he tries to come up with something to say.

Another man—a tall, wiry-thin older gentleman this time—speaks instead.

“Do you disagree with what the rule says, Sakusa-san?”

“We have had our family attorneys look at the provisions,” Kiyoomi’s mother says, turning to the man—Hayashi-san, Kiyoomi remembers from multiple games of tennis played with his middling son at the Member’s Club.

“And what did they say?”

“What is there to be said!” Noguchi-san says loudly. “The rules are the rules!”

“Will you shut up and let her speak?” a cranky old man with salt-and-pepper hair and a square jaw who Kiyoomi has received multiple Christmas presents from—Ueda-san—says.

Noguchi-san glowers at him and Kiyoomi feels a brief stab of gratitude. It’s extinguished as soon as it appears.

“It is true that the bylaws do provide that one of the criteria for an Executive Director is proof of a bonded relationship—” his mother says and Noguchi-san says aloud Aha!. “It is essentially a morality clause, where a soulmate’s bond provides character evidence that weighs strongly in favor of the candidate’s commitment to his and the company’s reputation.”

“In other words, how are we to know any—candidate will not embarrass us and the company if he is not in a committed relationship?” Hayashi-san says.

“Are you implying that someone with a soul bond cannot be embarrassing?” the woman this time—Inoue-san—laughs. “I assure you all, being bonded does not stop a person from acting immorally.”

The men around her look at the woman with irritation and shock and Noguchi-san opens his mouth, face red, to argue with her, when Kiyoomi’s mother puts a hand up.

“Inoue-san is quite right. The physical impact of a soulmate bond may mitigate impulses to act immorally, but it does not actively restrain anyone from doing so—especially if the bond is weak. And that is why the by-laws say a soulmate’s bond is one criteria for candidacy. It is not the dispositive factor.”

“It is not ignorable,” a man Kiyoomi doesn’t quite recognize says. He’s largely unmemorable—neither too tall, nor too short, not large and not particularly thin. He has an average nose and brown eyes and hair that is mostly grey, with distinguished streaks of dark brown. He would be utterly ignorable himself if it wasn’t for the jut of his jaw and—something in his face that Kiyoomi can’t quite isolate. It’s less a trait and more an indefinable quality. When he tilts his head just so, he looks like a fox.

“Miya-san,” Atsuko says and inclines her head.

Kiyoomi almost frowns.

“I understand your sentiment, Sakusa-san,” the man—Miya-san—says. “I even understand your ah, generous reading of the rules.”

“It isn’t generous, Miya-san,” Kiyoomi’s mother says, voice a bit sharp. “It is the terms of the clause itself.”

“Be that as it may,” Miya-san says. He smiles and the hackles raise at the back of Kiyoomi’s neck. He can sense a predator when he sees one. “It may not be legally dispositive, Sakusa-san, but that does not mean it is not personally so.”

Kiyoomi’s mother goes stiff.

“What do you mean?” Hayashi-san turns toward Miya-san and frowns.

The rest of the room murmurs in similar confusion.

“Let’s be frank,” Miya-san says and slowly stands from his seat. “I don’t like to be oblique when we can name the problem. Don’t you agree, Sakusa-san? Isn’t it better to be straightforward?”

The line of Atsuko’s mouth thins.

“Yes,” she says through grit teeth. “Of course.”

“Your son is untethered,” he says. “He does not have a soulmate. He is—how old? 31? 32?”

Kiyoomi holds still while his blood pounds in his skull.

“If he hasn’t found a soulmate by now, he may never—”

“Miya-san,” Ueda-san admonishes.

“Are we basing all of our decisions off of generalizations now?” the woman—Inoue-san says.

“Life experience and statistics, not generalizations,” Miya-san says, inclining his fox-features toward her. “The chances of finding a soulmate decrease exponentially after the age of twenty-five. If you are past thirty and have not found someone yet, it is likely that you are mark-less. There is nothing inherently wrong with that, of course.”

Miya-san’s lips curl at the corners to show exactly how at odds his tone and his beliefs are with his words.

“But it is statistically no less true. This is a multi-billion yen company,” he says. “We are seeking to expand beyond Japan. I will not leave our future to chance and the morals of an unbounded, untested young man who can provide no proof of personal stability.”

Kiyoomi nearly snaps then, but he doesn’t get a chance to because his mother is immediately on her feet.

The room—which had erupted into loud noise at Miya-san’s pronouncement—quiets as soon as she brings the palms of her hands down on the long table.

“Enough,” she says. “You are entitled to your vote and your opinion on the by-laws, Miya-san, but I thank you not to insult my son in front of me. He is not untested. He sits with a high ranked position of his own—one he has earned on his own merit and has proved himself worthy of since coming into the title.”

“Yes, of course,” Miya-san says and bows his head in a gesture of apology so fake that it curdles something in Kiyoomi’s stomach. “My apologies, of course. I did not mean to insult.”

Kiyoomi’s mother is pissed. Because she is a Sakusa—because she has not weathered decades of disrespect from men just like Miya-san for nothing—it is not readable on her face or in her demeanor, but Kiyoomi knows. It’s in the way her back straightens incrementally, until it is pin straight. It’s in the way she carefully—very carefully—adjusts the hem of her suit jacket. It is in the way that Sakusa Atsuko gives the room a cold smile.

“What will you do, then?” she says. “What is your alternative to Kiyoomi?”

Miya-san himself straightens and smiles in return.

“If your son remains unbonded and unmarked, I will have no choice but to challenge his candidacy.”

A pregnant pause.

“With whom?”

Kiyoomi doesn’t see him at first. He’s so busy trying not to glare down Miya-san that he doesn’t notice the way every head in the room suddenly turns toward the open door.

“My great nephew,” Miya-san says.

Kiyoomi’s eyes only flicker up then.

And when it does—when he finally sees who’s standing there, leaning casually against the doorframe, his fake blond hair brushed to the side and that infuriating, crooked smile on his face—it hits him like a punch to the fucking gut.

Chapter Text

three years ago.

Kiyoomi doesn’t hate him on sight. Later, he will consider this a personal flaw—as the incumbent Sakusa heir to the Itachiyama Group, raised in a family of strict, bordering ruthless business moguls with sharp intuition and an even more brutal sense of judgment, he should have taken one look at him and known him for the trouble he would be.

But Kiyoomi is a fresh 28 at the time, a senior business development manager on the verge of earning a promotion into the executive suite of a brand new group. He wakes up earlier than everyone else and stays later than everyone else. It isn’t just a matter of family pride, it’s personal too—people will always say he earned his distinctions by name alone, but he had determined at a young age to not let his family define him. When he finally takes the helm from his mother, he wants it to be by virtue of his merits as well as his family name. Let no one ever say that Sakusa Kiyoomi is unworthy of the title.

This purpose is so single-minded—makes him so insular—that it blinds him to what, later, he thinks should have been obvious.

The day the vice president of his department introduces the startlingly hot, borderline cocky young man who had just transferred from Inarizaki Holdings to the team, all Kiyoomi thinks is: one side of his mouth curves up a little more than the other when he smiles.

The young man—he must be Kiyoomi’s age—goes around after he’s been introduced, bowing and shaking hands with everyone in the room. When he gets to Kiyoomi, he stops and gives him a once-over that can barely be called hidden.

His golden-brown eyes take Kiyoomi in and Kiyoomi, the back of his neck prickling with warmth, openly looks back.

Kiyoomi’s first thought is that this man knows exactly how attractive he is. He’s put together that way, every detail careful to show him off in exactly the way he means to be shown off: the just-tousled blond hair on top as bright as the hair at the sides of his head is dark, his singular raised eyebrow thick and shaped with care, the long line of his neck disappearing under a white button up shirt he’s wearing under a carefully tailored black suit and a dark red tie to accent. He looks like careful, almost careless money and he is so within the realm of Kiyoomi’s taste in men that it takes Kiyoomi a full moment to force his eyes back up to his face.

“Sakusa-kun, ain’t it?” the young man says and finally extends his hand. There’s the lilt of an accent to his voice that accompanies the way his mouth is curved just a little bit at the corner. He’s not smirking so much as suppressing a smirk and there’s something in that bit of hidden arrogance that draws Kiyoomi in.

“Yes,” he says and takes the offered hand. “Nice to meet you, Miya-san.”

“Eeh, that’s a little formal,” Miya says. His mouth doesn’t lose its tilt. Kiyoomi needs to stop noticing it. “We’re about the same age, aren’t we? Contemporaries, Sunarin’d call it.”

Kiyoomi doesn’t know what a Sunarin is and he’s too distracted to ask.

“Contemporary doesn’t mean the same thing as same age,” he says. “And we’re strangers, which means we should be formal to begin with, out of respect.”

He probably sounds like an asshole—no, Kiyoomi is self aware enough to know he definitely sounds like an asshole. No one likes being lectured on propriety. He learned that the hard way in college.

But, for some reason, that only makes Miya’s expression deepen into a smirk.

“That’s a lot to assume, don’t you think?”

Kiyoomi frowns.

“What?”

“Well, we don’t even know each other, so how do we know if we respect each other or not?”

Kiyoomi stares at Miya, who remains unfazed about the whole thing. There’s something vaguely infuriating about the way he’s standing and smirking and watching Kiyoomi with far too much familiarity.

“What kind of question is that?” Kiyoomi asks. “It’s not about actual respect, it’s about being respectful. Giving respect to a stranger you don’t know, who will be your colleague.”

“That doesn’t sound, I dunno, stuffy to ya?” Miya says.

Kiyoomi’s stare takes on an unblinking quality.

“What?”

“That—all of that—like what’s the point of it?” Miya asks, leaning against the pillar jutting out from the wall next to Kiyoomi’s workstation. “Giving respect to someone who might not be worthy of it. Seems backwards to me. You should earn my respect before I’m supposed to give it to you. And sorry Sakusa-kun, but like ya said, I don’t know you. What’m I respecting you over?”

Kiyoomi is less perplexed than he is outright irritated now. “Were you raised by a pack of rabid dogs?”

“Imagine I was and you called me Miya-san outta respect!” Miya says now and starts laughing. “Now wouldn’t you be embarrassed?”

“No,” Kiyoomi says—snaps, really. “Because whether you were raised by animals or not, I was not. So if you’d like to continue being rude and crass, feel free, but I will not disrespect my family and upbringing by being the same.”

The smile on Miya’s face is infuriating, but no more angering than the bright look in his eyes, like—Kiyoomi is some sort of a challenge. Like, in this brief, bordering disastrous first encounter, Kiyoomi has proven himself to be every bit what Miya had expected him to be. And whether that’s a good thing or not is inconsequential. Miya looks at him like he’s a predator and Kiyoomi’s the prey and when his mouth curves into an outright smirk, Kiyoomi feels a ripple of pure ire pulse through him.

“Oh,” Miya says quietly—so quiet that Kiyoomi knows it’s for his ears and his ears only. “This is gonna be fun.”

It wasn’t. At least, not under any definition Kiyoomi could attribute to the word fun. Despite Kiyoomi’s wishes and expectations, Miya Atsumu integrated himself into the team almost effortlessly. He was brought in as a business account lead, having spent the last three years doing account work with big clients at Inarizaki. Technically, that made him junior to Kiyoomi, but practically speaking, it was only a matter of seniority. It was only by virtue of Kiyoomi having been at Itachiyama longer that he had a managerial position, and he knew that if Miya performed at the high levels expected of him, he would earn the senior title sooner rather than later.

It couldn’t happen that way, Kiyoomi initially thought. A person like Miya would never have the motivation or self discipline to do the work needed, at the standards required of him, to advance at the rate Kiyoomi had. If Kiyoomi had nothing else, he had this conviction. And at first, Miya appeared to prove Kiyoomi right. He spent more time leaning against his colleague’s workstations or carrying on conversations that were just a hair too loud near the water cooler than at his desk. He would call a client and spend twice as long as he needed to, chatting them up and talking about things that were completely unrelated to the task at hand, and if Kiyoomi were to guess, he would say that, objectively, Miya spent more time schmoozing with his superiors than he did actually doing his own work.

He has the work ethic of a toddler who refuses to go down for nap time. First chance someone tries to tell him to work, he’s going to throw a tantrum. I give him six months before Ota kicks him to another group. Kiyoomi texted his cousin, Motoya, two weeks in.

He had felt so smug—so thoroughly vindicated—about, if not his first, then his second assessment of Miya. That was, until about two months in when he and one his juniors stood waiting outside of the Vice President’s office for an audience with him.

Vice President Ota didn’t have a quiet voice and the glass door only did so much. Kiyoomi could hear almost every word as he raved on a phone call to someone else about a fraught account that Miya had easily smoothed over.

“Miya was brilliant! Would’ve lost the client without him!” Vice President Ota’s voice boomed inside the glass office. “Yes, yes, his work has been unimpeachable. What a coup for Itachiyama!”

It was only by virtue of Kiyoomi’s Sakusa training that he did not say out loud the thing he was thinking, which was: what the fuck?

“I was there in the room for that,” the junior whispered to him. “It was tense. They had been arguing for weeks and the client was ready to cut relations with us, but Miya-san—he pulled him aside and I don’t know what he said, but the client came back ten minutes later and apologized and said he overreacted.”

“Miya…did that?” Kiyoomi asked, flabbergasted. “Miya…Atsumu?”

“Yes,” the junior looked at Kiyoomi, confused. “Of course. That Miya-san.”

It made no fucking sense, although no one else seemed nearly as bewildered about it as Kiyoomi. He would have assumed it was all part of some elaborate prank that no one had bothered to let him in on, but even he couldn’t ignore what was becoming exceedingly and horribly clear—that Miya was not going to fail at his task or even accidentally stumble up, as most rich kids did. Miya Atsumu was—against all odds and Kiyoomi’s extremely, in his opinion, reasonable expectations—going to be good at his job and climb the Itachiyama ladder with confidence and ease.

It only made Kiyoomi dislike him more.

Because the thing was, Miya was brash and he was loud and he was the kind of charismatic confidence that you either hated or fell victim to. Kiyoomi, being of sound mind and healthy judgment, saw him for what he was—an arrogant, too-cocky, spoiled son of some wealthy family who only got away with half of the shit he said and did because he was marginally charming and shockingly adept at his actual job. Kiyoomi didn’t suffer charismatic fools, but that’s not to say no one else did. Atsumu was the kind of handsome face and vaguely insufferable but stupidly magnetic colleague that everyone loved.

Kiyoomi didn’t trust him for a minute.

It didn’t help that Miya clearly didn’t trust him back. Or at least, unlike with everyone else, he didn’t go out of his way to pretend to be charming with Kiyoomi.

On the contrary, he seemed to take pleasure in being a horrible, mean little shit to him and only him.

“Say, Sakusa-kun,” Miya would say, before a conference with the managing directors following a meeting where Kiyoomi had gotten shot down over one thing or another, “Are ya gonna bring up your idea from last time again? Because that was so interestin’, I really think Vice President Ota would see your vision if ya explained it to him again. Maybe you can use pictures this time so we can understand what yer sayin’, huh?”

Or he would lean over Kiyoomi’s workstation before a meeting with a client they both had to take and say, “Y’know, I admire you, Sakusa-kun. I personally would never be brave enough to meet with a client whose campaign I’d screwed up last year, but that doesn’t bother you at all, does it?”

If Kiyoomi was stressed, Miya would grin at him, lean in, and say, “Don’t worry, Sakusa-kun, I’ll fix whatever it is ya fuck up,” and if Kiyoomi looked like he was going to snap his pen and stab Miya in the jugular, he would tilt his head back, laugh, and say with a smirk, “You’re a little ugly when yer face is all red like that, ain’tchha?”

If Miya’s personal purpose was to push Kiyoomi to his breaking point, Kiyoomi’s was to make sure Miya understood he was worth less than the dirt beneath his shoes.

“Ah, Miya-san,” Kiyoomi would say, tilting a stack of marked up papers onto Miya’s desk. “I really appreciate you creating the model for what to teach our interns not to do. We’ve never had someone go above and beyond to show college students what poor quality work looks like. Thank you for thinking so far ahead.”

Or Kiyoomi would walk into the kitchen to refill his mug of coffee and, finding Miya waiting there for his own, would smile and say, “Oh so sorry, Miya-san. I nearly didn’t see you all the way down there. It’s difficult when my vision is up here, my apologies.”

If Miya was having a good day, Kiyoomi would find a way to make it a little worse, and if he was having a bad day, he would go out of his way to make sure it at least didn’t get better.

And if Miya seemed stressed—which he did on occasion, fighting for his life, as they all were, at a company like Itachiyama where any small mistake could cost you your entire reputation—Kiyoomi would lean in, let his mouth curl at the corners, and say, “Don’t worry, Miya, I’ll reassign your work to one of the first year hires. It can’t be that hard if it was assigned to you, and you have so much to do, after all.”

It was constant razor-sharp, mean-spirited, petty digs between the two of them—at Kiyoomi’s workstation, or at Miya’s desk, passing by in the lobby, or in the kitchen space when no one else was around. It was barely veiled insults when they got to the conference room before everyone else, whispered taunts when they were passing within earshot of one another, and sharp conversations in the bathroom barbed with the kind of meanness that was meant to cut and often did.

They clashed during meetings—Miya throwing Kiyoomi under the bus and Kiyoomi belittling him any time he could—and they butted heads during team planning sessions—Miya taking credit for an idea that Kiyoomi had come up with and Kiyoomi volunteering him for the worst assignments with colleagues they both knew were beneath their caliber. The pettier it was, the better it felt, and oh could the two of them be petty.

If anyone else noticed their hostility, they didn’t say anything. Likely, they didn’t notice at all. Kiyoomi was smart enough to keep his growing hatred veiled—give his behavior the veneer of plausible deniability—and Miya had somehow proven himself to possess enough tact to not out himself for the asshole that he actually was. There was tension between them—a hot-blooded, electric, crackling thing. It would have been clear as day to anyone who thought to look; certainly it would have been difficult for the two of them to really hide.

It was in the way Miya leaned over Kiyoomi’s desk, an easy, pointed taunt always accompanying the smirk curled at the corner of his mouth; and the way Kiyoomi, who had a few inches of height over Miya, stepped into his space whenever he wanted to reach over him to get something from a cupboard in the kitchen or a fresh notepad in the office supply room. It was in the way Miya stood too close to him during presentations, purposefully distracting attention from him and his work product; and in the way Kiyoomi eyed Miya when he stopped by his desk in front of their colleagues, before offering a cold smile and saying, “Miya-san, did you have a chance to review the draft release you were supposed to send to me yesterday? No problem if you failed to get to it, of course.”

Miya knew, though—Kiyoomi could see it in the way his eyes would flash every time Kiyoomi goaded him, or the way his mouth would thin every time Kiyoomi had some small win. If no one else knew what they were doing, he and Miya did, and Kiyoomi found that that was more than enough.

Around and around they went, death by a hundred small fucking cuts.

And then there was the Futakuchi Account.

Futakuchi Entertainment was the fastest growing entertainment group in Japan. Within the past two years, the company had secured nearly a third of the newest and biggest rising artists and musical groups in the market. Their valuation grew every year and Itachiyama had been trying to come to an agreement with them for an intense and arduous nine months. The account was big enough to make or break Kiyoomi’s entire reputation.

It was to his extreme misfortune that six months into handling the account and working closely with the company’s infuriatingly bitchy CEO, Vice President Ota let Kiyoomi know that Miya would be added as his second lead on the deal.

“Ota-san,” Kiyoomi had spluttered, his face pale with shock when the Vice President had told him. “Is there something questionable about my work? Have my efforts been lacking in some way?”

“Of course not. You work harder than anyone here, Sakusa,” the Vice President had said to him the day the news unfolded. “Don’t think I don’t see that. But this account is bigger than you and frankly, it’s bigger than me. You could use a man with Miya’s social tenacity to help warm over Futakuchi.”

Over his dead body did he need Miya Atsumu’s “social tenacity” to help him work over some little prick with more luck than commonsense, but there was little Kiyoomi could push back against without jeopardizing his own chance at promotion. Vice President Ota had a direct line to his mother and his mother hated to hear that he was disappointing in any way.

So what could Kiyoomi do? He had bitten back the dozen mean remarks that immediately rose to the tip of his tongue and inclined his head instead.

“Of course, Ota-san,” he’d answered, his stomach churning with fury. “If you think that’s best for the account.”

Kiyoomi had known they wouldn’t work well together, but it was almost startling to him how accurate his instinct was. He and Miya Atsumu were diametrically opposed in nearly every way possible, clinically created to get on each other’s last nerves. Putting them in a high pressure situation was like throwing a lit match into a powder keg and walking quickly away.

“I’ve worked too hard for you to fuck this up for me,” had been Kiyoomi’s greeting to Miya, the first day they had met to get Miya up to speed with the client and history of negotiations. “So do what I tell you, shut up when I tell you to shut up, and if you make me look bad in any way, I will make sure you’re never able to work as so much as a mailboy in any top firm in the country after this.”

Miya, as usual, had remained unfazed by Kiyoomi’s threats. If anything, they had made him even cockier, a sneer on his face as he threw his legs up onto the conference room table and leaned back in his chair.

“Lotsa hot talk from a guy who still can’t land the client,” he’d said. “It’s been what, six months? Bit embarrassing, ain’t it? Face it, Ota-san brought me on ‘cause you got the social grease of a bull in heat. Couldn’t charm paint off a wall. That’s why ya need me, Omi-kun. So spare me with all your—” He waved his hand around dismissively. “Whatever all that was.”

In lieu of the multiple violent acts that he had so desperately wanted to commit, Kiyoomi had, instead, gritted his teeth so hard they were in danger of cracking. He’d devised four ways to murder Miya on the spot, but realized in time that the conference room’s front wall was made of glass.

“Don’t fuck this up,” Kiyoomi had said in response instead and nearly thrown a folder as thick as the Bible at Miya’s head. “And don’t call me Omi-kun.”

It was about the worst, most unproductive working relationship he could have anticipated. Their baseline was disagreement and anything beyond that was petty at the very best. They were petty a lot. If Kiyoomi suggested something to help bridge the gap between the client and Itachiyama, Miya would suggest something else; if Miya devised a solution to a problem Futakuchi had created, Kiyoomi would take pleasure in ripping it apart. They agreed on little and pushed back against each other about nearly everything. That they accomplished anything at all was nothing short of a miracle owing only to their own strangely parallel perfectionist natures.

The two of them together could have been disastrous; and should have been, really. But to their resounding luck, Futakuchi could hardly have cared less—he had the ego of an American creating a startup company with his daddy’s money and the self interest of the same; if it wasn’t about his company or beneficial to him in some way, he didn’t notice and he didn’t care.

That didn’t mean he didn’t have demands for them, though.

“What a jackass,” Miya muttered under his breath after one brutally long and borderline intolerable conference call. For once, Kiyoomi agreed with him.

“Secure the account,” Vice President Ota said to both of them. “No matter what it takes.”

It meant that Kiyoomi and Miya did have to eventually retract their claws enough to make sure those demands were met, even when it was the last thing either of them wanted to do.

It’s a Saturday night. It’s a Saturday night because Futakuchi had sent over a list of new demands that morning—facts and figures and a mock up of a trend forecast as proof of quality—that he wants completed before he puts his fucking pen to the fucking paper, and Miya had spent all day pissing Kiyoomi off with his unsolicited advice and smug criticism over Kiyoomi’s copy.

“No one’s gonna fuckin’ take that seriously,” Miya says. “Who’s the audience here, a bunch of broke pissbabies?”

Kiyoomi nearly breaks his pen in half. He has been in this conference room for nearly six hours straight. He had woken at five this morning and has been in the office since seven. He’s had one square meal, three protein bars, two drink pouches, and approximately five cups of middling coffee. His eyes are tired and his back aches and his head is pounding from tension. He doesn’t need Miya’s commentary, he doesn’t need Miya’s hovering—he doesn’t fucking need Miya.

“Change that too,” Miya says, jabbing his finger at one of the mock up slides that Kiyoomi is editing. “That sentence is garbage. Like, it doesn’t make any sense. Futakuchi’s a little prick, but he thinks he’s smart so he’s gonna trash the whole thing if ya keep it that way. Also what’s with the design? He’s gonna take one look at this neon-colored slide and—”

“Will you shut the fuck up?” Kiyoomi forces out through grit teeth.

Miya stops, mid-jab, his finger hovering near Kiyoomi’s monitor, his face only a few inches away from Kiyoomi’s own. This close, he can see the hints of gold in Miya’s stupid brown eyes. This close, he can feel the warmth radiating from Miya’s skin, smell the cologne—a sharp, woody scent, as heady as it is strong—lingering on his starched collar.

Miya’s eyes bore into Kiyoomi’s own, unflinching and demanding. It’s clear that he isn’t afraid of Kiyoomi, neither cowed by his intensity nor put off by how direct or terse he can be. Miya looks at Kiyoomi like he’s a challenge, something to be beaten, and there is nothing Kiyoomi understands more than wanting to beat a challenge.

Miya’s eyes flicker down once to Kiyoomi’s mouth. Then they flicker back up. Kiyoomi can feel something terrible pool in his gut.

Miya’s mouth curves into a horrible smile.

“Well, why don’t you fucking make me?”

On God, Kiyoomi doesn’t know why he does it. Later, he can’t explain it or even try to justify it to himself. It would be more insulting to try.

Later, all he will be able to account for is that split-second when he looks up into Miya’s eyes and sees something reflected there that makes him want to scream. If he screams, someone will hear him, and if someone hears him, they will come and find him staring at Miya, flinty-eyed, his stomach clenched tight.

Kiyoomi thinks maybe that’s the reason—and the only reason—he folds to the impulse.

Late on a Saturday night, frustrated and tired and alone in the office with the one person he can’t seem to shake, Kiyoomi does the one thing he absolutely should not do.

He curls his fingers into Miya’s dyed blond hair and makes him shut up.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Miya says, after. “Futakuchi was fuckin’ us over. We needed to blow off steam.”

He says this as though Miya, forced easily to his knees in the dark of the supply room closet, dragging down Kiyoomi’s zipper and drawing him out and into his mouth, Miya with a mouth full of Kiyoomi’s cock as Kiyoomi brutally twists his fingers into Miya’s wretched blond hair, is an unremarkable occurrence.

He says this as though Kiyoomi shoving Miya into a shelf full of office supplies and fucking him until he had the shape of a wire rack imprinted onto his cheek as he bit through a stress ball to keep from shouting too loud constitutes something as banal as blowing off steam.

Kiyoomi carefully doesn’t comment. There are sounds rattling through his head that he is trying hard to forget, not that Miya will let him.

He feels Miya’s fingers pressing hard against his jaw, the pads of them aiming to bruise.

“If you mention this to anyone,” Kiyoomi spits out, anger licking up his spine, “I will fucking bury you.”

Miya snorts as he bruisingly tilts Kiyoomi’s face toward his own.

“You seem to think you’re some sorta catch, Omi-kun,” Miya says, his expression somewhere between a sneer and a smirk. “Let me be clear. I was blowin’ off steam. And you just happened to be here.”

Kiyoomi doesn’t even get the chance to growl out a response before Miya’s mouth is on his own.

It hits him like a punch to the fucking gut.

He doesn’t get the chance to recoil, either, to even think of saying no before—instinctively, against his own willpower and better judgment—Kiyoomi shoves Miya against the door and angrily kisses him back.

They never talk about it again. Not in words—not that they would help them anyway.

That doesn’t mean it never happens again.

To Kiyoomi’s disdain and slowly increasing sense of horror, it happens occasionally, if not regularly. When they’re stressed—on a deadline that has Ota on their asses—and it’s much too late, just the two of them left on the floor after a day when everything has gone wrong. Or when Kiyoomi has been working on a demanding account that he can’t quite get right and his shoulders are stiff, aching from the stress, and Miya finds him after their last coworker has gone home (finds him and his last button to push). Or when Miya is pissing him off on purpose—showing off, being crass or rude or just flat out arrogant, in that way that others find charming and Kiyoomi finds nearly repulsive—and Kiyoomi can’t stand that smug grin anymore, feeling, in response, the sharp impulse to dig his nails into Miya’s hips and fuck the look off his face.

They never talk about it—whatever it is they’re doing—barely acknowledge it while it’s happening, and certainly never after. It is stress relief, Kiyoomi thinks grimly. The satisfying, demeaning pleasure of fucking someone you hate so that you both feel as pleased as you feel disgusted with yourselves afterward. It’s not something Kiyoomi can explain—nor will he be trying—but it calms a weird, irritating itch at the back of his neck.

If it makes him hate himself a little more each time, that’s no more a burden than anything else he’s always carrying.

So what if he doesn’t have a soulmate? So what if he has the personality of an off-putting gremlin and hasn’t had a stable relationship in years?

Kiyoomi can fuck the smirk off Miya Atsumu’s stupid fucking face and even though that’s not something he can ever brag about, sometimes, that’s still more than enough.

now.

“My great nephew,” Miya-san says and turns his head toward the door.

Leaning casually against the doorframe, Miya Atsumu tilts his head just a degree.

Kiyoomi knows—as surely as he knows his name, as surely as he knows that there is no way to go from here but down—that Miya’s infuriating, crooked smile and the sharp focus of his eyes are meant for Kiyoomi and Kiyoomi alone.

Kiyoomi blacks out then. Or at least he must have, because the next thing he feels is a light hand against his elbow bringing him back into his body.

“Hold it together,” Keiko says and her sharp nails dig into his arm.

Kiyoomi is briefly grateful for her attentiveness to his quickly crumbling reputation. That is before the pain of her grip sets in.

He jerks away from Keiko in time to see his mother raise her hand again.

“One year,” she says. Kiyoomi doesn’t know what this is in response to; he missed whatever was said just before.

The nearly deafening rumbling around the room quiets for a brief moment. Long enough for Atsuko to finish—or repeat?—her statement.

“I will stay in my position for one more year,” Kiyoomi’s mother says. “That will allow him one more opportunity to find his soulmate. Or a comparable partner.”

“Is that allowed?” one of the board members says. “Is that not cheating?”

Cheating, Kiyoomi thinks blankly, still run through with shock. How can it be cheating to give someone the chance to earn what is rightfully his?

Atsuko says only, “There is nothing in the bylaws that prevents this, and it is more than fair. I will remain CEO until then, as I have for the past 40 years.”

There’s loud murmuring across the room. Kiyoomi doesn’t know what it means.

“If he finds someone suitable in that time,” someone else—maybe Ueda-san, or Hayashi-san, or God, the 99 year old board member who Kiyoomi is pretty sure has been sleeping through the entire proceeding—says. “He will have my vote.”

“And mine.”

“And mine.”

Miya-san inclines his head and smiles at Kiyoomi, all sharp teeth and menace.

“If he can find his soulmate,” he says. “Otherwise, I will challenge his candidacy. And nominate a better one.”

The meeting ends with the prosaic shuffling of papers and board members turning toward one another to congratulate each other on industry performances or whatever other dick-measuring contests they care about more than this—more than the fact that over the course of one single meeting, they have so easily threatened to take everything from Kiyoomi and have issued a date of death for the Sakusa family name.

Kiyoomi can barely breathe and he cannot stand to be in here with them—all of them, cowards and snakes as they are—for a minute longer.

“Sakusa-san,” Keiko says quietly, but Kiyoomi jerks away from her.

He doesn’t make eye contact—doesn’t even stop to pay his respects before he is across the room and out the door. His mother can reprimand his discourtesy later; for now, he is only trying to survive.

He makes it just as far as the hallway before his luck—if it can indeed be called that—runs out.

“Kiyoomi-kun~!”

Kiyoomi has two options here. He can ignore the familiar voice—the grating, insufferable, incensing voice, with as much infuriating arrogance worked into those four syllables as any one person has ever managed—and escape the situation with some modicum of his dignity still intact. Or he can throw caution to the wind and give in to his baser instincts, all of which are registering somewhere just north of anger and barely south of cold, abject fury.

There is only so much that one man can take, even if he was born and raised to be a wall of cold steel.

Kiyoomi has a fist full of Miya’s expensive white shirt and it’s with no little pleasure that he crushes the delicate fabric beneath his fingers as he drags him from the conference room door down the short hall and into a deserted one.

Miya barely has time to fix that disgusting smirk on his face before Kiyoomi slams him into the wall.

“Fuckin—ow—what the fuck Sakusa—”

“Don’t,” Kiyoomi says—seethes, really. His fingers are still crushing Miya’s collar and he has his arm across the top of his chest, pinning him to the wall behind him.

“Don’t what,” Miya complains. “Try ta avoid brain damage?”

“Shut up,” Kiyoomi says and presses his arm against Miya’s throat. Miya’s eyes widen a fraction. “Don’t talk. Don’t say my name. Don’t even fucking look at me.”

“Where’m I supposed to look then—” Miya says just before Kiyoomi applies more pressure to his windpipe. Miya’s voice chokes off at that and it’s only when he looks like he might actually accrue more brain damage than he already has that Kiyoomi lets him go.

Miya wheezes and massages his throat. “Fuck sake, Sakusa. Usually you gotta buy me dinner before that sorta thing.”

Kiyoomi nearly sees red again.

“Relax, princess,” Miya says and holds up one hand. “I’m not in the mood to get choked out tonight. I gotta go karaoke with ‘Samu this weekend and I can’t sound like shit again or Sunarin’s gonna post it to his video blog and he’s got like, a scary number of followers.”

Kiyoomi doesn’t care. Kiyoomi doesn’t know who ‘Samu is or Sunarin and he doesn’t care about Miya’s weekend activities. He doesn’t give a shit.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” he asks, voice like venom.

“Eh?” Miya says, looking up at him. “Thought you were there for the whole thing. Weren’t ya? The whole—Uncle saying he’s gonna challenge you and put up someone else and then I was standin’ there lookin’ all handsome and shit and—what did ya dissociate the whole time or somethin’?”

“Miya,” Kiyoomi growls.

Miya’s mouth curves up at the corner. Once he’s determined that he doesn’t have vocal damage or whatever the fuck he’s checking for, he leans back against the wall, willingly now that Kiyoomi isn’t trying to send him through it. He crosses his arms at his chest and he looks stupid as fuck with his crushed, crumpled collar, but his hair is a little disheveled from Kiyoomi’s violence and he still has those long, lean lines that Kiyoomi has given into before and the aggravating motherfucker knows it.

His expression can only reasonably be described as the kind of smirk that makes Kiyoomi want to jab pencils into his eyes.

“Surprise,” Miya says. “Bet you thought you’d seen the last of me.”

Kiyoomi—somewhere between his ire, fury, and inexhaustible irritation at Miya—takes the moment to frown.

“What are you talking about?” he says. “We had a meeting together last week.”

Miya’s smirk falls a little. “What? It’s a meme. You know, like—on the Internet. You too prissy for memes?”

If Miya Atsumu is given control of Itachiyama Group, Kiyoomi will literally find a lion to feed himself to.

“Just who the fuck are you?” Kiyoomi asks instead. “Why didn’t you tell me your uncle was on the board?”

Miya regains some of his composure after the meme incident. He lifts one corner of his mouth into a smirk and says, “Well, you didn’t really ask.”

Death might be too good for someone like Miya Atsumu.

“Fuck you,” Kiyoomi says and shoves Miya against the wall again. “Is this a joke to you? You think this is funny?”

“First of all, I think most things are funny,” Miya says, unfazed. “Second of all, if I had a joke, I wouldn’t share it with you after the whole meme thing. So third of all, no, Omi-kun, this ain’t a joke. I’m a contender, baby. A competitor. Uncle wants me to challenge ya for the title and so that’s what I’m gonna do.”

Kiyoomi grinds his teeth so hard they’re at risk of cracking.

“You can’t do this,” he nearly spits. “Who are you? Nobody. This isn’t your group. This isn’t your company.”

“Not yours either, by the looks of it,” Miya says and Kiyoomi almost loses all control there. He grasps Miya’s lapels in between his hands and shoves him roughly back against the wall before dragging him closer to him.

Miya’s breathing as hard as Kiyoomi is now, his face a little red, his brown eyes wide and electric.

“What, pretty boy?” Miya says. “What’re you gonna do? Hit me? Or fuck me?”

Kiyoomi balks at that.

“It’s all fair game,” Miya says and his mouth thins into a sneer. Kiyoomi can’t look away—can’t let him go. There’s a pulse of pure hatred in the pit of his stomach; he feels nearly sick with it. “Doesn’t matter if I’m not a Sakusa, y’know. Doesn’t matter if it ain’t my group or my company. Doesn’t fuckin’ matter if I’m a nobody because without a soulmate, so are you.”

Kiyoomi glares at him, his nails now digging in through Miya’s jacket and nearly clawing into his chest.

“You don’t have one either,” Kiyoomi spits out. “If that disqualifies me, it fucking disqualifies you too.”

“Says who?” Miya says slowly.

Kiyoomi’s grip loosens slightly.

“What?”

Miya tilts his head just a little and the smile he shares next is as mean as it is challenging.

“Who says I’m disqualified?”

Kiyoomi doesn’t understand.

“You aren’t in a relationship, Miya,” he says. “I know plenty of guys like you. If you were with anyone worth talking about, you would be talking about it. Spare me the bullshit.”

“Now where did I say I was in a relationship, Omi-kun?” Miya says

Kiyoomi’s brows furrow.

“Your uncle—”

“My uncle’s a traditional sorta guy,” Miya says. “He doesn’t care about the logistics much. He only cares about the end result.”

Kiyoomi has no fucking idea what Miya is trying to say, and frankly he’s too pissed to want to parse it out.

“Speak plainly or don’t say anything at all,” he snaps.

Miya laughs, his messy, blond hair pressed behind him as he tilts his head back against the wall.

“I have to spell it out for you?” Miya says, grinning. “You don’t have to be in a relationship with your soulmate, Sakusa-san. Not until you want to be.”

It’s not difficult to put two and two together when the numbers are set before you and Kiyoomi’s not stupid anyway. His mind goes through the ramifications of the implication here—the consequences. Miya pressed against a wire shelf as Kiyoomi fucks into him, Kiyoomi shoved against a closed office door with Miya’s mouth on his neck and his smooth hand down his pants. Miya on his knees as he takes Kiyoomi into his mouth. Kiyoomi holding Miya’s jaw bruisingly as he ruts into his thigh.

Kiyoomi lets go of him immediately, his skin crawling with disgust.

“You have—you—” He starts and stops. His chest clenches; his stomach tightening with anger. “What the fuck.”

Miya doesn’t seem upset. He barely looks fazed.

“What, you’re gonna pretend to give a shit about morals now? After all that?”

“You didn’t fucking tell me—”

“Why did I need to?” Miya snorts. “What did I just say?”

Kiyoomi isn’t in the mindset or mood for Miya’s bullshit. Not right now.

“Soulmark’s just a soulmark unless you want it to mean somethin’,” Miya says with a shrug when Kiyoomi just glares at him. “People get too fussy about them.”

Kiyoomi can’t help the growl that escapes the back of his throat then. Every single thing he has ever been taught, every moment of poise, every lesson in managing his temper—all forgotten. It’s only ever with him—only ever with Miya. There’s something about Miya Atsumu that burrows under his skin and lives there, stinging and unrelenting and angry.

Kiyoomi doesn’t like being lied to. He takes even less kindly to being made out to be a fool.

“Go fuck yourself, Miya,” he spits and backs off.

Miya pushes himself off the wall. Slowly, infuriatingly, without breaking eye contact, he straightens the neck of his shirt and jacket. There, just underneath, at the side of his throat, is what is clearly a bruise in the shape of a mouth.

Miya sees Kiyoomi looking and it only makes him more arrogant, more intolerably smug.

“Nah,” he says again and his mouth curls up in a cold andtwisting taunt. “S’much more fun when I fuck you instead.”

Chapter Text

ACT II: The Atsumu Aggravation.

If Miya had been like an irritating gnat buzzing around his head before, he becomes even worse now—a thorn embedded into his foot, a splinter burrowed deep into Kiyoomi’s thumb. The revelation itself—Miya’s family history, his proximity to the Board, his having a fucking soulmate—makes little difference to Kiyoomi.

He has no intention of letting Miya Atsumu draw him into a compromising position ever again.

(After the disastrous board meeting, Kiyoomi and Keiko had holed themselves up in Kiyoomi’s office and done a deep-dive into Miya’s history. It was all right there, everything on the fucking Internet:

The Miya family is one of the preeminent business families in Osaka. Positioned in multiple conglomerates across Japan and ventures spanning at least three continents, the Miyas have seen success in technology, media, real estate, transportation, and manufacturing. They are the founding family of Inarizaki Holdings and still hold a majority share in the company. Head of family, Miya Hiroshi, has four sons, two daughters, and multiple grandchildren, all spread across a variety of business enterprises.

A search for Miya Atsumu yielded less results, but gave Kiyoomi all of the information he had never bothered to look up before: Miya Atsumu, son of Miya Kenji and Miya Masato, brother of Miya Osamu: graduate of the University of Osaka, degree in Business Administration. Formerly at Inarizaki Holdings.

“He’s as pedigreed as you are,” Keiko had said with a low whistle and Kiyoomi had somehow resisted the petty, but nearly debilitating urge to sweep his computer monitor off of his desk in a tantrum.)

It barely helps that Kiyoomi is technically Miya’s superior at Itachiyama, because as a titled senior manager in their department, Miya has plenty of power of his own. It would be unprofessional and inappropriate of Kiyoomi to treat Miya differently after the meeting anyway, and he couldn’t even if he was willing to—not now that he knows that Miya has a direct connection to the board of directors.

It isn’t so much caught between a rock and a hard place as it is stuck between an infuriating and deeply annoying one.

The best he can do is bare his teeth when Miya interrupts him during meetings with some inane idea that he thinks is revelatory, and give a blank, placid smile when Miya corners him in the kitchen to tell him what his uncle and other directors—always very carefully mentioned—from Japan’s top corporations had done the past weekend, and try not to murder him in cold blood when he comes uninvited into Kiyoomi’s office in the middle of the work day, closes the door, and harasses him with unsolicited notes and ideas on upcoming ventures or clients that he’s managing or that Kiyoomi is working closely on trying to build a relationship with.

It isn’t easy and Kiyoomi is only marginally successful, but he doesn’t demote Miya to errand boy like he wants to, or strangle him, or even publicly humiliate him during one of their far-too-many meetings together, so during one of his weekly calls with his cousin, he says to Motoya: “See? You were worried about nothing. I can be very mature,” and ignores him when Motoya says in return: “Repression isn’t maturity, Kiyoomi. You’re one snide Miya remark away from your head popping on the spot.”

The Nekoma Studios account is hell. It’s not because of the CEO of Bouncing Ball LTD—of which Nekoma is a subsidiary—who is, by all accounts, a pretty chill guy, and who has—over the past 13 months of relationship cultivation—proven himself to be firm with what he wants and expects, but otherwise relatively adaptable. It’s not even because the Director of Nekoma Studios, who is, by all accounts, a decidedly not-chill, but still charming and enthusiastic guy, and who has—over the past 13 months of Itachiyama trying to forge a formal partnership with the studio that will bring the company into the multibillion yen animation and film space—proven himself to be a bit of a handful, but in a way that is mostly well-intentioned and productive.

It’s not because of Nekoma basically. Or at least, not their Director and CEO, on a personal level per se. It’s because any formal partnership between two enormous, successful corporations that seeks to break new ground and establish a permanent fiduciary relationship with increased market share and further dividends for a hundred different stockholders going forward is inherently stressful, and in this case, the direction of the business partnership is, to put it lightly, contentious. Bouncing Ball has a different brand and different interests from Itachiyama. That doesn’t make their relationship unworkable, but it does mean that Kiyoomi spends hours every single week in his office or in the conference room, trying to come to any sort of agreement with Kuroo Tetsurou.

“There has to be a way around this,” Kiyoomi says into the speakerphone. “We’ve been going in circles for weeks.”

“I wouldn’t call it circles,” the voice of Kuroo Tetsurou answers. “We’ve had the same list of demands this entire time. We’re not some brand new studio, Sakusa-san.”

Kiyoomi bites back a strangled sound of frustration.

“Of course. And I’ve acknowledged that.”

“I’ll be honest with you,” Kuroo says over the line. “I think this partnership makes a lot of sense for both of us. We open animation to Itachiyama and you are able to help us grow, internally and in the entertainment market.”

Kiyoomi feels a distant urge to worry at his thumbnail. Instead, he clicks the end of a retractable pen until the noise is so annoying that he feels a crumpled piece of paper bounce off his forehead. He looks up with a glare.

“Yes, of course,” he says calmly. “We feel the same way. That’s why the partnership is going forward. I’m not on legal, I can’t negotiate terms with you.”

“That’s for others, of course,” Kuroo says. “These aren't legal demands. This is specifically our vision for the future of the animation studio and what we need to develop our product with you.”

“A vision that you aren’t willing to part from,” Kiyoomi says. “And that the partnership rests on. How is that not a legal demand, again?”

There’s a pause over the line and Kiyoomi wishes, briefly, for Kuroo Tetsurou to experience some inconveniences today.

“It will be much messier if we build it into the contracts, Sakusa-san,” Kuroo says quietly. “And you know that.”

He does. Kiyoomi exhales in frustration.

“I told you I would try,” he says.

“I know.”

“And I’ve been trying,” Kiyoomi says. “We all have been. These things take time and…finesse. We can’t force anyone to join anything they don’t want to join.”

“I’m well aware.”

Is he? Kiyoomi thinks irritably. Because weeks of back and forth don’t seem to indicate this at all.

“I can’t make any promises, Kuroo-san. Surely you understand.”

“I do. And I told you that we need more assurance than that,” Kuroo says with a sigh. “It isn’t personal. I’m sorry.”

It’s not that he’s an asshole, per se. He can be, if it’s something that’s worth protecting to him—such as Kozume’s general vision—and Kiyoomi can usually respect tenacity like that. He has built his entire reputation on a similar kind of bullheaded behavior. But they have been butting heads over the directional changes to the studio that this partnership would necessitate for weeks now and Kiyoomi is one more red-lined strategic document away from sticking his head into the company freezer and asking someone to shut it in there.

“Yer bein’ a little annoyin’ about this, aren’t ya, Kuroo-san?” Miya interrupts the agonizing back and forth. He’s standing at the other side of the long conference table. His hands are braced against the buffered surface, his jacket hanging on the back of a chair, and his sleeves rolled up to his elbows. “Like, there’s knowin’ your worth and advocating for your company and vision and all and there’s bein’ stubborn to be stubborn.”

He grins at Kiyoomi and Kiyoomi feels the distant urge to flip him off.

He doesn’t, because this good cop/bad cop tactic that is abjectly failing had been partly Kiyoomi’s idea. He had thought Miya could use his aggressive and borderline rude charms to proverbially manhandle Kuroo Tetsurou into agreement, but Kiyoomi had, at the time, had no idea that the only other person capable of weathering the brunt of that aggression and answering with his own aggressive charisma was Kuroo Tetsurou.

“Now Miya-san, flattery won’t get you everywhere,” Kuroo says in response and across from Kiyoomi, Miya’s smug look flickers. Kiyoomi feels a stab of satisfaction despite the fact that none of this is to his benefit.

“I’m not tryna—”

“It’s not like you aren’t being given significant deference,” Kiyoomi interrupts. “We have managed to meet almost every one of your other requests. This one aspect is just—beyond my control. We’re not trying to be intransigent—I am trying to meet you halfway where possible.”

“And we appreciate that,” Kuroo says quickly. “I’m not accusing you of not doing your best. But we each have our line in the sand, and this is his. If we can’t find a solution to this, I’m afraid there’s no point going forward.”

Kiyoomi might scream. He must look like he’s choking on his anger because Miya shoots him a slightly concerned look.

“Then why’d ya waste our time for a whole fuckin’ year?” Miya mutters, a little too loudly.

Kiyoomi shoots him a warning look but Miya looks pissed too and Kiyoomi is so familiar with the feeling that he can’t even find it in him to rebuke him further.

“Forgive me for saying so, Kuroo-san, but I find myself a bit frustrated,” Kiyoomi finally says.

“I understand. No, really, trust me—I get it. And I am sorry,” Kuroo says, ignoring Miya altogether. “But you know my position on this. I won’t jeopardize the integrity of Nekoma and all of our animators and projects—not even for such a profitable and exciting partnership. It means too much to us. Some things…mean more than money.”

Both Kiyoomi and Miya look at one another with looks of disgust on their faces.

“I presume you are aware that an animation studio cannot survive without money?” Kiyoomi says tightly.

Kuroo laughs.

“Yeah, don’t worry, we have accountants,” he says. “Even a CFO, if you’ll believe it.”

Kiyoomi presses his fingertips to his temples while Miya makes a rude gesture at the phone.

“Kuroo-san, this isn’t—”

“Listen, Sakusa-san,” Kuroo says and his voice takes on more of an edge than it usually does. “I want this to work. Both Kenma and I have discussed it and we do think this partnership has merit for both Nekoma and Itachiyama. We’re under no impression that we have the same sort of bargaining power as a company like Itachiyama, but this deal isn’t just for us. Itachiyama wants in on animation and we’re the animation.”

Kiyoomi breathes out through his nose carefully. His eye twitches.

“We need you, but you need us too. So this is where we’re at. We’ve sent you our expectations. You get him on board and we’re in this; everything else is easy. We have a whole team with the campaign blueprinted. We’re in. But only if.”

Kiyoomi looks at the phone in consternation. He has rarely felt so defeated, so…evenly matched in terms of obstinacy. He would respect it, if he wasn’t on the receiving end of that attitude.

He has nothing more to say and for once, it seems, neither does Miya.

“I’ll see what I can do,” Kiyoomi says stiffly.

“Thank you,” Kuroo says over the phone. “Look forward to hearing from you again.”

Then the call ends.

The silence lasts for all of ten, stunned seconds before Miya nearly shouts, “What a fuckin’ dick!”

Kiyoomi massages his temple.

“Sounds smug as hell when he can’t tell it to our fuckin’ faces,” Miya seethes. “We don’t do everything for money, eat my left nutsack, you smarmy piece of sh—”

“Enough!” Kiyoomi says.

Miya whips around to face him, a little shocked.

“What?”

“I said enough.”

Miya glares at him.

“You’re takin’ his side? That sleezy snake oil salesman with more hair gel on his head than brains in his skull?”

Kiyoomi’s headache threatens to spike into a migraine.

“No,” he says. “But it’s not appropriate to talk about our clients that way. What if someone hears you?”

“Who the hell’s gonna hear me?” Miya says sourly. “We’re the only ones in this damn room.”

“I know your lack of basic knowledge is shockingly immense, Miya, but glass walls are not actually soundproof,” Kiyoomi says.

Miya glares at him and flips him off. Which is irritating for a number of reasons, the least of which is that Kiyoomi is technically his superior and the blatant disrespect that Miya shows is—

Forget it. He’s already too stressed to care about something as inconsequential as Miya’s blase manners.

“Just see if you can track Hinata,” he says, tired.

Miya winces.

“He hasn’t taken my calls since—”

“I don’t care,” Kiyoomi says. He gives Miya such a venomous look that Miya snaps his mouth shut for once.

“He’s the only one Kozume wants to handle the studio and if we can’t get him on board, then we’ll both be fucked.”

Miya’s look of annoyance shifts to something sharp and—Kiyoomi suspects—terribly annoying. At least, it makes a spike of irritation ripple down his spine almost immediately.

“You mean you’ll be fucked, don’t ya, Omi-kun?” Miya smirks. “On account of the Board bein’ on your ass and all.”

“Don’t call me that,” Kiyoomi snaps, as usual. He stands up from where he’s been sitting at the head of the table. There’s a laptop and a variety of folders in front of him. He quickly texts Shigeru, his assistant, to come to the conference room to gather his things. When he finishes, he pockets his phone.

“‘snot fair that I have to share,” Miya says. He’s leaning forward now, his elbows resting on the high back of the leather chair in front of him.

Kiyoomi knows better than to ask. Sometimes, Kiyoomi is an idiot.

“Share what.”

“Your ass.” Miya winks.

Kiyoomi calmly picks up one of the pens sitting on a half-filled notepad in front of him and flings it at Miya’s head.

“Hey!” Miya yelps and ducks out of the way in the nick of time.

“Get out of this room, Miya,” Kiyoomi says. “If I see you again even one more time this evening I will personally have security throw you out.”

“You can’t do that!” Miya says, glowering.

“And who,” Kiyoomi says, stepping in close, with a sneer. “Is going to stop me?”

Miya gulps and then his eyes flicker down to Kiyoomi’s mouth.

Kiyoomi realizes too late how close they are—Miya’s body barely a few inches away from his own. Miya’s head is tilted up a little and Kiyoomi’s tilted down. Their breathing is suddenly too loud in Kiyoomi’s ear.

It’s perfectly innocent, but for the sharp heat that clenches in Kiyoomi’s gut, and the way the back of his neck warms as Miya’s tongue darts out between his lips and slides over them.

There’s an undeniable frisson in the air.

Kiyoomi hasn’t allowed this in months; not since he found out who Miya is. Somehow, that’s made these moments even more strained.

The tension between them is nearly unbearable.

“I could try,” Miya says, his voice low, almost throaty. His expression has the hint of a leer that should make Kiyoomi’s skin crawl, but only makes his stomach tighten instead.

Kiyoomi grits his teeth, his head slightly too hazy to figure out something mean and pithy to say.

“What do you say?” Miya’s eyes don’t leave Kiyoomi’s face. “Omi-kun?”

The door bangs open loudly and Shigeru shuffles inside.

Kiyoomi nearly gasps in relief as the tension shatters.

“Sakusa-san, your 5:30 will be on the line soon!” he says. The boy is a last year student at the University of Tokyo and is pleasingly competent. He’s been Kiyoomi’s personal assistant for the past two years and Kiyoomi has every intention of offering him a permanent position at Itachiyama after he graduates. Assuming Kiyoomi is still here by then.

“Thank you, Shigeru,” Kiyoomi says, with some forced measure of normalcy, and side steps Miya quickly. His face is hot and his throat is dry and his heart is beating too fast. He thanks whatever kami-sama is listening, about Shigeru’s timing. “I’ll take it in my office.”

Miya doesn’t say anything else—couldn’t even he wanted to, not with Shigeru there shuffling through Kiyoomi’s client files—but Kiyoomi hears his low, too-quick breathing, and even as the glass door closes behind him, he can feel the weight of Miya’s stare against the back of his neck.

His 5:30 call takes an hour; then he has to meet with Communications about a press release on another marketing campaign. Kiyoomi’s able to take exactly five minutes to go piss and briefly scroll through his phone for whatever texts he’s missed all day—nothing interesting, just a few messages from his father about an obligatory dinner this weekend, some nonsense in the groupchat with his sisters that he will mark as read without engaging, and an article about transfer news from the Adlers that Wakatoshi had sent this morning—before he has to sit down with Human Resources and rifle through a stack of resumes to finalize interviews for a new product manager.

By the time Kiyoomi finally manages to slump back into the expensive leather chair in his still-new office, he’s exhausted, hungry, and so frustrated with his day that he briefly and dramatically considers leaving the corporate world and joining a Buddhist monastery instead. Unfortunately, Kiyoomi’s idea of asceticism is banning himself from late night online shopping twice a month by asking Shigeru to cancel his credit cards, which Shigeru never does, because late night online shopping is one of those guilty pleasures that keeps Kiyoomi sane when he is on the verge and Shigeru is a good enough assistant to know that.

“Sakusa-san,” Shigeru says, knocking on the door before cracking it open.

Kiyoomi, slumped against the back of his chair, and trying—frankly—to meld into the leather, looks over at him.

“Shigeru,” he says. “What are you still doing here?”

“Ah,” Shigeru says and bows a little. “I had some things to finish. And you’re still here, so I thought…”

Kiyoomi appreciates how hard his assistant works. But he’s aware that Shigeru hasn’t even graduated from college yet and no one needs to keep the same hours as the person currently up shit’s creek, so to speak, in an unexpected fight for his inheritance.

He waves a hand at him.

“You don’t have to stay as long as I do,” Kiyoomi says. “It’s okay.”

“Ah, thank you, Sakusa-san.”

Shigeru bows again. He lingers, though, and Kiyoomi almost sighs.

“Was there something you needed before you left?”

“Oh! Yes, sorry,” Shigeru says and hurries forward. “You left your phone on Kobayashi-san’s desk after your last meeting.”

“Oh.” Kiyoomi reaches out as Shigeru hands him the phone. “Thanks.”

“Goodnight, Sakusa-san!”

“Goodnight.”

Shigeru closes the door behind him. Kiyoomi rubs the exhaustion from his eyes before unlocking his phone to check through his messages.

He has a missed call from Tendou Satori for reasons he can barely fathom, a text from his mother also reminding him about the dinner this weekend, a follow up message from Wakatoshi on the Adlers situation (I believe it is the right move. He will be a good match for Iizuna’s quick sets.), some inane message from a number not saved to his phone that could only be Miya, and a slew of texts from his cousin that, frankly, Kiyoomi could barely muster the energy to read through on a good day.

In the middle of all of that, Kiyoomi sees a message he must have missed last night.

sorry, sakusa. I think it’s best if we call it.

Kiyoomi stares at the text. Then he curses.

“Are you fucking serious?” he seethes, squeezing his phone like he might crush it. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

Kiyoomi glares at the text, composes a dozen shitty replies in his head, and then tosses his phone onto his desk. He slams his head back against his head rest and closes his eyes with a heartfelt curse.

“Fuck!”

It’s not that it’s a surprise, really. This is more or less how all of his relationships and situationships go. He and this guy have been on-again-off-again for so long, even Motoya’s stopped asking him why there’s yet another hoodie that is clearly not Kiyoomi’s own slung over the arm of his couch every time he crashes at Kiyoomi’s. They have never tried for exclusivity and, frankly, neither of them have ever asked for it. They’d met at some business seminar for rich assholes who were all poised to inherit some company or another from their family, and they’d either hit it off or at least found each other hot enough to continue all of this for well over a year. Over the course of their hooking up, sometimes Kiyoomi had called it off and other times, the guy had called it off. They always got back together though, this thing comfortable and easy enough to fall into when either of them needed to blow off steam. It hadn’t been that serious, but it had been convenient.

And now it was nothing.

The issue isn’t that Kiyoomi’s not the one to call it this time—it’s not a pride thing. It’s not even that he has some deep reserve of secret feelings for the guy that he’s now hurt over. (They have both been clear about exactly what this is since they started it.)

It’s just that the timing could not be worse.

Kiyoomi opens his eyes and manages to jab at his phone enough to call the person he means to call.

“Well, well, well,” Motoya says, a little too pleased, over speaker. “Look what the disgruntled cat dragged in.”

“Yuma broke up with me.”

Motoya was likely on the verge of saying something else that, at any other time, would have been annoying and good-natured, but which, at this current juncture, would likely have pushed Kiyoomi over the edge. He revises himself quickly, probably because he can hear in Kiyoomi’s voice that his cousin is currently on the verge.

“Shit,” Motoya says. “When?”

“Just now?” Kiyoomi says, irritated. Not at Motoya, for once. “Or this morning? Last night? I don’t fucking know, I just saw the text now.”

“He did it by text?” The wince in Motoya’s voice is as comforting as it is insulting.

“Last time, I at least did the courtesy of taking him out for drinks,” Kiyoomi says. He stares at the ceiling. Well, glares at it. “I bought them for him and let him down lightly.”

“Kiyoomi…”

Kiyoomi’s eyes narrow.

“What.”

“I love you—you know that, right? You’re my cousin and my best friend and I love you.”

“Ugh,” Kiyoomi says. “Get on with that.”

“You’re my cousin and my best friend and I love you and I think you have a lot of great qualities and I know you’re going through something right now—”

“Motoya.”

“—there isn’t a chance in hell you let him down lightly.”

Kiyoomi makes an offended, strangled noise.

“What? You’re taking his side?”

“I didn’t say that!” Motoya says. “Totally shitty to break up with someone over text! Just…you know. If we’re being accurate about it, I don’t think you can really claim that you let someone down….politely. Even if there were drinks involved.”

Kiyoomi considers chucking his phone at the ceiling.

“I was polite as I could be, given the situation.”

“The situation being…”

“That I was breaking up with him!”

“Oh,” Motoya says. “Right. Right.”

Kiyoomi feels his irritation spike, like someone taking a cheese grater over his skin. “Anyway. He’s an asshole.”

“Yes, definitely,” Motoya says. “Definitely an asshole.”

Kiyoomi exhales his irritation as best he can. He sighs and tips his head back against the headrest again.

“Shit.”

“Are you really that torn up about it?” Motoya asks after a moment of silence. “Like, I know you two have been going on for a while, but I never got the idea that you were…that serious about him.”

“He’s not my soulmate, if that’s what you’re asking,” Kiyoomi says stiffly.

Motoya, being genuinely a kind person and a better cousin and best friend than Kiyoomi deserves most of the time, most certainly was not hinting at Kiyoomi’s very public and vaguely humiliating status as someone without a soulmate.

“No, of course not,” Motoya says. “But you were on again and off again for so long. And every time you break up, you don’t seem that devastated.”

“I’m not,” Kiyoomi clarifies. “I’m annoyed.”

Motoya snorts over the line.

“It’s just bad timing,” Kiyoomi says. “Ugh. Between this and work and fucking Nekoma and fucking Miya and the fucking Board.”

What he doesn’t say, which his cousin can pick up or not pick up if he’d like is: I am in an extremely high pressure situation and he was easily accessible dick when I needed it for reasons and now he’s gone and dumped me and I don’t have the time or energy to procure a new one.

Motoya clicks his tongue sympathetically.

“Miya still giving you hell?”

Kiyoomi glares again.

“I think he was put on this Earth to torture me,” he says, seriously. “I’m really serious.”

“Ignore him,” Motoya advises. He pauses. “Unless…”

Motoya knows, of course. Kiyoomi had been besieged with self-loathing every time after he and Miya had fucked, but not so much that he hadn’t told Motoya about it.

“No!” Kiyoomi says forcefully. “He has a soulmate.”

“Having a soulmate doesn’t mean being with one,” Motoya says and Kiyoomi can almost see his shrug.

“Why do you sound exactly like him?”

“I’ve never even met him!” Motoya protests, then pauses. “Although, can I?”

“No!”

“Oh.”

“He’s challenging me for the company, Motoya,” Kiyoomi says. “In case you had forgotten.”

“It would be hard to, given you complain about it nearly every week, dear cousin,” Motoya says.

“Well, I think it’s worth complaining about,” Kiyoomi grumbles petulantly. He’s rarely petulant—or at least there are maybe two people on this planet he allows himself to be petulant to. Sometimes it’s nice to indulge in his baser instincts, though.

“How much longer do you have?” Motoya asks, ignoring Kiyoomi’s sulking. He really is a good cousin.

Kiyoomi groans, his stress levels spiking, as they do every time he thinks about his impending deadline.

“Eight months,” he says. He can feel the panic at the top of his spine. “Fuck. I have eight months to find someone, Motoya.”

“This is good then,” Motoya says. “You can’t keep wasting time with someone you know you don’t have a real future with.”

Motoya’s right, even if Kiyoomi hates to admit it. It’s just that it was so much easier to have someone to hook up with when he felt like it.

“There’s no one,” Kiyoomi says.

“No one,” Motoya repeats. “In all of Tokyo.”

“I’ve tried,” Kiyoomi says. “You know I’ve tried.”

“You’ve tried all of Tokyo.”

“Yes.”

“Sure.”

“There’s no one of caliber who is interesting, let alone tolerable,” Kiyoomi says. He glares at the ceiling, as is his prerogative. “There was only Wakatoshi and then he had to go and find himself his soulmate.”

That’s a bit of a revisionist history, perhaps. The truth is that Wakatoshi had found his soulmate in high school; he and his soulmate had just taken an unconscionable amount of time to actually get together. There had been an idea, once, that Wakatoshi and Kiyoomi could and should make it work—for their futures, for their companies—despite Wakatoshi’s soulmark, but Kiyoomi couldn’t do that to him. He couldn’t force duty on his dear friend, even though Wakatoshi—stalwart and responsible as always—had once offered.

That reminds him, he needs to see why the fuck Tendou was calling him earlier.

“What about Iizuna?” Motoya asks after a few moments of thinking.

Kiyoomi frowns.

“Iizuna Tsukasa?”

“Yeah.”

“My high school boyfriend?”

“Yeah, him!” Motoya says, suddenly enthusiastic. “You were so into him back then. And you guys were great together! I hear he’s single.”

Kiyoomi’s frown deepens.

“I haven’t talked to Iizuna since I was in college.” It’s been nearly a decade.

“Great excuse to catch up,” Motoya says.

Kiyoomi considers this. He and Iizuna had dated Kiyoomi’s last two years of high school and broken up when Kiyoomi had left for college. They’d kept in touch for a few years, but then Kiyoomi had gotten busy with his degree and the company and Iizuna rarely had time out of his game schedule and they’d drifted apart. It hadn’t been contentious by any means; just life being life.

Kiyoomi remembers Iizuna fondly, even now. He had been reliable and funny and talented and handsome and, importantly, had led their high school volleyball team to Nationals two years in a row. He hadn’t been from a particularly prestigious family, but his parents were fairly successful lawyers and he was playing volleyball professionally now.

It wasn’t ideal in a strict sense, but it wasn’t a terrible match. Or a terrible idea.

“Would he even be interested?”

“I couldn’t say for sure,” Motoya says. “But it doesn’t hurt to try. You guys were in love once, why not again?”

Kiyoomi’s not sure that it works that way, but at least he has past evidence that Iizuna had once tolerated and even liked Kiyoomis whole…personality.

“I don’t even have his number anymore.”

He can almost hear Motoya brighten over the phone.

“Luckily for you, you have the best and most enterprising cousin on the island!”

“I don’t know what that means,” Kiyoomi says. “But I suppose I should agree.”

“I can get you his number,” Motoya says. “No problem.”

Kiyoomi worries at his lower lip. He’s holding onto his phone with one hand while the other taps a random rhythm against his thigh.

“We did have fun,” he says slowly. “In high school. But people change. We likely have nothing in common anymore.”

“Kiyoomi, you don’t have anything in common with anyone.”

A bit mean of Motoya to say, but no less true for all of that.

Kiyoomi’s phone lights up again, this time with another message from a number he does not have saved to his phone.

and another thing, asshole! i can call whoever i want a dick because i’m a grown fucking man. for example, you’re a fucking dick.

Kiyoomi lets out a sigh that is so aggrieved, Motoya nearly startles.

He can’t let this childish, impulse-controlled imbecile take his company from him. Kiyoomi will die before he fucking lets Itachiyama fall into that horrible man’s germ-riddled hands. He will do anything he can to keep it from happening.

“You’re right,” he says and straightens in his chair, newly determined. “I don’t have time to be particular and he’s a good prospect. Please find Iizuna’s number for me, Motoya. And give him mine too.”

The next month is nothing short of Kiyoomi’s own personal hell. It’s not the amount of work that gets to him or even the number of phone calls he is forced to have with Kuroo Tetsurou every single week. (If he’s honest with himself, outside of this very specific business partnership, he thinks he might even like Kuroo in a personal capacity. He’s tenacious and hardworking and unmovable in wanting the thing he wants—in service of his goals—and Kiyoomi can not only respect something like that, he can fundamentally relate to it.) It’s the way he cannot seem to fucking escape Miya inside the confines of his own company.

He seems to be everywhere Kiyoomi turns—included in every meeting, on every conference call, present at every business lunch with an important partner—like a cursed specter sent to haunt only Kiyoomi.

Whenever Kiyoomi is struggling with a client, Miya is there, leaning arrogantly against one of the walls in the conference room, and whenever Kiyoomi is discussing project work with the vice president, Miya is suddenly there with a hand on Ota-san’s shoulder and an infuriating smile accompanying an idea that Kiyoomi has already said out loud, and whenever Kiyoomi finally gets a break in his schedule to turn his brain off and just stare blankly at the bare walls of the kitchen while making his afternoon tea, Miya suddenly appears with an easy grin and a, “Well, well, well. Fancy meetin’ you here, Omi-kun.”

Kiyoomi works too much and is always in the office, which is where—without fail—Miya is too. It’s constant. There’s no escape.

If he didn’t know better, Kiyoomi would guess that Miya had some sort of a tracking device on him, or was specifically sent by his grandfather from beyond the grave to drive him out of mind and workplace. (Kiyoomi’s grandfather, Sakusa Kiyoshi, had been an old, cantankerous man who had been in his 80s even when Kiyoomi was in elementary school. Kiyoomi remembers his grandfather being strict, hard, and a little mean to almost every single person in their family, age notwithstanding. When he died at the age of 97, Kiyoomi had been in high school. He remembers feeling an inordinate sense of relief, punctuated only by a brief stab of guilt for feeling that way. Almost immediately—that very night—he had dreamt of his grandfather, who was so mad that Kiyoomi hadn’t mourned him enough that he promised to curse him for this lifetime. Kiyoomi is not a little bit superstitious at all, but now he wonders if his grandfather didn’t actually accomplish this in an extremely specific way.)

Luckily he does know better (slightly), but he spends so much of every day glaring at Miya’s stupid, fake blond head across multiple rooms, and fighting with Miya over business strategy between back-to-back meetings, and engaged in a very pointed power struggle with Miya on a daily basis—which escalates whenever there is something imminent of middling to great importance—that some days Kiyoomi is almost positive that he is actually cursed.

“You know I do not believe in curses, Kiyoomi,” Wakatoshi tells him every time Kiyoomi complains to him.

“That’s because you’ve never been cursed,” Kiyoomi says, shaking out a few painkillers into his palm to swallow dry. He has a headache. He always has a headache, but he and Miya had spent the entire afternoon arguing bitterly about how best to handle the Nekoma situation and now, as a result, he has a horrible fucking headache.

“That is true,” Wakatoshi admits. “I have no basis from which to compare.”

The thing about Wakatoshi that Kiyoomi likes is that he’s straightforward. There’s no fuss with him, no mind games. If he says something, he means it in its entirety. If you tell him he’s wrong and the argument makes sense to him, he will relent easily. Kiyoomi can think of one time in their entire friendship the two of them had fought and it was because Kiyoomi was being an ass and Wakatoshi had had enough of it. Fair enough.

“What other explanation is there?” Kiyoomi asks. He closes his eyes and feels his head pulse.

There’s a slight pause as—Kiyoomi knows—Wakatoshi contemplates the question seriously.

“It is intentional,” Wakatoshi says after a moment.

“How do you mean?”

“Forgive me, but based on the evidence provided, I do not think it is a curse, Kiyoomi,” Wakatoshi says. “I think the most likely explanation is that Miya is intentionally seeking you out.”

“For what purpose?” Kiyoomi groans. “Because he knows I can’t stand him?”

“Perhaps,” Wakatoshi says. “Are you so principled that you would not go out of your way to get under the skin of someone you dislike?”

Kiyoomi would like to say yes, but Wakatoshi has known him for far too long for that lie to hold any sort of weight for longer than two seconds. Also, there’s all of the current evidence with the subject in question, which Wakatoshi, of course, knows all about.

“Mean.”

“Mm, I don’t believe so.”

“The purpose, Wakatoshi?”

“Or,” Wakatoshi continues, as though Kiyoomi had not interrupted him to begin with, “he finds in you a worthy rival.”

Kiyoomi frowns, his eyes still closed.

“What?”

“You are…in contention for the same position,” Wakatoshi says. “And it seems you are both well qualified for it.”

“Are you taking his side?” Kiyoomi asks, annoyed at his friend.

“Not at all,” Wakatoshi says. “I have never met Miya before and do not know his capabilities. Only what you have told me of them.”

Well that’s annoying. Has Kiyoomi been unintentionally presenting Miya as more competent than he is? He’ll have to fix that.

“If Miya is as proud as you are, he will not want to win the position so easily,” Wakatoshi says. “It won’t serve him to be handed the title and have the rest of his career plagued with rumors that he did not earn it.”

The sentiment is so familiar to Kiyoomi that he opens his eyes. His frown deepens.

“So I believe there are two reasonable explanations here.”

“And neither of them involves curses?” Kiyoomi asks.

“Neither involves curses.”

Kiyoomi sighs.

“Let’s hear it, then.”

“Either Miya seeks you out because you are his rival and he must show everyone else that he is equal to you, in competence and authority,” Wakatoshi says.

Kiyoomi wrinkles his nose.

“Or?”

There’s a slight pause—just long enough to indicate to Kiyoomi that he’s not going to like what he hears and that Wakatoshi knows that he isn’t going to like what he hears.

And he’s right.

“Or,” Ushijima Wakatoshi says carefully, “Miya seeks you out because he wants to.”

Chapter Text

“Either Miya seeks you out because you are his rival and he must show everyone else that he is equal to you, in competence and authority. Or he seeks you out because he wants to.”

Well that’s the worst thing that anybody has ever suggested to him. Kiyoomi’s both annoyed and impressed that it came from Wakatoshi of all people. He ignores it as soon as he’s heard it, a possibility so intolerable that he can’t bear to give it even a moment of his attention.

This doesn’t change the reality of his situation any.

Miya is there wherever he turns, there whenever he looks, stubbornly dug in, like a burr stuck to the back of his heel that he can’t seem to shake. It is no easier to ignore him than it is to ignore the overlapping meetings in his calendar or his mother’s eye contact when she looks at him across the dinner table and asks, “And what progress have you made, Kiyoomi?”

None. The answer is none.

Kiyoomi is inundated with work and the only people he reliably sees every single day are his 21 year old personal assistant and Miya fucking Atsumu. The clock is ticking and his prospects for finding a partner are miniscule and his prospects for finding his soulmate are at the bottom of the fucking ocean.

“Sakusa,” Vice President Ota says, calling him into his office on a Tuesday in June. “We have our annual meetings with Inarizaki in Osaka this upcoming weekend.”

Kiyoomi straightens immediately, his body language compulsively rigid. Since the revelation about Miya’s family history, he has had a nearly automatic, negative reaction to any mention of Inzarizaki.

“Yes, sir. It’s been on my calendar. I’ve had my assistant prepare the updated materials based on our usual division of topics,” he says. “I was going to review on the way up—did you want final to look it over first?”

Vice President Ota waves a hand.

“No, I trust you,” he says.

Kiyoomi relaxes minimally.

“Then?”

Vice President Ota sits back in his chair. He’s a largely kind and generous man; someone who has been with Itachiyama for so long and has been so successful and capable in his professional capacity that it had come as no surprise when he had been promoted to Senior Vice President of New and Expanding Businesses three years ago. He is Kiyoomi’s direct supervisor and has been for years. It’s under Ota-san’s patience and guidance that Kiyoomi has grown into his own role at the company. He likes the man immensely and respects him even more.

“It turns out I can’t attend this year,” Ota-san says, to Kiyoomi’s surprise. “But you’ve gone with me the last few years. You’ve met the Inarizaki Board. You know our positions and talking points better than almost anyone else. I think you’re well equipped to take the meetings without me.”

Kiyoomi straightens, surprised and pleased by the Vice President’s faith in him. He nods.

“And the Board will not be offended?”

“Those old geezers are tired of seeing my face by now,” Vice President Ota says jovially. “Anyway, you’re a director yourself now and a Sakusa, there is nothing to take offense at.”

Kiyoomi nods again, a little more at ease with the reassurance.

“Of course, sir,” he says.

“The other divisions will send their directors as well this year,” Vice President Ota says. He looks at a list in front of him thoughtfully. “You know most. Hagiwara from Marketing. Fukushima and Shoji from Finance. Either Usui or Yanagi from Production.”

“Yanagi-san?” Kiyoomi says and tries not to make his distaste too apparent.

“I know, it’s not my first choice either,” Ota-san murmurs. “But you know that division never listens to anyone else.”

Kiyoomi wisely keeps his mouth shut.

“Either way, I will expect you to take the lead,” Vice President Ota says. He looks up from the list in front of him and smiles broadly at Kiyoomi. “I have full faith in you. You’ll do great.”

Having been raised in the family he was born into, Kiyoomi doesn’t take well to direct compliments. He flushes a little and clears his throat in response to Ota-san’s kindness and generous vote of confidence.

“Of course. Thank you, Ota-san. I’ll have Shigeru prepare me further.”

Kiyoomi bows as their conversation ends.

He’s nearly made his way to the door—both pleased at the solid display of trust that the Vice President has given him and a bit overwhelmed at the thought of leading these meetings himself—when Ota-san calls to him.

“Oh, and Sakusa, one more thing—”

“Sir?” Kiyoomi pauses, hand paused on the doorknob.

“Miya will be going with you as well,” Vice President Ota says, with a smile. “Given his family name and ties to the Inarizaki.”

That’s just fucking great. Kiyoomi doesn’t even get a real chance to luxuriate in his good feelings before the sheer irritation of not escaping Miya even in this crashes down on him.

He slams the door to his own office closed behind him and allows himself exactly two minutes to seethe in silence. Kiyoomi lowers his head to his desk, tucks his face into his palms and screams.

The sound is muffled and he’s not stupid enough to be loud. From around the corner of his computer monitor, Kiyoomi sees Shigeru stop in his tracks in the hallway and look at him with deep concern.

Kiyoomi keeps from throwing a real tantrum—despite his every desire to do so—which, frankly, shows a level of restraint that neither his sisters nor Motoya will ever give him proper credit for. Instead, after a few more seconds of trying to send his palms through his eyeballs, Kiyoomi takes a deep, deep breath and straightens.

It’s fine. This—an intolerable coworker with an even worse personality—is nothing that Kiyoomi can’t handle. When he’s CEO of Itachiyama, he will have to handle people like Miya in all sorts of positions, with as much grace and resilience as he can muster. If he treats this—Miya, the upcoming weekend—as a learning experience, he is certain he can still salvage the situation.

It’s fine, Kiyoomi thinks, trying to force calm into his tense, rigid body. It’s going to be fine.

His phone lights up with a new text message before he can finish the thought.

if you wanted an excuse to spend a weekend with me, all you had to do was ask

Notably, Kiyoomi doesn’t throw his phone against his office door. He doesn’t block the number or send a rude emoji in response or even ask Shigeru to hack into Miya’s calendar and shift his entire schedule off by two days, which would probably be easy for Shigeru to do, embarrass Miya, and be very funny for Kiyoomi, personally.

This all, too, is a sign of maturity and growth. He will be reporting such to Wakatoshi as soon as he’s in the car, on his way home.

The trip to Osaka is three days long. Kiyoomi opts to avoid Miya until absolutely necessary, which means that the family driver drops him at their hotel a full hour before Miya’s train is set to even arrive. This gives Kiyoomi time to prepare for the evening without triggering a migraine.

The schedule for the next few days is full: a welcome dinner with a few of the Inarizaki directors tonight, back-to-back meetings throughout the day tomorrow, a luncheon with extended parties, an expensive dinner—on Inarizaki’s dime—with the same directors and the board members tomorrow night, a few more meetings on Sunday morning, a farewell lunch, and back in the car to come back to Tokyo. There’s no new business to conduct here, no deals to strike or substantive negotiations to hold, but both Itachiyama and Inarizaki move in adjacent industry spaces, and one of the ways to keep corporate entities from colliding is to hold weekend-long gatherings, where everyone in a position of power spends three days pretending to do work while they all really just rub elbows and eat overpriced meals and call it meetings.

Kiyoomi uses the time before dinner to get ready for their opening evening. He takes a quick shower, styles his hair, and changes from his traveling clothes (nice slacks and a white button-up shirt, no jacket) to his dinner clothes (nice slacks, a white button-up shirt, and a well-tailored black suit jacket). He answers a few emails, calls his mother to check in, and makes his way downstairs to the car with five minutes to spare.

Kiyoomi doesn’t know if Miya’s ready. He doesn’t know if he’s at the hotel yet or, hell, if his train had made it in at all. He hadn’t gotten a text from Miya one way or another and he certainly wasn’t going to be the one to ask. That is his entire plan this weekend: to talk to Miya only when needed, see him only when required, and not absorb a single other detail about their shared stay at the hotel together. Not wanting any more information than he absolutely has to have about him, Kiyoomi hadn’t asked Shigeru what room Miya’s staying in or even what floor. The less Kiyoomi knows, the better.

“Will it be just you, Sakusa-san?” Kanagawa, the family driver, asks as he opens the passenger door.

Kiyoomi hesitates. There are two answers here and it takes Kiyoomi a full five seconds to force himself away from the one he wants to give.

The only thing that stops him from instructing the driver to leave without their third is the thought that Miya, out of pettiness, might tell Ota-san that he was late to dinner because Kiyoomi had, well, left him behind. That kind of thing seems like it should be beneath someone as proud as Miya Atsumu, but Kiyoomi doesn’t know him well enough to be sure. He does know Miya’s a petty little asshole, though, so it’s probably not out of the question.

Kiyoomi dithers for thirty seconds before gritting his teeth and sending the message.

You have five minutes before I leave with my driver.

He slides into the car and answers a few other text messages. He keeps an eye on the clock out of his own personal sense of vindictiveness. With one minute left, he smiles and pockets his phone.

“We can leave, Kanagawa,” Kiyoomi says. “It appears my colleague won’t be joining u—”

“Not so fast, asshole!” comes a familiar and unwanted voice as the passenger door hurriedly bursts open. “Like you’re gettin’ rid of me that easy. I got a twin, this ain’t the first time I’ve been given five minutes notice for somethin’ before.”

Kiyoomi swallows his displeasure.

“Oh,” he says. “You made it. Great.”

“You look like you’re suckin’ on a lemon,” Miya says with his annoying grin. “But maybe that’s just how your face always looks.”

Maybe Kiyoomi doesn’t swallow it all that well. Miya closes the door firmly next to him and Kiyoomi withholds his breath for five seconds while he tries to breathe some measure of calm into his easily irritated body.

“Miya,” Kiyoomi says, his tone as sour as his facial expression. “A pleasu—”

“Oh cut the bullshit,” Miya says and settles into his side of the car. “Too early for all that. Maybe after a few drinks.”

Kiyoomi’s eye twitches.

“And how much will you be drinking around the board members?”

“As much as needed to get through the weekend,” Miya says.

“That isn’t prop—”

“You haven’t spent as much time with them as I have,” Miya says. “Trust me, Sakusa. You’re not gonna be so judgmental in a few hours when Yoshida-san’s telling you about his grandson for the second hour in a row or when Sawada-san has you by the arm and is holdin’ you hostage, talking about the devaluation of stocks or whatever his accountant’s told him about lately.”

Kiyoomi’s prissy rigidness flickers for just a moment.

“The devaluation of stocks?”

“Christmas 2015,” Miya says with a shudder. “Forty five minutes straight. Thought I was gonna die on the spot, I was so bored.”

Kiyoomi must have a horrified look on his face, because Miya turns to him and laughs.

“Just a few drinks, Sakusa,” he says, almost teasingly. “It can only help.”

Kiyoomi looks at him dubiously and Miya smiles.

“You gotta trust me on this if nothing else. I know what I’m talking about.”

Kiyoomi would rather eat glass than trust Miya Atsumu about anything, but he admits if Miya is to be believed about any one topic, it probably would be something like alcohol as a social lubricant in borderline intolerable settings.

He exhales and relents.

“A few drinks.”

For some reason, that makes Miya’s face light up in a grin. He tilts his head toward Kiyoomi and Kiyoomi ignores the way his dyed blond hair—so neatly combed for once—contrasts the deep black of his clearly expensive, well-tailored suit.

“That’s the spirit,” Miya says with a lovely laugh and Kiyoomi, gritting his teeth, ignores that too and says to Kanagawa, “We can go now.”

The whole affair is nothing to write home about. The thing about meetings with boards and directors of companies is that they don’t differ substantially from one to another. That is to say that Kiyoomi has grown up attending meetings just like these with his mother and father and as he’s scaled the ladder in his own division within the company, he has been invited along to more than a few by Vice President Ota himself. There have been a few changes to the Inarizaki directors, but most of them are the same old faces Kiyoomi has met multiple times before, including in Osaka for these same meetings last year.

He shakes their hands and greets the Inarizaki directors as warmly as he can manage (mostly perfunctorily, with a small smile to show he does not want them dead) and they settle into an evening of food and drink, some members formal, but most catching up as though they are all old friends.

Kiyoomi is not old friends with any of them. Frankly, he barely knows how to be old friends with the small handful of people he is old friends with. He gives his tight little smile and turns his attention to whichever director is next to him at any given time and in his head there is always a voice that sounds startlingly like Shigeru’s saying Don’t forget to ask them questions about their children, Sakusa-san!

Miya, by contrast, is annoyingly in his element.

He’s constantly laughing, all easy smiles and a degree of familiarity with small talk that Kiyoomi couldn’t muster under threat of death. Kiyoomi watches him at intervals when no one is trying to capture his own attention—the way Miya passes off a slightly snide remark as a joke that the other person is let in on, the way he’s just loud enough to be affable, but not loud enough to be considered obnoxious, the ease with which he asks questions and brings up familiar old topics because—Kiyoomi remembers with an irritated jolt—Miya knows these people, has maybe even grown up with some of them.

Kiyoomi doesn’t understand it, really. He observes Miya because he wants to try.

Miya isn’t naturally charming. Or, at least, Kiyoomi can recognize in him a cocksure, almost bratty quality that no one else seems to ever clock. Miya toes the line between charisma and insufferable, and Kiyoomi thinks the only reason he gets away with it is because he’s not nearly as rigid as Kiyoomi is. It must be a twin thing—what little social grease Miya manages. Kiyoomi had grown up with Motoya, but he had never had to compete with him socially, not really. Kiyoomi’s never met Miya’s twin brother, but he had seen it with his own older sisters—each no more than two years apart. There was no doubt that Kiyoomi’s sisters loved each other, but that love was constantly punctuated by the kind of catty, competitive fighting that only siblings close in age can manage. Kiyoomi had come much later and had never had to battle anyone to be better or more likable at anything. By the time he had gotten to the age where anyone would judge his social adaptability, his older sisters were already in college.

Anyway, the point is, maybe that’s the answer—why no one else can see that Miya isn’t really charismatic, he’s actually just a snide ass who’s just good enough at hiding it.

“Ah what a great addition Atsumu-san must be to your team,” one of the Inarizaki directors says to Kiyoomi, interrupting his train of thought. It’s one of the younger ones, a born Osaka man in his mid-40s by the name of Maeda.

Kiyoomi, having just taken a sip of his drink, nearly chokes on it.

“He’s spoken of highly at Inarizaki,” Maeda-san says.

“He…is.” Kiyoomi tries to make it not sound like a skeptical question.

“Yes,” Maeda-san says, with his own drink. He smiles. “He and his brother worked at the company for years. They had quite the reputation.”

“For what, I wonder,” Kiyoomi murmurs into his glass.

“They were certainly competitive, if that’s what you mean,” Maeda-san chuckles. “Everyone knew of the Miya twins. If you had them on your team, they were likely to be a handful, but it would be well worth the effort. Their work at the end of the day was unbeatable.”

“Worth the trouble?” Kiyoomi asks.

“Very much so,” Maeda-san says. He takes a drink and his eyes crinkle at the corners as he watches Miya speak enthusiastically to an older board member who Kiyoomi is not convinced he is not related to. “Do you not think so?”

It’s not worth Kiyoomi’s life—and certainly not his job—to speak ill of a colleague so publicly, no matter how much he wants to.

“He is quite competent at his job,” Kiyoomi says.

Maeda-san nods and takes a sip of his drink.

“It was shocking when he announced his departure,” Maeda-san says. “Inarizaki has been with the Miya family for so long, it never occurred to most of us that one of them might leave.”

Kiyoomi frowns at that, his fingers still on the long stem of his own glassware.

“Why did he leave then?” he says. “If Miya-san was so well…liked and good at the family business?”

“Not sure,” Maeda-san says. “I suspect it has to do with his twin.”

“His twin?” Kiyoomi says, his frown deepening. He watches Miya move from one director to another, a hand on a shoulder, a laugh just a touch too loud. For just a moment, Miya’s gaze leaves the board member he’s attempting to charm and flickers over to Kiyoomi.

Kiyoomi refocuses immediately on Maeda-san.

“What about his twin?”

Maeda-san stops with his drink halfway to his mouth and looks thoughtful.

“Well, Osamu-san was selected to be next in line to inherit Inarizaki, wasn’t he?” Maeda-san says. “And his brother was not.”

Dinner lasts a few hours and it’s followed by desserts and more drinks. By the time everyone has exhausted themselves of food, drink, and discussion for the evening, it’s well past eleven. Kiyoomi is by no means early to bed, but their meetings start quite early the next morning. He’s physically exhausted, socially spent, and on the verge of being tipsy.

“Keep it together,” Miya whispers in his ear at some point, which only serves to irritate Kiyoomi immediately. He feels Miya’s hand on the back of his elbow and is about to snap at him when Miya leans in and says, “Sakamoto-san has half a drink left in him. He’s already leaning a little too much on the people next to him.”

Kiyoomi’s eyes snap up and sure enough, the board member is heavily leaning against another board member, who looks less than pleased at the development.

“Ten minutes,” Miya says. “Fifteen tops. Then we can leave.”

Miya extracts himself from Kiyoomi’s side and with one of his loud, almost brash laughs, calls—“Yoshida-san, have you been avoidin’ me?”

True to his words, within ten minutes, someone quietly comes in and places a hand against Sakamoto-san’s back. He nearly slumps onto them and they escort him out. The others start yawning and shuffling toward the door shortly thereafter.

“Goodnight, Sakusa-san,” Maeda-san says with a bow. “It has been a pleasure. I look forward to our meetings tomorrow.”

“Goodnight,” Kiyoomi says and bows in return. Then he works his way through the room until he’s paid his respects to each of the remaining members and signals to Kanagawa to bring the car around.

“What did I tell you?” Miya says with a pleased grin. “Ten minutes on the dot.”

“Even a broken clock is right twice a day,” Kiyoomi says dryly. He nods at Kanagawa, who pulls away from the Inarizaki offices.

“Ha, funny,” Miya says. “I’ve known half of that room since I was a kid. I coulda told you what drinks they’d all order, down to the olive.”

Kiyoomi doesn’t cherish the reminder of how much power Miya has here, but there was the revelation from earlier—what Maeda-san had told him.

He looks at Miya out of the corner of his eyes, surreptitiously studying him. Kiyoomi’s never met Miya’s twin before, but he can only imagine what another one of them might be like. He doesn’t know what Miya Osamu did better than his twin to earn what should rightfully have been both of their inheritances, but something like that doesn’t happen without leaving behind some scars. Kiyoomi doesn’t know what they might be, having spent three years trying to not get to know Miya in any real sort of capacity.

“What is it?” Miya asks suspiciously. He pauses, loosening his tie. His skeptic confusion melts into one of his regularly intolerable smirks. “See somethin’ you like?”

“You’ve had sauce on your face all evening,” Kiyoomi says as impassively as he can.

Miya’s eyes widen in shock and he yelps as he cranes his head to try and look at himself in the rearview mirror.

“Sit down, you’re going to cause an accident,” Kiyoomi snaps and pulls Miya back into his seat.

“There was nothing on my face, you ass,” Miya says and there is enough of a sulk in his voice that Kiyoomi thinks he can see more clearly what Miya might be like, as a sibling.

“Your face is enough, Miya,” Kiyoomi says, his mouth twitching. He turns toward the window and leans his head against the cool glass. “It speaks for itself.”

“My face is the great unifier,” Miya says. “A great face. Everyone agrees. Ten outta ten stars.”

“If you wear a paper bag over your head, it can only improve the matter.”

“You can’t improve perfection, Sakusa,” Miya says. “That’s one of the basic rules of art.”

“There’s so much wrong with what you’ve just said—” Kiyoomi says with a slight yawn. “I don’t know where to start. So I won’t. Please be quiet and let me know peace.”

Miya wouldn’t know how to do that if someone held a gun to his enormous, slightly oversized head. Instead, he stretches his legs and prattles on for the rest of the car ride back. It’s not too long—a quick fifteen minutes or so, but Kiyoomi’s too tired to engage or to snap at him to shut up, so he just rolls his window down and enjoys the wind in his hair as Miya’s voice slightly muffles under the noise rushing past.

By the time they get back to the hotel, his eyes are dragging shut.

“Sakusa,” Miya’s annoying voice whispers too close to him. “Hey Sakusa. Kiyoomi. Omi-kun.”

Kiyoomi’s eyes startle open and his heart starts with a kick in his chest to find Miya hovering close over him. His golden-brown eyes glint in the dark of the car and his hair falls loose into his face, all of the gel worn out. His collar is unbuttoned and his jacket is off and—for a moment, Kiyoomi feels caught off guard.

“What the fuck are you doing, Miya—” Kiyoomi growls and shoves him away.

Miya raises his hands as he falls back onto his seat on his ass.

“I was just wakin’ you up! We’re here at the hotel, geez.”

Kiyoomi ignores the way the back of his neck feels hot and the way his chest seems to be pounding.

“Oh,” he says.

“Yeah, oh, you asshole,” Miya says. He gives Kiyoomi what can only be classified as a stink-eye. “Geez.”

“Sorry,” Kiyoomi says. “I—you were too close.”

“Ya wouldn’t wake up, what the fuck was I supposed to do?” Miya grumbles as he gathers his jacket and scoots out of the car. “Fuckin’ psychopath, just trying to do somethin’ nice for once and this is the thanks I get.”

Kiyoomi takes a deep breath to forcibly calm his racing heart. He shakes his head to wake up more and Kanagawa appears at the door.

“All right, Sakusa-san?” the family driver asks.

Beyond them, Miya’s already petulantly barreled his way to the front door.

“Yes,” Kiyoomi says distantly and climbs out of the car. “Everything’s fine.”

Miya stomps on ahead of Kiyoomi, which is fine, because Kiyoomi has no intention of apologizing again. He catches up to him as he waits for the elevator anyway.

“We’re on the same floor,” Miya says.

“Lucky me.”

“You’re such an asshole,” Miya gripes as the elevator door opens.

They slip inside and Miya jabs the number. The way up is quiet, but for Miya’s grumbling. It’s only when the door slides open to their floor that he seems to cool off.

“To be fair,” Kiyoomi says. “I never claimed not to be.”

Miya’s room is just a few doors down from Kiyoomi’s. Miya stops in front of his, the key card in hand.

“Yeah,” he says finally and his mouth curves up at the corner. “Guess that’s on me.”

Kiyoomi snorts.

“You don’t want to come in?” Miya asks as Kiyoomi starts to move past him.

Kiyoomi freezes, Miya’s fingers circling around his wrist.

“What?”

“It’s not that late,” Miya says. “And I know you’re awake now. I can see it in your eyes.”

Kiyoomi grits his teeth against the onslaught of feeling—Miya’s eyes on him, the press of his fingers against the smooth skin of his wrist. The way he seems to be pinning Kiyoomi in place by force of his expectation alone. The presumption is intolerable.

It’s almost as terrible as how badly Kiyoomi wants to say yes.

“No,” Kiyoomi says carefully. “I’m going back to my room.”

“Come on,” Miya says and his fingers tighten around Kiyoomi. He must be able to feel Kiyoomi’s pulse, rabbit-quick in his wrist. “It’s just us here. No one will know.”

It’s an audacious statement, foolish to say out loud. Kiyoomi would be stupid to take the offer, and it’s nearly shocking how close he is to saying yes anyway.

Miya’s eyes stay on him, bright and intent and so very hungry. It makes Kiyoomi’s resolve waver for a moment.

“Omi-kun—”

“Let me go, Miya,” Kiyoomi says instead. Manages to make himself say.

He swallows down his own hunger, sharp and keen.

Miya doesn’t listen. At least not at first.

“Sakusa—”

“It’s late and I’m tired,” Kiyoomi says, more forcefully this time. He almost avoids Miya’s eyes. “Let me go, Miya.”

Miya lets him go.

Kiyoomi feels the disappointment in his gut immediately. Not because Miya had listened, but because it would have been so easy for Kiyoomi to say yes. A bed and a room. Complete privacy. It’s been months since they’d last fooled around and it had never been anywhere with a soft surface.

Maybe that’s for the best, Kiyoomi thinks as he remembers their situation with a sudden jolt. Miya has a soulmate.

“I will see you tomorrow morning,” Kiyoomi says. Somewhere between the sleepy car ride and Miya’s fingers on his pulse, the light buzz of his earlier drinks had completely worn off.

“Fine,” Miya says and turns to the door. He slides the card through and it beeps open. “Have it your way. Later.”

Miya slips into his hotel room and shuts the door a little too forcefully behind him.

After a moment, Kiyoomi lets out a tense breath, exhaling through his teeth. His head spins a little, his gut clenched tight. It’s hard to get past and even harder to swallow—just how much his body had wanted him to say yes.

Kiyoomi watches the closed door blankly. He takes another moment to shake it off, then he strides down the hall and slips into his room as well.

It’s a weekend that feels longer than it should be and practically speaking is. It’s not the meetings that make it drag. Kiyoomi’s self aware enough to know that. Those don’t help, of course—breakfast the next day starting sharply at eight in the morning and Kiyoomi and Miya and the other Itachiyama directors in back-to-back meetings with the Inarizaki Board straight through until dinner, breaking only for the luncheon around noon. It’s long and exhausting and per his briefing and instructions from Vice President Ota, Kiyoomi does much of the talking. None of the conversations are new—Itachiyama and Inarizaki have had agreements, official and unofficial, in place for years—but they require a certain amount of upkeep, the appearance of innovation.

It’s all corporate bullshit. Kiyoomi texts Motoya and Wakatoshi to say as much. Both are sympathetic to his plight, although not particularly helpful.

You must be patient. Even if it is not interesting or novel, it will be a learning experience, Wakatoshi says, which is wise, but annoying.

isn’t this what yr fighting to the death for HAHAHAHA, Motoya texts, which is only annoying and not even wise.

On top of it all, if Kiyoomi had thought that the tension from the night before might somehow subdue Miya today, he had been sorely mistaken. Miya seems to be noticeably everywhere he is, which is a feat, considering they have been in the same rooms all day.

Whenever Kiyoomi is talking to a board member, Miya is right at his elbow. Whenever he’s leading a conversation, Miya is the first to speak with an idea after him. If Kiyoomi leaves the room to get coffee, Miya also needs coffee. If Kiyoomi needs to piss, Miya needs to piss. If he needs to take a call in the hallway, so does Miya.

It’s unbearable. He’s like a shadow Kiyoomi didn’t ask for and can’t seem to get rid of and instead of it being so fucking transparent that anyone in the room with eyes should be able to see it for what it is—Miya retaliating for the rejection by driving Kiyoomi out of his fucking mind—the idiot board members and directors read it as loyalty.

“Ah, Miya-san is so devoted to you, Sakusa-san.”

“He was never so diligent when he was at Inarizaki, it seems he has really found his legs with you.”

“You two make a wonderful team. I see why Ota-san sent you both with such high commendations.”

“What are you doing,” Kiyoomi finally hisses at Miya at the tail end of lunch, when everyone is taking a few minutes to themselves before gathering again in one of the other conference rooms.

“Tell me to go,” Miya replies with a shit-eating grin that makes Kiyoomi want to knock his teeth in. Kiyoomi’s fingers are around his wrist now; he’s pulled him out into a private hallway and is crowding him against a wall. “Go ahead, Sakusa. Explain to that room of old men who love me and the Miya name that you sent me away. Tell them why.”

Disgusted, Kiyoomi drops Miya’s hand like it’s burned him.

“Is that a threat? Are you threatening me?”

Miya’s eyes glint in challenge.

“No,” he says. “I’m telling you to do it. You want to do it so bad it’s making you crazy.”

Kiyoomi curls his hands into fists and tells himself it’s not worth it—it’s not worth it to shove Miya’s head through the wall behind him.

“Fuck you,” Kiyoomi says lowly. “I’m not afraid of you.”

“Then do it,” Miya says and laughs. “What’s stopping you, Omi-kun?”

Kiyoomi clenches his teeth so hard, he can feel it in the back of his head.

He shoves away from Miya, hard. What Miya’s reaction is—how he looks, what he might say in response—Kiyoomi doesn’t wait for.

“Don’t get in my way,” he says harshly and slams past Miya, back to the conference room.

By the time dinner rolls around again, Kiyoomi has a giant knot between his shoulder blades from an entire day of mounting frustration.

“Sakusa-san,” Maeda-san says, looking at Kiyoomi with concern. “Are you quite all right?”

“Yes,” Kiyoomi says, lying through his teeth. “Forgive me, Maeda-san. I seem to have developed a migraine sometime during the day.”

“Ah of course,” Maeda-san says, ever agreeable and empathetic. “It has been a long day and this is your first time leading such a weekend.”

“I am honored to have been given the responsibility,” Kiyoomi says immediately. “Perhaps I should have had more coffee. Or less, I’m not sure.”

Maeda-san chuckles. “You’ve done remarkably. I will send Vice President Ota a message saying as much.”

Kiyoomi exhales. That, at least, makes him feel better.

“Thank you, Maeda-san,” he says. “I do hope the meetings have been to your expectations.”

“Oh, my expectations aren’t so high. The food and drink have been free and no one has gotten into a fight yet,” Maeda-san says with a grin and a wink. “Although, of course, there’s still time.”

If both Kiyoomi and his archnemesis weren’t consummate professionals—around others, at least—Maeda-san’s remark would have almost seemed like an ominous premonition, a portend of things to come. As it is, no one else seems to notice the tension between the two of them, and by the time the company is well into drinks and loud laughter again, Kiyoomi thinks they might have mercifully escaped the weekend mostly unscathed.

“Ah, it is nice to have such young blood around,” Yoshida-san says, chuckling over a glass of sake that he is carefully sipping at. “You can tell Ota-san we have no more need for him.”

“Ai, Yoshida-san,” another director calls from across the table. “Now what if they go and tell him that? Then you’ll have offended our old friend for nothing at all!”

“Good, serves him right,” Yoshida-san nearly bellows and the room of them laugh heartily. He turns back to Kiyoomi, crinkles at the corners of his eyes. “You can tell him whatever you like, so long as it’s the truth.”

Kiyoomi almost finds himself smiling.

“Are you trying to get me in trouble, Yoshida-san?”

“It would take more than that to offend Ota,” Yoshida-san says. He takes a sip of his drink and smiles broadly. “We’ve known each other since we were—well, younger than you and Atsumu-kun.”

“Was he always the way he is?” Kiyoomi asks and the older man laughs.

“Ota has been exactly as he is since the moment he met Hana-san.”

“I’ve never met Ota-san’s wife before,” Kiyoomi says.

“Ah, no? I’m surprised. There was a time when he would find it impossible to have a single conversation without bringing her up.”

Kiyoomi blinks.

“It’s a sweet story,” Sakamoto-san, who’s sitting a few seats over, says. “Tell the boy, Yoshida.”

Yoshida-san smiles.

“Let’s see. If I remember correctly, they had been good friends much of their lives,” he says. He runs a finger thoughtfully around the mouth of his glass. “But it wasn’t until college that their soulmarks appeared.”

Kiyoomi freezes slightly. Across the table, Miya—who had been talking closely with another board member—suddenly falters in conversation.

“Until college,” Kiyoomi says carefully. He picks up his drink as well, his stomach suddenly churning. “It took that long?”

“Depends how you look at it,” Sakamoto-san says, chuckling. “Some of us didn’t have our soulmarks appear until well after college. Then again, too many of these old men had theirs by middle school.”

A few of the other board members laugh happily.

“They don’t take the rest of us seriously,” Sakamoto-san says conspiratorially. “Say we must be bad luck for taking so so long.”

He laughs, as though this is all in good fun. Kiyoomi doesn’t feel like smiling in return.

Yoshida-san waves his hand good-naturedly.

“Oh don’t believe that nonsense, Sakusa,” he says. “Soulmates are soulmates no matter when they appear. There’s no timeline on these kinds of things.”

Tell that to the Itachiyama Board.

“That isn’t entirely true is it, Yoshida-san?” Miya says, interrupting the conversation.

Kiyoomi’s hackles immediately rise. He bites his tongue, mostly to stop from saying something he will regret saying publicly.

“Is it not? I’ve always found the fuss to be entirely too theatrical,” Yoshida-san says.

“Ah, easy enough to say when you have been with your soulmate nearly since birth!” someone says from across the table.

“That’s true, that’s true,” Yoshida-san chuckles and takes another sip of his sake. “Take what I’m saying with a grain of salt. Still, I’m old now. Older than almost all of you, so I know a thing or two about these things.”

“What do you know?” Miya asks and he’s doing that thing where he appears both eager and strangely respectful.

“This and that,” Yoshida-san says. “Soulmates are important, of course. They are the basis for society. Without them, how would we structure ourselves?”

Kiyoomi’s gut clenches.

“The universe has seen fit to pair us for a reason; soulmates give us direction and purpose and stability. And love, of course. But that isn’t to say there is no value in those who find their soulmates late. Or those who lose their soulmates early.”

A murmur of assent around the room.

“What about those who never find their soulmates at all?” Miya asks and Kiyoomi can feel Miya’s eyes burning on his face. He refuses to acknowledge him. He refuses to be humiliated in this way.

“It is hard for them,” Yoshida-san admits. “Very difficult indeed to live in a world where everyone else has a soulmate. Still, I feel bad saying they shouldn’t be able to participate in society or be trusted. In a sense, it isn’t their…fault that luck has abandoned them.”

“Bad luck,” Sakamoto-san agrees.

“My brother-in-law is like that,” Maeda-san cuts in. He’s nursing a glass himself, a plate of dessert half-eaten in front of him. “He never found a soulmate himself, but he’s had partners in life. I think he’s made do.”

“Does that work for him?” Miya asks.

“He seems happy enough,” Maeda-san says. “Of course it is restrictive. He was passed over for a promotion because his director frowned on that kind of thing.”

That makes Kiyoomi angry. He should probably keep his mouth shut, but this once, he can’t seem to help himself.

“Why should that be?” he asks, his voice with an edge. “Why should his soulmate status determine what he is or is not capable of doing?”

A few of the others look up at Kiyoomi in surprise. Miya doesn’t.

“It shows stability,” one of the other directors says. “Having a soulmate means you are more trustworthy. Reliable. Soulmates come with a certain responsibility and many use that as evidence of character.”

Kiyoomi’s on the verge of saying that’s bullshit, but it’s Maeda-san who speaks first.

“That’s a bit old school thinking, though, isn’t it?” he muses out loud. “There are plenty of people with soulmates who I would not trust to lead a…book club, let alone a company.”

There are some chuckles around the room.

“There are exceptions to any rule of course,” the other man says.

“But why is that the rule, I wonder?” Maeda-san says.

“I don’t know why you’re complaining, Maeda,” the board member next to Miya calls out. “You’ve been bonded for over half your life.”

Maeda-san waves a hand affably and it all just serves to make Kiyoomi more tense, more rigid. All of these old men bandying about theories like it’s all a hypothetical thought experiment. Like deciding power along these old, outdated standards impacts no one. They laugh among themselves while Kiyoomi feels the noose slowly tighten around him.

“Not having a bond doesn’t mean a person is any less capable and being bonded doesn’t make someone trustworthy if they want to be untrustworthy,” Kiyoomi says. He sounds brittle, even to his own ears. He’s so angry, he’s nearly shaking with it.

“That’s true,” Maeda-san says graciously.

“And it isn’t anyone’s fault if they do not find their soulmate,” Kiyoomi continues.

Miya shoots him a warning look.

“Why should someone be punished for that? For poor timing or bad luck or…the universe deciding something else.”

Kiyoomi curls his fingers tightly around his glass.

Why should he be denied something he’s worked so hard for just because he has a personality that no one can tolerate long enough to form a bond with him?

The room falls a bit silent at that, the air growing awkward. Kiyoomi knows he’s playing his hand too obviously here, but he can’t seem to help it—even his Sakusa training isn’t built to withstand his current bitterness.

“I think it’s all bullshit myself.”

There are inhales around the room. Kiyoomi’s head rings and he looks up in time to see Miya lean back in his chair, his body language loose and languid. He has that cocksure smirk on his face, like he is so confident in what he’s saying it doesn’t even occur to him that it might offend anyone else.

“Oh? How so?” Yoshida-san asks, not unkindly.

“Soulmate this, soulmark that,” Miya says and waves a hand dismissively. “You’re all talkin’ like that’s something everyone should want. But what if you don’t? Say you got a soulmate, but you want nothin’ to do with them?”

Everyone around the room blinks.

Sakamoto-san frowns. “Miya-san, what—”

“Don’t see how that’s any more or less reliable than someone who never finds his own,” Miya says with a shrug. “You get one and you don’t want anything to do with them because they suck, or you get one and you choose someone else because you love them instead. How’s that more stable than someone who’s unlucky and doesn’t ever get a soulmark? What about a mark makes anything more or less serious? It’s just some lines on your skin.”

Kiyoomi doesn’t know what Miya is playing at. He hears a kind of ringing in his head that he can’t get rid of.

No one says anything to that immediately; maybe they just don’t know what to say. It’s not that there aren’t people out there talking about these things—young people pushing against old hierarchies and ideas that just because things have always been done a certain way, they must continue being done in exactly that way. It’s just that that kind of radical thinking rarely encroaches on spaces like this, where wealth and old family history are the most important currency and the most efficient way of keeping that currency among the same handful of people is to ignore radical thinking.

Then, Yoshida-san starts to laugh.

“See, this is why we need young blood around here!”

Everyone looks at the older board member with wide eyes and shocked expressions.

“It won’t do to only ever think about things the same way over and over,” Yoshida-san says. He finishes his sake. “Maybe Atsumu-kun and Sakusa-san are right and soulmates mean nothing anymore. Maybe we’re all just too old to see why.”

The tension cracks like an egg and there’s murmurs and chuckles, as sure an indicator as any that this conversation will be forgotten before the night is over.

As everyone begins to turn back to their previous conversations, Kiyoomi stands up, a bit shakily. He takes a deep breath and bows to Yoshida-san and Maeda-san and everyone else in his near vicinity.

“Excuse me,” he says. “I have to take a call.”

He doesn’t. He just needs to get away from—that. From that room of old men, a group of old men so similar to the group of old men who hold his fate in their hands that it’s making it difficult for him to think. He’s furious, so frustrated by this box he’s found himself forced into that he can barely breathe.

His teeth are grinding and his jaw aches. He has the beginnings of a tension headache.

Kiyoomi doesn’t smoke. Not really. It’s a disgusting habit, completely uncouth for someone of his standing.

It’s just that he had made friends with some guys in college who would do a lot more than smoke cigarettes and he’d developed the habit of having one when he felt too high-strung, too tense and rigid for the guys around him.

He only smokes when he’s feeling this stiff and out of control.

There are glass doors that lead out to an open area outdoors, guarded at the edge by railings. It’s a glass parapet of sorts, looking down onto a courtyard from many stories above.

Kiyoomi opens the doors and steps out into the fresh air, exhaling his frustration. He’s not so out of control that he screams, but it’s a close enough thing. He scoots toward one end of the railing, where the glass and steel meet the wall of the building.

Here, he takes out his phone and pretends to make a call while fumbling in his jacket pocket for the pack of cigarettes he keeps hidden there.

He taps out one of them into his palm. Sometimes, Kiyoomi doesn’t even smoke it. It’s the feeling against his palm that helps; the weight there, the possibility of doing something that is so unlike him, so unlike a prim and proper Sakusa.

Kiyoomi likes the motion of smoking more than the taste of it anyway, the inhale and the exhale. He thinks it helps his anxiety to do it, or maybe it just makes him a different person—someone who smokes with other guys. Someone who is fun.

He nearly laughs.

He has never been fun a day in his life.

That’s why he’s never been in a relationship long enough to even court the possibility of a soulmark.

It’s not even that he wants one, necessarily. Or at least, it’s not his priority. If it wasn’t so tied with all of this, if his inheritance—his name, his entire legacy—wasn’t forcing his hand, Kiyoomi might go his entire life without someone at his side and be fine.

He just wants to make the choice for himself.

Thirty-one years old and sometimes, he still feels so fucking young.

“You’re not even pretending to talk on the phone.”

Kiyoomi tenses immediately.

“Relax,” Miya says. “I’m not here to take you back. Or tattle on you.”

Kiyoomi grits his teeth tightly again and then exhales slowly.

“Go away, Miya.”

“You know, I just can’t stand it when you think you got the power to tell me what to do.”

Kiyoomi swallows the urge to groan.

“You are the most intolerable person I have ever met,” he says. “Can’t you read a fucking room?”

“Not a room out here, is it?” Miya says. Kiyoomi only gets another moment of peace before he feels Miya’s presence next to him. “Maybe I can’t read a fuckin—what do we call this? Parapet? Balcony?”

“Miya,” Kiyoomi says.

He must sound as tired and defeated as he does, because Miya doesn’t even say anything aggravating in response.

“Sorry about all that,” he says instead.

Kiyoomi stills.

“I hate it when they get into—all that,” Miya says. “Soulmate bullshit. It’s like they got one topic at hand they ever know to talk about, like how are they different than aunties who sit at home and fortune tell our love lives?”

For a moment that distracts Kiyoomi.

“Do you have…aunties who do that?”

“Don’t ask me about the Miya family and I won’t tell you any lies,” Miya says.

Kiyoomi’s not even sure what that means. He goes back to trying to ignore him.

After a moment, Miya speaks again.

“They’re a bunch of half-dead geezers anyway,” he says. “They’re old, boring, and outta touch as hell. What do they know?”

Kiyoomi has no desire to discuss this with anyone, let alone Miya. It’s bad enough to have a room of near strangers openly judge him for his failing; he doesn’t need his rival—the person he likes least in this entire world—to rub salt in the wound.

Maybe it’s weakness that makes him want to answer anyway. Or maybe it’s just that Miya, for once, falls into silence to wait him out.

“They’re the ones in charge,” Kiyoomi finally says bitterly. “Them. People like them.”

He leaves the obvious unsaid.

Miya doesn’t.

“My uncle,” Miya says.

Kiyoomi swallows and it burns going down.

“Your uncle.”

Miya sighs. It would be natural—normal, even—for someone to follow that with another sentiment, something to soften the blow. Empathy, maybe. Even just a yeah, that fucking sucks.

But Miya’s not normal, so he doesn’t even do Kiyoomi the courtesy of pretending to empathize. It’s likely better that way. It can be so easy to forget what a person is really like when they offer you a solitary moment of kindness when you’re at your most vulnerable.

Instead, Miya rests his elbows on the railing and looks over at Kiyoomi. Kiyoomi, very pointedly, does not look back.

“You gonna smoke that thing?”

Kiyoomi stares down at the cigarette, still in his palm.

“No,” he says finally and slides it back into his pocket.

“For the best,” Miya says. “Can’t stand the smell of smoke.”

“You?”

“Yeah me, asshole,” Miya says with a light laugh. “You’re not the only one with sensitivities, Mr. Bleach Wipes.”

“Everything is filthy,” Kiyoomi says defensively. “There are millions of bacterial spores everywhere.”

“Do not say the word spores to me,” Miya warns, raising a finger.

“Spores,” Kiyoomi says, with relish. “Millions of them. Millions of spores. Everywhere.”

“Ugh,” Miya says. “Ugh!”

For some reason, it’s this that makes Kiyoomi smile. Well, a little.

He exhales again, but this time he can feel the ribbon of tension unwind in his spine.

“It bother you that much?” Miya asks after a minute.

“What.”

“The whole—soulmates thing,” Miya says.

Kiyoomi glares at him and Miya puts his hands up.

“I mean other than that!” he says. “Geez, I didn’t make the stupid rules.”

Kiyoomi mutters something choice under his breath.

“I just mean, talking about it at all—does it really bother you that much? You looked like your head was gonna pop in there. I know it’s a sensitive topic because of the—whole thing—but. People love soulmate shit. Plan their whole lives around it. We’re born wanting it, aren’t we?”

Are they? Kiyoomi’s not sure. He’s not entirely immune to the concept, but he doesn’t think he’s ever wanted it so fervently as others. His sisters, his grade school classmates. Hell, even Motoya and Wakatoshi had expressed their hope to find their own, right before they had.

Kiyoomi’s always been curious. He’s not so cold or unfeeling that he’s above wanting partnership or even romance. He’s a rigid, weird asshole, but even rigid, weird assholes have feelings. Having the universe decide the other half of yourself, using arbitrary measures that he would never know about, though—he’s not sure. He’s always thought he could go either way on it.

“It’s fine,” Kiyoomi says. “I just don’t see why it makes a difference.”

“It doesn’t,” Miya says firmly. “And it shouldn’t.”

Kiyoomi is…surprised by that. After a moment, he turns so that his hip is digging into the railing.

This late at night, the moon is round and bright in the sky. It reflects off of Miya’s blond hair, his golden-brown eyes, the pale, almost gold of his skin. He’s a man who looks attractive in the daylight, and beautiful even stripped of that. There’s nothing here but glass and steel, Miya bathed in the soft glow of the moon, and the wind in their hair.

Kiyoomi’s stomach clenches.

“You have a soulmate,” Kiyoomi says. “It’s easy for you to say.”

“You keep saying that,” Miya says. He looks askance and for a moment, Kiyoomi thinks this person in front of him could almost be vulnerable. “Like it means something to me.”

Kiyoomi’s brows furrow; his mouth tilts down in a frown.

“What?”

After a moment of almost tense silence, Miya looks straight back at him. He laughs, but it’s not a genuine thing.

“You care that I have a soulmark almost as much as those old guys do.”

Later, Kiyoomi will think it was bullshit. Miya, standing there, with his soulmate and a legitimate claim to something that isn’t his—for him to be looking at Kiyoomi like that, to be accusing Kiyoomi of that. It’s all bullshit. It’s easy enough to not want what you have when you have it. Kiyoomi doesn’t have that kind of luxury. For Miya, this is a thought experiment too. For Kiyoomi, it’s his entire fucking life.

In the moment, though, he’s nearly floored by the sentiment of it; the gut punch of being named as the thing he hates too.

He looks at Miya with wide eyes, just a few inches between them. He doesn’t know what to feel and he doesn’t know how to make sense of feeling it altogether.

They’re quiet, the two of them; held still, stiff with tension. The wind in Miya’s hair, his eyes on Kiyoomi’s mouth.

Kiyoomi’s fingers twitch and he wishes he still had his cigarette to hold.

Kiyoomi’s mind wanders, flickers back to the night before. Miya with his hand on the doorknob, his eyes trying to stop Kiyoomi in his tracks. Miya’s fingers, tight against Kiyoomi’s wrist. His thumb pressed against Kiyoomi’s racing pulse.

You don’t want to come in?

Kiyoomi’s mouth dries.

He doesn’t understand—this horrible, gaping, cavernous want. Why should it be like this? Why should it be for the one person he hates?

Miya looks at him for a moment, for two moments, for three unbearable, awful moments. It feels like cracking your molars against the shell of a walnut.

Then he looks away. He leans against the railing again—leans over it, leans down, leans forward—as though he can see it all—across the glittering skyline, across the entirety of Osaka, away, away, away.

“Yeah. I have a soulmark,” Miya says with a laugh and it’s like a slap to the face, it’s so awful to hear said out loud. “Sorry, the universe picked me to give it to, I guess.”

Chapter Text

ACT III: The Ex-Boyfriend Alternative.

It’s true that the Sakusa family has an almost unfathomable amount of wealth at their disposal and that excellent diet, a certain amount of cosmetic treatment, an expensive skincare regime ingrained into their daily routines from their teen years, and generally having the ease of mind that accompanies having an unfathomable amount of wealth at their disposal allows them to age extraordinarily well. It’s also true that the Sakusa family, through general luck, has the good fortune of possessing excellent genetics to begin with. All three of Kiyoomi’s sisters—now at or encroaching on 40—are routinely mistaken for at least a decade younger than they actually are, and even Kiyoomi is often asked how recently he graduated from college.

Still, none of the Sakusa children hold a flame to their mother.

“You look beautiful, Mother,” Kiyoomi says. He leans forward to kiss her cheek, which she only tolerates because it is the one day a year either of them indulge in such a thing. “Happy birthday.”

At 70 years of age, Sakusa Atsuko looks all of the grace and dignity of her new age, with all of the striking beauty of someone at least two decades her junior. Kiyoomi’s a bad judge of his own family members, but he thinks his mother has looked exactly the same his entire life, if you discount the admittedly more prolific silver curls and the very few fine lines she’s developed at the corners of her eyes.

She pulls back from Kiyoomi with a pleased smile and smooths her hands down the shoulders of his suit jacket.

“Thank you, darling,” she says. “I look as old as I feel today.”

Kiyoomi stands still while his mother—distracted from the work on her desk for a brief moment—fusses with him. She smooths down his collar, which wasn’t turned, and fixes his tie, which wasn’t crooked, and runs her fingers through his curls to put them in some array of order, although they were actually cooperating today to begin with.

“You look nothing like your age,” Kiyoomi says. “And you never have.”

“That is kind of you to say,” his mother gives him a smile. “I feel it in any case.”

Kiyoomi looks at his mother questioningly and she finally stops fussing with him and takes a step back to look at what she considers her handiwork.

“Every day I am a bit wearier than I was the day before,” his mother says. “Is that disappointing to hear?”

Kiyoomi shakes his head.

“Of course not.”

“I feel guilty, I suppose,” Atsuko muses aloud. She must be in an introspective mood, because Kiyoomi has never known his mother to waste time musing.

“You have been running this company for decades,” Kiyoomi says carefully. “I think it’s reasonable to be tired.”

“Maybe. There are plenty of people who work until they cannot work anymore,” Kiyoomi’s mother says thoughtfully. “Your grandfather was with the company nearly until his deathbed.”

Kiyoomi keeps his expression carefully blank, which strangely makes his mother laugh.

“It’s all right,” she says. She grants him a small smile that he is disproportionately pleased to receive. “My father didn’t change his personality for any of us. It was hard to take it personally when he treated everyone exactly the same.”

Kiyoomi’s not entirely sure how true that is, but he supposes there is some merit in knowing his grandfather was the same kind of bastard to every person in his life.

His mother shifts slightly, pondering something as she halfway turns toward the enormous ceiling to floor glass that makes up one wall of her office. Tokyo spreads out before them, loud and busy in the middle of the bright, clear morning. Her profile is sharp against the soft morning light, the distinct line of her jaw sweeping back into black, curly hair that is pulled back into a bun. There are dignified streaks of grey that she refuses to color and she has on simple make up; she is simple and elegant beauty, pearl studs at her ears and a pearl necklace at her throat.
Atsuko wears her confidence and authority like a second skin, comfortable in the way that only someone who is not only born to but also raised in that privilege can be.

Kiyoomi has some of that as well—a personal kind of inheritance—but he wears it less elegantly than his mother. Something about him has always been a beat too weird, a hint too rigid, to command authority so naturally. He envies that ease in people like his mother. He will always have to work twice as hard to achieve half of what she has come to wield, at least socially.

“I have shouldered this company for longer than any one person should, I think,” his mother finally says into the silence between them. She looks askance, seemingly at the Tokyo skyline, and for a moment she looks so worn that Kiyoomi can almost believe she is the age he knows her to be.

She turns back and it’s gone, quick as a flash. “I could continue doing so, make no mistake. And perhaps I should.”

Kiyoomi tenses briefly as his mother finally turns back to her desk, where her phone lights up. He can see the missed calls, the line of alerts indicating texts to be replied to.

For a moment she looks at it tiredly without touching.

“But I had children for a reason,” she says. “And it was not so that I would have to continue answering to a room of old men who act like children until I was on my deathbed.”

Kiyoomi has the urge to fidget, but he stands straight-backed and stock still.

“Mother?”

Atsuko shakes her head. “I said I would stay one more year, Kiyoomi. I announced it to the Board. I have no intention of reneging on my promise.”

She had said that; Kiyoomi had been there for it, that awful, frustrating day. Five months ago.

“I’m ready,” Atsuko says. “For all of this to be someone else’s.”

Kiyoomi tenses further. His posture is so rigid now that his spine aches along with the back of his teeth.

“Someone else,” he echoes.

His mother doesn’t reply immediately.

Do you not trust me? Kiyoomi briefly thinks, but is too proud and too old to say. The thought passes through his mind though and that leaves a bitter taste in his mouth.

“I would like for it to be you,” Atsuko says.

“But?”

There’s a but. Atsuko is good, but Kiyoomi can read his mother’s careful expressions—they’re the same as his after all.

“The Board is going to schedule a vote, Kiyoomi,” his mother finally says, looking him in the eyes. “There is a deadline for all of this. Seven months left.”

Kiyoomi’s head pounds. For a moment, his vision blurs. He hangs on, somehow.

“Tell me you have made progress,” Atsuko says quietly. Her mouth thins into a severe line. Her eyes turn hard, her expression shifting from something familiar to something utterly careful, bordering on cold. This is not just the stern, deliberately composed mother Kiyoomi has known all of his life—this is Sakusa Atsuko, reigning CEO of Itachiyama Group, unyielding and unflinching. She has one expectation of him and if he fails her in this, Kiyoomi knows that she will never forgive him or trust him again. “Have you found anyone?”

Kiyoomi’s heart beats irregularly in his chest. He curls his hands into fists and tries to think of someone, anyone he hasn’t yet tried. His mind goes blank but for a flash of blond and the infuriating crook of a smile that he shoves away before the thought takes purchase.

Seven months left to find a suitable partner—a potential soulmate—and all he’s done is spend his time in a pissing contest with someone who will win so long as Kiyoomi loses. He feels a sudden flare of panic in the center of his chest. What has he been doing, not taking this more seriously?

His mother stares at him with unflinching expectation; the pressure is so uncomfortable that it makes Kiyoomi speak before he can think twice about it.

“Iizuna.”

His mother pauses, her hands braced on her desk now.

“Iizuna,” she repeats. She frowns slightly. “Why does that name sound familiar?”

“Iizuna Tsukasa. He was captain of my high school volleyball team,” Kiyoomi says quickly, his heart pounding. “We were together for a time.”

He can see his mother flick through the rolodex of people and places and memories in her head until she finds the right one.

“I’ve met him,” she says.

“A few times. We saw each other until I left for college.”

Kiyoomi’s mother considers this.

“I vaguely recall. His parents were—”

“Lawyers,” Kiyoomi says. “They are senior partners at Nishimura & Asahi.”

“I see.” Atsuko’s expression grows thoughtful. He can tell that she’s pleased by that. Itachiyama has worked with Nishimura & Asahi on numerous occasions; prefers them, often, to the other Big Four law firms. “That’s advantageous.”

Kiyoomi stays still as his mother crosses her arms at her chest, nails drumming against the white silk of her blouse.

“And Iizuna—what does he do now?”

“He still plays volleyball,” Kiyoomi says. “But professionally. He has been in the starting line-up with the Schweiden Adlers since Kageyama switched to the Italian League.”

His mother is hardly likely to be impressed by an athlete, but as far as these things go, being in the starting line-up shows talent and stability and even she knows—through osmosis or otherwise—that the Adlers are the best in the V.League.

“I see,” she says again.

“He’s on the Olympic team as well,” Kiyoomi adds.

“The Olympics?”

“He was called up for the two previous tournaments,” Kiyoomi says. He doesn’t mention that Iizuna was not a starter—couldn’t be, in all honesty, with Kageyama still playing the game. “He played the year Japan won second.”

Even his mother cannot have anything negative to say about an Olympic-winning athlete. Accolades aside, Olympic winners tend to have a ton of sponsorships, which shows financial security and responsibility. She nods in approval.

“You didn’t tell me you were seeing him. Or anyone for that matter.”

“I didn’t want to get your hopes up,” Kiyoomi says, lying through his teeth. “If it didn’t work out.”

Atsuko raises a perfectly manicured eyebrow.

“And has it?”

Kiyoomi refuses to flinch.

“I think it…may,” he says. “It’s going well.”

Atsuko gives her youngest the kind of scrutinizing look only a mother can give.

“Is that true?”

“Yes,” Kiyoomi says. He ignores the prickling at the back of his neck. “I hope so.”

There’s a tense moment between them that stretches so tightly, Kiyoomi desperately wants to fold under the pressure. He has grown up learning how little such things are rewarded, though, so he holds on until his mother finally speaks again.

“There is more on the line here than a simple I hope so can satisfy, but I trust you understand that,” she says.

Kiyoomi clenches his teeth and nods.

“Of course, Mother,” he says. “I know the stakes.”

His mother takes a moment and then nods back.

“Don’t let me down, Kiyoomi,” she says. “Our family legacy is resting on your shoulders.”

Kiyoomi can feel the tension headache threatening to burst; he feels tense and awful all over. But what can he say to that? He knows how important this is. He knows how much is riding on his ability to find someone to—if not love, then to at least tolerate him.

“I know,” Kiyoomi says. “I am doing my best.”

His mother pins him with her intent gaze for a moment longer before finally relenting. Some sort of tension she had been holding seems to unwind from her. At least, her shoulders become marginally less stiff.

“Good,” Atsuko says. Then she straightens with a slight smile. “I’m glad to hear it. Now, go. I expect you will be on time for my birthday dinner this evening?”

“Of course, Mother,” Kiyoomi says. He’s almost run through with relief, to be able to leave this office. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

They choose a quiet cafe tucked into a corner of Daikanyama, away from bustling crowds and prying eyes. Neither Kiyoomi nor Iizuna are quite celebrity enough to be followed relentlessly by paparazzi, but they’re not unknown enough to not draw attention if some happen to be about. This seems like a good middle-ground, a calm place to catch up after so many years apart.

(“High school, huh?” Motoya had said to Kiyoomi after forwarding the number to his phone.

“Two years.” Kiyoomi, in soft, rumpled sleepwear, pulling up Iizuna’s number while sitting cross-legged on Motoya’s bed. It could have been high school itself, only Kiyoomi was slightly less neurotic and slightly more stressed and Motoya had finally gotten a haircut. “Until I went to college.”

“You weren’t even hot in high school.”

“Hey,” Kiyoomi shot a glare at his cousin.

“Sorry, that’s objectively true. You wore that mask all the time and glared at anyone who looked at you twice. Also, you didn’t even learn how to take care of curls until college, which—what’s up with that? You have three sisters.”

Kiyoomi, staring at the blank screen while trying to think of how to break the silence with an ex-boyfriend, over a decade later. “They spent most of my high school years pretending I didn’t exist.”

“To be fair to them, high school Kiyoomi did not want to acknowledge his sisters either. Or anyone else, if he could help it.”

“High school Kiyoomi let you sleep in his bed every other weekend.”

Motoya grinned and shrugged. “You had objectively the most comfortable bed. And I’m hard to say no to, I’m very fun and convincing and cute.”

“No, you just have a hard elbow and no one else knows that you’re more than willing to use it.”

“That’s where the fun and convincing and cute part comes in,” Motoya said with a sparkling expression and a saccharine sweet smile that Kiyoomi hadn’t believed in high school and certainly knew better than to believe now.

He ignored all of that easily.

“What do I say to him? How do you hit up an ex ten years after the fact with the intention of going out with him to determine if he might be your soulmate or at least a feasible enough partner to convince an entire board of a multibillion yen corporation that you are capable of running your family company?”

“How about Hey Iizuna, this is Kiyoomi, from high school. Would you like to get lunch sometime and catch up? and like, none of the other stuff.”

Kiyoomi frowned.

“And that’s fine? He’ll just say yes, sure, let’s get lunch even though we haven’t seen each other or spoken to one another in over ten years and we likely have nothing to talk about because we are different people than we were when we were sixteen and seventeen years old and we do not know anything about each other anymore?”

“Well Iizuna’s not a freak like you, so I imagine he’ll probably leave it just at yeah sure, let’s get lunch, but yeah.”

Kiyoomi looked at his cousin dubiously. He looked at his phone dubiously. He felt dubious, in general, about this entire contrived, last ditch situation.

“Just text him,” Motoya said after a protracted moment of existential dread and accompanied agony. “Worst he can do is say no.”

“Worst he can do is ruin my entire life,” Kiyoomi said. “But sure, let me just text him hey.”

“That’s the spirit!” Motoya said brightly as Kiyoomi began to painstakingly compose his opening message. “And look at the bright side. He couldn’t be any worse than Miya.”)

There’s a bookstore next to the cafe and Iizuna is running a few minutes late, so Kiyoomi browses the outdoor shelves. His fingers trail past the boring financial and self-help books that his sisters and—strangely—Motoya keep trying to convince him to read until he finds a section that is more to his liking. Kiyoomi isn’t a big reader by any means—he doesn’t really have the time for it—but he likes to be well-read, so he usually picks up a large tome that can be considered a classic and reads at a pace of one book a month. Sometimes he tires of being erudite and goes for something less serious and esteemed—his preference is high fantasy—but it’s rare enough that he can’t even remember where he is in the latest series he’s been reading through.

Kiyoomi stops at the fantasy section and picks up a thick book that he’s never heard of or seen before. He’s engrossed in the summary when he hears quick panting and a, “Sorry, sorry!”

He puts the book back before he can be found out and turns to find his old captain—taller and somewhat broader than Kiyoomi remembers him to be, looking a little harried, with a wide, bashful smile on his face.

“Sorry, I swear I left on time. The buses were just doing whatever they wanted today! I could have taken a car, but I had committed already, and you know how I feel about quitting halfway through. There was no turning back.”

Kiyoomi finds himself smiling in response.

“You would rather be late to something than let the Tokyo transportation system beat you?”

“It’s a matter of pride, Kiyoomi,” Iizuna says with that easy manner Kiyoomi had forgotten he possessed. “I think you understand.”

“We have a family driver,” Kiyoomi says.

“And there’s no shame in that at all,” Iizuna says seriously, which almost makes Kiyoomi laugh.

Iizuna Tsukasa clasps Kiyoomi’s shoulders with his hands and gets a good look at him. Kiyoomi does the same, unabashedly. Iizuna’s wearing Adlers track pants with a clean shirt and black jacket on top. His seafoam green hair is a little longer than Kiyoomi remembers it to be and brushed neatly to the side. He looks more mature, but not necessarily older, and broader than he did in high school, the years of volleyball since making his build strong and sturdy. His smile is still wide and easy, though; his eyes warm as he appraises Kiyoomi.

“You look good,” Iizuna says, genuinely. “God, it’s so great to see you.”

Kiyoomi finds something in him thawing. He’s not good with new people, but Iizuna isn’t new and despite the years, Iizuna doesn’t treat Kiyoomi like he’s new either. He’s comfortable—makes the space between them comfortable—as though they have years of history here, which, of course, they do. Iizuna had known Kiyoomi when he was a surly teenager and had liked him enough to date him for nearly two full years. There’s nothing here Kiyoomi could say that would be so off-putting that he would immediately fuck this all up.

That makes him almost relax.

“You look great as well,” Kiyoomi says, and means it too. “It’s been entirely too long.”

“Since you were in college at least,” Iizuna says. “So that’s what…at least six, seven years?”

“I hate to be the one to say it, but it’s been well over six or seven years.”

“No!” Iizuna says, his eyes widening.

“We’re in our thirties now,” Kiyoomi says. His mouth twitches. “So that’s a decade at least.”

“I don’t feel a day over twenty-five,” Iizuna says. Then he grins, something charming and lopsided. “Only when I wake up. And go to sleep. And various times throughout the day.”

“I worked too long at the computer the other day and had to take painkillers to be able to sleep,” Kiyoomi says.

“God,” Iizuna says, sympathetically. “Thirties? Seriously?”

“I know. It seems like it should be impossible.”

“Which is probably why it’s the most likely truth,” Iizuna says. He shakes his head. “Want to sit?”

“Yes, of course.” Kiyoomi turns away from the bookstore and the two of them chat easily as they wait to be seated at the cafe.

It’s a beautiful day for a Tokyo summer, and even Kiyoomi—who is sensitive to almost all weather that isn’t a perfect five degree range in the middle of autumn—is loath to spend their time inside. They’re taken to one of the outdoor tables under an umbrella and Kiyoomi is pleased at the light breeze and the relative lack of humidity which allows his curls to maintain a minimal level of visible frizz.

“So, Itachiyama,” Iizuna says after they’ve settled and ordered their coffees and sandos. “I remember you mentioning your family business in high school, but I’m going to be honest, I was really only paying attention to the volleyball.”

“That was the most important thing to both of us then.”

“You grew out of it, huh?” Iizuna says with a smile that isn’t begrudging.

“It’s still important to me,” Kiyoomi clarifies. “But now there are other things I need to prioritize.”

“Like Itachiyama.”

“Yes, like that.”

“Big company,” Iizuna says.

“Big company,” Kiyoomi agrees.

Iizuna smiles again and drums his fingers along the tabletop.

“I’m on the road a lot, busy with games. But I still read the news.”

Kiyoomi says nothing, although he feels his pulse tick up.

“So is it true?” Iizuna doesn’t sound like he’s wheedling for gossip or information. He’s always been good at that; unlike Wakatoshi, who doesn’t understand the point of gossip, Iizuna knows when gossip is harmless and when it’s something more insidious. Here, Kiyoomi’s old captain—and former boyfriend—looks at him with genuine curiosity. He’s not digging; he just wants to catch up with Kiyoomi.

Kiyoomi exhales, some tension unwinding from his shoulders that he hadn’t even been aware of settling there.

“Yes,” he says. “Mother plans to step down within the year.”

“Oh, wow,” Iizuna says. He looks thoughtful. “Then what happens? Does that mean you—?”

Kiyoomi tries not to flinch.

“That would be the natural passage of things,” he says. “My sisters are married into other families. They’re not in contention.”

Iizuna pauses, his brows furrowing lightly.

“You’re talking a little ambiguously,” he says.

That’s obviously on purpose. Kiyoomi doesn’t want to get into it over coffee and sandwiches, especially not with someone he hasn’t seen since he was eighteen.

“How is the season going?” Kiyoomi says, with a pointed deflection.

Iizuna gives him a look that is too close for comfort, but he can read a room as well as anyone Kiyoomi’s ever met. Kiyoomi doesn’t know if it’s because Iizuna has actual social grace, or if it’s because Kiyoomi’s shoulders are suddenly so rigid again, or if it’s just good fortune that the waitress comes back with their lunch, but the uncomfortable moment passes and Iizuna’s all easy smiles and lighthearted chatter again.

He updates Kiyoomi on the Adlers season—on injuries and transfer rumors and the last game against MSBY, which Kiyoomi hadn’t had time to watch, but had followed along closely on his phone. (It had been one of the closest nail-biters in years, with MSBY taking the Adlers to two additional sets and losing by two points at the end.)

It’s easier than expected, to fall back into old patterns with his old friend. Iizuna is cheerful and expressive, kind and enthusiastic and interesting. It makes Kiyoomi wonder why he had been nervous to begin with; he’s never once felt wrong-footed around Iizuna before. They had been a comfortable pair from the beginning—a match made years ago when Kiyoomi had spotted Iizuna with a lint roller that was similar to his own and immediately latched on.

Feeling buoyed, Kiyoomi tells Iizuna about college, about briefly rooming with Motoya (“We decided two months in that for the future of the family, we had to separate immediately.”), about the past handful of years at Itachiyama, and about the little dating he’s done since their break up. In return, Iizuna catches Kiyoomi up on those first few years after high school—starting in the V.League and playing for the DESEO Hornets—and then, as more time passed, growing more into himself and his abilities, being called as a reserve onto the Japanese National Team as back up for Kageyama and eventually getting the call for the Adlers too.

“It’s harder to date and be a professional player than you’d think,” Iizuna says, finishing off his chicken sando.

“That makes sense to me,” Kiyoomi says. “Your training schedule alone must be much more intense than we even had in high school.”

“Yeah,” Iizuna says. “Training, games, traveling. We’re just popular enough to have enough fans to scare off potential partners, but not popular enough to make that kind of fame attractive. Well, to most people! There’s still fans who are pretty willing.”

Kiyoomi looks at him, bemused.

“There were plenty willing in high school. I can only imagine that’s gotten…worse.”

Iizuna grins.

“Jealous, Kiyoomi?”

“Of my former boyfriend’s extravagant number of paramours?”

“Yeah, that’s exactly how I would put it.”

Kiyoomi smiles and picks up his iced coffee.

“Definitely.”

“I thought so,” Iizuna says. He finishes his sandwich and takes out wet wipes to clean off his hands. Kiyoomi feels a surge of nostalgic affection that leaves him almost disarmed.

“So are you still dating?” Kiyoomi asks before realizing, with mortification, how intrusive that is. It would have been less obvious if he had just come out and asked if Iizuna hadn’t found his soulmate yet. “I’m sorry, that wasn't—”

Iizuna waves a sanitized hand dismissively.

“Natural question to ask,” he says. “I’m not precious about that kind of thing.”

Kiyoomi almost smiles.

“I remember.”

In high school, it had been Iizuna who had asked Kiyoomi out. After practice one day, just the two of them staying late, practicing extra serves and hits. Iizuna hadn’t been shy about asking—he had always been the kind of guy to say what he was feeling, without any insecurity or embarrassment. They had been picking the balls up together, after they’d finished. Iizuna had just wiped his forehead on his training shirt, when he’d looked over at Kiyoomi—also sweaty—and said, cool and so easy, “Hey, Sakusa. Want to go out with me sometime?”

It’s what had drawn sixteen year old Kiyoomi to him—that straightforward, friendly confidence.

“Yes, I’m still dating,” Iizuna says now. “No soulmate or anything. And like I said, there hasn’t been…a lot of time. To search for something more.”

Their eyes meet over the center of the table.

“That’s okay?” Kiyoomi asks. And then quickly, “I apologize if that’s intrusive.”

“I’ve known you since you were sixteen, Kiyoomi,” Iizuna says with a smile. “It’s okay if you’re a little intrusive.”

“Well. Still.”

Iizuna chuckles.

“I’m not torn up about it, if that’s what you’re curious about. I’ve worked too hard at my career, I think. Which I don’t mind—I like my career a lot. I’m really lucky to be able to play professionally. There’s not a lot of people who can say they’ve been able to do that. So I’m willing to make sacrifices for it.” Iizuna takes a sip of his own coffee and shrugs. “Or maybe I’ve just been unlucky.”

Iizuna doesn’t pry in return; that’s why Kiyoomi offers an answer.

“Me too.”

Iizuna curls his calloused fingers around the plastic of his cup.

“Yeah? I’m surprised.”

Kiyoomi frowns. “Why?”

Iizuna looks at Kiyoomi contemplatively, like he’s comparing the one in front of him to the one he used to know. Kiyoomi wonders how he’s changed. He wonders what differences Iizuna now sees.

“It just always seemed like you were searching for your other half,” his old friend finally says. “So I guess…I assumed you would eventually find them.”

Kiyoomi feels his neck heat. His chest constricts.

He doesn’t answer; he doesn’t know what he could say to save face with someone who had once known him so closely.

“But that was high school,” Iizuna says softly. “What did I know?”

As busy as he’s been—as cocooned as he’s allowed himself to become in work, in the dream of his family legacy—Kiyoomi hasn’t allowed himself to think about that in years. He hasn’t let himself feel that in years.

It’s always there though, scraping against the back of his mind—the bare stretch of his unblemished skin, aching in a way he can’t explain. It feels as though there should be something there that isn’t, a phantom mark, physical in its lack.

But that’s hopeless and humiliating to even acknowledge, let alone say out loud; no one itches for a soulmark they don’t yet have.

“I should go back to work,” Kiyoomi says.

Iizuna almost looks disappointed.

“Yeah, of course.”

They split the bill and both rise, Iizuna with an empathetic expression on his face that makes Kiyoomi want to swallow his teeth.

“It was great catching up with you, Kiyoomi,” Iizuna says. He clasps Kiyoomi’s shoulders and looks him in the eyes again and Kiyoomi can tell, without doubt, that he means it. “I’m glad you reached out.”

Kiyoomi nods, his shoulders relaxing minutely despite himself.

“Me too.”

“Don’t be a stranger, okay? Let’s not go ten years again without seeing each other.”

Iizuna smiles and lets go of Kiyoomi. He’s on the verge of turning away, to go back the way he came, when Kiyoomi blurts out—

“Would you like to do this again sometime?”

Iizuna pauses, mid-turn. He can’t quite hide the look of surprise on his face. Kiyoomi doesn’t really blame him; he flushes a little.

After all that, he doesn’t know what he’s doing, really. Only, he’d had a nice time and it wasn’t fair to let one offhand comment disrupt what had otherwise been a perfectly lovely afternoon. He can’t afford to continue being so precious about things like this. His mother’s words keep ringing in his head: Don’t let me down, Kiyoomi. Our family legacy is resting on your shoulders.

Kiyoomi swallows the sudden spark of his nerves. He doesn’t know if his meaning is clear. It’s no hey Sakusa, do you want to go out with me?

He opens swallows his pride and opens his mouth to clarify when Iizuna smiles brightly.

“Yeah, sure,” he says. “I think I’d like that.”

Kiyoomi exhales as Iizuna finally takes his leave. His head is a little fuzzy and his skin is buzzing—not because he’s particularly happy or because the lunch was memorable in any real way, but because it’s been so long since he’s taken a chance with stakes so high.

He had swallowed his pride and gone out on a limb and done what needed to be done, for himself and for his family.

It hadn’t been easy or particularly comfortable for him, but then things like this never are. That’s to be expected. The Sakusa family has built its reputation on weathering through that kind of discomfort in pursuit of the end result. That’s what gives them such sharp business acumen.

Kiyoomi only has seven months left. He can’t, for even a moment, forget this. Seven months to find someone; seven months to see if he can somehow make this work.

Iizuna is kind. He’s successful and intelligent and responsible and charismatic and friendly. He’s a good counterbalance for all of the difficult parts of Kiyoomi—the sharp little barbs that Kiyoomi has never known how to blunt and has never had any desire to try.

That’s the thing too. Iizuna knows Kiyoomi—has known him since middle school. He’d never once asked Kiyoomi to dull any of the parts of himself, the good, the bad, or the difficult. Iizuna had chosen to be with Kiyoomi once before and not ended up hating him for the experience.

It has to work, Kiyoomi thinks. He has to make it work.

Because he can’t bear failure in this—the cost would be unspeakably high. And he doesn’t have any other real options anyway.

Who else would forego their chance at a real soulmate to put up with someone like him?

Who else would date him, knowing how difficult and off-putting and rigid he can be?

If not his old captain—his old boyfriend—then who?

Chapter Text

It’s not that Kiyoomi doesn’t like his job. He wouldn’t be fighting so hard for the company if he didn’t, at a baseline, like or care about what he’s doing. His ego isn’t so large that he would be doing all this for the sake of entitlement.

But sometimes it just feels fucking impossible.

Kuroo Tetsurou doesn’t budge. Kiyoomi hadn’t expected him to—a brick wall can recognize a brick wall—but it makes it no less infuriating to have to deal with on his end.

“I don’t understand the situation. Explain it to me again,” Kiyoomi presses, his palms shoved into his eyeballs.

“Explain? What the fuck is there to explain?,” Miya bitches in return. “‘slike I said. Hinata won’t fuckin’ talk to us. Every time I try and approach the guy, he deflects.”

“Why?” Kiyoomi asks through gritted teeth. “What is keeping Hinata from taking your calls?”

“I don’t fucking know!” Miya says and throws his hands into the air. “Not like I know the guy. I met him one time at a gala or some shit where they were introducing ingenues in the industry and—”

Kiyoomi shifts one palm to the side and peers out at Miya from next to it.

“What did you do?”

“What?”

“If Hinata met you one time and now wants nothing to do with us, I can only assume—”

“Assume my ass, Sakusa!” Miya shouts and flips him off from where he’s laid out.

“I’ve seen your ass,” Kiyoomi mutters under his breath. “Nothing to write home about.”

It’s late, well into an evening where it’s just the two of them and a handful of others scattered around the division floor. Kiyoomi feels so drained by this point that he’s even let Miya into his office.

Kiyoomi himself is slumped back against his leather chair, staring vacantly up at the ceiling and wishing for a swift death. Miya’s in a mild state of disarray: down to his shirt, his collar unbuttoned and tie loosened, light blue sleeves rolled up to his elbows. He’d lost his jacket hours ago—in the middle of an infuriating evening spent going back and forth between Nekoma and Hinata’s people—and is now sprawled across Kiyoomi’s nice leather couch.

It’s not even tempting or sexy because the frustration in the room is so high and it’s not even the interesting kind.

“Does he fuckin’ know that?” Miya bursts out loud. “Does Kozume? Like if he’s so fuckin’ insistent on this direction, can they not fucking talk to the guy?”

Kiyoomi’s had had the exact same thought because, frankly, it’s the only reasonable one. They’re at the tail-end of nearly a year and a half’s worth of negotiations, and they are being held up by one single detail. And, for no reason Kiyoomi can fathom, that detail—that person—just will not relent.

“He must be happy at Karasuno,” Kiyoomi says tiredly. “They treat him well. He’s been there for nearly a decade. He got his animation start there. I guess he has loyalty to them.”

“That’s all fine and fuck,” Miya says, continuing his bitching. His legs are hanging off one side of the couch and he has his arm cast over his face like a Victorian widow with consumption. “But either he needs to tell Kozume that himself and Kozume needs to get someone else he’s willing to lead the fucking thing, or Kozume needs to tell his friend that he’s not gonna fuckin’ die if he takes a multimillion yen deal to become director of a bigger studio. Fuck’s sake, you’d think we were—I dunno. Trying to get him to swim through a river of shit or something instead of givin’ him the biggest career boost of his miserable little life.”

Kiyoomi tilts his face down to stare at Miya in horror.

“Really.”

Miya frowns.

“What?”

“Out of all comparisons, that’s what you chose to go with? A river of shit?”

Miya exhales aggressively and waves his arms around a bit. “I didn’t have time to think of something else! I was on the clock!”

“What clock? Who put you there?” Certainly not Kiyoomi, who neither asked for Miya’s companionship nor his horrible analogies.

“Now’s not the time for your usual sparkling personality, Sakusa,” Miya says and Kiyoomi’s so tired he thinks: fair enough. Miya waves a hand vaguely above him. “You understand what I’m tryna say and all.”

“Unfortunately,” Kiyoomi says. He stares back up at the ceiling gloomily. His teeth hurt from grinding them out of frustration and his shoulders are so rigid with tension, his entire back is aching.

He closes his eyes and he thinks: am I unhappy? And also: why me? And finally: did I do this to myself? Do I deserve this? Am I the problem?

There’s a huffy sort of silence from Miya.

Kiyoomi is fighting so hard to keep a company that he might lose anyway if he doesn’t secure this fucking partnership. His near every hour is spent in devotion to this thankless task—this thankless company—and what hours he has left over he now spends in pursuit of something that he is only pursuing because a room full of crotchety old men think that he cannot run said company by himself without a divinely ordained fucking keeper.

Is this all worth it? he wonders, not for the first time. Maybe it’s easier to just be the family disgrace.

“We should drink,” Miya says suddenly, interrupting Kiyoomi’s somewhat theatrical ennui.

Kiyoomi’s not sure he’s heard correctly.

“What?”

“Drinking,” Miya says and he’s suddenly pushing himself up on the couch and looking at Kiyoomi with wide, slightly manic eyes.

Kiyoomi blinks at him.

“I don’t think—”

“No, you think too much,” Miya says, flapping a hand at him. “You think too, too much and that’s your fuckin’ problem, you know? Or like half of it.” A pause. “A good portion of it.”

Kiyoomi glares at Miya, but it lacks conviction. Even his perpetual ire at his nemesis has taken a hit among all of this. It’s depressing, to say the least.

“I know you got alcohol around here, Sakusa,” Miya says. He’s fully sitting up now, his hands braced on his thighs. For one treacherous moment, Kiyoomi’s brain lags and he eyes the way Miya’s unreasonably well-toned forearms seem to bulge.

“I don’t, actually,” Kiyoomi says and Miya looks flabbergasted.

“What. Are you—serious?”

“It’s my place of employment, Miya,” Kiyoomi says, frowning. “Why would I keep alcohol here?”

“Because you’re like the vice president of business people or whatever and you have clients you gotta wine and dine and you stay late in the office so much you practically live here?”

Kiyoomi stares at Miya like he’s lost his mind, which, well. Not out of the question.

“We do not ply clients with liquor in the office,” he says. “And how are any of those real reasons for storing alcohol in a professional setting?”

Miya looks back at Kiyoomi like he’s the biggest disappointment he’s ever met, which makes Kiyoomi rankle a bit. Before he can snap at Miya though, Miya shoves himself up.

“Fine. Don’t ask a Sakusa to do what you gotta do yourself!”

Kiyoomi doesn’t even know what that means.

“What the fuck does that mean!” he asks, raising his voice as Miya nearly bounds out of Kiyoomi’s office and across the hall toward his own office.

Kiyoomi is given about as much time to sit with his thoughts as is needed to question approximately half of his last choices before Miya appears in his doorway again. He has an unopened bottle of—

“Is that…plum wine?”

“Yeah,” Miya says with a half grin. He comes sauntering into the office and, ignoring all decorum and Kiyoomi’s unspoken rule that Miya should never be within half a room of him, invites himself to collapse into one of the comfortable leather chairs Kiyoomi keeps on the opposite side of his desk.

“You just keep a bottle of plum wine in your off—are you going to drink at my desk?”

“No, we are going to drink at your desk,” Miya says. “Read a fucking situation.”

“I am going to reach across this table and strangle you.”

Miya waves a hand dismissively.

“Your arms’re long, but not nearly as long as all that. Relax. Do you have glasses?”

“Stop looking at my arms—what? No.”

Miya looks at Kiyoomi again as though he’s the unreasonable one here.

“How do you get less useful every time you open your mouth, Omi-Omi?” Miya says. “Like, it’s gotta be a challenge at this point. You’re winnin’ though, so that’s good I guess.”

“I’m not useless—what did you call me?” Kiyoomi nearly shrieks the last bit. He doesn’t actually shriek, because he would rather die than give Miya the opportunity to hear such an undignified sound from him, but the words do get a bit strangled near the end there.

“Sakusa,” Miya says and suddenly he’s looking Kiyoomi dead in the eyes with a serious expression on his face. “You can sit there and continue to stew in your frustration and think about all the ways you want to, but can’t kill Kuroo fuckin’ Tetsurou, or you could drink some relatively expensive umeshu with me, at your desk, straight from the bottle, and for like a few hours, forget the fact that you wanna but cannot actually kill Kuroo fuckin’ Tetsurou.”

Kiyoomi hesitates.

Miya’s expression softens.

“Please,” he says. “We’ve been workin’ our asses off for this account. It’s Friday, it’s late as fuck, we both wanna bang our skulls in. Put the claws away for a few hours and get a little stupid with me.”

Kiyoomi shouldn’t. By every personal consideration and professional metric, he should under no circumstances give in to Miya’s infuriatingly wide and beseeching—and, frankly, manipulative as fuck—eyes and prodding voice and unwelcomingly comfortable, forward-leaning body posture and—

But Kiyoomi’s tired and he’s frustrated and he has been working his ass off for an account that has proven nearly as thankless as it has thorny.

Let no one ever accuse Miya Atsumu of not capitalizing on a moment’s hesitation. He unscrews the cap and places it on Kiyoomi’s desk between them.

“When you want to stop, we’ll stop,” Miya says. “Okay? I promise.”

There’s some saying about sleeping with sharks that would probably be appropriate for Kiyoomi to remind himself of now. Miya is, in every way possible, a predator. A rival, an enemy—out only for Kiyoomi’s blood. It would be dangerous to forget something like that.

Not breaking eye contact with Kiyoomi, Miya slowly slides the bottle toward him.

“I’ll even let ya take first sip. So you can control the germs or…whatever.”

Kiyoomi’s mouth almost twitches.

“That’s not how germs work, you imbecile.”

Miya must know he’s broken through the steel will of Sakusa Kiyoomi, because he outright grins.

It should bother Kiyoomi more, to be played as deftly as he has been, but at the moment all he can think is: it’s late as fuck on a Friday night, he wants to bang his skull in, and what he could use is a few hours where he forgets just how high the stakes always are.

The thing is—actually, Kiyoomi loves plum anything. Pickled plums, plum candy, plum jam, onigiri with pickled plum inside. It’s that specific combination of something sweet with a sour burst on his tongue that he finds utterly addictive. He can go through an entire bag of umeboshi in one sitting if he’s stressed or bored enough. Shigeru had noticed this on his own and has since made sure to keep at least two bags of it in Kiyoomi’s desk drawer at all times.

Kiyoomi’s mouth curls up at the edges as he puts the bottle of plum wine down on his desk, the tartness of the plum hitting the back of his tongue with the alcohol.

“Okay, you can’t be drunk already,” Miya says, squinting. “We’ve had like three sips each.”

“Shut up, Miya,” Kiyoomi says. “Stop ruining the moment.”

“What moment?” Miya asks and his eyes widen. “We were havin’ a moment? You didn’t tell me we were having a moment, so how was I supposed to know that I was interrupting it?”

Kiyoomi glares at him. It’s half-hearted though, because the wine is very slowly working its way through his blood. He takes another long sip before finally sliding the bottle back to Miya.

“Why did you have umeshu in your office?”

“Are you serious? This again?”

Kiyoomi waves a hand. He leans back against his chair and closes his eyes briefly. His head is pounding slightly—not from the alcohol, but from this long fucking week.

“No, I mean, of all things. Plum wine?”

“Oh.”

Miya snorts. Kiyoomi doesn’t open his eyes. He hears the scrape of the glass bottle against his desk as Miya leans forward and picks it back up.

“Got it from a client, actually.”

Kiyoomi frowns. His eyes flicker open.

“Did you report it to HR?” he says. “You know you’re supposed to report any gift that costs more than 5,000 yen.”

Miya gives him an annoyed look.

“What, are you gonna tell on me? Be a little snitch over a bottle of wine you’re drinking now too?”

“Was this your plan all along?” Kiyoomi says with narrowed eyes. “To implicate me in your human resources crime?”

“Don’t call it that!” Miya says, choking on the mouthful of wine he had been in the middle of swallowing. “That makes it sound like I—don’t call it that!”

That makes Kiyoomi grin. He hadn’t meant it that way, but he’s on the verge of being loose enough now for that to amuse him.

“You’re a complete asshole,” Miya says, wiping his mouth. “Anyone ever tell you that?”

“Not to my face,” Kiyoomi says. “That’s not the sort of thing you can tell someone from a rich family without courting consequences.”

Miya—leaning back in the leather chair across from Kiyoomi, bottle in his hand—tilts his head just a little.

“Huh. Really?”

Kiyoomi raises an eyebrow and Miya shrugs.

“I been called it plenty of times,” he says. “Asshole. Bastard. Jerk.” He pauses, his mouth twitching at the corner. “Imbecile.”

Kiyoomi almost grins again, but he’s not that drunk yet.

“Well if the shoe fits…”

“Asswipe!” Miya says loudly, waving the bottle in front of him. “It’s because of my no-good, stinkin’ twin!”

“Oh right, there are two of you,” Kiyoomi says. He remembers, briefly, being told that Miya’s twin brother was chosen to inherit their family company, while Miya wasn’t. “What’s the story there?”

Miya shrugs.

“No-good, stinking twin brother,” he says. “Like I said.”

Kiyoomi raises an eyebrow.

“Do you hate him?”

An emotion that is shockingly genuine flickers across Miya’s face.

“What? He’s my fucking twin brother! Why the hell would I hate my twin brother?”

“People hate their siblings all the time,” Kiyoomi says. “Is that not common?”

“If you fucking suck, maybe,” Miya says with a sniff. He takes another sip and passes the bottle back across the desk. “I mean he does suck, don’t get me wrong. He’s the worst guy alive. Annoying as hell. Stinky. Boring. Unfunny. Can’t fight worth shit.”

Kiyoomi’s not sure what to say to that. Miya’s saying one thing, but his tone indicates another. Instead of prodding, he just takes the wine back and waits for Miya to continue.

Miya slumps back into the leather chair a bit more.

“He’s good with people, though. Or like, better than me.”

“You don’t strike me as bad with people.”

Kiyoomi doesn’t mean for it to be a compliment, but there’s no other way to really interpret what he’s said.

Miya doesn’t gloat for once. Instead, he looks mildly surprised.

“What, really? Never been told that before.”

Kiyoomi’s confused. Miya is a lot of things—rude, brash, reckless, infuriating, arrogant, annoying—but these are all characteristics that, as far as Kiyoomi can tell, no one else has picked up on. Against Kiyoomi’s advice, everyone else at Itachiyama loves Miya Atsumu.

“I don’t get it.” He takes a sip of the wine.

“I guess…that’s good, then. If you think people think that. Not really my history at Inarizaki,” Miya says. He half-grins. “Or anywhere else for that matter. ‘Samu’s the nice twin, the amiable one. Cooperative and reasonable and polite and all that. I’m—all the opposite. Problem is I don’t really give a shit what people think about me, really. Except for the people that really matter. You know what I mean?”

Kiyoomi…does. That makes him feel uneasy. There’s no way he and Miya have something in common.

“So I spent my whole life competing with that, in a way. The respectability ‘Samu could bullshit through and that I didn’t really have the savvy to realize was important in this kinda world. To me…as long as you’re good at what you’re doing, as long as you’re the very best, who cares what your attitude is, you know? Well, people didn’t like that very much.”

Kiyoomi gets it and doesn’t. The Sakusa family values etiquette and propriety to an extreme degree, so Kiyoomi could never sit here and agree with who cares what your attitude is? but the rest makes sense. As long as you’re working hard and meeting the high standards that need to be met—well, it shouldn’t matter that much if you’re a little rude or off-putting.

“Okay,” Kiyoomi says, tilting the bottle toward Miya slightly. “So your twin played the game and you didn’t. And that’s why people called you asshole to your face.”

Miya gives him a rueful smile.

“Pretty much.”

Kiyoomi nods. He takes another sip of the wine, enjoying the way the tension has been steadily unwinding from his shoulders. His head is starting to swim, just a little, in a pleasant way. He suddenly feels too hot in his jacket.

“No one’s called you that?” Miya says after a moment of silence.

Kiyoomi frowns and stares up at the ceiling. Then he moves forward and shrugs out of his suit jacket.

“No,” he says. He pauses. “Well, one person. It was in college.”

Miya looks too interested by half.

Kiyoomi would never—not in a hundred years—tell the story unaided by alcohol. But, as it is, he has been drinking on an empty stomach.

“It was someone I was dating.”

“Ohh, Omi-kun, didja break someone’s heart?”

Kiyoomi folds his jacket carefully and slings it over the back of his chair. He turns back around and glares at a grinning Miya.

“We had been dating three months,” he says. “How was I to know there was a heart to break!”

“Oh, god. I was just joking, but you really did break someone’s heart.”

Kiyoomi sniffs a little haughtily. The effect of it is a little marred by how loose and almost…light he feels now. He almost wants to smile for the fun of it.

“It was my second year in university,” he says. “I was 19 years old and we had been dating for three months.”

“Uh huh.” Miya leans forward a little. The umeshu is briefly forgotten between them. “So what’d ya do? Ghost them? Cheat on them? Tell them exactly what you thought of their skills in bed?”

“I would never cheat on someone,” Kiyoomi says frigidly and Miya puts his hands up in placation.

“Sorry, sorry. Didn’t mean it like that. I was just thinking of shitty scenarios 19 year olds get themselves into. Go on.”

Kiyoomi glares a little more, but then continues.

“We were in the same accounting class. I forget his name now. Kazuo or Yamato or—something. I don’t know. He was cute and he would ask me for my notes every other day. He was obviously flirting. I wasn’t stupid enough to not know when a cute guy was flirting with me.”

Miya looks at Kiyoomi with interest. He snags the wine and sits back with it.

“I liked that he was flirting with me,” Kiyoomi says with a shrug. “And he was nice to look at and he was smart. He wasn’t afraid of me or my family name.”

Miya’s expression softens at that, like maybe he gets it.

“He asked me out halfway through the semester and I said yes. We went on a nice date and then he took me back to his apartment.”

Miya’s eyes widen.

“Shut up, Miya. You know I’m not a prude.”

Miya chuckles. He lifts the bottle in a toast. “Fair enough.”

“So—whatever. That went on for three months. I suppose we were dating.”

“Ohhh that suppose is doin’ a lotta work there, Omi-kun.”

Kiyoomi tries to look severe, but Miya’s not wrong. He tries not to laugh instead.

“Yeah,” he says. “We never said anything, but he had expectations and I was 19 years old. My youngest older sister was engaged to be married to a rising politician, my other two sisters had already found soulmates who were poised to inherit two of the largest firms in Japan. And this boy in my beginning accounting class whose parents were probably…teachers or salarymen thought we were dating.”

“Yeesh,” Miya says.

When Kiyoomi puts it like that, there really is no other way to interpret the situation. He had broken up with a guy he’d liked because even at age 19, Kiyoomi had known the boy’s family wasn’t good enough for him.

“Asshole,” Kiyoomi says gloomily.

“Yep,” Miya says. “No two ways around that one.”

Kiyoomi sighs and Miya slides the wine bottle back across the desk. It’s about half-empty now, which means that they’ve made some pretty good progress individually.

“He’s the only one who said it to my face,” Kiyoomi says. “I’m sure everyone has called me it behind my back, though.”

Miya shrugs and waves a hand.

“It’s whatever,” he says. “What kind of an insult is that anyway? No creativity. Who isn’t an asshole these days?”

“Shigeru,” Kiyoomi says promptly and Miya pauses.

“Okay, that’s fair,” he says. “That kid is so nice.”

Kiyoomi smiles.

“I’ve been called other things, though,” Kiyoomi says.

“Like what?”

“Mmm.” Kiyoomi takes a mouthful and sets the bottle on his thigh. “Cold. Rigid. Snobby. Prissy. Pretentious. Elite prick.”

Miya gives him a look that clearly says: well if the shoe fits.

Kiyoomi can’t help but laugh.

“Fuck you.”

“Can’t help who you are, Omi-kun,” Miya says with a vague smile. He tilts his head up and looks at the ceiling.

Kiyoomi takes the moment to look at him—really stare at Miya—with his half-drunk, rose-tinted gaze. Miya’s newly toned blond hair, a little messy at the end of their long day, his thick, dark eyebrows and long lashes, the clean slope of his nose, and the sharp, pink angle of his mouth. The buttons on his shirt have been popped open to expose the top of his throat. Kiyoomi has bitten into the line of it before, has pressed his fingers hard enough into Miya’s neck to bruise—always in a heated, almost angry fuck that was nearly as maddening as it was momentarily satisfying.

He swallows and looks away, trying to ignore the gnawing in the pit of his stomach.

“Learned that the hard way, I think,” Miya says, oblivious to Kiyoomi’s squirming. “It’s—when you’re a twin you don’t really got a choice. It’s eat or be eaten. If you don’t find a way to make yourself you, then you’ll always be them. So ‘Samu and I found ways to be different, because everyone else wanted us to be the same.”

Kiyoomi watches Miya unblinkingly.

“Problem is, sometimes people won’t like the person you are or who you chose for yourself to be,” Miya says. “But what can you do? Be someone else? Just because people like your stupid, nicer twin brother more? Fuck that. I’d rather be known as the asshole twin than have people call me Osmau the rest of my life.”

Kiyoomi’s fingers close hard around the bottle.

He’s never been a twin and he’s never had a sibling close enough in age for him to feel anything close to that level of futility. But eat or be eaten, make a name for yourself or have another name chosen for you—he gets that. He’s been a Sakusa first and Kiyoomi second for his entire life.

Wanting the freedom to just be yourself—no matter how frigid or cantankerous or difficult or unpleasant—Kiyoomi understands that better than anyone.

Miya falls silent. After a minute, he tilts his head back down to look at Kiyoomi.

Kiyoomi considers this. Considers the person before him: not his enemy, or his rival, or one of a set of twins. Kiyoomi looks closely at the person across from him and considers Miya Atsumu.

Miya doesn’t squirm under the scrutiny. Nor does he glare or make a face or do any of the dozen things he would normally do to piss Kiyoomi off.

Kiyoomi stares at Miya and Miya—meeting his gaze equally—stares back.

It’s only then that Kiyoomi understands. He knows exactly what to say.

“What color is your brother’s hair?” Kiyoomi asks.

Miya’s expression doesn’t change for a moment.

Then, slowly, he grins.

“Grey,” he says, and Kiyoomi passes the bottle of umeshu back across the table.

“In retrospect, it was clear enough that he was aiming for me,” Iizuna says with a vaguely guilty expression. He crumples the corner of his napkin and then uncrumples it, smoothing it out neatly against the edges of the table. “He was trying to rile me up and it worked. So I shouldn’t have taken it out on Hoshiumi for pointing it out.”

Kiyoomi looks up at his former captain, bemused.

“I’ve never known you to lose your temper.”

“It wasn’t that bad!” Iizuna says, waving his hands in front of him. He pauses. “I think. Better not to ask Hoshiumi.”

Kiyoomi chuckles and signs the bill.

“I only met him once,” Kiyoomi says. “I was in my last year of college and the Adlers came to campus to watch one of the college games. Recruiting for one of their open hitter positions.”

Iizuna looks surprised. Kiyoomi almost smiles at the memory.

“I had stopped playing by then,” he says. “So I wasn’t in contention. But I still had a few friends on the team who were very good.”

“How does Hoshiumi play into this?”

Kiyoomi folds his slightly used napkin and places it carefully on his finished plate. Then he rummages through his jacket pockets for his pack of wet wipes.

“The Adlers sent Hoshiumi as part of their recruitment team.”

“Shut up!” Iizuna says, a touch too loudly. “Hoshiumi?”

“I didn’t say it was a good recruitment team,” Kiyoomi says.

Iizuna laughs at that, bright and loud.

Kiyoomi doesn’t want to be rude, but he has an afternoon meeting he needs to get back for and he knows that Iizuna has some press training event that he needs to get across town for as well. He gets up and a moment later, Iizuna finishes the last of his ramune and follows suit.

“Did he say anything to you?” Iizuna asks.

“Hoshiumi-san? He didn’t have to,” Kiyoomi says. “All he did was stare at me across the court and I left that practice as quickly as I could.”

“Aww, he was just being friendly,” Iizuna says with an amused smile as they walk to Iizuna’s bus stop.

He and Kiyoomi turn toward one another after they’ve reached the little bus shelter.

“That’s how he makes friends,” Iizuna explains.

“By scaring them?”

“Yeah. He says the amount of fear a person has to have in order to be in his good esteem needs to be directly proportional to twice his entire height, measured from his feet to the tip of his spiky hair.”

Kiyoomi stares at him.

“Are you fucking with me?”

Iizuna smiles that mischievous, teasing smile that Kiyoomi had been so enamored with as a teenager.

“It’s safer not to say.”

Kiyoomi’s mouth twitches.

“Thanks for lunch,” Iizuna says. He gets out his phone to check for the next bus. Kiyoomi can read the schedule over his shoulder—two minutes.

“Thank you for coming all the way out here,” Kiyoomi says. “I apologize for having been so busy lately.”

“No worries. You have that project you’re working on,” Iizuna says with a forgiving smile. “I get it. I’ve been in and out traveling to games too.”

“You leave again this weekend?” Kiyoomi has always followed the Adlers, but he has even more of a reason to keep a close eye on them now. Although he hasn’t had an opportunity to see his old friend—boyfriend—person he’s dating in action yet.

“Away to play EJP,” Iizuna says. He sticks his hands into his jacket pockets and grins. “Should be fun!”

“Mmm.”

The Raijin are pretty good this year. Kiyoomi makes a mental note to try to catch the game.

“Kiss goodbye?” Iizuna asks.

“That won’t be a problem for you?” Kiyoomi asks quizzically and Iizuna shrugs.

“It’s only a problem if you let it be one,” he says, which isn’t really an answer, but Iizuna doesn’t seem to be lying or pretending to save face. That’s not his nature anyway. The more likely scenario is that he just doesn’t care what gets printed about him in the tabloids, which is a quality Kiyoomi can deeply respect.

Kiyoomi leans down—Iizuna is just a few inches shorter than him—and feels Iizuna’s volleyball-rough fingertips touch his cheek. They share a kiss, quick and chaste. It’s…nice. Perfectly sweet.

“Thanks,” Iizuna says and smiles broadly. “Call me later if you have time! I want to know how that meeting goes.”

Kiyoomi doesn’t think anyone should want to know how anyone else’s meeting goes. Meetings are, fundamentally, completely boring. But Iizuna always says it like he means it—which Kiyoomi is certain he does. He’s a really good guy.

“Of course,” Kiyoomi says and steps back as the bus appears a block away.

Iizuna gives him a quick nod, a smile, and disappears into the bus behind a line of other passengers.

Kiyoomi watches the bus pull away from the curb. He frowns slightly, feeling a little…he’s not sure he can identify it really. It’s kind of like looking down at your phone and seeing no messages, or waiting for your favorite show to come back from commercial, only to have to sit through another one. It’s not disappointment. It’s kind of nothing.

Maybe it’s not an active feeling and that’s why he can’t put his finger on it. It’s the lack of something—a missing piece he can’t puzzle out.

It’s not necessarily bad. It’s just not necessarily anything.

Itachiyama is maybe a fifteen minute walk from where he and Iizuna had chosen to meet up for lunch. Kiyoomi likes the physical activity and he could use the time to reorganize his thoughts before heading into his meeting with the communications team.

He thumbs through his phone as he starts his walk back, answering a few urgent emails and ignoring a few choice texts. (Among them: a text from his oldest sister asking him what he plans on wearing to a political fundraising dinner for her husband that he has to attend, a text from his father offering unsolicited advice on how to do his job, a text from Wakatoshi wanting Kiyoomi’s thoughts on whether he is accidentally killing a houseplant that Tendou left him with while he’s abroad in France, and a text from his mother that Kiyoomi has been ignoring with a sharp stab of panic for two days based solely on what it says, which is: Bring Iizuna home for dinner. The Board is preparing to set the date and it’s time we met him.)

He sees his mother’s message again while trying to ignore it and he ignores the way it makes him feel, which is to say with a distinct tightness in his chest that makes conditions less than ideal for him to breathe.

Kiyoomi squeezes his phone a little harder than necessary and then, taking a breath, calls the only person in this world equipped to handle him at his worst.

He picks up after the second ring.

“Kiyoomi, it’s 1:30 pm on a Wednesday,” his cousin says. “Are you dead? Are you dying? Did someone forget to flush the toilet at work again?”

“Why would you—” Kiyoomi says with a slightly undignified gasp and then grits his teeth. “You always do that on purpose.”

“And it’s alway fun,” Motoya says. Then he clarifies, “For me. What’s up?”

“Ugh,” Kiyoomi says.

Motoya’s chuckle isn’t condescending. He doesn’t have a condescending bone in his body, so it’s really a wonder why he puts up with Kiyoomi at all.

“That good, huh?”

“She’s driving me insane, Motoya,” he says.

“It’s—how do I put this?” his cousin pauses over the line. “How do I put it in a way that won’t make Auntie want to kill me?”

“She can’t read minds,” Kiyoomi grumbles. He crosses the sidewalk and waits at the corner for the light to change. “You’re just easy to read.”

“Those two statements are contradictory!” Motoya says. “I’m not stupid, I know that when you inherit the company you’re given magical Sakusa powers that only pass down directly through the bloodline.”

“What are you talking about?” Kiyoomi says. “Have you been eating sugar again?”

“Anyway!” Motoya says. “All I mean is that this isn’t anything new. So what this time?”

Kiyoomi lets out a breath that’s as aggressive as it is weary.

“The same thing,” he says. “The same thing she’s been harassing me about for the past eight months. The same thing my father has been emailing me about and my sisters have been pulling me aside at family functions to lecture me about. Are you looking for a soulmate, Kiyoomi? Have you found a partner, Kiyoomi? Do you need help finding someone, Kiyoomi? You’re not taking this seriously enough, Kiyoomi. Our family legacy depends on you, Kiyoomi. If I have to hear about it one more time—if I have to hear the word soulmate one more time, I’m going to open a window and jump.”

“Okay, don’t do that,” Motoya advises. “If you survive, it’s gonna hurt so bad. Also—I’m sorry, Uncle is emailing you?”

“Motoya.”

“Sorry, that man can barely express himself in person! I can’t imagine him typing out an entire email about the serious ramifications of the lack of your love life.”

“They’re not long emails.”

“Can you forward one to me?”

“No.”

“Kiyoomi!”

“Motoya.”

“Please!”

Kiyoomi ignores him.

The light changes and he crosses the street, following behind a few men in suits who are also presumably heading back to the office from their lunch breaks.

“That sucks though,” Motoya says. “I know how aggressive our family can be. And it’s not like you’re not trying.”

Kiyoomi doesn’t answer Motoya immediately. His stomach twists, like he has a slight cramp.

“Kiyoomi,” Motoya says quietly. He knows how to read Kiyoomi better than anyone. Their family branches diverged in terms of business and political power, but Kiyoomi and Motoya had still grown up together. He’s closer to his cousin than he is to his own older sisters. “You’re still trying, right?”

“Yes,” he says. “I’m still trying.”

“What’s going on? I thought things with Iizuna were going well?”

“They are,” Kiyoomi says with a sigh. “We’ve been seeing each other for a few months now. He’s as kind and lively as he was in high school. He’s thoughtful. I enjoy spending time with him.”

“Kind and thoughtful? You enjoy spending time with him? Why do you sound like Ushijima…”

Kiyoomi pauses at a corner, looks both ways, and continues down the sidewalk.

“Mother wants him to come to dinner soon.”

“Ushijima?”

“No, Iizuna,” Kiyoomi says with his don’t be stupid, Motoya voice.

“Oh,” Motoya says. Then, “Oh, shit.”

“Yeah,” Kiyoomi says, exhaling. The listlessness he’s been feeling recedes just long enough for him to feel something jittery and nervous underneath.

“Shit,” Motoya says again. “Wait…she’s not going to—like, they wouldn’t—”

Kiyoomi presses his free palm to his eyes. He feels a familiar ache at his temples.

“No,” he says. “Fuck, I don’t know. I don’t think so. They’re insane and pushy, but they wouldn’t just—”

A pause.

“Propose on your behalf to your boyfriend of threeish months over a family dinner?”

“He’s not even my boyfriend!” Kiyoomi bursts out—a little too loudly. He startles a child and her mother who are walking next to him. He gives them an apologetic look and speeds up.

“What?”

“He’s not my boyfriend,” Kiyoomi says. “We’re just dating, Motoya.”

“Kiyoomi…”

Kiyoomi doesn’t like the foreboding, warning trail in his cousin’s tone. He grits his teeth, trying to stave off how panicked this is all suddenly making him feel.

“Kiyoomi,” Motoya says again, but it’s softer this time, as though he can tell how much stress this is causing Kiyoomi.

“What.”

“You have four months left,” Motoya says gently. “That’s…not a lot of time.”

Kiyoomi almost has a hot flash of anger.

“I know that! Do you think I don’t know that? Do you think I’m not fucking aware?”

“Okay,” Motoya says. “You can snap at me if that makes you feel better, but that’s not going to change the timeline of everything any.”

Kiyoomi feels the instinct to snap again, but he shuts his mouth before he can say something he’ll regret.

“You have four months until your mother’s year ends. You have to find your soulmate, or someone willing to be your partner despite not being your soulmate.”

Kiyoomi must make a strangled sort of noise because Motoya quickly continues, “I know I’m not saying anything you don’t already know. I know! I’m on your side. But you also have to be practical about this, like you are with everything else. Seeing your old boyfriend for three months and just calling it dating…that’s not enough, Kiyoomi. You know that right?”

Kiyoomi’s stomach tightens. It’s not Motoya’s fault—he knows that. God, he does. Motoya’s just the easiest target right now, for being there with him on the phone, and for being the one forced to speak reason. But the tension of having to make this decision, and the stress of having to force something instead of letting it grow organically—

The guilt of maybe dragging Iizuna—a good person, a sweet, old friend—into something he doesn’t fully see the scope of yet, well.

It sucks. It fucking sucks and no matter what Kiyoomi does to try to get ahead of it, the weeks keep getting shorter.

“Do you like him?” Motoya asks, breaking Kiyoomi out of his tension spiral.

“What?”

“Iizuna. Do you like him? Do you like being with him? Are you attracted to him?”

Kiyoomi doesn’t not like him. He doesn’t not find him attractive, or funny, or interesting. He genuinely enjoys spending time with him—is genuinely happy to have reconnected with his old captain.

It’s just.

“Yes,” Kiyoomi says, trying to answer the questions objectively. “He’s a good guy. He treats me well. He’s handsome.”

Motoya’s silence over the line is almost damning.

Kiyoomi sees the Itachiyama Group building coming up a few blocks ahead of him and slows.

“I know you don’t have much of a choice,” Motoya says after a moment. He sounds serious, and Motoya is almost clinically incapable of being too serious for too long. It makes Kiyoomi feel even worse. “You have a lot on the line here. But.”

He hesitates.

“But what, Motoya?” Kiyoomi says through grit teeth. His headache returns full force and he sighs. “Just say it.”

“I don’t know,” Motoya says. “You shouldn’t have to pick your heart or your family legacy. You should be able to have both.”

Kiyoomi’s chest constricts. For a moment, he thinks he has difficulty breathing.

Ahead of him, he sees a flash of blond disappear into the building.

He takes a breath and it goes down easier.

“I can’t,” Kiyoomi says. “So I need to find something I can live with in the meantime.”

“I guess,” Motoya says. He exhales too and when he talks again his voice is lighter. “At least warn the guy before your mother brings out the family heirloom and marriage certificate.”

Kiyoomi puffs out a strangled laugh.

“Shut up,” he says. “I have to go to work now. You’re making me late.”

Motoya gasps.

“You’re the one who called m—”

“Goodbye, Motoya,” Kiyoomi says and hangs up the phone.

Kiyoomi takes a moment to gather himself. The tension in his back is still there and he’s still feeling the slightly elevated after-effects of his panic, but he’s more in his body now. Talking to Motoya has—against all odds—helped. As it always does.

When he goes to pocket his phone, Kiyoomi sees it light up in a new message:

Iizuna Tsukasa:

Good luck at your meeting!! Want to hear about it later, if you’re game. In return, I’ll tell you about how Hoshiumi accidentally almost started a league-wide fight by texting the wrong person this morning. It’s…very funny.

The rest of Kiyoomi’s tension drains away. He doesn’t know what he was worried about. Iizuna is kind and thoughtful and funny. He’s charming and attractive and a little crazy—in a good way—and he’s a professional volleyball player. They will never run out of things to talk about.

And Kiyoomi knows him. He has been in love with him before. He knows that they have chemistry, knows that they’re compatible in bed and out.

They’re a good match.

That’s what Kiyoomi thinks as he finally scrolls to his text message from his mother and replies: Yes, of course. I will invite him to dinner.

He and Iizuna Tsukasa are a good match. They always have been.

Chapter Text

ACT IV: The Lines of Symmetry.

Despite Kiyoomi’s best efforts, he’s unable to avoid Miya with any sort of success. Miya’s like a burr that’s stuck to the back of his heel, impossible to say when he got there and impossible to peel him off in any meaningful way.

To be fair, Kiyoomi supposes his best efforts are thwarted by the sheer number of times he has to deal with Miya on any given day.

That’s at least bearable in its inevitability. Kiyoomi sees Miya nearly every single day. He has to pass by his office in the morning to get to his own, and he has to share the kitchen with him occasionally when he’s making his morning coffee or afternoon tea. They have to attend staff meetings together, and department meetings, and client calls. They have to report to Vice President Ota on the Nekoma account and Vice President Ota gets the wrong idea about them—(“You two are a marvelous team! Sakusa, I never would have anticipated you would work so well with a partner, but I have to admit I’ve seen improvements in your work with Miya by your side. No—don’t look at me like that! Your work wasn’t lacking before, it’s simply gotten better. The competition suits you.”)—and adds Miya to one of Kiyoomi’s other accounts—a more low-stakes partnership with Johzenji Media, who have worked with Itachiyama for years—and likewise adds Kiyoomi to a new account that Miya had been assigned to a month ago—with Fukorodani Pictures.

They have to share the same common spaces during the day and often, they’re the only ones left in the office later in the evening. Miya is almost constantly harassing him, but sometimes the floor is quiet and dark enough that Kiyoomi thinks Miya has finally left early, only to find him actually working intently in his office.

It’s infuriating in its own way and unpalatable in another. Kiyoomi is more than content to still dislike Miya, but he feels uncomfortable being forced to admire his work ethic.

At least it’s not by his own volition. He isn’t seeking out Miya—he just can’t seem to get away from him. Not even when Kiyoomi is hiding within the protective walls of his own office, where Miya is not supposed to be.

He looms in the doorway, hovering like the world’s most irritating specter.

“What.”

Kiyoomi can feel the familiar pair of eyes boring into the side of his head. He doesn’t have to even turn to see who it is—there’s a certain tension that prickles up the back of his neck whenever Miya is within a fifty foot radius of him. He’s not sure why his body can pick him out so easily, out of every person in the office. He guesses it’s survival instinct, like when a person can sense that there’s probably a bear in the woods behind him.

“What what?”

“What are you doing.”

“How do you know I’m doing anything? You’re not even looking at me.”

“I can feel you breathing.”

“I’m by the door,” Miya objects. “I’m nowhere close enough to breathe on you.”

“Your breathing is aggressive,” Kiyoomi says. “And you’re doing it on purpose.”

“Well sorry for needing oxygen,” Miya says. He’s grumbling, although Kiyoomi still isn’t looking up at him to confirm. “I’ll just deprive my lungs and die so your precious eardrums can have a break.”

“It’s taken three years, but I’m thrilled we’ve finally come to an agreement,” Kiyoomi says. He almost laughs at his own response, but then stops dead when he looks up and sees— “What is that.”

“What?” Miya says. “Now my standin’s got you offended too?”

“In your hand,” Kiyoomi says. His eyes narrow. “There’s—why are there two?”

“Because I need an IV of caffeine to deal with you this early, asshole,” Miya says. Then he shifts. He’s holding two cups of coffee from the cafe across the street.

“Oh,” Kiyoomi says, relieved.

“Jackass,” Miya says. “It’s for you.”

“What.”

Miya pauses. “Well, I got a cup and they gave me another, so the other is for you if you want it.” Another pause, accompanied by a glare. “If ya don’t I’ll just pour it on your computer for being a shit to me, so it’s no skin off my back either way.”

“I—” Kiyoomi says, his relief retreating. “You got me coffee?”

“Your brain fuckin' die or somethin'? You can see what’s in my hand.”

Kiyoomi wishes he couldn’t. He stares, uncomfortable and flabbergasted.

“Can you stop bein' so fucking weird all the time and take the free coffee?” Miya says. “Good grief.”

Kiyoomi is in no way inclined to be less fucking weird when Miya Atsumu walks into his office at eight in the morning offering a proverbial olive branch. Or free cup of coffee.

“Are you serious?” Miya says. He sounds less than impressed. “I know what you’re like in the fuckin’ morning without any. Your processing speed’s like one of those computers that used to take up the entire fucking room. You’re like a really slow toddler.”

That’s insulting. Not to mention a completely unprovoked and mostly unearned attack. Kiyoomi’s about to snap and say so, but now that Miya mentions it, Kiyoomi had been in such a rush this morning, he had forgotten to stop by the cafe. And he’s ok now, but in approximately 45 minutes he’s going to start to get a caffeine headache.

Also, upon rereading, the sentence he just wrote into his email is borderline indecipherable.

“Uh.”

“See?”

Kiyoomi hesitates.

“Fuck’s sake,” Miya says then. And then again: “Fuck’s sake.”

He crosses the room and puts the coffee on Kiyoomi’s desk.

“Uh.”

“This is embarrassing, even for you,” Miya says. “There’s no one else here, just us. Just take the goddamn coffee and never think about it again.”

“Did you poison it?” Kiyoomi blurts out.

“What?” Miya looks at him like he’s lost his mind. “That would be really obvious if I fuckin’ handed you a coffee and then you died from poisoning?”

“Oh.” Well that’s true. “Laxatives then.”

“Are you serious?”

“Salt instead of sugar,” Kiyoomi offers. “Chili powder.” He thinks of what else might be at play here. “Alcohol so I don’t realize I’m drunk on the clock and embarrass myself in front of a client.”

“First of all, you are rude as hell,” Miya says, glaring again. “Second of all, I don’t need to spike your goddamn morning coffee to get you to embarrass yourself. Give yourself some credit.”

Kiyoomi glares at Miya.

Miya glares at him in return.

There’s an impasse here in the room, although it’s—

Well. It feels a little less…

Kiyoomi takes the cup despite himself and takes a small sip. He squints a little and then relaxes.

“No salt,” he says.

“Fuck’s sake,” Miya says again, but it’s with less irritated heat this time. He takes a sip of his own coffee and both of them drink in bemused silence for a minute.

“It’s good,” Kiyoomi says. “Thank…you.”

“You look like you just swallowed a lemon,” Miya observes. “You look like you just stepped on glass. You look like a bird just shit on your head.”

Kiyoomi makes a strangled noise.

“Was worth it for that, actually,” Miya says and his ire melts away to his usual insufferable grin. “It’s a good look on you. Well, it’s not a worse look on you than your usual prissy one.”

“Get out,” Kiyoomi says and Miya cackles—actually cackles.

“We got a meeting at—” Miya checks his smart watch. “10.”

“Then I have two hours of peace before I have to see your ugly face again,” Kiyoomi says. “Now get out.”

“You can flirt with me all ya like,” Miya says. He takes a sip of his coffee and winks. “But now I know you’ll be thinking about me all day.”

“In your wildest fucking dreams, Miya.”

“Ooh, you into that, Omi-kun?” Miya’s smile sharpens. “Don’t worry, I got plenty to share. Where do you wanna start? I guess sex dungeon’s always a good a place as any—”

“Get out!”

“You don’t gotta be shy around me. After all, I’ve had my mouth on your—”

Kiyoom picks up a pen and throws it at Miya’s head.

Miya manages to move out of the way in time, with a pointed cackle. The violence doesn’t faze him at all. If anything, he looks even more insufferably smug all the way back to the door.

“Asshole,” Kiyoomi grits out. His neck is just a little warm and he has the tell-tale signs of a Miya-induced headache. Still, it’s with half of the conviction as usual.

To make up for the lack of vitriol, Kiyoomi glares at Miya’s retreating back for good measure and picks up his coffee again.

It’s only then that he notices what it says on the paper cup: Miya Atsumu got me this xoxo. The “i” is dotted with a heart.

Kiyoomi considers throwing the cup in the trash immediately, but well, beggars can’t be choosers. Instead, he covers the scribbled note with his hand, drains the coffee as quickly as he can, and buries the empty cup in the trash can.

He makes sure to turn it so that he can’t see Miya’s handwriting, but the message stays in his head. It stays in his head all day.

Their paths of destruction overlap entirely too much over the next month. It’s not Miya’s fault entirely, although Kiyoomi’s not convinced he’s not somehow responsible for engineering how often they’re caught in the office together.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Miya says.

They’re sitting across from each other in one of the conference rooms, each with a laptop open in front of him. There are campaign mockups on the smart board at the front of the room, as well as printed out posters on cardstock propped up against the windows.

Others have come and gone over the course of the afternoon—the marketing team was camped in here with them during a client call with Fukurodani earlier, the communication director had needed Kiyoomi’s attention for a different campaign with a different partner and had shared the room for an hour, Shigeru’s been in and out on various tasks and with multiple cups of tea. It isn’t until the early evening that the room finally clears out, leaving only the two of them.

“Don’t flatter yourself, Miya,” Kiyoomi says, pretending he’s been looking out into the hallway instead. “Not everyone’s staring at your big head.”

“Not everyone, no,” Miya says. He scoops up some rice into his mouth. “You, though. You’ve been staring.”

Kiyoomi stares into the hallway even harder.

“That’s not even believable!” Miya says. “There’s nothing out there. It’s only the two of us and all of these boxes of takeout.”

“It’s very interesting out there,” Kiyoomi says. “I see a kaiju eating half of the Tokyo skyline.”

“Fuck off!” Miya says and jabs his chopsticks in Kiyoomi’s direction. “Don’t even fuck around about that.”

That, more than anything, draws Kiyoomi’s attention back to the asshole across from him.

“Why? Afraid of a big, scary monster?”

“First of all, why wouldn’t someone be afraid of a big, scary monster, jackass? It says big and scary and monster right in the description,” Miya says. He glares and scoops some beef into his mouth. He chews and swallows before speaking again, so Kiyoomi doesn’t have to snap at him. “Second of all, no. I wanna see a kaiju so bad. Like. So fuckin’ bad.”

Kiyoomi stares.

“What?” Miya digs around in his takeout container for more beef. “Monsters are cool as hell. Also hot.”

“...hot.”

“Yeah, they’re fuckable,” Miya says. He finds a piece and digs it out with a triumphant grin. “Ha! Got it—you’re staring again.”

“What do you mean monsters are fuckable.”

“Don’t tell me you’ve never thought about it before.” Miya looks puzzled, as though Kiyoomi’s the one out of pocket here.

Kiyoomi has no idea how to respond to this.

“Come on. Vampires? Werewolves? Youkai? Ooh—kitsune!” Miya looks satisfied with this.

“That’s a fox.”

“They don’t gotta look like a fox necessarily,” Miya says. He tilts his head a little. “But I guess if it was a hot enough one…”

“Stop,” Kiyoomi says. “Enough. I don’t want to know more about you.”

“Why, you afraid you’ll start to not be a total repressed asshole around me if you do?”

Kiyoomi feels a familiar stab of irritation.

“I’m not—”

“Yeah, you are,” Miya says with a shrug. “I don’t care because, well, like attracts like or whatever. But you can’t sit there and pretend you’re not. That’s pretty lame.”

“I’m not trying to earn your validation, Miya,” Kiyoomi says.

“Yeah, no, I got that,” Miya says, with an amused look. “I’m not stupid and you’re not subtle.”

Kiyoomi freezes a little, caught off guard. One thing for him to be rigid and mean to Miya and another thing to be called out by him about it. Miya doesn’t look hurt though, otherwise Kiyoomi might feel a little bad.

“Whatever, Kiyoomi-kun,” Miya says. He stretches a bit and Kiyoomi warily watches his greasy chopsticks wave in the air as he does. “It’s late, we’re both tired, we’ve been in this office for what…a hundred hours this week at least? Something stupid. Eat something, the food’s gettin’ cold.”

Kiyoomi’s been so busy working on a client agreement and not-staring at Miya all evening, that he’d forgotten all about dinner.

“Oh.”

“Where’s this from again?” Miya asks. “Beef bowl’s great. I’m getting a little tired of pizza.”

“Takagi is a little obsessed lately,” Kiyoomi mutters in agreement. He sighs and reaches forward for a container of what looks like white rice, curry, and shrimp tempura. “I’m not sure. Shigeru ordered from a new place, I think.”

“Oh, cool,” Miya says. He leans forward, looking over the scattered assortment of takeout boxes and containers. “Think I took the last beef bowl, sorry. Wanna try?”

Kiyoomi stares at him, nonplussed.

Miya waves his chopsticks dismissively.

“I’ve eaten, which means I’m significantly less likely to be an asshole to you for the next 30 to 42 minutes,” he says. “Eat something and maybe we can have a nice ten minute conversation.”

Kiyoomi peels back the plastic lid with misgiving.

“I don’t want to have a nice ten minute conversation with you, Miya,” he says.

“It’s just ten minutes, Omi-kun,” Miya says with exasperation. “It’s not gonna kill you, I promise.”

“I should be so lucky as to escape you in death.”

Miya smiles at that.

“Sometimes you’re funny,” he says. “When you forget about the stick up your ass for like 60 seconds.”

Kiyoomi sighs and picks up one of the shrimp pieces.

“We’re not friends,” he says. “We’re coworkers and…” He pauses.

“The other thing.”

“Yes,” Kiyoomi says. “The other thing.”

They haven’t brought it up in a while. They haven’t had a need to. The ticking clock is only on Kiyoomi’s end, after all.

“You gonna hate me for that forever?” Miya asks. He leans over, finds a container with pickled cucumbers and daikon, and opens it. “I haven’t even done anything yet.”

Kiyoomi stiffens, halfway through a bite.

“It’s not my fault that—” Miya starts, then stops and shakes his head. “Nevermind.”

“You’re still at fault,” Kiyoomi says. “You could say no to your uncle. You know it’s not fair.”

Miya contemplates this. He picks up a cube of daikon and pops it into his mouth.

“Would you say no?”

Kiyoomi stills. “What?”

“If you—say your uncle was on the board of somethin’. He’s been on the board for a while, so it’s not a new thing. He has the right to be there and nominate you for whatever he wants. And you work at that place for a few years. You’re qualified and hardworking and ambitious and all that. If he nominated you for that thing, would you say no just because technically everyone assumed someone else would have that thing?”

“That’s not the same thing and you know it—” Kiyoomi starts and Miya shakes his head.

“No it ain’t. It’s the exact same thing. Are you gonna sit there and look me in the eyes and tell me you’d sacrifice yourself just because someone else expected to get the thing instead?”

“If it was properly meant for them, then yes!”

“Bullshit,” Miya says. He picks up a slice of pickled daikon and crunches on it. “Don’t give me that. We’re both mean, ambitious assholes in this room, don’t act like you got a better moral compass than me.”

“I’m not—” Kiyoomi starts and the words stick in his throat for some reason. He’s feeling flush with feeling now and not the good kind. “If the thing was meant for them because it was their family company then of course I would be respectful of that.”

“You put a lot into family name,” Miya says.

“That’s how business is done.”

“In the Meiji era maybe,” Miya snorts. “It ain’t like that anymore and you know it. Big companies like this one don’t necessarily stay in the family, even if it starts that way. It’s about who’s best. And maybe that’s you, a person with a different last name.”

Sometimes Kiyoomi wonders if he has anger problems. The chopsticks he’s holding come close to snapping between his fingers.

“So it’s fine,” he says coldly. “It’s completely fair that an outsider has a chance to claim something they were not raised for and do not care nearly as much about.”

“It’s not about fairness, is it?” Miya says skeptically. “It’s business, Kiyoomi. When has business ever been fair?”

This makes Kiyoomi almost unspeakably angry.

“I know how business works, Miya,” he says.

“Then how’s it my fault?” Miya says. He doesn’t look apologetic. He’s staring Kiyoomi straight in the eyes, sure and unrelenting. “If my uncle nominates me and the Board votes for me because you don’t have a soulmate, how’s that my fault?”

“It’s not your company,” Kiyoomi hisses. He puts his container down. “I’m not unqualified. This isn’t about competency. What does it matter if I have a soulmate? How does that make me more or less capable of doing the job? It’s bullshit and you know it’s bullshit and you’re still letting it happen.”

“Letting it?” Miya says with a surprised laugh. “I’m not on the Board.”

“Your uncle is. You could talk to him.”

“And say what?” Miya says. “Sorry Uncle, Sakusa the junior thinks it’s unfair that you’re challengin’ him for what he thinks is his birthright? He’s asked me not to, so I’m going to listen? Why would I do that? Why would he listen?”

“Just because you—” Kiyoomi seethes. He’s so furious now, he nearly can’t think. His temples are pounding, his skin feels searing hot. “—not everyone finds their soulmate in high school. Or college. Some people don’t find their soulmate at all, or they don’t want one, and it makes them no more pathetic or less capable than those who do! It’s arbitrary. The whole system is arbitrary and you benefitting from it instead of your own merit is bullshit. It’s insulting to you and it’s insulting to me!”

Miya opens his mouth. He closes it. He looks a bit like he’s been knocked sideways with surprise.

“I don’t—” Kiyoomi’s breathing hard now. He grits his teeth and closes his eyes, trying to calm himself down. “I don’t expect someone who already has one to understand. The ways in which someone who doesn’t have a soulmate is underestimated and looked at.”

“Omi—”

“It’s my family name, first. It’s this next. It doesn’t matter how hard I work, how much I distinguish myself,” Kiyoomi says. His heart is still beating too fast, but he’s forcing air into his lungs. “I can never prove my worth. I’m never good enough for the Sakusa name or for the company. And then you come in. Your claim isn’t any better than mine. You don’t work any harder, aren’t any more qualified. But you have a soulmate. And that’s all the Board cares about, in the end.”

When Kiyoomi finally opens his eyes again, he feels slightly less murderous, or at least as though he has a better handle on himself than he had a few minutes ago. He starts to feel a bit embarrassed as the knee-jerk anger subsides.

Honestly, he might have overreacted. Miya hadn’t even said anything particularly terrible this time.

Across from him, though, Miya looks…strange. Maybe it’s because Kiyoomi expects his usual arrogant smirk—like all of this is so far beneath him, a total joke—but the contrast between his expectations and the reality—Miya’s expression—strangely jars him.

“Sorry—” Miya starts, but that makes something curdle in Kiyoomi’s stomach.

“Don’t,” he says, harshly.

“Not that,” Miya says. “It just fuckin’ sucks.”

Kiyoomi’s not sure what to make of that.

“Yes,” he says, uncertain. “It does.”

Miya runs a hand through his hair and looks…pissed off. It’s oddly honest.

“It sucks when it’s out of your hands,” he says. “You can do everything you can—be the best at what you’re doing, put in all of the work, stay later than everyone else, work harder than everyone else, make sure everything you turn in is perfect. Get the highest numbers, the most accounts. You can be the very fucking best, do everything fucking right, and it can all just mean shitall. All of it can still be taken from you because some shitty old guy with more power than sense thinks you’re not what they expected you to be. Or you’re not what they wanted you to be, even though they’re not that thing either.”

Kiyoomi’s chest squeezes.

“Miya?”

Miya’s not looking at him anymore. He’s looking into his cold bowl of beef and rice, his mind somewhere else.

“You can work twice as hard as anyone else and still not be taken seriously because you’re too—much,” Miya says. He sounds angry, or maybe just raw. There’s a bitter edge to him that Kiyoomi recognizes with a start. “Or you’ve fucked up a few times. People in this world don’t like to give chances and they like to forgive even less. What does it matter to them that what you did, you did when you were a kid, you know? You don’t get to be a kid and still be taken seriously when you need to be. You always gotta be…flawless. No mistakes. Perfect in every way that matters from the beginning, or else they’ll never give you anything. Even if you’ve earned it. There’s no second chances in business, only first impressions.”

Kiyoomi’s not sure what to say, really. It’s hard to swallow that kind of thing, coming from the person who’s threatening to take it all away from you.

But the pieces aren’t so difficult to put together. Miya is here, at a company that isn’t his own, while his twin brother has been given the thing he had wanted more than anything else.

“Do you…hate him?”

Kiyoomi doesn’t know why he asks. It’s too invasive by half and he doesn’t know why, after everything, Miya would want to share something so deeply personal with him. Maybe it’s because it’s only the two of them here—only Miya and Kiyoomi in this weird, complicated, utterly draining corner. Their backs against the wall, their futures decided by people who had taken one look at what they were lacking and decided they weren’t worth the trouble.

There’s no one else to share this unique, terrible burden with.

Miya exhales and leans back in his chair.

“‘Samu?”

“Yeah.”

“Nah,” Miya says.

Kiyoomi’s surprised. “Really?”

He’s so bitter about his own situation, so resentful of Miya, he can’t imagine the alternative.

“Yeah,” Miya says with a tired laugh. He runs a hand through his blond hair and tilts his head back against the headrest. “Pathetic, right? Like, at the very least I should be pissed at him. Stop talking to him. That’s the thing people do, right? When it’s about money…power. Rich people are assholes. We’re kind of made that way. Born too, maybe. Anyone else would’ve tried to kill ‘Samu for it.”

“So why didn’t you?”

“I tried, I think,” Miya says. He opens his eyes and stares at the ceiling. “I lost my mind one night like…shortly after Uncle told me. Went into his room with a fucking pillow and then just sort of stopped there, frozen. He woke up and saw me and was like. Dumbshit, if you’re gonna strangle me then do it before I wake up. It made me cry.”

Kiyoomi straightens in his chair in shock.

“I don’t know. It’s like he was expecting me to hate him for it. He was just as scared, y’know? He wasn’t even surprised when he saw me standing there, like…maybe he thought he deserved it from me. And that’s fucked, because he’s my fuckin’ twin.” Miya’s voice wobbles. Kiyoomi would be mortified, if his chest wasn’t squeezing so tight. “I’d kill for him. I hate that he thought that. Hate that he thought I’d hate him. It wasn’t his fault. Uncle made his decision and he probably made the right one. It fucking sucked.”

“I can imagine,” Kiyoomi says softly.

“Yeah, well. Didn’t hurt any less, though. Still doesn’t hurt any less. But ‘Samu wanted it too and he earned it. ‘snot his fault he played the whole thing better than me. I thought all that time all I had to do was be the best and that would be fucking enough.”

Miya wrinkles his nose and wipes the back of his hand across his face. He straightens in his chair too. When he looks at Kiyoomi, his eyes are a little red and he has a rueful smile.

“That’s not how it works though, is it?”

Kiyoomi swallows hard, his own throat burning.

“No,” he says. “It isn’t.”

Miya exhales, gathering himself, and nods. After a moment, he picks his container back up.

“Sorry about that. Didn’t mean to—y’know. Never expose your neck to your enemy and all that.”

Is that what they are? Enemies? A month ago, Kiyoomi would have said so with complete confidence. Now he feels unsure.

“I’m not going to let you have Itachiyama, Miya,” he says instead.

Miya looks up at him.

Kiyoomi exhales too, feeling something in him calm.

Slowly, finally, something slots into place. He understands the expression on Miya’s face. He knows exactly why Miya’s apologizing now.

“I don’t care about your sob story,” Kiyoomi says. “So your twin brother is nicer than you, and more likable. I could have told you that without you losing your company to him.”

Miya’s eyes widen.

Kiyoomi almost smiles.

“Get over it,” he says. “You’ll need to get used to losing.”

Miya says nothing for a long, startled moment. Then his expression clears.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Kiyoomi says. He picks up his half-finished tempura shrimp and bites off the rest. “You’re not getting my company from me. You can have it over my dead body.”

Kiyoomi doesn’t look across the table immediately. When he does, something weird happens in his stomach.

Miya is looking up at him—only at him—his face open with wonder. His eyes are bright; his mouth is curved up at the corners.

He looks delighted.

“Your company, huh?”

“Yes.”

“And your dead body?”

It’s unbecoming and just a little mean, but Kiyoomi doesn’t suppress his smug little smirk.

“If you can find it.”

Miya’s eyes gleam in response.

“Ha. That all?”

Kiyoomi doesn't respond immediately. Instead, he leans forward slightly, chopsticks held between his fingers, and slowly picks out a slice of pickled cucumber from the container in front of Miya.

Miya watches him closely, eyes intent as Kiyoomi takes the cucumber and places it on his tongue.

Kiyoomi takes his time, savoring the crunch between his teeth. He swallows, his mouth sweet-tart, and sets his chopsticks down.

All the while, he is watched.

“My standards are high, Miya,” Kiyoomi says carefully. “And my expectations great. I won’t make it easy for you.”

What will he say to that? Kiyoomi wonders. How will Miya Atsumu rise to a given challenge?

There’s a moment of strangely tense and startlingly easy silence. Then Miya looks down into his container, and smiles.

“Well,” he says and picks up a pickle himself. “Wouldn’t be half as fun if ya made it easy for me, would it?”

Chapter Text

There are many parts to playing a game that’s half-rigged against him. Kiyoomi has to ingratiate himself with a group of arrogant, unfunny, borderline obsolete old men. He has to attend dinners that he would rather not attend and flatter people who he would rather not flatter and make calls that he would rather drink hand soap than spend more than sixty seconds of his energy on. He has to do his actual job and make sure he does it well, show unimpeachable work ethic and even higher quality work product.

In the middle of all of that, he has to find time to find a fucking soulmate.

Or whatever this weird alternative is.

They actually see each other more than Kiyoomi had originally anticipated. At first Kiyoomi thinks it must be because he’s giving off some desperate kind of frenetic energy that someone like Iizuna is too kind to ignore. Motoya has told him more than once that he exhibits what Motoya calls “crazy eyes” when he’s stressed out of his mind about something.

“You think I don’t remember your crazy eyes?” Iizuna says with a laugh.

“No,” Kiyoomi says, sniffing. “I’m not convinced I have them. Motoya is what we call a pathological liar. He is rarely to be trusted.”

Iizuna’s mouth twitches at the corner. “Are you making up rumors about your cousin?”

“It depends—is it working?”

“No,” Iizuna says, laughing again. He gives Kiyoomi an amused look and lifts a spoon of ice cream to his mouth. “Kiyoomi, we were together for two years and I was your volleyball captain.”

“Are you implying I am unable to hide how I am feeling?” Kiyoomi says. He tries not to smile in relief that Iizuna doesn’t think he’s crazy. Or that he accepts it without question anyway.

“You’re—how do I put this,” Iizuna says. He swallows his mouthful of ice cream and thinks. “Not subtle.”

Kiyoomi does smile then.

“I feel like I should be offended.”

“I don’t think the truth is anything to be offended by,” Iizuna says as they pass by a child feeding a duck against park regulations. “For example, I am an excellent professional setter and you have never once been able to hide your true feelings on any matter.”

Kiyoomi wrinkles his face. Unfortunately, his mask is pulled down as he eats his own ice cream, so Iizuna is actually able to see his expression.

“See.”

“This seems unfair,” Kiyoomi says. The wooden pathway creaks under his feet as they pass over the lake. “Those two things aren’t even equivalent truths. Also you’ve known me since I was a teenager, you have too much information no one else has.”

Iizuna considers this. They stop briefly in the middle of the bridge, leaning against a corner made by the wooden railing to absently watch the spray of the fountain across from them.

“If you’re implying you’re any better at hiding it now than you were when you were sixteen and glowering in a corner of the gym because Motoya didn’t read your mind properly—”

“That wasn’t my fault!” Kiyoomi protests, remembering. “Motoya was never where I needed him to be!”

“You refused to tell him where that was supposed to be!”

Like that’s a proper excuse. His cousin had been one of the best liberos in the Tokyo high school circuit at the time; if he had wanted to be where Kiyoomi was hitting the ball, he would have found himself there.

“We are biologically related, I shouldn’t have to tell him anything,” Kiyoomi says, a little petulantly, and Iizuna laughs again. He does that more than he doesn’t and it’s nice every time.

“The point is—no,” Iizuna says. He sighs and braces his arms against the railing. All along the banks of the lake, the trees are thick with leaves swaying in the warm, mid-afternoon breeze. “It isn’t because of your crazy eyes.”

Kiyoomi watches two people paddle a boat shaped like a swan.

“I feel bad, I suppose,” Kiyoomi says. “I know how busy your schedule is. I hope you don’t feel obligated.”

“Kiyoomi, is it so out of the question that I might enjoy spending time with—” Iizuna stops whatever he’s about to say halfway through. It makes something jump in Kiyoomi’s stomach. Iizuna smiles and turns back to the water.

Kiyoomi lets out a breath.

“I’m an adult,” Iizuna says. “You’re an adult. As adults, we can choose who to spend our time with.”

“That’s true,” Kiyoomi says dubiously.

“And we’re both having a good time, aren’t we?”

“Well, yes,” Kiyoomi says.

“Then why all of the—” Iizuna gestures vaguely.

Kiyoomi frowns. That’s a good question. He guesses it’s not really fair to be asking Iizuna something so juvenile as why are you here, continuing to see me? or what are we? The thing is, he does want to ask those things, but not for the reason Iizuna thinks.

His mother’s demand burns a hole in his brain. Bring Iizuna home for dinner. It is time we met him.

Less than four months left. There’s a lot on the line here.

“A bit too late to be asking this question, I guess,” Kiyoomi finally says. “But I am going to. Not because I’m insecure.”

“I would never accuse Sakusa Kiyoomi of such a thing,” Iizuna says, amused. He presses his arm against Kiyoomi’s and Kiyoomi lets him. “Can I make a guess?”

Kiyoomi sighs around his black sesame ice cream. “Am I that obvious?”

“I’ve already answered that question.” Iizuna smiles and, as ever, it’s nothing but good-natured. “You’re wondering what we’re doing.”

It sounds so stupid to say out loud.

“It’s been a few months,” Kiyoomi says. “Should we have asked it before?”

“Probably,” Iizuna says. “I guess we never really talked about it officially.”

Kiyoomi looks at him carefully. “Is there…anything to talk about?”

Iizuna hums around a mouthful of ice cream.

“Sure,” he says. “Well, I mean. There can be.”

That’s not really as enthusiastic an answer as he would like. Kiyoomi frowns into his paper bowl.

“Do you want there to be?”

Well, maybe that’s not particularly fair of Kiyoomi to think. They’ve enjoyed spending time together again, sure, but they both know they’re not one another’s soulmate. They’ve just been seeing each other in spite of that.

It’s hard to be enthusiastic about something like that, unless that’s what you’re looking for.

“Maybe,” Kiyoomi says. “I suppose it would be improper to not, after some time.”

More importantly, he imagines showing up to the Board vote with Iizuna and saying, Here is my old friend Iizuna Tsukasa, he and I are seeing one another. Miya’s uncle would probably have him thrown out of the room.

“Hmmm,” Iizuna says. He finishes his ice cream and sets both the empty cup and spoon carefully on the wooden ledge. Then he turns until he’s leaning back against one of the corners, his elbows to either side of him.

The wind rustles Iizuna’s light, seafoam green hair. His dark brown eyes are as warm as his easy, welcome smile. The Adlers jacket is zipped up; it fits him well, showing off how nicely defined his athlete’s shoulders are these days.

He really is so exceptionally handsome. Anyone would be lucky to be with him.

Kiyoomi is lucky to be with him.

“Can I be honest?”

“Please.”

“I like hanging out with you, Kiyoomi,” Iizuna says. “I like being with you. We’ve always gotten along. I liked it when we were in school and I like it even more now.”

Kiyoomi’s not pathetic enough to blush, but he almost does.

“Really.”

“Don’t look so surprised,” Iizuna says, grinning. “You’re not so bad.”

Kiyoomi leans against the railing opposite him with his ice cream cup still in his hands. His black sesame soft serve is almost completely melted now, just a soup of black ice cream at the bottom of the cup.

“Thank you,” he says. “That’s the highest praise I could have wanted.”

Iizuna laughs. “I mean it. I’ve had a few dates here and there, but I haven’t really been seriously seeing anyone these past few months. Yeah, it’s because I’m busy, but I’m also just happy to do this.”

“Whatever this is,” Kiyoomi says, dubious again.

Iizuna smiles and plays with the zipper on his jacket.

“Does everything have to be so rigidly defined?”

“Usually,” Kiyoomi says. “People tend to like that kind of thing.”

“I don’t remember you caring about what everyone else likes.”

Well, that’s true. Kiyoomi hesitates.

On the one hand, he needs Iizuna to make a commitment. Well no—his mother needs Iizuna to make a commitment. On the other hand—

“I’m happy to see you when I have time between games,” Iizuna says softly. “And I’m happy to talk to you even when I don’t. It’s not a burden for me.”

—there’s a tight knot in his stomach that only eases at the door Iizuna leaves open.

“Yeah,” Kiyoomi says, and his cheeks do turn a little pink this time. “I like spending time with you too.”

“Then stop overthinking it.”

Iizuna smiles. He reaches up and cups Kiyoomi’s face. Kiyoomi remembers this from before too—how easy he is with his touch and affection. Kiyoomi’s never been that easy about anything, but it’s easy to accept it from someone like Iizuna when asked and given.

Maybe that’s what finally loosens his tongue.

“My family wants to meet you,” Kiyoomi murmurs. “If you wouldn’t mind. Is it too soon?”

Iizuna laughs again, softer this time. His thumb presses against Kiyoomi’s chin.

“I’ve known you since you were fifteen years old,” he says. “No it’s not too soon.”

Kiyoomi smiles a little at that. The gnarl of anxiety in his chest unwinds a little.

Iizuna’s hand slides to Kiyoomi’s neck in response. “Can I?”

Kiyoomi’s heart rate ticks up slightly in anticipation.

“Of course.”

He lets himself be drawn down into a kiss.

It’s lovely and sweet, like a spoonful of syrup on his tongue.

“Just tell me when,” Iizuna says after he finally pulls back and lets Kiyoomi go. “And I’ll be there.”

A week later, Kiyoomi’s getting into the elevator near the end of the evening when he hears a shouted, “Hold up!”

He nearly groans and, quick-as-lightning, jabs the button that closes the doors as many times as he can.

“Ha!” Miya’s hand darts out and grabs one of the doors, shoving it back open before they both slam shut on him. He nearly tumbles into the elevator and sticks his tongue out at Kiyoomi as he straightens.

Kiyoomi glares at him as the doors—traitorous as they are—finally close.

“Are you stalking me?” he snaps.

“Yeah, don’t you know?” Miya says. “I’m obsessed with you. Can’t get you out of my mind. Every day I’m like I hope Sakusa looks at me. I hope he talks to me. God, I hope he comes into my office and bends me over the desk and—”

“Enough!” Kiyoomi yells, impulsively covering Miya’s mouth with his hands.

Miya smirks up at him. Kiyoomi knows, because he can feel the way Miya’s lips twist under his palms. He realizes what’s going to happen a second before it does. Luckily, a second is all he needs to let Miya go just before he tries to lick Kiyoomi’s hand.

“You’re disgusting.”

Miya cackles a little.

“You’re so fucking easy,” he says. “I have a twin brother. You can’t imagine the lengths I’m willing to go to make someone uncomfortable.”

“I think you were created by the devil,” Kiyoomi says, his heart racing from the close escape. He moves away from Miya, putting as much distance between them as possible. “Specifically to spite me.”

“Sounds like you need to have that conversation with him, then,” Miya says.

Kiyoomi lets out an irritated huff of breath. In front of them, the display screen plays a clip of news highlights and ticks down from their floor number as the elevator starts to descend.

“Did Vice President Ota email you about this weekend?” Miya says after a few seconds of silence, punctuated only by the news reporter’s rambling.

“Yes,” Kiyoomi says. “Why wouldn’t he have.”

Miya gives him a look.

“It’s just a question, Sakusa,” he says. “Do I not get to ask those either?”

“I was on the email,” Kiyoomi says. “I’m on the account with you. If he emailed you, then why would he not have emailed me?”

Miya snorts.

“Relax, geez. No need to bite my head off.” Miya turns back toward the front of the elevator. “God, you really do have a stick up your ass.”

“It’s not a stick,” Kiyoomi says, annoyed. “It was a practical response. Don’t ask stupid questions if you don’t want direct answers.”

Kiyoomi can feel Miya’s eyes on him again.

“Uh huh. You must be so fun at parties.”

That’s a sore subject. As a general rule, Kiyoomi only really gets invited to parties out of family obligation.

“There are ten floors left, Miya. Just be quiet and let me ride down in peace.”

“Damn. I didn’t even do anything worth all—this,” Miya says, gesturing vaguely at Kiyoomi. “All I gotta do is exist and you snap at me for no fuckin’ reason.”

Kiyoomi feels a slight pang. “I’m not—”

“You’re just pricklier than a fuckin’ sea urchin, ain’t you? No wonder you can’t get anyone to date your prissy ass.”

The pang evaporates. It’s replaced by the sound of blood pounding in his ears.

“Excuse me?”

“You heard what I said,” Miya says. Sneers, a bit. “Your personality might be broken, but I know your ears aren’t.”

Kiyoomi turns sharply to Miya, his hands curled into fists.

“What’s your fucking problem—”

It’s a mistake.

Miya meets his eyes, his shoulders a little tense, as though braced for impact. It’s the end of a long, stressful day, near the end of a long, stressful week, and Miya looks it—he hasn’t escaped the physical signs of such a thing. The problem is that unlike Kiyoomi—with his bitten nails and dry curls and dark circles under his eyes—who looks like he hasn’t slept properly in days, Miya—infuriatingly—wears exhaustion stupidly well. Miya’s shirt is unbuttoned to the top of his chest and his jacket is undone, slung over his shoulder. He has his shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows and his other hand in his pocket. There’s an expensive watch on his wrist and a designer belt glinting at his slim waist.

He’s staring at Kiyoomi intently, his hair in messy disarray, like he’s run his fingers through it a dozen times in frustration. It still, somehow, looks good.

Kiyoomi freezes.

“What?”

Miya’s throat is exposed over the top of his unbuttoned shirt, a pale line that shouldn’t be as familiar to Kiyoomi as it is. There’s a small beauty mark there, tucked just out of sight along the left side of his neck. Kiyoomi knows, because even in dim office lighting, he’s had his mouth on it.

His stomach clenches. Heat creeps up the back of Kiyoomi’s neck.

“What?”

It’s incredible that Miya—Miya, who is always so fast to make a suggestive comment, Miya who is always shamelessly flirting with Kiyoomi, Miya who has literally cornered Kiyoomi in the office supply closet and wordlessly unbuckled his belt multiple times—genuinely doesn’t seem to understand why Kiyoomi’s abruptly stopped berating him.

“Nevermind,” Kiyoomi says. He feels a disorienting spike of panic that he can only temper by clenching his teeth and turning back toward the screen sharply, arms crossed at his chest. “Just be quiet.”

Miya says something choice under his breath, but doesn’t try to breach the silence again. Kiyoomi shifts away from him again, trying to flatten himself against the wall as surreptitiously as he can.

His chest feels tight and stomach feels funny and his skin feels hot all over. He is suddenly acutely aware of the last time he’d done more than chastely kiss someone in public and unfortunately that memory coincides directly with the person hovering in the elevator next to him.

He can feel Miya’s eyes on him again, narrowed and intense in focus.

Kiyoomi can’t think about that. There’s a weird buzzing in his head.

The elevator screen in front of them ticks down at a pace that is so slow as to be torturous.

Floor 8 lights up, then 7, then 6.

Kiyoomi hopes they’ll stop and pick up other people, but it’s late enough that there’s no one to pick up. The elevator keeps sliding down in silence, without pause.

For a brief moment, the door shudders open on the fifth floor and Kiyoomi nearly jumps out of his skin, hoping someone else might be on the other side. There isn’t anyone, though: the hallway outside is empty.

The door slides shut again and the silence feels disconcerting, almost fraught.

There’s a strange and undeniable energy in the air, a tension that is unlike the hostility they usually find themselves sharing.

Kiyoomi swallows.

“Omi-kun,” Miya says and Kiyoomi recognizes that voice. It’s just a touch lower, a hint more suggestive.

He’s figured it out.

Fuck.

“Don’t,” Kiyoomi says.

Miya doesn’t say anything.

The screen shows the fourth floor and then the third. He’s so close to escape.

“Kiyoomi, look at me.”

Kiyoomi’s heart rate increases. The white noise in his brain ratchets up.

“I said don’t talk to me.”

“This is fucking absurd,” Miya says. “Look at me.”

The screen shows the second floor.

“Miya, I don’t want to—”

Kiyoomi feels fingers close around his wrist. He tries to jerk away as the elevator shifts down, but Miya crowds him against the wall.

“There are cameras in here,” Kiyoomi says, voice unsteady. Then, warningly, “You have a soulmate.”

Miya’s fingers encircle his wrist perfectly, his fingertips touching closed. His thumb is on Kiyoomi’s racing pulse. One of his expensive leather shoes touches against the inside of Kiyoomi’s own.

Kiyoomi feels the elevator railing press against his lower back. His skin is hot—so fucking hot. It feels like everything in him is burning.

They look at each other, faces inches apart. Kiyoomi’s breathing faster than he should, but so is Miya. The air between them feels electric, too-heavy with anticipation.

art: comic panel of Kiyoomi and Miya in the elevator scene, Miya trying to get Kiyoomi to look at him ; art by: jarvi

art: comic panel of elevator scene, Miya grabbing Kiyoomi's wrist and forcing him to look at him; art by: jarvi

It feels like something’s going to happen. It feels like something should happen. Kiyoomi’s not sure what.

Still, Miya doesn’t let go.

Kiyoomi’s throat is so dry, it feels like his tongue is sticking to the roof of his mouth. Even if he had something to say, he’s not sure he could manage it.

They breathe into the silence between them instead, too-fast and too-loud, unwilling or unable to look away.

There’s a bright ding and the elevator shudders as they finally reach the ground floor.

For a long moment, neither of them move.

“I already said—I’m not with anyone,” Miya finally says and lets Kiyoomi go.

The doors slide open. The cool, fresh air feels as much of a relief as it feels jarring against Kiyoomi’s overheated face.

Miya doesn’t say anything else. He doesn’t even look back at Kiyoomi as he gathers his jacket—which had fallen to the ground—and steps away from him and out of the elevator.

Kiyoomi’s head buzzes. The hairs at the back of his neck are standing. His throat is dry and his heart is racing and he has goosebumps everywhere; it feels like there are needles pricking under his skin.

There is an ache in his chest so sharp, it’s nearly startling in its hunger.

It’s not a need, but a want—a desperate, nearly insatiable want.

He had indulged in it before, back when this had all just been a stupid, heated thing. Two people who couldn’t stand the sight of each other, but couldn’t keep their hands off of each other either. It had been easy enough then—when they’d just been coworkers who didn’t get along. But that had been before there were stakes.

It’s not the kind of thing Kiyoomi can be selfish about without consequences now—not anymore. There are less than four months left until the Board vote. Just a few months left to find himself a partner—a real one—if not a soulmate.

Everything else is noise; unwise, dangerous distractions. And Miya is the most dangerous distraction above all.

Kiyoomi exhales shakily. He needs to get a fucking grip.

The stakes have never been higher and he refuses to fuck up so close to the finish line.

Iizuna is true to his word. He will text Kiyoomi when practice finishes early, and he’ll offer to meet up with him when he has a day off. He’ll invite Kiyoomi to games, even if he knows Kiyoomi can’t make it, and he’ll call Kiyoomi when he’s traveling elsewhere, just to talk.

Kiyoomi reciprocates. It’s not a burden for him either. The truth is, he had had an intense schoolboy crush on Iizuna when they were teenagers and that had changed into what Kiyoomi thinks was genuine, real love. That their soulmarks had never manifested for each other hadn’t bothered either of them. They had been in high school, where volleyball was their love first and everything else was second.

Being with Iizuna now—Kiyoomi remembers why that is. Iizuna is easy to be with. He’s funny and thoughtful and interesting and intelligent. They share common friends, common memories, and the common language of volleyball. When Kiyoomi’s spending nearly all of his hours at the office and working himself up into something bordering a nervous breakdown, Iizuna will somehow sense it. He’ll call Kiyoomi and talk him down off a ledge, or he’ll offer to meet up after work. He’s a good counterbalance to Kiyoomi, solid when Kiyoomi is fraying at the edges. He’s charming and social and excellent.

When Kiyoomi’s with him, he feels like it might be possible for him to be less difficult too.

He likes that feeling. And he likes that Iizuna makes him feel that way.

“What’s wrong with your face?”

Kiyoomi stops mid-reply to Iizuna.

He looks up to find Miya staring at him strangely across the conference room.

“Excuse me?”

“Your face,” Miya says. He leans back against the leather chair, gesturing a pen at his face as though this explains his thinking. “It’s doing something weird. You look—well, less constipated.”

Kiyoomi takes a breath, shoving the familiar irritation to the back of his mind. Iizuna is telling him about some locker room drama that Kiyoomi, despite himself, has become invested in. He’d forgotten how ridiculous and dramatic athletes are and somehow professional ones are no less messy than competitive high schoolers.

“Miya, if you keep staring at my face, I’m going to assume you’re admiring it,” Kiyoomi says. “Are you admiring it?”

“I mean,” Miya says and tilts his head a little. “It’s not the worst I’ve seen. Like I wouldn’t turn off the lights, you know?”

Kiyoomi gives him a withering look.

“At least wait until the office has cleared out before you begin being crass.”

“Can’t,” Miya says. “I can’t control it. It occurs to me and I say it.”

Kiyoomi withholds a sigh. By the amused look on Miya’s face, it seems it hasn’t helped hide Kiyoomi’s feelings on the matter any.

Huh. Maybe Iizuna was right.

“Do you not have a single filter?”

“Not really,” Miya says. He at least has the wherewithal to look apologetic about it. “I’m a twin.”

“You cannot keep blaming everything on being a twin.”

“Why not? It’s really the explanation for a solid…75% of everything. Higher even. Maybe one hundred.”

Instead of sniping with Miya as usual, Kiyoomi just makes an unimpressed sound and returns to texting. Iizuna’s sent the finishing parts of the story and then:

Iizuna Tsukasa:

Anyway, I hope that helps save your day some! We’re in Osaka for the weekend, but I'll be back next week. The family dinner is next Friday, right?

Kiyoomi feels such a sense of relief, he almost lets out a sigh.

Yes. Thank you for remembering.

“It’s doing it again,” Miya says. “Your face, it’s—”

“What is your problem?” Kiyoomi finally snaps at him.

Miya looks surprised.

“There!”

“What?” Kiyoomi says, irritated. “What.”

“The difference—” Miya says. He’s staring at him intently, as though contemplating the before and after. “You—yeah. You look almost relaxed.”

Now it’s Kiyoomi’s turn to be startled.

“What?”

“You don’t look like you have a stick up your ass,” Miya says, realizing. “Shit—is it because you’re getting another stick…up your ass?”

Kiyoomi flushes.

“What the fuck—”

Miya winces.

“Okay, no, that one was out of line. Sorry.”

Kiyoomi feels so immediately infuriated all over, he can feel it vibrating off of his skin.

“Sorry, sorry,” Miya says, holding up his hands placatingly.

Kiyoomi exhales his irritation and shakes his head. He looks into the hallway, waiting to see where the fuck their marketing team is. They’re supposed to be in here too. Kiyoomi’s not supposed to be alone with Miya.

Especially not after—

“Whatever.”

“Seriously though,” Miya says. “You look less stressed.”

Kiyoomi frowns. He doesn’t think he feels less stressed. Or, at least, nothing has materially changed to make him less of that. The deadline of the Board vote is always there. His father, his mother, his sisters, the looming possibility of abject failure and disgracing his entire family—they’re always there.

The weight of the burden hasn’t shifted or abated any. He’s just found one possible ray of hope in the middle of all this bullshit.

“So what? Just say whatever’s burning you, Miya.”

“I dunno. It’s just nice,” Miya says.

That catches Kiyoomi off guard.

“What?”

Miya shrugs. He taps his pen repeatedly against the arm of the chair, which would irritate Kiyoomi out of his mind if he wasn’t distracted by the sincerity in Miya’s tone.

“It’s nice, jackass,” Miya says. He wrinkles his nose. “To see you look a little less…whatever.”

“Oh.”

“What gives?”

Kiyoomi’s hardly going to tell Miya about Iizuna, so he simply shakes his head.

“Things are going well,” he says.

Miya makes a little noise, like he’s considering that. Beyond the glass conference room walls, Kiyoomi can see Vice President Ota stopping outside of Yamamoto’s office, making him even later to the meeting.

“Nah,” Miya says.

“What.”

“That’s not all,” Miya says, his eyes narrowed. “It’s too easy. There’s somethin’ specific. Somethin’ that’s making you less high strung.”

That only makes Kiyoomi feel more high strung. He busies himself with opening an email on his tablet.

“There’s two things that’ve been stressing you out,” Miya says. “And nothing’s changed with Nekoma. Which only leaves the other thing.”

Kiyoomi avoids Miya’s pointed look.

“Shit,” Miya says, after a long, pregnant pause. “Really?”

Kiyoomi doesn’t say anything.

“Who is it?” Miya asks. “Have you—”

“It’s none of your business, Miya,” Kiyoomi says, but Miya doesn’t relent.

“No,” he says. “If you’d gotten the mark, you’d have called an emergency meeting. Shown the Board officially.”

Kiyoomi tenses.

Miya laughs and for some reason it sounds like it has an edge to it.

“So it’s just someone,” Miya says. “Not a soulmate.”

“I said drop it,” Kiyoomi says sharply.

Miya exhales. Kiyoomi sees him straighten in his seat out of the corner of his eyes.

“Well that’s great,” Miya says. “You must be thrilled.”

Miya doesn’t sound thrilled though. He sounds pissy.

Kiyoomi finally meets his eyes and is startled to see how pissy he looks too. Miya’s mouth is in an ugly twist. His eyes are hard and his body posture has lost all of its usual affected languor.

“I am,” Kiyoomi says finally. “Is that what you want to hear? Did you want confirmation?”

Miya exhales loudly.

“Yeah,” he says. “Fuckin’ cool.”

It makes no sense. Kiyoomi never took Miya to be a sore loser.

“What’s your problem?”

“Nothing,” Miya says. “Do I look like I have a problem? I’m cool as a fucking cucumber.”

“No one who’s cool as a fucking cucumber has to say they’re cool as a fucking cucumber. Are you really that much of a sore loser?”

“Loser?” Miya nearly sneers. “What’ve I lost? You think it’s over just ‘cause you got yourself a little boyfriend? That’s still nothing. That’s not near enough for those old men.”

It feels like a slap to the face. Kiyoomi’s natural instinct is to let himself get riled and snap back, but something about Miya’s posture and tone makes him reorient.

There’s something visibly off about him, like a blaring siren attached to his stupid blond head.

“Are you…jealous?”

“Of you?”

“Then what? You’re being more of an ass than usual and that’s a high fucking bar.”

“You’re not better than me,” Miya says and abruptly shoves himself to his feet.

Kiyoomi’s caught off guard again.

“Where did I say that?”

For once, he wasn’t even thinking it.

“You’re not better than me for finding yourself a little boyfriend,” Miya says. “You’re not better for finally getting what you want.”

“I thought you said it wasn’t over.”

“It isn’t!” Miya says, too loudly. He’s angry now—Kiyoomi can see it on him. He’s well and truly pissed. Kiyoomi didn’t even fucking do anything this time.

Outside, there are a few people looking into the room now.

“Miya, calm down,” Kiyoomi says sharply. “You’re causing a scene.”

“I’ll cause whatever I want!”

“Fuck’s sake, get a grip!” Kiyoomi finally raises his voice and stands too. He’s conscious of how many people are looking into the room now, how it’s all glass doors and none of it soundproof. “We’re at work. People can see. I don’t know what your problem is, but you need to get a fucking grip or take it somewhere else.”

Miya’s jaw ticks. He looks like he’s chewing on something bitter to say. Kiyoomi thinks he’s going to say it—whatever it is—and that it’s going to be sharpened to hurt.

He doesn’t get a chance to, though. Yamamoto and marketing finally push open the door just as Miya opens his mouth.

“Sorry, sorry!” Yamamoto bows and apologizes. “Vice President Ota wanted a word. I apologize for being late.”

Across from Kiyoomi, Miya still looks like he wants to storm out in a tantrum. Kiyoomi locks eyes with him; he gives him a sharp warning look and a chance to get it the fuck together.

It takes a tense, awful moment, but Miya finally sucks in air and exhales in a rush. He’s clearly still pissed, but he’s managing to get his shit under control. He’s not going to embarrass them both, at any rate.

“It’s all right,” Kiyoomi says to Yamamoto’s confused look. “But we better get started.”

Miya doesn’t explain himself or apologize later. He leaves the meeting immediately after it ends, without looking back at Kiyoomi even once.

It’s not as though Kiyoomi was expecting either. Miya’s too proud to admit when he’s overreacted. He and Kiyoomi have that in common, at least.

It doesn’t make sense, though. Miya knows the stakes as well as he does; he knows the game. Kiyoomi had told Miya that he wouldn’t roll over and make it easy for him, so he can’t be surprised that Kiyoomi, too, is playing it. So what the fuck was that all about?

Kiyoomi can’t fucking figure out.

It bothers him, though, that he wants to.

Chapter Text

ACT V: The Dinner Dilemma.

Kiyoomi finds running to be a necessary evil. It’s not his favorite form of physical activity by any means and most days, the act of it makes him want to lightly die. He’s not sure if it was better in high school, but at least it had purpose there. Now, he doesn’t run to condition himself for a sport he loves, he runs because it is the easiest and most effective way to keep in shape, and has the unfortunately positive consequence of also clearing his mind for a period of time.

Also because Wakatoshi insists they share this activity together.

“I can’t believe you’ve talked me into doing this,” Kiyoomi says, panting as their run winds down. “I’m too rich to be this sweaty.”

“Running is a good cardiovascular activity, Kiyoomi,” Wakatoshi says. “You cannot be too wealthy for heart health.”

“Running is going to be the reason I die,” Kiyoomi says. He sucks in air. “Why don’t you sound winded? You never sound winded.”

“I run twice a day,” Wakatoshi says. “I have not been lax in my training.”

Ushijima Wakatoshi is a straightforward man with not a single judgmental bone in his body that isn’t related to the sport of volleyball. So tell Kiyoomi why he sounds so suspiciously judgmental in Kiyoomi’s earpiece right now.

“Some of us are fighting for our lives out here, Wakatoshi,” Kiyoomi says.

“Do you usually get into physical altercations while running?”

Is Wakatoshi fucking with him? It seems impossible, but Wakatoshi must be fucking with him.

Kiyoomi sighs. “Wakatoshi.”

A moment of silence.

“Ah.” A brief pause. “I do not see how attempting to find a partner could keep you from conditioning.”

“That’s easy to say when you met your soulmate in high school,” Kiyoomi grumbles under his breath.

“Sorry, did you say something?”

Kiyoomi slows down to a walk. He’s sweating. There’s sweat making his shirt stick to his chest, sweat dripping down the back of his neck, sweat matting his curls to his forehead. It’s sticky and disgusting. This is the thing he hates most about running: it’s such an inherently sweaty activity.

“No,” Kiyoomi says. “How is Tendou?”

“He’s doing well, thank you for asking,” Wakatoshi—who again, does not sound winded at all—responds, pleased.

Kiyoomi has met Wakatoshi’s soulmate a handful of times. He and Wakatoshi have basically been best friends since they met in volleyball training camp in high school. Tendou Satori was always in the periphery—he had known Wakatoshi first, had been Wakatoshi’s first true friend in high school, his partner on the volleyball team, his first kiss, his first time. Kiyoomi knew of Tendou at the time, partly because they played each other during competitions, but mostly because Wakatoshi would always talk about him or, occasionally, invite him when they were hanging out as a group.

The inevitability of their matching soulmarks had been a foregone conclusion to Kiyoomi, even back then. They complemented each other in a way that Kiyoomi had found perplexing then and still finds slightly puzzling now. On paper, they make no sense at all, but in reality they fit together neatly—all of Wakatoshi’s awkward, idiosyncratic, and sometimes off-putting pieces slotting perfectly against all of Tendou’s exuberant, exhausting, and borderline manic ones. Wakatoshi is enchanted by Tendou and Tendou is never bored by Wakatoshi. It’s the kind of fairytale soulmate pairing that Kiyoomi genuinely used to think was made up.

It had taken them time to get there, though. High school had been the beginning of an emotional situationship that neither of them had been mature or, frankly, smart enough to recognize until Wakatoshi—tired of the what-ifs and I-wishes and continents and years between them—had shown up in Paris unannounced, a soulmark on the inside of his left arm. A southpaw to the end.

It was a little shooting star, lines dark, as though inked against his fair skin. Tendou’s was in the space just behind his right ear.

Kiyoomi had been best man at their wedding.

“When is he coming back?”

“At the end of the month,” Wakatoshi says. “He is only gone for a few weeks this time. He asked if I wanted to accompany him, but unfortunately there are some meetings I cannot afford to miss.”

Like Kiyoomi, Wakatoshi comes from a highly pedigreed background. The Ushijima Financial Group has been one of Japan’s leading financial conglomerates for decades. They have banks in every major and medium-sized city in Japan and are currently in the middle of expanding to other countries in the East Asian bloc. Although Ushijima has never shown any real interest or passion for banking, his future has been laid out for him nearly as long as Kiyoomi’s has been. Kiyoomi supposes this was one of the reasons they had connected so well from the beginning. Like recognizes like, in so many ways.

“His business really is doing well, then.”

“Lionceau is now in Paris, Lyon, and Marseille,” Wakatoshi says and Kiyoomi can hear the pride in his voice. “There have been inquiries to expand to England as well.

Kiyoomi is genuinely happy for his best friend. Wakatoshi’s had his fair share of challenges. No, he’s never had to face the ignominy of being a public-facing figure without a soulmate or had his inheritance challenged, but he has weathered undisguised tension and bitter disappointment from his family that is only now starting to abate.

After all, the only thing worse than having no soulmate at all is having a soulmate your family looks down on.

“He left me a message a while ago,” Kiyoomi says. He realizes, guiltily, that he’d completely forgotten to answer.

“Ah, yes,” Wakatoshi says. “He wanted your opinion on something.”

Kiyoomi almost smiles. “He doesn’t trust your taste anymore, huh?”

“I do not think it is unreasonable to question the combination of wasabi and chocolate.”

That’s probably fair. Doesn’t change the facts, though, that Kiyoomi’s weird taste buds had loved the combination and upon his recommendation and blessing, Tendou had rolled out his wasabi truffles, which had skyrocketed to wild popularity.

“He still sends me a package once a month.” It’s actually very sweet of Tendou, who knows, in full disclosure, that Kiyoomi and Wakatoshi had once kissed and also that Wakatoshi had once unofficially offered to marry Kiyoomi to help him out.

“He appreciates your feedback,” Wakatoshi says. Finally it sounds like he’s slowing down on his end of the call as well. Kiyoomi can only tell because his words sound marginally more strained.

Kiyoomi lifts his sleeve and wipes it against his sweaty forehead, displacing damp curls along the way.

“And you?” Wakatoshi says.

“I appreciate his chocolate as well.”

“No, not that,” Wakatoshi says. “Your situation. Are you making progress?”

Kiyoomi nearly sighs.

“I’ve invited Iizuna to family dinner this week,” he says. “He’s agreed because he’s either incredibly genial and confident or he has a death wish.”

“Can you not be genial and confident and have a death wish?”

“Probably not,” Kiyoomi says. “At least in this case.”

Wakatoshi hums. Kiyoomi rolls his shoulders and slows his walk even further. His heart is still pounding in his chest. His limbs feel warm and loose and his head feels clear. Admittedly, he loves the after effects of running. He just wishes the activity itself was less intolerable.

“I’m hoping it goes well.”

“You do not think it will?”

That’s not it, exactly. Kiyoomi’s actually fairly confident that his family will love Iizuna—that was part of the reason he had picked him to begin with. Iizuna is smart and charming and polite and successful and interesting. Most importantly, he comes off as respectable, which is half of what any of these families care about anyway.

“No, it will,” Kiyoomi says. “I’m not worried.”

“Are you certain?”

Kiyoomi chews on his bottom lip and nods, even though Wakatoshi can’t see.

“Yes.”

Wakatoshi is quiet for a moment in response.

“You do not sound excited. Or unexcited.”

Kiyoomi frowns.

“What do I sound like, then?”

“Hm,” Wakatoshi says, considering. Then he says simply: “Resigned.”

It’s a thought that plagues him the rest of the day. If even Ushijima Wakatoshi can read something other than excitement in his tone—from a simple phone call, miles away—then what will others think?

Kiyoomi doesn’t want to seem ungrateful. He has an option now—a real, genuine option—and he could never take that for granted. He’s not even dreading it, if it all comes to pass. Iizuna has always been a good friend to him. They get along very well; they even like each other. Kiyoomi could do worse by far.

It’s just…he’s not sure.

He can’t describe it, exactly. It’s an unsettled, indescribable feeling, like lead sitting in his stomach—a sitting weight that he can’t quite shake. There’s no real, valid reason he can think of, that he should be so listless about a good, almost miraculous answer to his impossible situation.

He shouldn’t be so strangely…ambivalent about someone he, objectively, likes so very much.

“Maybe you just don’t want it,” Motoya says to him when Kiyoomi admits it out loud. “It’s okay to want something different, Kiyoomi. You’re not actually a robot.”

But that can’t be it either.

Kiyoomi does want it—he wants the company, his family legacy, above everything. He has always been willing to do what it takes to carry out his part of the Sakusa family tradition. This is just another item on that list.

So if it’s not Iizuna, then it must be him, right?

He must be the problem.

Which begs the age-old, perennial question: what the fuck is wrong with Sakusa Kiyoomi?

Miya doesn’t ever apologize or explain himself. After a week of avoiding Kiyoomi, he evidently decides to ignore that the argument happened at all, because he’s back on the leather couch in Kiyoomi’s office, a hand wrapped tightly around a coffee cup.

“They’re not bad demands. Like, we could do the rest easy,” he says. His hand is shaking a little and Kiyoomi’s not sure if it’s because he’s relieved or because he’s mainlined at least five cups of coffee today. Not that Kiyoomi’s been paying attention, but he’d seen Miya leave his office and go to the kitchen and return with a cup of coffee at least three separate times that morning alone.

Kiyoomi eyes Miya over his desk. He has the latest negotiation terms open that the company lawyers had sent over an hour ago. There’s new language in there that—shockingly—doesn’t seem impossible to meet or terrible to Itachiyama. The main demand is still Hinata in a director role, but it seems Nekoma had relented on a few minor details and had made a few other minor demands that should be easy enough to resolve. After months of being at a frustrating and almost maddening stalemate, this was progress.

Kiyoomi had opened the email the moment his inbox had dinged and been knocked nearly sideways in surprise.

He’d actually heard Miya shout from his own office. Kiyoomi’s head had shot up at the same moment Miya’s had and their eyes had met across the office hallway and through their glass walls.

All enmity be damned.

And now here he was, on Kiyoomi’s couch.

“If Nekoma wants to retain their own corporate logo and branding, that’s fine,” Kiyoomi says, agreeing. “It’s not a real issue. We only suggested otherwise because—”

“It would’ve been easier to align it with Itachiyama,” Miya says. “Yeah. But after all that, I’m not gonna say your shitty volleyball and cat thing’s a dealbreaker. God with God. Keep the stupid cat and sign the fucking deal.”

Kiyoomi’s so relieved, he could almost laugh.

“They have a specific brand and customer loyalty,” he says begrudgingly. It’s always good to remember to respect their partners, no matter how infuriating. “That’s not a bad thing for us either.”

“Yeah yeah, whatever,” Miya says, waving a hand dismissively and it’s a testament to how much it feels like a weight has been lifted from Kiyoomi’s shoulder that it doesn’t particularly annoy him.

Kiyoomi falls back against his leather chair in a relieved slump. He even allows himself to smile. He feels like celebrating. Maybe he will treat himself to some boba after he leaves the office.

“Shit,” Miya says with a furious exhale and Kiyoomi almost laughs, because same. “I really thought I was gonna have to strangle Kuroo Tetsurou with my own bare hands. Like I was gonna do it the next time I got a rejection from him. Woulda taken a company car to Nekoma and gotten my hands on his long, skinny neck.”

“Have you ever been in a fight in your life, Miya?” Kiyoomi says, amused. “You threaten violence a lot for someone who looks like he spends weekends half-naked on the beach.”

“You been thinkin’ about me half-naked a lot, Omi-kun?” Miya says with a wry smile that Kiyoomi is hard put to not roll his eyes at. “Coulda just asked for an invitation.”

Kiyoomi snorts and doesn’t dignify that with a response.

Miya sinks back into the leather and says. “You’re always underestimatin’ me.”

“Uh huh. So you can fight?”

“I got a mean right hook,” Miya says, grinning. “Just ask ‘Samu.”

“Not this again.”

“You get yourself a twin brother and then you tell me how you act.”

Despite himself, Kiyoomi chuckles.

“It’s a fight for survival from day one,” Miya says. He tilts his head back against the couch, revealing the long line of his neck. Kiyoomi is careful to avert his eyes the moment he catches himself looking.

“Fine,” Kiyoomi says. “I’ll bite. How?”

Miya looks back at him eagerly.

“Bastard fought me to be out first, I fuckin’ know it.”

“Sorry, you’re claiming you remember your time in the birth canal?”

“Don’t say birth canal with a straight face!” Miya says, spluttering.

“You’re the one who brought it up.”

“Not like that! I’m trying to explain my trauma to you and you’re bein’ really unsupportive.”

“I never agreed to be supportive. Why would you assume that?”

“This ain’t about you!”

Kiyoomi almost laughs again. He wonders if the Nekoma e-mail loosened something in his skull.

“Stop dragging out your story and get to the point.”

“I hate you,” Miya informs him. “Anyway, it’s kinda like…there’s two of you and you’re the same but you’re not. No one can tell you apart and no one really tries. But that’s not like—anyone else’s right. If you and your twin wanna be the same person, that's between the two of you. No one else!”

Kiyoomi has no idea what Miya is trying to say. He raises an eyebrow.

“Okay.”

“So you’re fighting, from the beginning. Fighting for attention, fighting for toys, fighting for food. Fighting for your own identity. A scrap of something to call your own in the world, y’know?”

“I have three older sisters,” Kiyoomi says. “I’ve never really had to fight with anyone for anything.”

“Well that explains some things,” Miya mutters and Kiyoomi shoots him a glare. “It’s like—it's not personal and it’s also the most personal thing in the world. You’re fighting for everything, every last bit. Fighting in every way you can fight.”

“Including physically.”

“We’ve given each other more black eyes than we can count. Once, ‘Samu accidentally shoved me in water and I got pulled under ‘cause my foot got caught on something. Nearly drowned. Scared the shit outta him. He cried for two days straight and to this day he won’t let me go near water without him.”

“Oh.”

“Oh! Another time, we were fighting so bad I shoved him hard as I could and he fell against the—like pole of a swing set. Busted his head. He had to get multiple stitches. There was enough blood that I still get nauseous at the sight of it.”

“That’s—” Kiyoomi’s not sure what to say really. He’s had Motoya his entire life but they’ve never been in direct competition for anything really. And they’re not brothers, which Kiyoomi assumes changes the calculus some. “What happened?”

“Cried my fuckin’ eyes out, didn’t I? Crawled into his bed—we had bunks then—for two weeks straight. I thought he was gonna die in the middle of the night and it was gonna be my fault, so I just stayed awake and watched him breathe like a fuckin’ weirdo.” Miya almost smiles. “Then one night he got sick of the hovering and tried to smother me with his pillow.”

Kiyoomi stares at him and Miya laughs, just inappropriate, raucous, head-thrown back laughter.

For a moment, it makes something pang in Kiyoomi. A deep, melancholic feeling in his gut, like—maybe he’s missed something, never having been quite that close to anyone before. He wonders what it must be like, to have someone there for you in such a way. To have someone know you like that and be able to rely on them—to trust that they will love you no matter what, even at your worst. Maybe especially at your worst.

“That’s not even half of it,” Miya says as his laughter subsides to a chuckle. He shrugs and drinks some of his coffee. “God, we got up to some shit. Poor Ma. Anyway, when you grow up like that, you can tussle.”

“Everything’s a fight for you,” Kiyoomi observes. He doesn’t mean it judgmentally.

Miya smiles and shrugs again.

“You too,” he says.

Kiyoomi sighs. It’s not untrue and he’s not even mad about Miya saying it. It just seems so…confusing, next to Miya’s own admission. A bit banal.

He has almost everything a person could have. So what is there for him to even fight about?

“I don’t even have a twin as an excuse,” he says.

“Just a bad personality,” Miya says, to which Kiyoomi shoots him a glare. He laughs in response. “Not judging. You think I gotta a leg to stand on?”

“There’s hypocrisy and there’s whatever that would have been,” Kiyoomi says, his mouth twitching.

Miya looks amused. He takes another mouthful of his coffee, which must have gone cold by now.

“So, what’s that all about?”

“My bad personality?”

Miya snorts. “No. Why are you always fighting, Sakusa Kiyoomi?”

It feels weird to hear Miya say his full name out loud like that, but Kiyoomi doesn’t bristle at it. It’s the same question he’d been asking himself, after all.

“Control issues, probably.”

“Lot of them, from what I can see.”

“Shut up, Miya,” Kiyoomi says and Miya smiles. “I guess…I’m not sure. I’ve always had unreasonably high standards and expectations. For myself. For those around me. If I can control things—if I can make sure everything is perfect, then things can be exactly the way I’ve planned them to be in my head. Everything can be excellent.”

“That’s silly.”

Kiyoomi looks at Miya, annoyed.

“No, I just mean—not everything can be excellent,” Miya says. “It’s impossible.”

“Maybe,” Kiyoomi admits. “But you can try. You can do your best and make sure everyone around you does their best and you can come close to perfect that way.”

“That’s silly too.” Miya waves away Kiyoomi’s second glare. “Perfection’s impossible too.”

“It’s not—”

“It is,” Miya says. “Learned that the hard way. And you know why?”

Kiyoomi’s half-irritated and half-intrigued. Miya’s a lot of things, but underachieving isn’t one of them.

“Tell me, then.”

“Your perfect is your perfect. It’s not my perfect. It’s not Ota-san’s perfect, or your Ma’s, or my Uncle’s, or ‘Samu’s, or anyone else’s. You can make everything perfect—your kinda perfect—and someone else can still prefer someone else’s version instead.”

Kiyoomi frowns. He hates that. There shouldn’t be different kinds of perfect. There should—can be—only one.

“You don’t believe me.”

“No, not really.”

Miya shrugs.

“Well, maybe it’s one of those things you gotta figure out for yourself,” he says.

“I don’t know if that would make me easier,” Kiyoomi says, after thinking it over for a minute. “Even assuming you’re right—which I am not saying.” Miya looks amused again. “Even if I let go of the idea of…perfection. Of making sure everything around me is excellent. I think I would still find something to fight about.”

Miya tilts his head curiously. “Why?”

Kiyoomi’s not sure.

“Maybe I just like to fight.” He tilts his head back against his chair, looking up at the ceiling. “Maybe that’s just part of my bad personality.”

He’s unsurprised to hear a low chuckle from the couch.

“Well, that’s all right then,” Miya says. “I think your bad personality’s better than some people’s good one.”

Kiyoomi feels the back of his neck warm. He ignores Miya’s gaze as much as he ignores the confused scramble of feelings scraping over his chest.

It’s a minute before he forces himself to look back up. When he does, Miya’s still watching him. He looks…not contrite, exactly, but something dangerously close to human.

“Omi,” Miya says quietly.

Kiyoomi stills.

“Sorry.”

Kiyoomi must look as surprised as he feels because Miya turns a little pink and rubs the back of his neck awkwardly.

“The other day. It’s—it was none of my business.”

Kiyoomi doesn’t know what to say at first. He had never contemplated real self reflection from Miya, let alone an actual apology. He doesn’t know that he’d needed one, either. He and Miya are on opposite sides of a tense, insane thing. They’re not really friends. They’re barely civil.
Why Miya had reacted the way he had to the possibility of Kiyoomi with a partner is no more Kiyoomi’s business than it is Miya’s business why Kiyoomi doesn’t have a soulmark with anyone.

Kiyoomi hadn’t needed an apology. But it makes something in him soften to be given one.

“Thank you,” is all he says.

Miya nods and his shoulders relax. He finishes what must be his now cold cup of coffee.

“Miya, can I ask you something?”

Miya looks at Kiyoomi with furrowed eyebrows. Then he nods.

“It doesn’t seem to bother you. All of the soulmate stuff. Is it because you have one? Or…” Kiyoomi struggles to express what he’s trying to ask. Eventually he gives up. “Why aren’t you with them?”

What Miya had been expecting Kiyoomi to ask, Kiyoomi doesn’t know. Certainly not something so personal. Kiyoomi’s not sure why he had asked, really, only that it’s the thing that is so clearly the dividing line between their experiences. Kiyoomi just wants to know if there’s another way.

Miya runs a hand through his hair. His shoulders stretch the material of his white shirt, but for once Kiyoomi’s not distracted. He genuinely wants the answer.

“I don’t like being told I have to do something or have something. My life being mapped out like that…why? Who gave the universe the right to decide my soulmate?”

“Most people find it romantic,” Kiyoomi says. “A sign this person is your other half.”

“Sure, if you want something like that. Some cosmic power deciding who you are or aren’t and who you’re gonna love or not. Sounds like bullshit to me. It’s not their soul, it’s mine. I should get to choose who to give half of it to.”

That’s kind of how Kiyoomi feels too. It doesn’t mean anything to just be handed it—not something like this. He always wants to prove himself the best, as having earned the thing he’s given. Even if it’s love.

“It doesn’t make you feel comforted? Having that certainty?”

Miya makes a noise and sinks back against Kiyoomi’s couch, his long legs stretching in front of him.

“Is it certain?”

“I imagine that’s the entire point,” Kiyoomi says. “The universe—fate—whatever—telling you for sure that this person is the one person who is meant for you above all. Validation by the fabric of reality that you were made to be together.”

Miya wrinkles his nose.

Kiyoomi lifts a shoulder in shrug. “At least, certain people seem to think so.”

“Those old fuckers,” Miya says. “If that was true, people wouldn’t get their hearts broken, would they? They wouldn’t get divorced. But that shit still happens because people are people. Doesn’t matter how their souls are marked.”

“I guess that’s a pragmatic way of looking at it.”

“How else do you explain it, then?”

Kiyoomi’s not sure. He hasn’t been able to figure any of it out. “I don’t know. Soulmates are supposed to mean something.”

Miya tilts his head a little, but it’s not condescending. He just looks curious.

“I didn’t take you for a hopeless romantic.”

“I’m not.”

“Then would you not care? Your situation right now. Like, if it wasn’t for the whole—” he gestures vaguely. “Would it still matter this much otherwise?”

Kiyoomi wonders.

“My best friend met his soulmate in high school. They didn’t know it at the time, but they knew what they meant to each other. It took him years to get the matching soulmark, but when he did—it was affirmation. Validation of what he had always known.”

“If he already knew it, why did he need it validated then?”

Kiyoomi smiles a bit.

“That’s what I said. But I think it brought them closer together, knowing for sure.”

Miya doesn’t look convinced.

“I dunno. I mean, would they have meant less to each other if they hadn’t gotten soulmarks? Would it have mattered if the universe—fate—whatever—hadn’t validated them?”

Kiyoomi shakes his head. “I don’t think so. They’re quite in love.”

“Then, what’s the point?”

“I don’t know,” he sighs. He feels stupid now. This whole conversation has just made him feel a little stupid. “I guess it’s just nice. People like having signs.”

Miya’s watching him intently again. He does that so often.

“So you want something like that?”

Kiyoomi thinks about it for a minute and then shrugs.

“Maybe. I think it would be comforting,” he says. “To know someone out there is obligated to put up with me.”

That, of everything, finally makes Miya laugh again.

“That the only way you’re gonna get someone to tolerate your bad personality?”

Kiyoomi gives Miya a wry, half-smile.

“I take it you don’t feel the same way. Always have to make everything more difficult than it needs to be, don’t you?”

Miya returns the same smile.

“I like to fight too.”

Something twists in Kiyoomi’s chest, warm and familiar.

He ignores it and straightens in his chair.

“I suppose it doesn’t matter, anyway.”

“No?”

Kiyoomi shouldn’t admit this to Miya. It’s ill-advised and, frankly, stupid to do so. Miya’s the person Kiyoomi dislikes the most in the world and they’re not even drunk.

But with Miya looking so relaxed in his office, the good news from Nekoma earlier, and the fact that they haven’t fought for nearly an hour now—the longest they’ve ever gone without some sort of verbal altercation—it just feels like the kind of thing that might be okay to share this once.

A sacred space, between him and Miya Atsumu.

“He’s not my soulmate,” Kiyoomi says. “Iizuna.”

“That’s…?”

“Yeah. The guy I’ve been seeing.”

“Oh. How…d’you know?” Miya says carefully. “Like, sometimes it takes time. Did he bond with someone else already?”

“No,” Kiyoomi says. “But I know. I think we both can tell.”

“And that’s okay?”

“As I’m learning, not everyone cares about soulmarks or the universe finding your perfect other half.”

Miya grins a little and puts up his hands. “Fair enough.”

“I don’t mind and neither does he,” Kiyoomi says. “We like each other and respect each other. We’ve known and liked each other for a very long time.”

Miya’s expression is strangely inscrutable. For once, Kiyoomi doesn’t try to figure it out.

“And he’s okay with all of this?” Miya asks. “The whole—well, y’know.”

Kiyoomi and Iizuna haven’t talked about it, really. Not in so many words. Iizuna’s smart, though. He knows that there’s a reason Kiyoomi had re-started…whatever this is. A bigger reason than just reconnecting with an old boyfriend.

“He’s a good guy,” Kiyoomi says.

“Okay.”

Kiyoomi nods at Miya after a minute of comfortable silence.

“So what, you’re never going to propose to this poor person?”

“My soulmate?”

“Yes.”

“I guess I’ll have to eventually,” Miya says with a shrug. Then, “Uncle.”

Right.

The surprising easiness between them tenses a little.

Kiyoomi tilts his head up a little, staring at a little spider crawling across the ceiling. How did they even get into this topic? Why haven’t they stopped talking?

Instead of changing the subject, Kiyoomi asks: “Do you love them?”

Miya shakes his head.

“I don’t even know anything about them,” he says softly.

Kiyoomi can’t even be dismissive about that. It hits too close to home. Needing to be with someone for the sake of a specific goal and being forced to be with someone because the universe tells you to—neither situation leaves much room to find out who a person really is. In a way, they make that question not even really matter.

Are the situations really so different? Aren’t they just different shades of the same color?

There’s a knot in his throat.

“I’m sorry,” Kiyoomi says then and is surprised to realize he means it.

“Yeah, well,” Miya says. He exhales with a tired laugh. “It is what it is.”

Kiyoomi’s responding laugh matches Miya’s. “It is what it fucking is.”

The quiet stretches between them again, not easy or tense or complicated this time. It’s just silence, the regular kind, as though the two of them can exist in the same space together without it being a bad thing.

“Vote’s soon, isn’t it?” Miya finally says.

“Yeah.”

“You’re gonna do what you need to do to win, and I’m gonna do the same. What’s the point in gettin’ mad about any of it?”

Kiyoomi lifts a shoulder in shrug.

“I guess there isn’t any.”

Miya nods. He spreads his hands against his thighs. “We’re both here for the same reason, Omi-kun. We’re fighting for the same thing, aren’t we?”

Kiyoomi feels it again: that uncertainty, the way the ground feels unsettled against his feet. His stomach clenches in response.

“Yes,” he says. “We’re fighting for the same thing.”

It’s no less the truth now than it was nearly a year ago.

Now, though, it feels more complicated—less straightforward.

Miya is still Kiyoomi’s direct rival for the company. But—as Kiyoomi meets Miya’s eyes again, both of them quiet with understanding—he thinks that sometimes it doesn’t quite feel like Miya’s his real enemy anymore.

Chapter Text

The Sakusa family dinner is a biweekly tradition that Kiyoomi’s grandfather—of all people—had implemented when he had still been alive. As far as Kiyoomi remembers, his grandfather had never particularly liked the company of his family. The old man had been shrewd and strict and more or less mean, but he’d loved control and taken pride in his creations, which included Kiyoomi’s mother and everyone that followed. No matter how busy Kiyoomi’s parents got with the company or how many papers or exams his older sisters were suffering through, Sakusa Kiyoshi always demanded that they gather as a full family the first and third Saturdays of each month.

The tradition had outlived Kiyoomi’s grandfather. Almost in honor of his memory—or maybe in fear of his spirit—the Sakusas dutifully gather in the Sakusa family home on the first and third Saturday of each month, sometimes with partners and children or other honored guests, but—no matter what—always the two parents and four siblings.

Kiyoomi’s the only one who still lives at home with his parents, so it’s less of a lift for him. He receives confirmation from his youngest older sister, Aiko, that she’s going to stay the night, and an ambiguous text that he doesn’t care to decipher from the other two—he’s fairly certain Naomi and Akemi are fighting, but he knows better than to affirmatively ask. The latter is followed by a text from Iizuna, who confirms that he’s on his way and will arrive twenty minutes early, so as to impress Kiyoomi’s parents as much as it is possible to impress such people.

Kiyoomi isn’t nervous. That’s not the way he would describe how his fingertips feel like they’re tingling at the ends, or the way it feels like something is crawling over his skin, why he’s gotten up to wash his hands at least four times, or how he can’t seem to stand still. Those aren’t nerves, because having nerves means you’re high strung and Kiyoomi had decided not to be high strung anymore the last time Miya had looked him in the eyes and said, You’re strung so tight no one’s even gotta finger you before your strings snap.

Which, as far as things Miya has said to him, had registered as pretty mild and was also only moderately as crass and graphic as he might otherwise have been. Still, it had inspired the kind of pettiness in Kiyoomi that only Miya seems to be able to inspire.

Anyway, he’s not nervous or high strung, is the point. He just has an excess of energy and is in a constant state of anticipating how this evening will go and which of the many ways it might completely fuck up.

“Why are you skulking around the hallway, Kiyoomi?” his mother asks.

Atsuko is sitting at her desk in her home office, the door open as Kiyoomi paces past for the third time that afternoon. Her phone is on the desk in front of her, vibrating constantly, as she ruffles through a small stack of papers.

“I’m not skulking,” Kiyoomi says, convincingly. “I am engaging in my daily walk.”

Kiyoomi’s mother looks up at him, her glasses perched at the end of her nose.

“Can you engage in your daily walk elsewhere? You are being very distracting.”

Kiyoomi hasn’t sulked in front of his mother since he was eight years old. He’s so desperately close to doing so now. He takes a breath and tries to pull himself together.

“Mother,” Kiyoomi says and stops in her doorway.

Atsuko raises an eyebrow. Kiyoomi doesn’t know what she’s in the middle of—she’s always in the middle of doing something—and for once he’s too absorbed with something that is entirely unrelated to the company and his future to care.

Well, unrelated to his future in the company.

“What are you planning on saying?” Kiyoomi asks. “Tonight?”

His mother always did appreciate candor.

She puts her papers down. There’s a strange look on her face that Kiyoomi, if he didn’t know better—which he, of course, does—would assume is indication of her trying not to laugh.

“Are you worried?”

“No,” Kiyoomi says immediately. His mother looks at him. He clears his throat and amends, “I’m not not worried.”

“You’ve never been worried about introducing us to someone you’re seeing before,” Atsuko says with a thin smile. “Should we be worried?”

Kiyoomi gives his mother a pointed and incredulous look and this time her expression does break. She gives a low chuckle.

“We won’t embarrass you,” she says.

“That’s not what I’m worried about,” Kiyoomi mutters under his breath.

His mother leans back in her leather chair a bit. Her expression draws together in thought.

“We’ve met him before,” she says. “Izuna Tsukasa. I remember him now, from your high school years.”

“He was captain of our volleyball team,” Kiyoomi says, straightening. “He led us to nationals the year we won.”

“I remember him being quite talented,” his mother agrees. “Your father said he took charge of the team with confidence.”

“He did,” Kiyoomi says. He’s almost relieved now, to be talking about it. “He’s changed, of course. But for the better. He’s older and more mature now. And even more talented than he was in high school.”

A stupid thing to say, altogether. Of course Iizuna’s more talented now than in high school. He’s a professional player.

“Then why are you pacing outside of my office like a restless cub?” his mother asks.

He almost flushes at being so easily read.

Kiyoomi doesn’t really know how to explain it—why he’s so anxious. There’s a sharp sense of dread running along the base of his spine that has nothing to do with Iizuna. It has nothing to do with his family embarrassing him either.

It has everything to do with what his family might expect of him—tonight and going forward.

“We just want to meet him, Kiyoomi,” his mother says, gently. Well, as gently as Sakusa Atsuko can make anything sound. “Make sure he is…well-suited to you.”

“You don’t trust me?”

“Is that what I said?” Atsuko says. “Don’t be so self-absorbed. We did the same for your sisters. Your grandfather did the same for me. When you’re in a family like ours, such things are customary.”

Kiyoomi guesses that’s true. He tries to settle his nerves.

“Mother—” he starts to say and then hesitates.

“Hm?” Atsuko’s attention has returned to her papers, but she pauses the shuffling.

Kiyoomi’s not sure what he means to ask her. He’s not a child anymore, that he should be so uncertain at her doorstep. He’s not sure what he wants to say either, only that his mind is racing and whatever question he has lands somewhere between what expectations do you have of us? and do you promise not to scare him away? and do you think the universe has a right to decide who your soulmate isn’t?

“Will it be enough?” Kiyoomi finds himself asking.

Kiyoomi’s mother slowly puts her papers down.

“What will?”

“This,” Kiyoomi says. His throat is a bit dry. He finds his tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth uncomfortably. “If this dinner goes well and you like him. If I ask him to…be my unbonded partner. If we commit to one another, but aren’t soulmates. Will that be enough for them? Or will they find another excuse? Will it always be something else, because everyone else is bonded and I’m not?”

Will I always be found lacking, no matter what I do?

Kiyoomi’s mother isn’t a particularly emotionally forthcoming woman, nor is she shy. But that isn’t to say she isn’t compassionate. It isn’t to say she doesn’t love her son.

“I don’t know, Kiyoomi,” Atsuko says quietly. “I want to say yes. This is what they asked for. A soulmate or a partner. If you can give them one of those things, then you’ll have given them the assurance that they demanded.”

Kiyoomi feels his heart drum unevenly near his throat.

“But?” There’s always a but.

His mother sighs.

“But the Board is made of old men who have always done things in a certain way,” she says. “They’re driven by power, not rationality. I can’t say for certain that they’ll keep their word.”

Kiyoomi’s stomach sinks.

“Even after all of this—they might still go with Miya. Because he has a soulmate.”

Kiyoomi’s mother almost looks sad. She takes a breath and nods.

“I’ll support you as much as I can,” she says. “I will do my best to make sure they honor their word. But I can’t promise anything. It’s not guaranteed.”

Kiyoomi wonders what it will feel like, a couple of months from now, when he’s done everything that’s been asked of him and still finds himself coming up short. He wonders just how gutting it will be.

He can’t think about that now, though, or he’ll fall into something he might not be able to crawl back up from.

“You can’t worry about something that hasn’t happened yet, Kiyoomi,” his mother says, as though reading his mind.

“How can I think about anything else?”

Atsuko shakes his head.

“Do your best tonight. Fight for your future and the future of Itachiyama,” she says. “That’s all you can do.”

Kiyoomi hates it. He hates that something so enormous is so out of his control. He hates that after all of his work—all of his years of devotion, of meticulous study and hard work and preparation—his entire future may still come down to something so arbitrary and meaningless as a soulbond.

He can’t pick his future and he can’t pick his heart.

At this point, Kiyoomi barely knows what there’s left for him to choose.

“Go,” his mother says and it’s kinder than she has ever sounded. “Go get ready. Greet your guest. Your father and I will expect you both in the dining room at 7:00 sharp.”

As promised, the front door rings at twenty minutes to 7:00. It could only be Iizuna; Kiyoomi’s sisters had already arrived—without their spouses—over the course of the afternoon, each of them taking the opportunity to torture Kiyoomi in her own way.

(“Why are we just hearing about this boy now, Kiyoomi? Why have you been so tight-lipped about him?” Aiko had asked, sitting at Kiyoomi’s desk as though he had invited her into his room instead of the truth, which was that she had opened the door without even knocking and claimed his leather chair immediately by throwing herself into it. “Is he ugly? He can’t be uglier than that one boyfriend you had in college—what was his name?”

“It was something common,” Naomi—his oldest sister—had said in response, leaning against Kiyoomi’s doorway. She had shown up at the house after the other two and still managed to find her way to Kiyoomi’s room. “Kenzo or Kenji or Haruto. I guess it wasn’t his fault he was so ugly.”

“Oh, Kiyoomi would never date someone ugly. Again. Oh—maybe he’s from a poor family!” Akemi had added unnecessarily to the conversation, sitting on Kiyoomi’s bed with no regard for the fact that he did not want her there. “There’s something compelling about that, actually. I wouldn’t worry so much. I bet the Board would love a story like that—rich, handsome heir falls in love with poor, underprivileged boy.”

“Rescues him,” Aiko said, grinning. “From a life of poverty and department store clothing.”

“I bet he’s never even tried fatty tuna!” Akemi clutched her hands to her heart dramatically while Naomi snorted from the door.

“Can you three leave?” Kiyoomi had snapped, turning redder with each passing moment. “You have your own rooms. That aren’t even in this wing.”

“No,” Naomi said. “It appears our baby brother has been keeping secrets from us and you know we love secrets.”

“Not keeping them,” Aiko clarified.

“We love to find them out,” Akemi added.

“Aren’t you two fighting?” Kiyoomi asked the older two and got a pillow thrown at his head for his insolence.)

When the servant opens the door, Kiyoomi is standing right behind him so that Iizuna isn’t immediately overwhelmed by the Sakusa family formality.

“Iizuna,” he says, with some relief. “You found it okay.”

“I have to admit, Kiyoomi,” Iizuna says with a somewhat awed chuckle. “It would be difficult not to.”

Kiyoomi is never embarrassed of the Sakusa family home, but he has come to realize that it is —objectively—out of reach for most people.

“Please, come in.”

The servant keeps the door open as Iizuna comes inside. He takes off his shoes and is given slippers to wear.

“I hope it wasn’t too long of a journey?” Kiyoomi asks and instantly feels dull as rocks.

“I took a car,” Iizuna says laughing. “Didn’t want to show up smelling like the bus.”

Kiyoomi colors a little at that, but it’s clear Iizuna doesn’t mean anything terrible by it. When he straightens, Kiyoomi can fully appreciate how nice he looks in his tailored grey suit with the nice teal button-up shirt underneath and the silver tie to accent it.

“You look nice,” Kiyoomi says.

“Thanks,” Iizuna says with a grin. “Sometimes they do make us clean up. It’s in the contract.”

“Must score 200 points a season and own a three piece suit?” Kiyoomi says with a smile.

“Have you been reading my contract?” Iizuna says. “Do you know my agent?”

Kiyoomi laughs.

“How was the game?”

The Adlers had just been away to play the DESEO Hornets, although Kiyoomi’s been so busy he hasn’t had a chance to catch up on the scores.

“We won!” Iizuna says enthusiastically. “Took it in three sets. Yuto’s been on fire lately, he had a round of five service aces in a row. Great for us, brutal for the Hornets.”

“Yuto is—”

“Fujiwara,” Iizuna says. “Relatively new, he came in last summer to replace Mori when he got that injury.”

Kiyoomi remembers that. He and Motoya had been at the game when the Adlers’ veteran ace went down wrong. Awful moment for any athlete to watch, even former ones.

“How is he?”

“Mori? Okay, I think. He was thinking about retiring, but his healing is coming along nicely, so he might stick it out for another season. Shitty way to go out otherwise.”

Kiyoomi had never seriously contemplated a professional volleyball career, but he remembers thinking even in high school that the worst possible outcome would be to be forced into retirement through injury.

“I’m glad he’s doing better,” he says. “And that his replacement worked out.”

“Yeah,” Iizuna says with a relieved sigh. He looks around the wide space of the welcome foyer that they’re standing in, expression a little awed. The floors are a light-colored wood that reflect the bare, gleaming white walls. There’s a single, golden mirror hanging across from a center table made of marble that has a growing bonsai tree in a neat basin. Above the center table, there’s an elegant chandelier that looks like strings of interspersed lights.

The Sakusa family home has been renovated and modernized almost constantly since Kiyoomi’s childhood. Now it’s a strange blend of its traditional roots and Western design that only works because everything is so opulent and meticulously cared for.

“We’ll meet everyone in the dining room at exactly 7,” Kiyoomi says. “My mother and father will be joining us, as well as my three sisters.” A pause. “I apologize in advance for the entire evening.”

Iizuna laughs.

“I have an older and younger sister,” he says. “There’s nothing yours can say that I probably haven’t heard before.”

Kiyoomi’s not sure about that.

“Can I get you anything before?”

“No, that’s okay,” Iizuna says. He looks around the foyer again. “Do you want to show me around your house while we wait? If there’s enough time.”

“It’s not that big,” Kiyoomi says, which is mostly true. It’s certainly large for Tokyo, but not nearly as large as some of the country estates around the country or those large American mansions they sometimes show on television.

“Sure. I’ll give you my verdict at the end of the tour,” Iizuna says with a wink that makes Kiyoomi half-smile.

The tour takes fifteen minutes exactly and Iizuna is a good sport the entire time. He doesn’t fawn over the family house, which would be embarrassing for them both, but is sufficiently awed at all of the touches that Kiyoomi’s mother has taken such care to make sure will commend them to proper company.

“You’re not going to show me your room?” Iizuna teases lightly at Kiyoomi’s refusal to open his bedroom door for him. “Do you have posters of your favorite volleyball players up? Is it me? I want to see.”

Kiyoomi laughs and holds the door closed for Iizuna.

“It wouldn’t be appropriate to let a man into my room before he’s met my family,” he says.

“So what you’re saying is after dinner…”

Kiyoomi would rather die than bring anyone to his room while his family is still in the house, but he gives Iizuna a half-smile anyway.

“Then it will be appropriate to show you my posters of Nicolas Romero.”

Iizuna laughs and Kiyoomi’s smart watch buzzes with a reminder for the time.

“Five minutes,” he says. “We better head into the dining room.”

Sakusa family dinners are neither an austere nor ostentatious affair. Usually it involves the six of them spread around the long, formal dining room table, his mother and father talking business at one end and his sisters trying to surreptitiously ask Kiyoomi about his love life near the middle. In most ways, the Sakusa family is distinguished, genteel, and restrained to a fault. They would die for the veneer of propriety and some of them probably have. Dinners, though, are when they’re a little less like caricatures of wealthy society and a little bit more like…well, family. The bar is, admittedly, pretty low.

This family dinner is different. Kiyoomi can feel it from the moment he steps into the room, the pad of his slippers scuffing against the newly polished wooden floor.

His father is already there, at the head of the table, and his mother in her seat next to him. Around the table, his three older sisters—dressed impeccably in Western dresses appropriate for a political fundraiser or business gala—have taken their usual spots. They’re sitting up straight in their seats, watching the doorway eagerly, like vultures.

Kiyoomi clears his throat.

“Mother, Father,” he says, calling everyone’s attention to him. “I’d like to introduce you to—Iizuna Tsukasa. My—” A slight pause as he hurriedly figures out what to appropriately call Iizuna. “—date.”

Iizuna bows to Kiyoomi’s parents immediately.

“Thank you for having me.”

“Iizuna-kun, the pleasure is all ours,” Kiyoomi’s father says with a smile that is almost inviting. He’s not a man of overt warmth, but he manages the best out of all of his family.

Next to him, Kiyoomi’s mother looks at Iizuna over the top of her glasses. She studies him for a moment, close and scrutinizing, before giving him a small nod.

Kiyoomi lets out a small breath of relief and lightly puts his hand on Iizuna’s back.

“I believe they’ve left these seats for us.”

The two of them take their seats with five sets of eyes boring holes into the sides of their heads. Kiyoomi would feel more embarrassed if it wasn’t more or less the experience he—and Iizuna too, likely—had been anticipating.

“Iizuna-kun, Kiyoomi tells us you play in the professional league,” Kiyoomi’s father says.

Iizuna sits up straighter and nods. “Yes, Sakusa-san. This will be my fourteenth year, I think? I started immediately out of high school.”

“That is quite a career,” Sakusa Minoru says. He’s older now, Kiyoomi’s father, with a gentler quality than he’d had most of Kiyoomi’s life. Although he ranks high in Itachiyama, not being the CEO has meant that his father has never had to have the same steel constitution as his wife. That isn’t to say Kiyoomi’s father is soft or gentle by any means. He’s a tall man, broader than his son, with a mostly stern face and short, black hair that’s gone almost entirely grey now. If Kiyoomi’s mother is all steel backbone, his father has the kind of genteel gravity that makes him adept in highly charged political situations.

This dinner isn’t not a political situation, in a way. Ergo.

“I’ve been very lucky,” Iizuna says with a smile.

The servants come and pour water and fill up glasses of wine, the movement a pleasant distraction from how tightly wound Kiyoomi feels.

“You and Kiyoomi met in high school, did you not?” Kiyoomi’s father goes on. He takes his glass of wine and takes the first sip, so that everyone else can reach for theirs as well.

“Yes, we were on the same volleyball team,” Iizuna says. “I was captain my third year and his second. He might be the best hitter we’ve ever had.”

“That’s kind of you to say,” Kiyoomi says. He’s already taken a larger-than-entirely-appropriate gulp of wine that Aiko’s smirked at him for. “I was only as good as the rest of the team. It was really your leadership that took us to nationals.”

“Motoya was on the team too, right?” Naomi says. She’s watching the whole affair with the slight tinge of amusement that can only come from being an oldest sibling who has done all of this much before.

“Yes, he and Kiyoomi worked together really well,” Iizuna says enthusiastically, to which at least two out of Kiyoomi’s three sisters laugh.

“What’s the going definition of working together, these days?” Akemi asks.

“Or really well?” Aiko grins.

Kiyoomi shoots a glare at them that his older sisters dutifully ignore.

“No need to protect our little brother’s reputation to us, Iizuna-kun,” Akemi says.

“Or Motoya’s, for that matter,” Aiko adds. “Those two would fight like cats and dogs when they were little.”

“We weren’t that bad!” Kiyoomi says, trying to defend himself.

“Oh no, you really were,” Naomi says over her glass of wine. “I mean you eventually grew out of it, but who do you think babysat you both for the first seven years of your lives?”

“There was one time—” Aiko starts and Kiyoomi knows exactly where this is going.

“Don’t—”

“When Motoya and Kiyoomi got into a fight—about a toy maybe? What was it?”

“I think Motoya got a new toy that Kiyoomi wanted,” Akemi says thoughtfully. She’s grinning in remembrance. “Some mecha robot, maybe.”

“Oh Kiyoomi didn’t like that at all,” Aiko says. She offers Iizuna a far too familiar grin. “You see, our baby brother is what one can call—what’s the word?”

“A spoiled brat,” Naomi says.

Kiyoomi’s face burns.

“I am not—”

“It’s not his fault, is it?” Akemi says, trying to be reasonable. She swirls the wine in her glass and takes a sip. “He’s the baby of the family and a boy, so what could he have asked for that he wouldn’t be given?”

Aiko has that look in her eyes that she does sometimes when she’s on the verge of ruining Kiyoomi’s life and thinks it’s funny because she’s the youngest older sister. “Still, that made him a bit of a—what’s the word?”

“Monster,” Naomi drawls.

“Iizuna, do not listen to them—” Kiyoomi says.

“No, I’m interested,” his mother interrupts. She’s taking a sip of her wine too. Her face is impassive, so Kiyoomi has no idea whether she’s finding this entire conversation entertaining or a complete disgrace.

“Mother—”

“Let your sisters speak, Kiyoomi.”

Kiyoomi distinctly considers pouting and only decides against it because he doesn’t think it would do him any good.

“Anyway, the point is, Motoya got a new toy that Kiyoomi wanted. They fought. Motoya didn’t want to share. Kiyoomi took the toy from him anyway,” Akemi says. “So what did Motoya do?”

“You see, our cousin isn’t really a pushover either,” Aiko says, by way of explanation. “That’s important. Like we said, it’s not all Kiyoomi’s fault—they were both equal in being complete demons.”

Kiyoomi drinks more wine. Aggressively. Next to him, Iizuna is barely holding it together.

“What did Komori-kun do?” Iizuna asks.

“Motoya walked into Kiyoomi’s room with his shoes on.”

Iizuna literally gasps. Kiyoomi’s eye twitches.

“Oh it was the most dramatic thing you ever saw,” Aiko says. “The screaming. The crying. Kiyoomi chased Motoya all around the house until—somehow—Motoya ended up on the roof.”

“He climbed out a window,” Kiyoomi says, a little petulantly. “And I didn’t care for heights.”

Iizuna is fully laughing now. At the head of the table, Kiyoomi’s father is laughing too. His mother is hard pressed to even out her smile.

“You cannot believe the amount of trouble they both got in,” Akemi says. She tucks a stray curl behind her ear, revealing pearl earrings that glint in the dining room light. She swirls her wine in her glass again, thoroughly amused. “They had to be separated for a month.”

“And do you know what happened?” Aiko says.

“What?” Iizuna is far too eager to hear the rest of this story.

“They couldn’t last a week without each other,” Naomi says. “They both started crying. It was the cutest and most infuriating thing I have ever witnessed.”

Kiyoomi sighs.

“They’re a lot like siblings,” Akemi says. “So I can only imagine what they were like on a volleyball team together.”

“I think maybe they had calmed down by high school?” Iizuna ventures. He takes a sip of his own wine and puts it down. “Sometimes there was tension, but mostly they worked together seamlessly, reading each other without saying anything, and bringing the best out in each other and in the team. It honestly made it easy to lead.”

“He’s a good boy, Motoya,” Kiyoomi’s father says.

“Sometimes I like him better than Kiyoomi,” Aiko says and Kiyoomi uses his long legs to step on her foot under the table. “Ow!”

“Enough about my son,” Atsuko says and suddenly everyone quiets a bit around the table.

Kiyoomi feels a sharp spike of nervous energy at his mother’s attention. He sits up straight in his seat.

“Tell us a little bit about yourself, Iizuna-kun,” his mother says. Her nails—painted a deep burgundy—tap lightly against the side of her wine glass. “You grew up here in Tokyo, I presume. What do your parents do?”

Kiyoomi’s back nearly aches with tension, but as it turns out, he needn’t have worried.

Iizuna is wonderful; a picture-perfect dream.

He answers Atsuko’s questions with an ease and confidence that hits just the right balance. He’s direct and charming, without being long-winded or presumptuous or too informal. He’s honest and forthcoming, without being overly familiar, and engaging and respectful and interesting. He is, in every way, the consummate professional, a perfect candidate to be Kiyoomi’s partner going into the future.

That he’s a professional athlete and not in a traditionally respectable or predictable career path would have likely killed Kiyoomi’s grandfather on the spot, but Iizuna is able to so adeptly defend his choice of career with such show of ambition and passion that Kiyoomi can see his mother and his father warm to the subject.

“And after?” his mother asks. “Have you given thought to what will happen after you retire? Athletes do not have a terribly long career.”

“And I’m well along in mine,” Iizuna says, agreeing with her. “There are a few options I’m exploring. Coaching, of course. I think I would be a good sports commentator, depending on the opportunities.”

“All in volleyball, though?” Kiyoomi’s mother asks Iizuna shrewdly.

“Volleyball is what I love,” Iizuna answers, straightforward and self-assured. “It’s what I’ve spent my entire life doing. If another opportunity presented itself, I would consider it, but I think I would do the most good staying in the sport I love and helping others throughout their careers in it.”

It’s not the most practical answer to give to a family entrenched in business, but it’s not a bad one either. It’s carefully answered and diplomatic, which pleases Kiyoomi’s father and makes his mother hum a little in thought.

Overall, Iizuna’s done well. Overall, he’s done spectacularly.

Kiyoomi finishes his glass of wine with a nearly relieved exhale. He’s been so tightly wound—so fucking nervous—for this entire evening, for what appears to be no reason at all. Of course Iizuna would handle his family with grace and aplomb—he really is just that good. Kiyoomi should have worried less and trusted Iizuna more.

Now that the worst has passed and he can let his shoulders down a bit, Kiyoomi can turn his attention to other things. Like how suddenly hungry he is.

“Where is dinner?” he asks, with a frown.

That, unfortunately, is when the doorbell rings.

All three of his sisters wear matching expressions of displeasure and confusion.

“Who is that?” Naomi asks. “At this hour?”

Akemi cranes her head toward the doorway. “A little rude, isn’t it?”

The air in the room shifts. It happens so subtly that it’s almost impossible to notice. But Kiyoomi hasn’t been raised as his mother’s successor for no reason—he may not have the warmth of Motoya or the social grace of his father, but he is attuned enough to the way situations should feel and proceed that he is sensitive to when everything goes slightly askew.

There is a tension here that wasn’t before. It isn’t coming from his sisters or Iizuna. And it isn’t coming from him.

Kiyoomi turns to look at his parents.

His mother’s back is a little straighter, her expression smoothed into the kind of measured calm she possesses when she’s addressing a room full of men. His father, on the other hand, seems to be taking up more room than he had even a minute before. His eyes are dark and serious.

The sudden frisson in the air isn’t coming from the kids—it’s coming from them.

“Good evening, Sakusa-san, please forgive us,” a familiar, older voice says. “We are so sorry that we’re late.”

Something drops into Kiyoomi’s stomach, like a hot ball of lead. He clenches his fists without thinking as dread crawls up his spine.

Across from him, he can see Naomi’s eyes widen and Akemi look slightly confused. Aiko looks, presently, almost furious.

The easy air, there so briefly, evaporates.

Kiyoomi tenses, his fight or flight instincts tripped into overdrive. By the time he turns toward the open doorway, his father is standing.

“Miya-san,” Kiyoomi’s father says. “We are pleased you could make it.”

Atsuko says as she gestures to two of the remaining empty seats, “Please, join us.”

It would all make sense to him, later. In an awful, twisting way, later he would understand what his parents did and when and even why.

In the moment, though, his mind goes blank with fury.

Kiyoomi sees Miya’s uncle step into the dining room with a sense of betrayal so acute he nearly reels from it. It’s so clear to him that his parents knew about this; that, maybe, they even set it up. They’d invited Iizuna, and they’d invited Miya’s uncle, and they’d invited—

As Miya’s uncle shifts forward, he leaves the doorway clear behind him. Only, the doorway isn’t clear at all.

Someone moves into the space that should be empty.

Kiyoomi’s entire body jolts from shock.

“Miya,” he says, inadvertently standing.

Dressed to the teeth to be as devastating as possible, Miya Atsumu crooks his head and smiles.

Chapter Text

“Miya-san, Atsumu-kun, we’re pleased you could join us,” Atsuko says. She’s standing now too. “We were just about to begin. Please take a seat.”

Kiyoomi’s head is whirring. It’s flipping through a hundred different reasons why Miya Atsumu is in his home right now and he can’t seem to come up with the one that makes any amount of sense.

Miya’s uncle takes the empty seat beside Kiyoomi’s father while Miya takes a seat near the opposite end of the table, across from Kiyoomi and Iizuna.

Kiyoomi’s hair is standing at the back of his neck. There’s a gut-deep feeling of horror and a sharp spike of anger he can’t quite shake.

“Kiyoomi, please sit,” his mother says and it’s only when he feels Iizuna’s hand on his elbow that Kiyoomi realizes he’s the only one still standing.

Stiffly, he sinks into his chair.

Across the table, Miya’s eyes are on him, sharp and inspecting. Kiyoomi refuses to meet them, but that doesn’t relieve the excruciating pressure of Miya watching him any.

“—traffic,” Miya’s uncle is saying. “I swear, it’s getting worse by the day. I thought the Diet had voted to change regulations to ease congestion. What are our taxes paying for!”

Kiyoomi can hear his mother—or his father, he can’t tell which—answer Miya’s uncle politely. The sound comes to him distantly, as through a pane of glass. The restrained laughter that accompanies a superficial conversation follows, but Kiyoomi barely registers it.

He registers nothing but the way his heart is pounding in his ears and the way Miya is openly looking at him. For once, Kiyoomi cannot think of a single thing to say; he’s too caught off-guard to find any sort of bearings.

When the silence stretches too long to be anything but awkward, Kiyoomi suddenly feels a hand slide down onto his thigh. Iizuna squeezes it and something about that pressure finally brings him back into his body enough to speak.

“Miya,” he says. “You didn’t tell me you were coming for dinner.”

“No?”

Kiyoomi grits his teeth and offers him a terribly insincere smile. “No.”

“That’s strange,” Miya says in response. His head is tilted just so, just minutely enough for Kiyoomi to be the only one to notice it. “We were invited weeks ago, so I musta assumed you knew.”

Kiyoomi takes in a short breath. His eyes flicker to his parents.

His father is speaking to Miya’s uncle, but his mother is watching him. Is this a test? To see how Kiyoomi will react to Miya and his uncle on no notice? Is it a test to see if he can control himself—carry himself as a Sakusa under unexpected, high pressure situations? Is it a test to see how Iizuna will react? To see if the two of them can weather something as treacherous and humiliating as facing the two people trying to take Kiyoomi’s proverbial crown from him?

To what end did his mother set this up? And why?

Kiyoomi’s mind races ahead of him again, but he doesn’t have the luxury of letting himself get caught up in the mental weeds. If this is a test, he will not let himself fail it.

“A reasonable assumption,” Kiyoomi says carefully. “Still, we were working together just yesterday. You could have said something.”

“Ah, of course, Sakusa,” Miya says. He sounds about as sincere as a politician. “That’s true. I apologize for not bringing to attention what I assumed you already knew.”

Kiyoomi’s jaw tenses. At the head of the table, his parents and Miya’s uncle pause their conversation.

The air feels strained.

Iizuna squeezes Kiyoomi’s thigh again.

“Miya-san, I appreciate you taking time out of your schedule to come to our home. I thought it would be good for us to dine together,” Kiyoomi’s mother says after a too-tight moment of silence.

“I am honored to have been invited to the great Sakusa family home,” Miya’s uncle says. Everything he says sounds utterly reasonable on the face of it. Kiyoomi can hear the barely discernible sneer underneath, though.

Kiyoomi’s sisters, trained the same way he was, must be able to hear it as well. They tense.

“We should have eaten together long ago,” Kiyoomi’s mother says, ignoring the tension in the room. “We are both working for the good of the company and we’ve been doing so for quite some time.”

“Yes, years now,” Miya’s uncle says. He picks up his freshly poured glass of wine. “I’ve nearly been on the Board as long as you have.”

He laughs dryly, although no one follows him. Next to Kiyoomi, Iizuna looks cautious and puzzled.

Fuck.

“Nearly, but not quite,” Atsuko says with a smile. “Just a few years difference between being a member of the Board for a decade and having run the company for three times that length of time. I’m sure you would agree.”

Miya’s uncle pauses. Then he smiles.

“Yes, I suppose that’s how numbers work,” he says. “Well, what a gift to us your long leadership has been. The company thanks you—and the shareholders of course. Haha!”

There’s some polite, completely fake laughter to accompany that.

Kiyoomi’s gritting his teeth so hard it’s starting to give him a headache.

“So are you going to introduce us?” Miya asks suddenly while the adults are distracted.

Kiyoomi’s focus winnows back in on Miya.

“What?”

Miya doesn’t break eye contact. He smiles a little.

“The gentleman to your right,” Miya says. “I don’t think we’ve been introduced.”

Kiyoomi’s stomach tightens. He opens his mouth, but his mother is the one who speaks first.

“Thank you for the reminder, Atsumu-kun,” Atsuko says. “I have been remiss in my duties as host. This is Iizuna Tsukasa. He is a starting player on the Schweiden Adlers professional volleyball team. He is Kiyoomi’s...guest.”

The word guest hangs heavily in the air. It’s no secret what it must mean in this situation.

“Guest,” Miya says quietly, although Kiyoomi hears him anyway.

Miya’s uncle’s eyes narrow. He looks a bit like he’s sucked on a particularly tart yuzu.

“Ah, is that so? Iizuna-kun, it is a pleasure to meet you. I did not know to expect additional company, and from a celebrity as yourself.”

“The pleasure is all mine, Miya-san. And I would never consider myself such,” Iizuna says smoothly, despite not really understanding the full extent of what is going on. “Volleyball is just the career path I chose for myself, same as others.”

“You’re a pro volleyball player,” Miya says suddenly.

Iizuna turns toward Miya, only a little surprised. “Yes.”

“What position?”

“Setter.”

Something twists in Miya’s face. It’s so quick, Kiyoomi would have missed it had he not been paying close attention.

“Yeah?” he says. “You any good?”

Unlike Miya—and Kiyoomi—Iizuna is not easily riled when meant to be.

“I hope so,” Iizuna says with a smile. “Otherwise the Adlers have been paying me for no reason.”

“Adlers, huh?” Miya says. His hand is curled around his wine glass a little too tightly. “I was at the game last year against MSBY. Great game.” A pointed pause. “Well, for fans of MSBY.”

Kiyoomi feels heat crawl up the back of his neck.

“Miya.”

“That was the game we lost in two sets, right?” Iizuna says. “I remember it clearly. A tough loss, but great in a way.”

Miya’s expression falters.

“In what way?”

Iizuna tilts his head a little this time.

“You only remember the best games you win, but every loss is engraved into your memory, isn’t it?” he says. “You can learn more from a loss than from a win.”

“Isn’t that the common attitude of all losers?” Miya says. “Not you a loser, personally, of course. I mean in general a loser—someone who has lost.”

Kiyoomi’s anger flares. He’s about to snap at Miya to stop being an ass, but Iizuna squeezes his thigh.

“I’m not sure what you mean,” Iizuna says lightly. “Could you elaborate?”

Not without looking like an enormous asshole, although Miya, of course, answers anyway.

“If ya lose, then it’s easy enough to say that you can learn more from that experience,” Miya says. “What else can ya do? You’d want to assign a value to what you’ve done—make it meaningful in some sort of way. Instead of just accepting the truth.”

Iizuna doesn’t rise to the bait then either, although he does raise an eyebrow. “Which is?”

“You just weren’t good enough.”

“Miya,” Kiyoomi says, but Iizuna just smiles.

“That’s one way to look at it, of course. Maybe the easier way.”

Miya’s sneer flickers. “What do ya mean?”

“Well, saying that you lost because you just weren’t good enough is a bit cowardly, isn’t it? Maybe it’s true, but there’s no value in that—it’s giving up. Why play at all if that’s all you take away from a bad performance?” Iizuna taps his nails lightly against his wine glass. “Everyone will have a bad game, Miya-san. That’s reality, isn’t it? It’s how you react to that loss that matters.”

“How did you?” Kiyoomi asks quietly. “React to your loss?”

Iizuna smiles at him, pleased and fond. “It just made me hungrier for next time.”

Kiyoomi finds himself smiling back.

“If that’s the kind of attitude you carry,” Aiko says, sounding pleased, “It’s no wonder the Adlers are winning the league this season.”

Now Miya’s the one who looks like he’s sucked on a tart yuzu.

It’s a satisfactory sort of detente—Iizuna winning, if anyone is keeping any sort of count—but Kiyoomi’s aware enough of himself to know he’s growing more pissed the longer this goes on.

Luckily, the servants interrupt him before he can say something particularly mean off the top of his head.

“Miso soup to begin,” Atsuko says lightly from the head of the table. “My grandmother’s recipe. I hope you enjoy.”

Kiyoomi has been a part of enough political business dinners to understand how they go. What’s important is not what gets said, but everything that is implied just underneath: what is meant in between sentences, and what dishware is used, and where someone is seated, and what someone is served. Businessmen are just as shrewd as politicians and sometimes twice as married to their egos. It’s a sweet sentiment, but a general lie that most business is accomplished through hard work and smart business decisions. The truth is that business—like politics—is about power, and power is found in all of the places you wouldn’t think to look: the slip of a handshake, an expensive bottle of wine, a dinner where your parents have invited the guy you’re seeing, not just with the purpose of meeting meet him, but also to prove to someone else who has power that he exists.

What is being said around the table is lighthearted—superficial, even—but it’s what accompanies the conversation that sets Kiyoomi’s nerves on edge.

“How heartening to see Kiyoomi-kun with a partner,” Miya’s uncle says over a plate of rice and mackerel. “I was not aware that he was seeing someone.”

What he means is: this seems strangely convenient. Do you expect me to believe he could have found someone so fast?

“These things are important to keep private, of course,” Kiyoomi’s mother says. “People are much too public with their private lives these days, don’t you think so, Miya-san?”

What she means is: you can wonder however much you’d like, our family is much too pedigreed to be part of something so gauche as the gossip mill.

“Of course, of course,” Miya’s uncle replies with an acquiescing smile that is more a sneer than it is anything else. “But happy news should be shared, I think. There’s no reason to hide such a thing.”

What he means is: I don’t believe you. I think you’re hiding something, and I will find out what that is.

“I hardly think that being private is hiding, is it?” Atsuko says over a sip of water. She looks over at Kiyoomi and Iizuna. “I don’t know that Kiyoomi could manage such a thing.”

What she means is: ask whatever you’d like—you will find no skeletons here. Kiyoomi is straightforward and honest, and will not be afraid to prove it to the Board.

There’s a joke to be made here, something about the closet, which Kiyoomi had never even tried to shove himself into. It’s much too personal a story to be traded over barbed remarks at dinner, but Kiyoomi looks across the table unthinkingly at Miya and sees his mouth crooked at the corner, as though he’s had the same thought.

Catching his eye, Kiyoomi almost smiles in return. Then, remembering himself, he wipes his expression clean.

“Oh this younger generation,” Miya’s uncle says in response. “You would be surprised what they can hide.”

Kiyoomi digs his nails into his palms and says nothing.

It continues like that between his parents and Miya’s uncle—one remark traded for another, unspoken challenges and bitter insults buried under layers of civility so false it makes Kiyoomi’s teeth ache.

Neither Kiyoomi nor Miya interrupt.

When Kiyoomi was younger, there was a strict expectation that the Sakusa children would attend dinners, but never speak. Children were to be seen and spoken to, but never heard unless asked. That expectation, it appears, has not changed a terrible amount since he was a literal child. Or maybe it’s just hard to figure out where to get in a word edgewise.

Across from him, Kiyoomi’s sisters watch the proceedings with few moments of interruption and more than the occasional look of sympathy aimed toward Kiyoomi that could be a lot subtler than they are. Miya’s usually arrogant expression is dulled into a frown that is a little bit tense and much more annoyed. He, too, keeps looking back at Kiyoomi, but then his eyes will catch on Iizuna and the intensity of his stare will turn pointed and inscrutable in a way that feels clearly menacing.

At some point, Iizuna leans over to Kiyoomi and whispers into his ear, “Don’t worry, my parents are lawyers. You would not believe some of the dinners I’ve had to sit through.”

Which is a comforting sentiment, even if it doesn’t alleviate Kiyoomi’s embarrassment much. Iizuna squeezes his thigh again and Kiyoomi exhales. In response, Miya seems to glower.

Kiyoomi finishes his bowl of rice as well as he can with a stomach churning from anxiety.

He excuses himself during the brief break between dinner and dessert. Nothing overtly terrible has happened, but the underhanded comments and awkward tension scrape against his skin until the back of his throat feels sore with it. Kiyoomi hasn’t had a panic attack since he was in college and he doesn’t think something as milquetoast as a heavy handed political dinner is going to trigger one now, but that doesn’t mean he has to sit in the situation until it accidentally does.

He twists the faucet handles as far as they can go, turning on a torrent of water that helps soothe some of the pent up frustration rankling him. He does what his therapist taught him years ago—when his anxiety was much worse—and grounds himself by feeling the cold ceramic of the sink under his hands and listening to the water hit the basin evenly.

Kiyoomi takes a long, shaky breath in through his nose. Then, slowly, he exhales through his mouth.

His heart is beating a little erratically; his chest is tight. Mostly, he feels the unshakeable weight of dread pounding against the back of his neck.

It’s fine. If he looks at this objectively, with a clear head and emotions tucked away—the evening has been fine. Honestly, it is by no means as bad as it could have been. No, his parents hadn’t warned him that Miya and his uncle were coming to dinner. And no, he hadn’t been given any time to prepare—mentally or otherwise—for sitting at a dining table with his entire family, the guy he’s seeing, and the man who’s trying to steal his future and give it to his nephew. And…Miya, whatever he and Kiyoomi are now.

But Kiyoomi does have someone here who is just for him—someone to show for his efforts. He’s not at the table empty-handed and bare-faced, fighting for his inheritance with no one to offer while Miya has his soulmate neatly tucked away somewhere, ready to be revealed along with his bid for the company.

And Iizuna has been objectively lovely. Confident and charming in his answers. Reassuring to Kiyoomi with just a touch. He’s neither fazed nor intimidated by the people around the table, most of whom are half-treating him like something to be forgotten until convenient. By all accounts, Iizuna should be disgusted by the weird, awkward posturing that’s happening over slices of high grade fatty tuna and small dishes of pickled vegetables. And Kiyoomi isn’t convinced he isn’t—he’ll have to take him aside after dinner and apologize for…whatever this is. But at least on the face of it, he seems to be taking it all in stride.

This evening could have been—should have been—a complete disaster, but it hasn’t been—because of Iizuna.

He had touched Kiyoomi’s wrist lightly as he’d gotten up from the table. “Are you all right?”

And Kiyoomi’s known his friend for long enough to read the genuine concern in his expression. Iizuna Tsukasa is a good person. Possibly too good a person to be involved in all of this.

Kiyoomi splashes water across his face now. He takes a deep breath in again and exhales once more. He just needs a minute to collect himself. He needs a minute to not have Miya’s eyes boring a hole into him.

There’s a quiet knock on the door as he finally turns off the faucet and takes a towel to wipe his face.

“One minute,” Kiyoomi says.

The person waits a few seconds and knocks again.

This time, Kiyoomi finds himself irritated. It’s probably one of his sisters, sent by his parents to make sure he isn’t having a meltdown that will embarrass them.

Annoyed, he wrenches the door open. “Did you know sixty seconds isn’t that long of a time to wait when someone asks—”

“Oh,” Miya says. “I thought maybe you hadn’t heard.”

Kiyoomi’s brain momentarily empties.

“You.”

Miya, his hands in his pockets, shrugs.

“Me.”

“What are you doing here?” Kiyoomi says—no, hisses.

“I was invited,” Miya says. He tilts his head a little, the way he sometimes does when he’s trying to make Kiyoomi feel stupid.

Kiyoomi grits his teeth. He’s having a strange reaction to seeing Miya here, in his home. It’s one thing to see him standing at the doorway to their dining room, a closed universe containing all of his family members and Miya’s uncle. There’s something concerted about that situation that makes sense. But Miya here, with his suit jacket unbuttoned and his hair just slightly askew—as though he’s been running his hand through it between the time he’d excused himself from the dinner table and followed Kiyoomi here—it feels unreal and unmooring in a way Kiyoomi hasn’t been given the chance to brace himself for.

“Miya,” he says and to his horror, his voice sounds as confused as he must look. “What are you doing here?”

Miya tenses. His eyes dart sideways quickly, as though making sure the coast is clear. Then, before Kiyoomi can stop him, Miya’s pushed him back into the bathroom and shut the door behind him.

“What the fuck are you doing? Get your hands off—”

“So that’s him?” Miya says, his fingers curled into the front of Kiyoomi’s button up shirt.

Kiyoomi shuffles backwards as Miya presses forward, until his back hits the opposite wall. Next to him, a shelf stacked with extra towels, soap, and a vase of bamboo rattles at the adjacent impact.

“Let me go,” Kiyoomi says, sounding strangled. “You’re ruining my shirt.”

“He seems nice,” Miya says and it’s such a benign statement to make with such a mocking tone that Kiyoomi stops struggling.

“Some people are capable,” he says.

Miya snorts in response.

“Sure,” he says. “Some people. Not you.”

He grits his teeth instead, curls his fists into balls so that he doesn’t do something stupid like shove Miya back.

“Did you know that some people are so good, they can make you a better person too?” Kiyoomi says. “Sometimes, when two people like each other, they can make each other better.”

Miya sneers.

“Don’t kid yourself,” he says. “No one can make you better. You’re an asshole. Assholes don’t become less of an asshole, they just get better at pretending they’re not one.”

“Projection is ugly on you,” Kiyoomi says—no, sneers back. His heart is kicking in his chest again, heat—and anger—crawling up his neck. Miya’s so close, Kiyoomi can feel his breath brush against his face every time Miya exhales. “And you don’t need the help.”

“That’s funny,” Miya says.

“I wasn’t telling a joke.”

“I know,” Miya says. “You’re so very serious, aren’t you, Kiyoomi?”

Kiyoomi doesn’t like the way Miya says his name, like he’s meant it as an insult.

“What’s funny?” he grits out.

“You pretending you don’t find me hot,” Miya says, his mouth curving into an ugly, razor-sharp smile. “You pretending you aren’t eye fucking me every time we’re in the same room together—that’s funny.”

Miya’s expression is infuriating—a hostile kind of menace that is perched between smug and livid. It vacillates; it doesn’t seem like he knows exactly what he feels. He almost looks jealous. Miya’s eyes flicker down to Kiyoomi’s mouth and Kiyoomi swallows.

His heart is pounding against his throat. Suddenly, Miya is far too close and Kiyoomi’s skin feels far too hot to think.

Miya looks down at his mouth again. Kiyoomi’s balled fist is pressed to his stomach; the barest semblance of distance between them. Something awful spikes in his blood and his fingers uncurl until his palm is flat against it.

“Fuck,” Miya mutters.

Kiyoomi says nothing; doesn’t have the brain capacity to think of what to say to untangle them from this position. The air between them is awful and charged, an undeniable kind of electricity that’s rippling across their skin. It’s the closest they’ve been since Kiyoomi had stopped this—months ago—and neither of them are handling the proximity very well.

Miya breathes out hard, his warm breath buffeting against Kiyoomi’s cheek. In response, Kiyoomi’s breathing equally loud; it feels as though his chest is heaving from the effort. Although the effort of what, he’s not sure.

“Sakusa—” Miya starts and Kiyoomi interrupts him.

“You’re angry,” he says.

Miya stops. His fingers seem to curl more tightly into Kiyoomi’s shirt.

“You said—” Kiyoomi says and forces himself to breathe out. His head is so muddy, he can barely think up the words. “It’s none of your business.”

A surprising conversation one evening in the office, before. An olive branch; a detente so temporary, they hadn’t realized how easy it would be to push against its boundaries.

After a tense moment—“I know.”

“You said you’re going to do what you need to to win,” Kiyoomi says.

“I know.”

“And I’m going to do the same.”

“I know.”

“Then why—” Kiyoomi says. He doesn’t move, doesn’t shift his hand away. Doesn’t look anywhere else but at Miya, whose expression is twisted in frustration. “Miya. Why are you mad at me?”

Miya shakes his head. He seems as close to letting out a string of curses as he is to shoving Kiyoomi back against the wall. Miya’s fingers in Kiyoomi’s shirt. His face cast in shadow. If either of them move even an inch, they’ll have no plausible deniability left.

It strikes Kiyoomi then—in a way it never has before—how hungry the both of them are.

“Fuck,” Miya says—grinds out. “Fuck.”

Kiyoomi wants him to say something. He wants Miya to give voice to whatever it is that they’re doing—he wants a fucking name for why they can’t seem to keep away from each other, why even in the middle of the worst dinner of their lives, they can’t seem to stop seeking each other out, riling each other up.

Kiyoomi needs a reason for why he has a perfectly lovely person waiting for him outside, but all he wants is Miya’s mouth on his neck.

Fuck.

Miya lets him go. After a horrible few seconds of warring internally, Kiyoomi pushes himself away too.

“I’m sor—”

“Don’t,” Kiyoomi says, a little raggedly. He exhales all of the tension in his body. “I don’t like it when you apologize. It makes me like you less.”

Miya exhales too, on a shaky laugh, and drags his hands down his face.

“You drive me fuckin’ crazy,” he says.

“Yeah,” Kiyoomi replies, a bit dully. He lets his head fall back against the wall. “You too.”

Strangely, it’s this that makes the silence between them ease. It’s almost as though admitting this weird entanglement makes it easier to deal with.

They still don’t give it a name. Maybe they don’t want to; or maybe they don’t have to.

Miya sighs.

“He really is nice,” he says. “And charming and whatever. Good guy.”

“Don’t,” Kiyoomi says. “This is even weirder.”

“What, I can’t compliment a guy?”

“Not this guy.”

“Fuck off,” Miya says. He sneers again, but it’s with half the vitriol. Mostly it’s good-natured, as though they’ve been left no choice but to meet in the middle. “Of course you’d find the fucking captain of the fucking Schweiden Adlers to date. Of course he’d be your old high school sweetheart. Of course he’d be as good a guy as he is a player.”

Kiyoomi snorts, although that—all of that—makes him feel a bit dizzy.

“Who told you all of that?”

“I watch the volleyball league—”

“No,” Kiyoomi says. “About him being my high school sweetheart.”

“Oh,” Miya says. He shrugs. “Small world.”

Cagey.

“Sure.”

Miya doesn’t elaborate and Kiyoomi doesn’t ask again. Instead, they watch each other carefully, Kiyoomi still with his back to the wall and Miya now a foot away from him.

“He really is a good guy,” Kiyoomi says. He feels guilty saying it. He feels guilty being in this bathroom, a foot away from Miya, when Iizuna is waiting for him outside, being a good guy.

“You like that kind of thing?” Miya asks and it’s annoying, bordering on infuriating, how that is exactly the right thing to ask.

“I like him,” Kiyoomi replies. He doesn’t know if it’s to piss Miya off or to deflect or to—in some way—tell the truth. Maybe a little bit of everything. This all felt a lot more straightforward a few months ago, before he’d learned that Miya could be…tolerable.

“So it’s serious?” Miya asks after a long minute.

“Miya,” Kiyoomi says. Miya looks like he’s trying not to get pissed again. “Why are you asking?”

“I just wanna know,” Miya says.

“Is yours serious?” Kiyoomi asks instead.

Miya lets out a frustrated noise and runs a hand through his hair again.

“This again—”

“It’s a fair question,” Kiyoomi says. “If you’re asking me, I have a right to ask you.”

“You didn’t even answer my question.”

“You’re the one with a soulmate. Answer mine first.”

Miya looks like he would rather stab Kiyoomi than even contemplate answering. To be fair, Kiyoomi feels much the same way, although he’s unclear which end of the stabbing he would like to be on.

“You already know my answer,” Miya says. “It’s not my choice. I’m doing it because I have to.”

Kiyoomi looks at Miya then—really looks at him; the hard set of his jaw, the draw of his eyebrows, darker than the contrast of his bright, careless blond hair. Miya is, at all times, borderline condescending and just shy of arrogant. He never takes anything seriously, unless it is something that falls to him—a task, a project, a singular purpose that only he can accomplish—and then he is all intent, controlled focus.

Kiyoomi finds himself the center of that field now, as though he is one of those things—a task, a project, a purpose for Miya to claim for his own. It’s so similar to how he feels—so terribly similar to how he functions too—that it makes Kiyoomi shiver.

“We’re on the same page,” Kiyoomi says finally, in response. “Iizuna and I.”

“What does that mean, Kiyoomi?” Miya asks softly.

Kiyoomi shakes his head. He feels suddenly awful, although he’s not sure about what or about who.

“He knows what’s at stake for me,” he says quietly. “And he doesn’t mind.”

“That’s not—” Miya says, jaw a rigid line. “That isn’t how it should be—”

“It’s all that matters,” Kiyoomi says, interrupting him. “This company—our family legacy, that’s all that matters. And if this is what it takes, then that’s what I’ll do.”

Miya shakes his head. He looks torn—as though he can’t quite believe what Kiyoomi is saying, and also as though he understands entirely. Kiyoomi is almost certain both are the case.

“Is that fair?” he asks.

And that’s a funny question, because what part of any of this is fair? His heart or the company? His family or his heart? When has Kiyoomi ever had a choice in any of this? It’s not fair to him and it’s not particularly fair to Iizuna, but if both of them agree—if both of them are willing, well.

Then what does it matter? People have been together for less.

Kiyoomi’s chest aches and his head thuds dully. He shakes his head and gives Miya a bitter, rueful smile.

“I don’t know,” he says. “Why don’t you ask your uncle?”

Then Kiyoomi moves past Miya and out the door. He doesn’t look back.

The rest of the dinner goes. Kiyoomi would be hard put to say how, exactly. He comes back to the table and Miya has the good sense to wait a few minutes before returning as well. Kiyoomi’s sisters eye him carefully and even his mother raises a careful eyebrow as he sits. It’s only Iizuna—good, thoughtful Iizuna—who leans in close as Kiyoomi reaches for his replenished glass of wine and says, “I’ve taken notes of all of the topics and we were only 70% of them.”

It almost makes Kiyoomi smile. He’s grateful, so he squeezes Iizuna’s hand under the table and Iizuna, smiling, squeezes back. It makes him feel better in a real way and he would kiss Iizuna in thanks—here, in front of everyone—if it wouldn’t feel like overcompensating. Instead, he drinks and quietly lets the conversation happen around him as the servants clear away the last remaining plates and replaces them with bowls of fresh fruit and slices of freshly baked sponge cake with strawberries and cream.

The conversation at the head of the table turns to…something. Kiyoomi doesn’t know what and he’s frankly stopped caring. He watches the dinner happen all around him idly, a dull headache blossoming behind his eyes.

“Iizuna-kun, what do ya think about Japan’s prospects for the Nation’s League next year?”

Kiyoomi looks across the table vaguely at Miya. For the first time all evening, Miya isn’t looking back. Instead, he’s picking at his strawberry cake and watching Iizuna politely.

“Oh,” Iizuna says, caught off guard for a moment by the topic as well as the sudden change in temperature. He recovers quickly and with good enthusiasm. “Actually, I think we have a solid chance. We’re a bit weaker than we were a few years ago at the height of the Monster generation, but there are still some of them left in the team. Kageyama will likely return from Italy to play, which will be a boost.”

“I haven’t followed the international leagues this year,” Miya says. “Some of the gossip’s sayin’ he’s slowed down from previous years. That right?”

“If Kageyama’s slowed down, then I can only imagine what they’re saying about the rest of us,” Iizuna says with a laugh. He takes a sip of his water and leans forward over his own cake. “Actually, they’re saying Argentina’s the one to watch this year. Oikawa seems like he has his form back.”

“He was out injured last Olympics, yeah?” Miya says eagerly and it’s—weird.

It’s weird for Kiyoomi to be here watching the ice thaw between the two of them, over something so innocuous as volleyball. It’s weird for him to sit at a table with his parents posturing on behalf of his future, where Miya’s uncle is doing his best to undermine their confidence, where his sisters watch the whole spectacle as though it does not impact them at all—which, mostly, it doesn’t.

It’s weird for Kiyoomi to be in this situation when all he has ever really wanted was to earn the crown he was meant to be given.

He doesn’t know what to do with any of this, or where to go from here. He guesses it might not be up to him at all, but then, what ever is?

He finishes his wine, finishes his slice of cake, joins in the conversation only when someone speaks to him directly. Kiyoomi is tired. All he wants is to go to bed.

Maybe he wills it into existence. Or maybe even strange, exhausting politically heavy handed evenings must eventually come to an end.

Eventually, everyone gets up from the table.

“Miya-san, Atsumu-kun, thank you for joining us this evening,” Kiyoomi’s mother and father say, bowing to their guests.

“Ah yes yes, thank you for having us of course, Sakusa-san,” Miya’s uncle says. “It was long overdue for us to sit, don’t you think? Next time you’ll have to come to ours.”

Next to him, Miya bows and murmurs his thanks as well.

They all walk to the door, Kiyoomi following behind them.

“I should go too,” Iizuna says quietly. “It’s getting pretty late and we have practice tomorrow morning.”

Kiyoomi pulls him away, just a little, from the rest.

“Thank you,” he says and means it, genuinely. His hand on Iizuna’s arm. “I cannot express enough how much this meant to me.”

“Kiyoomi,” Iizuna says softly. “Of course.”

Kiyoomi compartmentalizes the pang of guilt he feels in response. “And I apologize for—I couldn’t have anticipated everything. But I should have, for you.”

Iizuna smiles and squeezes Kiyoomi’s hand.

“Like I said,” he says. “My parents are lawyers. It wasn’t even close to the most boring dinner I’ve ever had.”

“I didn’t mean borin—”

“Kiyoomi,” Iizuna says quietly. “I know. It’s okay.”

Kiyoomi exhales a little, his anxiety unwinding at Iizuna’s kind reassurance, and nods. He’s able to offer a sliver of a tired smile. Iizuna reaches up and Kiyoomi only has the chance to be surprised for a moment before he closes his eyes and lets himself be kissed.

It’s a quick thing, a chaste kiss goodbye. Kiyoomi can feel—even without opening his own—eyes staring at the back of his neck. He has no doubt who is watching them so closely.

“Call me tomorrow?” Iizuna says after pulling away.

“After your practice is over,” Kiyoomi assures him.

“Let’s get dinner sometime next weekend,” Iizuna says, hands in his pockets. “Just the two of us?”

Kiyoomi lets out a laugh that sounds dry.

“Yes, of course.”

Iizuna says goodbye to Kiyoomi’s parents; thanks them for inviting him for dinner and bows his respect. For their part, Kiyoomi’s parents act as though the entire evening was normal, as though they hadn’t just put Iizuna as a chess piece into the middle of a game without his knowledge and consent.

“Miya,” Kiyoomi says as Miya and his uncle approach the door to take their leave as well.

There’s a quiet moment between them, strained and almost awkward. They have been a lot of things before, the two of them, but never once awkward.

Miya looks askance for a moment, as though following Iizuna as he retreats down the stone pathway toward the street.

“Well,” Miya says.

“Well,” Kiyoomi replies.

There’s a long stretch of nothing as Kiyoomi’s parents and Miya’s uncle say their last, falsely bright goodbyes.

Kiyoomi feels as though he’s holding his breath. Miya absentmindedly rubs the crook of his left elbow through the cloth of his jacket.

“I’ll see you at work,” Miya finally finishes and it’s so lackluster, so without their usual fire that Kiyoomi almost feels disappointed.

“Miya—” Kiyoomi starts again, but he’s run out of things to say too. He just feels drained, at odds with himself. He doesn’t want to think about this evening for even one minute longer.

Miya stops and looks back at Kiyoomi and for just a moment, Kiyoomi is struck by the moonlight catching in his blond hair. He’s struck by the need to feel the slip of it beneath his fingertips.

“Don’t be late,” Kiyoomi says instead.

Miya gives him the ghost of a smile. Then he turns on his heels and he’s gone.

Chapter Text

ACT VI: The Alternative Proposition.

There’s a timer on all of this—Kiyoomi knows. His mother had bought him a year’s worth of time and Kiyoomi wishes, distantly, that he was an easy enough person to be grateful about it. Maybe he should have done better; maybe he should have tried harder, done more. Five months becomes four months becomes three becomes less than two.

“You should propose to him,” his mother says when it’s just the two of them.

He’s bitter; resentful that this has robbed any other topic from them. He and his mother had never been close or warm in the traditional sense, but they’d always understood one another entirely. When he would come into her office in the past, she would ask him to close the door and they would sit for the next hour together—going through paperwork, discussing campaign successes and failures and potential lines for expansion, sometimes picking apart the weak points of rival companies just as a thought exercise. Their time together was almost entirely dominated by work, but Kiyoomi had never minded; he’d liked that she asked him his opinion, that she so clearly valued his thinking and ideas.

Lately, though, it’s been a fraught, awkward silence punctuated only by Atsuko’s terse observations or questions and now, advice on Kiyoomi’s love life.

“It’s too soon,” Kiyoomi says stiffly. He’s not caught off-guard; for that to happen, this would have to be the first time his mother had suggested such a thing. She’s been hinting at it since that terrible dinner. This is just the first time she’s come outright and said it.

“You have been together for months,” his mother says. She sits behind her desk—her phone in front of her, her computer screen open to her inbox—and she’s not unsympathetic or cruel, his mother, but she—and the Board—have put him in an impossible position. “There’s little time left, Kiyoomi. You need to think about how to strengthen your chances.”

That’s the way these sorts of things work. A vote for a favor, a favor for a deal, decisions made in rooms with closed doors, and a numbers game that isn’t over until the very second it’s over.

They have some of the votes, Kiyoomi knows—Board members who are loyal to the family, who have watched Kiyoomi grow up, who have one reason or another to ally with the Sakusa family over the Miyas. But some is not all, it’s not even the majority, and for every member they can confidently count in their corner, there’s another who needs something or wants something or is just traditional enough to believe in soulmate purity bullshit.

And Miya doesn’t play fair; a family like theirs—steep legacy in business and hungry to grow, ruthless in usurping even more power—never does.

It’s the votes at the margins Kiyoomi and his mother need, the ones who are hesitant to change regimes, but will still look at Kiyoomi—his age, his experience, his relationship status—and find his character wanting without a soulmate to anchor him to tradition. If Kiyoomi doesn’t have one of those, then he needs to cater to that expectation as best he can, with the next best thing—a partner, reliable and long-term. Someone they cannot doubt.

A spouse.

Kiyoomi’s stomach churns.

“I can’t marry—” he starts to say, as though he can explain this way. As though he needs to. The thing is, his reaction would be perfectly reasonable in any other circumstance, but the one he’s in makes him sound nearly petulant. He sucks in a breath. “We’ve only been seeing each other for five months. I can’t ask him to marry me.”

They’ve barely even had a real conversation about their exclusivity, not since Kiyoomi had vaguely brought it up that one time a few months ago. And they haven’t really needed to—he and Iizuna have felt comfortably on the same page without needing to draw rigid lines or make grand claims. It’s worked for them—that flexibility. Kiyoomi doesn’t think Iizuna has been seeing others, but he would be well within his rights to do so.

For Kiyoomi to disrupt that easy understanding in such a big way feels wrong.

“Marriages have been made on less,” his mother says.

“This isn’t the Edo period!”

Atsuko seemingly ignores this little outburst.

“I know it isn’t ideal, Kiyoomi.” She crosses her arms at her chest, taps one arm with neatly manicured nails. “I know it isn’t what you wanted or anticipated.”

“You mean every little boy doesn’t hope to one day be forced into marriage because a room full of irrelevant old men could not fathom ever changing their opinions?”

His mother gives him a warning look. She ignores this outburst too.

“I wish we could give you more time. But wishes mean nothing in the real world, and they mean even less in business. The Board has made its decision and now it’s up to you to meet those expectations.”

It’s not that Kiyoomi had expected his mother to challenge the entire Board on his behalf. She has her back to the wall too—had given him a full year to try to meet the Board’s demands, which was almost as much as she could do in the situation—so it isn’t as though Kiyoomi is ungrateful. It isn’t as though he isn’t aware that she has done the best she can for him with the situation they’ve found themselves in.

It’s just awful to look across the table, expecting to see your mother, and see the CEO of a billion yen company instead.

“It has nothing to do with anything,” Kiyoomi says again, for the hundredth time, powerless and bitter. “I do not need a soulmate to run this company. A soulmate gives me nothing that I haven’t provided myself. I’ve never caused any untoward headline or scandal. I’ve never stepped a single foot out of line. I’ve worked hard for this. I’ve trained for it. I was born watching you run Itachiyama.”

His mother looks—for a brief, fleeting moment—as though she softens. But it must be a wishful trick of the light, because she shakes her head and it’s gone.

“You’re no longer young, Kiyoomi. Wishful thinking has never been a part of our world,” Atsuko says. “You do what needs to be done to protect yourself; you don’t expose your neck to predators in business. Sometimes the things you have to do are difficult. Often, it will leave you unhappy. But you do it because that is what is expected of you.”

“And that’s just fine?” Kiyoomi says, suddenly heated. “Expectations are meant to change.”

“Not in our kind of business,” Atsuko says.

“Why—because it’s always been that way? There’s no room for new thinking?”

“You’ve seen the board room,” Atsuko says angrily. “Do you think there is room for new thinking there, Kiyoomi? You need to stop being so naive.”

Kiyoomi—halfway to standing—stills, a little stunned.

His mother’s dark eyes flash. She’s unfolded her posture from before; her hands are now gripping the arms of her chair.

“This is our family legacy,” she says. “It is not an easy thing to ask of you, but legacy is rarely easy or uncomplicated. I won’t apologize for forcing you to make a difficult decision. It is the first of many you will have to make if you want this position.”

Kiyoomi grits his teeth so hard it makes his jaw ache. He’s so angry, he nearly can’t speak.

“This choice is yours,” his mother says, as though this is much of a choice at all. “Do you want this company or not? Will you do everything you need to do in order to get it?”

The silence between them stretches so thin and so awful it feels like it might snap.

When Kiyoomi says nothing in response—seems as though maybe he can’t say anything—his mother exhales, releasing some of the tension coiled in her body.

“Is it asking so much?” Atsuko asks with as much gentleness as she has ever been able to muster. “He’s a nice boy, Kiyoomi. You like him. You could do much worse than marrying someone you already have respect for.”

And Kiyoomi knows that. He knows—objectively, reasonably—that it is far from a terrible fate. If he asked Iizuna and if Iizuna said yes—they could have a good life together. They complement each other in neat ways. They like each other; take pleasure in one another’s company. It would be friendly, perhaps, at times, even sweet.

They had even loved each other once. It was easy enough to imagine them one day loving each other again.

It would be okay.

But is that fair? is the question in his head, in a voice that isn’t his own.

Why is it that the one thing your mind will fixate on is the one thing you cannot possibly allow it to think about? It’s easy enough to try to shove it to the back of his mind and infinitely harder to keep it there.

Especially when Miya doesn’t want to stay hidden.

He eats away at Kiyoomi’s attention—his resolve—like something corrosive.

The way that Miya leans against any wall that is within a foot of him, both taking up more space than he needs to and drawing Kiyoomi’s eye to the slightly too-comfortable slope of his hunch; the way he laughs when a coworker tells him a joke, sometimes a sharp, snickering thing and other times a loud sound, head thrown back and white teeth out, as though he can’t help but allow it to ricochet through him; the way he’s always fidgeting, flipping a pen between his fingers whenever they’re in a meeting together; the way his eyes darken and his expression grows stormy when they’re on a call with clients who are being too difficult or too stupid or too bitchy. The way he leers at Kiyoomi from across any room that they’re in, a confident heat to his expression that makes it clear that he knows it’s not unwanted.

Kiyoomi can’t stop thinking about him, can’t stop watching him—the way Miya’s fingers curve around the handle of his morning mug of coffee, a black ceramic thing with a white onigiri printed onto it, and the way his thick, dark eyebrows pull together whenever he’s at his desk and actually concentrating on his work, and the way his palm is always pressed against the person nearest to him—their shoulder, or their arm, or the middle of their back—a careless, friendly gesture that no one takes offense to because it’s so easily given and never lingers longer than necessary.

It’s like drinking too much water, much too fast, or like gorging yourself on sweets even though you know it will make your teeth ache and stomach hurt later. Kiyoomi knows he should look away, but he can’t seem to bring himself to actually do it.

Miya is everywhere around him and even when he isn’t looking, Kiyoomi catalogs that movement in the back of his head unconsciously, always aware of where he is in the office, and what he’s doing, and whether his eyes are flickering over, watching Kiyoomi back.

It’s fucking awful.

It’s like a pit in his stomach he can’t quite fill; a hunger that grows only keener the more he tries to ignore its presence.

They try not to be alone in the same room anymore, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t moments when it isn’t just the two of them—first to arrive to the conference room before anyone else, or taking a call in Kiyoomi’s office with the door purposefully propped open, or brushing elbows in the kitchen, Kiyoomi making tea and Miya coming in to grab something from the cupboard. Every time, it’s like a buzzing at the back of his neck, a slow and excoriating burn that climbs up his chest and slides down his spine.

What is this? Kiyoomi wonders, terribly and obsessively. What is this?

He thinks it must be in his head; hopes for it to be a passing thought, the product of an overactive imagination. But sometimes, when they’re not careful—when Kiyoomi forgets to look away in time and Miya looks back before he does—he can see Miya wondering the same.

“And it was my fault, really, my fuck up.” Iizuna exhales over the phone and Kiyoomi can almost see him slumped back against the headboard of his hotel room bed with his knees propped up, running his hand over the soft cloth of his Adlers sweatpants. “I keep replaying it in my head and all I can see is Hoshiumi looking for me and I make the wrong call.”

They’ve been on the phone for a while now, lightly catching up on the week. Kiyoomi’s been busy handling a few different new accounts and Iizuna’s been playing back to back JVL games everywhere other than Tokyo. They’re both tired, their voices dragging with exhaustion. Iizuna’s been describing the game the Adlers just lost against EJP and Kiyoomi would usually have more to say—he loves analyzing plays with Iizuna after the fact—but his head isn’t in it tonight.

He doesn’t realize how much until Iizuna says quietly, “You still there?”

“Oh,” Kiyoomi says with a guilty start. “I’m sorry. I was listening.”

“Nah, it’s fine,” Iizuna says after a moment. “I guess I was rambling.”

“I’m sorry,” Kiyoomi says, shaking his head. He pulls his knees to his chest and runs a hand over the cool cloth of his pajama bottoms too. “This is important.”

“Every game is just a game,” Iizuna says. “I know you have a lot on your mind.”

Kiyoomi exhales and that knot returns, ever-present in the pit of his stomach. He wants to talk to Iizuna about it—wants to properly explain the stakes—but more and more he finds that he doesn’t know how. Sometimes it feels impossible to explain the complicated injustice of his situation and the politics of the board room to someone who is nowhere close to this world.

It would be easier if he was, Kiyoomi thinks distantly. It would be easier if Iizuna was someone who knew exactly how it all worked.

“Kiyoomi?” Iizuna prompts again and Kiyoomi realizes he’s fallen quiet again. “You can talk to me about…all of it, you know. I mean I can’t pretend I’ll get all of it, but I’d be a shit friend if I rambled about my job all the time and never let you rant about yours.”

Something about that makes Kiyoomi grip his phone tighter in his hand. He doesn’t know what it is, only that it makes something agitate inside of him, a wide, yawning, inexplicable thing.

“The Board vote is in a little over a month,” Kiyoomi says finally. He doesn’t want to talk about it—doesn’t even want to acknowledge it. But it’s so close to the wire he’s not left with much of a choice.

“Oh,” Iizuna says. “Shit.”

“Yeah.”

“Already?”

Kiyoomi clenches his teeth. “Yeah.”

Iizuna knows the basics about what is to come—what will happen to Kiyoomi’s life soon. Kiyoomi hasn’t told him about the soulmate clause specifically, but he has told him that the Board won’t trust him until he has a partner. He couldn’t have started whatever this is without at least putting that on the table for Iizuna.

“Is there anything I can do to help?” Iizuna says and he says it hesitantly, as though he’s not sure what help he can offer, which is fair enough. Kiyoomi has been obscure about this, the one thing he cannot afford to be unclear about.

It’s not that he doesn’t trust Iizuna. It’s not even that he hasn’t enjoyed dating him for the past handful of months. It’s mostly that when he looks at Iizuna—when they are together—what is between them is so easy, so effortless, it barely needs to be named. And that’s what they’ve done, for nearly half a year. They haven’t named anything.

How can he go from that to proposing? But then, how can he not?

“I don’t want to put you in a terrible position,” Kiyoomi says, finally, after a drawn out silence that is so blank it’s nearly awkward.

“Would you be doing that?” Iizuna asks.

“Maybe,” Kiyoomi admits.

“Well, you could try me anyway,” Iizuna says. He pauses and then says, “As in tell me. Using your words.”

Kiyoomi’s too tightly wound to smile, but he appreciates the effort at levity.

“It’s about—” he says and the word falters in his throat, losing its way to his tongue. He manages it a moment later, awkwardly. “Us.”

“Well, yes,” Iizuna says lightly. “I mean I had assumed. I know I’m an athlete, but I can pick up rather obvious clues.”

Kiyoomi winces at that. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be. Just be honest with me, Kiyoomi.”

That, of course, makes Kiyoomi feel even worse. It makes it easier though, somehow, to continue.

“When we first began seeing each other again, you said you didn’t want a serious relationship. That you haven’t been looking for that. ”

Iizuna pauses.

“That’s true,” he says. “I was under the impression you felt the same.”

“I did,” Kiyoomi says. “I do.”

And that’s true. He’s not lying about this—he and Iizuna work precisely because they are on the same page about their relationship. Neither of them have once expressed they are looking for anything more than the comfortable companionship they currently have.

Until now.

Kiyoomi swallows, resentful to even have to say any of this.

“My world doesn’t allow for the in-between,” he says. “It’s all or nothing.”

There’s another silence, even more awkward than the last time. Or maybe it’s all building in Kiyoomi’s head.

“Ah,” Iizuna says. “I see.”

That’s hardly illuminating. Kiyoomi doesn’t know what that means.

“You need more than what we are,” Iizuna says, after a moment.

Kiyoomi exhales quietly. “Is that asking too much?”

He hears Iizuna’s head thump lightly back against his headboard too.

“I don’t know,” Iizuna admits. “Is it weird that I haven’t thought about it that much?”

“About us?”

“About making this more serious,” Iizuna says. He hums thoughtfully over the phone. “Not because of you. You know I like you, Kiyoomi. I care about you a lot.”

“I know. I do too.”

“I’ve just never needed much,” Iizuna says. “I think I spent too much time with my grandmother growing up and do you know what she always said?”

“What?”

“Relationships are for people who don’t like being alone,” Iizuna says with a slight laugh. “She was made to marry my grandfather when she was 17 and hated every minute of it. Loved me though. Said I should only ever do what I wanted. That’s why I’m not a lawyer.”

Kiyoomi almost smiles. Or would have, if this entire conversation wasn’t making him feel nauseated.
“I see my teammates with their soulmates and they seem so happy. Even Hoshiumi is less when Hirugami is around. Less, but also more. I should want that, right?”

It’s hard for Kiyoomi to say. It’s not like he has much experience with it either.

“That’s what they say,” he says. “You should want your soulmate. You should want to know your other half. Why wouldn’t you want that? Why wouldn’t you scorch Earth to find the person the universe has written for you?”

“I guess,” Iizuna muses. “Am I supposed to feel like half a person without my soulmate? I don’t think I do.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Kiyoomi says. It’s hard to hide his bitterness, so mostly he doesn’t try. “You’re found….less than, if you don’t find your soulmate.”

“Or care?”

“Or care,” Kiyoomi agrees.

“That explains some things,” Iizuna says thoughtfully. “Volleyball isn’t immune to all of that.”

Kiyoomi frowns.

“What do you mean?”

“Stupid things, mostly,” Iizuna says. “Things that shouldn’t matter. What teams recruit you and what your contract terms are. Did you know that there’s a partnership bonus that’s perfectly legal?”

Kiyoomi sucks in a breath. “What?”

“Yeah,” Iizuna says with a laugh. “10 to 15% for unbonded partnerships. Up to 20% for soulmates. I guess they think you’ll be less of a PR liability if you’re bonded, or maybe that you’ll draw in more fans as a couple? Funny because like…we’re athletes. Messy by nature. I don’t think a soulmark is going to change that if someone wants to, you know?”

Kiyoomi feels vaguely appalled. A larger part of him is disappointed that even volleyball can’t escape the bullshit that is soulmate politics.

“What happens if you aren’t?” Kiyoomi asks. For the first time, he thinks to wonder what it must be like for Iizuna—in his last years of a career that he’s made it through without a soulbond. It seems hopelessly naive of him now, to not have anticipated that the world of volleyball would have its own form of soulmate discrimination.

“Oh if you’re a good enough player, you’ll still be recruited,” Iizuna says. “At the end of the day, it’s talent above anything else. Having a bonded athlete is useless to the league if he can’t score points. But it’s in the little things. The questions you get asked during interviews. Contract terms. Apartment options and sponsorship deals. The kinds of offers you’ll get from the kinds of teams willing to take a chance on a social…wild card.”

“That’s bullshit,” Kiyoomi says, incensed, and Iizuna laughs the kind of laugh Kiyoomi is familiar with—someone resigned to the bullshit.

“Anyway, I guess that’s my way of saying that it’s been good for me too,” Iizuna says quietly. “This.”

Kiyoomi’s heart beats a little erratically.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I’ve never needed a partner and I’ve never minded not having one. But…I guess this has been good to me too. It’s made some things easier that I hadn’t realized were so difficult before.”

Kiyoomi worries at his lower lip.

“Then?”

A long pause.

Finally, Iizuna says, “How serious?”

Kiyoomi presses his thumb to his kneecap. His stomach roils with anxiety—his head thuds dully with it—but there’s no avoiding this question, not this time.

“It would be the worst proposal of all time.”

Another pause. This time, not as long.

That—something about that—maybe the incongruousness or maybe the utter shock and surprise—suddenly makes Iizuna laugh.

“No way! Wait—really?”

Kiyoomi wants to laugh too, to be fair. This is ludicrous. He’s proposing to the guy he’s been seeing for a little under half a year and he can’t even say the words.

“All or nothing,” he says grimly.

“Really?”

“You know I don’t have a sense of humor, Iizuna,” Kiyoomi says. “I’m not predisposed to it.”

“You sell yourself way too short,” Iizuna says, still stumbling over his laughter. “Sometimes you’re unintentionally funny. It makes me laugh.”

“Well, I mean it,” Kiyoomi says, his mouth twitching. “That’s how serious we need to be.”

A sigh that curls in the back of his throat.

“Well, damn,” Iizuna says.

“I did warn you,” Kiyoomi says. “In my defense.”

“No, you did,” Iizuna says wryly. “Well, you might have undersold it a bit.”

Fair enough. There’s no warning something like this, though, to be fair.

“I like you, Kiyoomi,” Iizuna says finally. “I always have. I think we’re good together.”

“I think we are too.” And it’s the truth. They’re well-suited, the two of them, easy and somehow well-balanced in a way Kiyoomi rarely is with anyone else.

It’s just that.

“Do you really think this is enough?” Iizuna says, as though reading the hesitation in Kiyoomi’s mind. “For that kind of seriousness? We haven’t even slept together.”

Almost six months and they haven’t even slept together.

When Kiyoomi thinks about it—when he’s made aware of this realization—it makes him feel antsy, like something is itching under his skin. Not because they haven’t had sex—but because he hasn’t even really been bothered by it. The thought of sleeping with Iizuna has barely crossed his mind and when it has, it’s been fleeting, easily thought and easily forgotten.

“We have before,” Kiyoomi says. “When we were younger.”

“Well, true,” Iizuna says, humming thoughtfully. “Do you think that kind of chemistry is still there? It’s been a very long time.”

“I don’t think that matters,” Kiyoomi says truthfully. “Neither of us have soulmates. And at our ages…”

“It’s unlikely we will ever find them,” Iizuna says. “I know.”

Kiyoomi exhales. He feels both relieved and a bit stupid. To have to have this conversation at all is mortifying, but now that they’re in the middle of it, it’s not as bad as he was anticipating.

“It wouldn’t be the worst thing,” he says wryly, his mother’s words in his voice. “We could do much worse than marrying someone we already like.”

Iizuna chuckles. “Well if the proposition is we could do much worse.”

Kiyoomi smiles a little at his ceiling. “Now you’re understanding my world a little more.”

Iizuna shakes his head. Kiyoomi can tell, because he knows his friend—has known him since he was a teenager and—

Something about that snags in his mind, like a delayed thought. He doesn’t pinpoint it in time.

“I guess you’re pretty rich,” Iizuna says. “And cute. Especially when you’re in a bad mood.”

Kiyoomi splutters a little. “I’m not—”

“No, you are,” Iizuna says. “As someone who was in love with you once and has dated you twice, this definitively I can say.”

Kiyoomi’s cheeks warm, but he chuckles.

He stretches his legs out in front of him. Iizuna is quiet for another minute.

“Can I think about it?” he says. “Just a little. I know we don’t have much time.”

Kiyoomi can’t think about the alternative; he can’t think about what he will do if, this late in the game, Iizuna says no.

“Yes,” he says, because he’s anxious and miserable, but he’s not an asshole. Not when it matters. “Of course you can. Think about it.”

“Okay,” Iizuna says. Then again, as if reassuring them both, “I’m not saying no. I just need to sit with it some.”

Well what can Kiyoomi say to that? He can’t begrudge Iizuna the time needed to think this through—to see if it’s worth it to him to make this sacrifice. Soulmate or not, marriage is no small commitment.

Especially for someone who has never really wanted it.

They hang up shortly after, neither of them having anything more to say that could possibly follow that.

It’s only later—only when Kiyoomi is folding the sheets over and crawling under them, only when he’s connected his phone to his charger, and turned off the light, and closed his eyes, trying not to think about things that he cannot allow himself to think about—that it occurs to him.

The thing that had caught his attention, the thought that had snagged on his mind like a sleeve on a protruding nail.

I’d be a shit friend if I rambled about my job and didn’t let you rant about yours.

Friend, Iizuna had said, unthinkingly.

Friend, Kiyoomi had agreed, much the same.

That seems significant, like maybe it should matter. But Kiyoomi’s not sure that it does and can’t quite figure out what it would change, even if it was.

What is it called when you have the possibility of an agreement in place with someone you like and care about, but don’t necessarily love—not in that way, at least, not anymore? It isn’t engaged; neither is it arranged, or yet a firm promise. It’s somewhere north of dating and south of full commitment and Kiyoomi has no idea what to do with the uncertainty. He’s never done particularly well with grey spaces.

“So that’s it?” Motoya asks, a little incredulously. His cousin is sprawled across the couch, his legs hanging over the arm, which he knows drives Kiyoomi crazy, but which he gets away with because he is the closest thing Kiyoomi has to a best friend and also because he had ordered from Kiyoomi’s favorite take out and provided at least two bottles of sake for the evening. Also because it’s his apartment.

Kiyoomi is consolidating the half-finished containers of udon to put away and clearing up the rest of the mess before the sight of it starts to make him itch.

“What else do you expect me to do?” Kiyoomi says. “I can’t force a man to agree to marry me.”

“This is all so—” Motoya says and waves his hand vaguely in the air. He props himself up on his elbows so he can get a better look at Kiyoomi.

“Rushed?” Kiyoomi says. He’s unable to keep the tinge of bitterness from his voice. “Impossible? Offensive?”

“Insane,” Motoya says. “I was going to say insane.”

Kiyoomi sighs. He piles all of the trash into a plastic bag and ties it at the top. He leaves it by the front door so he can drop it in the garbage on his way out.

“It could be worse,” Kiyoomi says. He’s not predisposed to being optimistic, but Motoya likes it when he tries.

“Oh sure,” Motoya says. “I mean anything could be worse. You could be marrying someone mean and ugly and stupid. You could have lost the company to one of your older sisters. You could be poor.”

Kiyoomi looks vaguely scandalized.

“Why would you say that?” he says. “Are you trying to curse me?”

“Why is that the first thing you always think of?” Motoya asks, squinting a little. “Did you have a run-in with a witch that you never told me about?”

“It just always seems like a possibility,” Kiyoomi mutters. “Getting cursed.”

Motoya snorts.

“What reason would I have in cursing you at this big age?”

“I don’t know,” Kiyoomi says. He runs the kitchen faucet and soaps his hand before rinsing it. “Do you need a reason for this kind of thing?”

“Are you calling me evil? Demonic?” Motoya asks and he sounds concerningly bright for this line of inquiry.

“Chaotic at best,” Kiyoomi says. He dries his hands and grabs two glasses and the freshly opened bottles of liquor.

“I think you underestimate me and it hurts my feelings,” Motoya says. He perks up at the sight of alcohol and pushes himself up into a proper seated position. “Want me to pour?”

Kiyoomi hands the bottles and glasses over to Motoya while he takes a seat across from him.

He wouldn’t normally risk drinking on a Sunday evening—especially not when he’s been receiving emails and calendar updates to his phone all weekend and knows exactly what sort of a week he’s in for—but he’s been so tightly wound that he has over the past week, offended, insulted, and/or bitten the head off of, in order, Shigeru, his oldest sister, Wakatoshi, his youngest sister, Shigeru again, his middle sister, and Motoya. It’s when he had finally snapped at Motoya about something so deeply innocuous that he can’t even remember what it was anymore, that Motoya had let the silence over the phone lapse into something so awkward it had made Kiyoomi immediately reel in regret. Motoya had then cleared his throat and said, “All right. My place tomorrow night.” His rare sharp tone had brooked no argument, and Kiyoomi was not nearly masochistic enough to try.

“Thanks,” Kiyoomi says, exhaling. It’s probably bad manners to begin drinking before your host, but Motoya barely counts as that anyway. He’d been given this large apartment in one of Tokyo’s nicest, most coveted districts upon his college graduation and Kiyoomi has spent more nights, drunk or otherwise indisposed, in the guest bedroom more times than he can count.

“Okay, so,” Motoya says and folds his legs under him as he settles back with his own glass. He raises it a little out of better manners, although Kiyoomi’s already taken a mouthful of his and can’t really reciprocate.

Kiyoomi sighs. He still feels tightly wound, but there’s very little that an evening with his cousin, noodles, and liquor can’t help temper somewhat.

“Motoya.”

“Don’t Motoya me, Kiyoomi,” Motoya says. “Have you looked in the mirror lately? You look as terrible as you sound.”

Kiyoomi gives him an annoyed look.

“How do I sound?”

“Like a raging asshole,” Motoya says, which, okay fine, Kiyoomi supposes he might have deserved that.

“I’m sorry,” Kiyoomi says and for the first time that week, he genuinely means it. He’ll probably have to make it up to his sisters in some way that costs him most of his dignity, and he will have to take Shigeru aside tomorrow and apologize to him profusely, but this, at least, is a start. “I know I haven’t been particularly easy to be around.”

Motoya snorts. “Kiyoomi, you’re never easy to be around. I don’t care about that.”

Kiyoomi frowns.

“You’ve just been—” Motoya says and waves his hand vaguely again.

“You know I can’t read your mind,” Kiyoomi says with a sigh. This is something he has to remind his cousin of on a monthly basis—not because Motoya forgets, but because he keeps trying to make it happen anyway.

“It’s like,” Motoya says. He tilts his head back and looks up at the ceiling thoughtfully.

His short, brown hair has grown a little longer lately, picking up some waves at the ends that he’d never had when they were younger. Motoya’s built lean, like the rest of their families, with a nice physique that he maintains by playing recreational volleyball, and when he isn’t dressed for the office, he’s dressed in clothes that are casual, but still demonstrably good, expensive quality. Unlike Kiyoomi, he’s wealthy without seeming rigid, handsome in that way that kind and friendly people often are, his warmth and approachability making even his weird, nubby eyebrows a source of personal charm.

Motoya is the only person Kiyoomi has ever known who had met their soulmate relatively young and still hasn’t married them. In his case, it isn’t lack of commitment or nerves or even anything as shocking as mismatched family backgrounds. In typical Motoya fashion, the universe just happened to pair him with the one person as perennially unbothered as he is.

Overall, Kiyoomi is happy for his cousin. Emi-san is as sweet and fun and spontaneous as Motoya is, with the added benefit of not having grown up with Kiyoomi and knowing exactly which buttons are the wrong ones to push.

“What.”

“It’s like,” Motoya says again and takes another sip of his sake. “You’re only ever half here. When you are here, you’re so on edge, I can feel the tension rolling off from you. You’re working yourself to the bone. Your temper is shorter than ever, it takes almost nothing to set you off. I don’t think you’re taking care of yourself. You look miserable every time I see you.” Motoya exhales and he looks miserable too. “Kiyoomi, I can’t remember the last time I saw you smile.”

Kiyoomi’s about to say something stupid and sardonic like—What’s there to smile about?—but Motoya seems so genuinely concerned and uncharacteristically serious, that Kiyoomi drops his shoulders instead.

“It’s really that bad?”

Motoya winces.

“I dropped by your floor on Thursday,” he says.

Kiyoomi’s brows draw together. “I didn’t see you.”

“Yeah, I found Shigeru crying in the bathroom,” Motoya says. “I spent the afternoon trying to tell him you were under an insane amount of stress and that you didn’t mean to make his life hell.”

There’s a knot in Kiyoomi’s stomach that’s so thick that it hurts.

“I really went off on him last week,” Kiyoomi says. He feels awful.

“I know.”

“I shouldn’t have,” Kiyoomi says. He grips the handle of the chair.

“No.”

“I’ll apologize to him,” Kiyoomi says. “It won’t happen again.”

“Good.”

“I’m—” Kiyoomi says and swallows. He shakily drains the rest of his glass of sake. “I’m not handling this very well.”

Motoya’s expression softens. “No.”

It’s been two weeks since that awful dinner and a week since his talk with Iizuna. Kiyoomi hasn’t pushed for an answer, as promised, but that has left him with an awful, nervous energy that he can’t shake, perpetually on a razor’s edge, with the sound of the clock ticking down at the back of his mind and no ground under his feet. He doesn’t know where he stands now or what more he could do—there’s only the walls closing around him and a deep, unshakeable sense of dread settled like an anvil against his chest. Kiyoomi can’t shake the feeling that he’s going about this all wrong, even though—back against the wall—he doesn’t know what else he could do to change the Board’s mind.

Motoya reaches forward and plucks Kiyoomi’s empty glass from his hand and pours more sake into it.

“Drink.”

Kiyoomi listens.

“I don’t like seeing you this way,” Motoya says. “Why don’t you tell auntie?”

The sake suddenly tastes sour on Kiyoomi’s tongue.

“Tell her what? That I’ve failed? That the one thing she asked me to do—something any high schooler with a schoolboy crush is able to accomplish, is the one thing that I just cannot seem to fucking figure out?”

“Come on. Being a horny high schooler and trying to find a life partner is not the same and you know it,” Motoya says, but Kiyoomi ignores him.

“Fine. Should I tell her that I’ve never been able to find a soulmate before and why should I have expected anything differently now?”

“Kiyoomi,” Motoya says and Kiyoomi hates that tone in his voice, so close to pity it makes Kiyoomi’s skin crawl.

“Don’t.”

“It’s not your fault,” Motoya says. “I know you know that.”

“Fuck what I know,” Kiyoomi almost snaps and swallows a mouthful of sake to control himself. “Mother doesn’t care what I know. Neither does the Board. It’s—this is fine, Motoya. I’ve found a solution. Why can’t you just be happy for me?”

“I’m supposed to be happy?” Motoya asks. He sounds openly frustrated now, his two puffy eyebrows raised into his hairline. “I’m supposed to see you like this—completely miserable, settling for the easiest solution, and I’m supposed to be happy for you?”

“It’s a good solution,” Kiyoomi insists. He tries not to be resentful; none of this is Motoya’s fault. “I don’t have another choice.”

“You do,” Motoya insists. “Of course you have another choice. Your mother loves you, Kiyoomi. You’re more to her than what you bring to the company.”

Kiyoomi shakes his head. His shoulders suddenly feel rigid, his muscles stiff.

“Tell her!”

“Tell her what, Motoya?” Kiyoomi snaps.

“That this is killing you,” Motoya snaps back.

They’re both breathing harder than they should—glaring at one another. He and Motoya have fought before, although it’s been years since it’s held any real heat. Motoya is almost always willing to go along with whatever Kiyoomi says, but he has a stubborn streak when and where it matters. When it’s something that he cares about—when it’s someone he loves. He can be the most unrelenting person Kiyoomi knows.

Kiyoomi grips his glass tighter, his hands shaking.

They say nothing for a full minute, both of them angry for their own reasons, but still unwilling to say something they might regret. Kiyoomi doesn’t think that there’s anything Motoya could say that he would not eventually forgive. He really does love him an awful lot.

“Can I ask you something?” Motoya finally asks, breaking the awkward, tense silence.

Kiyoomi swallows and nods.

“If none of this was on your shoulders—if your future wasn’t tied to…all of this. What would you do? What would you want?”

He frowns, not understanding.

“I’ve always wanted this,” Kiyoomi says. “If I didn’t want Itachiyama so bad, I wouldn’t be—”

“Not that,” Motoya says pointedly. “Not your career, Kiyoomi. You. What do you want?” His cousin swirls around his sake in his little glass and says, “Who would you want?”

Kiyoomi’s throat goes a little dry. “Who says there’s someone I want?”

Motoya gives his cousin a careful look.

“Kiyoomi.”

Kiyoomi grips his glass tighter. He doesn’t know. Motoya—Kiyoomi hasn’t told him anything new. There hasn’t been anything new to tell. He had put a stop to that months ago—so long ago that the course of it barely even mattered anymore. And despite wavering occasionally, he hadn’t crossed that line again yet.

“Motoya.”

“I don’t think you realize,” Motoya says. “How much you talk about him.”

An awkward, slightly stretched silence.

“I don’t—” Kiyoomi grits his teeth. “It’s not that.”

“Okay. Then what is it?”

Kiyoomi tries to explain, reasonably. “How can I not? When we’re being pitted against each other. It would be impossible not to.”

“Am I stupid?” Motoya says, staring at him. “Do you think I’m stupid?”

“Stop,” Kiyoomi says. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Motoya takes a sip from his glass.

“I’m the only one who knows what he’s talking about.”

Kiyoomi loves his cousin a great deal. But sometimes he doesn’t like him very much.

“I hate him,” Kiyoomi says—reiterates. “I’ve always hated him. What we were doing before—it doesn’t matter. We were being stupid. I can control myself.”

“I wasn’t saying you can’t,” Motoya says softly.

Kiyoomi’s face heats. He’s given himself away without meaning to. He opens his mouth to defend what he’s said, but Motoya speaks first.

“No, listen. Stop talking.”

Kiyoomi snaps his mouth shut.

“You talk about him constantly. You talked about him when you were sleeping with him and you still talk about him nearly as much. Maybe even more.”

Kiyoomi hesitates, suddenly self conscious.

“I do?”

“Yeah. You think it’s okay because you say you hate him—you make the excuse that it doesn’t mean anything, because of this whole thing. Which is the easiest answer and like, maybe. But I know you. If he didn’t matter to you, you wouldn’t be thinking about him at all.”

“I’m not—” Kiyoomi says. He digs his nails into his thigh.

“You’re obsessed with Miya,” Motoya says. “In a way you never will be with Iizuna.”

That’s unfair, Kiyoomi wants to say. That’s a completely different situation. He thinks about Miya because he has to think about him—because he and Miya are lockstep, inescapably intertwined, embroiled in this horrible, stupid situation, despite their better wishes.

Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer. Isn’t that how the saying goes?

“I hate him,” Kiyoomi says, but it’s dull and half-hearted, stale even before it’s left his mouth.

“I don’t think you do,” Motoya says, tilting his head a little. “I think you used to. But I don’t think you hate him anymore.”

Kiyoomi nearly blanches.

That can’t be true, he thinks. He would be aware, wouldn’t he?

He would know if he hated Miya less. If, against all expectations, Miya had somehow become tolerable to him—no longer someone he actively avoids, but someone he now seeks out. If Miya had become someone Kiyoomi respected, someone worth Kiyoomi’s time—his parallel, his equal. If Kiyoomi actually cared about Miya, wouldn’t he have noticed?

Motoya looks at Kiyoomi almost sympathetically.

Kiyoomi finds himself at a loss for words—to say, to defend himself with. Maybe simply, just at a loss.

“You’re playing a dumb game, cousin, but it’s a dangerous one too. You, Iizuna, Miya,” Motoya says. He doesn’t relent, because he’s not a Sakusa, but he’s close enough to one. He thinks he’s right—maybe knows it too—and when a Sakusa is right, there is nothing that will stop them from pressing until you realize they are too.

“I’m not—” Kiyoomi starts and stops. Grips his pant leg. “That isn’t my intention.”

“I know. But you know as well as I do that intentions don’t…really matter. Not if you’re being reckless anyway.”

Is Kiyoomi being reckless? He’s never been reckless in his life, so he wouldn’t know how to assess himself if he began now. He doesn’t know how to look at it objectively, either. It’s a complicated thing, to pick through the disparate pieces of the past months of his life to make any sort of sense of them.

“If he didn’t have a soulmate,” Motoya says. “If Miya wasn’t bonded. Would it change things?”

Kiyoomi clenches his teeth, his heart suddenly beating erratically.

“What would you do?” Motoya asks. “If Miya was a possibility instead of a rival?”

The thought had never occurred to him before. Miya, with his shifting colors and allegiances in sand—Kiyoomi’s never entertained a different sort of relationship for the two of them, because he’s not in the business of wondering things that cannot happen. He doesn’t appreciate Motoya opening that door now, because once said aloud, Kiyoomi can’t unthink it.

His chest feels like it’s gripped in a vise.

Nothing, he wants to say. I would want nothing to do with him.

But it’s hard to lie to the one person who has known you your entire life. Motoya’s right. He’s not stupid, and Kiyoomi has never taken him for such.

“I don’t know,” Kiyoomi says instead, the words like grit in his mouth.

Fuck, he thinks then, because it’s the truth. If Miya didn’t have a soulmate—if he wasn’t promised to another—

Would Kiyoomi have stopped them? If Miya didn’t have a soulmark, would Kiyoomi have kept pursuing him, kept seeking him out, kept sleeping with him—even knowing everything he does now?

The fact that he can’t answer definitively is haunting.

Motoya drains his sake and sets the glass on his coffee table, on a coaster he had set out himself. Because he knows it would bother Kiyoomi otherwise. Because he loves Kiyoomi, and would never hurt him on purpose.

“I’m just worried, you know,” he says finally. “I don’t want you to get hurt.”

That, Kiyoomi does know. He feels terrible for putting his cousin in this position, even if Kiyoomi doesn’t know, exactly, what that position is.

“Motoya,” he says quietly. “I won’t do anything stupid. I’ll be careful.”

Motoya doesn’t look like he believes him.

“Just. Don’t do anything you can’t take back,” is all he says in response. Then he reaches forward for the bottle and fills their empty glasses again.

Chapter Text

ACT VII: The Inevitable Impact.

It feels dishonest to say that he leaves well enough alone. Kiyoomi has never left anything alone that has been brought to his attention even once. In a way, it’s Motoya’s fault because Kiyoomi could have gone his entire life without thinking twice about all of the little ways in which Miya has somehow—without his noticing, against Kiyoomi’s will—settled into the corners of his mind.

Like the way Kiyoomi’s attention drifts whenever Miya is somewhere in the near vicinity—mid-thought, or mid-conversation, even when Miya isn’t doing anything but being there, physically within reach—or the way—he is now realizing with horrible awareness—Kiyoomi goes out of his way to needlessly bring Miya up in conversations just to disparage him, or the way his hairs stand on end—his entire body hyperaware—whenever Miya walks into the room.

They’re small enough incidents, noticeable by no one but him, but now that Motoya has pointed it out, he can’t not notice it—or at least not test the integrity of the observation.

Once Kiyoomi gets a thought into his brain, it’s impossible for him to shake it until he sees it all the way through.

He’s not as subtle about it as he could be, though.

“What?” Miya snaps at him, more than once, because once Motoya raises the question of him being obsessed, Kiyoomi has to figure out if he actually is.

That leads to the unfortunate consequence of Kiyoomi at least appearing obsessed, even if he obviously isn’t.

“Take a picture,” Miya sneers when Kiyoomi says nothing. “It’ll last you longer.”

Which is exactly the right kind of stupid and borderline cocky thing to say to snap Kiyoomi temporarily back to reality.

“You have ink on your face,” Kiyoomi says calmly and Miya gasps and starts rubbing at his chin, looking for something that isn’t there.

“Did I get it?” Miya asks and his eyes are so wide that for a moment Kiyoomi forgets they aren’t supposed to be nice to each other.

“A little higher—a little to the left—yes. That was it.”

Miya lets out a sigh of relief and gives him a rare, honest smile.

“Thanks.”

Kiyoomi doesn’t like the way it makes him feel.

“Wanna get lunch after the meeting?” Miya asks, extending the brief, strange olive branch between them.

Kiyoomi doesn’t like the way that makes him feel either, so he takes out his phone and says, “No.”

It’s not that bad, Kiyoomi decides after conducting his very thorough experiment. Sure, he’s constantly aware of Miya, and all right, Miya does come up in conversation more than his other coworkers, and yes, Kiyoomi does have to spend more time working with Miya—against his will—or at least consulting with him more than anyone else, but it’s no more than anyone else would if they shared an office floor with someone. It’s not Kiyoomi’s fault that Ota-san has gotten it into his head that Kiyoomi and Miya’s firm partnership on the Nekoma deal—still pending, but getting closer—is a sign that the two of them complement each other or work well together.

Kiyoomi can’t control his circumstances, is the point.

That he and Miya orbit each other, that they are always parallel, is beyond Kiyoomi’s control. It isn’t obsession, it is circumstance. And all he can do is acknowledge the situation as it happens and wait for something to change.

There’s nothing to do but wait. Wait for Izuna, wait for the vote, wait for his brain to finally release him from whatever unbearable thrall Miya has it under. It’s all he seems to be particularly good at these days—waiting for something, somewhere, to change in his life.

“That is a bit hyperbolic,” Wakatoshi says. Sometimes they meet for drinks after work, in the brief breaks they get from the exciting worlds of entertainment business and banking finance. “You are also very good at worrying. And business development.”

There’s a beat during which Wakatoshi looks at Kiyoomi expectantly, waiting for him to acknowledge his joke.

“I liked you better when you didn’t have a sense of humor,” Kiyoomi says, sipping at his old fashioned.

They’re seated at a high table at a high-end bar that is unfortunately too popular with those in their income bracket, but which is located equidistantly between the Itachiyama and Shiratorizawa Banking offices.They come here often enough that they’re recognized easily at the door, although every time they do, Kiyoomi wonders why they don’t go somewhere else that isn’t teeming with clients. Looking around, he can recognize at least a quarter of the men and women crowding around similar high tables or at the low-lit bar as previous, current, or potential future business partners. Everyone is dressed to the nines, which, incidentally, is the unofficial dress code. There isn’t a man in an off-the-rack suit or a woman whose bracelet or necklace wouldn’t cost a year’s salary from anyone else. It all makes him itch and if he wasn’t so fond of expensive, tailored clothing or his reputation, he would test the waters by showing up in sweatpants and a sweatshirt just to see what they would all do.

“Satori is teaching me,” Wakatoshi says. “He says I have an underdeveloped talent for it.”

“I think he’s making my life a lot more difficult than it needs to be,” Kiyoomi mutters.

Wakatoshi gives him the faintest half-smile and picks up his own glass of Yamazaki, on the rocks. He’s a man of simple needs, but expensive taste. Kiyoomi enjoys that about him.

“Anyway, I was only being minimally humorous,” Wakatoshi says. He has his elbows up on the clean, glassy table top as he swirls around his drink and takes a sip. “I do believe both of those things.”

“I am a masterclass at worrying,” Kiyoomi mutters in agreement.

“You are more than competent at your day job as well,” Wakatoshi says. “How was your meeting this afternoon?”

“Too long,” Kiyoomi says, resting his own elbows on the tabletop in front of him. He’s careful not to get any residual condensation on him—he hates the feeling of damp skin. He’s unbuttoned his sleeves and rolled them up to his elbows, although he looks no less handsome or professional for it. He’d worn a nice, three-piece charcoal suit today because he’d had a rather important client meeting with the Korean liaison for a new potential business partnership earlier that afternoon. He always gets too warm after drinking, though, so he’d taken off his jacket and hung it on the back of his high-backed chair in anticipation. He’s still in his buttoned suit vest. “But good, overall. We made decent progress.”

“I know you have been anticipating this development for some time.”

“Yeah,” Kiyoomi says. “It opens up an entirely new market for us, which is in line with the next phase of our expansion.”

“Does Itachiyama need expansion?” Wakatoshi asks with a wry smile.

“You know as well as I do that in business, if you’re not expanding, you might as well be dead,” Kiyoomi says and raises his glass to his mouth.

“You sound like my mother.”

“Our mothers do get along,” Kiyoomi agrees and Wakatoshi laughs lightly. It’s been some time since they had gotten together, but both of their families have been well-acquainted and more than cordial for years. In the world they live in, it would be stupid not to be.

“Ota-san must be pleased with your work,” Wakatoshi says. He, of course, knows all about the tedious details of Kiyoomi’s work existence; partly because Kiyoomi needs someone who isn’t Motoya to discuss every excruciating development with and partly because Wakatoshi genuinely finds those tedious details to be interesting.

“He is and mother is too,” Kiyoomi says. He feels a brief and temporary rush of pride. It’s been so long since he and his mother haven’t been at odds over his predicament that it had been a surprise and welcome relief that afternoon when he had reported on the meeting to her and she had given him a nod and said, simply, Well done, Kiyoomi. “Anyway, the client and I were mostly on the same page, which as you know, is not always a given.”

“Kuroo Tetsurou still giving you problems?”

“Oh, when isn’t he,” Kiyoomi mutters and Wakatoshi laughs again.

“Well, that’s good,” he says. “You always find a way.”

Kiyoomi looks at his friend curiously and Wakatoshi’s expression—perennially stern—softens.

“I only mean I have never known you to fail,” he says. “You are so successful because you always do what needs to be done in order to meet your clients’ needs as well as your own. I find that laudable.”

Kiyoomi colors a little at the compliment. Wakatoshi is rarely so effusive, and it feels nice to be acknowledged about this.

Behind them, near the bar, a group of young men Kiyoomi recognizes from a wildly successful emerging business technology firm makes a bit of a scene waving over a few of their colleagues from the door.

This distracts him briefly.

“Loud,” he says under his breath.

Wakatoshi taps his fingers against the glass tabletop, drawing Kiyoomi’s attention back to him. “Do you anticipate meeting them in Korea next? The client.”

“Probably,” Kiyoomi says with a shrug. “We’ve scheduled a follow up meeting with their executive director in a month.”

Wakatoshi pauses curiously at that and the reason only occurs to Kiyoomi a beat later. He flushes from embarrassment, gripping his glass tightly.

“You will have to send someone in your place,” Wakatoshi says lightly. “As you will be too busy transitioning into your new role.”

“Ha.” Kiyoomi exhales and busies himself the only way he knows how—by drinking some more. “Thank you.”

They nurse their drinks as the topic shifts, Wakatoshi gently pivoting away from the one thing Kiyoomi cannot get off his mind to less emotionally fraught topics, like Wakatoshi’s upcoming business trip to Singapore, and Shiratorizawa’s remarkable second quarter growth, how Tendou has recently developed a mild obsession with house plants that Wakatoshi is trying to understand by reading books about the environmental and personal benefits of plants, and how Kiyoomi and Motoya were partially responsible for nearly accidentally getting Naomi’s husband stranded on a boat off the coast of Kagoshima.

“She may never trust us again,” Kiyoomi says, grinning at the memory. “But Motoya and I agree it was still mostly worth it.”

Wakatoshi chuckles and finishes what’s left of his whiskey. He checks his watch, which causes Kiyoomi to do the same—it’s just past 9.

“I should return to the office,” Wakatoshi says.

“So late?”

“I have a few things to finish up,” Wakatoshi says. “And Satori is in Okinawa on chocolate matters for the week, so there is nothing to go home to.”

Kiyoomi feels irrationally jealous at the sentiment—that a home can have someone waiting for you there. Immediately after, he feels pathetic.

“What are chocolate matters?”

“Matters that involve chocolate,” Wakatoshi answers and reaches for his wallet.

“I’ll grab it this time, Wakatoshi,” Kiyoomi says, waving a hand. He and Wakatoshi meet up often enough that they alternate picking up the bill. Sometimes, the bartender takes a liking to one or the other of them and there’s no bill to pick up at all, which always amuses Kiyoomi and flusters Wakatoshi.

“Thank you,” Wakatoshi says. He stands and is straightening his coat when he suddenly pauses. “Kiyoomi, may I say something?”

Kiyoomi looks at his old friend curiously.

“I was not aware we were asking permission.”

“Well, no,” Wakatoshi says. “But I am trying to be more…socially thoughtful.”

Wakatoshi’s problem isn’t thoughtlessness, it’s inability to understand most social nuances, but now doesn’t seem to be the time to point that out. Kiyoomi suppresses a smile.

“Go on.”

“You are good at your job, Kiyoomi,” Wakatoshi says. “You are devoted and diligent and possess business acumen that can rarely be taught. You are quite sharp.”

Kiyoomi feels his neck heat.

“Thank you, but why—”

“I know it is frustrating to wait,” Wakatoshi says. “But you will only harm yourself if you keep focusing on the things which you cannot control.”

Kiyoomi tries not to be frustrated with Wakatoshi, who has never once meant him any harm or condescension. It’s hard though, when their circumstances could not be more different.

“What do you think I should focus on instead, then?”

“The things you are good at,” Wakatoshi says. “The things you like to do.”

Kiyoomi frowns, not understanding why Wakatoshi is saying all of this.

Wakatoshi gives him a gentle look—almost as though he knows.

“I’m only afraid you are forgetting why you want this at all.”

The Tokyo sky seems to parallel Kiyoomi’s mood that entire week. It’s grey and moody, thick dark clouds and an uncomfortable drizzle threatening to grow into something more, but never quite managing. It makes everything feel worse than they otherwise would and sends everyone’s mental health into a general downward spiral. Kiyoomi, always at the verge of a spiral anyway, is only marginally worse off than he normally is. Everyone else in the office, though, is on the edge at any given moment.

First, Ota-san gets into a heated disagreement with a longtime external partner that requires intervention by both Kiyoomi and Miya to smooth over. Then Yamamoto fucks up the launch for a new campaign that they just joined with some extremely popular influencer, which puts him in a shitty mood that he takes out on the rest of the marketing team and anyone who might need something from the marketing team. Shigeru shatters at least three mugs in the kitchen due to things that Kiyoomi, for once, is not responsible for.

Even Miya slinks around the hallways with a look on his face like someone called him by his twin’s name. Kiyoomi doesn’t think anyone has done this, but he can’t say for certain. Miya spends most of the week being pissy and slamming the door to his office shut, which is unusual for him and also distracting for everyone else. No one really comments on it because everyone is in a similar enough state. It’s relatable. They’re all stacked like the world’s most precarious house of cards and Kiyoomi’s afraid all it will take is a single exhaled breath for it all to go scattering to the ground.

They have a client presentation with Fukurodani on Thursday morning. This is a much easier lift than their entire ordeal with Nekoma, but it still requires Itachiyama to maintain a delicate balance. There’s some margin for error, but not much—certainly not the kinds of errors that the entire floor has been stumbling through this week. It makes Kiyoomi nervous. The entire marketing team will be present for the meeting, which he and Miya will lead.

Fukurodani will be sending a few representatives, including their senior director of business. Kiyoomi’s been on a few calls with Akaashi Keiji; he’s polite, but sharp and scrutinizing. He has a mind for details, which means there will be no bullshitting and no delegating. He and Miya have to run a near perfect meeting, or the entire project could stall.

All in all, the pressure in the office is high by the time Kiyoomi finishes preparing and leaves the building close to midnight the night before.

Of course it all goes to shit the next morning.

It’s a series of the stupidest things going wrong that could go wrong. First Kiyoomi nicks himself while shaving. He tries to staunch the bleeding with a rag, but the gash is deeper than he must realize, because it bleeds a concerning amount before he finally manages to make it stop. By the time it does, he realizes he’s gotten blood all over himself; the sight makes him go lightheaded for a moment, his skin crawling from revulsion. He quickly throws himself into his second shower of the morning, which makes him late to get ready, which makes him late for breakfast. He manages to grab a shitty protein bar that he keeps for emergencies before bolting out the door.

There’s no time for coffee. He throws himself into the car and the driver is down the block before he realizes he’s left his phone at home. They double back, which makes him run even later. Morning traffic is hideous—so hideous that Kiyoomi has Kanagawa drop him a few blocks from the building, thinking it will be much faster to just walk.

Well, when it rains it pours.

In this case, literally.

Kiyoomi’s three blocks away from the office when the Tokyo sky finally stops threatening to rain and commits to it. It goes from a few drops to a deluge all at once, a torrential downpour on the one day Kiyoomi cannot afford to look like he’s swum in off the streets. He gasps as he shoves his phone and keys into his pocket and starts to run. His expensive, leather designer shoes were neither made for running nor hurtling himself through puddles, but they’re a lost cause as Kiyoomi shoves past morning commuters with umbrellas.

The rain soaks him through to his skin and his head aches and his teeth chatter as he pounds down the pavement, ignoring the cautionary signal at a corner and running into open traffic. He gasps as he gets honked at but he throws himself across the street and makes it to the other corner before getting smashed during morning rush hour. People shout at him, but their voices are muffled by the rain and he doesn’t care anyway.

He’s too cold and too wet and too panicked to have anything on his mind except reaching the building and—figuring it all out after. He’s so singularly focused that he doesn’t notice the stupid fox umbrella before he knocks into it.

“Hey!” someone shouts and it’s only when a hand darts out and grabs his arm to keep him from tumbling into water that he stumbles to a stop with a curse.

“Let me go, I need to—” Kiyoomi shouts and then suddenly there’s an umbrella shoved over his head—or at least most of his head—and he’s looking down into the wide, annoyed eyes of Miya.

“What the fuck, Omi!” Miya says loud enough for Kiyoomi to hear. “It’s rainin’!”

Kiyoomi barely resists the urge to snap at him.

“Thank you Miya, I hadn’t noticed—” his words get swallowed by the sounds of rain beating down around them and car tires against wet pavement.

“What?” Miya shouts.

“I said thank you, I hadn’t noticed—”

“What?”

It’s clear that they can’t hear each other and every moment they try, Kiyoomi is still getting half-rained on while the cold is starting to sink into his bones.

“Fuck’s sake,” he hears Miya mutter and then he feels Miya’s grip tighten on his arm. “Come on, just—!”

Kiyoomi doesn’t protest, he just stumbles along after Miya, half-shielded by his umbrella, the last half a block until they’re finally under the awning of the Itachiyama building. Kiyoomi gets shoved in through the glass doors and it’s only as the door slowly shuts behind them both and the warmer, dry air of the building hits him that Kiyoomi finally gasps.

“Shit,” Miya says, staring at him. Then, scowling, “Did ya not look at the fuckin’ weather? What, you too good for meteorology?”

“I didn’t—” Kiyoomi says, trying to defend himself, which is difficult when there’s nothing he can really say in his defense and when his teeth are chattering. “It wasn’t raining. When I left.”

“Yeah, well sometimes it just does that,” Miya says, gesturing outside the glass doors, where the rain is coming down in sheets. He snaps his umbrella closed and reaches for a plastic bag from the doorman. “Ya know? Weather? What, you too good for weather?”

“Can you shut up?” Kiyoomi does snap at him this time. His head is pounding and his pulse is still beating too fast and he’s cold down to his bones. He can’t stop shivering.

“Fuck,” Miya says, staring at him with wide eyes. “You’re gonna catch somethin’ like that.”

“I’ll be fine—” Kiyoomi says just before he sneezes.

“Fuck’s sake,” Miya repeats.

Somewhere behind him, another door opens and a few men in suits and dripping umbrellas push inside.

“Fuck,” Kiyoomi says suddenly, his eyes flying wide. “What time is it?”

“Eh? Uh—” Miya looks down at his dry watch and he mumbles a curse. “Shit. Meeting’s in under an hour.”

Kiyoomi looks down at himself. Every inch of him that can be wet, is wet. He’s dripping on the tiled floor. His leather shoes are ruined and his suit is clinging to him. His curls are completely smashed to his forehead.

He can’t go into the meeting like this.

“I can’t go into the meeting like this,” he says and panic starts to crawl up his spine.

Miya must catch his expression, because his eyes go wide too.

“Oh god,” Kiyoomi says. “Oh, god.”

His anxiety—already high—ratchets up. His brain starts flipping through contingency plans and every single one comes up short. He can’t go into the meeting soaking wet and he doesn’t have spare clothes in his office. There’s no time to send for any from home and it’s much too early for any clothing store within a reasonable distance to be open. Even if he was somehow uncountable lucky enough to find one, it’s still a downpour outside—it would take Shigeru forever to get there and come back and he and the clothes would get soaked in the process, rendering the entire endeavor a complete waste of time.

Kiyoomi’s at a loss. He literally does not know what to do.

“Shit,” he hears somewhere in front of him.

Kiyoomi’s chest tightens, his brain whiting out a little. He can hear his breathing, a little too fast and a little too loud. He can’t feel his hands.

“Omi-kun,” Miya says urgently. “Hey, Omi-kun.”

Kiyoomi can barely hear him. His blood is pounding in his ears. He can feel his teeth grinding, his jaw aching from tension. It’s bad—he knows it’s bad. He’s standing in the lobby of the building and it’s bad.

“Omi, can you hear me?” Miya says. “Hey, look at me. Can you look at me?”

It’s with an inhuman amount of effort—and mostly because Miya drops his umbrella and sets both of his cold, but dry hands, to either side of Kiyoomi’s face and guides it forcibly toward him—that Kiyoomi is able to look at him.

“Breathe, can ya breathe a little for me, Omi-kun?” Miya says. “Just—in and out. Slowly. A little more than—yeah, like me. Here—”

He takes Kiyoomi’s sheet white, trembling, ice cold hand and puts it on his chest.

“In and out—in and—yeah, just like that.” Miya smiles at him encouragingly. Kiyoomi uses every ounce of willpower and pushes through the panicked bramble in his head. He takes in a deep, shuddering breath and exhales. Some feeling slowly comes back into his extremities. “Good!”

“Miya,” Kiyoomi says, suddenly able to speak again. He grabs Miya’s wrist by his face. “The meeting.”

“Yeah,” Miya says with a nod. He looks relieved. “All right. Come on, let’s get ya into some dry clothes.”

Kiyoomi follows Miya up and into his office. Miya shuts the door behind him and then lowers the blinds on his window.

Kiyoomi stands near the doorway, still dripping water onto the ground and shivering. Luckily, the sense of urgency has overtaken his blinding panic. He’s still a bit shaky, but he can think again.

“I think I got some spare—” Miya says and opens one of the cabinets along the far wall. “I usually keep an extra set of pants and a shirt in here.”

“Why?” Kiyoomi asks through chattering teeth.

“You never know when you’re gonna need it, y’know?” Miya says. His head is stuck into the cabinet, where he’s reached up toward the top shelf. “Once—okay, more than once, ‘Samu and I got into somethin’ or other and we’d fuck up our clothes, like he spilled teriyaki sauce on me or I tackled him to the ground and made him rip his slacks.”

“What?” Kiyoomi asks, distracted by the mental image of this. “What were you two doing in the office?”

“Never know when ya gotta shove your shithead twin brother into somethin’, Omi-kun,” Miya says. “Life lesson.”

“I don’t think that’s true,” Kiyoomi answers. “And I do not think that is a helpful life lesson.”

“Eh,” Miya says. “Comes up more than ya think.”

Kiyoomi has no idea how to refute that.

“Anyway, we’d have to go into a meeting like that after, with sauce shirt or ripped pants. Embarrassin’ every time. You learn quickly that people don’t take ya seriously with sauce shirt,” Miya says. “Aha! Got it.”

He emerges with a pair of simple, navy blue slacks and a white button-up, pleased as punch. Kiyoomi is immediately flooded with a relief so strong he nearly staggers backwards.

“Guess who’d always get reamed out for it though?” Miya says with a sudden scowl. “Like, both of us are there lookin’ stupid as hell, but I’m still the only one who gets in trouble for it? How’s that fair?”

“I have to be honest, Miya,” Kiyoomi says.

Miya looks at him expectantly.

“I think you and your brother might have been sent from hell.”

Miya blinks and then his expression crumples into laughter.

“Probably,” he says. “Poor Ma.”

Kiyoomi sneezes again and Miya gives him a critical once over, clothes still in his arms.

“You gotta change before you die on my office floor, Omi-kun. Wanna get out of your jacket?”

Kiyoomi hesitates. “I can go to the bathroom. Or my own office.”

“You’re gonna drip all over everythin’,” Miya says dismissively. “It’s already wet in here. Just change.”

Kiyoomi flushes. “In here?”

Miya gives him a look, which only makes Kiyoomi’s neck grow hotter.

“Really?”

Kiyoomi can’t defend himself. He knows it’s absurd to suddenly feel self conscious around a man who has had his mouth on his literal dick many times, but it’s not like they’ve ever fucked where they can see each other very well. It’s different in the dark of a supply closet in the middle of the night than under the white light in the middle of Miya’s office.

“The meeting’s in half an hour,” Miya says after a moment of Kiyoomi’s awkward hesitation. “Come on, we have to get ready.”

That is about the only thing Miya could have said to disarm Kiyoomi, and it works. There’s an important client presentation they have to nail in thirty minutes. Kiyoomi’s uncaffeinated, cold, and wet all the way through. They don’t have time for his dithering.

“Okay,” Kiyoomi says and steps out of his shoes.

He undoes his suit jacket and, with some effort, slides it off his shoulders. It squelches, fabric thick with water, and leaves a trail of droplets as he sets it across a plastic chair that Miya moves some files from to clear for him. His hand moves to his belt buckle and then he pauses awkwardly.

“What, ya want help with that?” Miya says after a moment and Kiyoomi’s stomach swoops in a mixture of mild embarrassment and…memory.

“Shut up, Miya,” he grouses and undoes the clasp. He slides the wet leather out from under the cold metal of the buckle and then across his hips, through the loops, the sound loud in his ear.

His skin heats and he can feel Miya’s eyes on him, although he refuses to look up and meet them. He takes in a little breath and undoes the top button of his pants. He slides down the zipper and, before he can think too much about it, he shoves his slacks down to his ankles. The material is too-wet, uncomfortably clinging to his legs as he tries, but he steps out of them as quickly as he can.

He’s left only in his damp, white button-up, so soaked through that he can see the outline of his undershirt through it. It takes him another moment before he can make his fingers work enough to unbutton it. He does this quickly too and then slides off the shirt. After a moment, he takes his wet undershirt by the hem and lifts it up and over his head.

This leaves Kiyoomi in nothing but his underwear and black socks. It’s absurd. The warm office air makes him shiver violently, his skin so cold and wet that he forgets, momentarily, that he is all but naked in Miya’s office.

“Shit,” Miya murmurs quietly. “You’re shivering.”

Kiyoomi looks up at him then. Miya’s watching him closely, expression a little inscrutable. It isn’t the leer Kiyoomi expected. It isn’t anything else either.

“Here, I—” Miya says after a moment and before Kiyoomi can say no, he’s stepped closer, closing the gap between them. He’s set the spare clothes on his desk and there’s cloth unfolded in his hands now. “It’s not big enough, but. I don’t got a towel in here. Sorry.”

Kiyoomi looks at him uncomprehendingly until Miya takes the unfolded handkerchief and presses it to the damp skin of Kiyoomi’s neck. Kiyoomi freezes for a second, unsure how to react. His skin heats; something suddenly stumbles in his chest. He down at Miya, who looks up at him, as though asking for permission.

“Okay,” Kiyoomi finally says. “Thank you.”

Miya slides his hand—the handkerchief—down the column of Kiyoomi’s neck. He wipes it down one shoulder and—unthinkingly—wraps his other hand around Kiyoomi’s opposite shoulder, his fingers pressed against the bare skin of Kiyoomi’s upper arm.

“Hold still,” Miya murmurs.

As though Kiyoomi could possibly move.

He inhales quietly—his heart rattling, his pulse pounding—as Miya slowly moves the cloth across Kiyoomi’s wet skin; down his shoulder and behind his arm, back up his wrist to his bicep, up to the place where his shoulder meets his neck. Kiyoomi holds his breath as best as he can and Miya moves—quietly, intently—the cloth slowly trailing down Kiyoomi’s clavicle, over the swell of his pectoral muscles, down his sternum, until it falters at his stomach, just above his—

He swallows. His pulse is racing now, hummingbird fast in his wrist and his throat, behind his ear—all of his pulse points.

Kiyoomi is so aware of how close Miya is. He’s so aware of how clean his own skin is, bare of any soul marks. It doesn’t seem to occur to Miya at all.

“Moles,” Miya says quietly, instead. “To match the ones on your forehead.”

Kiyoomi feels cold in his extremities and hot all over. His head clouds, his stomach tightens. Miya stands still like that, one hand on Kiyoomi’s arm, the other pressed to his stomach, his fingers spread out wide across the thin cloth of the handkerchief.

They’re still—too still. Behind them, the clock ticks slowly. Outside of Miya’s office, there’s movement, voices down the hall. Their coworkers. Colleagues getting ready for meetings.

Slowly, Miya’s other hand slides down—over the damp swell of Kiyoomi’s tricep, down the smooth skin to his elbow. Across to press his palm to Kiyoomi’s ribcage—his fingers splayed, the edge of his nails biting lightly into Kiyoomi’s soft skin. He thumbs at a small, round birthmark at Kiyoomi’s hip and Kiyoomi’s breath stutters.

Miya doesn’t look up at him and Kiyoomi can’t seem to stop looking back. The brush of his blond hair, his long, brown eyelashes dusting the top of his cheeks. The slope of his shoulders and the way he’s tense—so tense—every muscle in his body held like a breath.

They’re held by a tether, the two of them. If either of them moves, the whole thing will snap.

“Miya,” Kiyoomi says shakily.

Miya’s fingers dig into Kiyoomi’s abdomen just a little, just once. Maybe he’s trying to leave bruises, or maybe he’s trying to ground himself. Maybe he can’t stand to break this moment either.

“Right,” Miya says with a forced laugh and then pulls back. “Yeah. Sorry.”

He takes a step back and Kiyoomi has a wild impulse, something fierce and reckless in his gut, like—stopping him. Like reaching out and catching his wrist. Like pressing closer, pressing his fingertips to Miya’s chin and wresting it up so that he has no choice, nowhere to go.

He wants so badly to make Miya look at him, to see whatever it is he can’t hide. But there’s a time and a place for confronting hidden things and it is not twenty minutes until a client presentation.

“Thank you,” Kiyoomi says instead, trying to steady his voice. It works, mostly. “I’ll just—”

“Right,” Miya says again as Kiyoomi reaches for the dry clothes. He turns his head and grits his teeth and Kiyoomi can see the frustration there, all of the self restraint holding him back from doing the thing they both want and Kiyoomi won’t allow them to do.

Kiyoomi’s not sure if the self restraint is better or worse. His internal wires are completely crossed. He’s not sure what he wants Miya to do instead.

“Yamamoto’s texting.” Miya’s voice breaks the strained reverie. “He wants to meet in the conference room in five.”

That lets them take a breath.

“Of course.”

Kiyoomi closes his eyes for just a moment, just to re-center himself. He takes a deep, steadying breath, and then starts to dress.

* * *

Chapter Text

Against all odds, the presentation goes well. Kiyoomi’s hair is still damp and a bit frizzy, but Miya’s clothes fit him suitably well and Kiyoomi has a spare suit jacket and an extra pair of shoes in his office, so he is, at a minimum, reasonably dressed to address Akaashi Keiji. He and Miya can’t shake the self consciousness that blossoms between them after Kiyoomi zips up his pants and buttons Miya’s shirt onto his body, but they can pretend well enough. They ignore the tension—the elephant that no one else knows is in the room with them—and work seamlessly, presenting marketing’s vision together and answering all of Akaashi’s very detailed, somewhat intense questions.

By the time Akaashi shakes both of their hands with a quiet, but pleased, “Thank you, we will be in touch,” and Fukurodani takes leave of the building, Kiyoomi’s nearly shaking with exhaustion.

The whole room of them—wired and bedraggled as hell—deflates, nearly simultaneously.

“Shit,” Miya exhales and collapses into one of the conference room chairs. “I’m beat.”

“It wasn’t even that bad,” Yamamoto says, loosening his tie and sinking into a chair next to Miya. “Everything went as planned. But I feel damn drained.”

The others murmur in agreement.

“What a week,” Nishihara, a digital marketing associate, says in a rushed exhale.

“It’s only Thursday,” Miya replies and everyone groans lightly.

Kato, one of the marketing guys, leans back in his chair and waves a pen around in front of him. “Can’t call it a day, can we?”

“It is—” Kiyoomi says, “Noon.”

“We’ve worked plenty,” Miya agrees.

Kiyoomi cannot condone a noon dismissal no matter how much he personally wants to curl up on his office couch and pass out.

“Can we at least go drinking after?” Kato asks. He looks at Yamamoto who looks at Miya who looks at Kiyoomi.

“You cannot tell me you don’t wanna get wasted,” Miya says to him. “After—” He waves a hand vaguely. “—that.”

“Do not get wasted in front of your coworkers,” Kiyoomi, ever the buzzkill, says.

Miya makes a face at him.

“How about tipsy?” Kato clarifies. “Can we get tipsy in front of our coworkers?”

Everyone in the room looks at Kiyoomi expectantly. Well, what’s he supposed to say? Miya’s not right—there’s nothing Kiyoomi would like better than to get wasted after all of that. And anyway they’ve earned a bit of levity after the shit that was this week.

“Tipsy is fine,” Kiyoomi says and for the first time since he started working at his own company, Kiyoomi finds an entire room of people cheering for him.

A good number of them go out for happy hour after work occasionally. Kiyoomi’s general anxiety and strict sense of professionalism keep him from joining his coworkers usually, but this time he’s cajoled and harassed—mostly by Miya—into going too. It’s been such a miserable week with a godawful morning to top it off that it doesn’t even take that much convincing. The alternative is either to stay in the office and do more work until he dies or go home and drink by himself while watching his phone to see if Iizuna texts. That is pathetic even for him, so he turns off the lights in his office and joins the group of them in the elevator at 6.

It’s finally stopped raining, so although the air is wet and the pavement is slick, they make it to the bar without looking like they joined the Japanese Olympic swim team to do so. It’s some place that Yamamoto had found for them a few years ago and the drinks are decent enough and it’s close enough to the office that they’ve adopted it as their go-to.

Kiyoomi looks around the place in vague amusement; it is strictly middle-class corporate and full of salarymen compared to the bars he and Wakatoshi tend to choose for themselves.

“Drinks on the boss?” Kato—apparently very bold today—looks at Kiyoomi.

Technically Ota-san is their boss, but Kiyoomi doesn’t care to split hairs.

“Sure,” Kiyoomi says with a wave and everyone cheers again.

“We’ll grab for the table,” Miya says and he and Kato disappear.

There’s a long table that’s been reserved for them, so Kiyoomi slides in next to Yamamoto. They make small talk—mostly about work, since Kiyoomi does not know a single personal fact about Yamamoto or, indeed, any of his coworkers—as the others squish in around them. Shigeru shuffles into the bar a little late, bowing his apology.

“Have a seat, kid!” Yamamoto waves him over and Kiyoomi’s pleased by the welcoming gesture.

Shigeru looks at Kiyoomi uncertainly for a moment until Kiyoomi nods and says, “Shigeru, please sit with us.”

By the time Miya and Kato come back with drinks and snacks for the table, Kiyoomi is feeling a little out of his depth. Yamamoto is continuing an old discussion with Nishihara about something sports-related, Obara from communications is asking Shigeru about his last semester of school, and even Saiki, who had only started on the floor a few months ago, is deep in conversation with the person next to her, who is someone in the marketing team that Kiyoomi knows he’s spoken to before, but whose name he just can’t remember.

It’s strange and a little unsettling; Kiyoomi works with these people every single day, but he’s never really gotten to know any of them. This is mostly by design. Work is a professional setting for him—a goal, a means to a specific end—and he’s never contemplated changing that. It’s served him well so far: Kiyoomi needs his colleagues to respect him and his authority and whatever they might say about his lack of warmth or inflexibility behind his back, they do at least show him deference to his face.

Now, though, he thinks maybe all of those years chasing a singular dream has made him miss out a little on all of the things that make that dream work.

“Kato, how was the date last weekend?” Nishihara asks as Kato and Miya set the drinks down. The entire table laughs and looks expectantly at the short, bespectacled man. Apparently this, too, is an old topic.

“Not bad, not bad.”

“Oh come on!” Nishihara says.

Kato laughs in response. “She was funnier than I thought. Hot as hell. Interesting too. We had a nice time.”

“Yeah?” Yamamoto grins. “Dinner?”

“Movie and dinner and…” Kato’s expression turns sly.

There’s some friendly jeering.

“Come on, tell us!”

“Yeah, don’t hold out! Tell us more!”

Kato starts describing his date in a respectful amount of detail while everyone divides up the drinks and snacks. Kiyoomi feels vaguely uncomfortable listening in—should they be sharing this amount of personal information with colleagues?—but he finds himself curious too. He knows the soulbonding history of much of their floor—it’s required in onboarding paperwork—but the unbonded escape him.

Kato doesn’t seem to mind, at least judging by how much fun he’s having sharing dating stories. Not having a soulmate hasn’t seemed to stop him any.

“Think there’ll be a second date?” Obara asks, leaning in from his side of the table.

Kato rubs a hand across his beard and grins. “Well, I wouldn’t say no.”

There’s another round of friendly jeering as Nishihara slaps Kato on the back and asks him about his game.

“Here.” Kiyoomi—who has been watching Kato regale the rest of the table—looks up to see Miya setting down a glass of sake in front of him.

He’s disoriented for a moment.

“What—” Kiyoomi says, blinking.

“Know ya don’t care for beer,” Miya says with a shrug.

Kiyoomi’s attention—so intent on Kato a moment ago—refocuses immediately. Miya doesn’t look at him.

There’s a buzzy stretch of silence between them, Kiyoomi staring up at Miya and Miya decidedly looking away.

“Thank you,” Kiyoomi finally says, his chest tightening, and Miya gives him a quick nod before retreating to the other end of the table.

He takes a seat next to Kato, slapping him on the shoulder and integrating himself into the conversation seamlessly. It’s effortless. Nothing ever seems to ruffle Miya. There’s something about his confidence—his bravado—that is seemingly unfaltering, even when the room grows warmer and everything suddenly feels like it’s tilted onto its side. It’s perturbing.

For a moment, Kiyoomi wonders if the tension between them is all in his head, but then he sees how tightly Miya is gripping his own glass despite laughing at something Yamamoto has said. Kiyoomi feels strangely relieved; at least he’s not the only one affected.

It’s hard to concentrate after that, but Kiyoomi’s not so undisciplined that he lets it become noticeable.

He sips at his sake and watches his coworkers drink and bandy about with increasing enthusiasm and vigor as the evening ticks on. The bar grows louder—with their camaraderie, with drink, with others joining from other firms for happy hour—and louder, until it’s a bit of a raucous and blurry roar that gives Kiyoomi a slight headache. He offers laughs when it’s expected of him and answers questions when he’s asked. Otherwise he’s quiet, not wanting to interrupt a place that he is growing increasingly sure he does not belong to.

It’s not because of his wealth or because of his position. It isn’t even because he will—hopefully, plans to—one day become their employer in the most literal sense of the word. He just doesn’t know how to do this—how to be easy and funny and personable. He doesn’t know how to pretend, like Miya. He can only be himself—boring, rigid, unfunny Kiyoomi.

It isn’t self-deprecation and it’s not exactly that he feels bad about it. Kiyoomi isn’t a maudlin drunk. But it becomes increasingly more obvious to him the longer he stays here, the way things become clear after you’ve put yourself in the middle of them and found yourself completely at a loss.

Sakusa Kiyoomi isn’t good at people and he never will be.

And that’s okay, he thinks. He’s never needed very many people to be happy. He has who he needs—his family, Motoya, Wakatoshi—people who will accept him and support him despite his very many flaws. Maybe, sometimes, even because of them. And he’s more than satisfied with that. Kiyoomi is a person who could be—and is—content to put his everything into one person, as long as that one person loves him back.

“—and that’s a little fucked, but they reconciled,” someone—Nishihara maybe—is saying. “Was too painful not to.”

“Bonds are tricky,” someone else—Yamamoto maybe—replies. “They don’t like being compromised. Will do anything to keep two people together, I think.”

“It’s kind of sad, isn’t it?” Shigeru’s familiar voice filters into Kiyoomi’s conscious. Kiyoomi blinks in surprise as his gaze shifts over to his assistant. “I don’t like thinking about soulmates breaking up. They’re your soulmate, you know? The universe chose them for you. It’s supposed to be forever.”

“The universe can get it wrong,” Nishihara says.

“I don’t think that’s how it works,” Yamamoto says, while Shigeru replies, “But I don’t think it’s supposed to?”

There’s some murmuring around the table.

Kiyoomi feels eyes on him. He looks up across the table, but no one’s paying attention.

“I dunno, like people are people right?” Obara adds. “Messy by nature. Fickle emotions. How can you stop that kind of thing from changing?”

“And soulmates are—I mean you can’t leave everything to the bond,” the other person from marketing says. “You still have to try, in a relationship. The universe’s done the first part, you have to do the second. Having a soulmate doesn’t absolve you from trying.”

“Some people don’t get that,” Kato says, taking a mouthful of his beer. “They think—well fate brought us together, I guess that’s it. No more work for me.” He shakes his head. “Honestly, I’d rather stay bondless than have to deal with that kind of laziness.”

A few noises of agreement.

“Okay, but it’s also pretty rare,” Saiki adds from the other end of the table, next to Miya. She takes an edamame pod between her teeth and slides the beans out. “Breaking up with your soulmate. It happens, but not frequently.”

“Like I said, the soulbond doesn’t want to break,” Yamamoto says with a shrug.

“What happens?” Kiyoomi asks before he can stop himself. He freezes when all eyes turn to him in surprise. “When the bond is being…strained?”

“Um, it hurts, I think,” Yamamoto thinks. “Withdrawal symptoms. Mood swings and significant pain. Hurts like a bitch. You’ll keep coming back together trying to make it work because it feels so bad that something that deeply a part of you is breaking.”

“Oh,” Kiyoomi says, his throat drying. “That sounds terrible.”

“That’s what I’ve heard anyway,” Yamamoto says.

“Do people stay together because it’s easier, then?” Shigeru asks.

“Probably some,” Yamamoto says, turning to him. “But I think it makes others realize they’re meant for each other for a reason. The bond brings them back together so they remember.”

There’s more murmuring, the scrape of glasses against the table.

Kiyoomi looks across the table toward Miya, only to find him leaning in and talking with Saiki. He can’t hear what he’s saying, of course, Miya is much too far. He must stare a beat too long though, because Miya stills. After a moment he looks up, but Kiyoomi quickly looks away, his heart rattling.

Around him, everyone is talking about soulmates again. It’s a common enough topic and it’s not that Kiyoomi is so sensitive that he minds. It’s just hard to not think about something when everyone else can’t stop talking about that thing. And Kiyoomi is so tired, and not nearly tipsy enough for this. Well, he isn’t tipsy at all.

He looks down at his empty glass.

“I’m going to get another drink,” he says to nobody in particular.

He can’t help but look toward the other side of the table again as he gets up. Miya is laughing, leaning into Obara and reaching across the table for someone else’s phone to see something. Completely engaged, effortlessly at ease.

Kiyoomi gives Yamamoto a thin smile and leaves.

It’s somewhere between waiting at the bar to be noticed by the bartender and having to sidestep a couple obliviously joined at the mouth that Kiyoomi decides he needs a break. He manages to get his order in, but instead of returning to the table, he takes his glass of soju and pushes through the crowd of salarymen and women to let himself outside.

There are a few people out here, talking on the phone or leaning against the building wall and smoking. That makes something inside Kiyoomi strangely ache, that rare craving he gets once every handful of months when he’s too strung and too in his head and just wants to force his body to briefly relax.

He does the calculations in his head—his coworkers had just ordered another round of drinks and barring a phone call, he doubts any of them will find themselves outside the bar in the next fifteen minutes. That’s plenty of time.

He hasn’t opened the new pack in his pocket and he doesn’t feel like starting now. Luckily, there’s a man with broad shoulders and buzzed hair who’s smoking against the corner and eyeing Kiyoomi occasionally. He can work with that.

“Hey,” Kiyoomi said, approaching.

The man gives him an interested nod.

“Hey.”

“Nice weather we’re having,” Kiyoomi says.

The man stares at him. Then the corner of his mouth lifts. “Really?”

“No, it’s shit,” Kiyoomi says and the man laughs. “But I couldn’t figure out what else to say to ask for a cigarette. Unless you’d like to hear about quarterly profits?”

“Wouldn’t be the first time,” the man says and it’s Kiyoomi’s turn to raise an eyebrow. The man grins. “I work inside. Half of the customers are here after work, drinking to forget they’re here after work.”

Kiyoomi snorts.

“So if I tell you about market expansion projections, what does that get me?” He lifts his glass to his mouth and looks at the man over it.

The man turns fully to face him now, his expression amused and alert.

“Depends,” he says. “On what you’re asking for.”

Kiyoomi feels heat pool into his stomach. The man is nothing like what he usually goes for, but he likes the thrill of his interest, the way his eyes are now scraping over inch of Kiyoomi. It feels nice to feel wanted and, if Kiyoomi is honest, it feels good to know that he hasn’t entirely lost his ability to reel in a man just by the charm of his bluntness. And dark curls, probably.

Maybe Kato is right—maybe not having a soulmate is fine, actually.

“Just a cigarette and light,” Kiyoomi says, his mouth twisting up at the corner. “For now.”

The for now is open-ended and they both know it. Even if nothing comes of it—and of course it won’t—it’s exciting to say and exciting to hear. Sometimes, that’s more than enough to share a cigarette with a stranger in the humid, post-storm night air.

The man shakes out a cigarette onto Kiyoomi’s palm. Kiyoomi takes it between his fingers and lifts it to his mouth and the man leans close with his lighter. Kiyoomi’s eyes flicker up and meet his as he flicks it on and, after a few seconds, the end of the cigarette glows.

“Thanks,” Kiyoomi says after pulling back and slowly exhaling the smoke.

“Sure, anytime,” the man says with a smile. He drops his own cigarette stub and grinds it out with the heel of his shoe. “Thanks for flirting.”

Kiyoomi laughs.

“Sure, anytime.”

The man gives Kiyoomi a nod and steps past him. After a moment, Kiyoomi takes his place against the wall, drink in one hand and cigarette in the other.

“Wow,” a familiar voice says and any peace that Kiyoomi’s gathered escapes his body.

“What?” Kiyoomi says.

“That was sure something,” Miya says. His tone is…Kiyoomi’s not sure, actually. He takes a mouthful of soju.

“Never seen a man flirt before?”

“Never seen you flirt before.”

Kiyoomi shrugs.

“I am capable.”

“I see that,” Miya says.

“You sound jealous.” Kiyoomi feels a vicious stab of pleasure at that—saying it out loud and tilting his head just slightly to see Miya’s reaction.

Miya has his hands in his pockets, his shoulders just a little hunched. He doesn’t react otherwise, which is disappointing.

“Why are you flirting with other men?” he asks.

“Now you definitely sound jealous.”

“Kiyoomi,” Miya says.

Kiyoomi looks at him, a little annoyed. “I just wanted a cigarette, Miya. You can stop the judgement.”

Miya looks annoyed too, although Kiyoomi has no idea why. He exhales and shrugs.

“Fine,” Miya says. “Whatever.”

The air between them feels a little strained, which is a shift from everything else they’ve felt today. It makes Kiyoomi tired.

“What are you doing here?”

“What, a guy can’t follow another guy out of a bar? Free country.”

Kiyoomi looks at him.

Miya sighs.

“You looked uncomfortable,” he says. “So I was just…”

“What, checking on me?”

Miya doesn’t say anything, which makes Kiyoomi pause.

“Did you come out here to check on me?”

Miya scowls. “I said it’s a free country!”

Part of Kiyoomi is surprised. The other part is…something. He’s not sure what. He sucks on his cigarette.

Miya shuffles his feet and scowls and then looks at him curiously.

“You’re smoking this time,” he says.

“Don’t lecture me,” Kiyoomi says. “It’s been a—” He waves his hand. “Week.”

“Wasn’t gonna,” Miya says.

They stand in silence for a minute. When it’s clear that Miya doesn’t mean to go back inside, Kiyoomi stretches his hand forward in offer.

Miya considers for a moment and then takes the cigarette.

“Thanks,” is all he says.

He brings the cigarette to his lips and Kiyoomi watches him closely. Hungrily. The end lights and Miya’s face seems to glow with it, glimmering in the dark.

He looks enchanting, which is the worst thing he could be.

“Do you think Akaashi will say yes?” Miya asks after exhaling, a wash of blurry smoke in front of him.

“I think so,” Kiyoomi says. “He seemed receptive to most of our points.”

“He asked a lot of questions.”

“I don’t think that’s a bad thing,” Kiyoomi says. “It’s good to be thorough. It shows interest.”

“He didn’t like the twelve month projection,” Miya points out.

Kiyoomi shrugs. “No one likes a twelve month projection. It’s too soon to see any change.”

Miya considers this. “That’s true.”

The humid evening breeze ruffles past them.

“Is it true?” Kiyoomi asks after a moment.

Miya, drawing on the cigarette again, gives him a questioning look.

“That he’s bonded to Bokuto Koutarou.”

“On MSBY?” Miya looks surprised.

“Yeah.”

“Shit,” Miya says. His eyes widen. “Wait, really?”

“If rumors are to be believed.”

“Shit!” Miya says again, more enthusiastically this time. “Bokuto’s like—one of the best hitters in the league! In the country!”

“He’s fine,” Kiyoomi says, which Miya ignores.

“With Akaashi? That beady-eyed, boring fucker?”

“He’s not boring,” Kiyoomi says. “He’s just.” He pauses. “Particular.”

“Boring,” Miya repeats.

“I’m particular, Miya,” Kiyoomi says archly and Miya just waves a hand dismissively and passes the cigarette back.

“Yeah but you’re insane so that’s like—a whole different thing, ya know?”

Kiyoomi takes the cigarette—now about halfway done—and gives Miya an amused look.

“Are you just making excuses for me?”

Miya pauses. “Well, maybe.”

“Is it because of my sparkling personality? My known optimism and balanced temperament?”

“Yeah,” Miya says, nodding. “And your smoking hot bod.”

Kiyoomi chokes, mid-inhale. This triggers a series of coughs as the smoke goes down the wrong way and ends in Miya cackling and thumping him on the back a few times.

“You are the most annoying person I have ever met,” Kiyoomi says through coughs, which only makes Miya laugh harder.

“Can’t believe you try to die every time I compliment you,” Miya says, still cackling.

“It amounts to the same thing,” Kiyoomi wheezes.

Miya wipes tears from his eyes and settles down into a smile. “That’s a lotta power to give someone, Omi-kun.”

Yes, well.

Kiyoomi coughs until he regains his breath and then takes a sip of his drink to self-soothe.

“I’m all right,” he says, as though picking up on a line of conversation they had been having.

There’s no reason Miya should understand what he’s trying to say, but somehow he does.

“You sure?” he asks. Kiyoomi knows this is Miya’s attempt to be considerate, but that pisses him off even more. Miya has no business being kind; neither of them do.

“Yes, Miya,” Kiyoomi says. “I can handle a little banal conversation between colleagues.”

“Definitely call it that to their face next time, jackass,” Miya says. That’s better. Kiyoomi feels better about that.

“It just felt inappropriate,” Kiyoomi says. “For me to be there.”

“‘Cause you’re so sure you’re gonna be their boss one day?” Miya asks lightly. He’s teasing—being a little shit—so Kiyoomi rolls his eyes.

“I’m already their boss,” he says. “And yours. Not that you understand propriety enough to respect that.”

“I don’t think you’d like me very much if I respected ya, Omi-kun,” Miya says. “You got a bit of a, what’s it called—” Kiyoomi raises an eyebrow. “—well not degradation kink. Fighting kink.”

“A what.”

“Ya get turned on by people mouthin’ off to ya,” Miya says grinning. “Works great for me because I love to mouth off.”

Kiyoomi stares at him. Miya's grin widens. It's a smirk now. Miya is smirking at him.

“It is truly unfathomable to me that I put up with you,” Kiyoomi says. “There isn’t a single reason I can think of.”

“It’s the mental illness,” Miya says and pats Kiyoomi’s arm.

Kiyoomi seriously considers stomping on his foot. In the end, he doesn’t want to ruin his spare shoes, so he settles for glaring at him over his drink instead.

“Anyway, I don’t think anyone noticed,” Miya says after a few beats. “You’re always kinda like that, ya know?”

“Standoffish?”

“Reserved,” Miya says.

Kiyoomi holds the cigarette out and Miya takes it back. He watches him again, the pink of Miya’s mouth a closed circle around the same spot Kiyoomi’s had just been.

“But you noticed,” Kiyoomi says.

Miya exhales and the smoke drifts between them.

“But I noticed,” he agrees.

Miya passes the cigarette back, nearly down to the end. Kiyoomi finishes it and drops it to the ground, stubbing it out beneath his heel. He drinks down the soju until there’s half an inch left and then passes the glass to Miya.

Miya takes it from him, and their fingertips brush. They both still at the same time.

One beat passes.

Then another.

Kiyoomi feels Miya's fingers shift under his own; they slide against his, the press of his smooth skin warm and hesitant and electric.  Kiyoomi could move away. He needs to move away. He doesn't.

Miya’s eyes flicker to his mouth and Kiyoomi’s skin buzzes; so does his brain, and the back of his neck. 

His eyes flicker to Miya's mouth too, pink and parted open on a breath. His stomach is tight with feeling; it's gnawing at him, needy, insistent. Miya's expression is familiar, just as hungry, a perfect, terrible parallel.

It would take almost nothing to close the space between them. 

Somewhere beside them, the front door opens.

They let the moment pass.

Miya tilts back the glass and finishes the liquor. Kiyoomi exhales.

He thinks of what to say. Half a dozen thoughts pass through his head, everything a little too much or much too little.

In the end he settles for, “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For checking on me,” Kiyoomi says. “And for earlier.”

Earlier sits between them, a little too alive, a little too near. That dull ache, the buzz along their spines. That endless, dragging need. It feels like this every time they’re near each other, and the feeling has never once abated.

Miya nods. He doesn’t acknowledge it otherwise, for which Kiyoomi is grateful.

“Comin’ back inside?” Miya asks instead.

The thought of going back into all of that makes Kiyoomi’s skin crawl.

“Would it look bad if I didn’t?”

“Nah. I can make an excuse for you.”

Kiyoomi’s surprised.

“Really?”

Miya shrugs. “I’m less of an asshole when I’ve been drinking.”

“Oh,” Kiyoomi says. “Well, if you don’t mind.”

“Sure,” Miya says. He straightens, his arm hanging loosely at his side, Kiyoomi’s glass still in his hand.

“I’ll leave the tab open,” Kiyoomi says, nodding inside. “Buy some goodwill that way.”

Miya snorts. “Well, it wouldn’t hurt.”

Kiyoomi straightens too and brushes off his borrowed shirt.

“Gonna go home?” Miya asks.

“I think I might go back to the office, actually,” Kiyoomi says. “Finish a few things.”

“So late?”

“I don’t mind.” Kiyoomi hesitates and then adds, “I like what I do.”

“Good thing you’re trying to make it your entire life, then,” Miya says in response. It sounds like an insult, but his tone is neutral.

“Best to stick to what we’re good at,” Kiyoomi says. “And leave well enough alone in other places.”

He gives Miya a nod and readies to leave.

“Omi,” Miya says suddenly and Kiyoomi pauses, halfway to turning on his heels.

“It was nice to see you here,” Miya says. “Outside of the office.”

It catches Kiyoomi by surprise.

“Makes you seem, I dunno.” Miya pauses. “More human, I guess.”

“I’m not a robot, Miya,” Kiyoomi says.

“I know,” Miya says. “But sometimes, you seem a bit—”

Kiyoomi braces himself for any number of easy insults—prickly, prissy, standoffish, rude, rigid.

“—untouchable,” Miya finishes.

Kiyoomi stares, a bit stunned.

“How can you of all people think that?”

“I of all people know it best,” Miya says and Kiyoomi can’t parse out what he means.

Miya raises one shoulder in a half-shrug. “We should do it again sometime.”

Kiyoomi’s not sure if he means with the rest of them—at a work happy hour—or something else. Plausible deniability means he doesn’t clarify.

“You can invite me yourself,” he says.

Miya waits a beat.

Then, mouth curled up at the corner, he says, “Okay. I will.”

What is that old saying? Anything that can go wrong will go wrong when you’re having a very shit week.

It’s late the next day, near the end of a Friday evening, when Kiyoomi receives the message: Nekoma’s pulling out.

Kiyoomi’s heart stops in his chest.

He rereads the three word text. Then he reads it again.

Then he goes into overdrive.

“Shigeru!” he yells so loudly that his assistant comes skidding into his office, nearly colliding with the glass door.

“Sakusa-san, what is—”

“I need—” Kiyoomi looks at the text. It’s from a contact he has in legal, someone who had started at Itachiyama around the same time Kiyoomi had started working there part-time during university. They had hooked up a few times early on, although they had left it at that and well in the past. Sometimes it’s still an easy in for him though; Honda will give him important intel in advance, before legal’s ready to come talk to them officially.

That early warning might be enough to save his life this time.

He can’t flag this for Ota-san—not so far into the process. Kiyoomi’s been working on this account for long enough and it’s high profile enough now that something like this would trigger all sorts of emergency protocols that are only in place for when someone has majorly fucked up. Ota-san will try to help out of the goodness of his heart and that will get flagged up to Kiyoomi’s mother and the last thing she needs to hear is how he can’t even close a new business venture.

They’re too close to the Board vote for his mother—let alone anyone else—to learn that he’s failed something so spectacular.

No, there’s no alternative here. He has to fix this and he has to fix it quickly.

Kiyoomi thinks as swiftly as he can. The last time he and Kuroo Tetsurou had spoken, things had been on pretty good grounds. They were still waiting on Hinata Shouyo, but that was one of the few outstanding issues—both sides had capitulated enough to nearly everything else in order to come to a mostly common ground. They were within months of signing the final contracts. What could have happened in the interim? He needs to figure out what shifted the situation so rapidly and deal with it immediately, before this news leaks. He needs to save this deal before his failure reaches his mother.

This isn’t just damage control—it’s saving the entire train from completely derailing. And he can’t do it alone. Kiyoomi needs someone who’s good at thinking on his feet; someone who’s not afraid to get their hands dirty to pull off a last minute, eleventh hour miracle. He needs someone he can trust to get what he needs done.

The answer is startlingly easy.

“—Miya,” Kiyoomi says.

“Sir?”

“I need Miya,” Kiyoomi says firmly to his assistant. “Get him on the line.”

It takes Miya twenty minutes to circle back around to the office. Kiyoomi doesn’t have to even wonder when he’s arrived, because the second the elevator dings open, Miya’s loud, brash voice tumbles across the mostly empty office floor.

“Are ya shitting me?” he nearly shouts as he shoves chairs out of the way and stomps furiously over toward Kiyoomi’s office. “I’ll kill him. I’ll take his stupid, smug, roosterheadass face and punt it into the next fuckin’ solar system!”

Kiyoomi doesn’t even try to temper Miya’s anger this time—he’s just as pissed as he is.

“I don’t know why,” he says, meeting Miya at the doorway to his office. “The last we spoke, nothing was amiss. I don’t know what changed.”

Miya’s all furious, volatile energy. His hair is a bit disheveled and his eyes are wide and electric, as charged and stormy as Kiyoomi feels. He’s still in his work clothes, but he’s lost the jacket and has his tie half-yanked off, with his sleeves rolled up to his elbows. He’d clearly gone home and was starting to unwind when Kiyoomi had called him.

“I know why,” Miya seethes, slamming one of his palms against Kiyoomi’s glass wall. “It’s because he’s a stubborn, ugly, two-bit scumbag with a hairstyle so fucking stupid it should be considered a criminal offense.”

Kiyoomi exhales in frustration. As good as it feels to have someone say all of the things that Kiyoomi’s own filter and general sense of decorum refuses to allow him to say, they don’t have time for all of that.

“We need to get on top of this as fast as we can,” Kiyoomi says urgently. “It doesn’t matter how. We have to fix this tonight.”

“And how the fuck are we supposed to do that?” Miya growls. “After all the concessions we already made. They wanna demand the Burj Khalifa too?”

“There’s only one thing they want,” Kiyoomi says, ignoring him. “Get Hinata, Miya. I don’t care what you have to say or what you have to promise. I don’t even care if it isn’t something we can promise. We’ll deal with that later. You get Hinata and I’ll get Kuroo and Kozume on the line to figure out what the fuck happened.”

Miya fucks with his tie, nearly strangling himself out of frustration.

“This is bullshit!”

“I know.”

“They’re acting like we haven’t bent over fuckin’ backwards for them,” Miya says furiously. “All these fuckin’ months, their stupid little demands. Things we didn’t fuckin’ have to give them, ‘cause guess what? We’re the ones putting all the fucking money in. And for what? For them to act like they got bigger dicks than we do? Like we need them more than they need us?”

“We do need them,” Kiyoomi says warningly.

“I don’t care!” Miya shouts and Kiyoomi snaps and grabs his shoulders.

“Miya—enough!” He digs his fingers bruisingly into Miya’s shoulders and Miya, shocked, snaps his mouth shut. “I know. I know it’s bullshit. I know they’re overplaying their hand. You have every right to be pissed. I’m pissed too. But we don’t fucking have time for this. I called you because we don’t have time—we need to fix this before it gets out. You know what’s going to happen if Ota-san hears from legal?”

Miya’s face drains of color.

“Yeah, it’s both of our necks on the line,” Kiyoomi says.

“Shit.”

Kiyoomi tries to control his breathing. “I need you to be calm and I need you to play dirty. Can you do that?”

For a moment, Miya doesn’t say anything. For a brief moment, Kiyoomi thinks he’s miscalculated. Then Miya seems to come back into himself.

“Shit. Yeah. Of course.”

Kiyoomi nods.

“Good. Now, you’ve been talking to Hinata.”

“Yeah,” Miya says, a bit shakier than Kiyoomi would like, but regaining confidence. “He’s bein’—intransigent and all. But I talked to him. Last week.”

“How close were you?”

Miya considers this for a beat.

“Closer than before,” he says.

Kiyoomi almost curses, but beggars can’t be choosers. Unless you’re fucking Nekoma Studios, apparently.

“Can you do it?”

Miya hesitates and Kiyoomi digs his fingers in again, his thumb pressed hard against the meat of Miya’s shoulders.

“Can you get Hinata, Atsumu?”

Miya’s eyes knock open wide. He takes a quick, steadying breath and nods. He straightens at once.

“Yeah,” he says. “Okay, yeah. Don’t worry, Omi. I’ll have him by the end of the night.”

Kiyoomi lets out an anxious breath from between his teeth and lets Miya go.

“No one else knows,” he says. “My contact in legal—we’re lucky he’s the one who got the call from Nekoma. He’s discreet. He always gives me some time.”

“How much time?”

“Not enough,” Kiyoomi says. “But it’s just us and him. No one else. For now.”

Those two words hang between them, heavy and anxious.

Miya nods again. He runs a hand through his already messed hair and Kiyoomi can see the reckless anger slowly ebb from his expression; it’s replaced by something more calculating and thoughtful. Miya Atsumu, slotting back into place.

“Okay,” he says and meets Kiyoomi’s eyes again. “When?”

Kiyoomi looks at his watch. It’s a quarter to seven.

“By midnight,” he says.

It’s the tightest deadline they’ve ever had to work on—a nearly impossible task—but there’s never any time for eleventh hour miracles and Kiyoomi knows—with a certainty that he only has for those things he can feel in his gut—that if anyone can pull something like this off, it’s him and Miya Atsumu.

“Okay,” Miya says again. “Midnight.”

He unrolls his sleeves and buttons them at his wrists. Miya exhales, as though to ground himself. He then fixes his crushed tie and runs fingers through his hair to straighten what’s in disarray.

“You got an extra jacket?”

Kiyoomi gives him a once over and nods. “I have one that’ll fit. I’ll grab it.”

Miya nods his thanks.

“By midnight,” he repeats, and when he presses his hand to Kiyoomi’s shoulder, Kiyoomi doesn’t shrug it off.

Kiyoomi gives him a thin, almost grim smile in return. “Midnight.”

Chapter Text

What happens over the course of the next four hours and how, Kiyoomi will never be able to satisfactorily say. He manages to get Kuroo Tetsurou on the line within the next twenty minutes and after a tense, heated thirty minutes—during which Kiyoomi nearly wrecks their relationship permanently and definitely does unspeakable damage to his nail beds—they get Kozume Kenma on the conference line.

“Kozume-san,” Kiyoomi says, exhausted and so tense his back is stiff with pain. “I can’t seem to get anywhere with Kuroo-san. We’ve been going in circles. Please, there has to be a way to meet in the middle.”

“Sakusa-san,” comes Kozume’s gravelly, slightly monotonous voice. “I know you’re frustrated, but I’m afraid my position is the same. Tetsurou hasn’t said anything that I don’t agree with.”

Kiyoomi digs his fingers into his temple in a futile attempt to alleviate his tension headache.

“I understand we will never have perfectly aligned needs or interests. That is the nature of business. But we’ve both compromised here. The last time we spoke, I was under the impression that we were mostly on the same page.”

“Mostly,” Kozume says and Kiyoomi shakes off the violent urge to throw his phone through the glass wall.

“What am I missing?” Kiyoomi says because it feels like it—that he’s missing something here, something obvious.

“I want Hinata Shouyo,” Kozume says calmly. “This is not negotiable for us, Sakusa-san. I want him as a representative of our creative vision, but most importantly, I want him as a token of Itachiyama’s good faith.”

Kiyoomi bites back at least three remarks that come to the tip of his tongue. He thinks, carefully, of his mother and what she might advise him to do in this situation.

Be calm, Kiyoomi. If a business partner we have otherwise had a good relationship with is turning face, there is something going on that we have somehow missed. Find out what that is. Ask the proper questions and you can save most things from going south.

It is our job to show them Itachiyama’s strength, but also our goodwill, Atsuko would say. You’ll be surprised how far that will take a relationship in the long run.

He looks at his phone desperately for updates from Miya, but the last message he’d gotten from him was at least twenty minutes ago when Miya had just texted him, got him on the phone. going across town to meet him at a cafe.

He exhales shakily.

The situation is so far out of his control—both metaphorically and logistically—that it’s making some of his compulsive tendencies flare. Kiyoomi can feel his skin start to crawl and his thoughts start to unhelpfully come loose at the ends, so he digs his nails into the soft beds of his palms to keep from physically getting up and walking to the nearest sink.

He has to take a deep breath and try to reorient his thinking, years of therapy briefly returning to the forefront of Kiyoomi’s mind.

Take it step by step, he guides himself. Assess each detail on its own individual merit.

There’s nothing he can do to control the Hinata situation. For that, he’ll have to trust Miya. What he can control, however, is whatever’s happening here, with Kozume and Kuroo.

Kiyoomi takes a breath and organizes his thoughts.

If a business partner we have otherwise had a good relationship with is turning face, there is something going on that we have somehow missed.

Things had been fine with Nekoma, they had been on the same page, ready to sign the deal—until suddenly they weren’t. What had changed so abruptly? What had made Kozume and Kuroo become so wary of their partnership?

There’s something he’s missing here—some new, unidentified piece of the puzzle.

“Kozume-san,” Kiyoomi says after calming himself. “Can I ask what you mean by that?”

“Hm? Which part?”

“A token of our good faith,” Kiyoomi repeats Kozume’s words. “What did you mean by that? And—” A pause as he frowns. “Why has it come up now?”

It’s thirty minutes to midnight when Kiyoomi’s door slams open. In the doorway, bright and loud and triumphant, is—

“Miya,” Kiyoomi breathes out. He pushes himself up onto an elbow where he’s laying in an undignified sprawl on his couch.

“We got him,” Miya says. He’s laughing, he’s so giddy. He takes a step into Kiyoomi’s office. “I got him.”

A bolt of shock jolts down Kiyoomi’s spine.

“You got him,” he says, struggling to straighten. He pauses halfway up, his eyes knocked wide open. “You got him?”

“I got him, Omi,” Miya says. He’s grinning, his smile so wide, it’s nearly split his face in half.

“Hinata Shouyo.” Kiyoomi’s voice is plain with disbelief. It matches his expression. “He agreed.”

“Got it in writing and everything.” Miya’s nearly vibrating out of his skin.

“How?”

“Took a few hours and he was bein’ skittish and all at first, but—I sat him down,” Miya says. “Told him about this—all of it. How much we fuckin’ want him. How we’re gonna work with Nekoma and Kozume and even fuckin’ Kuroo Tetsurou, not bulldoze them like other companies would. That I’ll be here workin’ with him closely. And you. And he can trust us, I’ll sell him my shitty twin as collateral to prove it.”

Kiyoomi almost laughs.

“And that worked?”

Miya’s smile turns wry. “Well, he wasn’t sold at first, but I explained our vision to him. How we want Nekoma to take the reins, we want him to lead them in this new expansion—they’re the experts and all. We just want into the industry. Leave the business to us and the animation to them. It’s a perfect partnership.”

“Did we discuss all of that?”

Miya laughs. “You gotta let me work my magic a little.”

Kiyoomi’s mouth twitches. He’s so relieved—so knocked off his feet—that he’ll even let Miya have this.

“And?”

“And,” Miya says and he looks suddenly pleased. Maybe it’s because it had barely taken Kiyoomi a moment to read what was unspoken into the split-second silence—almost as though he had read Miya’s mind. “And then he got a call from Kozume-san.”

“You’re sure?” Kozume had said after a thorough minute of protracted silence.

“It wasn’t us,” Kiyoomi had promised. “I offer you my word as a Sakusa.”

“Is that worth much?” Kozume had asked and Kiyoomi had gripped his phone so hard it had nearly cracked in its plastic case.

“It’s worth everything to me. I promise.” A genuine, sincere pause. “We are trying everything we can to get Hinata.” Then. “We just need a little help, Kozume-san.”

Kiyoomi’s knocked through with relief—thoroughly, abjectly, run all the way through. He nearly gasps, shoving his face into his hands.

“Fuck,” he says, exhaling.

He feels shaky, nearly dizzy from the sudden release. All evening, there’s been a tight, painful ball of dread curled into his gut and finally, it’s beginning to unravel. His head and jaw ache and his shoulders are stiff with tension. He hadn’t realized it until now—just how much stress he’s been holding inside of him. All over, now, his body is finally processing the impact of being so tightly clenched from so much pressure for so long.

The result is unsteadying.

“What did you do?” Miya asks and his voice is startlingly close. It’s also startlingly soft.

Kiyoomi pulls away from his shaking fingers and looks up to find Miya squatting down in front of him.

“I had him on the rocks, don’t get me wrong,” Miya says with a smile. “But he was never gonna say yes without Kozume. So you did something too. What?”

“There was something wrong,” Kiyoomi says thickly. “Something we were missing. So I just…asked.”

Miya looks for a moment like he’s caught on the edge of movement, but he stops himself mid-gesture.

“He told you?”

“Eventually,” Kiyoomi says. “He wasn’t sure if he could trust us at first.”

Miya frowns. “What? Why?”

“Someone’s been talking to them behind our backs. Leaking information that isn’t accurate.”

Miya pulls up short, his eyes widening with shock. “Wait, what?”

“He wouldn’t say who,” Kiyoomi says. “But someone’s been talking shit about us to them. Making them distrust us.”

“Us as in you and me?” Miya asks. “Or Itachiyama?”

“Both,” Kiyoomi says.

Miya looks at once bewildered and furious. “For what purpose?”

“To sabotage the deal maybe?” Kiyoomi says with a frown. “I don’t know.”

“What the fuck,” Miya says again. “Who the fuck?”

“I don’t know,” Kiyoomi says. He shakes his head. “Kozume wouldn’t give me a name. But it was enough to make them suspicious of us.”

“What the fuck,” Miya repeats. He runs a hand through his hair. He looks, suddenly, frazzled. “What did they say?”

Kiyoomi shakes his head again.

“All sorts of things about our bigger vision to monetize on the studio. How profit is our only end goal and how we don’t care about the studio or what they do. How we plan to change and restaff Nekoma after the deal goes through. They’ve been told that we’ve only been agreeing with them superficially and once we have majority partnership, we’ll go back on all of the promises and compromises we’ve made. That we think we’re big enough to do that. Whoever it was said the first thing we planned to do was remove Kuroo Tetsurou and replace him with someone loyal to us.”

Miya looks a bit flabbergasted.

“And they believed that?”

“Our tension with Kuroo isn’t a secret,” Kiyoomi says.

“Well sure, I think he’s an ass,” Miya says. “But I didn’t—we never even thought to do that—”

“I know,” Kiyoomi says.

“It doesn’t make fuckin’ sense,” Miya says in frustration, running his hand through his hair again. The blond is nearly standing up at the ends now. “We never gave them any indication that we’d do somethin’ like that.”

“It had to be someone high,” Kiyoomi says, saying out loud the things he had spent the past two hours sorting through on his own. His eyes flicker to Miya. “Someone with enough knowledge and power that they had reason to trust them.”

The unspoken implication isn’t explicit, but Miya’s not stupid.

He grows terribly, unbelievably still. The expression on his face, which had been vacillating between light bemusement and genuine confusion, slowly hardens.

“You think it was me?” he says.

That’s exactly what Kiyoomi would have thought, several months ago. Miya is the easiest answer, the most obvious one. He’s from a rival company. He’s only here to take what’s Kiyoomi’s. It is to his benefit if Kiyoomi fails so monumentally at something so important.

Now, however, Kiyoomi is realizing how easily he’s able to read Miya—the affronted furrow between his brows, the suddenly stiff lines of his shoulders. The sincerity in his voice before it had changed to something so obviously and openly hurt. It wouldn’t make any real sense anyway for Miya to sabotage this deal with one breath and save it with the next. If he had wanted Kiyoomi to fail spectacularly, all he had needed to do was not follow up with Hinata at all.

Kiyoomi shakes his head.

“No,” he says. “I don’t think it was you, Miya.”

Miya looks suspicious at first, but when Kiyoomi doesn’t look away, his shoulders relax.

“Okay,” he says. “Because I wouldn’t have.”

“I know,” Kiyoomi says. And he’s surprised to realize he does. Miya’s too proud of his own work to do something so underhanded as this. Despite every outward-facing, performative pretense about him, Miya cares too much about what he does to fuck everything all up on purpose.

He’s here because his twin brother is there. He has something to prove too.

And Kiyoomi trusts him.

“Who then?” Miya asks. “Who’d want us to fail so bad?”

“I don’t know,” Kiyoomi says, shaking his head.

Miya looks disturbed for a beat before exhaling loudly. He falls back from where he’s been crouching onto his ass, his hands spread behind him. He looks up at Kiyoomi from the ground, the stress of the evening finally melting away from his shoulders too.

“Well, whatever,” he says. “Fuck them, because we did it. We saved the deal.”

“Yeah,” Kiyoomi says and he’s surprised to find himself smiling in relief. “Yeah, we did.”

Miya smiles up at Kiyoomi from the ground, a bright, lightweight thing. He looks looser than he has in months and Kiyoomi wonders, for the first time, if maybe Miya has been carrying some of this weight on himself too.

“We make a pretty fucking good team, don’t we Omi-kun?”

“Don’t call me that,” Kiyoomi says immediately, but there’s no bite to his bark. His mouth is still twitching at the corners. “We’re okay, I suppose.”

“It’s okay to admit it, you know,” Miya says, grinning. “I won’t tell anyone I’m your favorite coworker.”

“Who was going to believe that?”

“It’s like, really obvious.”

It’s a test of Kiyoomi’s entire resolve to keep from smiling.

“Do you only know people who can’t read a room?”

“I know people who can read a face,” Miya says. “And vibes.”

“Why are you reading my vibes?”

“They’re just always there, obvious and waiting to be read.”

This is easily the most absurd conversation Kiyoomi has entertained in the last six months. Usually it’s just Motoya spouting nonsense or Wakatoshi forcing Kiyoomi to listen to something Tendou Satori has said. Kiyoomi should put a stop to it, instead of encouraging whatever this is.

“It isn’t polite to comment on a man’s vibes,” Kiyoomi says, despite himself. “Or to look at it without permission.”

“Oh? You giving me permission to look at your vibes, Omi-kun?” Miya says with a carefully raised brow that almost makes Kiyoomi flush.

“Absolutely not. Keep your eyes firmly shut.”

Miya cackles. He stretches his legs out in front of him, the soles of his expensive leather shoes bumping against Kiyoomi’s own.

“Admit it. You can’t do anything without me,” Miya says.

“That is completely incorr—”

“You love working with me,” Miya barrels on, completely ignoring the way Kiyoomi’s expression twists with disgust. “You trust me and you think I’m so smart and capable and funny and that I’m soooo good at my job.”

Finding words to be insufficient at expressing the nuance of the sentiment he feels at that, Kiyoomi opts to simply flip Miya off. That, in turn, makes Miya throw his head back and laugh. It’s a bright, joyful sound, as giddy with lack of pressure, as light and airy as Kiyoomi feels. Miya’s blond hair seems to glimmer in the office light. Kiyoomi watches the stretch of his throat, the shake of his shoulders.

He can’t remember the last time Miya was so relaxed in his presence. Miya is never so closely withheld or rigid as Kiyoomi, but he always has an affect—the slightest veneer of performance that keeps whoever he might actually be well hidden underneath. Kiyoomi’s only seen slips of that—thin cracks in the perfected mask—in a handful of quiet, careful moments. All of them have been tense.

The truth is that he and Miya have never been at ease with one another. So to see him like this, the weight of whatever he usually hides cast off for one pure, easy moment, well—

Kiyoomi feels strange about it. It’s like one of his compulsions—he wants to pick at the edges until he figures out what the full picture is underneath.

“What?” Miya asks, a little teasingly. “I got something on my face?”

He lifts a hand to touch his jaw and the cloth strains just a hint at his shoulders.

Kiyoomi remembers, suddenly, that the suit jacket Miya is wearing is his own. The material stretches across Miya’s broader shoulders, just a touch tighter than it would be on Kiyoomi.

Miya, with his mussed up hair, his fingers having run through it multiple times in distraction, his white button up just a bit crumpled at his stomach, and his tie loose at his neck. Miya, with his shoulders relaxed and his long legs stretched out in front of him, in expensive clothes and even more expensive shoes, looking every bit like a rich boy’s fantasy. He looks loose and languid and so fucking accessible, his body language so easy it would be the simplest thing to straddle his thighs and curl a hand into the unfastened collar of his shirt.

A familiar hunger unfurls in Kiyoomi’s stomach as he looks, sharp and insistent and ravenous.

Miya suddenly stops laughing, although Kiyoomi doesn’t catch when.

It’s only in the silence that he realizes it’s because Kiyoomi has been staring at him, intent and unflinching. It’s been a beat too long to explain away, although he doesn’t try to and Miya doesn’t ask anyway. The heat is inescapable.

It all—this, them, now—feels inevitable.

Miya tilts his head just a very little.

Kiyoomi’s stomach clenches.

“Kiyoomi-kun,” Miya says and there’s a lilt to his voice that makes Kiyoomi’s throat dry.

There are a dozen different bells that go off in Kiyoomi’s head, a dozen different red flags and warning whistles. All of the reasons he’s carefully kept stacked in his head, notecards with warnings scribbled in his handwriting and filed into a Rolodex that flips from one page to the next.

Months of carefully putting space between them—any space, physical and emotional and metaphorical. Miya’s fingers on his wrist and Kiyoomi—hesitating a single beat—pulling away. Miya’s mouth close to Kiyoomi’s ear and Kiyoomi—his mouth dry, his heart racing—shoving him off. Someone in the room with them so that they’re never left alone. Waiting two extra minutes so that the elevator door closes with Miya in it, before Kiyoomi can get there.

There’s no evidence here of anything real. Only missed moments and barely held breaths and the smallest sliver of physical space. A terribly constructed thing. Plausible deniability. There is nothing for either of them here.

Miya folds his legs up just a little—until his knees are raised. His fingers are pressed to the tiled ground.

“Kiyoomi,” he says and this time there’s no lilt, only caution and quiet—so very, terribly quiet—invitation.

Kiyoomi thinks about Miya’s smirk, intolerably smug and unbearable to witness. His overconfidence and unwelcome familiarity, the way he seems custom made in a lab to get under Kiyoomi’s skin.

He thinks about Miya leaning against the door to a board conference room. Miya holding secrets over his head, humiliating him, undercutting him; Miya’s terrible mouth against Kiyoomi’s ear, his hand pressed possessively against Kiyoomi’s chest. His taunts against Kiyoomi’s jaw, his body heat pressed close. Leaving no room for Kiyoomi to escape or want anything else.

He thinks about Miya’s soulmark, hidden somewhere beneath Kiyoomi’s jacket.

Kiyoomi thinks about Miya saying, I don’t like being told I have to do something or have something and he thinks about Miya saying I think it’s bullshit myself and he thinks about Miya saying you care that I have a soulmark almost as much as those old guys do.

He thinks about the hurt look in Miya’s eyes as he says it, as though he’d expected better from Kiyoomi, as though he had thought Kiyoomi, at least, would understand.

Kiyoomi thinks about this pit in him, this endless, fathomless well of yearning. It doesn’t matter how often he’s refused to name it; he’s felt it all the same.

He thinks about Motoya saying don’t do anything you can’t take back.

And somehow, none of it seems to fucking matter.

The problem is, Kiyoomi can’t take back anything he hasn’t done yet. So how will he know what he will regret if he doesn’t put himself in the position to find out?

It’s awful reasoning, just about the worst Kiyoomi has ever thought of. But the tension between them is always so unbearably high and Kiyoomi is tired of swallowing it down by himself.

He wants Miya so bad his skin is aching from it.

Miya doesn’t look away as he lets his knees fall open.

Kiyoomi has one chance, a single moment to say no.

It’s between one second and the next. Kiyoomi doesn’t let himself think about it—he doesn’t even have to.

Sliding down from the couch, knees between the spread of Miya’s legs. Kiyoomi traps him, one hand to the left of Miya’s hip, the tips of his fingers touching the outside of Miya’s wrist, and the other curled into Miya’s shirt, the nice cloth crushed between his fingers.

Miya’s breathing picks up and Kiyoomi can hear it against his own, can feel the quick rise and fall of Miya’s chest beneath his fist.

The air between them is stretched tight, high pitched and electric, a bow pulled impossibly taut. There’s no room left to breathe; the slightest tremor will make the tension snap.

On the ground, Kiyoomi feels Miya’s fingers shift against his.

He looks down at Miya’s mouth and Miya’s eyes flicker up to meet his own.

For a long, tortured moment, neither of them say anything.

Then, Miya says, “Are you sure?”

“No.”

The incremental shift of Miya’s chest beneath Kiyoomi’s closed fist, the soft slide of his breath against Kiyoomi’s cheek.

Miya’s eyes—golden-brown and bright, like a coin catching light—on Kiyoomi and Kiyoomi alone. It’s a challenge and a promise and a question. It’s seeking an answer only Kiyoomi can give.

And then Kiyoomi—never having been both more and less sure of something in his entire life—pulls Miya just the barest bit forward and says, “Yes.”

It’s hard to untangle who moves first. Kiyoomi with his fingers curled into Miya’s collar or Miya, with his hand sliding up the back of Kiyoomi’s neck. Their mouths meet in a hungry, burning knock, Kiyoomi gasping as Miya pries his lips open and slides his tongue inside. It runs him entirely through, the kiss—the weight of it, the reality of it—after waiting, wanting for so long. It sinks into him like something molten—hot, bright, liquid fire—catching in his lungs like a firecracker and scalding his throat on the way down.

They move in tandem, a harried, furious, almost desperate thing. Kiyoomi crushes Miya’s shirt in his fist and Miya lets out a breathless ah as he picks up his other hand from the floor and slides it around Kiyoomi’s hip.

Kiyoomi’s breath catches in his chest as heat unspools in his gut. It’s too much, too soon, and it’s not nearly enough at all.

Suddenly it’s too hot in here, the air between them and the space, Kiyoomi’s skin burning under the crisp slide of cloth.

“Kiyoomi,” Miya murmurs and presses forward, his lips sliding against Kiyoomi’s own, their breaths intermingled, each brush of their tongues sending a shock of sparks skittering down Kiyoomi’s spine. He tries to catch his breath, but it’s impossible to under Miya’s demands, the kiss turning more demanding, hungrier and bruising, no time or patience for even a hairsbreadth of space between them.

Kiyoomi lets go of Miya’s crushed collar and slides his hand into Miya’s hair, his fingertips greedily brushing through the soft bristles of Miya’s dark undercut before tangling in the blond that so infuriates and enchants Kiyoomi equally. He’s obsessed with it, somehow, he realizes—in the distant way that things occur to someone whose mental and air capacity have both been severely diminished. It slides through his thoughts, sand through a sieve, until he’s tugging on Miya’s hair and Miya is groaning into his mouth and trying not to buck up into Kiyoomi’s body.

It’s only then that it occurs to him, how utterly absurd this is.

“Miya—” Kiyoomi gasps as he wrenches away from Miya’s mouth and Miya lets out a noise that is so frustrated Kiyoomi almost relents and kisses him again. “Miya, lis—stop—Atsumu.”

Miya freezes from where he’s pawing at Kiyoomi—his right hand making poor attempts at rucking up Kiyoomi’s shirt from his trousers and his left bruisingly curled around Kiyoomi’s hip—half pitched forward as he shifts tactics to mouthing down Kiyoomi’s neck.

“Omi,” Miya says, pulling back from his throat, and Kiyoomi realizes with an absurd thrill that his eyes are already glazed over. Kiyoomi thumbs Miya’s slightly swollen bottom lip and he knows that Miya would let him slip his finger in, that Miya would suck on it while not breaking eye contact. The thought makes heat unfurl in his gut, distracts him until Miya presses his closed mouth against the finger. Asking without asking.

Kiyoomi removes his thumb and lets his hand curl around Miya’s jaw. He leans down and presses a kiss to Miya’s mouth. Miya’s eyes flutter closed instantly.

Without pulling back, he starts to shove the jacket off of Miya’s shoulders.

“Off,” he says into Miya’s mouth and then Miya realizes, chest heaving from lack of breath, why Kiyoomi had stopped them.

That sets Miya into immediate motion. Kiyoomi would laugh at the haste with which Miya shrugs out of Kiyoomi’s jacket, with Kiyoomi’s help, if the sight of it pooled on the ground behind Miya wasn’t doing something to him.

“You too, jackass,” Miya says, interrupting what can only be described as ogling by Kiyoomi, and then Kiyoomi feels Miya’s hands on his shoulders, his fingers tucking in under Kiyoomi’s pristine lapels to run over the expensive blend of his shirt and shove off his jacket as well.

Kiyoomi hasn’t been undressed by someone in ages—even their previous fucks had been quick and harried, more pent up frustration and sexual tension brimming over in the dark of supply closets than anything else—and he’s so unbalanced by this sudden change that he stills.

That, in turn, makes Miya stop.

“Hey,” he says, hand stilling on Kiyoomi’s shoulder. “You don’t wanna?”

“No,” Kiyoomi says quickly. “No, I do.”

“We can stop,” Miya says. “I’m not gonna—be fucked off or anything about it.”

Miya watches him carefully, his mouth red and bitten, his face flushed. He’s hard under Kiyoomi, but Kiyoomi can tell by his expression and the tone in his voice that he means it. He wants this, but he’s willing to stop it too.

“Promise.”

“I want to, Miya,” Kiyoomi says. “It’s just been a while.”

Miya takes a moment, as though assessing whether Kiyoomi means it, and then grins, a teasing, lopsided thing.

“You afraid you forget how to do it?” he says. “You don’t gotta be nervous, Omi-kun. It’s real simple. You just gotta take my dick and—”

He’s cut off by Kiyoomi’s mouth on his mouth, an attempt to smother the annoying bravado out of Miya, which works magnificently. Miya laughs into Kiyoomi’s mouth, but then his hands are on Kiyoomi’s shoulders again and they work together to finally divest Kiyoomi of his jacket.

They fumble in between kisses and groping at each other, like they’re a couple of horny teenagers. It’s inelegant and it’s a bit clumsy and it’s all Kiyoomi can do to keep from bearing down on Miya’s clothed thigh to relieve some of the building pressure, although, frankly, he doesn’t think Miya would particularly mind.

“You’re intolerable,” Kiyoomi says into the kiss. “Insufferable. Horrible.”

“Didn’t know you liked dirty talk,” Miya says, pulling back and then smacking another kiss onto Kiyoomi’s mouth. He has his hand twisted into Kiyoomi’s curls while he tries to pull Kiyoomi’s shirt out of his pants fully this time. “Tell me more about how much ya want me.”

“Shut up,” Kiyoomi says. “Shut up shut up shut up.”

He’s never meant something less. It’s humiliating, but something about Miya being irritating takes on a completely different meaning when they’re like this, Kiyoomi still between Miya’s thighs and Miya with his hands up Kiyoomi’s shirt and pressing him back against the bottom of his well-kept leather couch. He would never admit it, even under pain of death, but the more annoying Miya is—the more he teases and taunts Kiyoomi—as though he’s unwilling to treat Kiyoomi any differently even when they’re both in such a compromising position than he does when they’re fully clothed and harassing each other—the more Kiyoomi’s ire sparks to something different, a low fire in his belly that is only satiated by Kiyoomi digging his fingers into Miya’s jaw and leaving bruising kisses along the side of his neck.

“Shit.” Miya’s voice is strained and his breathing is labored as his fingers press hard into Kiyoomi’s sides to keep purchase. “Ah—fuck.”

“This isn’t,” Kiyoomi says into the base of Miya’s throat and the reverberations against his skin must do something to him, because Miya groans and tries to grind down onto Kiyoomi’s thigh. “Working.”

“What?” Miya mumbles out, a little senselessly. “What?”

“I—just come on. Get up.” With an extraordinary amount of willpower and an equal amount of difficulty, Kiyoomi manages to extract himself from his entanglement with Miya. Miya whines—fully whines—as he does so, but Kiyoomi just grabs Miya’s tie and pulls him until they’re both stumbling up and onto the couch.

Kiyoomi falls back onto it, the soft leather sinking under his weight, and drags Miya down by his tie until Miya’s hovering over him, one knee in between Kiyoomi’s legs, and one hand braced against the back of the couch to the side of Kiyoomi’s head.

Kiyoomi looks up at him—at the towering shadow of Miya—and is gratified to see he’s close to desperate.

“Don’t get anything on my couch,” he says and lifts his expensive leather shoe and presses it to Miya’s chest.

“Oh,” Miya says a little dumbly. And then, “Oh.”

He wraps his fingers around Kiyoomi’s ankle and slides his other hand down Kiyoomi’s clothed thigh, over his knee, and down the front of his leg until his fingers curve around Kiyoomi’s calf. He leans forward until Kiyoomi’s leg bends and there’s something about that—Miya’s height and the breadth of his shoulders and the clear strength held in the press of his body against Kiyoomi. Kiyoomi’s throat dries. Miya hooks his index finger into the back of Kiyoomi’s shoe and tugs.

The shoe comes off easily and Miya lets it clatter to the ground. Kiyoomi’s head feels fuzzy. He nearly gasps when Miya presses a kiss to his socked ankle and lets his leg down.

Kiyoomi looks up at him again, a little glazed over himself this time, and Miya looks a bit like a wolf that’s cornered its prey. His eyes are flint bright and his grin is too sharp at the corners. He looks hungry, so when he leans forward to claim his prize, Kiyoomi stops him—his other foot to Miya’s chest.

Miya shoves Kiyoomi’s legs wide and runs his hands down Kiyoomi’s thighs, as he sinks onto the couch between them. He grasps Kiyoomi by the back of his hamstrings and drags him forward until Kiyoomi’s ass hits Miya’s knees and then he wraps his legs behind Miya as Miya leans down to grab a fist full of Kiyoomi’s shirt. Having had enough, Miya pulls him in to finally claim his prize.

“Unbelievable,” he mumbles into Kiyoomi’s mouth heatedly. “Makin’ me work just to get my hands on ya. Fuckin’ annoying-as-hell prissy spoiled prince.”

Kiyoomi slides his hands around Miya’s neck and shoulders and tries not to smirk into the kiss, although, admittedly, he doesn’t try very hard. He likes getting what he wants; it is one of the most pleasing outcomes to him possible.

Miya’s handsy, which doesn’t surprise Kiyoomi, but he is caught off guard by just how much. When they’re groping each other in the limited space of a closet—upright, shelves digging into their back—there isn’t much room for maneuverability. There isn’t much time, either.

But here, with Kiyoomi pressed back against the couch and the two of them as close to horizontal as they’ve ever gotten, Miya’s hands seem to be everywhere. He rucks up the rest of Kiyoomi’s shirt, presses his palms against Kiyoomi’s undershirt and slides them up and then back down. He rucks that up too and then abandons it immediately to fiddle with Kiyoomi’s belt and when he gets impatient with that, he grips Kiyoomi’s hips and then his thighs and then slides his hands back up until he’s groping at Kiyoomi’s biceps.

“Miya.”

Kiyoomi can’t help but laugh, a little breathlessly, as Miya moves his mouth down Kiyoomi’s jaw, kissing up the back line of it until his mouth is hot in the hollow beneath Kiyoomi’s ear. Kiyoomi lets out a little sound and grips the front of Miya’s shirt, his body bucking up for friction that he only half gets. Miya doesn’t stop his progress, kissing down the length of Kiyoomi’s neck and Kiyoomi’s breath comes up shallower and shallower, the brush of Miya’s tongue and the hint of his teeth against Kiyoomi’s racing pulse point.

Miya stops at a spot just under Kiyoomi’s collar and then suddenly abandons it.

“What—”

“How’m I supposed to get anything done with so much shit in the way?” Miya almost growls and then his fingers are at Kiyoomi’s tie, fumbling through the arduous process of trying to unknot it. He does a half-assed job, mostly because he keeps stopping to kiss Kiyoomi, but he manages to loosen it enough to get it up and over Kiyoomi’s head.

He tosses it somewhere to the side and Kiyoomi says, with only slight rancor, “That’s silk.”

Miya gives him a look and well, fair enough.

“You too, then,” Kiyoomi says. “Don’t make me work for it later.”

He’s much steadier about the whole affair and has Miya’s tie unknotted and hanging loose around his neck within a few pulls. He then brushes his long fingers over Miya’s Adam’s apple, which makes Miya swallow thickly and say, “Fuck.”

Kiyoomi, pleased with himself, unbuttons the next few buttons on Miya’s shirt and then—not liking to do anything halfway—goes ahead and unbuttons all of the rest. Miya’s shirt hangs open, the ends of his undone burgundy tie hanging loosely to either side of his neck. There’s something about him there, in between Kiyoomi’s legs, his hair mussed from Kiyoomi’s hands, his shirt and tie open, just the white of his undershirt and the gleam of his belt buckle and a noticeable bulge in the crotch of his nice pants.

It makes Kiyoomi run hot all over.

“God,” he grits out and it’s as resigned as it is slightly mournful. “It’s a tragedy how hot I find you.”

“I knew it,” Miya says with an insufferably pleased smile. “I knew you were undressing me with your eyes!”

“Shut up,” Kiyoomi says again. He reels Miya in by the ends of his stupid tie. “Shut up, shut up, shut up.”

For all the good it does him. Miya’s mouth feels so good against Kiyoomi’s, it makes him unable to think.

Miya kisses him as he divests Kiyoomi’s undershirt from his pants and he kisses him as he undoes Kiyoomi’s buckle, the slick shwip as the leather slides through the loops, and he kisses him as he lets his the designer belt fall to the ground.

Miya kisses down his throat, this time unencumbered by the fussiness of starched button up, and maneuvers Kiyoomi until he’s laying flat against the leather cushions, his legs still spread wide, but at a 90 degree angle from the ground. Miya makes a home for himself in between, sucking a bruise onto Kiyoomi’s pale skin, the spot just to the right of his collarbone, in an area that can be hidden but can be just as easily revealed given the right accidental shift of garment.

It’s meant to be strategic, probably, something to remind Kiyoomi later of what he’s allowed, but at the moment, Kiyoomi’s too busy burying his hand in Miya’s soft, slightly sweaty hair and trying not to arch up into Miya’s body for desperately missing friction.

“Hold on,” Miya murmurs into Kiyoomi’s throat. “Relax a fucking second.”

Which is exactly the kind of thing that would throw Kiyoomi out of any situation with irritation, but from Miya’s thick, almost gravelly voice, hot against his throat, he doesn’t even clock it. Instead, he takes Miya’s hand—now sliding down his stomach—and redirects it to where he wants it to go.

“Yeah?” Miya grins. “You need some relief?”

“Fuck you—” Kiyoomi manages, just before Miya presses the palm of his hand down on Kiyoomi’s straining dick and the pressure feels so fucking good, Kiyoomi lets out an exhale of relief, his head falling back onto the couch cushion.

“All right, all right,” Miya says. “I know. Put my mouth to good use and all, right?”

Kiyoomi doesn’t have a ton of capacity to answer that, but he gives a sharp tug on Miya’s hair in tacit agreement.

Miya inhales sharply at that and then unbuttons Kiyoomi’s slacks and drags down the zipper. The noise would be deafening in the sanctity of Kiyoomi’s office, only he can’t hear much over the pounding of his heart and the increased panting of their breaths.

He lifts his hips as Miya tugs down his slacks and hooks his finger into the front of Kiyoomi’s underwear. There’s something to be said here. Kiyoomi thinks this distantly, in the far recesses of his poor, overheated mind. They’re in his office, in his place of employment, on his extremely nice, expensive leather couch. There are lights on. This isn’t an office closet and this isn’t a harried tryst in the middle of the day.

There’s no one else here. When Miya fucks him—and he will fuck him—Kiyoomi will be able to look him in the eyes.

There’s a time and a place for plausible deniability and it is nowhere near this couch.

Kiyoomi should put a stop to this. There are a dozen different reasons he should not let Miya take his cock out.

He forgets every one of them when Miya actually does.

The thing is.

The thing fucking is.

Miya Atsumu is really good at sucking cock.

It’s not that Kiyoomi had forgotten. At every previous occasion, when Miya Atsumu has had the opportunity to be on his knees, with his mouth full of Kiyoomi’s—well, it’s embarrassingly memorable.

But it’s been months since Kiyoomi has had anyone’s mouth near anything of his and that intervening time had made him forget how good it feels, but especially how good it feels when it’s Miya.

Miya’s fingers are surprisingly cool against Kiyoomi’s skin, his fingers wrapped around the base of his dick. He sucks at Kiyoomi’s tip at first, sliding the flat of his tongue around the edges and then over, licking up the precum beading at the top. He’s almost unbearably slow about it, teasing as he sucks a little bit at a time, an inch and then another inch, his hand sliding up and down the length of Kiyoomi as he does so.

It’s maddening.

“Miya—” Kiyoomi gasps through clenched teeth and he doesn’t realize how hard he’s gripping Miya’s hair until Miya’s coy movements stutter and he winces against Kiyoomi. “Shit, sorry—just—”

He doesn’t even have the chance to say get on with it, because Miya slides his hand back down and bends down closer to finally swallow Kiyoomi down all in one movement.

It’s stupid good. The tight heat of Miya’s mouth around Kiyoomi, his hand still wrapped around the base, Miya’s other hand gripping Kiyoomi’s thigh. Miya sucks in and Kiyoomi feels the heat hit his gut, an unspooling thing that spreads through his chest and cascades down his arms. He almost shudders, his head hitting the couch cushion again, and Miya hollows his cheeks and does it again.

The pressure is good—but so is the movement. Miya moves up and down on Kiyoomi’s cock, hollowing his cheeks and filling it out. His tongue moves expertly, swirling over the top, and around the side, coaxing Kiyoomi, drawing something out in him that oozes through his veins like hot molasses. Kiyoomi grips Miya’s hair senselessly, pulling him back and shoving him forward, until he’s fucking up into Miya’s mouth and Miya takes it—he takes all of it, even though Kiyoomi’s being rather selfish about it all.

He only pulls off when it’s clear that his chest is heaving and his eyes are a little blurry and Kiyoomi’s too fucking close to coming anyway, so he drags Miya back by his hair.

“Shit,” Kiyoomi says, to which Miya is only able to answer a vaguely wrecked, “Yeah.”

Kiyoomi can’t help it. Miya’s eyes are just the right hint of glazed and his hair is all sorts of fucked up, and there’s a bit of drool at the corner of his chin and it’s all kind of disgusting and it makes Kiyoomi’s brain feel like it’s on fire.

“Miya,” he says, dragging Miya forward and placing bruising kiss after bruising kiss onto his mouth. His mouth that was just on Kiyoomi’s cock. “Come on. Fuck me.”

Miya looks at him a bit blearily, his hand pressed to Kiyoomi’s jaw. He tilts his head forward and kisses him again.

It makes Kiyoomi feel—

It’s—

Anyway.

“You promised,” Kiyoomi says and Miya exhales, a little puff into Kiyoomi’s open mouth.

“Yeah,” Miya says and then seems to snap to himself. “Okay. I wanna fuck you.”

They don’t have to readjust themselves a terrible amount, only Kiyoomi scoots back until he’s laying fully along the couch, propped up by his elbows, and Miya shuffles forward so that he’s firmly in between Kiyoomi’s thighs, his knees sunk into the leather. Kiyoomi shoves himself up a little so that he can reach forward and smoothly unbuckle and slide out Miya’s belt from his belt loops. The leather falls to the ground in a circular heap, the metal of the buckle clanging lightly against the floor.

Kiyoomi pops open the button on Miya’s trouser and drags his zipper down as well, although he stops short of offering any relief to Miya’s prominent tent. Instead, he reaches up and drags Miya’s undershirt out of his pants and shoves it up halfway to his chest. Miya shrugs out of his button-up, the undone tie having already fallen to the ground at some point, and grasps the edge of his undershirt and slides it up and over his head.

That leaves Miya in nothing but unbuttoned pants, his skin hot and a little damp, most of him stretched out bare in front of Kiyoomi.

Kiyoomi gets his mouth on Miya’s stomach before he can think twice.

“Shit,” Miya says, grasping Kiyoomi by the back of the neck. “Fuck.”

Kiyoomi grips Miya by the waist as he works his mouth up his torso, his tongue laving over the hard muscle of Miya’s abdomen—his mouth sliding over every dip and every divot in his tight stomach. Miya shudders clearly beneath his mouth, his stomach muscles contracting and his fingers digging into Kiyoomi’s hair. It doesn’t even matter that it’s bordering on rough, because Kiyoomi’s always loved fingers in his hair and he loves the edge of it here—how Miya has him boxed in, his body in front and his hand trapping Kiyoomi’s neck from behind.

Kiyoomi reaches one of Miya’s pale pink nipples and sucks it into his mouth and that makes Miya nearly keen.

“Shit,” Miya gasps out. “Shit shit shit.”

Which is how Kiyoomi learns—how sensitive Miya is here, how much noise he can make when Kiyoomi runs the flat of his tongue over the stiff peaks and teases them out further in between his teeth.

“Omi—” Miya says, his voice like crushed rock. “Omi—shit.”

Kiyoomi stops only when it seems like Miya is rocking forward into him so much he might come untouched. Which is something Kiyoomi would be happy to gloat about, but another day maybe, when that’s his purpose.

Today, his aim is something else entirely.

He pulls back and Miya’s grip on his neck eases. Miya’s other hand is at Kiyoomi’s shoulder and for a moment, they stay like that—Miya hovering over him again, between Kiyoomi’s legs, his chest bare and his hands at Kiyoomi’s shoulders, and Kiyoomi looking up at him through his dark eyelashes, his mouth red and a bit swollen, his button up crushed and hanging off his shoulders and his undershirt rucked up to his stomach—both of them panting heavily, trying to catch their breaths.

Miya closes his eyes, forcing in breaths as though it might help his body’s reactions calm down long enough to be able to actually fuck Kiyoomi.

It’s in the middle of this paused, terribly charged tableau that Kiyoomi’s heart stills.

It’s not big, is what Kiyoomi notices first. He’s not sure how big he expected it to be, only that it’s maybe half the size of Kiyoomi’s thumb. If the lines weren’t so crisp, the shape of it so clear, Kiyoomi doesn’t know if he would have noticed it at all.

Miya’s eyes flutter open with Kiyoomi’s touch. Kiyoomi’s warm fingers hesitantly—reverently—press to the small origami crane etched in the smooth skin along the top of Miya’s ribcage.

Miya inhales the moment he realizes what Kiyoomi’s found. For a moment he says nothing, although his throat seems to constrict, working out what to say.

Maybe he thinks Kiyoomi will be furious with him again. Maybe he thinks Kiyoomi will stop this—whatever this is.

Kiyoomi probably should. He should probably do any of those things. What he shouldn’t do is carefully—so very carefully—trace the outline of someone else’s soulmark.

“A crane,” Kiyoomi says when Miya falls quiet and still. His fingertips trace the little outline of the beak, then down the line of its paper neck, and over its back toward the rise of its tail. There’s a little trail behind it, a dotted loop, as though it’s just come from somewhere else. A translucent little paper crane, landed on Miya Atsumu’s skin.

“Yeah,” Miya says after a moment. He swallows.

“A bit…on the nose,” Kiyoomi says. “Right?”

“What do you mean?”

“An origami crane,” Kiyoomi says. “To symbolize the person the universe chose for you.”

Miya’s expression hardens a little, but Kiyoomi’s a little lost in the mark in front of him—in the shape of it, its clarity and certainty. To Miya, his little soulmark is a burden, a curse laid along his side by something unwanted and divine. To Kiyoomi, though. To someone who has never had anything so clear and always wanted to feel what it might be like—well.

He feels it again, the way he does sometimes when he’s paying the least amount of attention: the way every inch of his bare skin aches.

He will never tell Miya this. He will never even admit it to himself. But Kiyoomi wishes for a soulmark of his own so much that it makes something in him feel terribly afraid.

“When did it appear?” Kiyoomi asks.

Miya lets out a breath, a frustrated sort of exhale.

“I dunno,” he says. “High school, maybe.”

“Oh,” Kiyoomi says. His heart hurts a little in response. “So long ago?”

“It doesn’t matter, Omi,” Miya says.

“I know,” Kiyoomi says. He doesn’t. He swallows and presses his nail against the end of the little spiral path. “I know it doesn’t matter to you.”

“Don’t,” Miya says.

“I’m not.”

“You are. I can see you.”

Kiyoomi pulls his hand like he’s been burned. Maybe Miya’s right. Maybe he shouldn’t.

He looks down at his hand in his lap and the silence between them stretches, long and too-brittle and thin. It rankles against the back of Kiyoomi’s neck. Suddenly, he feels terrible.

“Hey,” Miya says, his fingers suddenly on Kiyoomi’s face. “Omi-kun. Sorry. I didn’t mean to snap at ya.”

Kiyoomi shoves it to the back of his mind. This kind of yearning has no place in this moment between them.

“No, you’re right. That’s not what we’re here for.”

For a moment Miya looks hesitant. But he is right. What Miya has near his heart—what’s inked onto his skin—that’s no business of Kiyoomi’s. What Miya chooses to do with it—whether he chooses to acknowledge it or the person attached to it or not—has nothing to do with Kiyoomi.

“Enough talk,” Kiyoomi says. “Are you going to fuck me or not?”

Miya looks at him uncertainly, like—as though he’s not sure Kiyoomi is serious. But Kiyoomi can compartmentalize like a bitch. He’s been doing it nearly his entire life.

He grabs Miya by his slim hips and drags him forward until Miya’s arms are around Kiyoomi’s shoulders and he’s hovering over him again. Kiyoomi leans up to kiss him and bit by bit—breath by breath—Miya relaxes, loosens into the syrupy confidence he had begun the evening with.

“All right,” Miya says and as they kiss, he eases Kiyoomi onto his back, against the couch. “Let’s make good on that promise.”

They can realistically only make half good on that promise.

“Right,” Kiyoomi says and Miya breath puffs against his neck. “I forgot about—”

So Kiyoomi gets a little stupid when he’s horny and desperate to be fucked. It’s hardly a sin. Well, no more than any of his others.

“No lube in the First Aid Kit?”

“What kind of First Aid Kits do they have at Inarizaki?”

“Between the two of us,” Miya says. “I always had some at my desk.”

“A First Aid Kit?” Kiyoomi’s head is a little fuzzy. He has never had someone talk as much as him during sex.

“No, jackass—lube. And condoms.”

Kiyoomi is about to snipe back—something vaguely hypocritical like, how many people have you been fucking in your professional office space, Miya?—but whatever snark he has reserved for Miya dies halfway to realization as Miya’s hand returns to his cock.

“Oh,” he manages, which is frankly as good as it’s going to get at this point.

Miya kisses the underside of Kiyoomi’s jaw. Then—

“Okay, enough is enough,” he says. “I’ve been hard for like a hundred years.”

“And whose fault is that? I’ve been telling you to fuck me for at least an hour. Also, that sounds like a medical—ah.”

Miya’s hand tightens around Kiyoomi, his grip like a vise. He slides his hand up once, from root to tip, and his strangely calloused hands feel deliciously rough against Kiyoomi’s aching cock. The heat and friction are perfectly paired to set him on edge, his heart kicking up into his chest as he tries fruitlessly not to fuck up into Miya’s hand.

“That’s—” Kiyoomi pants a little. “Good.”

“I know, you don’t gotta compliment me any,” Miya says.

Kiyoomi was by no means doing that, but whatever. Miya strokes him again, twists his wrist until Kiyoomi’s gripping Miya’s back and panting into his throat.

It’s good—great even—but Kiyoomi wants more. If he can’t be fucked the way he wants to be—on short notice, in the confines of his office—then he at least wants to feel Miya against him too.

He slides his hand down once he’s able to formulate a single thought and then Miya’s the one sucking in a breath as Kiyoomi’s fingers dip past the elastic band of his underwear and draw him out.

It’s not like they haven’t done this before. Kiyoomi has had his hand on Miya’s cock multiple times, has had it in his mouth even. But they’ve never done it this way, half-clothed, with their eyes on each other.

It’s intimate and vulnerable in a way that Kiyoomi should have expected and still didn’t.

Up this close, in full light, Kiyoomi can see the sheen of sweat on Miya’s brow, the way his face is flushed from effort, and how is mouth hangs just a little bit open. There are little sounds he makes in between panting as he works his hand on Kiyoomi and Kiyoomi returns the favor, and they fall from him easily, as though they cost him nothing. His eyes are dark from desire and the expression that accompanies it is intent with purpose, focused, as though all of the energy he usually puts into everything else, he has now put into this singular chase.

It feels like it too—Miya’s every bit of attention on Kiyoomi—and that makes Kiyoomi’s chest tighten and his skin flicker hot. When Miya twists his wrist sharply and Kiyoomi moans and digs his fingers harder into Miya’s hip in response, Miya’s eyes flicker up to watch Kiyoomi’s face.

“Shit,” Miya says. He kisses Kiyoomi again—sloppier than before, just lips sliding against lips, and says, “You look so good.”

“Enough,” Kiyoomi gasps out. His skin feels tight all over—too tight—and the pressure building is unrelenting.

“Yeah,” Miya says, groaning as Kiyoomi thumbs the top of his slit. “Fuck, okay.”

Miya takes this as permission to grow impatient, which is exactly as Kiyoomi intends. He knocks Kiyoomi’s hand out of the way and takes them both into his own and starts moving faster.

It’s hard to hold on for too long after that. Once Miya stops fucking around and starts picking up the pace, the two of them finally shut the fuck up and give in to how good this all feels. Miya presses their foreheads together as he jacks them both off, his chest heaving as his hand makes fast work of them both. It hits Kiyoomi like a battering ram, the way his stomach constricts and his lungs tighten. The way there’s a spill of electricity scattering down his spine every time Miya’s cock brushes against his own.

The pressure builds precipitously and it’s all Kiyoomi can do to keep his head on straight, as fuzzy around the edges as he’s gone. They kiss loosely, their mouths barely pressed together, and all that’s intermingled between their damp bodies is the sound of their breaths coming out harshly, too little air being drawn in.

Kiyoomi’s chest heaves and Miya’s skin is slick under his hand as he grapples his hip, then up his tight stomach, until his fingers are digging in around his left ribcage, just above the ink of his soulmark. It’s not intentional—at least Kiyoomi doesn’t mean for it to be—but that’s where he ends up anyway. It’s the first thing he notices and the last thing he remembers, shortly before Miya thumbs the top of Kiyoomi’s cock and twists his wrist and then the pressure inside Kiyoomi crests.

He gasps into Miya’s mouth as his orgasm hits and Miya sucks on his tongue just a few moments before he, too, comes.

After is.

Kiyoomi is hard put to catch his breath. It doesn’t seem like it’s coming back to him any time soon, which is only a secondary concern when everything is just a little fuzzy as it is and the high of orgasm is still saturating his brain.

Miya’s breathing hard too, which Kiyoomi only notices when his surroundings finally start to trickle back in. It comes in bits and pieces—the sound of Miya’s breathing, the feel of Miya’s hand still around them, the sticky mess in between. The leather sticking against Kiyoomi’s back, damp through his undershirt, Miya still leaning between his open legs. Miya’s hair, sweat-damp at his temples. His eyes closed and his mouth a little open.

The two of them in the moment before consequences or being self-conscious sets in.

Miya’s eyes flicker open and Kiyoomi’s good feelings dip, but only just a little. The honey-gold is starting to filter back in, where they had been so dark his eyes had been nearly black before. Kiyoomi hates himself a little for being so aware of it—the minute details of Miya Atsumu’s face. He doesn’t hate himself enough to not reach up and cup it, though, his long, pale fingers splayed at the curve of his jaw.

Miya doesn’t seem like he’s fully back online either, because his reaction isn’t to say anything or make a face or even pull away. Instead, he seems to lean into Kiyoomi’s touch and, for a moment, he smiles.

Kiyoomi, absurdly, after all of that, wants to kiss him again so badly.

Wants to be kissed by him again even worse.

What shatters the nearly surreal, fragile moment isn’t Miya or even Kiyoomi or even any real consequences. It’s how disgusting Kiyoomi thinks cooling come feels.

“We need to get cleaned up,” he says and his voice is void of any chill.

“Oh,” Miya says and looks down at his hand and the two dicks still in between them. “Right.”

Kiyoomi tilts his head back and reaches as far as he can for a box of tissues that stays on the little side table he keeps there. He scrabbles for it and then throws it at Miya, who half-glares at him as it hits his cheek and falls between them.

“Geez, warn a guy!”

“You saw what I was doing,” Kiyoomi says. “How much more warning does a guy need?”

Miya mumbles something choice under his breath as he sets about wiping his hands and the few stray splotches between them. The mess could have been much worse, so it’s for the best that they hadn’t actually fucked. Another time. Maybe when they’re not on a leather couch.

Miya tucks Kiyoomi back into his pants and zips him up and then settles back and does the same for himself. By the time he’s finished, Kiyoomi’s pushed himself up to sitting and buttoned the top of his slacks.

The air between them is…cautious.

It isn’t as tense as it was before and it isn’t as hostile as it is sometimes after. It’s somewhere in between and almost hesitant, which—for all of their sins—is not something that Kiyoomi can ever say he has considered him and Miya.

He hates it immediately.

“Miya—”

“Kiyoomi—” Miya says and stops.

They stare at each other and Miya flushes.

“Are you going to do that now?” Kiyoomi says.

Miya frowns a little. “Do what?”

Kiyoomi probably shouldn’t say it. That’s short on a long list of things he maybe shouldn’t have done tonight.

“Call me Kiyoomi.”

“That’s your name,” Miya says, confused.

“Yes,” Kiyoomi says. “And everyone else calls me by it.”

Miya doesn’t seem to understand. Kiyoomi doesn’t know why he brought it up, or even pushed it. Only after everything—after this evening—after seeing Miya’s expression as he kissed Kiyoomi and undressed him—

Kiyoomi shuts his mouth.

Miya’s stupid, but he’s not an idiot. It clicks maybe two seconds later.

“Oh,” he says.

Kiyoomi doesn’t say anything.

“Everyone else. But not me.”

Miya’s mouth curves up at the corners and Kiyoomi thinks it is going to set him off—that he is going to find him immediately intolerable again. This, all of this—this entire evening—will be an immediate mistake.

Only, strange thing. Miya’s smile doesn’t come close to gloating. There’s nothing close to a smirk on his face.

“Omi-kun, then,” he says.

Kiyoomi huffs out loud at the same time his chest constricts, some part of him relieved.

They say nothing, but the cautious fragility from earlier passes. Kiyoomi’s shoulders relax.

“Well,” Miya says.

“Guess we should leave,” Kiyoomi agrees and looks at the mess of clothes they’ve made on the ground.

“You’re gonna have to dry clean this,” Miya laughs after a moment. He finally shoves himself off the couch and starts finding his shirts.

“Ugh, I know,” Kiyoomi says. He stretches and then tucks his undershirt back in. “I promised myself when I bought it that I was never—never going to use it for this.”

“A leather couch in an executive office,” Miya says. “It’d be a shame if ya didn’t.”

Unfortunately, he can’t not ask this time.

“How many leather couches in executive offices have you been using, Miya?” Kiyoomi says and Miya, buttoning up his now-crumpled shirt, gives him a rueful grin.

“Enough to know ya gotta get that thing dry cleaned.”

Kiyoomi snorts and the two of them scramble to sort themselves out in strangely companionable silence.

Miya finally gets himself all buttoned and buckled in and Kiyoomi slides his jacket on. He feels loose and satisfied. He’d forgotten how relaxed he gets after sex.

“You got—”

“What?” Kiyoomi frowns, but Miya ignores him.

“Hold on, just let me—”

He runs his fingers through Kiyoomi’s hair, carefully fixing his disarrayed curls. Kiyoomi freezes under the attention, his heart inexplicably tumbling in his chest.

“Okay, there,” Miya says with a bright grin. “All better.”

Kiyoomi tries to ignore how hot his face feels.

“Thanks,” he mutters. He turns away from Miya as quickly as he can. “I—need to get my phone.”

Miya gathers up his things and Kiyoomi forces himself to calm down while he’s not looking.

“Ready?” Miya asks and Kiyoomi sighs, snapping a fresh mask onto his face.

“Yeah.”

He has the brief thought that he should have insisted Miya leave without him instead of—both doing whatever walk this is to the elevator. Is it a walk of shame if it’s the same evening and you’re with the person you just hooked up with?

Miya doesn’t seem to be having any second thoughts or qualms about any of it, though. He’s chattering away about something that Kiyoomi doesn’t even bother listening to as he turns the light off in his office.

“Hey,” Miya says, interrupting Kiyoomi’s bemused thoughts as they reach the elevator bank.

“What?”

Miya’s smiling, his hands in his pocket.

Kiyoomi doesn’t know what to expect when Miya bumps his shoulder.

“We make a pretty good team, don’t we?”

Kiyoomi flushes a little. He scowls, but it is deeply put on and Miya doesn’t believe him anyway.

“We almost fucked the entire thing up,” he says.

“No, Kuroo Tetsurou almost fucked the entire thing up,” Miya says. “And some…mystery guy.”

Kiyoomi doesn’t want to think about that.

“We didn’t help,” he says.

“I would argue we absolutely helped,” Miya says, stretching his arms above him. “I would argue we saved the whole fuckin’ thing.”

“You do tend to say a lot of things,” Kiyoomi says. “Most of it not worth saying.”

“Shut up,” Miya says, but he’s grinning. He nudges Kiyoomi’s shoulder again. “Come on. Admit it. We make a pretty good team.”

Kiyoomi’s mouth twitches.

“For two people who can’t stand one another?”

Miya snorts.

“Yeah, for that,” he says. “But also just for like, anyone, yeah? We’re good together when we try. Admit it, Omi-Omi. We make a pretty good team.”

There’s that horrible nickname again. Kiyoomi should put a definitive stop to it, before Miya gets any other ideas.

Unfortunately, he’s too relaxed to care for once. And maybe a little sex-stupid.

The elevator door dings open and the two of them step into it, the lights on the floor flickering off as they do.

“Yeah,” he sighs and says begrudgingly and with a smile hidden safely behind his face mask. “I suppose we could be worse.”

Chapter Text

ACT VIII: The Turning Point.

It doesn’t change anything, Kiyoomi has to remind himself. Fundamentally and in a very real sense, hooking up with Miya Atsumu again doesn’t move the needle on anything that is going to happen. They’re a month from a date that Kiyoomi can’t think about, because every time he does there’s a knot in his stomach that he can’t unpick and he stays awake at night with his head pounding.

There’s nothing different about their situation, about the two of them in relation to one another. It doesn’t matter that Miya’s face brightens a little bit now every time Kiyoomi walks into a room, his eyes always drifting to where Kiyoomi’s appeared, or that Kiyoomi sometimes catches himself openly staring at the way the sunlight catches in Miya’s awful blond hair, without the same accompanying self-loathing or self-recrimination that he would have had just a month ago.

It doesn’t matter that when they’re crowded next to each other in the kitchen, in the elevator, in the bathroom, close—a little too close—Kiyoomi’s heart seems to thump faster, or that when it’s just the two of them in a room, Miya will reach out and brush Kiyoomi’s errant curls to the side and Kiyoomi will lean—for just a moment—into the fleeting press of his touch.

It doesn’t matter that now that they’ve had each other again, all Kiyoomi wants—all he seems to ache for—is for Miya to touch him one more time.

“It can’t happen again,” Kiyoomi says to Miya the next day, the two of them quiet in Miya’s office after they’ve told Ota-san the good news—that the deal with Nekoma is done, that the two of them have—without giving Ota-san all of the specific details—had not only saved, but also closed the biggest deal Itachiyama has won all year.

Miya has his blinds closed. The two of them are standing close, across from each other, the tips of their leather loafers touching.

Kiyoomi with his back against the doors of Miya’s cabinets, his elbows resting against the grain of the wood, Miya in front of him, one hand brushing Kiyoomi’s hip, the other hovering above Kiyoomi’s jaw, an inch—maybe two—away.

Is it hesitation or is it the certainty, the unshakeable thing that they both know to be true?

Kiyoomi’s heart beats faster.

“Miya,” Kiyoomi says and his voice is softer than he means for it to be. Try as he might, he can’t muster the strict severity he always has so ready at his disposal. His disgust is nowhere to be seen. In the light of the day, the day after, all Kiyoomi really wants is for Miya to lean in and do it again.

“I know,” Miya says and again he hesitates.

“Do you?” Kiyoomi asks.

“I know, Omi.”

They look at each other for a moment, Miya’s eyes flickering up, that bare inch of difference between them.

“Fuck,” Miya breathes out and Kiyoomi can’t help but agree. “This is worse than before. Does it feel worse than before?”

Kiyoomi almost laughs. Instead, he reaches up and guides Miya’s palm to his face. Their fingers press together and Miya curses again.

“What the fuck,” he says. “Are ya tryin’ to kill me or somethin’?”

“It was one time,” Kiyoomi says, ignoring that. Leaning into Miya’s touch. “Because of—the deal. We got carried away.”

Miya glowers at him a little in displeasure and it makes Kiyoomi smile.

“Like fuck we were,” Miya mutters.

“We were celebrating,” Kiyoomi says firmly. “And we got carried away.”

“How do you do that?” Miya says on a sigh.

“Do what?”

“Compartmentalize it. How do ya want something and then shove it all away?”

“I don’t know,” Kiyoomi says. “Practice.”

“It’s infuriating,” Miya mumbles and his thumb brushes against the tip of Kiyoomi’s chin. “Don’t ya get tired of it? Doesn’t it drive you crazy?”

The trick, Kiyoomi has learned, is never to think about it for too long or too hard. Half of the art of compartmentalization is the art of suppression. To perfect one, you have to perfect the other. And Kiyoomi has long since been an expert hand at repressing what it is that he wants so that he can have what he thinks he deserves.

“Not again,” Kiyoomi says, a hand to Miya’s chest. “Do you understand?”

“Did you even have fun?” Miya asks. He’s not sulking—not exactly. His eyes are skating up and down Kiyoomi’s face, hard and bright and searching for something in particular. Kiyoomi doesn’t know what. Miya’s fingers curl harder into Kiyoomi’s hip. “Did ya even like it?”

Miya isn’t the insecure type. It isn’t assurance that he wants, not really. Kiyoomi thinks he understands. Miya wants to know if he’s the only one in this room, or if it’s both of them.

He’s stupider than Kiyoomi gives him credit for, if he can’t see the obvious.

“If I liked it less,” Kiyoomi says and presses his fingers to Miya’s mouth, “I would let us have it again.”

“That doesn’t make any fuckin’ sense,” Miya says, but Kiyoomi can tell he understands. If there wasn’t something here—if it didn’t feel so good, if the both of them didn’t want it so badly—there wouldn’t be a danger. They could let themselves have it once, maybe twice, and know that they could stop themselves from asking for more.

Kiyoomi doesn’t trust either of them to do that. He doesn’t think that, started once again, he could muster the self control to say no.

Miya exhales and for a moment, rests his forehead against Kiyoomi’s. Kiyoomi slides his hand around, his fingers tangling in the soft hair at the back of Miya’s neck.

The two of them stay like that for a minute, their breaths intermingling, their hearts stumbling. The air between them tense and charged and yearning with want.

Kiyoomi wants Miya to close the distance between them. He wants to allow himself to kiss Miya again.

He doesn’t let them do either of these things—for the reasons expressed. For the risk they present to one another.

Miya presses his lips to Kiyoomi’s forehead, brushes his mouth against Kiyoomi’s two moles.

“All right,” he says and pulls away.

It doesn’t make it any easier to breathe, but it makes it easier to accept.

“We got carried away,” Miya says. “We won’t do that again.”

It’s better this way, Kiyoomi thinks. More importantly, it’s just the way it has to be.

“Yes,” Kiyoomi says, and compartmentalizes.

The longer Iizuna goes without answering him, the more sure Kiyoomi is that everything is one text message away from going completely sideways. It doesn’t help that there isn’t a single person in his life not waiting for the other shoe to drop.

“Have you thought about what I’ve said?” his mother has taken to asking Kiyoomi every time she sees him, which is only a very small step down from his sisters, who keep harassing Kiyoomi with Did you ask him? and I think it’s time to ask him and I think this is the right choice and What did he say?

At some point, he gets so sick of them all that he mutes all of the family groupchats and blocks his sisters on his phone for 72 hours, which—he knows from experience—is about the length of time it will take one of them—Aiko—to notice he’s done it.

He spends more time in Motoya’s guest room than he has in the past few years, because even though the Sakusa family home is large enough for him to avoid his parents if he truly wants to, even the thought of running into his father in the hallway or seeing that cold, assessing look from his mother over the dinner table kind of makes him want to die.

Yes, he asked Iizuna once. No, he hasn’t asked Iizuna again. No, he doesn’t know if it was the right choice.

No, he has no desire to get into any of it with his family.

Kiyoomi develops chronic headaches and starts grinding his teeth. He loses his already dwindling appetite and smokes a little more than he should. Both his skincare and haircare routines heavily reduce from multiple, painstaking steps to face wash and maybe conditioner, on a good day, sometimes.

“Omi, are you all right?” Miya asks him more than once in the office and it’s such a fair question that Kiyoomi can’t even get irritated by the presumption or intrusion. “It’s only—ya just look a lot paler these days.”

“I’m fine, Miya,” Kiyoomi answers each time through gritted teeth and it’s a testament to how unsteady he feels on his feet that he doesn’t even want to snap at him to tell him that this is all his fault anyway. Then, seeing genuine concern flicker across Miya’s face, he reels in his perpetually bad mood and offers a begrudgingly softer, “I’ll be fine.”

That might be a bald-faced lie, as far as Kiyoomi’s concerned.

Iizuna asks for just a little more time, which is reasonable when he’s thinking over a proposal for marriage and Kiyoomi feels so guilty about what happened that he doesn’t say no. He’s not really sure where the two of them stand anyway. The problem is that so much of their relationship has always remained unspoken—neither of them able or maybe willing to name the thing they were doing. Kiyoomi’s called it dating. He’s said they’re seeing each other. At no point have they had a real conversation about making it anything more serious than that, but then Kiyoomi had gone and given Iizuna a thoroughly underbaked and frankly unreasonable proposition, so he’s not sure where that leaves any of this.

Is it cheating when you’ve never defined the relationship or exclusivity, but have technically asked a guy if he would be interested in marrying you? Does it make you a bad person to sleep with someone else when you are in a vaguely underdefined political relationship with your ex-boyfriend?

“Could you not have waited for his answer?” Wakatoshi muses aloud. “Before sleeping with Miya. Then it would not be so complicated, I think.”

Kiyoomi is not in the habit of glaring at Wakatoshi, but this seems an appropriate time to start. Wakatoshi, for his part, doesn’t notice. He’s too busy running his hand over the leather steering wheel of some absurdly expensive car that Kiyoomi knows almost nothing about. He knows that it’s red as a candy apple on the outside and shiny as one too. It probably runs in the eight figures and is some sort of foreign collectible.

Ushijima Wakatoshi is, generally speaking, a practical man. He’s still rich as sin, though, and every heir to some Japanese conglomerate has some sort of overpriced vice. At least cars look expensive, unlike whatever Motoya is doing with his rare stamp collection, which—Kiyoomi can’t even get into that one.

“Yes, thank you Wakatoshi,” Kiyoomi says behind his face mask. “I wish I had consulted with you before I let Miya put his mouth on my dick.”

“I would have advised you no,” Wakatoshi says. He flicks on the headlights and leans forward to fiddle with a car radio that was built at least 60 years ago. “But I know better than to think you would listen to my advice, Kiyoomi.”

“When have I not listened to your advice?” Kiyoomi grumbles, pulling his jacket collar up to sink behind.

“Almost every time I have offered it,” Wakatoshi replies.

He says it like he says everything—with a straightforward seriousness that is hard to argue with, and easy to hide snark behind. Not that Ushijima Wakatoshi makes a habit out of being snarky. But, well, he has been bonded to Tendou Satori for nearly a decade.

Kiyoomi can hear the light degree of judgment behind that sentence. He exhales aggressively and stretches his legs as far out as they will go. He has long legs and the car is rather small, so he hits the limit almost immediately.

“This one’s too small,” he says, just to be a bit of a petulant dick. “Neither you nor your husband will fit in here without developing back problems.”

Wakatoshi frowns, seriously.

“These cars are not to be driven, Kiyoomi.”

“Well then what the fuck is the point of it?”

Wakatoshi’s eyes flicker over to Kiyoomi and his mouth curves down slightly in reproach.

“I know you are in a difficult personal position, but there is no need to take it out on me.”

Which—fair enough. Kiyoomi can only get away with being so much of an unrepentant asshole to someone who isn’t Motoya or, well, Miya. He feels appropriately chastened.

“Sorry,” he mumbles. He exhales again and this time he melts a little into the leather interior of the very expensive foreign car. “It’s not your fault. I don’t know what else you’re supposed to say.”

Wakatoshi hums in response. He turns the radio off and then unbuckles himself and opens the door to slide out of the car. After a moment, Kiyoomi does the same.

They’ve come to this garage a few times before. It belongs to some rare and antique car collector who Wakatoshi had met through his father, who had met them through his ex-wife’s maternal grandfather, who happens to still be the current functioning head of the Ushijima multinational investment banking empire. Kiyoomi has exactly zero interest in and zero knowledge of anything related to cars, but he’s been friends with Wakatoshi long enough to have absorbed some things. Nothing of substance, really, but he can tell that the car he’s considering now is a nice one and also probably that the seller is asking far above the actual valued price.

Wakatoshi runs his hand over the waxed, shiny exterior of the car. Then he pats the hood.

“I’m not good at quandaries like this,” he says. “I believe it is better to be direct about such matters.”

Kiyoomi holds back a sigh.

“I know.”

“I understand, however, that in certain instances, the most straightforward path is not necessarily the…least complicated one.” Wakatoshi pauses slightly.

“I don’t think there is a least complicated path in this case,” Kiyoomi says glumly. He also pats the hood of the car, just to feel like he’s contributing. “It’s all kinds of fucked up.”

“Ah,” Wakatoshi says. He stands still, hand on the hood, his expression drawn and thoughtful. Then, all of a sudden, it lightens and he looks pleased. “In that case, I do know someone better suited to help.”

Oh. It’s not Kiyoomi’s ideal scenario, but it’s not the worst one either. At the very least, it wouldn’t be the same two people who have been hearing him bitch about all of this for the past ten months. Fresh perspective and all that.

He chews on his bottom lip. There is something to be said about making deals with devils. Although, who is Kiyoomi to really judge these kinds of things at this point, having already slept with one of them?

“He’s back in Japan?”

“He returned last week,” Wakatoshi says and his perpetually stern expression clears. He always looks as though an entire weight has sloughed off his shoulders whenever he even mentions Tendou Satori.

Kiyoomi’s chest aches vaguely at that. He’s always just a little jealous of his closest friend. It must be nice, he thinks.

“How was his trip?”

“It went very well,” Wakatoshi says, pleased to be asked. “He is expanding to Marseille and needed to oversee the construction and stocking of the new store. They anticipate opening next month.”

“Didn’t he just open up one here?”

“Yes,” Wakatoshi says. “He is very in demand and successful.”

Kiyoomi almost smiles at that, not that Wakatoshi can see under his mask. It’s endearing whenever Wakatoshi tries to brag about Tendou. It’s so unlike him and he’s so unused to open emotion like that that he always comes off as a bit stiff, but Kiyoomi can tell he means it. It’s in the softness in his olive green eyes.

“He must be busy, then.”

“Quite,” Wakatoshi says. “But he is testing new flavors tonight, I believe.”

“We wouldn’t be interrupting?”

“Not at all. He has always trusted your taste, Kiyoomi.”

And Kiyoomi has always been a bit of a glutton for Tendou’s experimental chocolates.

Still, he’s unsure of how Tendou will react to something like this. Kiyoomi doesn’t even know how to sort through it all.

“He will not judge,” Wakatoshi says gently, as though reading his best friend’s mind. “And he will say exactly what needs to be said.”

Maybe that’s what Kiyoomi’s afraid of. But the alternative is to continue lying awake with his thoughts, guilt chewing through his gut. At this point, he’ll take any help that he can get.

“All right,” he says. “If that’s all right with him.”

Wakatoshi offers Kiyoomi a genuine smile.

“Of course,” he says. “Satori says I am as trustworthy as an infant on the topic of his chocolates, so I am certain he will be grateful for another opinion.”

Tendou Satori has a test kitchen that Wakatoshi had personally built for him in an expanded wing of their spacious and extremely nice home nestled into the corner of Hiroo. It feels a bit like the lair of a mad scientist, to the extent that Kiyoomi imagines one might look like, based almost solely on anime and science fiction movies he’s watched. He supposes Tendou Satori is a bit of a mad scientist in his own right, and it’s likely to the benefit of them all that he uses his powers for chocolate rather than evil.

“You!” Tendou says, pointing a chocolate-covered wooden spoon at Kiyoomi threateningly.

“Satori,” Wakatoshi says as he bends over to kiss his husband on a pale cheek. “It isn’t nice to point things threateningly at our guests.”

“What if he’s earned it?” Tendou asks. “What if he isn’t a guest?”

“What would I be if I wasn’t a guest?” Kiyoomi ventures to ask and Tendou narrows his eyes in a way that isn’t not threatening.

“Just some guy who doesn’t reply to his voicemails.”

Buried somewhere at the back of his mind, behind business agreements and bad personal decisions, Kiyoomi vaguely remembers thinking to himself, I should call Tendou back.

“Oh.”

“See, Wakatoshi?” Tendou says and turns his wide, unsettling eyes and a face Kiyoomi wouldn’t trust without a significant number of references, toward Wakatoshi, who is retrieving drinks from the refrigerator. “I would never threaten someone with a wooden spoon without reason.”

“Hmm,” Wakatoshi says, as though considering this. “I still believe it is bad practice, but it is better if you have a reason.”

“Thank you,” Tendou says, delighted. “May I have a kiss?”

Wakatoshi also considers this. “Yes, but not out of reward for your behavior.”

“Yeah, well.” Tendou shrugs. “I’ll take what I can get.”

There’s no good way to avoid watching something like that when you are in close vicinity of it happening. The most Kiyoomi can do is develop a careful and sudden interest in the various mixing bowls of melted chocolates, shaped trays, fruits, nuts, unusual ingredients, and various accoutrements scattered across the long, metal countertop.

He should let Wakatoshi and Tendou have their private moment, but his eyes catch on something and he can’t help himself. “Are those shrimp crackers?”

“Hm?” Tendou says and breaks away from where he was apparently trying to wheedle more out of Wakatoshi than a simple kiss hello. “Oh, yeah. I had an idea.”

Kiyoomi’s expression is carefully hidden under the mask he still hasn’t taken off.

“And was it a good one?”

Tendou cocks his head a little, his surprisingly long hair brushing against the tops of his shoulders. He has all of his bangs pinned back at the middle of his head, which infuses a good bit of whimsy into his usual aura of slightly sinister mischief.

“Hard to say.”

At his shoulder, Wakatoshi suddenly looks a little green.

“Ugh, go over there!” Tendou says and swats at his husband. “You’re going to ruin the process.”

Wakatoshi almost smiles as he does what he’s told. “Satori believes that I counteract his creativity.”

“I don’t think that,” Tendou says as Wakatoshi settles onto the stool next to Kiyoomi. He sets down two glass bottles of Tansan in front of them both. Kiyoomi takes his with a nod of thanks. “I know it. Have you ever tried to run an idea by Wakatoshi? He’ll ask you ten questions and then those ten questions will have ten more questions and by the end you’re so tired you forgot that you just wanted to try chocolate with wasabi!”

“I do not believe chocolate should be mixed with wasabi.”

“Kiyoomi-kun liked that flavor!”

Kiyoomi, who is carefully pulling the elastics of his mask away from his ears and folding the mask in half, freezes at the attention. Both Wakatoshi and Tendou are looking at him, expecting an answer.

“I…did.”

Tendou grins in triumph. “See!”

“Hm,” is all the reply that Wakatoshi offers. He busies himself with opening his sparkling water instead, with the self-assured air of a man who is very comfortable being both right and wrong in his life.

Kiyoomi’s not sure what has been settled, if anything, but both Wakatoshi and Tendou seem pleased, as though they’ve reached some sort of amicable conclusion to their mild disagreement. Tendou picks up one of the bowls of cooling, melted chocolate and a small bottle of something liquid. He opens the bottle and fills the stopper halfway before adding a few drops of the oil into the chocolate. He puts the bottle down and taps his chin with a forefinger while looking around at his options.

“Not yatsufusa,” he mutters out loud. “That didn’t go over well last time. Hm.” He squints at his bowls and boxes and bottles. He seems to contemplate something at length before snapping his fingers. “I know!”

There’s a jar of green powder in his hands before either Kiyoomi or Wakatoshi can blink. When he opens it, there’s a puff of something in the air that smells like grass.

“Crunch or no crunch?” he asks, peering up at the two of them without context.

“No shrimp crackers,” Kiyoomi says.

“Eeh? Wakatoshi?”

Wakatoshi gives him a stern, silent look that brooks no argument.

Tendou’s shoulders slump just a little in disappointment. “All right, all right. Neither of you are any fun. Nuts, then.”

“I enjoy sunflower seeds,” Wakatoshi offers in conciliation.

Tendou looks up at Wakatoshi for a moment and his expression softens so terribly much that Kiyoomi almost throws a tantrum. Or considers it distantly, at any rate.

“I know you do,” Tendou says softly. He mutters to himself about something and starts mixing more things without commentary or input. After a few minutes of this, he snaps his head back up. “So are you gonna tell me why you’re in my kitchen or am I gonna have to drag it out of Wakatoshi later?”

Kiyoomi shoots Wakatoshi a look and Wakatoshi only looks mildly apologetic.

“We do not have secrets between us,” he says.

Tendou waves one of his long, noodle arms.

“He’s bad at secrets,” he says. “Well, with me. But I’m good at them. So what’s eatin’ your mind, drama-kun?”

Kiyoomi has grown up around some of the wealthiest, most intimidating people in Tokyo. In terms of people his parents have invited to their own dinner table, he has met dignitaries no less prestigious than presidents of universities, rising politicians, heads of international conglomerates, entertainment superstars, and literal world leaders. Somehow, despite a deep pedigree in some of the most pretentious and self-important people Japan has ever produced, the thought of admitting anything to Tendou Satori is still daunting.

He thinks it must be the eyes.

Kiyoomi taps his nails against the side of the glass bottle. He’s not sure what someone like Tendou would make of soulmate board room politics and half-promised betrothals and sleeping with the enemy, but maybe that’s all the more reason to tell him. Tendou’s only connection to the world of CEOs and contentious multibillion yen inheritances is the little black outline of a sunflower on his ring finger that matches the delicate sunflower inked onto the lower corner of Wakatoshi’s right palm.

That doesn’t mean he can’t judge.

Although, if Kiyoomi is being honest with himself, it would be the least of what he deserves. He feels guilt churning in his gut again and exhales miserably.

“I think—” he says and stops himself, dithering.

He dithers a little too long, like a fucking coward.

“That’s usually the problem,” Tendou says into the hesitation. “Think less. Have a chocolate—Wakatoshi, get him a chocolate.”

“What will a chocolate do?” Kiyoomi asks.

“Anything you need it to do,” Tendou says. He’s still mixing his concoction, the melted chocolate sliding off of the metal whisk smoothly.

“Which one, Satori?” Wakatoshi has obediently gotten up.

“Uhh, the champagne? No, you’re too dour for that. Strawberry cream…no, definitely not. Oh! Got it—check the trays behind me. The one shaped like little seashells.”

Kiyoomi watches, bemused, as Wakatoshi picks up an entire tray of seashell-shaped chocolate and brings it to him.

“What’s inside of these?” he asks.

“Exactly what you need to be inside of them.”

Kiyoomi feels slightly annoyed. “Can you not give a single straight answer?”

“I can do anything I want,” Tendou says, continuing to stir. “Including giving the answers I think you deserve. Now pick one up and eat it. And then you can tell me what’s made your bees get inside your bonnet.”

“That’s not even close to what the saying is,” Kiyoomi mutters under his breath, but does as he’s told, at least partly because Tendou really does make some of the most delicious chocolates he’s ever tried, but mostly because a part of him is mildly afraid to not do what Tendou instructs.

Kiyoomi is slightly concerned that he’s going to end up with a mouth full of chili crisp, but the smell of chocolate soothes him. Holding something in between his fingers soothes him. He doesn’t realize until he’s placed the seashell on his tongue and let it melt inside his mouth—to the bracing, bitter flavor of espresso—that the entire endeavor has made something unclick at the back of his mind.

“See?” Tendou says with a smile. “Exactly what you need. Now, what’s got your tongue so tied you can’t even admit it out loud?”

Is this the Tendou that only Wakatoshi sees? He’s forceful and a bit presumptuous and just underhanded enough to push through all of your constructed defenses. It’s the opposite of Wakatoshi in every real way and, Kiyoomi suddenly thinks, maybe that’s why they work so well.

Maybe a mirror doesn’t have to be a perfect reflection; sometimes a better mirror can be the one to show you the thing you can’t see alone.

“I think…I’m making a mistake.”

“We all make mistakes all the time,” Tendou says. “Nothing new about that. Nothing terrible either. What kind of mistake?”

“The kind you can’t walk away from,” Kiyoomi says, his stomach hurting.

“You can always walk away from a mistake. Especially one that you haven’t made yet,” Tendou says. He finally stops stirring and sets his mixing bowl on the counter. “Have you made it yet?”

Kiyoomi looks at Tendou dubiously. That makes Tendou pause.

“Okay, new question. How many mistakes have you made and how many are you in the process of making?”

Kiyoomi snorts. He fingers his bottle of water and then, changing his mind, picks up another espresso seashell.

“Good boy.”

He lets the chocolate melt in his mouth again before swallowing his miserable, twisting nerves.

“Too many,” he says. “I slept with one guy and proposed to another.”

“Oof,” Tendou says, squinting at him. “Wouldn’t happen to be the same guy, would it?”

Kiyoomi snorts. Then he says, “Fuck.”

“Well,” Tendou says. “You know, usually I say a mistake is just a matter of perspective, but there’s no two ways around this one.”

Kiyoomi sucks the chocolate off his fingertips.

“The guy I fucked—well, fooled around with,” he says. “Hooked up with. Whatever. Am I in college again? The guy I didn’t propose to—I hate him.”

Tendou’s red eyebrows raise comically high.

“Do you usually make a habit of fucking people you hate?”

Kiyoomi pinches the bridge of his nose.

“Oh, Kiyoomi-kun,” Tendou says and grins a little.

“Satori.”

“What!” Tendou says defensively. “He’s messy! You’re a little messy, ain’t you?”

“I’m eating a third chocolate,” Kiyoomi says, seconds before he does just this.

Kiyoomi feels the press of a firm hand on his thigh. Wakatoshi pats him and, strangely, it makes him feel a little better.

“So you hate the guy,” Tendou says. “But you’re fucking him.”

“Once,” Kiyoomi says. He amends, “Recently. It’s been months. I had put a stop to it.”

“Once is all it takes,” Tendou says wisely.

“I put a stop to it again,” Kiyoomi says. “After this last time. I said—no more.”

“And are you gonna listen to that?” Tendou asks.

“Yes,” Kiyoomi says. Compartmentalizes. Hesitates. “I think so.”

“Well you sound very certain,” Tendou says. He sorts through three different silicon molds on the counter and emerges with one that’s shaped like little hearts. He picks up his mixing bowl again. “Especially when—sorry, did you say you proposed to someone?”

“We’re not in love,” Kiyoomi says in his very poor defense. “Or soulmates.”

“Well I’d hope not,” Tendou says. “That’d be extra shitty, wouldn’t it? And it’s already—y’know. Pretty shitty of you, Kiyoomi-kun.”

“Satori.”

“What!” Tendou says, clutching his mixing bowl. “I think he knows it’s not like great.”

Kiyoomi does know. He doesn’t feel good about it, even if there’s a margin of error here that he could try to get away with. He sees Iizuna’s smile in his head and distinctly feels like throwing up.

Maybe no margin of error, then.

God, he wonders just how much of this he’s fucked up.

“I don’t know what we are,” Kiyoomi says, shaking his head. “Exes who are seeing each other. Two people dating.”

“But you proposed to him?” Tendou says. “You proposed to this guy you have no label for?”

“We never had a conversation,” Kiyoomi says. “I know it’s not an excuse.”

Tendou looks less than impressed. “All right. What is it, then?”

“I don’t know,” Kiyoomi says and he sounds as miserable as he must look. “I don’t fucking know.”

Kiyoomi watches Tendou pour the melted chocolate into the little heart-shaped molds. He’s quiet as he does it, intensely focused. There’s an electric energy to Tendou even when he’s still and Kiyoomi lets it distract him until Tendou finishes.

“So what about the other guy?”

Kiyoomi freezes a little.

“What about him?”

“What are you to each other?”

If that isn’t the multibillion yen fucking question. Kiyoomi can feel Wakatoshi’s close stare boring into the side of his head. Kiyoomi presses his nails against the metal counter to distract himself.

“Rivals,” he says. It sounds childish; a dramatic oversimplification. “Coworkers. He’s trying to take my company from me.”

A pause, like Tendou’s trying to work out what’s not being said between the lines. He probably is; it seems like the kind of thing he’d like to do.

“And?”

Kiyoomi frowns.

“What and?”

“Sounds like there’s an and, Kiyoomi-kun,” Tendou says, shrugging.

“And,” Kiyoomi says.

It’s impossible not to think of it. Years of too-much and too-awful and too-close shifting to months of de-escalation—a pause in hostilities, an unexpected and unspoken olive branch—only to escalate in a new and completely unanticipated way. What are they now?

Miya’s hand on his wrist, the soft puff of his breath against his ear, the press of his mouth against Kiyoomi’s own. Miya’s golden-brown eyes, bright and hungry above him, his fingers curled into Kiyoomi’s hair, his chest rising and falling with pants spilling into Kiyoomi’s mouth. Miya’s sharp, pleased smile. His soft, almost vulnerable one. His shoulder bumping against Kiyoomi’s. Terrible, soft blond hair brushing against Kiyoomi’s throat.

We make a pretty fucking good team, don’t we Omi-kun?

The way he says that name, the grate of his voice, the lilt of his accent.

Miya Atsumu, stepping into Kiyoomi’s office on the most stressful evening of his life—happy, nearly exultant—sayingWe got him. I got him.

Kiyoomi had thought it himself, hadn’t he? Back against the wall, at the eleventh hour, with everything at stake, he had thought I need someone I can trust to do what needs to be done.

And who had he asked for?

“I don’t hate him anymore,” Kiyoomi says, quietly, as though the softer it is, the less of an admission it might be.

It’s futile to try to hide it, though. It’s written all over him, plain to see—his chest tight, his breath caught in his throat, his hands trembling. The slight flush across his cheeks.

Kiyoomi reels from the magnitude of it—of this revelation, of this unimaginable truth. “Not as much as I should.”

“Ah.” Tendou’s voice is soft.

He sets the mixing bowl and the chocolate mold down and for a long minute, there’s nothing to ease the silence; nothing to distract them.

Then, Wakatoshi is the one to ask.

“Do you like him, Kiyoomi?”

Kiyoomi closes his eyes.

That, not even chocolate can help answer.

Chapter Text

Kiyoomi is finishing a run when he feels his phone buzz in his pocket. There’s too much excess energy in his body lately, levels of cortisol so high he’s preemptively considering skipping his upcoming annual physical just to avoid the distinct look of horror on his physician’s face. The Sakusas have had the same three physicians on retainer for the past 20 years and the last thing Kiyoomi needs is for Endo-san to covertly send a report of Kiyoomi’s frankly concerning bloodwork to his mother.

Running is the lesser of two evils in this case and, as a bonus, it takes Kiyoomi out of his head for 45 minutes to an hour every evening. He’s so distracted by how much his calves are burning and how much he is certain that this activity could double as an instrument of torture that he almost misses the phone call altogether.

When he answers it, he glances at the screen briefly and only processes who it is after he’s already pressed talk and his voice is in his ears.

“Kiyoomi,” Iizuna says and pauses. “Is this a bad time?”

Kiyoomi’s heart rate ratchets up in his chest. He stumbles to a stop in the middle of the concrete path.

“Iizuna,” he says, voice sharp with surprise. “No—I was just in the middle of my run.”

“At this time?” Iizuna asks and Kiyoomi’s almost too anxious to appreciate the slightly teasing lilt in the question.

“It’s now or at six in the morning,” Kiyoomi says.

“I know you’re clinically unable to be functional before eight,” Iizuna says with a laugh.

He’s laughing. He’s teasing and laughing Kiyoomi, which must be a good sign.

“It’s not a bad time,” Kiyoomi says, too stressed to engage with the familiar banter further. “I can talk.”

“It’s—would you be able to meet in person?”

Kiyoomi’s stomach has twisted into so many knots, there must be a new name for the shape.

“Now?”

“Yes,” Iizuna says. “I’m not too far from your house. Oh—assuming you’re close by.”

“I am,” Kiyoomi says. “There are plenty of cafes still open. I can send you one.”

“Yes, that’s perfect,” Iizuna says and Kiyoomi can hear his smile.

That’s good. That’s good, right?

“I can meet you in fifteen minutes,” Iizuna says. “If that isn’t too soon.”

“No!” Kiyoomi says quickly. He reels himself in, but barely. “I mean no, that’s fine. I’ll send you the location and I can meet you in fifteen. My apologies for the sweat.”

“I’m an athlete, Kiyoomi,” Iizuna says, laughing lightly again. “I can’t imagine something I’m more comfortable with.”

What happens in Kiyoomi’s mind over the next fifteen minutes is not something he can reasonably piece together later. His anxiety is a constant hum in the back of his neck on a good day, when he isn’t awaiting the answer to something that might determine his entire future. He stands absolutely no chance now, when all he can think about are all of the worst case possibilities—what if Iizuna says no, what if Iizuna confronts him about Miya, what if Iizuna hates him and has to break up with him and then Kiyoomi’s left without a partner or a fiancé or any sort of plan to persuade the Board that he is responsible, that he is the right choice for Itachiyama? How could he have been so stupid as to leave this to chance? He should have been more serious about this. He should have courted Iizuna properly, he should have been more persuasive, he shouldn’t have—

It’s a miracle that he doesn’t start hyperventilating from anxiety on the spot and it’s really only because he doesn’t have the time to do so. Kiyoomi manages to wipe as much sweat off of him as he can using the arm of his Adlers track jacket—a gift from Iizuna—and half-jog, half-walk down the handful of blocks to the cafe he’d selected for them.

The cafe itself is large enough for them to tuck themselves into a back corner without being overheard and, most importantly, Kiyoomi knows the owner and the staff. If everything goes south and it results in Kiyoomi’s abject humiliation, his failure will at least die discreetly in the back room with minimal audience.

He gets there before Iizuna, although not long enough to descend into a full blown panic. It’s really only a few minutes before he sees Iizuna’s light, seafoam green hair bobbing near the front of the place as he looks around for him. Kiyoomi’s stomach clenches as he raises a hand from where he’s seated.

“Ah, there you are!” Iizuna says, quickly making his way through the relatively empty cafe. His loafers thud lightly against the clean linoleum floor. He’s in nice, dark trousers, a shirt, and an unbutton blazer, which makes Kiyoomi think he must have come straight from some kind of V.League event. “This place is nice. Do you come here often?”

“Yes, sometimes,” Kiyoomi says, tense and distracted. “Did you find your way here all right? What are you doing in this part of the city?”

“Yeah, super easy,” Iizuna says. He pulls out the seat across from Kiyoomi and slides into it. “We had a mixer, just some of the Tokyo-based and Tokyo-surrounding teams and funders. Sponsored by the league.”

“Ah,” Kiyoomi says. He straightens in his seat and clasps his hands in front of him on the table. He knows how awkward he looks and he can’t stop. “And was it fun?”

“I mean it was what it was,” Iizuna says with a shrug. He smiles at Kiyoomi and Kiyoomi can’t help but scrutinize it—looking for any small hint of what he might have to say. Are Iizuna’s shoulders tense? Is his smile not reaching his eyes? Kiyoomi’s nervous and impatient and dreading this. He only realizes distantly this is true no matter what answer Iizuna has to give. “Did you order?”

“No,” Kiyoomi says. “I was waiting for you.”

“Oh, thanks,” Iizuna says. “Probably shouldn’t get anything too much, but maybe a tea or—Kiyoomi.”

Kiyoomi freezes. He looks at Iizuna and the expression on Iizuna’s face is so concerned that Kiyoomi nearly dies from humiliation on the spot.

“Yes?”

“You look like you’re crawling out of your skin,” Iizuna says.

Kiyoomi takes a breath.

“Iizuna,” he says, balling his hands into fists to keep himself still. “You have to put me out of my misery. Please.”

It’s no joking matter, but Iizuna doesn’t look like he’s torturing Kiyoomi on purpose. His expression softens.

“Right,” he says. “I’m sorry. I know this is important and I’ve kept you waiting. Thank you for being patient.”

Kiyoomi nods briefly. His head is buzzing a little, unclear and blurry from anxiety. There’s a knot in his stomach and his throat is dry and his heart is racing and—he’s fine. Whatever Iizuna says, he will figure it out and be fine.

“When you asked me—” Iizuna begins. “Well, I guess I wasn’t really asked.”

Kiyoomi winces and opens his mouth, but Iizuna shakes his head.

“It’s okay. When you…implied your intentions, I was admittedly surprised,” Iizuna says. “I didn’t realize how serious you were about us. Maybe that was my mistake. You’ve always been serious about everything.”

Kiyoomi’s stomach churns uncomfortably. He wants to tell Iizuna that he hadn’t misunderstood Kiyoomi, that the two of them had been on the same page until the entire book itself had changed. But that’s not helpful clarification when the end result is the same.

“I told you that marriage—getting married—has never really been on my mind,” Iizuna continues. He drums his fingers on the table and looks thoughtful. “I’ve never really thought of it as something that I wanted. At least not actively, you know? Not to say I was opposed to the idea of it or anything. I think it’s nice for the people that it works for. I just never…imagined that it would work for me.”

Kiyoomi frowns. If he had been rather poorly trying to read Iizuna’s mind before, he’s completely lost now. He must be getting dumped. What other way could this possibly go?

“That’s all to say—that’s why I needed the time,” Iizuna says. He straightens, so Kiyoomi does too.

“And…?” Kiyoomi says. There’s a knot lodged in his throat that’s making it difficult to speak. He clears it to try and maintain decorum in this frankly miserable situation. “Did you come to a decision?”

Iizuna smiles and leans forward, which confuses Kiyoomi more.

“Yeah. I thought about it a lot. Our relationship, our past and present friendship. Our current situations. I’ve really given thought to what you said,” Iizuna says. “Neither of us have soulmates and—” He waves his hand a little, vaguely. “—society judges both of us for it in different ways. It would make things so much easier to have the kind of relationship that would force everyone to see us as…legitimate. It would make being in the V.League easier for me. It would help you with your company. It’s a good idea.”

Kiyoomi looks over his friend—the serious set of his eyes, the light, but firm expression on his face. His body language is relaxed, but sure. He sounds genuine. It seems to be in complete conflict with where he’s leading the conversation.

“But?”

He can hear the but.

“But,” Iizuna agrees. “Is that really good enough? Kiyoomi, I like you. I like you a lot. And I know you like me too.”

“Yes.”

“I think we loved each other once. We probably still love each other, although in a different sort of way, right?” Iizuna looks at Kiyoomi and Kiyoomi—his heart twisting—nods. “We’re good together. We have fun together. We care about each other a lot.”

Softly, “Yes.”

“I do think we could be happy together if we wanted to be.”

“Iizuna, please,” Kiyoomi says, strained. He can’t take much more of this.

“I just needed time to figure out if all of that was enough,” Iizuna says. “To say yes to a marriage proposal.”

Kiyoomi takes a deep, grounding breath. It doesn’t settle his nerves, but it helps him ask the question that needs to be asked.

“And is it?”

Is what they have enough to justify a lifelong commitment to the person you are not soulmates with?

Iizuna looks hesitant for one moment—for one single moment—and then he smiles.

“Yes,” he says. “I’ll marry you.”

Kiyoomi doesn’t think he’s heard right. He had been so ready to hear the rejection, it takes him a full ten seconds to process the opposite.

“What?” he says.

“I said yes,” Iizuna says with a laugh. “I’ll accept the worst proposal in the world.”

Kiyoomi’s eyes knock wide open. His mind goes completely blank. He stares at Iizuna in such shock that Iizuna starts laughing.

“Did you not ask me to marry you?”

“What—yes!”

“Then why the theatrics? Don’t make me take it back!”

“No!” Kiyoomi says in a panic, his hand darting out to take Iizuna’s before he can pull away. “No, I—really?”

“Is it that insane?”

“Well, a little,” Kiyoomi says and then kicks himself. “I mean no! This is great. This is—”

He fumbles through the best way to express what he’s trying to say. He’s stunned—surprised, hopeful, disbelieving, skeptical, thrilled, horrified, so fucking relieved. He’s so many things at once, the words get tied up halfway to his mouth.

“Iizuna,” Kiyoomi manages to say his name. His heart is pounding in his chest. He feels—he doesn’t know. Happy, right? He must feel happy. “Are you certain?”

“Yes, Kiyoomi,” Iizuna says. He threads his fingers through Kiyoomi’s own. “I’m sure.”

“Oh,” Kiyoomi says. And then, “Oh my god.”

Iizuna laughs again and it’s a—good thing. It must be a good thing. His eyes crinkle at the corners in the familiar way they always do and their fingers brush together in the middle of the table. Kiyoomi’s so shaken, he barely realizes he’s lifting Iizuna’s hand to kiss the back of it until he does.

“We’re engaged?” Kiyoomi says.

“We’re engaged,” Iizuna says.

“I don’t have a ring,” Kiyoomi says. “I don’t have anything for you.”

“That’s all right,” Iizuna says amiably. “I did accept rather suddenly. I’ll take a green tea and a chocolate cake in exchange, though.”

“Yes, of course,” Kiyoomi says. He lets go of Iizuna’s hand and stands immediately. “Yes, let me—it’s the least I can do.”

Iizuna laughs again. He’s smiling at Kiyoomi, relieved as well, as though he couldn’t have anticipated what Kiyoomi’s reaction would be either. Kiyoomi leans down to kiss him—it seems like the appropriate thing to do—and Iizuna obliges. It’s chaste, a nervous little peck. Kiyoomi barely processes it.

His mind is racing instead. Iizuna said yes, he thinks wildly.

He’d said yes to Kiyoomi’s proposal—his marriage proposal.

Kiyoomi had asked Iizuna to marry him and Iizuna had accepted.

They were engaged.

He and Iizuna are engaged to be married.

He should feel ecstatic—this was the culmination of everything that Kiyoomi had been hoping for this entire time, a success, a clear, uncomplicated victory.

He had finished what his mother had set into motion; had accomplished the thing she had instructed him to do so many months ago he can barely remember it now. Kiyoomi had been given one year to do what he needed to secure his position with the Board. Alone, he would never be enough in their eyes. But with a partner—a fiancé, a husband?

Well that’s what the Board had been looking for, right? That’s what Miya’s uncle had challenged Kiyoomi to do, so confidently, so arrogantly, thinking someone without a soulmate could never rise to the occasion. But Kiyoomi had. He’d risen to that challenge; and he had won.

He can finally take a real breath. God, he should be giddy.

He is giddy. Isn’t he?

Kiyoomi pauses, staring blankly up at the brightly lit electronic menu behind the counter.

“Congratulations, Sakusa-san,” the owner says in a hushed whisper behind the counter. He’s smiling widely. “Forgive me, but I overheard.”

Kiyoomi smiles—he tries to smile. He should feel relieved. No, he does feel relieved, of course he does. He feels triumphant and thrilled and excited and—

His smile falters.

The owner’s smile does too.

“Is something the matter?”

No, of course not. This is a good thing. This is Kiyoomi succeeding; this is Kiyoomi being the only son, the heir that his family had always expected him to be. His mother and father will be so pleased and isn’t that what Kiyoomi has wanted above all?

He shakes his head at the owner.

“No,” Kiyoomi says. He smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “Everything is fine. Thank you. I’m very happy.”

There’s an unshakeable, uneasy feeling crawling up his spine. His skin feels too tight. His wrist itches.

“Thanks,” Iizuna says as Kiyoomi sets down a slice of chocolate cake in front of him. “Who needs an engagement ring when you can have engagement cake?”

He grins up at Kiyoomi and something just feels wrong.

Everything Kiyoomi has done, he has done for Itachiyama; everything he’s done, he’s done for his family.

So he doesn’t quite understand why something feels so undeniably off.

Kiyoomi doesn’t quite understand why he doesn’t call his mother after to tell her that he is officially engaged to be married.

Maybe he should have, in retrospect. Maybe it would have helped save him when the article runs two days later.

BATTLE FOR BILLIONS: ITACHIYAMA HEIR CHALLENGED

The Itachiyama Group is ubiquitous across Japan. In an industry filled with multinational juggernauts, Itachiyama has been a dominant name in tech and entertainment for the past fifty years. It is a company that has benefitted from nearly a century of stability and shrewd business decisions, strong even during turbulent historical intervals. And it has only grown.

For its entire existence, there has been one single family at the helm of the corporation: the Sakusa family of Tokyo.

The Group’s founder, Sakusa Ichiro, began Itachiyama at the turn of the 20th century, when both entertainment and new technology were beginning to emerge as viable, competitive markets. Although Itachiyama enjoyed growth and general success under Ichiro’s smart vision and strong business acumen, it was not until Sakusa’s son, Sakusa Kiyoshi, took over in the mid-1930s that the company began to lay the blocks needed to become the empire it is today.

Under Kiyoshi’s five decades of leadership, Itachiyama grew from a million yen Japanese company to a multimillion yen, multinational tech and entertainment conglomerate, spreading its long arm into neighboring Asian countries. Kiyoshi’s formidable empire was inherited by current CEO and head of the Sakusa family, Sakusa Atsuko, who has shown exactly why she is her father’s daughter. Under Atsuko’s reign, Itachiyama’s reach has become nearly unparalleled in the industry; in the last calendar year, the company grossed over 400 billion yen. Nor is that where its success will stop—within the next five to ten years, Itachiyama looks set to grow into new tech and entertainment avenues and expand operations outside of the Asian continent.

In the world of business and entertainment, there is no single family with more power or influence than the Sakusas.

So synonymous is Sakusa and Itachiyama that it is nearly unthinkable that Itachiyama could ever be led by someone outside of the Sakusa clan.

That is why it is shocking that next year, after Sakusa Atsuko retires, this could very well be the case.

At the end of this year, the Itachiyama Group Board is set to vote on Atsuko’s successor. And for the first time in the company’s 120+ year history, there is an outside challenger to the throne.

Objectively, it’s not as bad as it could be. Well, objectively, it’s fucked because someone leaked the Board vote and internal politics of the company to a national fucking news outlet, but the article itself doesn’t cast judgment or aspersions. There is a separate gossip mill for such things that exists beyond official news channels and Kiyoomi loses a full evening to torturing himself by reading through them. The actual news itself, though, is as neutral as such a thing can be—it reports the fight for Kiyoomi’s inheritance and little else. It doesn’t even name Kiyoomi.

There’s no way they could have known that just the fact of it is humiliating to the entire Sakusa family.

“Family dinner,” Atsuko says, calling Kiyoomi as soon as the article is published. He doesn’t even get the chance to speak. She doesn’t even bother to say hello. “Tomorrow evening.”

She hangs up the phone before he can get in a word edgewise, although truthfully, he’s not sure what he would have said given the opportunity anyway. His mother doesn’t offer any morsel of comfort; neither does his father, nor his sisters.

The only person who even tries is Motoya, who calls him immediately after his mother hangs up and says only, “Fuck.”

Kiyoomi spends a full minute just breathing erratically over the line until Motoya says, “Tell Vice President Ota that you’re sick. I’ll send a car to pick you up.”

That night, Kiyoomi reads shitty gossip forums and blogs while Motoya gets him well and truly drunk. When he wakes up the next morning, it’s to a resounding headache and seven missed calls from Miya.

He deletes all of his voicemails and texts and gets ready for work. At work, Miya tries to corner him multiple times, to no real success. Kiyoomi can make himself scarce when he doesn’t want to be found. The only time Miya gets close is when he catches Kiyoomi outside of the bathroom.

“Omi,” he says, his fingers closing around Kiyoomi’s arm. Kiyoomi thinks, vaguely, that it’s almost become a habit—Miya catching him, as though Kiyoomi will disappear if he doesn’t. “Please, stop. Look at me. Are you okay?”

Kiyoomi just growls out a strangled sort of, “Who?”

“I don’t know,” Miya says and he sounds a bit distressed. “I don’t know how they found out. It wasn’t me, I swear. It’s so fucked, I’m sorry. Just talk to me, won’t you? You can talk to me.”

And Kiyoomi doesn’t have the bandwidth for that at all. Not when his sisters are having the most borderline patronizing conversation possible in their siblings groupchat. Not when his father keeps emailing him pointed bits of advice and articles and opinions that Kiyoomi’s not sure is meant to be helpful and certainly isn’t.

Not when his mother’s voice is still in his ears, sharp with the kind of urgency that substitutes for disappointment in families like theirs.

In the middle of all of this, Iizuna texts him, Hey, I saw the article. Are you okay? Do you want to talk? and then, half an hour later, Do you want to tell them about us? and that’s nearly enough to tilt Kiyoomi over the edge.

His chest feels too tight and his head is pounding and he’s still reeling from the humiliation of everyone finding out what he and his family have spent nearly a year keeping a secret. Sakusa Kiyoomi, the only Sakusa to be challenged for his inheritance. Sakusa Kiyoomi, the Itachiyama heir who might lose it all.

The article did all but name his humiliating, personal failing. At least half a dozen gossip rags and forums have already guessed what it might be anyway.

So when’s the last time Sakusa had a relationship?

He’s the only Sakusa left unmarried.

There has to be something wrong with him, right? Imagine having all of the money in the world and still being single.

Has anyone seen his soulmark? Does he even have one?

Sakusa might have everything, but even money can’t buy you a soulmate.

It’s all so loud—so nosy and judgmental and insistently buzzing in his ears. He’s so fucking embarrassed.

So no, he can’t meet Miya’s eyes, and no, he cannot talk to him. Not him of all people. Not about this.

“Leave me alone, Miya,” Kiyoomi snaps and wrests his arm out of Miya’s grasp.

Miya doesn’t try again after that and that makes him feel awful too.

Then again, at this fucking point, what doesn’t make Kiyoomi feel like complete, utter shit?

There have only been four documented Sakusa family emergency meetings in Kiyoomi’s memory. Each has been met with the same kind of brittle tension and fraught, dismal silence that is meant, by design, to set everyone’s teeth on edge. It’s like walking on a thin line above a fatal fall—a room of dour-faced, too-serious Sakusas contemplating the ramifications of a death sentence.

Kiyoomi thinks—rigid and tense and miserable—that he’s with poor company. The first Sakusa family emergency meeting had been when he was five years old and one of his uncles had needed an intervention for his well-known drug abuse habit. Another had been just after his thirteenth birthday, when Aiko had refused to come back from her year abroad because she had decided she was in love with a poor foreigner, and the third, a month before his grandfather’s death, when it had become clear that he would likely not make it through the year and the family needed to decide on end-of-life care and details of inheritance.

The last Sakusa family emergency meeting had been when Kiyoomi was in college and the entire Japanese economy had been hit by a nearly crippling, two-year depression that had resulted in a financial crisis for the company.

Now, the fifth and possibly the worst of them all, both personally and substantively. Kiyoomi can think of few things more humiliating than sitting in a dining room with his family staring at him, beady-eyed and disappointed, because he couldn’t do the bare fucking minimum and find a fucking soulmate before their private business was outed to the public.

His mother’s chair scrapes against the wooden floor as she settles into it. Her glasses are perched at the edge of her nose and her hair is pulled back into its usual, no-nonsense bun. Kiyoomi thinks there’s more grey there than there had been a few months ago. There are more lines near the corners of her eyes and her expression—never light, but never severe, either—is more stern these days than it isn’t.

Kiyoomi feels awful having to apologize for something so out of his control, but he would feel awful not taking responsibility too. In a family like theirs, there is no excuse for failing something that is expected of you; there is only begging for forgiveness for your shortcomings and hoping you will one day earn the good graces of the family again.

The silence stretches around him, harsh and accusatory. When Kiyoomi swallows, it feels like sand scraping the sides of his throat.

He opens his mouth to address his mother, but she raises her hand.

“I anticipate you each know why we are here today.”

Kiyoomi’s neck burns as he feels his sisters’ eyes on him.

“Mother—” Kiyoomi starts, but his mother cuts him off.

“I will speak first,” she says and Kiyoomi shuts his mouth.

Atsuko clasps her hands together and rests them on the dining room table. “We have all seen the hit piece that was published against this family recently. It was done without consulting me or any member of Itachiyama except for an un-cited anonymous source. The information is no less private for being true. Our internal politics should never have left the board room.”

Kiyoomi curls his hands into fists.

“I have had the appropriate people reach out to the paper that published the article,” his mother continues. “They refuse to reveal the source, but have confirmed that it was reliable and that they are confident with the information given. There is technically no basis for libel or defamation here as they did not take a position on the vote or name Kiyoomi.”

Kiyoomi’s neck burns with embarrassment, but he keeps his expression blank.

Atsuko pauses as the servants shuffle around the room and pour everyone glasses of water. For Kiyoomi’s mother and father, they bring cups of tea.

“They would not pull the article entirely, but I managed to pressure them to bury the link on their website. That doesn’t kill it, of course. Other sites have already reported the news based on the original article and there are plenty of screenshots that we aren’t able to scrub.” Atsuko picks up her cup of coffee. “For better or worse, everyone now knows there’s a battle for Itachiyama.”

Kiyoomi feels so sick, he thinks he might need to excuse himself. He presses his fists against the table’s edge to hide their shaking.

“Who?” Naomi is the one to ask.

“We don’t know,” their mother says. “The paper did not relent, even under pressure, to reveal their source. We’ve begun asking around Itachiyama. There’s a leak somewhere and we will find it.”

A leak at Itachiyama. It would have to be someone who is familiar with the situation—someone who knows that Kiyoomi doesn’t have a soulmate and that he’s being challenged for the position. Someone who knows that there’s an upcoming Board vote to determine who his mother’s successor will be. Maybe they don’t know all of the details—the article didn’t provide much specific information or even touch on the underlying politics of the vote—but they know enough to have told the papers that it is happening and roughly when.

It could be anyone. Senior management. A director. An assistant managing a Board member’s schedule. Anyone a Board member gossiped with over one drink too many. No one but Kiyoomi has anything to lose in this revelation.

There’s a pregnant silence and then—

“It’s that Miya Atsumu,” Akemi bursts out angrily. “It’s obvious, isn’t it? Who else would it be?”

Kiyoomi nearly starts to hear his name.

“Miya,” Kiyoomi’s father says, with a slight frown. “He’s already in contention for the position. Why would he leak the Board vote?”

“He’s in contention, but he still needs the votes,” Akemi says, looking around the table. “Kiyoomi has been with the company longer. He still has the Sakusa name. It’s not a guarantee that Miya will win the seat, even with a soulmate. And the best way to ensure you get the votes needed is to sabotage your opponent. This is typical dirty politics.”

It’s an audacious thing to claim and so astute, it’s almost certainly true. Akemi’s husband is a politician, after all. She knows everything about dirty tactics and where power will flood to.

“Miya needs the other Board members to think we’re losing public confidence. If those old men can be convinced that the Sakusa name is no longer as powerful as it was, that there’s someone—I don’t know! Better, who the public likes more—well, they’re cowards, aren’t they? All they care about is who they think has the most power. They’ll easily fold and vote for the challenger. Even if it’s all bullshit!”

Kiyoomi feels his breath come up short.

For a moment, what Akemi’s said makes perfect, irrefutable sense. Who else would care enough to leak the vote to the newspaper? Who else has more to gain by this public humiliation? Kiyoomi had somehow forgotten in all of this—as distracted as he’s been by Miya’s camaraderie at work, his partnership, his laugh, his mouth, his undivided attention—that Miya is still his opponent, his number one rival. Miya and his uncle are still trying to take the company from him. They will never have each other’s best interest at heart.

How could Kiyoomi have thought, for even a second, that Miya was something else?

For a moment, he’s nearly bowled over with embarrassment.

“It has to be him!” Akemi insists.

But then…something unlodges from the back of his mind. The flash of a memory. Miya, a hurt expression flashing across his face before being buried: You think it was me?

Kiyoomi had trusted him that day. And—he realizes—he trusts him even now.

Kiyoomi can’t say exactly why or how he knows, but he knows with a certainty he can’t describe: it’s not him.

Miya is a lot of things—mostly all bad—but a cheat is not one of them. He’s too stubborn and too competitive and too proud. It wouldn’t mean anything to him to win this way. And besides—a small voice says in Kiyoomi’s head—he trusts Kiyoomi too. Maybe even likes him. Miya wouldn’t do something so underhanded to Kiyoomi and be so obvious about it.

Kiyoomi almost opens his mouth to say this, but he manages to stop before he can embarrass himself and betray his family in the same breath. He’s rescued by his sister anyway, who turns toward Akemi with a furious look on her face.

“You’re right,” Naomi says. “It makes perfect sense. There’s no one else it could be. When he came to dinner, I could tell there was something off about him. He was too—”

“He was trying too hard,” Akemi agrees immediately. “There was something unlikable about him. I didn’t trust him for a minute.”

Is that true? Kiyoomi had been distracted that evening, but he remembers it differently. He remembers his sisters laughing at Miya’s jokes. He remembers Miya asking them questions about their jobs and their partners and his sisters answering back, pleased at the courtesy.

The revisionism occurs quickly and before his eyes. There’s not much he can do to stop it though; not without an alternate explanation.

“He works with you, doesn’t he, Kiyoomi?” Atsuko says, a slight frown on her face.

“Yes,” Kiyoomi says. “He’s—we’ve partnered together a lot.”

We make a good team, he doesn’t say.

“Did you tell him anything?” his mother asks. Her eyes sharpen. “What does he know about your—”

Kiyoomi grits his teeth. Any word she could use to end that question is borderline insulting and vaguely mortifying. Difficulty. Problem. Situation.

“Wasn’t he at that meeting?” Akemi says, turning to Kiyoomi. “So he must know.”

“We work together on the projects and accounts assigned to us. He is a reliable partner,” he says stiffly, ignoring the accusations. “We are colleagues and we treat one another as such. It’s professional. He has only ever been professional.”

Atsuko’s eyes bore into him and Kiyoomi can feel the confusion, the simmer of suspicion rippling around the room.

“A reliable partner? Professional?” Naomi asks. “I thought you hated him.”

Kiyoomi can’t bring himself to answer one way or another. His silence must say enough, because his sisters look shocked.

“He’s playing you, Kiyoomi,” Akemi hisses, gripping her glass tightly. “He’s a snake.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Naomi says, with the kind of disapproving look that only a much-older sibling can manage. “Miya only wants your position.”

Kiyoomi grits his teeth so hard he’s at risk of cracking the enamel.

“Do not forget who he is to you,” his father advises, as though Kiyoomi could ever do such a thing. “Any reasonableness, any kindness is a ploy. He’s acting, nothing more. That is how this world works, Kiyoomi. That is how these games are played.”

“I know,” Kiyoomi says. He’s furious, but he cannot let himself appear such.

“Don’t let him get too close.” His father’s tone is even, patronizing. Kiyoomi’s head is pounding from the effort to not snap at him. “Don’t show him any sign of weakness.”

Kiyoomi is not so much a hypocrite that he would try to defend himself or his judgment against such scrutiny. He’s done much more than show Miya a sign of weakness. If his family found out just how much more—Kiyoomi’s not sure they would ever trust him again.

He has no leg to stand on, even though he is—he’s positive—correct. It’s not Miya. It’s someone else. But his family has no reason to believe otherwise. And at this moment, they have no reason to take Kiyoomi at his word.

So he just says, “Of course. I am well aware, father.”

The Sakusas give their opinions so freely and with such a sense of certainty that the quiet that follows is not only unnerving, it makes Kiyoomi feel as though he’s done something wrong. He hasn’t. He knows he hasn’t, but that makes the feeling scrape no less uncomfortably over his skin.

“Well, there is no hard evidence of this at any rate,” Atsuko finally says. She takes her cooling tea between her hands and sips at it. “There could very well be any other culprit. We cannot afford to be shortsighted about this.”

“Mama—” Akemi starts, but their mother cuts her off with a sharp look.

“Although this is the most likely explanation,” Atsuko says. “And the most likely explanation is usually the correct one.”

Kiyoomi has nothing to say for himself; no real way he can defend Miya, either. A small part of him wonders if he might be wrong. His mother’s right—it is the most likely explanation. And he has no real evidence to support his gut instinct.

“So what now?” Aiko, who has been quiet during this entire exchange, asks softly.

“There’s nothing to be done about the article,” Atsuko says. “But we must be careful about what we share with whom. Do not speak of the vote with anyone who is not in this room. Do not speak to reporters. Do not speak to politicians, or Board members, or anyone else.”

“What about—” Naomi starts and Atsuko says, “Do not speak about it with your partners either. No one outside of this room, unless I have given you permission. Is that understood?”

All three sisters murmur, “Yes, Mama.”

Atsuko’s eyes find their way to Kiyoomi again. He feels at once angry and resentful and mulish and ashamed. There is no accusation in her gaze, but Kiyoomi was not raised to be Sakusa Atsuko’s heir without being able to read between the lines.

She isn’t blaming him for this mess, but it’s still squarely his fault.

Kiyoomi’s blunt nails dig into his palms and he breathes out through his nose.

“Yes, Mother,” he says. “I understand.”

“In the meantime,” she says and Kiyoomi knows there is only one way left for this conversation to go. “When will you have an answer from Iizuna?”

One by one, all around the table, everyone’s attention shifts to him. Five pairs of eyes bore into him; his family watching him expectantly.

Kiyoomi has been avoiding this moment, he thinks, from the moment Iizuna had said yes. Maybe from the very moment Kiyoomi had given in and asked him. He knows it doesn’t make any sense. There is nothing here to avoid. Just the opposite, in fact.

For nearly a year now—from the moment the Board had given him a deadline, from the moment his mother had tasked him with the same thing—Kiyoomi has been fighting against the clock.

He has been told, you need someone and he has been told, you need to find your soulmate or find someone else, and there is no other choice, and this is what you need to do for your family.

Kiyoomi has been told and told again: time is running out.

Wasn’t that the entire point of this? To find someone to convince the Board before it was too late? And Kiyoomi had done that. He had been told to do something and he had done it.

Atsuko looks at Kiyoomi now and what she says isn’t time is running out. She looks at Kiyoomi and says, “We need an answer. You are out of time.”

Kiyoomi opens his mouth. He has his answer, the one they’re all waiting for. He has the assurance to their future. After everything he’s put his family through today, the least he can do is tell them the good news.

Kiyoomi needs to tell them the good news.

So why the fuck does he hesitate?

“What is it?” his mother asks, her eyes narrowing.

It’s just. Once he says it out loud, he knows how this will go.

Kiyoomi will tell his mother that Iizuna has said yes—that they’ve agreed to be married. His announcement will be greeted with a sharp moment of silence. Then there will be more looks of nearly insulting amounts of relief than genuine congratulations and, Kiyoomi thinks, he doesn’t know how he could stomach either. His mother will rise from the table immediately. The best way to counteract bad press is to release better one. His father will clap him on the shoulder. His sisters will titter about wedding dresses and suits and venues. Life partners and soulmates and welcome, Kiyoomi, it’s about time you grew up, baby brother. His mother will leave him to them—to the rest of his family—forgetting, for a moment, that Kiyoomi isn’t just her successor, but her son too. Maybe she’ll remember to smile, maybe she won’t. She will call her people and her people will write the announcement.

The entire Internet will know before the end of the day that Sakusa Kiyoomi is marrying Iizuna Tsukasa.

The thought makes Kiyoomi’s stomach nearly turn.

It’s stupid. He is being actively, recklessly, almost irresponsibly stupid. He is never any of those things and certainly not all of them together. Not when the stakes are this high.

And the stakes are high, he reminds himself. He doesn’t have time to dither.

But it’s in that moment of hesitation that he thinks of things that it is neither the time nor place to think about.

Like: red hair and red eyes, the clink of a metal whisk against the side of a metal bowl. Chocolate melting in his mouth, the bitter bite of espresso. He’s messy! You’re a little messy, ain’t you? and You proposed to him? This guy you have no label for? A soft sigh and a sharp look. Tendou asking questions Kiyoomi has spent so long avoiding. So what about the other guy? What are you to each other? Little chocolate hearts in little chocolate heart-shaped molds. A knowing pause. Sounds like there’s an and, Kiyoomi-kun.

Like: Iizuna’s warm smile, his fingers threaded through Kiyoomi’s own. It—getting married—has never really been on my mind. His light laugh, that soft expression between green-gold eyes. I just never…imagined that it would work for me. A single moment of hesitation. Is all of that enough to say yes to a marriage proposal?

Like: a bright, pleased smile, legs knocked open, soft, blond hair between his fingers and honey-gold eyes flickering down to his mouth. A quiet Are you sure? and a breathless Omi-kun and We make a pretty fucking good team, don’t we? pleased and confident. The dark lines of a delicate origami crane. His mouth pressed against Kiyoomi’s own, his hand scraping up the back of Kiyoomi’s neck. Foreheads touching. The brush of lips to two spots above Kiyoomi’s eye. Just talk to me, won’t you? You can talk to me.

Kiyoomi feels—distantly, immediately, acutely—distraught. This was all so much simpler, back when he hated Miya.

God, why had he stopped hating Miya?

Kiyoomi sucks in a breath and closes his mouth. His heart hammers in his chest. His skin feels tight, hot and itchy all over.

He is engaged to be married.

He’ll have to tell the truth soon, but he can’t do it now.

One more day, Kiyoomi thinks. He will give himself just one more day.

“I know,” he says to his mother instead of the truth. “I will get you his answer soon.”

Chapter Text

One more day turns to two turns to three. Time feels strained as it passes, everything about the next few days an apprehensive blur. There’s a strange quality to the hours ebbing around him: Kiyoomi wakes up and goes to work and does his work and comes home. It feels like the hypnotic swing of a metronome or the soporific tick of a grandfather clock, a dazed, surreal liminal space where everything matters so much that none of it really seems to matter at all.

He needs to tell his mother. It is patently absurd that he hasn’t, completely uncharacteristic and borderline unforgivable.

“How did your mother take the news?” Iizuna asks when he calls Kiyoomi the day after the emergency family meeting. There’s the sound of volleyballs smacking against palms in the background. “Your family must be relieved.”

Kiyoomi pinches the bridge of his nose and clicks his mouse without purpose. He has emails to answer, meetings to set up. He hasn’t been able to concentrate in days.

Across the office floor, Miya’s leaning back in his expensive, leather office chair in his own office, also talking on the phone with someone. Kiyoomi watches him gesture vaguely, an easy grin spilling across his face. They haven’t talked in days. Kiyoomi misses him.

Good fucking god, he misses him.

“Yes,” Kiyoomi says, lying through his teeth. “Of course.”

“I’m glad,” Iizuna says and Kiyoomi feels like total shit. “The vote’s soon, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Kiyoomi says. His stomach hurts. “Less than two weeks.”

“Oh,” Iizuna says. “That is soon.”

Kiyoomi deletes an email. It might have been important; it might not have been. He doesn’t care. If he was being graded on his job performance lately, he would give himself failing marks.

“Well, you must be excited!” Iizuna tries.

“What?” Kiyoomi’s lost.

“For the vote,” Iizuna says. In the background, someone’s yelling nice kill! “I assumed you must be eager to get it over with. Now that there’s no reason to worry, right?”

Kiyoomi feels, distantly, like dying.

“Right,” he says.

This is stupid. He knows it’s stupid. It is the most out of control, most out of character he has felt in years. He is known to be straightforward and direct. Half of the reason he has the reputation he has is because he has no patience to avoid what needs to be done.

But every time he tries to tell his mother—every time he hovers outside of his office—there’s something that stops him. A knot in his stomach, a headache that spills out across his temples. His anxiety ratchets up. His skin seems to burn—it always seems to burn these days—but try as he might, look though he will, there’s never any soulmark for him to discover. It’s all just psychosomatic bullshit.

Kiyoomi thinks if he drags this out any longer, he might actually lose his mind.

And then, of course, there’s the article. It could hardly have been kept a secret in a normal workplace, let alone the very one named in the piece.

It seems everyone, by now, has read it. Everyone at Itachiyama knows someone is challenging him for the company.

Wherever Kiyoomi goes, it feels like he’s being watched—eyes boring into the back of his neck, open stares that he can feel on his skin that flit away the moment he turns to try and catch them. He steps into a room and it grows a little too quiet a little too fast, conversations so clearly dying mid-sentence that it’s blatantly obvious he is either not meant to hear them or they are about him, or both. He hates the passive aggressive attention; it makes his skin itch, like there’s something crawling underneath it, and it doesn’t matter how many times he washes his hands or wipes his wrists with sanitizing wipes, he can’t quite make the feeling go away. It sets his teeth on edge and makes him feel more self conscious and more paranoid than he has any reason to be, which also means that his emotional regulation is shot. He’s rarely pleasant and snaps at everyone who makes the mistake of speaking to him.

It’s a poor situation all around and he only stops when it gets bad enough that Miya drags him into his office one morning, shoves him into the wall of cabinets, and says, “Enough.”

Fuck. It is enough. But he can’t get the article out of his head and he needs to tell his family and he has no desire to and every time he gets within a room of his mother, his voice dies in his throat. He can feel her gaze on him, sharp and expecting. Demanding without asking. Have you gotten an answer?

It’s too fucking goddamned much.

Kiyoomi considers taking one of his pillows and smothering himself and refrains from doing so only because it would give so many people so much satisfaction and these days, he’s feeling a little petty. He does the next best thing, which is try to get drunk.

A few days out from the wretched emergency family meeting, he’s a third of the way through an ill-advised, but desperately necessary bottle of sake and leaving Motoya increasingly dire voice notes when there’s a knock at his door.

He considers—briefly and seriously—pretending that he’s dead. Then the knock comes again, along with a softer voice.

“Kiyoomi,” his youngest older sister says. “It’s me. Can I come in?”

Kiyoomi frowns aggressively at the ceiling. He looks at his phone, where Motoya has yet to reply to any one of the seven extremely important voice notes Kiyoomi has left him. He frowns at the ceiling again.

Then, a little buzzed and a lot melancholic, he says, “Sure.”

There’s a pause before his handle twists and Aiko opens the door.

Aiko is, by years, the closest to Kiyoomi in age. That hasn’t necessarily made them close, but it has meant that they’ve generally been closer than Kiyoomi has been to either of his other older sisters. It’s actually a nice middleground. Aiko is old enough to think that Kiyoomi is foolish and makes stupid decisions, but still young enough to remember and understand the kinds of pressure he’s under, which makes her more empathetic than the other two.

Also, as the youngest until Kiyoomi had made a late appearance, Aiko’s received her fair share of disapproving looks and disappointed speeches from Sakusa Atsuko.

“Well this is just sad,” she says.

So much for empathy.

“Go away and leave me to die,” Kiyoomi says.

“Drama has never been your strong suit, Kiyoomi,” Aiko says. “You’re much too rigid for that. Don’t have the range.”

Kiyoomi turns his head on his pillow and looks at his sister balefully.

“Don’t look at me like that,” she says. “Your room reeks of alcohol and your curls have lost all definition.”

Oh god, is that true? Kiyoomi reaches up to touch his hair in alarm and—well, it’s not as bad as she says, but his hair is definitely drier and more brittle than it should be. He can’t afford to be ugly on top of having no soulmate.

Aiko snorts. She closes the door behind her and, considering her options, crosses the room until she’s next to his bed.

“Move.”

Kiyoomi blinks up at her. “What?”

“Has the sake made you hard of hearing? Move so I can sit on your bed.”

“With me?”

“Well if you’d like to remove yourself from it, that’s fine. But barring that, yes, with you, idiot.”

“Oh.”

Kiyoomi can’t remember the last time any of his sisters meaningfully spent any time with him. Then again, he can’t remember the last time he went out of his way to meaningfully spend time with any of his sisters either. It makes him a bit unsure what to do in this situation until Aiko glares at him so forcefully and with a look so reminiscent of their mother that he finally does as she’s demanded.

She takes off her slippers and positions herself on the bed next to him, her back against the headboard. He takes this as cue to shove himself up against it too instead of continuing to melt into his expensive blanket.

“So,” Aiko says.

Kiyoomi stares at her, a little awkwardly.

“So…what?”

“Have you never held a conversation before?” his sister says.

“Not with you,” Kiyoomi replies and gets hit on the shoulder for it. “Ow!”

“Stop being stupid,” Aiko says. “It’s embarrassing me.”

Kiyoomi sighs and rubs his shoulder.

“Sorry. We just—it’s just been.” He pauses, awkward again.

“Yeah, I know,” Aiko says. She tilts her head back against the headboard. Some of her own curls—which had been pinned back—fall loose at her shoulders. “It’s weird. Just…roll with it.”

Just roll with it. Kiyoomi blinks at her, bemused. Naomi and Akemi would never say just roll with it. He doesn’t think he would either.

“How are you?” Aiko says after Kiyoomi’s fallen silent again.

“Well,” Kiyoomi says. He’s in soft, rumpled sleep pants and a soft, rumpled t-shirt, both of which he had changed into the moment he had tumbled into his room. His hair is dry and his skin probably is too. He’s a third of the way through drinking a bottle of sake alone. His best friend—who is also his cousin—won’t reply to him, he’s not sure he wants to be engaged to the guy he’s engaged to, and he’s pretty sure Shigeru is talking to his therapist about him.

All in all, he’s not doing great.

“Yeah,” Aiko says. “No offense, but you kinda look like shit.”

“Have you noticed that usually when someone says no offense, the thing they say is actually quite offensive?”

Aiko smiles. “Yeah. I was trying to be nice, but I can see that won’t work on you. So let me be clear. Kiyoomi, you look like shit.”

Kiyoomi glares at her.

“Thanks. Why are you here.”

Aiko snorts. She hesitates for a moment and then touches her shoulder to his.

Kiyoomi doesn’t understand what’s going on. He’s so confused he’s considering chugging the rest of the sake to see if it will help any of this make sense.

“Dinner the other night was…tense,” she says. “I wanted to make sure you were doing all right.”

Kiyoomi looks at her incredulously.

“As all right as you can be, given—” Aiko gestures vaguely. “The whole thing.”

“Right,” Kiyoomi says bitterly. “The whole thing.”

Aiko exhales and it sounds strangely frustrated. Kiyoomi can’t imagine what she would have to be frustrated about. His sister is happily married to her soulmate and holds a high-ranking position in the company that her husband is CEO of. She’s done everything that the family expected her to do. She has a soulmate.

“Do you know what has always made me so mad about you, Kiyoomi?” Aiko says.

Kiyoomi feels a spike of irritation. “I could not begin to guess.”

“You lay down like a dog for this family.”

He freezes. “What?”

“I don’t know if it’s because you’re the youngest and Mama spoiled you. Or maybe it’s because you’ve always known that you’re the one who will inherit Itachiyama. Or maybe it’s a boy thing and I’ll just never understand myself.” Aiko tucks back a stray curl. “But by god, you will just never stand up for yourself, will you?”

“What are you talking about?” Kiyoomi says, a little angry. “I stand up for myself all the time.”

“No you don’t,” Aiko says. “Not with this family. Not with Mama.”

Kiyoomi grits his teeth. His head swims a little as he feels a pulse of pure irritation crash down his spine.

“Don’t get me wrong,” Aiko says. “You’re not a pushover or anything. You’re the opposite of that in every way. That’s what frustrates me so much. That’s why I don’t get it. Why do you let them tell you what you can and can’t do? Why are you even entertaining this whole stupid thing?”

“I have to,” Kiyoomi says. His voice is tight with anger now. “You know that I have to. I’m the last Sakusa left to take the title and the Board says—”

“Fuck the Board!” Aiko bursts out. “This is what I’m saying! What are you doing? Why are you letting them control your life?”

Kiyoomi sees red. It’s easy enough for her to say—Aiko, sitting there next to him, with her life perfectly slotted into place, like a puzzle that had come solved in the box. Aiko had met her soulmate in high school. She had pulled some stupid stunt when she was in college, studying abroad for a year, questioning whether her soulmate was actually meant for her—testing the bond before making a decision. But she’d had that decision to make. It had never been held over her future and her head like the sword of Damocles.

“I can’t. Do you understand that this isn’t just a joke?” Kiyoomi says. “Do you understand I do not have the luxury of saying fuck off to people who hold my future in their hands?”

“It’s not their company, Kiyoomi!” Aiko says. Her voice is sharp now too, raised. They’re both angry. “It’s ours.”

“And that is why I need their votes,” Kiyoomi spits out. “I need their votes so that they can decide I’m allowed to lead my own company. I need their votes so that they don’t take it from our family. I need their votes because I care about Itachiyama more than anything—I care about it more than anyone else does, I have always cared about it more than anyone else, I have never not cared.”

“And what does that have to do with this soulmate bullshit?”

Kiyoomi stares at his sister like she’s lost her mind. Is she willfully playing stupid or is she just trying to get a rise out of him? How can she not know how the “soulmate bullshit” plays into all of this?

“I mean—” Aiko starts and takes a breath. She tries to calm herself at the same time Kiyoomi tries to remember how to inhale without bursting into flames. “You care more about Itachiyama more than anyone else. You have cared about it longer than anyone else—longer than me or Naomi or Akemi. Certainly longer than Miya. You’re accomplished and you’re fiercely capable. Mama couldn’t run the company without you and even she knows it. You are the right person for this job, Kiyoomi. So why are you letting something so stupid as a soulmate convince them otherwise?”

Kiyoomi’s throat burns. His chest does too, and his eyes. Mostly his head. He’s tired, so tired that he wants to curl up under his blanket and disassociate for a hundred years.

“It’s not my decision,” he says, losing what’s left of his anger. “That’s what those old men care about. And since I don’t have one of those—”

“You’re going to marry someone you don’t love?” Aiko says. “You’re going to let someone else do that to themselves for you? Isn’t that a little selfish?”

“Yes,” Kiyoomi says. His voice is humiliatingly thick. “Yes, of course it is.”

Aiko exhales and that one rush of breath sounds so sad that Kiyoomi nearly does what he hasn’t since he was four years old and asks someone in his family for a shred of comfort. They’re not emotionally open, the Sakusas. Neither are they physically affectionate. But in a pinch, they’ll come through for each other. They are family, after all.

He doesn’t ask, but his sister wraps her arms around him and pulls him close into her.

“Do you know what happened when I ran away?”

Kiyoomi doesn’t think he can speak properly, but he says, “You ran away?”

“Tried to stay in England. Whatever. In college when I tried to stay abroad because I wasn’t sure how I felt about Shoichi and I needed to know—needed to figure it out for myself.”

“Oh.” Kiyoomi rests his chin on his sister’s slight shoulder. “No.”

Aiko laughs and Kiyoomi feels it reverberate through him lightly.

“Mama threatened to disinherit me.”

Kiyoomi pulls away in shock, his eyes wide.

“What?”

“Oh, it wasn’t serious. At least I think it wasn’t. But she threatened anyway. Then she threatened to send father after me. Then security. Then, as a last resort, Naomi.”

“Naomi is scarier than disinheritance?”

“Naomi is scarier than most things.”

That’s not untrue. Kiyoomi almost smiles.

“It was dishonorable, they said to me,” Aiko says. “Disgraceful. I had a soulmate. I had a manifested soulmark and it belonged to someone noble and wealthy and honorable. Someone they would have chosen for me themselves. We’ve known Shoichi’s family since I was a kid. Everyone hoped we would be soulmates. And then we were. So why was I throwing that away? Why was I insulting him and his entire family?” She laughs again. “Why was I choosing to be with someone else—someone of no consequence, a pauper—when I had already found my matching mark?”

Kiyoomi doesn’t know what to say. He’s never heard any of this before.

“Why were you?” he asks, curious. “Isn’t the entire point of a soulmate that they’re your missing half?”

“I’ve heard that too,” Aiko says with a half-smile. “What is it? Picked for you by the universe, your perfect match. They say you’ll never quite feel whole without them.”

Kiyoomi’s never talked about any of this with his sisters before. He’s never thought they might have a different point of view.

“Is it true?”

“I don’t know,” Aiko says. “Maybe. But isn’t it sort of self-fulfilling in that way?”

Kiyoomi frowns. “I don’t follow.”

“If you never expect to feel whole without a soulmate and then you find yours—well, how do you know? How do you know if it’s the soulmark that made you feel that way or if it’s just a consequence of being with the person you love?” Aiko says. She absently smooths the rumpled shoulder of Kiyoomi’s shirt. “I don’t think you have to have a soulmate to be fulfilled, Kiyoomi. I think you just have to find someone who loves you as much as you love them.”

Kiyoomi’s heart thuds dully in his chest.

“I just had to know,” his sister says. “If it was Shoichi or the universe. If what we had was real. Did I love him or just the idea of him? I couldn’t stand the thought that it might be the latter. So I made myself find out.”

“Even at the cost of everyone’s anger?”

“It was my life, not theirs.” Aiko shrugs. “I just don’t think I’m cut out to be with someone just because the universe says that I should be with them.”

Kiyoomi feels an acute, disorienting sense of deja vu at that.

“But they didn’t understand that,” Aiko says. She smiles, a thin, tense thing. “They came just short of calling me a whore.”

Kiyoomi inhales sharply, aghast. “Mother?”

“Of course. And father. Everyone, really. Oh god, grandfather was still alive then,” his sister says and shudders. “You can’t imagine what he said.”

Kiyoomi only needs to contemplate this for a second to look horrified.

“It would have been so easy to let them crush me, Kiyoomi,” Aiko says. She smiles and brushes back one of Kiyoomi’s stray, frizzy curls. She looks so much like their mother as she does this that Kiyoomi’s heart aches. “I don’t think grandfather ever forgave me. Mama, either.”

“Aiko,” Kiyoomi says with a frown. “I’m sure she’s not—”

“No, she is,” his sister says. “Sakusa Atsuko has never met a grudge she couldn’t hold. She’s more like grandfather than she thinks.”

Kiyoomi shakes his head. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine. I’m not sharing this so that you can feel sorry for me. I made my decisions because they were mine to make. Not Mama’s. Not grandfather’s. Mine. And do you know, I’ve never regretted it.”

“But you still married him,” Kiyoomi says softly. “You still ended up with Shoichi-kun.”

“Yes,” Aiko says with a half-smile. “But it was my choice.”

She makes it sound so simple. To want something and to let yourself have it.

It’s not that Kiyoomi can’t imagine such a thing. He’s stubborn and strong-headed and opinionated and particular. He likes getting his way and he hates losing. But when it comes to his family—when it comes to the Sakusa legacy. He’s not sure how to fight against something like that. And he’s not sure he wants to.

It—their family, their legacy, Itachiyama—means as much to him as it does to their mother. It’s this, if nothing else, that has always made it so clear that all of this was meant for him.

He wants it so badly it makes his teeth ache. He wants it—their family legacy, Itachiyama—more than anything.

Sometimes the things you want come with sacrifices that must be made.

“Aiko,” Kiyoomi says. His voice is unsteady and his heart rate ratchets up, but he steels himself against whatever it is that’s kept him from saying this out loud.

“What?”

“I need to tell you something.”

Aiko can sense it in his voice, he thinks. Her expression shifts to neutral; she lets him go and straightens. His sister is a lot more astute than he gives her credit for.

“All right.”

“I—” Kiyoomi says and his throat dries. His head starts to pound and he ignores it, shaking it a little. He braces his fists against his knees.

“Kiyoomi,” Aiko says and presses her hand over his. “Tell me.”

He imagines the words in his head. Then he finally manages to say them.

“He said yes. I’m engaged.”

The silence that follows is only a few beats, but it’s enough to make Kiyoomi’s stomach clench.

“Oh,” Aiko says. She doesn’t look surprised. She doesn’t look particularly excited either. She looks as though Kiyoomi’s told her that it’s going to rain all weekend. “That’s great news.”

“You sound disappointed,” Kiyoomi says.

“No, of course not,” Aiko says. “Why would I be disappointed? This is what Mama wanted isn’t it?” A pause. “Isn’t this exactly what the family asked you to do?”

It sounds like a condemnation when his sister says it.

“It’s what I needed to do,” Kiyoomi says defensively.

“Of course,” Aiko says, unimpressed. “That’s very romantic of you. Iizuna-kun is such a lucky guy.”

“Aiko!”

“Kiyoomi.”

The two of them glare at each other.

“Can’t you just be happy for me?” Kiyoomi says, irritated. He’s increasingly tempted to fold his arms across his chest, but even in his compromised state he knows better than to give his older sister that kind of material. “This is what we needed to get the Board’s vote. And Iizuna’s a great guy. I could do much worse.”

“God, from her mouth to yours,” Aiko says. She shoves his shoulder. “Do you even hear yourself?”

“Hey—!”

“You’re like her little clone,” Aiko says. She lets her head fall back. “It’s exhausting.”

Kiyoomi glares at her and she glares back and they both slump back against the headboard together.

“Do you love him?” Aiko asks after a minute. “Iizuna.”

Kiyoomi sighs. “Does it matter?”

“Yes,” Aiko says. “It matters to me.”

Kiyoomi lifts a shoulder in a shrug.

“It’s okay,” he says. “It’s not the end of the world to be with someone you’re not in love with.”

“And how would you know that?” Aiko says dryly. “With all of the marriage experience you’ve personally had?”

Kiyoomi rolls his eyes. There’s something about his older sisters that always makes him fully feel the role of younger, petulant brother. It’s so contrary to how he carries himself in nearly every other facet of his life that sometimes it fucks with his head.

Maybe this is how Miya is with his twin. Maybe this is what he’s been trying to explain to Kiyoomi all along.

He nearly smiles at the thought.

“Personally, I think you’re being stupid. Noble and self-sacrificial doesn’t suit you,” Aiko says. “But if this is what you want—if this is what will make you happy, then I’ll support you. I won’t say another word.”

She leans into his shoulder.

“But is it what you want?” she asks.

Kiyoomi just doesn’t know. And for once, he doesn’t feel like lying to his sister, so he says nothing at all.

They sit side-by-side in silence, unwilling to move and having nothing else left to say. Kiyoomi thinks this is the kind of family they’ve always been—stubborn, self-contained, so reserved they’re nearly aloof. But that has never meant that they aren’t loyal to one another. Their restraint has never meant that they don’t care.

“Can I say something?” Aiko says into the quiet.

“I have never once been able to stop you,” Kiyoomi replies to which Aiko laughs and knocks his shoulder with her own.

“Little brat.”

Kiyoomi does smile then.

“Mama loves you,” Aiko says after a moment. “You’re her baby, Kiyoomi. The golden boy. The one who’s most like her. You will always have a connection with her that the rest of us don’t have.”

Kiyoomi shakes his head and is about to say something—he’s not sure what—to deflect from what she’s said, but Aiko isn’t interested in that.

“Make her see it your way,” she says forcefully. “Demand it of her, the way she demands everything of you. You’re a Sakusa too. What you want matters.”

Kiyoomi doesn’t know. He doesn’t know if he believes that.

“You’ve earned your happiness, baby brother. Whatever that might be. Whoever that might be.”

Aiko presses a hand to Kiyoomi’s cheek and turns his face to make him look at her.

“You’ve earned this company and you’ve earned this family name too. So make that woman fight for you.”

Chapter Text

ACT IX: The Great Escape.

What would it mean to have his mother fight for his right to shape his own future? What would it mean for Kiyoomi to ask her such a thing? The youngest child and only son of a family that values excellence and strength almost to a fault and holds unshattering pride not only as a virtue, a benchmark ideal, but also as the bare minimum—the floor from where they begin. Where does something as unremarkable as happiness play into something like that?

What is Kiyoomi’s happiness in the face of something as immense as family legacy?

Kiyoomi wishes he could see things the way his sister does, but the fact is that they are not the same. The expectations on them are not the same.

Aiko makes him promise that he’ll at least think about it, and to his defense, he does. It’s just unrealistic and impractical to expect anything more. Happiness is a nice concept in theory, but it’s naive to prioritize over everything else. They both know what kind of a family they come from. They both know the cost of something like that.

Kiyoomi isn’t risk averse, but his mother has raised him to be shrewd and calculating. He knows how to measure the cost of something against its reward, and he knows to look down the road instead of at his feet while doing so. You cast a stone into water and it starts a ripple where the rock has sunk beneath the surface. Most people only pay attention to disruption at the point of impact—only those who know better think to look farther out, to see what the disruption has caused elsewhere.

The fact is, the cost is astronomical and the reward is uncertain. Kiyoomi’s moment of relief now will be brief and fleeting. What will that happiness win him if he loses the entire company and his family’s reputation in the process?

But even that’s not entirely fair.

Or, at least, it would be so much easier if it was something so simple as sacrificing only himself for his family.

You’re going to let someone else do that to themselves for you? Isn’t that a little selfish?

It’s not just him in the calculation and that’s something Kiyoomi keeps losing sight of. Falling on the sword for his family is one thing—is he willing to let someone else fall on its point with him? Is he willing to become that kind of selfish monster?

Ultimately, that’s the question he has to answer.

How far will he let this entire thing go?

How much of himself is Sakusa Kiyoomi willing to give up to get what he wants?

Ultimately, he doesn’t feel like he has a choice. His sister would say this is false. Motoya too, probably, if Kiyoomi consulted him. He doesn’t. He loves Aiko and he loves Motoya and he loves Wakatoshi too, but in the end this is a decision that no one can make but Kiyoomi.

He tries to imagine something else—a future without Itachiyama. It’s not the job itself that binds his imagination; it’s not that he is so married (ha) to the office. With his background, his credentials, he could get a high-ranking executive job nearly anywhere. He could join an emerging start up as an investor or executive suite member. He could make a lateral move into a pre-established company—Inarizaki would chomp at the bit to steal Itachiyama’s son. He could take his contacts and family wealth and simply start a whole new company. Hell, he could stay at Itachiyama and be content to rise as high within the ranks as he can go with Miya—or anyone else—as the CEO.

It’s not the lack of possibility; it’s that none of those things—none of those potential options, while worthy of him—is the thing he wants. None of those futures is the future Kiyoomi has been working for since he learned he could dream.

Kiyoomi does not want to be CEO of another company. He does not want to start his own. He wants his company, his family’s company. He wants to be the successor to his mother’s legacy, the wild dream that his great-great grandfather had started so many years ago. Itachiyama has always belonged to a Sakusa—and Kiyoomi will not be the one to see that dream die.

He wears his favorite suit for it. He doesn’t know why; maybe he thinks it will make him feel better. It does, in a way. It makes him feel as though this is a professional decision and professional decisions are, at least, something Kiyoomi is good at making.

Kiyoomi steels himself against the onslaught of dread that he has become increasingly familiar with as of late—the creeping headache, the ratcheting anxiety, the weight sitting thick and heavy against his chest. He grits his teeth and swallows his nerves and knocks on the door to his mother’s office.

All told, it goes extremely well.

“Kiyoomi,” his mother says as she gestures him in. She has her hair down today, her greying curls loose across her shoulders. There’s a pinch of tension between her brows, but he doesn’t think it’s meant for him specifically. His mother has been under a tremendous amount of stress too—after all, she is retiring and leaving the company to her successor by the end of the year. Vote aside, she has to plan for that transition. “How are you doing? I haven’t seen you lately.”

They live in the same residence, but it’s easy enough to avoid someone when you want to in a house as large as theirs.

“My apologies,” Kiyoomi says. He stands straight, nearly rigid in front of her desk. “I’ve been busy.”

His mother looks up at him, her glasses perched at the end of her nose.

“Ota says he’s been giving you more and more responsibility,” she says. “And that you’ve exceeded all of his expectations.”

Kiyoomi feels so adrift in his own body that even this—a freely offered compliment from his mother—fails to make an impact.

“I appreciate that,” he says. “I’ve found the new work to be challenging but fulfilling. I’m glad he’s been pleased with my effort.”

“Mm,” is all his mother says.

The tension between them is…high. Maybe that’s why Kiyoomi feels so awkward and stilted.

“Kiyoomi,” his mother says. “Was there something you wanted?”

A funny way to phrase the question, all things considered, but Kiyoomi doesn’t let his sister or Motoya get in his head. He’s here for one purpose and one purpose alone.

“Yes,” Kiyoomi says and straightens. “I’m pleased to give you good news.”

Atsuko’s expression flickers in surprise so quickly that Kiyoomi would be insulted if the next thing she says didn’t sound so soft and pleased.

“Oh?”

“I spoke with Iizuna,” Kiyoomi says. “He’s accepted my proposal.”

Kiyoomi’s mother says nothing for a full, awful second.

Then Sakusa Atsuko breaks into a smile.

Kiyoomi can’t remember the last time that he was hugged by either of his parents. He thinks it might have been in high school, after he’d received his acceptance to Tokyo University. Even then, it had been rudimentary, almost awkward in its expectation.

He’s stunned to find his mother’s arms around him now.

“Oh, Kiyoomi,” Atsuko breathes out and she sounds almost crushed with relief. “This is great news. I’m so happy to hear it.”

Kiyoomi—almost completely at a loss for how to process such easy, voluntarily offered physical affection from his mother—freezes.

“You’ve done a remarkable job.”

His mother is smiling. She’s smiling and she’s hugging him and even when she pulls away, the expression on her face is unburdened. She looks almost proud.

“I’m proud of you.”

She is proud.

And for a moment, Kiyoomi is stunned.

It’s not that his mother has never been proud of him. He has accomplished things in his life that his parents have been pleased with—winning nationals with his high school volleyball team, graduating at the top of his class, being accepted to the most prestigious university in Japan, being promoted so early within Itachiyama not for his name, but for his excellent work. But every morsel of pride he has earned from them is something he has had to work for relentlessly. His parents set high, nearly impossible standards, and Kiyoomi has sought his entire life to reach them.

There’s something vaguely gutting about this; he’s much too old to feel hurt about it, but it’s almost insulting. That after everything else Kiyoomi has truly accomplished, his mother would so easily offer an I’m proud of you for pursuing a relationship for his own selfish ends and pulling someone who doesn’t deserve it into his family mess.

Kiyoomi has never felt more like he is only worth as much as the soulmate he has to offer—or lack thereof.

He hides his disappointment as best as he can.

“Thank you,” he says. “I hope this will be enough for the Board.”

“It must be,” his mother says and briefly cradles his cheek. When she withdraws, she’s all business again. “We will announce this immediately, of course. That will give us over a week to speak with individual members and secure their votes.”

Of course this is what Kiyoomi had anticipated all along. This is the kind of news that is more harmful to keep a secret than to publicize. It is to their advantage to announce Kiyoomi and Iizuna’s engagement as quickly and as publicly as possible; doing so will signal to Miya’s uncle that Kiyoomi is still a threat to his own challenge, while generating positive publicity for their family. If Akemi’s assessment is correct—and it probably is—and the Board members are hesitating about whether the Sakusas still have public support and power, then announcing an engagement—and to a well-liked, well-respected, very successful professional athlete—is a brilliant public relations move.

No wonder his mother is willing to say that she is proud of him. Kiyoomi has, by all measures, done very well. He has astutely assessed the situation—weighed the benefits and disadvantages—and prioritized his family’s success above his own happiness. He has acted as the consummate Sakusa.

He wishes he was happier about it.

“All right,” Kiyoomi says. “I’ll tell Iizuna to expect the announcement. I assume his publicist and team will want a heads up.”

“That’s fine,” Atsuko says. She’s let Kiyoomi go and already walked back around the table, typing rapidly into her phone. “That works to our advantage, actually. The more eyes we have on the news the better, and I know many members of the Board are avid fans of the sport. I’ll have Keiko reach out to the—” She pauses. “—Adlers?”

“Yes.”

“She’ll take care of it. We can coordinate efforts. I’m assuming Iizuna’s publicist will want to arrange for an interview of some sort—Keiko can consult on which outlet would be most beneficial. Oh, and we’ll need to schedule engagement photographs,” his mother says, looking up at him.

Kiyoomi looks at her blankly.

“We need everyone to know about this, Kiyoomi,” Atsuko says. “We need it to be as legitimate and credible as possible. Can you speak with Iizuna? Have him come for dinner on Thursday—no, Friday and we can plan everything. It will have to be a quick turnaround, but that should be enough time to set up pictures and publish them to an outlet of our choosing.”

His mother is going through a rolodex of details in her mind as he stares at her, his anxiety drumming along his spine. He feels somewhere out of his body as this is all happening, which is just as well because he doesn’t think he’s even in the room to her anymore, as quickly as she’s planning out the next week—two weeks? months? forever?—of Kiyoomi’s life.

“We should have him come to a family function as soon as possible,” his mother says. “And a public event. I’m sure there is something of the Adlers you can attend, but it’s more important that he’s seen in our world. I’ll ask Keiko if there is a gala or public opening that we’ve been invited to—I’ll let you and Iizuna have our tickets. It will be a good way for him to be introduced publicly as your fiancé and—”

His mother continues, but Kiyoomi starts to block out the sound of her voice. What she’s saying is nothing less than what he expected—than what he knew would happen. But it’s one thing to vaguely think about it in the confines of his mind and another to see his mother start to text and email her secretary, their lawyers, their public relations team, the publicist that the Sakusa family keeps on the payroll.

She’s a train that cannot be stopped, a bulldozer with no intention of checking to see what might be in its path.

Kiyoomi feels like he’s choking, lurching unsteadily on his feet; slammed sideways by something that he himself had set into motion.

This was his choice, his doing, but god if it doesn’t feel like he’s in over his head.

The press release goes out in less than 24 hours.

Sakusa Atsuko and Sakusa Minoru of the Itachiyama Group are pleased to announce the engagement of their son, Sakusa Kiyoomi, Vice President of Business Development at Itachiyama, to Iizuna Tsukasa of the Schweiden Adlers Volleyball Team, son of Iizuna Shin’ya and Iizuna Kasumi, of Nishimura & Asahi Law Firm. The wedding is planned to take place in the winter season.

The response is instantaneous and overwhelming. Once Kiyoomi’s phone starts buzzing, it doesn’t stop. Ota-san, Shigeru, Kiyoomi’s brothers-in-law, Motoya, Motoya’s soulmate, his aunts and uncles, Wakatoshi, Tendou—nearly every single person Kiyoomi has ever known texts him or calls him, expressing their surprise and congratulating him for his good fortune.

He thanks them, tells them he knows how lucky he is, says how happy he and Iizuna are to have made this decision together. Yes, Kiyoomi was the one who proposed. Yes, they are looking forward to planning their futures together. He’s not lying, but he’s not telling the entire truth either.

It makes the noise in his head clamor louder, makes his stomach hurt more. It makes everything feel worse so he calls in sick to work, turns off his phone, and sits in bed all day in a weird, hazy daze.

Kiyoomi had called and spoken with Iizuna the night before, before the announcement was released, and it had gone fine. Everything with Iizuna always goes fine.

“Oh, all right,” is what Iizuna had said in response. “I’ll speak with Hasegawa-san, he’ll want to know. Should I post to social media?”

“I suppose so,” Kiyoomi had said.

“Then I will. I’ll post one of the selfies I have of us,” Iizuna had offered. Then: “I guess it’s finally happening.”

“I guess it’s finally happening,” Kiyoomi had replied back and he had apparently sounded so toneless and generally off that Iizuna had said, fully concerned, “Kiyoomi…are you all right?”

He knows he needs to get his shit together, but it’s hard when everything is always buzzing so much and so loudly. His mother is trying to get a hold of him about public events and his father is trying to pull him into covert meetings with Board members. Naomi keeps texting him to give him marriage advice and Akemi is sending him all of the links to every article and post she can find about the engagement because while Kiyoomi and his family are big news, Iizuna is even bigger.

Kiyoomi thinks he should have anticipated this. People care much more about celebrities and athletes than about rich boys from business families. In Kiyoomi’s narrow world, the news is that Iizuna, a volleyballer, is marrying the only son of the esteemed Sakusa family, but for the rest of Japan—the rest of the Internet—it’s the opposite; for them, Kiyoomi is the mystery man marrying Schweiden Adlers’ star libero. As a result, he starts seeing cameramen that he’s never seen before, following him to places he’s never before been followed to. He wakes up one morning to find hundreds of notifications on his relatively sparse social media account, which is how he finds out that he and Iizuna are trending on various social media platforms. He’s stopped on the street by Adlers fans who now recognize his face. He’s called and asked for comment by multiple news outlets with ties to the Japanese Volleyball League.

It’s madness.

“What the fuck,” is all he can say, ready to tear his hair out. “What the fuck.”

He hates every minute of it.

Aiko is the only one who doesn’t bother him and that somehow feels worse than everything else. Kiyoomi feels as though he’s disappointed her somehow, although she must have known what he would choose. She had only offered him a quiet congratulations and a hug in person at the family dinner when his mother had told the rest of them.

Kiyoomi feels like he’s disappointed everyone, in a way. Aiko and Motoya and Wakatoshi and Tendou, who had all been waiting for him to make a different decision. Iizuna, who deserves a more enthusiastic and engaged fiancé. Even his mother and father who—he doesn’t even know how he would be disappointing them at this point, after everything, but he still feels it, a gnarled, knotted feeling in the pit of his stomach.

It’s miserable. All of this—every part of it—is the opposite of what it should be like, to be engaged to someone and planning the rest of his life with him. To be so close to a victory that he himself had orchestrated.

Kiyoomi doesn’t know what to do with himself. He doesn’t know who he has left on his side.

He has, in trying to do this one thing, somehow let everyone he knows and cares about down.

Everyone.

Everyone, he thinks, except for one person.

Kiyoomi opens his eyes. He sets aside the bottle of sake that he’s been nursing in a listless stupor and sits up in bed.

There is, at that moment, a knock at his door.

“Kiyoomi,” comes his mother’s voice.

Kiyoomi stills. His mother rarely comes to his side of the house. He can’t remember the last time she had needed to or bothered. He doesn’t answer.

For once he just doesn’t have the capacity to deal with whatever it is that she has to discuss.

She knocks again and calls out, a little louder, “Kiyoomi, are you in? I’d like to talk about the engagement photos.”

He makes no move, makes no sound. He holds in his breath—his chest seized, his heartbeat thundering in his ears—on the off chance that she might hear and know that he’s there.

After one more attempt, he hears her sigh and say, “He must be out.”

He stays stock still even after the sound of her footsteps have faded down the hallway.

The thing is, Kiyoomi’s no coward and he’s rarely avoidant. He knows that this was his decision; that these are the very consequences of his very deliberate choice to choose Iizuna. It’s not that he refuses to acknowledge this. That doesn’t mean he’s not willing to be duplicitous when he’s reached his limit.

All of this—soulmates and engagements, photographs and publicity and galas and public events, companies and votes and family expectations and legacies and emergency meetings—it’s all too much. Kiyoomi has barely eaten, has hardly slept in weeks; every time he tries, he’s jarred awake, his brain obsessively running through a growing list of all of the ways he has proven to be a monumental disappointment. To everyone he’s ever loved. To himself. There’s a certain amount of noise that Kiyoomi can endure and he’s well past the point of tolerance.

He doesn’t want to think about this—about any of this—anymore. He doesn’t want to be here, where he can think of nothing else. He doesn’t really know where he wants to be instead or where else there is to go, but Kiyoomi knows—without a shadow of a doubt—that he would rather be any other place in the world than here, at home with his family.

He has to be anywhere else.

Blood pounding and hands shaking from an awful cocktail of alcohol, fraying nerves, and all of the horrid, disappointed voices floating in his head, Kiyoomi changes into clean clothes and throws on a jacket. Then he shoves open his window and slips out of it.

Kiyoomi hasn’t snuck out of the house since he was sixteen years old and going through ennui and existential crisis. He hadn’t really needed to sneak out then—his parents were strict about some things, but hands-off about others; they would have skinned him alive for getting poor marks or disgracing the family, but trusted him to come and go as he pleased—and he certainly doesn’t need to sneak out now, only the thought of bumping into his parents in any capacity fills him with a degree of dread that is close to triggering and there’s something satisfying about doing something so out of character for him anyway.

He has half a mind to go out and break some rules, although he can’t really think of which ones. The only marginally rebellious thing he can come up with is fishing out the carton of cigarettes from inside his leather jacket and smoking it where someone who knows his family will see and be tempted to tell. That’s not particularly exciting or satisfying as far as these things go. His head is pounding and his skin is itching and he feels like—Kiyoomi feels like—

He doesn’t know. He wants to break something. He wants to shove a stranger in the middle of a bar and get into an ill-advised and completely uncharacteristic drunken brawl. He wants to find someone at that same bar and follow them to a middling to shitty hotel and have them rail the fuck out of him.

He just wants to do something—anything that takes him out of his head. For one fucking night, he wants to forget that he is a Sakusa first and Kiyoomi second.

Does he do it consciously? He doesn’t think he does. He doesn’t even know why he has the address memorized, only that one evening he had pulled up his employee file and done some rudimentary Internet stalking to find out where his apartment was. It’s been stuck in Kiyoomi’s brain ever since, like sticky candy he can’t quite prise out from the back of his teeth.

It would be humiliating, only he’s been caught at the edge of humiliation for so long now that the thought doesn’t even occur to him. He just wants a bit of comfort. Or maybe just pure distraction.

Maybe it’s not even that. Maybe he just wants to talk to the one person who will look at him and say, hey this fuckin’ sucks. Wanna forget about it? and he can’t think of anyone else who will be that easy with him.

Easy—isn’t that funny? Isn’t it just very fucking ironic that the one time he wants easy, who he’s somehow chosen is him.

Kiyoomi’s not even sure he’s chosen right, but he’s ringing the buzzer to the penthouse apartment before he can think twice. He’s ringing it again before he can chicken out. He’s waiting for the crackling of a scratchy intercom and the quick sound of footsteps before he can save himself and turn away.

By then it’s too late.

The door swings open and inside, in the bright, daylit glow of well-chosen indoor lighting, is the only person Kiyoomi wants to see.

For a moment, there’s pure, stunned silence.

“Omi-kun,” Miya says, his expression slack with surprise. “What’re ya doin’ here?”

Kiyoomi shakes his head, unable to pry his teeth open to say what he wants to say. His head is swimming and his chest is tight and his throat is burning and if he was any other person—if he was any bit warmer or easier or more open—he would just say what he wanted. Take it, too.

Instead, he stands there, long arms to his side, awkward and churning and awful until Miya says again, softer this time, “Omi?”

“It’s too much,” Kiyoomi finally says. “Everything is too much. I can’t stand it anymore. And I didn’t know who else to go to.”

There’s a stunned silence that stretches on so long that Kiyoomi doesn’t realize he’s trembling until he feels hands on his shoulders.

“Hey, alright,” Miya says. “‘Sokay, Omi-kun. I told ya, didn’t I? You can talk to me.”

Miya runs his hands down Kiyoomi’s arms and back up and Kiyoomi tenses for a moment before he softens into the touch. There’s nothing about this that is appropriate. He’s betraying his family and himself just by being here.

Don’t show him any sign of weakness, his father’s voice echoes through his head. It’s not just good advice, it’s the way families like his have become what they are, and stayed that way too. Kiyoomi has never questioned it before—the wisdom of that advice.

He doesn’t really question it now.

But at this moment, with Miya looking at him so intently—his dark brows drawn together and his honey-brown eyes bright with genuine concern—his hands soothingly on Kiyoomi, all Kiyoomi can think is he desperately just wants someone to comfort him.

Miya’s movement falters.

“Omi. C’mon. Talk to me.”

In between one quiet, questioning moment and the next, between one heartbeat and one regret and a voice that sounds like his mother and the quiet that follows when he forces her to the back of his mind—Kiyoomi lets himself take the thing that he doesn’t want to ask for.

He shoves his face into Miya’s chest and says, “I don’t want to talk, Miya.”

If Miya had hesitated for even a moment—if he had allowed Kiyoomi even the possibility of a passing thought of uncertainty—Kiyoomi would have pulled back. He would have stumbled away from Miya and, humiliated to his core, never tried again.

But he doesn’t.

There’s no hesitation.

Miya’s arms come up around Kiyoomi. His hands press into Kiyoomi’s back, dragging him closer, until Kiyoomi’s fully pulled into his chest. Miya rests his own chin firmly against the top of Kiyoomi’s head.

“Alright,” he says and Kiyoomi can feel the uncharacteristic gentleness of his voice against him. “We don’t gotta talk. That’s fine too.”

Kiyoomi’s never been the gentle kind. It’s hard for him to be gentle and it’s hard for him to receive gentleness in return. He allows himself to be held for exactly a minute—his face in the crook of Miya’s neck, his hands clutching Miya’s shirt—then, just before it becomes too much, Miya lets him go.

“Okay. I got an idea,” he says.

Kiyoomi nearly sighs. “I’m not in the mood for one of your ideas, Miya.”

“No, no, it’s a good one,” Miya says. His face lights up and Kiyoomi is absurdly grateful for it—how easy it is for Miya to treat him normally, even in a moment of mortifying vulnerability. “Promise.”

There isn’t a shred of pity on Miya’s face and that, more than anything, makes Kiyoomi willing to do whatever it is he suggests.

He looks at Miya dubiously. “What is it?”

“Ya gotta trust me,” Miya says, an excited expression knocked loose across his face. “Do ya trust me, Omi-kun?”

What a stupid question. What an ill-conceived, misguided, loaded question.

It would make more sense to trust a rattlesnake with its fangs bared, or a starving bear with his back turned.

Why would Miya ask this, knowing there is only one answer that Kiyoomi could possibly give?

“Yes,” he finds himself saying instead.

Miya breaks into a wide smile. Then he slides a hand down Kiyoomi’s arm and into Kiyoomi’s own. Against his better instincts, Kiyoomi allows Miya to curl their fingers together.

“Great,” Miya says. “In that case, we’re gonna need to change.”

“Don’t ask questions,” Miya tells him repeatedly, almost religiously, over the next half an hour. He shoves a t-shirt and a hat at Kiyoomi and brooks no confused looks, let alone any questions on the matter.

He tugs his own shirt up and over his head and Kiyoomi barely gets the chance to appreciate the view before Miya’s shoved a black t-shirt back over it again.

“Why are we matching?” Kiyoomi asks, his sense of dread or at least bemusement growing with every passing moment.

Miya pauses his preening in the mirror and fixing his mussed hair to point a finger at Kiyoomi. “I said, don’t ask questions!”

“I regret every decision I’ve ever made,” Kiyoomi mutters as Miya stomps around gathering keys and his wallet.

“No take-backsies either,” Miya says with a grin. He throws an arm around Kiyoomi’s shoulder, smacks an obnoxious kiss to the side of Kiyoomi’s head.

“This,” Miya says, to Kiyoomi’s increasing alarm and bewilderment, “is gonna be great!”

Then, before Kiyoomi can protest or otherwise plead for his life, Miya manhandles him out the door and to a waiting car.

Kiyoomi doesn’t know what he’s doing here. He doesn’t know where they are, really, or why he’s wearing what he’s wearing or why they match or why he’s allowed Miya to drag him into this situation.

“What is this?” Kiyoomi asks. “Where is this?”

“I told ya—trust me,” Miya says again, grinning that crooked, cocksure smile that Kiyoomi finds infuriating. Usually.

“I am not inclined to do this without more information,” Kiyoomi says.

“Too bad!”

Kiyoomi sighs.

“What are we doing here?” he asks, looking up into the bright, white-lit sign of a restaurant at ten o’clock at night.

“Gotta see a man about some onigiri,” Miya says. He takes Kiyoomi’s hand and pulls him in through the front doors.

The shop is pretty packed for this time of night. There are people crowded around the handful of tables and chairs and a small line of customers at the cash register. It’s a relatively small, clean space, with a long bar near the front, where at one end, one man is taking orders and at the other, customers sit on stools across from a different man packing rice between his hands. The air smells salty and rich, like rice and freshly cooked fish, and the whole place is taken up by the kind of noise that feels warm and gauzy past a certain hour. The laughter of college students spills over against the tired conversations of adults who have just gotten off long shifts at work and the low, satisfied murmurings of older couples who have let themselves leave the house for a night out, a rare, special evening in a place that isn’t home, just to prove that there is still life out there that they can live.

Kiyoomi still doesn’t know why they’re here and Miya offers no real explanation. The longer they’re here, dawdling at the back of a line of people who are actually here for a reason, the more confused Kiyoomi becomes, and the hungrier.

“Miya—” Kiyoomi tries again, a little more pointed this time, but Miya just slides their fingers together again and tugs him along, past all of the people who have been waiting patiently to have their orders taken. “Miya, what are you doing—”

They come to a stop near the front of the line, where Miya ignores the vaguely disgruntled looking middle-aged couple who are in the middle of giving a man wearing a black t-shirt an order. The man pauses, halfway through tapping something on a tablet in front of him. When he looks up at Kiyoomi and Miya, Kiyoomi’s taken aback by an expression that can only be described as simultaneously bored and immediately calculating. The man has sleepy, hooded golden eyes and sharp, pointed features—the small jut of a nose and a jaw that narrows into a point and hair that flares out at the sides to give a distinctly spiky look. He gives the impression of looking like a fox and maybe that’s why Kiyoomi is immediately on edge.

Or maybe it’s the way the man tilts his head just so—as though he’s assessing the situation in front of him—and then opens his mouth to shout in a drawl, “Hey, ‘Samu! Your evil half’s here! And he’s brought some guy!”

Next to Kiyoomi, Miya turns a little red.

“Rin, I swear to God—”

What God has to do with this, Kiyoomi never gets a chance to find out, because two seconds later, the wooden door hiding the kitchen bursts open and what Kiyoomi sees is something he will never recover from.

“First time?” the man at the counter—presumably named Rin—who is now blatantly ignoring the displeased line of waiting customers says to Kiyoomi with a too-familiar grin. “Hard to prepare yourself, even if you know it’s gonna happen. Did you know this was gonna happen?”

Kiyoomi stares, wide-eyed, at the two men standing opposite each other in front of him.

“No.”

“Oh,” the man presumably named Rin says with what can only be described as a pleased cackle. “That’s even better.”

“Excuse me—” the middle-aged man says, trying to catch Rin’s attention again, but the fox-man pays him no mind.

“I’m busy,” Rin says to him and waves a hand dismissively at him.

“You’re late,” the man in front of the wooden doorway—the man standing across from Miya, the grey-haired man with the grey eyes and large arms crossed at his large chest, wearing the same black shirt as the rest of them and a black cap he’s turned backwards, a white apron tied to his waist, and Miya’s fucking face—bitches.

“First of all, asswipe,” Miya says. “I didn’t fuckin’ say I’d come tonight. I said I’d think about it. And I did think about it. And now I’m here. Ungrateful jackass.”

“The speed you think at is embarrassing,” the other man—the grey-haired man with Miya’s fucking face—says. “To me, to you, to Ma, to the entire fuckin’ family tree. You think I wanted you here for the pleasure of your company?”

“Well seeing as how you got no friends—” Miya says with a snotty little sneer and the other man sneers back and says something like, “And that’s still better’n your company, so what’s the say about you, eh?” but by that point, Kiyoomi’s filtered out the insults and done the basic arithmetic.

Grey hair and grey eyes and a face that looks like someone carbon copied Miya’s and put it on another human for the express purpose of ruining Kiyoomi’s entire fucking life—there’s only one person who could inspire the level of sheer pettiness that Miya is currently exhibiting while still holding onto Kiyoomi’s hand like if he lets go of it, Kiyoomi will float off like a balloon.

“Uncanny, ain’t it?” the fox-man says. “It’s always like this. They’re not even mad at each other, this is just how they communicate.”

“You leave him alone!” Miya suddenly yells and turns sharply to point a finger at Rin’s face. “Don’t you got customers ya need to be servin’?”

“Don’t yell at Rin,” Miya’s twin brother says sharply.

“Yeah, don’t yell at me!” Rin adds.

“I’ll stop yellin’ at him when he stops tryna turn people I like against me!”

“It’s not like it’s very hard,” Rin says from behind the counter. “You do a lot of the work for me.”

“I’m gonna kill y—”

“Atsumu!” the other Miya snaps. “Stop scarin’ all my customers unless ya want to be the one to make up lost profits.”

“Don’t know how much more profit you got left to lose,” Miya says, baring his teeth at his twin. “Since the guy who’s supposedta be takin’ orders hasn’t taken one in five minutes.”

There’s a general murmuring of agreement from the hungry, waiting customers.

“Rin,” Miya’s twin says.

For his part, the fox-man looks entirely unapologetic.

“Not my fault your brother marched in here, is it? That’s way more entertaining and you know I hate bein’ bored.”

Miya’s twin pinches the bridge of his nose. “Can you just—do your job?”

“Technically I’m a volunteer,” Rin says. “And all.”

“Rin!”

“Fine.” Rin grumbles as he turns back to the frankly mutinous-looking line in front of him. “Marry the rich, hot Miya, they said. You’ll never hafta work a day in your life, they said.”

That’s when Kiyoomi notices the matching silver rings.

“We’re both rich, hot Miyas,” Miya mumbles, just before his twin grabs a hold of his ear. “What the fuck—’Samu! Ow! Ow! Ow!”

Miya Osamu drags his twin brother through the gap in the long counter and back through the wooden door by the ear.

Kiyoomi looks at the swinging wooden door uncertainly and then back to Rin.

“Don’t look at me,” the other man says, while tapping the tablet blandly again. “Half of that is yours.”

Kiyoomi’s neck burns as he pushes his way into the kitchen. He doesn’t know Rin well enough—or at all—to correct his misconception. He doesn’t know what Miya has or has not told him—hell, he barely knows how Miya knows him at all. It’s safer to ignore the comment altogether and follow after the idiot who’s brought him into this situation without giving him a single shred of context.

He finds them behind a large, metal kitchen island that has an enormous tub of cooked rice sitting on top of the counter, next to sheets of nori and half a dozen small containers of onigiri fillings.

Whatever violence the grey-haired Miya twin had been committing against his brother had stopped in the half a minute it had taken Kiyoomi to follow them into the kitchen. Instead, they’re now standing close together, whispering furiously.

“Miya,” Kiyoomi says aloud, interrupting them, and he’s beset with two pairs of nearly identical eyes swinging around to stare at him out of two completely identical faces. A shiver runs down his back at the synchronicity.

“Ah,” Miya’s twin recovers first. “Sakusa Kiyoomi, ain’t it?”

“Yes,” Kiyoomi says. He feels strangely wrongfooted and a little nervous, although he has no reason to feel either of these things about a man he has no relation to and no intention to impress. “You’re Miya’s twin.”

“Osamu,” Miya Osamu says. He steps forward, wiping his hands down on his apron, and offers one to Kiyoomi. “Pleasure to finally meetcha.”

Kiyoomi takes Osamu’s hand and shakes it.

“You as well,” he says. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“Yeah, I bet,” Osamu says. “‘Tsumu’s obsessed with me.”

“Hey!”

“Can’t keep my name outta his mouth,” Osamu says. “Sorry about it.”

“Shut the fuck up, ‘Samu!”

Kiyoomi lets go of Osamu’s hand and has a difficult time deciding between offering a smile and acknowledging the joke. Instead, out of nerves, he does neither and simply nods awkwardly instead.

“What is this place?” Kiyoomi asks, to cover for how extremely out of place he feels.

Osamu’s brows knit together under his cap. “He didn’t say?”

“I was gonna before you dragged me in here by my ear, scrub,” Miya says with a scowl. He crosses his arms at his chest and for a moment, he looks so extremely like his brother had earlier—just an exact replica, but for the shitty blond hair—that Kiyoomi feels an uncomfortable sense of deja vu.

“Doubt it,” Osamu says. “You’re not nearly that useful.”

“Can you shut the fuck up.”

“Why?” Osamu says, with a mean little grin. “Am I embarrassin’ you in front of your little b—”

“I’m gonna kill—!” Miya says, but Kiyoomi grabs his arm before he can lunge at his twin and get rice everywhere.

“Is it yours?” Kiyoomi asks. “This…restaurant?”

“Yeah,” Osamu says. His eyes flicker down to where Kiyoomi’s hand is on his brother. Maybe to where his brother has stilled under Kiyoomi’s touch. “Onigiri Miya. Technically a small family business, but it’s mine.”

Kiyoomi hadn’t known that Miya’s twin owned a restaurant. He also can’t figure out how Miya’s twin owns a restaurant.

“But.” Kiyoomi’s brows draw together in confusion.

Osamu chuckles.

“I started it when I was in college,” he says. “Before Inarizaki. I didn’t want to abandon it, so I just kept it.”

“‘Samu’s real good at cookin’,” Miya says finally. He sounds calm enough that Kiyoomi lets go of him, although Miya’s hand slides into his own within a moment of him doing so. Kiyoomi’s neck warms again and something tumbles in his chest. He doesn’t move his hand away, though. “His only redeemin’ quality.”

“Funny,” Osamu says. “The Board didn’t seem to think so.”

Instead of blowing up at that jab, Miya just sticks out his tongue and flips his brother off. For his part, Osamu didn’t seem like he meant it. This must be something they’ve gone back and forth on enough to have crossed whatever river needed to be crossed in order to land on the banks of something familiar enough to now be joked about.

“Fuck off.”

“It was a little stand then,” Osamu says, turning back to Kiyoomi. He looks around his kitchen now and there’s something familiar in how his back grows straight with pride. “Once I had enough money, I made it a little bigger.”

“And they allowed that?”

Osamu smiles vaguely at that. “What were they gonna do? Say no?”

Kiyoomi doesn’t feel like revealing his hand by saying, yes. Instead, he pivots.

“Is it difficult?” he asks out of curiosity. “To do both?”

“Inzarizaki and this little shop?” Osamu asks and Kiyoomi gives a nod. “Yeah. Sometimes. I got a good crew running it, though, so I can leave it alone when I get busy and it’s still standin’ when I finally have the time to come back.”

Kiyoomi can’t even imagine splitting himself in half like that, but Miya’s twin looks so content in his black t-shirt and black hat and small, white apron that Kiyoomi thinks maybe he’s the one with the small imagination.

“Can’t get out here as much as I’d like, but it’s worth it when I can,” Osamu says. “When things get too much there—everything outta my control, well, I get to come here. Change into a t-shirt, put on a cap and an apron. Get rice between my fingers. Can’t be too stressed or too serious when you’re moldin’ onigiri between your palms.”

Kiyoomi goes: “Oh.”

Osamu gives him a wry, half-smile and Miya squeezes his hand.

“Good distraction,” Osamu says. “Wanna give it a try?”

Kiyoomi has never successfully cooked a day in his life. In college, it was either order food or let Motoya cook for the two of them. Growing up, they’d always had a personal chef to make whatever food he liked. Sakusa Kiyoomi has never—not once in his life—gotten rice between his fingers. Not in the way that would be required from him now.

This should dissuade him from doing something so absurd as agreeing.

Instead, he finally lets go of Miya and nods.

“Where do I wash my hands?”

Chapter Text

Osamu sets the two of them up at the metal kitchen island. He takes the time to show Kiyoomi how to go about making the onigiri—how much rice to take and how to form them into balls between his hands and how to make a little divot and put filling in and how to reshape them and put them onto the sheet of seaweed and fold them over until they’re perfect little triangles.

“Not too bad, is it?” Osamu says. “You’ll get the hang of it pretty quick.”

Osamu’s faith proves a bit misplaced.

Kiyoomi tries to follow his instructions, step-by-step, and immediately finds how terrible one person can be at such a simple thing.

“What. The fuck.” He glowers at the small mound of rice, which refuses to do anything he tries to get it to do. “Is this fun? This cannot be fun.”

He pokes the small mound of rice in an attempt to cajole it into taking shape. It does not.

“This is impossible!”

Kiyoomi can spike a volleyball hard enough to bend someone’s wrist backward and organize a spreadsheet in his sleep, but he can’t seem to get the shape of a simple onigiri right. The rice falls apart in his hands. When it finally does stick together in some semblance of shape, that shape seems to be “lump.” Next, he adds too much filling and after that, too little filling. The nori tears in half. He has no idea how to fold the lumpy little ball of rice with the seaweed to make any shape at all, let alone triangles, even though he watched Osamu do it twice and made mental notes in his head. He asks questions because he’s an active learner and an even more active listener. Unfortunately, there’s rice everywhere on the counter and where there’s a lack of rice, there’s sesame seeds and spilled filling and crumpled pieces of torn nori.

“Oh my god, Omi-kun,” Miya says gleefully. “You suck so bad!”

Next to him, Miya laughs brightly as he quickly packs the rice and shapes it between his hands and makes his own rice ball. It comes out compact, balanced, tight and perfectly triangular. Miya’s triumphant—eager, even—and it’s clear to Kiyoomi how often he must come here and do this thing with his brother, or for him. It’s completely unfair.

“See, Omi-kun! It’s perfect, ain’t it? Say it’s perfect!”

“Good grief, ‘Tsumu. Omi-kun this, Omi-kun that. You’re embarrassin’ yourself and me and the ancestors. Keep your eyes on your own riceballs and leave Sakusa-san alone!”

“Fuck off and die, ‘Samu!”

Miya sticks his tongue out at his brother again and his brother rolls his eyes and Kiyoomi’s starting to understand—bit-by-bit—exactly why Miya Atsumu is the way he is.

It’s messy and it’s a little chaotic and Kiyoomi has never been so bad at something in his life.

“Sakusa-san,” Osamu says after Kiyoomi’s third attempt at an onigiri falls apart. “No offense, but have you ever used your hands before?”

Kiyoomi flushes and next to him, Miya cracks up—insultingly loud until his twin literally lifts his foot and kicks his ass and he yelps to a stop.

“I don’t understand,” Kiyoomi says, staring forlornly at a lump of rice that is somehow even uglier than his former lumps of rice. “I don’t think it’s possible. I think you’re both lying to me.”

Miya laughs again, but this time it’s bright and delighted and makes something sweet flip inside Kiyoomi’s chest.

“Omi-kun’s never been bad at anything before,” he says. “Are you having an existential crisis, Omi-kun? Better keep your day job.”

“This is impossible,” Kiyoomi says in response, a little dramatic and a bit fervent. “I think I might hate rice.”

Miya grins like he’s having the absolute time of his life. “I think you’re destroyin’ his spirit, ‘Samu.”

“You brought him here,” Osamu says, crossing his arms. He levels Kiyoomi with a scrutinizing look. “What’s wrong with you? Even children can make riceballs.”

“I don’t believe you,” Kiyoomi says, loud and indignant, and Miya’s sent into a fit of laughter again.

Osamu sticks around—making fun of his brother and chatting with Kiyoomi and helping guide his frankly abysmal onigiri-making skills as best as he can—until the wooden door swings back under the sole of someone’s sneakers.

“Oy ‘Samu—someone out here wanting to see you!”

“Fuck’s sake, Rin,” Osamu calls to the fox-faced man, who’s now standing in the doorway. “I told you not to kick the door!”

“Arms are full,” Rin says. His arms are completely empty.

“No they’re not?” Miya says.

Rin shrugs. “Didn’t feel like using them.”

“I don’t know why I come here,” Osamu says, on the verge of sounding cranky. He wipes his hands on a towel and moves toward the wooden door. “Hell on earth to spend any time with you two.”

“Don’t got much choice, do you?” Miya says as he carefully fills the onigiri he’s working on with spicy tuna. “Shoulda thought of that before bonding to the first guy who slept with you.”

“Hey,” Rin protests. “I’m a great lay.”

“Talk to me about my sex life when you finally get one too, scrub,” Osamu says, stopping to flick his brother in the head.

“Ow—!”

“Huh?” Rin says, blinking over at Kiyoomi. “Is that not why he’s here?”

Kiyoomi flushes and opens his mouth, but Osamu beats him to it.

“And you! I asked you one thing—can you please help take over the cash register for one night? Who’s watching the cash register, Rin?”

Fox-face scratches his nose.

“The customers, I guess.”

“Fuck’s sake, I hate all of you!” Osamu says again and throws his big, beefy arms in the air.

“Love you too!” Rin calls and leans forward to give Osamu a kiss on the cheek, which Osamu dodges as he shoves through the doorway. Rin blinks after his soulmate. “Wow, okay. Pissy.”

“Gotta be honest, Rin,” Miya says, shaping another onigiri. “You might be the problem.”

“What?” Rin looks thoughtful. “No, I don’t think so.”

Kiyoomi watches this entire exchange with bemusement. It’s nice to have something to focus on other than his terrible onigiri making abilities. It’s also nice to see Miya like this—out of the office and his expensive tailored suits and the arrogant persona he slides into place that Kiyoomi is starting to realize might be his own sort of mask.

Miya interacts with his brother and his—brother-in-law? brother’s boyfriend?—easily, with no posturing, nothing put on. It’s startling to see him like this, so welcome and in his element, as though he’s let his proverbial hair down. He’s a far cry from the smug, arrogant asshole he sometimes plays in the office—here, with his own people, Miya’s almost silly.

“What?” Miya asks and makes Kiyoomi realize that he’s been staring at him. “I got somethin’ on my face?”

Kiyoomi doesn’t have the chance to come up with some deflecting insult before he feels someone slide into the space next to them.

“Sooooo.”

“Rin,” Miya says warningly.

The man with the fox face tries to look innocent, which he manages as well as a literal fox.

“What? I’m just tryna get to know your guy.”

“He’s not my—” Miya says at the same moment Kiyoomi starts with an, “I’m not his guy.”

The silence that follows is just a little awkward.

“Uh huh,” Rin says with a smirk that’s too suspect by half. “Then what’s he doin’ here?”

“We were hangin’ out and then I remembered ‘Samu was bein’ pissy about no one ever helpin’ out around here. So I thought kill two birds with one riceball.”

Miya shrugs. Rin doesn’t seem to buy it.

“Bullshit,” he says.

“What.”

“I said bullshit,” Rin repeats, leaning against the metal kitchen counter. “You never bring people to Onigiri Miya. You and your brother are tight as hell about this place.”

“No we’re not,” Miya says, although his cheeks tinge a little pink. “You’re here, ain’t you?”

“I’m literally married to the owner,” Rin says. “Try again.”

“I don’t gotta do nothin’,” Miya says. “I already told you anyway—two birds. Listen with your ears sometimes, why don’t you?”

“No use lying to me,” Rin says. “I’ve been your best friend so long the government’s about to start paying me pension for the job.”

Kiyoomi stops where he’s been half-heartedly trying to roll his rice lump into the nori.

“You’re his best friend?”

That, unfortunately, is his mistake. Because where Rin had been content to mostly ignore him before, now he shifts his entire attention from Miya onto Kiyoomi.

“Yeah,” he says. He crooks his head a little and Kiyoomi suddenly wonders if traits can be inherited between childhood friends. “Suna Rintarou. Known Atsumu’s sorry ass since middle school.”

“Hey!”

“Sakusa Kiyoomi,” Kiyoomi says. He pauses awkwardly, his hand halfway into the air, rice clinging to his fingers. “I apologize, I don’t think I can offer you my hand.”

“Eh,” Suna Rintarou says dismissively. Then he eyes Kiyoomi with interest. “So you’re the Sakusa heir, huh?”

“Rin,” Miya says warningly.

“I am,” Kiyoomi answers, straightening.

“What?” Suna responds to Miya’s glare. “I’m supposed to pretend I don’t know who he is? Everyone knows who he is. Half the guys in the rec league are salarymen and work for his company.”

“Can you relax? I didn’t bring him here to get interrogated by your nosy ass,” Miya says.

“I asked a single question,” Suna says. He raises an eyebrow. “Overprotective much?”

Miya opens his mouth to snap back when Kiyoomi interrupts him.

“Miya, it’s all right,” Kiyoomi says. “I know people know my family. It’s unavoidable.”

Miya frowns. “Still.”

“Interesting,” Suna says observationally. “Very very interesting.”

Kiyoomi doesn’t feel interesting, which means there must be something he’s missing. It puts him a bit on edge. Or maybe that’s just Suna’s entire presence.

“What is interesting?”

“What’s your story, anyway?” Suna says, ignoring Kiyoomi’s question. His sharp, golden eyes gleam in the fluorescent kitchen light.

Kiyoomi’s not sure what to say to that.

“Rin, can ya leave him the fuck alone?”

“Nah,” Suna says. “I wanna know more about the guy you can’t stop talkin’ about.”

Miya inhales sharply at the same time Kiyoomi turns to look at him.

“Rin, what the—”

“Suna Rintarou, if you do not get your ass back to the cash register!” They hear bellowing from the front room.

Suna’s mouth quirks up at the corner in a way that is borderline terrifying.

“Gotta go,” he says. “Wife sounds mad.”

He says it as though he’s leaving what he really wants to say unsaid, which is: this isn’t over and I’ll be back with my questions.

Suna salutes Kiyoomi and gets flipped off by Miya and is gone before Kiyoomi’s had a chance to process the threat.

“Geez,” Miya exhales loudly. “Sorry about him. Can’t take him anywhere.”

“You’ve been talking about me?” Kiyoomi says and barely suppresses a smile. “You can’t stop talking about me?”

“Fuck off!” Miya says immediately. “Never trust a guy who got his soulbond before his facial hair!”

That makes Kiyoomi’s good humor fade a little.

“They’ve been together that long?”

“Kinda,” Miya says with a shrug. “There was a whole—thing.”

“Thing,” Kiyoomi says. “What thing?”

Miya actually looks a little annoyed now, although Kiyoomi doesn’t think it’s at him.

“Typical teenage love triangle shit. ‘Samu got his soulmark, Suna thought he was into me, I was into Kita-san. Teenage drama, broken hearts. ‘Samu didn’t talk to me for like six months, though it wasn’t my fault his fuckin’ soulmate was in love with the wrong fuckin’ twin.”

Kiyoomi feels a strange pang at that and looks toward the door.

“He was in love with you?”

“We were teenagers, Omi-kun,” Miya says. “What did any of us know about love?”

That’s not a denial, but Kiyoomi supposes he’s glad to have the truth.

“So what happened?”

Miya snorts and finishes the onigiri he’s working on. “Suna got his head outta his ass eventually. Well, I told him he was goin’ for the wrong twin when the right one was right there.”

“Oh,” Kiyoomi says quietly. “You never…?”

Miya shakes his head.

“He was my best friend, but that was it. Sucked, though. Sucks to be caught in something that isn’t your fault and you’re the only one who’s willing to apologize.”

“You?” Kiyoomi says. “Really?”

Miya gives him a thin smile.

“I know what people think about me. Truth is ‘Samu can hold onto a grudge way longer than I can. I just get mad, lash out, and forget. He’s like an elephant or whatever animal remembers everything. He never forgets shit.”

Kiyoomi can sort of relate to that. He also holds grudges for longer than is healthy. It’s just his good fortune that he doesn’t really let people get close enough to allow them to disappoint him.

“One day—this is in college. Suna shows up at my dorm, right? I open the door and he marches in without warning and throws himself onto my couch. Then he looks at me and this guy has the fuckin’ audacity to go shit, ‘Tsumu. I think I picked the wrong twin.”

Miya shakes his head, but it’s more exasperated than bitter.

“College,” Kiyoomi says with a frown. “Then when did his soulmark—”

“Oh yeah, get this,” Miya says, turning toward Kiyoomi. “Guy’s had his fuckin’ soulmark on his ankle since he was in middle school. A little triangle with rounded edges, looks just like a fuckin’ onigiri. Same one ‘Samu showed us when it appeared on his shoulder our last year of high school.”

Kiyoomi frowns.

“If he saw Osamu-san’s soulmark, then why—”

“He forgot. Can you fuckin’ believe this guy? Didn’t even think of it until he and ‘Samu finally got together and then ‘Samu was like—” Miya straightens and makes a dumb face to use his Osamu voice. “Suna Rintarou what the fuck is on your ankle.”

Kiyoomi doesn’t know what to say, he’s so flabbergasted by this. Maybe it’s the memory or maybe it’s his expression, but Miya dissolves into a fit of laughter once again.

“God, he’s so fuckin’ stupid!” Miya says, wiping his eyes and catching his breath after. “They deserve each other. They’re both the fuckin’ worst.”

He doesn’t sound like he believes they’re the fucking worst. Kiyoomi can see the affection written clearly across Miya’s face; the way his eyes are bright and his expression almost soft even as he says something that means the complete opposite.

“You love them,” Kiyoomi says. “A lot.”

“Yeah, well,” Miya says, with a scowl that isn’t believable to anyone. “No accountin’ for taste, I guess.”

Kiyoomi’s chest feels tight. He feels strangely warm and comforted, like he’s in a comfortable place or among people he knows well—who know him well—even though he has only met most of them just tonight.

“Oh—god, Omi,” Miya says and he sounds a little amused and a lot exasperated. “Okay, can I show you? Can ya let me help without bitin’ my head off?”

Kiyoomi looks down at the mess in front of him and sighs.

“Fine,” he says. “But if you tell anyone, I’ll kill you.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Miya says. “You’ve overplayed your hand. I find your death threats comforting now.”

That is less than ideal, but a problem to be resolved later. For now, Kiyoomi doesn’t want to leave this place without making one perfect onigiri.

“Miya,” he says.

“All right,” Miya says. He sets down the last, perfect one he molds and wipes his hands on a clean towel. Then—approaching Kiyoomi carefully, the way he would a wild animal—Miya comes to stand behind him. “May I?”

Kiyoomi’s heart kickstarts suddenly in his chest. His head a little fuzzy, his skin suddenly hot, he nods.

Miya gently—carefully—puts his arms around him, his chin hooked over Kiyoomi’s shoulder, his hands against the back of Kiyoomi’s own.

“Okay,” he says quietly. “Let me show you.”

It is about the most impractical thing that Kiyoomi has ever participated in. He and Miya are the exact same height and size, which makes Miya’s arms around him less cute and romantic and more of an obstacle to actually accomplishing the task of teaching Kiyoomi how to mold an onigiri.

Miya tries to maintain at least an inch between them as his fingers curl around Kiyoomi’s hands, but that turns out to be too much space and Kiyoomi’s elbows keep colliding with Miya’s arms and then his sides and Kiyoomi keeps turning his head to question Miya, who ends up with a mouthful of Kiyoomi’s curls for his effort.

“This is—so stupid—” Kiyoomi tries to say between small fits of laughter that are utterly uncharacteristic of him, but which he can’t seem to help.

Miya’s tried to eat his hair, has trapped him against the counter, has mocked him mercilessly, and manhandled his hands to make an onigiri between them that’s so stupid-looking he’s certain that if Osamu appears again, he will literally kick both of them from the premises.

“I’m tryin’ ta tell ya—hold still! Sakusa!” Miya’s also laughing, trying to move Kiyoomi’s hands against Kiyoomi’s will. “Will ya listen—look, you’re making it worse!”

“That isn’t possible,” Kiyoomi says, through laughter. “It looks like demented baseball.”

“If you’d stop moving and let me show you—”

“I can’t help it, you’re suffocating me!”

It’s like immovable force meeting immovable force, which in this case just means that every time Miya tries to help Kiyoomi, Kiyoomi bucks back against him, and every time Kiyoomi bucks back against him, Miya tries harder to help and the end result is completely counterproductive. Instead of improving his onigiri-making, Kiyoomi has never been farther from his ultimate goal.

“Kiyoomi—Omi-kun—Omi!” Miya says and Kiyoomi suddenly feels that careful inch of protected space disappear between them.

Miya is plastered against his back now, both of them heaving from laughter, Kiyoomi feeling every movement of Miya—every inhale of breath and exhale of laugh—press against his body.

It’s almost unthinkable that he would be so distracted by the task at hand that he wouldn’t realize how close they are until it’s far too late, but that’s more or less how it happens. One moment he’s trying to make Miya’s job harder and the next he stills, suddenly rammed with the realization that every inch of Miya is pressed against every inch of him.

Miya must realize it at the exact same moment, because the easy, almost silly laughter dies at the back of his throat.

Miya’s arms around Kiyoomi’s waist, his fingers against the back of Kiyoomi’s hands. His chest pressed to Kiyoomi’s back, one leg in the small space left between Kiyoomi’s own. Miya’s soft, quick breath tickling the side of Kiyoomi’s neck.

Kiyoomi’s heart rate rockets, his chest squeezing as tight as his lungs.

Neither of them say anything. Maybe they don’t trust themselves to speak. Maybe there’s just nothing to say. There’s only their breathing, in tandem—breath in, and breath out—Miya’s chest pressing gently into Kiyoomi’s back with every inhale. It makes Kiyoomi feel crazy.

His head spins, his nerves alight, and he wonders why it always feels this way—why Miya, of all people, makes his skin feel so hot and his pulse rocket so fast.

The very air between them feels like it’s aching, electric.

He should say something. He should stop Miya, or pull away from him, or tell him to let go. He should put back that inch of space between them. He shouldn’t crook his head an inch instead, just a little, just enough so that his neck is there, long and exposed under tendrils of loose curls.

Miya inhales sharply behind him.

For a moment, Kiyoomi thinks he’ll take the bait. For a moment, Kiyoomi wants him to.

Miya doesn’t.

It’s as much of a relief as it is a disappointment.

“Just let me do it this time, okay?” Miya says, quieter and softer than before.

Kiyoomi swallows his hammering heart and nods.

They slot against each other better this time, that inch back between them. Miya murmurs instructions in Kiyoomi’s ear and moves Kiyoomi’s hands where he wants them to go.

A scoop of rice. Slowly shaped, rounded edges. Two small pieces of umeboshi in the center. The rice closed over the top, the soft roll of the mound between his palms. Slow and steady, with patience that surprises him. It grows round, a perfect sphere all the way around.

“Okay,” Miya says quietly near his ear and Kiyoomi nearly shivers. “Carefully shape the three sides.”

He’s going to fuck up. Kiyoomi is incapable of this part.

“Let me,” Miya says and Kiyoomi does. Miya’s fingers around his own, guiding Kiyoomi’s to gently—so carefully—mold the sphere of rice into three, perfectly even sides.

“Oh,” Kiyoomi says, something like surprise spilling into his chest.

“And now—” Miya helps Kiyoomi place the triangle into the long sheet of nori. Folding it is more complicated than imagined and Kiyoomi doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to replicate it on his own, but for now he does it. With Miya’s help—he does it.

“Oh,” Kiyoomi breathes out again. He’s smiling. “It’s perfect.”

It isn’t. Objectively it’s still a bit wonky. But it looks like a triangle this time. The onigiri is wrapped properly in the nori.

Kiyoomi feels nearly stupid proud to have done any of it at all.

“It looks great, Omi,” Miya says next to him—beside his head. “You did great.”

Kiyoomi turns his head and Miya is right there, barely two inches away—his eyes watching Kiyoomi, his mouth curved into an uncharacteristically soft smile.

Kiyoomi tries not to let his eyes flicker down. He doesn’t know that he succeeds. Inside him, in an awful, aching part of him, he wants nothing more in this world at the moment than to kiss Miya Atsumu.

Miya watches him closely—too bright and too proud and too hungry—and Kiyoomi thinks that maybe that’s the only thing in the world Miya Atsumu wants too.

“Miya,” Kiyoomi says, voice so quiet it’s nearly inaudible.

He can feel the quickened breath of Miya against his neck; the hard press of him along his back. Miya’s hands resting against his waist.

Miya takes in a deep, shaky breath, and lets Kiyoomi go.

“You got it,” he says and steps away. “You don’t need my help for the next one.”

Kiyoomi can think of at least four things he would rather be doing than making more onigiri. But it’s barely appropriate to think, let alone say to someone who’s just trying to help him feel better.

“Yes,” he manages to finally say, his voice also a bit unsteady. “Thank you. I think I understand now.”

He manages. They’re not the best looking onigiri that have ever been made, but they retain their structural integrity and some of them even look vaguely like a triangle. Importantly, there’s something to it—the feel of rice between his fingers, the rhythm of shaping the onigiri into shape, the repetitiveness of the motions, like hitting the same ball over and over again, the same action with a variety of results.

It’s numbing and soothing and he thinks it makes him understand why someone like Miya Osamu, CEO incumbent of a multibillion yen company, would keep a little onigiri shop that he lets himself into whenever he’s able.

“Hey Omi,” Miya says after a bit of uninterrupted quiet—the only sounds between them of sticky rice between palms and the noises filtering in from the front of the restaurant. Osamu comes in and out a few times to grab containers of ingredients for the front of the store, where he’s rolling onigiri fresh for the customers, and each time he comments lightly, with poorly hidden surprise, on how much better Kiyoomi’s creations are starting to look.

“Hm?”

The tension between them hasn’t completely dissipated. The air still feels a bit like a held breath; there’s a ripple of something every time one of them looks up at the other, a thrilling little frisson whether they catch each other’s eye or just choose to pretend they haven’t noticed they keep watching each other.

It almost makes Kiyoomi feel giddy.

“You hungry?”

Kiyoomi hasn’t had anything to eat since lunch. He’d forgotten about it altogether.

“I wouldn’t mind eating.”

“I’m starvin’,” Miya complains. He finishes molding his last onigiri and puts it on the little tray of all of their creations. “Let’s take a break.”

Kiyoomi finishes the one he’s working on as well—a little rounder than he’d wanted, but less lumpy, more even all the way around—and sets it next to Miya’s.

He turns to Miya with a smile.

“All right.”

It turns out to be less of a break and more of an indefinite hiatus. That’s probably for the best. Once he’s sitting down at an empty booth across from Miya, Kiyoomi realizes how tired he is. Molding onigiri had been a soothing distraction, but Kiyoomi’s not meant for hard labor.

The restaurant has calmed down significantly in the time they’ve been back in the kitchen. The hour’s late enough that Miya’s twin had taken the last of the orders, closed the cash register, and turned the sign from open to closed. There are a few customers still finishing up at their tables, but the place has mostly emptied by now.

“Hold on, Omi-kun—” Miya says as soon as they’ve sat down and he’s back up again.

“Miya—”

“I’ll be right back!”

Kiyoomi watches him go, which is something he shouldn’t do, but can’t seem to stop himself from doing. He feels a little bit of everything right now—soothed and calm and nervous and even a little excited. He’s a little worked up, but in a good way, like he’s waiting for the next thing to happen, instead of dreading it.

The next thing happens to be Suna giving him a peculiar and searching look from the counter, which makes the back of Kiyoomi’s neck heat. After a moment, he calls, “All right, comin’—” and disappears through the wooden swinging doors and back into the kitchen. A minute later, Miya appears with a tray of onigiri and two bottles of Asahi.

“Okay, some of these are ours ‘cause ‘Samu said we can’t waste onigiri just because they look butt ugly—his words, not mine—and some are his ‘cause he’s still gotta do what I want on account of a whole thing that happened last Christmas.”

Kiyoomi helps Miya put the tray down between them and divide up the onigiri and beer.

“What happened last Christmas?”

A shadow passes over Miya’s face. “Can’t say.”

“Can’t or won’t?”

“Both,” Miya says. “I don’t wanna trigger the curse again.”

Kiyoomi stares at Miya in alarm. “A curse?”

Miya shudders. Then he brightens and refuses to elaborate. “Anyway, oh—try this one! This is one of ours. Tuna mayo, I think. You like tuna mayo?”

“Who doesn’t like tuna mayo?”

“I dunno, you’re kinda weird and a lot particular,” Miya says. He puts the onigiri onto Kiyoomi’s plate. “I’ll take this—dunno what it is but it’s lumpy as hell, so it’s gotta be one of yours.”

“Hey!” Kiyoomi protests, although he really has no leg to stand on.

“It’s cute in its own way,” Miya says, holding up the blob of rice and nori. “I’m gonna call it—”

“What?” Kiyoomi says. “Don’t name your onigiri before you eat it—”

“Haru,” Miya says before taking an enormous bite. He chews for a moment, looking as though he’s considering the merits deeply, and swallows. “Salted salmon. Not bad for an ugly little guy, Haru.”

“Are you okay?” Kiyoomi leans forward and whispers confidentially. “Are you unwell?”

Miya looks him straight in the eyes and takes another bite of the riceball.

“Eat your food, Kiyoomi.”

Kiyoomi has a lot to say to that, but he’s hungry enough that his stomach starts to growl, so he makes a mental file of all of the insults and pointed observations he can think of at this moment and tucks it away, to be called upon another time.

He looks at the onigiri in front of him a bit dubiously—it’s one that Miya had made—and tentatively nibbles at the corner.

“Fuck’s sake, that’s just rice!” Miya says, a little outraged. “You can’t even taste anything that way!”

“I’m checking to make sure you’re not trying to kill me,” Kiyoomi says. “That it isn’t poisoned.”

Miya’s mouth drops open.

“When was I gonna slip poison in there! I was literally standin’ next to you the entire fucking time, you jackass!”

“Plenty of time to do what needs to be done,” Kiyoomi says seriously. “If someone is determined enough to do it.”

“You think I’m tryna off you? In my brother’s establishment? With onigiri?”

“Well I didn’t say you were a smart murderer,” Kiyoomi says. “Only a mildly effective one.”

“You’re such an asshole, Omi,” Miya says, picking his jaw back up. “I can’t stand you!”

That makes Kiyoomi laugh.

“Thank you,” he says. “That’s very kind of you to say.”

Miya gives him a comically injured look before shoving half of the remaining onigiri in his mouth. It’s off-putting and disgusting and it makes Kiyoomi’s laugh soften into a smile.

He takes a bite of his tuna onigiri and carefully wipes the corner of his mouth.

“Not bad,” he says. “For attempted murder.”

They talk as they eat and it’s the strangest pocket of time that Kiyoomi has ever experienced. Sitting across from him is Miya, someone he has spent years hating; the moment between them should be awkward at least, or stilted, or tense. It’s none of these things and Kiyoomi’s not sure how to reconcile the difference—the expectation versus the reality. The truth is that Miya prattles on about anything and everything that comes to his mind, with an ease that Kiyoomi would be jealous of if he hadn’t found himself replying with an equal level of easiness. It isn’t hard to engage with Miya—to reply to what he’s saying, or ask questions, or laugh at one of his absurd stories, or tease him when it is obvious that he deserves to be teased. Kiyoomi barely has to think at all about what to say next, which is something that he shares with only a few people in his life.

Kiyoomi is rigid and awkward and stilted normally, which makes him a poor candidate for charm and his complete dearth of charisma means that he has to over-rely on his competence and genteel upbringing above all. There’s something about Miya, though, that catches him off-guard. Maybe it’s the way that Miya doesn’t stop to let Kiyoomi think about what to say next—he will speak over him given the opportunity, or he will look up at him and demand an answer, or he will say something so pointed that the only possible reply is the first thing that comes to Kiyoomi’s head.

It’s easy and it’s fun and it’s even nice, which startles Kiyoomi, because he and Miya have been at each other’s throats for years now. He hadn’t ever expected they could be nice together.

“—I dunno, like I wanted to so bad. I thought I would for a minute there.”

“People like us aren’t meant to play sports,” Kiyoomi says. He picks up a stray piece of rice and places it back on his half-eaten umeboshi onigiri. “We were not raised to be famous or popular, we were raised to be powerful.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Miya says, waving his hand. “But sometimes I think—I dunno. You’re right, prob’ly, but sometimes I think it would’ve been nice if we just got to do what we wanted to.”

“What you wanted to do at seventeen years old could hardly dictate what you do for the rest of your life,” Kiyoomi says. “That’s illogical.”

“What, but somethin’ that was chosen for us when we were born isn’t?” Miya says, raising a thick eyebrow and well, he’s got him there.

“Fair enough.”

“I just really liked it, you know? No, I loved it.”

Kiyoomi remembers that feeling. It had been difficult to let go of it—the rush he had felt when he’d step onto the volleyball court, the thrill of victory when their team won a game. Kiyoomi has always had an obsessive personality in almost every aspect of his life; when he had been a teenager, volleyball had been his biggest obsession. He had spent hours every single day practicing, to be as perfect as he could be.

For all the good it did him now.

“What position were you?” he asks.

“Setter,” Miya says with a wide grin. “Best one there is.”

“Hm.”

“Hm?” Miya says. He squints. “What hm? What do ya mean by hm?”

“Only that—” Kiyoomi says primly, and takes a mouthful of his Asahi. “It makes sense you would be one of those idiots obsessed with being a setter.”

“Your boyfriend’s a setter!” Miya says, spluttering.

“Not my boyfriend,” Kiyoomi says absentmindedly and pauses, startled. Oh god, is this a pattern? Does he have a type? Him, Sakusa Kiyoomi, ace of his high school volleyball team, continually seeking out setters?

“Whatever ya wanna call it then! Iizuna-kun’s a setter too!”

“That isn’t making the case you think it is,” Kiyoomi says. “He’s normal about everything but this. All of you are the same.”

“‘sonly the best and coolest position,” Miya says. “Embarrassin’ that you can’t see that.”

Kiyoomi rolls his eyes. Setters.

“Anyway, what about you?”

Kiyoomi lifts a shoulder in a shrug. “What about me?”

“Let me guess—” Miya says, tilting his head a little. He gives Kiyoomi a once-over, but it has no heat; it’s all assessment and calculation. “Prickly perfectionist with control issues like you—hitter?”

Kiyoomi feels his neck heat.

“I wanted to be the one to determine the scoreline,” he says, sniffing.

“You wanted control of where the ball went,” Miya says, smiling.

“It’s not like I was going to trust anyone else to do it!”

Miya laughs. “Typical hitter.”

“Thank you. Also, I have weirdly flexible wrists.”

“What?” Miya’s eyes widen. He puts his onigiri down. “Show me!”

Kiyoomi’s a little embarrassed, but Miya looks so enthusiastic that he can’t help it. He puts his onigiri down too and takes his right hand in his left and bends it all the way back.

“Holy shit!” Miya shouts. “You’re a freak, Omi-kun!”

Kiyoomi lets his hand go and flushes, but he’s smiling too.

“It came in handy,” he says. “I was top three in the country.”

Miya whistles and picks his onigiri back up. He’s staring at Kiyoomi, but not in any judgmental way. If anything, his eyes are wide and round—he’s in awe.

“Fuck,” he says. “Wish we coulda played against each other. I would’ve killed to try and beat your spike.”

Kiyoomi feels pleasure warm his chest. He tries to hide his smile behind his onigiri, but he doesn’t do a great job of it.

“Thanks,” he says. And then after a moment, “I would have liked to play against you too.”

Miya loves volleyball, Kiyoomi learns. He played in high school on a team that reached nationals multiple times, but never met up with Kiyoomi’s own. He was their setter and captain his third year and wanted so badly to try out for the V.League before his family gave him the ultimatum and he had to pivot his dream. He still watches the sport; goes to as many MSBY Black Jackals games as he can manage.

That’s not all. Kiyoomi learns that Miya hates variety shows and loves romantic dramas. He thinks that reality TV is a waste of time, but can get easily sucked into a documentary on nearly any subject. He doesn’t really understand cars, but got really into collecting Pokémon cards for a while. He runs every morning and goes to the gym after work, loves salted caramel and hates chocolate; his favorite superhero is Batman, his music taste is whatever Osamu and Suna put on a playlist for him, he hates waking up late, and he reads every night before he goes to bed.

“My secret that I will deny to my death bed if ya ever tell anyone,” Miya says, leaning forward conspiratorially, “is that I gotta wear reading glasses at home.”

Kiyoomi’s brain goes a little sideways trying to imagine that.

Mostly, he learns that Miya loves to eat.

“I’d rather die than tell him, but ‘Samu’s onigiri’s like—the best. Like, it’s so fuckin’ good I dunno what he puts in it, I think it’s magic,” Miya says, through a mouthful of rice. It should be repulsive—is, at a minimum, rude—but Kiyoomi feels something like fondness instead of displeasure. “I think he’s a kitsune, prob’ly and he uses kitsune demon magic to make the best onigiri in Japan.”

Kiyoomi watches him across the small booth as Miya eats and happily chatters away—his eyes closed in delight, crinkled at the corners from sheer happiness, little humming noises as he munches on one of the onigiri his brother had relented and given to him. Like this, Miya seems almost peaceful; less like the asshole demonspawn he actually is and more like someone normal—even pleasant.

The thought is so deranged, it’s nearly startling.

“Mmm this one’s so good. ‘sumeboshi, Omi. Your fave. Try it.”

Unthinkingly, Miya holds out his half-bitten riceball.

He doesn’t seem to realize what he’s done until Kiyoomi stares at the onigiri and then at him. It’s only then that he flushes.

“Oh,” Miya says, a bit embarrassed. “Sorry! I wasn’t thinkin’, I didn’t mean it like that—I mean I did, ‘Samu’s onigiri are real good and I think you’d like it ‘cause umeboshi’s your favorite, right, and I think ‘Samu sources it from a farm or somethin’ near Osaka, so it’s got that extra somethin’ that things have when they’re made by like, artisans or like specialty farmers of whatever and—”

“Miya,” Kiyoomi tries to interrupt Miya’s embarrassed rambling, but Miya’s too far into it now to be deterred. He’s moving his hands all over the place, trying to make the case for his brother’s onigiri or his sourcing practices or whatever he’s spluttering on about as a cover for the fact that he had tried to share his food with Kiyoomi. “Miya.”

“—have ya noticed that, Omi, like why do they all taste so good do you think they got extra special water or is it like country fairy magic or—”

“Miya!” Kiyoomi tries again, but Miya’s waving his arms and not listening, so Kiyoomi does the only thing that ever works and grabs Miya’s wrist. “Atsumu.”

Miya goes immediately still, and immediately silent.

His eyes widen as Kiyoomi, Miya’s hand finally caught between his fingers, leans forward and takes a careful bite of his onigiri.

Kiyoomi chews for a few moments, during which time Miya doesn’t move. He barely seems to breathe.

“You’re right,” Kiyoomi says and swallows. “It’s good.”

He lets go of Miya, whose hand stays frozen where it’s left behind.

Miya doesn’t stop staring at him. After a few seconds, Kiyoomi presses his fingers to his mouth, suddenly self conscious.

“What?” he asks, thinking he has something on his face.

“Atsumu,” Miya breathes out.

“What?”

“You called me Atsumu again.”

Kiyoomi is the one to flush now.

“No I didn’t.”

“Yes you did.”

“No I didn’t.”

“Yes you did.”

Kiyoomi’s frozen now too, from mortification. He hadn’t meant to say Miya’s name like that—he had just needed him to stop talking and wriggling about, he had just wanted his attention.

Oh god. He had wanted Miya’s attention.

Miya loosens with a bright, happy grin.

“Say it again.”

“What?”

“My name!” Miya says. “Atsumu. Call me Atsumu again.”

Kiyoomi recoils. “No.”

“Come on.”

“No thank you.”

“Please!”

“Absolutely not.”

“Omi!”

“Miya.”

“Kiyoomi.”

“Atsumu.”

Miya’s mouth is open again, ready to argue, when he’s cut off halfway to his first syllable. He gasps and he looks so torn between being stunned and being delighted and it’s a stupidly good look for him, all bright and happy and shocked into silence.

“Oh,” is all he manages to say, after all that.

Kiyoomi hides his smile behind the remaining bit of his bottle of beer.

“Idiot,” he says and that doesn’t make Miya smile any less.

They take a minute too long to stare at each other over plates of half-eaten onigiri and half-drunk bottles of beer, Miya—Atsumu—beaming and Kiyoomi doing his best not to smile back.

“Well this is embarrassing and disgusting,” a voice interrupts their—whatever they’re doing. “‘Samu, your brother’s flirtin’ on the premises.”

“In front of my onigiri?” Osamu comes through the wooden doors saying and Kiyoomi feels hot with embarrassment.

“Why’d you teach him that, huh?” Atsumu glares at his best friend. “He’s bad enough without knowin’ fuckin’ memes and now you’ve gone and made him even worse.”

“It’s to my benefit,” Suna says and rests his arms and chin on top of Osamu’s broad shoulder. “You wouldn’t understand.”

“Enough of this,” Osamu says. Kiyoomi notices the apron is gone and he’s taken off his hat. “Everything’s closed up, kitchen’s clean, register’s taken care of. I’m beat. Anyone want a fuckin’ drink?”

Suna looks at Atsumu and Atsumu looks at Kiyoomi. Kiyoomi finishes the onigiri in his hand and wipes his fingers with a napkin.

Then he says, “Yes. I would love one.”

Chapter Text

ACT X: The Night Impossible.

The twins do a complicated version of rock-paper-scissors that Kiyoomi has never contemplated before while Suna strips out of his Onigiri Miya t-shirt in the backroom of the restaurant.

“They’re not gonna let you in anywhere lookin’ like that,” he says to Kiyoomi. “You got an extra shirt?”

Kiyoomi—who had not anticipated needing a change of shirt when he had climbed out of his literal bedroom window earlier that evening or, indeed, when Atsumu had shoved an Onigiri Miya shirt into his hand three hours ago and said only, Change!—shakes his head.

“Hm.” Suna looks him up and down in a way that could not be sexual if he tried and then he says, “Oy, ‘Tsumu! Can ya stop doin’ whatever it is you two are doing and get Sakusa a shirt? He’s your size.”

Atsumu—who’s in a second vicious round of rock-paper-scissors with his twin for no reason Kiyoomi can think of and probably none that he wants to ever be made aware of—pauses halfway through the stupid little chant.

“Oh,” he says. He turns back to his brother. “Hey, you got that shirt I left behind last time? The blue one.”

Osamu looks unimpressed. “What did I tell ya last time, huh? Remind me the words I said.”

“Dunno,” Atsumu says, abandoning their game and scratching his nose. “Don’t like to listen when you talk, mostly.

“I said you keep leaving shit in my store and I’m gonna fuckin’ throw it out.”

Atsumu blanches.

“You threw out my shirt? That was custom-made!”

“I told you what I was gonna do. Don’t make that fuckin’ face at me. None of my business if ya don’t fuckin’ listen.”

“Are you serious!” Atsumu’s gesturing a little too widely now. “That’s my shit!”

“Stop leaving your shit around then.”

Kiyoomi feels a tug at his elbow. He turns, startled, to find Suna jerking his head off to the side.

“I know where he keeps the shit he threatens to throw out,” he says.

Kiyoomi looks uncertainly at the twins, but Suna shakes his head.

“Better not to interrupt. They’ll get over it in like…three minutes.”

“I’m starting to understand Miya better,” Kiyoomi says as he follows Suna into a little office.

“My condolences,” Suna says as he opens a closet door and reaches for a basket on the top shelf. He rummages through it and finds a nice, somewhat wrinkled blue button-up that he then throws at Kiyoomi.

Kiyoomi catches it easily.

“Thank you.”

Suna leans against the wall and taps through his phone as Kiyoomi shakes out Atsumu’s shirt. He sets it carefully on the office chair and then grasps the Onigiri Miya shirt he’s been wearing by the bottom and drags it up and over his head.

“So you’re different than I thought you’d be,” Suna says halfway through this.

Kiyoomi doesn’t mean to tense, but he does. There’s nothing good that ever follows that sentence.

“Did you have certain expectations?”

“I mean kinda,” Suna says. When Kiyoomi re-emerges, shirtless, Suna’s staring at him. His gaze is unsettling, Kiyoomi is learning fast, a sharpness to it that makes it feel as though he is always assessing you. Maybe he is. Kiyoomi doesn’t know the first thing about the other man.

“I see,” Kiyoomi says. He folds the t-shirt as neatly as he can and sets it on the desk. “And?”

Suna blinks.

“And what?”

“How have I compared?”

Suna thinks about this. He sets one foot against the wall behind him, bending the knee, and taps along the side of his phone case, contemplating. He’s made a full outfit change—he must have had whatever he’d worn to the restaurant waiting for him in the office. Now he’s in slacks and a deep red button-up, an expensive belt buckled at his narrow waist. His black loafers are hard leather, and shiny. Suna Rintarou dresses the way people from Kiyoomi’s world tend to; sharp and polished, nearly carelessly expensive.

It makes sense. Wakatoshi had told Kiyoomi himself, hadn’t he? The only thing worse than not having a soulmate was having one your parents did not approve of. And in the world they all lived in, the greatest sin was to be poor.

“Honestly?” Suna says.

“Please.”

“I’m surprised.”

That gives Kiyoomi almost nothing to go off of. He picks up the dress shirt and shakes it out once more before beginning to pull it over his shoulders.

“No offense, Suna-san,” Kiyoomi says. “But if you answer this question any slower, we will both develop grey hair. And I am not prepared to deal with the emotional consequences of that.”

Suna gives him a surprised laugh. His body language loosens.

“Just Suna’s fine,” he says with a grin. “And fair enough. I guess…I just never thought someone like ya could be ‘Tsumu’s type.”

That’s hardly any more illuminating.

“I’m not his anything,” Kiyoomi says. “We’re just colleagues. We aren’t—”

Suna waves his hand dismissively. “I don’t need to know. Whatever it is you two are doin’. Whatever you’re calling it or not calling it. It’s all the same to me as long as he’s happy.”

Kiyoomi feels his face heat.

“I just know my best friend and he’s a vain, fickle bastard. Usually when he’s pursuing someone, it’s short-term and easy. A sure thing.” Suna gives Kiyoomi another once-over and a half-smile. “You were never a sure thing.”

That makes Kiyoomi feel—he’s not sure. Embarrassed and flattered and hot all over. He’s not entirely sure that’s even true. Even when he had hated Atsumu—genuinely, truly hated him—he hadn’t been able to stop the inevitable collision of their two reckless trajectories. Atsumu had stepped between Kiyoomi’s legs and Kiyoomi had willingly let him.

“It’s good for him, I think,” Suna says with a shrug. “He doesn’t like to get anything too easily. Says it’s too boring if he does. He’s a difficult bastard that way.”

Kiyoomi’s fingers still along the buttons of the shirt.

“‘Tsumu wants to earn what he’s given. And boy are you makin’ him earn you.”

Kiyoomi ignores the way his skin seems to heat in response to that.

What does that mean, anyway, Kiyoomi wonders? What does it mean in the face of—everything? All of this? Their tangled paths and conflicting futures and Atsumu’s soulmate and everything that will come after. Even if there was something here—something they might both want—there’s a timeline on them, a definite end date in sight. It’s not even that far away. What’s the point of earning something you cannot, ultimately, ever have?

Kiyoomi’s finally started to work on the buttons when he hears, “There you two are—oh, you found my shirt!”

Kiyoomi turns around on instinct. Atsumu’s standing in the doorway in his slacks and a nice dress shirt he’s borrowed from his brother, his expression bright until he sees Kiyoomi. Then his eyes widen.

It takes only the briefest of look-overs for Kiyoomi to realize he’s half-dressed and Atsumu is blatantly staring. He doesn’t even try to hide it. His eyes rake over Kiyoomi, his shirt fitting closely to Kiyoomi’s shoulders and hanging mostly open the rest of the way to expose Kiyoomi’s bare chest and stomach. He can almost see Atsumu’s hindbrain start to whir. He’s not the only one.

“Geez,” Suna says after a few seconds of pointed ogling. “Ya never see a man’s bare chest before?”

Kiyoomi flushes.

“Avert your gaze,” he says sharply.

“No,” Atsumu says and smiles that sideways sorta smile that is intended to make Kiyoomi go hot all over and which works with an embarrassing degree of effectiveness and frequency. “‘m enjoying the view.”

Kiyoomi’s torn between the kind of pleasure that should be embarrassing and sense of genteel propriety that is overblown used on someone who has literally had his mouth on his most intimate part.

He can’t seem to come up with anything to say in response to that; it would be lying to say he didn’t enjoy the attention anyway.

Somewhere to the side, Suna starts to laugh openly.

In front of him, Atsumu’s eyes are bright and his grin is sharp, and Osamu, arms crossed and disgusted, comes up a second later and says, “In front of my onigiri?”

After all is said and done, it turns out that the complicated game of rock-paper-scissors was to pick where to go out. Atsumu goes scissors while Osamu goes rock and they end up at a high-scale nightclub with a secret side entrance in Ginza.

Atsumu spends most of the car ride—Osamu calls a family driver who has had to keep the twins’ secrets for the better part of a decade, Atsumu explains—bitching about Ginza and how no one fun ever goes to the uppity—his words—fuckin’ places Osamu always chooses. Osamu spends the ride telling him he can jump out of the car if he’s gonna be a sore little bitch about it all evening, and Suna interjects once to remind Atsumu that he was the one who had found this club in the first place, and Kiyoomi has nothing to add except the internal musing that maybe it’s for the best that he’s had two real friends in his entire life.

They make it to the club in mostly one piece, against almost every possible odds. They’re dropped off near the side, almost unmarked entrance and the twins don’t even have to do more than nod at the security guard before he lets the four of them through.

“I’ll get drinks,” Osamu says after they’ve made it inside, greeted by a cool crowd of people and the faint rumble of conversation and laughter that accompanies them. There’s some pulsing neon lights and a live DJ that’s struck the exact right volume between too-quiet and thunderous. Kiyoomi can, at least, mostly hear himself think over the music, which is maybe a first for him.

“I’ll go with you,” Suna says and Kiyoomi loses them to the mild crush of expensively-dressed clubbers.

“You ever been?” Atsumu asks, leaning over to Kiyoomi and he shakes his head.

“Not to this one.”

“It’s alright,” Atsumu says. “Not really my scene. Mostly rich kids with more money than sense—sons and daughters of politicians and business moguls, lawyers, prissy little trust fund babies and their illicit hook ups.”

“Miya, that is entirely your scene,” Kiyoomi says, staring. “You are principal royalty of that scene. They are your denizens and you are its monarch.”

“Aww Omi, ya think I’m like a prince?” Atsumu says, grinning. Then he says, “Gonna need you to be drunker if you’re gonna use words like denizens while DJ Synthesizer over there’s tryna blast our ears with bad house music.”

Somewhere beyond the mess of rich kids with more money than sense, there really is a man with big hair and enormous headphones manning the DJ booth and blasting questionable synthetic beats.

“The point is, you fit right in,” Kiyoomi says and he means it. It isn’t just that Atsumu comes from that world—Kiyoomi does too, of course—it’s that Atsumu looks good in it. His black button-up rolled up at his sleeves, his blond hair in a careful mess of disarray. The neon lights light up his fair skin in bright contrasts of color and make his honey-brown eyes glow. He’s relaxed here—even in the middle of dubiously selected music, surrounded by hot men and women who are just wanting to make the most of whatever night they’ve been given. He looks good here.

Atsumu’s smile is shockingly free of anything taunting. It’s easy, freely given, as though Kiyoomi has already done what he’d needed to in order to earn it. It makes something in his chest knock sideways just to see it directed at him without reason. Miya Atsumu and his smile.

“Thing about a place like this is you don’t gotta fit in,” Atsumu says. “Not really. All ya gotta do is want to have some fun.”

Kiyoomi looks at him dubiously.

“I’m not particularly known for that,” he says. “I’m not sure I’ve ever had it.”

Instead of discouraging him, that only makes Atsumu’s smile widen.

“Fun?”

“Yes.”

“Never?”

“Not once.”

“Not a single time?”

“No.”

Atsumu laughs in delight.

“Well then,” he says and when he leans in, his breath ghosts the side of Kiyoomi’s neck. “I guess I gotta be the guy to show you your first time.”

Kiyoomi follows Atsumu as he cuts through the packed bodies toward a platformed area that’s roped off from the rest of the room. Even in a too-expensive private establishment meant only for the elite, there are different classes of selectivity. There are the people who can afford entrance based on their income or their associations or—frankly put—how hot they are, and there are the people who come on the weight of their own names.

The common misconception is that it’s only celebrities who break into this particular tier of club-goer. While there are certainly celebrities here—just within the first ten minutes, Kiyoomi sees two members of a JPop band, a movie darling with skyrocketing popularity, a model who has been on two different covers of Vogue Japan, someone he recognizes to be a member of the gold-medal winning diving from the last Olympics team, and a director of a very successful horror franchise—in reality, the cordoned off areas are for those too wealthy or too powerful to be easily recognized. It’s black card and invitation-exclusive, cherry-picked individuals within an already selective audience; anyone allowed in past those velvet ropes has wealth and prestige beyond reckoning, the kind of money and power that surpasses general public recognition.

Atsumu stops just before the security guard protecting the area and gives him a nod and a grin, the Rolex on his wrist glinting brightly in the dark. It’s too loud for Kiyoomi to hear what he says, but he recognizes the look on the guard’s face easily—it’s familiarity. The man doesn’t even ask for Atsumu’s card; he undoes the velvet rope and gives both Atsumu and Kiyoomi a respectful nod as they walk through.

“Hope ‘Samu brings back the good stuff,” Atsumu says as they slide into an empty velvet booth. There are a couple of occupied booths around them, men and women leaning heavily into one another and club attendants replacing empty bottles with full ones under the pulse of the music. “Need to get just buzzed enough that the music starts to sound good.”

“I don’t care for night clubs,” Kiyoomi says. He’s close enough to Atsumu that he doesn’t have to shout, the wide splays of their legs allowing their thighs to touch at point of contact. Kiyoomi isn’t well-lubricated enough to allow that intentionally, but it’s loud and hot and chaotic enough in a dark, exclusive night club that he can allow plausible deniability to cover for him. Atsumu doesn’t seem to notice anyway; he’s too busy excitedly reaching forward for the menu.

“Wow, so weird,” Atsumu says with a snort. “The noise doesn’t do it for ya? The strobing lights and the bad music and the crush of bodies? Everyone all sweaty and touchin’ and always two people fuckin’ in the bathroom no matter what time you go into it.”

Kiyoomi makes a face and Atsumu laughs.

“Don’t worry, Omi-kun,” he says and vaguely pats Kiyoomi’s thigh. “We’ll get ya nice and drunk too. Nothing that can’t be solved with a few shots of soju.”

“What do you think a few shots are going to do for me, Miya?” Kiyoomi mutters. There are so many people around them that his skin is already starting to crawl. Despite himself, he moves closer to Atsumu. It won’t protect him from germs, but at least he’s familiar with Atsumu’s germs. They are, on the whole, germs Kiyoomi has consensually welcomed.

Atsumu, to his credit, pauses.

“You okay?”

Kiyoomi gives him what can only be described as a frigid look.

“You going to be okay?” Atsumu amends.

“I will manage,” Kiyoomi replies.

After a moment, Atsumu presses his arm against Kiyoomi’s own.

“I’ll ask for more sanitizer for the table. And those bleach wipes.”

It’s not a perfect fix, but just the thought of it eases at least some of the tight pressure knotted in Kiyoomi’s chest.

Kiyoomi gives a stiff nod. “Thank you.”

Atsumu gives him a smile that’s too genuine by half, so Kiyoomi grabs the menu and shifts their attention to the list of bar snacks and very expensive liquor.

“I would like the most expensive cocktail on the menu,” he says.

“The more embarrassing the better?” Atsumu says. “Fruity and bright and—some lurid color that shouldn’t exist in nature, like neon purple?”

“Precisely.”

Kiyoomi finds the cocktail of choice and leans back into the velvet, pleased.

It’s true that Kiyoomi doesn’t naturally care for clubs, but that isn’t to say he can’t enjoy one when forced. Forced, in this case, meaning aggressively encouraged outside of his comfort zone—like when he’s trying to settle back into the soft velvet booth with his bright purple and blue gradient cocktail, content to watch others make fools of themselves trying to dance while flirting under garish neon lights and the questionable thump of bass, and, instead of being left to his own devices, being forcibly pulled into active conversation.

“Fuck off, you’re always makin’ shit up!” Atsumu is laughing next to him, energetic and comfortable despite the presence of all of the things that set Kiyoomi’s brain on edge. He’s on his third drink—he’d finished his glass of soju by the time his brother and Suna had come back with shots for the table. Now his hand rests around the neck of a sweating bottle of Asahi as he leans forward in the booth to respond to something that Suna’s said and that Kiyoomi can only half-hear over the music.

“Don’t know why you always think I’m lying,” Suna says over the noise.

“‘Cause statistically you always are, you little shit,” Atsumu says. He leans into Kiyoomi, disrupting Kiyoomi’s bemused observation, to shout into his ear—“Fucker thinks I didn’t grow up with him!”

“I am literally right here, Miya,” Kiyoomi says. “No need to cause me ear damage.”

“I’m tryna include you in the conversation!” Atsumu insists.

“I didn’t ask to be included,” Kiyoomi says. He takes a sip of his pretty cocktail. His second pretty cocktail. There’s a deep sour note that is pleasing to him.

“Well no, you wouldn’t know how to, would you?” Atsumu says. “On account of being a stuck up, unsocialized little rich kid.”

“Sorry, I wasn’t aware you grew up dirt poor,” Kiyoomi says archly. He moves the striped straw in his glass to the side. “Also would we call whatever your childhood was with your twin socialization?”

“Not nice to point out that ‘Samu has no social skills, Omi-kun,” Atsumu says. He crunches a piece of ice between his teeth. “I had to do the best I could with what I was given, you know?”

“Keep my name outta your mouth, asshole!” Osamu, who—somehow—has heard at least this part of the conversation flips his brother off from across the table.

“It just seems you could have done a lot better, Miya,” Kiyoomi says. The sour, fruity cocktail is also his third drink of the evening—after a glass of soju that Atsumu insisted they both start off with together and the previous blue-and-purple gradient fruity cocktail—and the alcohol is doing its magic, making the tension unwind from where it’s been held so firmly between his shoulders. He almost smiles at the stupid banter.

“Don’t think so,” Suna—who Kiyoomi is convinced has the hearing of a bat or, at least, knows exactly when in a conversation he can interject to cause the most chaos—grins over his glass. “Our little ‘Tsumu wasn’t what you’d call likable.”

“Wasn’t?” Osamu smirks.

“Isn’t,” Suna amends.

“Fuck off!” Atsumu flips his twin and his brother-in-law back. “I was plenty likable to the people who liked me!”

“That was how many people?” Kiyoomi asks. “Two? Three?”

Atsumu gasps and across the table, Osamu and Suna snicker.

“His best friend was his twin brother,” Suna says loudly to which Osamu says, “Hey, leave me outta this. I didn’t have a choice.”

“Anyway,” Kiyoomi says, dragging Atsumu’s attention back to him before he can start a hundred thousand-yen tussle with his twin. “The conversation seems like it was proceeding well enough without me.”

It works like a charm.

“Well then, I wanted to be sure you were hearin’ me and all,” Atsumu says with a grin that’s too smooth by half.

Kiyoomi is aware enough of all of their points of physical contact to risk accidentally revealing how vulnerable he is to the most modest amount of charm right now.

“I don’t know that it would be a great loss if I missed some of it,” he says and Atsumu shoves at his shoulder.

“Hey!”

“You’re always saying something and it’s rarely of importance,” Kiyoomi says, to which Osamu and Suna cackle across the table.

“God, even that fruity little cocktail can’t make you less of an asshole,” Atsumu says, but his grin widens, so the effect is really that he looks delighted by it. Kiyoomi feels a curl of pleasure in response.

He’s about to say something else, when Suna diverts the conversation back to the topic at hand—the setter of his recreational volleyball team is having an affair with the middle blocker of their biggest rivals, even though they are both bonded to other people on their own team.

“Anyway, you think I could make that up?” He’s taking a sip of sake while leaning back against his side of the booth. Osamu’s arm is around his shoulder and although they don’t do anything more than that, the casual and possessive body language is clear to anyone with eyes. “Way more drama in rec volleyball than in the professional league. Everyone’s sleeping with someone else.”

“Well sure,” Atsumu says. “It’s like—housewives, ain’t it? They got way more time to gossip and sabotage each other’s lives.”

“You callin’ me a housewife, Miya?” Suna says, raising an eyebrow.

“You’re literally married to a Miya,” Atsumu says.

Osamu’s generally placid expression takes on a sharp, interested look at that. He gets the kind of leering smile on his face that Kiyoomi is startlingly familiar with from his counterpart. Osamu leans in to say something in Suna’s ear that makes Suna sharply inhale and his eyes glint and then Atsumu is groaning.

“No! Absolutely not! Fuck off, don’t even start—”

“Your brother says that he wouldn’t mind if I dressed in—”

“I swear to god Sunarin, if either of ya open your mouth and say one more word I’m gonna scream.”

“And who would hear you in here, scrub?” Osamu says with an evil grin.

Kiyoomi’s intrigued despite himself. He ignores Atsumu’s spluttering.

“So what happened?” he says. “Between the players.”

“Oh, that. Well you know soulbonds dial everything up to eleven,” Suna says, still half-grinning from Atsumu’s displeasure. “The good things feel better with a bond. But hurt your partner and everything feels worse too.”

Kiyoomi’s heard of this. Soulbonds are a sign from the great beyond that you have been created for this one person and they have been created for you. It’s magical and romantic and everything that goes into grand, moving gestures, but the universe loves to belabor a point too, so a forged bond echoes and amplifies what’s there—feelings, emotions, physical touch. Good bonds are supposed to be like a straight dopamine shot to the brain. But a bond gone bad works the opposite way. Hurt the person you’re bonded to and it feels like agony twice over.

“Turns out the way to get around all of that is to—” Suna’s eyes glint again. He pauses for dramatic effect.

Atsumu—his legs spread a little too wide, his thighs pressed against Kiyoomi’s own, seemingly without any notice—leans forward. “Get on with it!”

“—have a foursome.”

A pure beat of shocked silence.

Then Atsumu shouts, “Shut up!”

Even his twin looks startled next to Suna.

“What?” Kiyoomi’s torn between disbelief and laughter.

“Get all four soulmarks together and fucking and I guess all of the bad shit goes away,” Suna says, grinning.

“How?”

“Maybe all of the good shit gets tangled together and there’s like—too much echoing orgasms to feel the bad shit. I don’t know. I wanted to ask more, but M—my friend wouldn’t let me. Said we can't just ask people about their affairs.”

Echoing orgasms.

Next to Kiyoomi, Atsumu’s shock has turned into laughter. He’s leaning into Kiyoomi, his shoulders shaking from it, and Kiyoomi has a difficult time suppressing his answering smile.

“Bullshit,” Atsumu finally says, once he’s recovered. “God, you’re always full of shit.”

“Nah,” Suna says, pleased with the reception of his absurd story. He takes a sip of his drink and leans back into Osamu’s arm. “It’s true. Just ask our libero.”

He glances at Kiyoomi and Kiyoomi’s about to ask why he would possibly know his libero when the servers return to clear their empty glasses and plates and replace them with more finger foods. Osamu had been in charge of ordering for the table, which now has fresh bottles of beer, a newly opened bottle of the most expensive soju in the establishment, and an assortment of food—tamagoyaki and takoyaki and tempura vegetables and edamame and slices of kara-age and french fries.

“God, I’m starving!” Atsumu says and reaches forward for the plate of fries.

“We just had onigiri,” Kiyoomi says. “Multiple of them.”

“And?” Atsumu says. “I’m a growin’ boy!”

“You haven’t grown since first year of college,” Suna says. He puts down his glass and scoots up to take some kara-age onto a small plate. “Stop embarrassin’ yourself. Like Sakusa’s gonna be impressed.”

Atsumu turns to him, fries sticking out from between his lips. “What, I’m not impressive to ya?”

His blond hair is turning wavy from the humidity, his shit is unbuttoned at the collar, and his shirtsleeves rolled up to the elbow. Atsumu’s eyes glint in the low light of the club and Kiyoomi thinks there has never been anything more embarrassing in the world than how much he would like to lean forward and kiss a man whose mouth is full of fried potato.

“Don’t ask questions you don’t want answers to,” Kiyoomi says and Atsumu swallows his fries with the hint of a pout.

“Ignore him, the more attention he gets the more annoying he becomes,” Osamu says from across the table. He runs a hand through his hair and reaches forward for a bottle of beer.

“Shouldn’t be possible,” Suna says. “Wouldn’t expect it to be possible. But our ‘Tsumu’s always exceedin’ expectations.”

“Can you two shut the fuck up?” Atsumu says and throws a fry that misses both of them and lands on the floor instead.

“Don’t make a mess,” Kiyoomi scolds. “What are you, a child?”

Atsumu sighs and abandons the fries for the takoyaki.

“All three of you together are my nightmare,” he says. “Hey, want one?”

Kiyoomi shouldn’t eat—he, also, had onigiri not an hour ago—but it would be good to soak up some of the alcohol before it all goes straight to his head.

“All right.”

Kiyoomi thinks Atsumu is going to get him a plate, like a civilized person, but a moment later he wonders what could possibly have led him to expect something like that. Atsumu turns to him, the fried octopus ball between his chopsticks.

“What?”

“Open up!” Atsumu says.

And those drinks must be stronger than Kiyoomi gave them credit for or maybe this entire evening is robbing him of his senses, because he does what he’s told.

“Good, right?”

Kiyoomi’s so startled by what he’s done that he doesn’t even know how to answer. He just chews instead. Luckily, Atsumu is happy enough with whatever’s happening in his head, because he just grins and turns back to get his own takoyaki after Kiyoomi’s closed his mouth. Across the table, Osamu and Suna are giving him openly horrified looks and Kiyoomi’s lucky that the club lights bathe them all in colors that make his blush unidentifiable.

The takoyaki is good, but that’s hardly the point.

“Nah,” Osamu says after a minute. “Enough of this.”

“What?” Atsumu looks up from where he’s shoving takoyaki into his own mouth.

“Rin,” Osamu says, ignoring his twin and turning to his partner.

“Yeah,” Suna says. “Time to dance.”

Suna puts his plate down and grabs his drink in one hand and Osamu by the collar of his shirt with his other.

“See ya,” he says.

Atsumu stares after them in confusion.

“Was it somethin’ I said?”

Kiyoomi suppresses a sigh.

“It’s always something you’ve said, Miya,” he says.

Atsumu looks half-wounded and half-pleased. Mostly he looks like he doesn’t know how to feel about it until he decides that he’s happy with the outcome, because then he shrugs and gives Kiyoomi a half-grin. “Good.”

The two of them don't immediately follow Osamu and Suna onto the dance floor. Kiyoomi has to work his way up to it—mostly by finishing the rest of his cocktail—but Atsumu seems happy enough to take a beat too. He finishes his bottle of beer and eats his way through the food, offering fries and pieces of kara-age to Kiyoomi at random, content to lean into Kiyoomi and half-shout mean observations about all of the drunk, rich clubgoers poorly grinding against each other.

“That one’s the son of a politician who got caught in a corruption scandal last year,” he says, pointing out a tall, awkward looking man who’s unsuccessfully trying to get a hot blonde woman to talk to him near the bar.

“You know him?” Kiyoomi asks and Atsumu laughs.

“Nah, but can’t ya tell?” he says. “Look at how he’s standin’—all awkward, but arrogant too. No, that’s someone who’s got money but not enough to swing for the hot blonde.”

Kiyoomi looks at Atsumu, bemused. He takes a sip of his cocktail.

“And who is she then?”

Atsumu cocks his head a little.

“Model, I think—no. Not rail thin enough. She’s hot, but in an overt way. So, actress, probably.” A pause. “Or like, TV host maybe.”

Kiyoomi shakes his head. The alcohol is warming him nicely. His anxieties—the crowd, the press of bodies, the loud music, the unpleasant, lingering feelings of everything else—dulling into vague, blurry thoughts at the back of his spine.

“Okay,” he says, scanning the crowd. There’s a broad man in a suit with slicked back black hair and the hint of a tattoo crawling out from under his shirt up the side of his neck. “Him.”

Atsumu follows Kiyoomi’s finger and he considers.

“Yakuza?” Kiyoomi asks.

“Nah,” Atsumu says. “Too obvious for that.”

“Aren’t they a bit obvious everywhere?” Kiyoomi says, amused. “What with the tattoos.”

Atsumu waves a hand vaguely. “Yeah, but drawing attention to himself standin’ all conspicuous like that? He’s not even tryin’ to blend in.”

It’s true—the man is close to the bar, shifting around nervously under a panel of bright purple lights. There’s empty space to either side of him, which makes him hard to miss in the crowded room.

“Also, here? This ain’t their sorta place, you know?” Atsumu says. “Too many rich kids who’ll go tell daddy.”

Kiyoomi snorts. “Okay. Then?”

“No, I think…” Atsumu taps his finger against his chin. “Yeah, he’s here as someone’s guest.”

“Really.”

“He’s too uncomfortable. Probably brought here by a hot woman—maybe someone from work? He’s into her, but she’s toying with him. See how he doesn’t know what to do with his hands? He’s so fuckin’ uncomfortable, he has no idea what he’s doin’ here or what to do without someone telling him.”

Kiyoomi does see it, now that Atsumu’s mentioned it. The man’s eyes keep darting back and forth, as though he’s looking for someone. He doesn’t have the confidence to be anyone important, let alone anyone wealthy. If he did, he would be still, not fidgeting, content to let others come to him.

“I see,” Kiyoomi murmurs into his drink.

“Oh, that guy,” Atsumu says after a moment. He leans into Kiyoomi’s shoulder, his breath ghosting across Kiyoomi’s jaw. Kiyoomi’s chest tightens, but he follows Atsumu’s gaze and pointed finger.

There’s another man—maybe around their own age. He has shoulder-length hair that’s pulled back into a ponytail and a buzzed undercut along one side. There’s a row of hooped earrings that glint along the shell of his ear. He’s in dark pants and a t-shirt that Kiyoomi can tell—even from here—is well-tailored to him. He has one hand in his pocket, another hand curled around a drink, and is leaning forward and whispering into another man’s ear.

The man isn’t Kiyoomi’s type, but Kiyoomi has eyes. He is objectively, terribly hot. And the crowd around him—glancing his way when they think he isn’t looking—knows it.

“Who is he?” Kiyoomi says quietly.

“Up and coming director,” Atsumu says. “Has an uncle in the Diet and family history that isn’t too distant from the royal family. Comes from wealth, technically, but his line of the family lost most of their money a few generations back.”

Kiyoomi looks at Atsumu, astonished. Atsumu smiles and leans closer to whisper into his ear.

“Dumb investments. Hubris. Oh, and a real bad gambler on his mother’s side.”

“Did you come up with this all on your own?” Kiyoomi says. “Just by looking at his ponytail?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Atsumu says smugly. “Doesn’t he just look like a guy who once knew wealth and is desperate to know it again? Maybe he’s talented too, I don’t know. That would probably help.”

It’s all conjecture, told so confidently Kiyoomi almost believes him.

“You’re insane,” Kiyoomi says, staring. “I don’t understand what goes on in that head of yours.”

“Aww, Omi-kun,” Atsumu says and his teasing voice drops into something a little too soft. “Do ya wanna know?”

Kiyoomi feels something hot and eager wind through his chest. He cheeks warm. He takes a mouthful of his cocktail, considering.

There’s the answer they both know is true and the answer that will keep this going for a while longer. What they don’t know is which one Kiyoomi will choose.

Atsumu watches him closely, quietly, nothing readable in his expression. He’s waiting too.

Kiyoomi reaches over and brushes a wavy strand of blond hair away from Atsumu’s temple. Atsumu stills at the touch. His eyes darken, just a shade, his gaze on Kiyoomi and Kiyoomi alone. The tension between them is so tight, so unbearably palpable. It runs through Kiyoomi like a thrill.

His fingers cup the top of Atsumu’s cheekbone.

“No,” Kiyoomi says and then, with a smile, lets Atsumu go.

It takes Atsumu a full five seconds to catch his breath. Then he bursts out laughing.

“You’re a fuckin’ tease, Sakusa Kiyoomi,” he says, exhaling. “A mean fuckin’ tease.”

He drains his beer as Kiyoomi works on finishing his drink too. It helps calm how quickly his heart is racing.

After a minute, Kiyoomi nods at the man with the ponytail again, now with his hand at the other man’s waist.

“That was too specific to be made up,” he says. “How did you know?”

Atsumu snorts and puts down his empty bottle. He wipes his hands on his pants and gives Kiyoomi a half-wry smile.

“Easy,” he says. “Fucked him last year.”

Kiyoomi doesn’t get a chance to say anything to that before Atsumu gets up.

“All right, ready?”

Kiyoomi looks up at him, brows furrowed. “For what?”

Atsumu’s mouth curls up at the corner. He grabs Kiyoomi by the arm and hauls him up.

“You wanted a distraction, right?”

Kiyoomi, still holding onto his mostly finished cocktail glass, blinks at Atsumu in surprise. He hadn’t mentioned that to Atsumu. All he had said was that he didn’t want to talk.

“Yes,” he says.

Atsumu takes his glass and puts it on the table. Then he curls his fingers around Kiyoomi’s wrist.

“I got a good one.”

Chapter Text

As a rule, Sakusa Kiyoomi doesn’t dance. It’s not because he doesn’t enjoy music and it has nothing to do with the fact that all evidence points to him just not being a very fun person. Sakusa Kiyoomi doesn’t dance because he, fundamentally, does not know what to do with his arms or legs or general torso area when attempting to do so. He had never been taught.

“Oh my god, Omi-kun,” Atsumu laughs at how rigidly Kiyoomi stands as he lets go of his wrist.

Atsumu’s shoved through some of the bodies at the edge of the dance floor, presumably because whatever psychic ability connects him to his twin, draws him directly to where his brother and Suna are dancing closely. Kiyoomi follows him—his mask pulled up around his face again—mostly because Atsumu’s held a tight grip on his wrist that leaves Kiyoomi with no real choice in the matter.

“Don’t laugh,” Kiyoomi gripes and Atsumu laughs again, because he’s a raging asshole, but also maybe because he’s on the right side of tipsy.

“Have ya never danced before?” Atsumu asks. “Or like. Moved your body?”

“Not everyone can be good at everything, Miya!” It takes everything in Kiyoomi not to pout. “I said don’t laugh.”

“I’m not!”

He definitely is. The grin looks good on him.

Kiyoomi’s pleasantly warm all over, his thoughts blurred by his own liquor kicking in, but he still has enough compunction left to glare at Atsumu for the offense.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Atsumu says and suddenly both of his hands are curving over Kiyoomi’s waist. He’s smiling. “I know you’ve heard music before. Just move with it.”

Kiyoomi barely has time to feel the hot swoop of heat rush through him before he’s dragged closer. He steadies himself against Atsumu, flushing as he presses his palms to Atsumu’s chest.

Atsumu looks up at him—just the bare inch of difference in height between them—and his face is rosy from the heat of the room, his eyes glowing under the skating beams of neon lights. His hair is a little frizzy from humidity and the top of his shirt is unbuttoned enough for Kiyoomi to see the jut of his clavicles, his skin just a little damp.

He looks good, even wearing dark slacks and a button up at a nightclub and it would be more unbearable, Kiyoomi thinks, if he didn’t know just how good.

That has never been one of Atsumu’s problems, though. In all of the time Kiyoomi has known him, he has never once not possessed utter confidence in how hot he is. He wears it easily—like a second skin—and that’s the kind of arrogant quality in a man that Kiyoomi has always found himself weak for.

“You know, Omi-kun?” Atsumu says and moves closer.

The music pulses around them and Kiyoomi tries to move with it, tries to match the smooth, effortless way Atsumu moves his body. He’s not terribly good at it, but Atsumu doesn’t seem to mind. On the contrary, he seems pleased, especially when Kiyoomi slides his hands up to his shoulders.

“What?”

“Sometimes, I can’t read ya at all,” Atsumu says.

Kiyoomi is too busy concentrating on rolling his hips to match Atsumu to notice the way Atsumu’s looking at him.

“And?”

“And,” Atsumu says with a grin. He leans in close, his mouth to Kiyoomi’s ear. “Sometimes I know exactly what it is you want.”

A violent thrill rolls down Kiyoomi’s spine.

Kiyoomi opens his mouth to say something—what he doesn’t know. His skin feels hot and his head is getting foggy, the press of body heat and the thump of music and the smell of sweat and cologne and alcohol pressing in, nearly overwhelming him. He curls his fingers into Atsumu’s shoulders tighter, but before he can figure out what to say—how to deflect—Atsumu unbalances them, grabbing Kiyoomi by the hips and swiveling him around. Kiyoomi gasps as he’s forcibly turned, his back pulled to Atsumu’s chest.

“Atsumu—”

“Just dance against me, Omi,” Atsumu says into his ear. “Do what I do.”

Kiyoomi’s pulse thunders in his ears, Atsumu’s body hot along his back.

“I promised you no talkin’, right?”

“Yes,” he nearly gasps, his head spinning.

Atsumu’s hands are back on his hips now, his nose nudging into Kiyoomi’s curls. The hard line of his chest feels wonderfully solid behind Kiyoomi, his grip tight and grounding in a way Kiyoomi could never have anticipated. They’re surrounded by people here—strangers who are too-close, pressing in too-tight—and this is one of those things that should be triggering Kiyoomi, that would have triggered him in another life, but Atsumu’s touch centers him, his warm breath in Kiyoomi’s hair, his familiar laughter ringing in his ears.

“Yeah,” Atsumu says. “Like that. Just move with me.”

Again, it shouldn’t work. Kiyoomi has never listened to someone a day in his life and this would make twice in one evening. But Atsumu guides him confidently, speaks to him like he knows Kiyoomi will listen. He commands Kiyoomi like he knows exactly what Kiyoomi wants and Kiyoomi is barely aware that he’s easily letting him.

A shiver runs down the back of Kiyoomi’s neck. He feels hot all over and dizzy and overwhelmed and thrilled. He feels out of body, somehow, as though he’s both here and drifting somewhere above it.

There isn’t a thought in Kiyoomi’s mind that isn’t about Atsumu—the way he smells and the way he feels, pressed so close against him—so solid against Kiyoomi’s back—and the way Kiyoomi can pick out the sound of his voice even under the thudding layers of music.

It’s dangerous for a variety of reasons that he can’t quite articulate, as fuzzy as he feels right now, and maybe—probably—it’s stupid too, but the more Kiyoomi is absorbed with him, the less he can think about anything else. Here, there, now, then, the details of the evening—of the day, of the week, of the month, of any amount of time—seem to slip through his fingers, tumbling out of his grasp. It’s freeing, nearly revelatory; the more Atsumu is in control of every one of Kiyoomi’s senses, the less Kiyoomi has to be in control of anything at all.

And for once, he wants that. For one evening, Sakusa Kiyoomi wants to give that control to someone else.

That’s why he had knocked on Atsumu’s door, after all.

“That’s it, Omi,” Atsumu says, pleased, as Kiyoomi leans back into him. He exhales, loosening, and Atsumu’s fingers tighten on his waist as Kiyoomi allows himself to melt into this touch.

The music pulses around them, Atsumu’s hands hot on him, his nose pressed against the side of Kiyoomi’s neck. Kiyoomi nearly shudders. He reaches back and threads his fingers into the silk of Atsumu’s hair. Atsumu’s laughter in his curls, his body pressed so close and tight against Kiyoomi’s own it would be suffocating if it wasn’t exactly what his own body wanted.

“Good,” Kiyoomi vaguely hears Atsumu murmur. “You’re doin’ so good.”

Kiyoomi’s dizzy and hot and drifting—bodiless, somewhere in the clouds—all together. All at the same time.

Under his mask, he smiles.

Atsumu chuckles and presses a kiss to Kiyoomi’s shoulder. “Yeah. Just like that.”

He moves behind him and Kiyoomi follows. Touch by touch. Inhale, exhale. The beat of whatever’s playing around them and in his head, sinking into his body. Sakusa Kiyoomi for once, not thinking, not worrying, just being.

Atsumu takes to his task like he does all others—beautifully, with his full effort and undivided attention. All Kiyoomi had wanted was for Atsumu to distract him tonight, and—without instruction, without any guidance at all—that is exactly what Atsumu does.

The music changes. A cheer goes through the crowd as the DJ shifts from the sultry, rhythmic song he had been playing to something more upbeat, something modern and popular, with a fast tempo that has everyone unwinding from each other.

“C’mon, don’t look like that!” Atsumu says with a laugh, spinning Kiyoomi back around.

This time, Kiyoomi doesn’t have time to feel self conscious before everyone around him starts to frenetically move, jumping and waving to whatever JPop selection the DJ has shuffled on. Kiyoomi hasn’t listened to JPop since college, but it’s easy enough to figure out what to do with it—everyone around him is grabbing one another’s hands, heads tilted back, laughing and singing and throwing their arms up in a way that is only moderately reminiscent of convulsions.

The change is jarring, but no one misses a beat.

Atsumu’s rolling his hips and waving his arms and he looks absurd, but so does everyone else. It’s high octane, blood thumping, and effervescent. For the first time, Kiyoomi understands what people mean when they say vibes. Well, what the hell. The alcohol and the music and the lingering scent of Atsumu’s cologne is enough to push past Kiyoomi’s rigid anxieties. He laughs as Atsumu grabs his arms and forces him to dance with him, his movements wild and unpredictable and fun.

God, Kiyoomi’s having fun.

He can’t remember the last time he’d allowed himself to do so.

Kiyoomi does little more than flail in a somewhat consistent and mostly embarrassing manner and this delights Atsumu. He tilts his head back and laughs. It makes Kiyoomi fuzzy all over, a burst of something bright and happy spilling through his chest.

He sees the familiar slope of Osamu’s broad shoulders and the spiked ends of Suna’s hair and the two of them are suddenly next to them, Atsumu and his brother breaking off into some stupid competition while Suna takes Kiyoomi’s hand and helps him spin around.

Kiyoomi grins under his mask, caught up in the airy feeling, laughing more than he has in months—years maybe—and it feels good, moving like this—without thought, without second-guessing—makes every part of him feel alive somehow, bright and vibrant and young and full of possibility.

The song ends and smooths into another one, also energetic, but not as fast, and Kiyoomi finds his way to Osamu and then around to Suna, who mostly teaches him how to bump hips with him in a rhythm, to a strange man who keeps stepping on his feet, a tall, curly-haired woman who is generous enough to teach him how to roll his body properly, and then back to Atsumu, who catches him by the waist and tilts his face into Kiyoomi’s sweaty, damp neck, laughter spilling out from him.

“Are you having fun?” he says and how can Kiyoomi be anything but truthful?

He loops his arms around Atsumu’s shoulders and pulls him closer, his heart beating fast, his face flushed, his head full of cotton. He feels light on his feet, expansive, effervescent. He feels happy, he thinks. The feeling is so foreign, he almost misses it altogether.

Kiyoomi thinks he hasn’t felt happy for a long time.

“Yes,” he says and laughs.

Atsumu smiles—Kiyoomi can feel the curve of it in his neck. When he pulls back, he’s still smiling, damp and flushed and so handsome it makes Kiyoomi’s teeth ache. Kiyoomi pulls him closer, his pulse rocketing.

“God, why does it feel so good with you?” he says. “Why does anything with you feel better than with anyone else?”

Dancing, drinking, making onigiri in the middle of the worst evening of his life. Even fighting with Atsumu feels better—more interesting, more alive—than anything else Kiyoomi does.

And it’s too serious, even if it isn’t meant as such, meant too much too soon, on an exhale and a laugh and bright eyes that are earnest when Kiyoomi has never once thought of himself as that.

Atsumu’s palm pressed against Kiyoomi’s neck, the bright, white glint of his teeth in the dark.

“I don’t know,” he says and he’s nearly breathless too. From the dance or from—? “Fuck. I just know that it does.”

“Everything,” Kiyoomi says breathlessly. He’s started being too honest and now he can’t seem to stop himself. Atsumu’s smile widens in response, as though he, too, is happy by it. “Even when I hated you.”

“Yeah,” Atsumu says. Then, “Do you still?”

Kiyoomi sighs, his heart rattling in his chest.

“Do you need everything spelled out?”

“Yeah,” Atsumu says. “Spell it out for me, Omi-kun.”

Kiyoomi doesn’t want to. Instead, he hooks a finger into the elastic of his mask and tugs it down. Atsumu’s eyes flicker over face, all of it laid bare.

“Kiss me,” Kiyoomi says, before he can help himself—before he can stop it. He doesn’t think he would want to even if he could. He’s said it out loud and now it loops through his head endlessly, something he can’t stop thinking. It gnaws at him, this terrible, aching thing, like something eating him to the bone. Kiyoomi wants it—wants this—so bad he thinks he might die if he doesn’t get it.

Atsumu’s eyes knock open wide. It would be insulting, if his thumb wasn’t brushing Kiyoomi’s jaw. If his fingers weren’t sliding into Kiyoomi’s hair, twisting through his curls.

“Please, Atsumu,” Kiyoomi says, as close to begging as he’s ever gotten. His palms pressed tight against Atsumu’s chest, his tone leaving little to hide. “I need you to kiss me.”

Atsumu’s grip in Kiyoomi’s hair tightens and Kiyoomi gasps as he tilts Kiyoomi’s face forward. He can feel Atsumu’s breath, the heat of his gaze. Atsumu wants this too. He wants Kiyoomi nearly as much as Kiyoomi wants him and it’s insatiable, this thing between them, always hungry, always devouring. It would eat them both whole if they let them.

They stand still, movement suddenly drained from them. The music, the people, the public arena of a fucking dance floor—all of it, faded to black.

It’s just the two of them, the gold, keen glint of Atsumu’s gaze and Kiyoomi’s sharp, obvious desire, his need curled into the crumpled collar of Atsumu’s near-ruined dress shirt.

And for just a moment, Kiyoomi thinks they will let themselves have this. The night is gauzy enough and he is reckless enough with want for Kiyoomi to fool himself into thinking he can—for once—have exactly what he wants.

Then Atsumu exhales shakily, and the color comes flooding back in.

“Fuck, Omi. Don’t do this to me,” he groans.

“Atsumu—”

“You know I want this.”

Kiyoomi stills.

Atsumu’s fingers twist into his curls. “You know I want you more than anything.”

“Then take me,” Kiyoomi says, awful and desperate. His fingertips digging into Atsumu’s shoulders in response—to hold him there, to anchor him to him. “You’ve done it before.”

“That’s not the same. You know it’s not the same. ”

Kiyoomi shakes his head, unwilling to hear him. Frantic to keep this.

“I’m offering myself to you again, Atsumu, take me—”

“I can’t, Omi,” Atsumu says and he looks miserable. Stricken, in the middle of light and laughter. “I’m a shithead, but even I can’t do that to Iizuna-kun.”

That’s when it all filters back in—the poorly repressed thoughts, the blurry shadows that have been hovering at the edge of his mind. The guilt and anger and helplessness that he has tried so desperately to forget all night.

“If I started, I wouldn’t be able to stop,” Atsumu says. He sounds gutted. “I can’t take something that isn’t mine.”

“Iizuna—” Kiyoomi says and the name tastes bitter on his tongue. But that isn’t fair. It’s not Iizuna’s fault. It’s his fault—Kiyoomi’s fault.

“I know why you came to me tonight,” Atsumu says, there in the middle of the dance floor. The two of them wrecked—awful, miserable, wanting—and everyone oblivious around them. “I saw the headlines. Of course I saw it. Did you think I wouldn’t? Fuck, Kiyoomi.”

“It’s not what I want—” Kiyoomi says, his hands curling into Atsumu’s shirt, clutching at him. “Atsumu, it isn’t—”

“It is,” Atsumu says. “It’s going to get you the only thing you want.”

The truth makes him sound awful. Maybe he is. Kiyoomi can’t even deny it, which speaks loud enough.

Atsumu still doesn’t let him go.

“I want you to have it,” he says and maybe they shouldn’t be having this conversation here of all places, but maybe it’s the only place they can be free or bold enough to have it. “Everything you want. I want that for ya. But—”

But.

Fuck.

Kiyoomi grits his teeth, tries to stop the erratic heartbeat pitching up at all of his pulse points.

“I’m sorry,” he says.

“Don’t be,” Atsumu says. “Congratulations, I guess. On your…”

He doesn’t say it and Kiyoomi’s grateful. He hasn’t spent all day avoiding the truth only for it to come from the one person he wanted to forget it with.

That leaves them with nothing to say, either of them. Everything feels shattered between them and both Kiyoomi and Atsumu are a little too close to drunk to deal with the ramifications of any of that. It’s so terrible and heartrending and so fucking awkward that—Kiyoomi can’t help it. Maybe he’s lost any grip on the situation he’d once had. Maybe he’s just tired—so fucking tired—of always being caught in the crosshairs of what he wants and what he is, by birth, allowed to have.

He starts to laugh.

Atsumu gives him a startled look.

“Omi?”

Mask dragged down to his chin, Kiyoomi can’t even hide it. He’s laughing. He’s holding onto Atsumu with one hand and well and truly laughing.

It takes only a moment of hesitation and uncertainty—maybe concern that Kiyoomi has well and truly lost what’s left of his mind—before Atsumu gives in too. He follows Kiyoomi, his serious expression dissolving as he starts to crack up.

“Oh my god,” Kiyoomi says. He’s shaking, almost helpless against the force of it.

“Fuck,” Atsumu says, laughing. He’s half-hanging off of Kiyoomi and laughing. “Shit.”

“I can’t believe this,” Kiyoomi says through peals of laughter. “Of all of the things to happen to me.”

“To us.”

“Of all of the things to happen to us,” Kiyoomi manages in agreement. He’s laughing and Atsumu’s holding onto him laughing and the two of them fall into some sort of half-delirious, half-uncontrollable snickering as Osamu and Suna come back into their periphery.

“What the fuck,” Osamu says, staring at the two of them, in the middle of the dance floor, nearly causing a scene. He has drinks in his hand. “‘Tsumu what the fuck?”

“Are you two high?” Suna asks, half-holding onto Osamu as he watches the two of them, curiosity piqued. “Only fair to share.”

Atsumu and Kiyoomi look at one another and that sets them off again.

The moment washes away as easily as if it hadn’t happened at all, the tension and the memory of what they had almost said and what they had almost done and what they had decided to leave buried. It doesn’t make it better, but it does make it easier and maybe that’s all right too, on a long, ephemeral night like this.

“That for us?” Atsumu asks, finally getting ahold of himself. He lets go of Kiyoomi and wipes his eyes with the back of his wrist.

“It was,” Osamu says, staring at him suspiciously. “But now I’m not inclined to give either of ya any if you’ve already lost your marbles.”

“Fuck off,” Atsumu says, as Suna adds, “To be fair, did he have marbles to lose?”

Osamu hands the drinks over to Atsumu and Kiyoomi, who both take them gratefully. Kiyoomi takes a mouthful like it will give him a lifeline, something to do or hang onto in the middle of whatever is happening—all of this, the good and the bad. He thinks maybe alcohol isn’t the best coping mechanism, but neither is showing up at the penthouse of the man you weren’t just announced engaged to, so if he’s making decisions this evening, he figures he might as well go for broke.

“Everythin’ okay?” Osamu’s the one to ask, so maybe the awkward tension hadn’t dissipated entirely.

Suna looks at Atsumu and Atsumu looks at Kiyoomi and Kiyoomi takes another mouthful of soju. Then he shrugs.

“Sure,” he says, which is good enough.

Osamu doesn’t look convinced, but no one is sober or willing enough to bother to say otherwise.

“Good enough for me,” Suna says as the DJ turns it from one thing to another. “This song sucks. Let’s dance.”

It seems like the most sensible thing to do, all things considered. Atsumu gives Kiyoomi only a passing questioning look and Kiyoomi doesn’t let that bloom into hesitation. He takes Atsumu by the hand and follows after Suna.

So that’s what they do—they dance and drink, Kiyoomi leaning into Atsumu and Atsumu whispering into his ear, making him laugh, Osamu roasting Atsumu’s dancing, and Suna taking pictures that Kiyoomi is too tipsy to cringe away from.

They laugh and they move and they forget the things that need to be forgotten until well past the appropriate hour.

It is the best night Kiyoomi has had in a very long time.

It’s well after two in the morning before they finally stumble out of the club, sweat-damp, drunk, and nearly delirious. The air is hot and everything is a pleasant, multicolored blur. Kiyoomi’s feet hurt and he’s had to unbutton the top few buttons and roll up the sleeves of his borrowed shirt to cool down, but that doesn’t stop him from smiling under his mask, pulled up half-heartedly, one arm around Atsumu’s shoulder. He doesn’t know if he’s holding on or just holding him at this point and he’s nearly too drunk to care about the difference.

“—and I don’t see why that matters anyway,” Atsumu’s saying, too-bleary and too-loud. “I was fine. I was reasonable, even.” He snickers. “Prob’ly.”

“Matters ‘cause you’re an asshole, ‘Tsumu,” his brother says. Suna is holding up the weight of his husband, which is funny to see only because Osamu is so much broader.

“Yeah, but that’s like—not new,” Atsumu says. “Like, we all know. It’s part of my charm, ain’t it?”

“No,” Osamu says immediately.

“No one thinks that’s part of your charm,” Suna says, mouth curled up at the corner. He, of all of them, is the sharpest-eyed and seems the most clearheaded, although his movement is just unbalanced enough to betray him anyway.

“Fuck you guys! ‘Course it is—it’s very…charmful,” Atsumu says. He turns to Kiyoomi eagerly, so close that his hot breath ghosts over his face. “Tell him, Omi-kun. Tell ‘im—I’m sooo charming.”

“Miya,” Kiyoomi says, wrinkling his nose.

“What?” Atsumu looks at him, well, beseechingly. His hair is a mess, his cheeks are flushed, and his eyes are bright and wide under the moonlight.

“Your breath stinks.”

“Ugh, Omi-kun!” Atsumu protests while his brother and Suna laugh loudly.

“You need to carry a breath mint,” Kiyoomi says with a frown. “You smell like…beer.”

“That’s what I was drinkin’,” Atsumu says, shoving at Kiyoomi’s shoulder. It unbalances Kiyoomi slightly, so Atsumu grabs onto his upper arm so they both don’t go tumbling together into the street.

“Too much,” Osamu says. “Look at you, ‘Tsumu. You’re drunk.”

“Impossible,” Atsumu declares. “Can’t get drunk off’f beer.”

“The many many shots of soju, though,” Suna says thoughtfully and Atsumu flips him off.

Kiyoomi sighs and pats his shoulder to try and calm him.

“Anyway, I’m callin’ a car,” Osamu says. “I don’t got time to deal with your dumb ass tonight. Gotta get to work at—” He shrugs. “Too early.”

“Can I crash with you?” Suna says, both arms around Osamu’s middle now, his chin hooked over his shoulder. “Office’s closer to yours.”

“Yeah, of course, sweetheart,” Osamu says and Suna smiles and leans forward to kiss the back of his jaw.

There’s a hot, ugly swoop of jealousy that nearly unsettles Kiyoomi from where his head is floating above the clouds. He’s only allowed it for a moment before he feels Atsumu’s fingers curl through his own. Then his stomach swoops for an entirely different reason.

He looks at Atsumu, who’s fishing his phone out with his other hand.

“Gonna call a car too,” Atsumu says. He says it casually, no intonation one way or another.

Kiyoomi doesn’t know if that’s an invitation. There’s nothing to suggest it is, except for the light tone and the way Atsumu won’t look at him after he says it. It’s like an open door—one that Kiyoomi is free to take or ignore. Well, Kiyoomi’s never been good at ignoring the obvious anyway.

And Atsumu’s hand is still in his own.

Kiyoomi’s face warms.

“Atsumu,” he says, hesitatingly.

“Hm?”

“Can I—” Kiyoomi starts and flushes in embarrassment. The alcohol drags through his bloodstream, making his brain sluggish. He sways into Atsumu, everything warm enough to be made less serious. “That is, would you mind if—”

He stops, unable to find a way to ask that isn’t mortifying or desperate.

He flaps his free hand as though it will help him finish the request and then stops, feeling dejected.

After a moment, Atsumu chuckles. His eyes crinkle at the corners. Like this, he looks drunk and flush and fond.

“Yeah,” he says and squeezes Kiyoomi’s hand. “But you gotta sleep on the couch, okay?”

“I’m too tall,” Kiyoomi says—complains.

“Fuck off, you ain’t that much taller’n I am!” Atsumu says, waving their clasped hands between them. It makes Kiyoomi smile under his mask because Atsumu’s just always so hot-headed. He has never—not once—been chill about a single thing said to him. Kiyoomi can deeply relate.

“My legs will hang off the couch,” Kiyoomi says. “They’ll freeze and then you’ll have to cut them off in the morning and then I’ll be late to work and Ota-san will fire me.”

Atsumu stops, mid-dialing his driver, and squints up at Kiyoomi.

“How much did you have to drink, Omi-kun?”

Kiyoomi squints back at him and has the distant, horrible urge to giggle. Oh god.

“Too much,” he says. “More than advised.”

That makes Atsumu’s mouth twitch.

“Cute,” he mutters as he finishes texting his driver.

Kiyoomi wants to protest—he is a lot of things and not one of them warrants the description cute.

“Couch,” Atsumu says again, firmly, and Kiyoomi sighs, distracted.

“Fine,” he says. “But you’ll have to chop my feet off then. No one else. Just you.”

“Kinky,” Atsumu says with a laugh. He squeezes Kiyoomi’s hand again and it makes Kiyoomi feel better. “Alright. Deal.”

Osamu and Suna say goodbye to them as their own car pulls up to the curb. Kiyoomi recognizes the driver as the one who had brought them from Onigiri Miya to the club earlier—he must be trusted, on the Inarizaki payroll.

“Well,” Osamu says, clapping Kiyoomi on the shoulder. “It was nice to finally meet ya, Sakusa-san.”

“You as well, Miya-san,” Kiyoomi says and has the distinct urge to bow. He refrains from doing so because, even drunk, he realizes it would be out of place and Atsumu would likely never let him live it down.

“Nah, just Osamu,” Osamu says. He gives Kiyoomi a steady once over. “You know, you’re not nearly as evil as my brother made ya out to be. Which I suspected was the case since I’d trust the judgment of a serial killer before him.”

“What the fuck, ‘Samu!” Atsumu says loudly behind them.

Kiyoomi’s not sure what to make of that. “Thank you? I think?”

Osamu nods and releases him. “You’re way too good for that shithead, so makes sense why he’s been obsessed with ya.”

“Are ya serious right now!”

Suna grabs Kiyoomi by the shoulders and pulls him into a sudden hug as the twins bicker to end the night. Kiyoomi’s startled, only until he hears Suna lean in close to him and say quietly, “Don’t hurt him, okay?”

It’s given as quickly as it’s taken and then Suna’s gone before Kiyoomi has a chance to process what’s been said, his arm hanging around Osamu’s shoulder as the family driver opens the door for them and they both slide in.

It leaves Kiyoomi feeling uncentered somehow, like there had been a rug under his feet that someone had pulled when he hadn’t been looking. It only lasts a second though. Because Atsumu’s hand is back in his own nearly as soon as he’s felt it.

“So that’s my brother,” Atsumu says as their car pulls away.

After a moment, Kiyoomi says, “I think I see what you mean.”

“About what?”

“Why he would be more…palatable,” Kiyoomi says. “To everyone else.”

Atsumu stills beside him.

“Oh,” he says casually—too casually. He doesn’t move. “You think he’s better too?”

Kiyoomi exhales with a small, tired laugh. It would be easier, wouldn’t it, if that was the case?

“I think he’s adaptable,” Kiyoomi says. “And reliable. Stable. He’s like—” He tries to think of how to explain it. “—an anchor.”

He doesn’t know if that even makes sense, but Atsumu lets out a low laugh a second later.

“That’s a good way to put it, I guess,” he says. “He’s a solid pick.”

“He’s a safe pick,” Kiyoomi says.

Atsumu inclines his head slightly toward him and Kiyoomi’s mouth curves up slightly at the corners.

“Safe is good,” Kiyoomi says. “But you don’t grow by being safe.”

“The bigger the risk the bigger the reward,” Atsumu says softly. “That’s what they say, ain’t it?”

“Ha,” Kiyoomi says on an exhale.

They’re quiet for another minute, nothing but the sounds of the club filtering out somewhere behind them, the door opening and closing, the low register of the bouncer’s voice, footsteps on the pavement, the sound of car tires pulling away on slightly wet concrete.

Kiyoomi tugs on Atsumu’s hand until, frowning, he turns toward him. Atsumu watches him closely, carefully, saying nothing.

Kiyoomi leans forward, runs his fingers through Atsumu’s hair, before spreading his palm at the damp, warm skin of his cheek.

“I don’t play safe, Atsumu,” he says.

Atsumu looks at him. He leans into Kiyoomi’s touch.

“No?”

“No,” Kiyoomi says. “And I don’t understand people who do either.”

Atsumu doesn’t say anything and for a moment Kiyoomi thinks he hasn’t understood him. But then he covers Kiyoomi’s hand with his own and turns his face just enough for Kiyoomi to feel Atsumu’s mouth pressed to the soft skin inside his wrist.

It’s late enough by the time they stumble in through Atsumu’s door that Kiyoomi is half-pleading the case to just drop him at the office.

“I don’t see the point,” he says in protest as Atsumu locks the door behind them and shoves Kiyoomi bodily into his genkan.

“Take off your shoes, you ain’t makin’ any sense,” Atsumu says.

Kiyoomi does as he’s told—mostly because it’s second-nature—but he’s still not seeing the issue with his plan. “We’ll have to wake up in a few hours anyway. If you have your driver drop me off now, I can get started a little earlier. I get a lot of work done before others start coming into the office. It’s my most productive time. I like being there early, Atsumu—”

“Can you relax?” Atsumu says. He sets out slippers for Kiyoomi and changes out of his shoes as well. “Have ya ever relaxed like—a single time in your life?”

“No,” Kiyoomi says. “I don’t take to it well.”

“Of course you don’t,” Atsumu mutters. “Fuckin’ weirdo.”

“If I get tired, I’ll just nap on my couch,” Kiyoomi says. He’s half-arguing just to argue now, because there’s a part of him on automatic that’s just moving after Atsumu as he crosses the genkan and into the hall connecting to his living area.

“You remember my couch,” Kiyoomi says.

“Yeah.” Atsumu snorts. “I remember your couch.”

Atsumu makes his way through his living room and Kiyoomi is so focused on following him that he barely has the attention to spare to observe the space around him. He’d been in here earlier, briefly, but he had been so upset at the time that he hadn’t really processed that he was in Atsumu’s apartment—the place where Atsumu lives. His personal space, which he hadn’t willingly shared with Kiyoomi before, but where Kiyoomi had simply…shown up tonight.

As Kiyoomi follows Atsumu through the living room, and the attached dining room he vaguely catalogs everything in the back of his mind—the high ceiling with the recessed lighting, the dining table of thick, nearly black wood, the wooden floors, the black, leather couch, and the enormous television stretched across the wall opposite the ceiling-to-wall windows. The entire place is meticulously kept, not one single item out of place.

Atsumu stops by the kitchen and Kiyoomi nearly runs into his back because he’s now craning his head around, having abandoned his very important argument to look at everything.

“Here,” Atsumu says and shoves a glass of water into his chest.

“I’m fine,” Kiyoomi says and that actually causes Atsumu to glare at him, which is funny enough that Kiyoomi does as he’s told.

“People don’t know enough you’re a pain in the ass, ya know?” Atsumu says. He leans against the sleek, marble kitchen counter and drinks a glass of water too. “How’d ya hide it all these years?”

Kiyoomi sighs. “It’s ‘cause Motoya doesn’t work with us. Then everyone would know.”

“That’s your cousin, yeah?” Atsumu says and Kiyoomi looks at him curiously.

“How’d you know that?”

“Oh, you uh, mentioned him once or twice,” Atsumu says dubiously.

Kiyoomi frowns because he doesn’t remember doing that, but he’s still fuzzy enough that he’s not sure.

“You wanna shower?” Atsumu says. “That’s something you couldn’t do at the office.”

That’s true.

Kiyoomi finishes his glass of water with a nod.

“All right, follow me.”

They leave their empty glasses in the sink and Kiyoomi follows Atsumu through the rest of the apartment. The decoration is somewhere between minimalist and maximalist, which only means that there’s a lot less clutter than Kiyoomi was expecting, but just enough personal touches to make the place feel thoroughly like Atsumu.

There are framed pictures of his family set on side tables and hung along the hall connecting one part of the apartment to another. Photographs of him and Osamu when they were younger, at their high school graduation, in their volleyball uniforms, the twins wearing matching sweatshirts for Tokyo University, Osamu in a black t-shirt and a hat with an onigiri embroidered onto it, a white apron on, and his hands in a tub of rice. There are pictures of them with their parents—the twins look almost exactly like their mother—and a few with their grandparents—the Miya grandfather does not look anywhere near as severe as Kiyoomi’s own—and other framed images too, artwork and calligraphy and even a photograph of the V.League-winning MSBY team from a few seasons ago, autographed.

There are whole parts to Atsumu on display here that Kiyoomi has never known and has never minded not knowing, but now that he’s here—now that he’s seeing it for himself—he feels strangely, almost compulsively compelled to get to know. He wants to learn these parts of him, Kiyoomi realizes, the odd bits and messy pieces that make up Miya Atsumu. Kiyoomi wants to know the boy pictured on these walls, wants to know what he contains beyond the strict walls of their glass-faced office building.

“These will probably fit,” Atsumu says and it’s only then that Kiyoomi realizes he’s been so distracted by the photographs that he’s missed Atsumu slipping into the open door next to him. When he turns, Atsumu has a pair of sweatpants, a long-sleeved shirt, and a towel folded neatly in his arms. “Figured you don’t wanna crash in clothes other people’ve been sweating on, yeah?”

“Thank you,” Kiyoomi says. He supposes it’s the bare minimum, but he’s oddly touched by the thoughtful gesture anyway. Maybe he should have higher expectations for Atsumu.

“Guest bath is behind you,” Atsumu says. “I’ll get washed up too in the meantime.”

Kiyoomi nods again and some tension leaves his body. He hadn’t even realized he was holding it.

“All right.”

Atsumu gives him a small smile and turns, but before he does, Kiyoomi stops him.

“Atsumu.”

Atsumu turns back, hand on the doorframe.

“I like your apartment,” Kiyoomi says. “It feels like you.”

Atsumu’s eyes widen just a little, not enough to tell unless you’re watching closely. And Kiyoomi is always watching closely.

“Thanks,” he says and for a moment the air between them grows a little nervous, just a little awkward. Then Atsumu shakes his head and flashes Kiyoomi a quick grin. “All right. Shower.”

Kiyoomi exhales and nods. “Shower.”

The shower doesn’t clear his mind, but it does help him feel a lot better. Dragging soap over his skin, washing the sweat and grime and germs of so many strangers off of him makes Kiyoomi feel like he’s sloughed a layer off his shoulders, and that helps. By the time he finishes, he smells like clean soap and expensive shampoo and conditioner, so he doesn’t even mind that he’s wearing an oversized MSBY shirt and MSBY sweatpants and that his curls will probably dry frizzy without any of his usual products.

“Do they sponsor you or something?” Kiyoomi asks as he plods into Atsumu’s room, after.

Atsumu’s finished with his shower as well and is sitting at the edge of his bed in fresh sweatpants and a sweatshirt that says INARIZAKI across the front, phone in hand. He looks up and for a moment he goes a little cross-eyed. Kiyoomi realizes belatedly that he must be wearing Atsumu’s clothes. He manages not to squirm under scrutiny.

Atsumu smiles.

“First love and all that,” he says. “Let me guess. Adlers?”

“Obviously,” Kiyoomi says, looking down at his attire in disgust.

“Typical,” Atsumu says. “And boring as hell.”

“Fuck off,” Kiyoomi says, to Atsumu’s delight.

After all of that—after nearly falling asleep in the car and trying to demand he be dropped at the office and showering—Kiyoomi’s left feeling strangely wired. He looks at the clock on Atsumu’s side table. It reads 03:30 in bright red numbers.

They’ll have to be up in barely a few hours. He should try to get some sleep on the couch if he can.

He doesn’t want to.

“Are you tired?” Kiyoomi asks.

Atsumu shrugs. “Kinda.”

“Oh.”

“Not as tired as I should be, probably,” Atsumu says and glances at the clock.

He doesn’t move—doesn’t make to crawl under the covers and turn off the lights or even tell Kiyoomi goodnight.

Maybe it means something, maybe it doesn’t. Kiyoomi’s never gotten anywhere by not taking a chance.

“Can I—” he starts and then stops. Then tries again, clearing his throat. “Can I come sit next to you?”

Atsumu looks at him dubiously.

“Couch, I know,” Kiyoomi says. “But until then. Just for a minute.”

Atsumu chews on this for only long enough to put Kiyoomi on edge before he sets his phone on the table and peels back the covers.

“Yeah,” he says. “But only for a minute.”

Kiyoomi hesitates for just a second before deciding he’s come this far. He slips off his slippers and carefully sits down at the edge of the bed. Atsumu—sitting up against the headboard now, the blanket pulled over his legs—just sighs.

“Just—c’mon,” he says. “Now it’s just weird.”

Kiyoomi gives him a look and Atsumu gives him a responding look and they battle it out silently for the few seconds it takes for both of their wills to bend. Then Kiyoomi shoves his legs under the covers too, squirming around until he gets comfortable next to Atsumu, his back against the headboard and a foot of space between the two of them.

“Your room doesn’t have pictures of your face everywhere,” Kiyoomi says after an appropriate beat of silence.

“What.”

“I expected, you know—” Kiyoomi says, waving a hand. “A life-sized portrait, maybe. A mural across that wall. To match the size of your ego.”

Atsumu laughs.

“That what you like, Omi-kun?” he says. “A guy with a healthy-sized ego?”

“Oh don’t make it filthy,” Kiyoomi says, although his mouth is twitching. “I was talking about your ego, which is enormous, and not your ego, which is an average—”

“Hey!” Atsumu cries out and shoves at Kiyoomi’s shoulder. “My ego has never disappointed! It’s more than average, asshole. It’s above normal! It’s doing great!”

Kiyoomi can’t help it—he cracks up again.

“Please do not refer to your ego in any manner whatsoever.”

“I’m not gonna stand for insults from someone who can’t get enough of it,” Atsumu says. “Who’s obsessed. Dicksessed.”

“Please,” Kiyoomi says. “Have some sense of shame. Even a modicum of decorum.”

“Nah,” Atsumu says and sticks out his tongue.

Kiyoomi chuckles, unable to keep from smiling. He draws his knees up until the blanket draws up with him. He rests his hands on top, curled into fists.

“God,” he says, his heart beating too fast. “You make me so stupid.”

Atsumu’s expression softens into a wry smile.

“I’d apologize,” he says. “But I think you need a little stupid sometimes.”

“Maybe.” Kiyoomi’s surprised to find himself agreeing with him.

Atsumu tilts his head so that he’s looking at Kiyoomi; Kiyoomi can feel his gaze along the side of his head. His heart ticks up a little.

“Did you really have fun tonight?”

“Yes,” Kiyoomi says. He exhales. “I haven’t let myself be that…carefree in a while. Maybe years.”

“Not surprised,” Atsumu says. Then, “Why not?”

Kiyoomi shrugs. “You know why not.”

Atsumu nods. “Yeah. Guess I do.”

Kiyoomi sighs and uncurls his fists, pressing his palms against his knees.

“I’m not a very fun person, Atsumu,” he says. “I told you that.”

Atsumu hums in response. Then he says, “Omi, can I say somethin’?”

Kiyoomi shrugs again. But then he nods. He leans back against the headboard, his face turned sideways so he can look at Atsumu as they talk.

“I think you’re kinda mean.”

Kiyoomi frowns.

“I know that—”

“No,” Atsumu says, shaking head. “I mean to yourself. I think you’re kinda mean to yourself.”

No one has ever accused Kiyoomi of being that before. When you’re the only son of a family like his—like theirs—with expectations and standards and rules of propriety—

Well. There isn’t any being mean to yourself. There’s only identifying all of the ways in which you have failed and need to improve.

“I think you’re fun,” Atsumu says.

“Miya, you don’t have to lie—”

“Do I seem like the kind of guy who would just say shit to inflate your ego?”

Kiyoomi hesitates.

“You’re fun,” Atsumu says with a half-smile. “I have a lot of fun with you.”

Kiyoomi flattens his fingers against the blanket and curls them back up again. His pulse beats rapidly near his throat.

“Oh,” he says. “Really?”

“Yeah,” Atsumu says. “No matter what we’re doing. Even if we’re at each other’s throats. Even at your worst, you’re more fun than anyone else at their best.”

Kiyoomi had thought something similar earlier that night. It makes him feel fuzzy, waterlogged somehow, a sharp prickle behind his eyes. It makes every part of him spark.

“That’s stupid, Miya,” he says and Atsumu just laughs.

“I know,” he says. “But it’s true. It’s how I feel.”

Kiyoomi can’t even make fun of him—he can barely deflect. Because he feels the same way. Why does he feel the same way? Why does he feel like this when the universe has chosen Atsumu for someone else? Why does he feel like this when Kiyoomi doesn’t have a soulmark at all? If they feel this good together, if the universe had set them on the course to colliding with each other like this—god, then why hadn’t it also made them meant for each other?

“Can I ask now?” Atsumu says quietly. “Are we still not gonna talk about it?”

Kiyoomi feels his gut clench.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” he says tightly.

“Kiyoomi, you’re engaged,” Atsumu says, ignoring him. “You’re engaged to someone else.”

Kiyoomi exhales shakily.

“It’s no different than—”

“Yes it is,” Atsumu says sharply. “I’ve told you why a dozen times now.”

“No,” Kiyoomi says archly, his hackles rising back up. “All you’ve said is that it is.”

They fall into a strained, uncomfortable silence. It makes the hairs stand at the back of Kiyoomi’s neck. It makes his skin prickle.

He hates it. He wants the moment back from before. He wants to feel good again.

“Ignoring it won’t make it better, Omi,” Atsumu says quietly. “It won’t change anything. We still can’t—”

He stops himself.

Kiyoomi says nothing. He exhales, his breathing growing uneven.

“You’re engaged and I have a soulmark,” Atsumu says. He sounds terrible, like he, too, is gutted by their reality. “We can’t ignore it.”

“Why not?” Kiyoomi says.

“Omi—”

“No, Atsumu,” Kiyoomi says. He curls his hands into fists again, his nails biting angrily into his palms. He closes his eyes and grits his teeth against the awful, rending drag of what he’s feeling. “We know what our lives are. How they’ve been mapped for us. We might even want parts of it. You’re right. The reality—that isn’t going to change. When we walk back into the office tomorrow—in a few hours—none of it will be different. I will be engaged and you will be someone else’s soulmate. So why can’t we just ignore it for a little while?”

Atsumu says nothing.

When Kiyoomi opens his eyes again, Atsumu is still. He looks almost stricken.

“For one night, let’s just forget who we’re both promised to,” Kiyoomi says. “Let’s just…pretend something else.”

And it’s not something Kiyoomi has ever asked for before. It’s not something he has ever contemplated. Sakusa Kiyoomi is a realist, not a dreamer.

But for one evening, just for a few hours, all he wants is to have what he wants.

He knows it’s too much to ask even as he asks it, but he’s selfish enough to ask it anyway. He’s selfish enough to have proposed to Iizuna and he’s selfish enough to ask Atsumu to pretend otherwise.

Sakusa Kiyoomi, he’s just selfish.

He doesn’t realize he’s holding his breath—that he’s shaking—until he feels Atsumu’s arms around him. Atsumu’s chin on his shoulder. Atsumu’s breath against his jaw.

“Okay,” Atsumu says quietly and Kiyoomi slowly releases his breath too. “All right, Omi-kun. It’s just a few hours. Nothing’s gonna change in a few hours.”

Kiyoomi’s absurdly grateful; he feels the relief wash over him like a tide.

“Just a few hours,” he murmurs.

Atsumu presses a kiss to his shoulder.

“Guess the couch was just wishful thinking, huh?” he says after a minute and Kiyoomi breathes out a laugh.

“Is that all right?”

“What choice do I have?”

“You have a choice,” Kiyoomi says.

Atsumu snorts. “What choice do I have?”

“None,” Kiyoomi says.

Atsumu sighs.

“I finally got you in my bed and I can’t even do anything about it,” he says.

“You could,” Kiyoomi says, but he knows it’s pointless. The only reason he can be irresponsible now—reckless and selfish and an overall asshole—is because he knows, in his gut, that Atsumu won’t be. If he trusted him any less, he wouldn’t be here right now.

Or maybe that’s wishful thinking too.

“Just sleeping,” Atsumu says firmly.

“That’s fine,” Kiyoomi says.

And it is. They don’t have to do anything more for Kiyoomi to want this; they’ve already done enough. They’ve had each other more times than they can count and it lives in Kiyoomi—the memory of Atsumu’s touch, all of the times Atsumu has kissed him or crowded him against something, unzipped him, unbuttoned him, put his mouth on Kiyoomi’s skin. That Kiyoomi still wants more of that—that he still wants more of Atsumu—doesn’t mean he wants this any less.

They have done everything else, after all, but this—just staying with each other.

Kiyoomi leans back into Atsumu now—Atsumu’s arms around him, his nose in Kiyoomi’s hair, the ghost of his mouth against his temple—and he exhales.

He falls asleep thinking how nice it is, even to just sleep next to him—to just be held by him—sharing a burden neither of them can escape.

Chapter Text

ACT XI: The Bitter Pill.

They wake up tangled together. It’s been a long time since Kiyoomi has woken up in someone else’s bed and even longer since he’s woken up in someone else’s arms. He arouses slowly at first, with his senses coming alive piece by piece, every small sensation trickling in separately—the warmth surrounding him, the hard line against his back, legs tangled with his own, an arm around his waist, a nose in his hair. The sun trickling in through window shades he knows he would never have picked out, the slight frisson of tension in the few minutes before the alarm has gone off. He couldn’t have been asleep for very long—maybe two hours, maybe three—but he feels himself come alive all at once, better rested than he’s been in months.

There’s slight movement behind him and after a beat, he feels Atsumu’s arms tighten around him.

“Just five more minutes,” Atsumu murmurs into the back of Kiyoomi’s neck, his breath ruffling Kiyoomi’s smashed, morning curls.

Kiyoomi wants to say yes—he wants to give Atsumu the peace of five more minutes—but he wants to see him too, wants to see what he looks like in the morning, just after he’s woken, before he’s fully awake. It occurs to him that it may be the only chance he will ever have to wake up to him—to see Atsumu in the pale, breathless light of the morning—and it’s too early and Kiyoomi’s too newly awake for the thought to make him sad.

Instead, he takes a breath and wriggles out of Atsumu’s grasp.

“Omi, what—” Atsumu grumbles, but Kiyoomi rolls around in his arms to face him before he has the chance to finish.

That knocks his eyes wide open. The two of them—Kiyoomi turned toward Atsumu, his hand on Atsumu’s chest, and Atsumu staring at him in the quiet of the morning, one arm caught under Kiyoomi, the other thrown over his waist—waking up to each other.

“Morning,” Kiyoomi says and smiles.

Atsumu breathes out the softest laugh. “Hey.”

They’re quiet.

“Sleep well?” Kiyoomi says after a minute.

“Yeah,” Atsumu says. “You?”

“Yeah,” Kiyoomi says.

Another stretch of silence. Apparently the early morning is the only time Miya Atsumu is at a loss for things to say.

“You don’t snore in your sleep,” Kiyoomi speaks instead.

“Why, was I supposed to?”

“Maybe,” Kiyoomi says. “It seemed like a possibility.”

Atsumu chuckles.

“You got all sorts of…ideas about me, huh?” he says. He smiles. “You always thinkin’ about me or somethin’, Omi-kun?”

“Yes,” Kiyoomi says simply and Atsumu’s teasing smile falters. Kiyoomi reaches up and brushes back his dyed blond hair, soft and in such disarray from sleep. “You’re like a…parasite. I can’t seem to rid myself of you. When did you get in there?”

“I don’t know,” Atsumu says. He’s quiet—too quiet—as though what they’re saying is a secret, or maybe like if he’s louder, it might break the delicate cocoon they’ve nested themselves in. “When did I get in there?”

Kiyoomi sighs. “Probably the first time you pissed me off.”

“That’s all it takes?”

“I have really bad taste,” Kiyoomi says and that makes Atsumu laugh. Atsumu’s always laughing. Sometimes it’s a nice laugh and sometimes it’s a mean one. A few times, it’s been sad. But he does it so constantly, so freely. Kiyoomi wishes he could take some of that for himself—that ability to reach for levity when it’s within reach.

Atsumu lets out a breath. He looks conflicted for the briefest of moments before his arm tightens around Kiyoomi again.

“How long do we have?”

“Mm. Before your alarm?”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t know, Atsumu,” Kiyoomi says. “As I did not set it.”

Atsumu snorts.

“Then what time is it?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you know, Kiyoomi?” Atsumu asks.

Kiyoomi brushes his fingers against Atsumu’s temple, down the curve of his cheek, across his jaw. Atsumu’s breath stutters in his chest.

“I want to kiss you,” Kiyoomi says, honest as he never is. It’s easy to be honest, in the quiet of the morning.

“Oh.” Atsumu swallows. “And?”

“And I want you to kiss me.”

Atsumu’s eyes flutter closed. “Where?”

“Here,” Kiyoomi says. His fingertips at the back of Atsumu’s jaw.

“And?”

“And here.” His fingertips drift down Atsumu’s jaw toward the tip of his chin.

“That all?”

“No,” Kiyoomi says. He trails his fingers up—up the dip before Atsumu’s mouth, across his lips, stopping at the miniscule part between them, over his cupid’s bow, across the curve of his nose. All of the places to be kissed; to offer kisses.

Atsumu’s breathing shallows.

Kiyoomi presses the pads of his index and middle finger up the bridge of Atsumu’s nose and down across his eyelids, brushing them closed. He thumbs the space underneath them, then spreads his fingers, cups half of Atsumu’s face in the palm of his hand.

“Kiyoomi,” Atsumu says.

“I would,” Kiyoomi says. “If you let me.”

Atsumu looks sad. “You’d hate me forever if I did.”

“I wouldn’t hate you forever,” Kiyoomi says.

Atsumu knows him well enough to know he’s not sure.

“You would.”

“Possibly,” Kiyoomi says. He strokes the side of Atsumu’s face. “But wouldn’t that make everything easier?”

Atsumu shakes his head.

“Liar,” Kiyoomi says.

“I don’t want you to hate me, Omi,” Atsumu says.

“Why not?”

“I hated it when you hated me,” he says and Kiyoomi frowns. “So I’m not gonna try to make it happen again.”

“But.”

Atsumu doesn’t look away; he refuses to relent. “I’m over it, Omi-kun. If ya want to hate me again, you’ll have to do the work on your own.”

Kiyoomi wants to want to hate him again. He wants to want to do that work. But they’re long past anything like that. Now, all Kiyoomi has left is this deep, fathomless pit of want.

And—

“Atsumu,” Kiyoomi says and his voice is shockingly shaky on the three syllables. Fuck.

Humiliating.

Atsumu sighs.

“It’s alright,” he says and pulls Kiyoomi closer—drags him until Kiyoomi’s forehead is pressed to the top of Atsumu’s chest and Atsumu’s chin is resting against the crown of his hair. “Fuck it. It’s gonna be alright.”

“It doesn’t feel all right,” Kiyoomi says shakily, voice muffled into Atsumu’s sweatshirt.

“That’s just your brain sayin’ shit. Self sabotage. Dumb as hell. It’s not the sharpest pocky in the box.”

Kiyoomi makes a noise, like he can’t believe what Atsumu has said. Like he can’t believe Atsumu.

“You don’t even want this,” Atsumu says.

“I don’t?”

“No,” Atsumu says. “Don’t ya remember?”

“No,” Kiyoomi says.

Atsumu just sighs again.

“We’re just stupid, right? We’ve been stupid this entire fuckin’ time so like, what’s new? You’ll remember soon enough, all the things you can’t stand about me.”

“I can’t remember it,” Kiyoomi says. “I can’t remember any of it.”

“Nonsense. Here, I’ll remind ya,” Atsumu says, rubbing soothing circles into Kiyoomi’s back. “I’m selfish and arrogant and irritating. I’m too brash and too confident. I’m honestly kinda rude. I don’t play by the rules. I aggravate you because I think it’s funny when you get mad. I don’t respect boundaries. I look ugly in a suit.”

“You do not look ugly in a suit,” Kiyoomi says on a laugh that sounds a little too high-pitched to be steady. “Idiot.”

“No it’s true, I look handsome as fuck in a suit,” Atsumu says, agreeing. “I was just tryin’ to make sure you were paying attention.”

“God, you’re an asshole,” Kiyoomi says and presses closer.

“Yeah, that too,” Atsumu murmurs, pressing his mouth into Kiyoomi’s curls. “Especially that. See? It’ll all come back to ya. You’re not really missin’ out on anything.”

Kiyoomi bites back every vulnerable feeling threatening to overwhelm him. He braces himself against the onslaught of it—the battering weight of everything he is close to finally feeling. Compartmentalize, repress, lock it all into a box and throw away the key. Kiyoomi has been doing it for so long it should come second nature. Still, it takes more than a minute. It takes at least a few shaky, unsteady breaths. But he manages, if only because he has no choice but to do so.

Atsumu finally lets him pull back when he’s collected himself.

“I’m all right. I’m just tired,” Kiyoomi says. “That’s all.”

“Yeah,” Atsumu says, letting him have it. “I know.”

“I apologize for—”

“Don’t apologize.” Atsumu smiles and says, “I like you less when you apologize.”

Kiyoomi recognizes his own words. He almost laughs. Atsumu presses his fingers against Kiyoomi’s moles, then brushes his curls behind his ears.

They tangle their hands between them, in the space between their chests. They watch one another—breathe together, share this last bit of morning together. Tangled together in bed—bodies perfect parallels of one another—the morning light barely creeping in through the window, it’s easier for them to be honest. It’s easier for Kiyoomi to face that honesty without turning away from it.

“Thank you,” he says. “For last night.”

“I told ya,” Atsumu says quietly, not looking away. “You can trust me.”

Kiyoomi brushes his palm against Atsumu’s face. He cups his cheek gently, leans forward, and kisses him.

Then the alarm goes off.

“Stay. I’ll make breakfast,” Atsumu says. “Then Fukuda can just take us together.”

Kiyoomi shouldn’t consider it, but he does. They have some time before they need to be at the office and if he doesn’t eat something and drink enough coffee to counter-saturate the blood alcohol level of his system, he’s not sure he’ll make it through the work day in one piece.

“I need to change,” Kiyoomi says. He hadn’t planned to stay the night when he’d snuck out of his room and legged it across town to Atsumu’s the evening before. He’d been dressed for home, had shown up in dark trousers and a sweater, which wasn’t an inappropriate outfit for the office per se, but certainly wasn’t befitting his professional position.

“I got clothes,” Atsumu says. “Plenty of ‘em. Closets full, even. The shirt fit you well enough last night.”

“I can’t wear your clothes, Atsumu,” Kiyoomi says.

There’s a momentary flicker of something across Atsumu’s face—surprise, maybe, or pleasure.

“Why not? Somethin’ wrong with expensive designer shirts? You got a change of heart and now only wear clothes from department stores?”

Kiyoomi gives him a look and swings his legs over the edge of the bed. “Hardly. But people will—”

“What, talk?” Atsumu laughs.

Kiyoomi frowns. “Yes. Especially if we arrive together.”

“Aw, let ‘em,” Atsumu says. He follows Kiyoomi’s lead and shoves the covers off of him. “You think they don’t already?”

“Not about this,” Kiyoomi insists.

“Who cares?” Atsumu says. “They’re depressed, vitamin D-deficient office workers, Omi, give them somethin’ to enjoy at the water cooler.”

“How do you know about their vitamin D levels?”

“I know that cubicles don’t got windows and we spend more hours a day on that floor than we don’t.”

Kiyoomi is loath to admit Atsumu has a point. He’s still not sold on this conceptually—blurring the line between professional and personal, giving their colleagues a reason to gossip—but then he feels arms around his waist and a chin hooked over his shoulder and his mind goes blank.

“Let me make ya breakfast, okay?” Atsumu says and his breath tickles Kiyoomi’s chin. Kiyoomi’s skin warms; his heart flips in his chest. He wants, with an aching need, to be pulled back into bed. He can’t let that happen, but for a moment he lets himself want it.

It’s impossible to put up a fight after that, which is really unfair. Dirty tactics. Atsumu blows lightly on Kiyoomi’s ear and Kiyoomi shivers.

“What are you doing, Miya.”

“Trying to be persuasive,” Atsumu says. “Is it working?”

“Not in the least.”

Atsumu turns his head just slightly and Kiyoomi can feel the brush of his nose against his curls. Atsumu’s arms tightening around his waist.

“Omi-kun,” Atsumu says.

“Miya.”

“Omi.”

“This is unfair.”

“I did say that about me,” Atsumu says, grinning. “Remember? I don’t play by the rules and all.”

“I detest you,” Kiyoomi says.

“Nah.”

“I cannot stand you,” Kiyoomi says.

“Probably.”

Kiyoomi sighs, stupid and pained.

“No eggs.”

“Hm.” Atsumu nestles closer and Kiyoomi thinks he feels his mouth on his shoulder, a brush of a thing. “Okayu?”

Kiyoomi turns his head just a little, just enough to feel the soft slide of Atsumu’s hair against his face. His heart tumbles.

“Okay,” he says and feels Atsumu smile.

Atsumu gives him a spare toothbrush and a towel. Kiyoomi washes his face, takes another quick shower, and changes into a fresh set of clothes that Atsumu’s set out for him. They’re brand new—tags still on them—and perfectly respectable, neatly pressed beige slacks and a black button up.

It feels strange to be here—to be in Atsumu’s bathroom, brushing his teeth and drying his hair next to the cup that Atsumu keeps his toothbrush and toothpaste in, the corner of the marble countertop taken up by Atsumu’s toiletries—his deodorant and his shaving cream, his hairbrush and his cologne—pulling on clothes in Atsumu’s bedroom, where he sleeps, his bed freshly made and a glass of water half-finished on his night table next to a book that he’s been reading, with a pair of reading glasses folded on top. There are all sorts of unguarded little details, the passing, domestic things that make him Atsumu—the framed picture of him and his brother on his dresser, next to a little case that holds three ticking watches in cushioned red velvet underneath glass, and a little bowl he must have picked up while traveling or that someone must have given him from their own, with a few sets of cufflinks he must prefer to wear above all of the rest.

There are so many things that Kiyoomi knows about Miya Atsumu and so many things he has left to discover. In a place like this, so personal and intimate, there are answers to questions he never thought to ask; there are stories about Atsumu he’d never imagined he’d hear.

Is it too little too late to want them now?

Kiyoomi wishes he had given them a chance before. He wishes they’d had more time.

But wishes are for people who refuse to accept reality and Kiyoomi was always raised to be a pragmatist.

He buttons the cuffs of his shirt and slides his leather belt through the loops of his slacks. He fixes his hair and turns off the table lamp.

Kiyoomi closes the bedroom door behind him and lets his wishes go.

Atsumu, it turns out, is a fair hand at cooking. This is something that is so shocking to Kiyoomi that he nearly chokes on his second spoonful of okayu.

“Serves you right, jackass!” Atsumu says loudly, unsympathetic to Kiyoomi’s plight. He coughs until Atsumu, grumbling, shoves a glass of water at him to help.

Kiyoomi drinks half of it before emerging, red-faced and still shocked.

“How was I to know?”

“My brother literally owns a restaurant,” Atsumu says, pointing a spoon at Kiyoomi threateningly. “Onigiri place. We were literally there last night. Ring a bell, asshole?”

“Yes, but,” Kiyoomi says.

“What. Tell me what!”

“Your brother had made…the ingredients,” Kiyoomi says dubiously.

“You tellin’ me it doesn’t take skill to roll onigiri?” Atsumu says glaring. “You?”

A fair point, if Kiyoomi is trying to remember his humiliation from the night before, which he certainly is not.

“I’m sorry,” Kiyoomi says. He takes another spoonful of the porridge—it’s well-balanced, savory from the mushrooms and scallions, with the tart bite of pickled plum and a subtle sweetness from where Atsumu must have added just a little sugar. Kiyoomi, who has the opposite of a good hand in the kitchen, has never and could never have made something similar for himself. “It’s delicious.”

“You’re damn right it is,” Atsumu huffs, but he looks pleased overall.

It’s not an overly complicated breakfast, but it’s a hearty one. Atsumu’s made them coffee and okayu and set out a bowl of fresh fruit and a little dish of natto that Kiyoomi would rather die than eat.

“You’re crazy,” Atsumu says after Kiyoomi has expressed this opinion. “It’s so fuckin’ good.”

Kiyoomi’s ambivalent about the flavor, but the slimy, sticky strands trigger whatever food texture-related trauma he holds.

He takes a pickled plum between his chopsticks and sticks it in his mouth.

“Your taste in this, as in everything else, is borderline unforgivable.”

“Your loss,” Atsumu says and shovels more stringy, slimy beans into his mouth. “More for me!”

Which is a declaration that, for once, Kiyoomi has absolutely no desire to argue with.

They eat breakfast across from each other, a little tired, a little nervous, and—more than both—strangely comfortable. It feels like a secluded pocket in time, a brief respite from whatever else is going on outside of this space. Their phones are on silent, tucked into the inside of their jackets.

Atsumu is stopped neither by a mouthful of okayu nor natto to keep from rambling on, one topic to another, the conversation so easy even Kiyoomi doesn’t have to think about it. They bring up the parts of the night before that are uncomplicated—like how Osamu decided to open an onigiri business, and how Suna is maybe the worst employee that has ever been volunteered to watch the front of house, how Atsumu and Osamu used to compete relentlessly in high school at dance dance revolution of all things and that’s why Atsumu is convinced he’s a better dance than his brother and how Kiyoomi has absolutely no skill in the kitchen to speak of.

It’s lighthearted and it’s easy and Kiyoomi finds himself smiling more than he should, finds himself laughing more than he means to, teasing Atsumu, being mocked in return, reaching over to pluck pickled plums from Atsumu’s plate—much to Atsumu’s fake outrage—without Atsumu’s permission, and not moving his foot away when Atsumu slides a socked foot against his ankle. It feels impossible altogether, a delicate, closely-held, impossible morning in an impossible day in the middle of an impossible stretch of time.

There’s something here Kiyoomi can’t let himself think about, a softness between the two of them they’ve never allowed before, a domesticity that doesn’t suit them, but they want anyway. Kiyoomi wants to know what Atsumu would make for lunch if he stayed, what it would feel like to walk around Atsumu’s apartment, wearing his shirt and nothing more, a cup of hot coffee between his palms, sneaking up behind Atsumu as he’s working at the stove. Maybe Kiyoomi would bump his chin into Atsumu’s back, maybe he would press his forehead to the back of Atsumu’s neck and close his eyes. Maybe he would slot in behind him, his chin over Atsumu’s shoulder, watching Atsumu as he threw stir fry into the air, the vegetables sizzling as it hit the teriyaki sauce in the pan.

Maybe he would watch Atsumu laugh as he told Kiyoomi a story—any story, maybe about his brother and Suna and something they’d done the past weekend, or maybe about their coworkers, what Yamamoto did on a client call on Tuesday or how Kato’s latest date had gone. Maybe he would laugh too and tell Atsumu a story in return—what his oldest and middle sisters were fighting about now, or how Motoya had single handedly somehow won his rec league’s volleyball game, or about the time Wakatoshi got lost in Shibuya for five hours and Kiyoomi had to go pick him up from the police station.

Kiyoomi wants to know what it would be like if they could do this with no consequences, Atsumu abandoning the dishes after lunch despite Kiyoomi’s protestations, to pin him back against the wall in the living room, unable to stop himself—and not needing to—the two of them immediately pulling at each other, Atsumu ripping the buttons on his own shirt on Kiyoomi in impatience, Kiyoomi with his finger curled into the elastic of Atsumu’s sweatpants to drag him closer, to press his palm against him, the hard heat searing underneath the soft cloth. He wants to know if it would be different, if it would feel better or worse or freer—if he would laugh and stop Atsumu’s inelegant pawing with a palm to Atsumu’s neck, holding Atsumu in place as he opened his mouth and kissed him firmly, or if he would let Atsumu slot his thigh between his legs and let Kiyoomi bear down against it, his back thumping back against the wall, the bookshelf beside them rattling and rattling until things start to slide off and then they would have to stop—just for a moment—to look at each other—wild-eyed, electric, hungry and satiated and thrilled and happy—and laugh.

Kiyoomi wants to know what it would be like to stay an entire day here, to be able to look at Atsumu in the morning after they’d woken to one another, to watch him move about and laugh freely and kiss Kiyoomi in the bright, buttery light of the day, to brush his blond hair back from his forehead as the apartment darkened with the sky outside, only the moonlight filtering in to make the two of them glow.

He wonders what it would be like, to be able to let Atsumu tangle their hands together, to let him lead Kiyoomi back to his bedroom—stopping every few steps along the way, their mouths pressed together, their tongues brushing, their hearts beating so very fast—where he could take his time undressing Kiyoomi, and lowering Kiyoomi to the bed, and pressing Kiyoomi back into the mattress, where he could mouth along Kiyoomi’s heated, damp skin, and help Kiyoomi lift his hips to slide down his underwear, and take Kiyoomi the way he wanted to be taken.

Kiyoomi doesn’t know if he would want it the same if he so easily had it and he doesn’t know if Atsumu would either, but the possibility makes him ache with something unnamed and untouched. To wonder about something that will never come true—to get just the briefest taste of it—a snowflake upon his tongue—and know he will never get anything more and only be left with guesses and half-formed fantasies—

Maybe that’s what makes that part of him ache. Maybe that’s the only thing keeping him wondering.

It’s possible that this only matters to him now because it’s an exercise in futility; something he will never be able to answer for himself.

How can Kiyoomi know if it’s something real or just a figment of his unrealized wishes?

“—shit, lost track of time,” Atsumu says and it brings Kiyoomi out of his head.

“Hm?”

“We gotta leave soon,” Atsumu says, looking up from his watch. He gives Kiyoomi a little smile and nudges his foot against Kiyoomi’s own. “You not listening to me?”

“I never listen to you, Miya,” Kiyoomi says. “Self preservation.”

Atsumu laughs and Kiyoomi commits it to memory, the way he wants to remember it, him, this morning.

Atsumu tilts his head just a little. “You good?”

Kiyoomi’s heart constricts in his chest; it tumbles where it sits.

He can’t say the truth, so he opts for a soft lie.

“Yes,” he says. “Let’s not be late.” And, “I’ll gather my things.”

It’s strange to get ready with someone and stranger still when that person is the one person you’ve spent the better part of years avoiding, loathing, being inexplicably drawn to.

The two of them toe their shoes on at the door. They pause, Atsumu’s fingers curled around the door handle, neither of them sure what to say, how to let all of this go.

In the end, they don’t say anything at all.

Maybe it’s for the best, Kiyoomi will think later.

He doesn’t know what Atsumu could have said to make what happens next any better anyway.

Later, he won’t know if it’s the shouting or the flash and click of camera shutters that makes him realize that something has happened. He doesn’t know what—hasn’t had the opportunity to find out—but it doesn’t take much effort to put two and two together.

Atsumu locks and closes the door behind them. Kiyoomi steps out from under the shelter of the apartment building’s eaves and waits for him.

“He’s just pullin’ up the car,” Atsumu says, stepping toward Kiyoomi.

He feels the brush of Atsumu’s hand against his. Kiyoomi curls their fingers together and turns toward him, a teasing smile on his face, when the flash of bulbs goes off.

“Sakusa-san!” someone shouts. “Sakusa-san!”

“Miya-san! Miya-san, look here!”

An ambush by two, maybe three cameramen.

Kiyoomi inhales sharply, blinking rapidly against the sudden, blinding onslaught of the bright flashes in his eyes. His heart rate immediately spikes.

“Sakusa-san, tell us about your wild night! Who was the mystery man?”

“Where was Iizuna-san! Was he there with you? Do you have an open relationship?

“How many men did you kiss? Does Iizuna-san know?”

“Sakusa-san! What did he say when he saw the pictures!”

Kiyoomi looks at Atsumu in that moment, in a bit of a panic, which is exactly the wrong thing to do. There are more flashes in their faces. Atsumu lets go of his hand immediately.

“Miya-san! Over here!”

“Miya-san, what’s her name? Why didn’t you say anything before?”

“Is it true, Sakusa-san? Did you know?”

“Why didn’t you tell us about her, Miya-san!”

“Yes, why didn’t you tell us about your fiancée?”

Kiyoomi barely has a chance to process anything, and certainly he knows better than to answer, before Atsumu grabs him by the shoulder and bodily drags him past the cameramen—arms thrown up to block them from view—down the path to the black car that’s waiting for them.

The Miya family driver looks slightly alarmed, but he has the door open for them within seconds and Atsumu shoves Kiyoomi into the back seat while the cameramen are still shouting questions and snapping their cameras.

“What the fuck,” Atsumu gasps as Fukuda slams the door behind him. “What the fuck!”

“Sir,” Fukuda says, sliding into the front seat and immediately shifting the car off of park. “Sir, are you all right?”

“How the fuck did they find us?” Atsumu says. His voice is shaking. His hands are too—he’s livid. “They’ve never done that to me before. Never found out where I live. What the fuck.”

“They weren’t there earlier, sir,” Fukuda says as he puts the car into drive and nearly slams them out of there. They can see the cameramen still trying to take pictures as they peel away from the curb and into traffic. “They must have been hiding or—arrived when I went to go and get the car. I’m sorry, I should have checked, I should have—”

“You couldn’t have known,” Atsumu says, although his words are tight. He leans up toward the front and directs the driver down a different route. “Go that way, there’s less of a chance we’ll be followed—”

Next to him, in the back seat, Kiyoomi’s head is spinning. His chest is squeezed impossibly tight, his heart palpitating wildly. He’s trembling from shock, still seeing the flash of bulbs go off in front of his eyes. He can still hear the shouted, invasive questions, the pointed insinuations ricocheting around his head. How had they known where to find them? How had they known they’d be together? How had they known to have their cameras with them?

How had they known about—the night before?

Kiyoomi nearly gasps, panic suddenly gripping him.

Does Iizuna-san know? What did he say when he saw the pictures!

The pictures. What pictures?

He grasps Atsumu’s arm.

“What pictures?”

“Huh?” Atsumu tears his attention away from the driver. Kiyoomi must be telegraphing the panic clearly on his face because Atsumu’s expression changes from fury to alarm. “Omi, are you okay?”

“What pictures, Atsumu?” Kiyoomi says.

Atsumu shakes his head. He pales a bit, as though finally remembering everything that the cameramen had shouted at them. “I don’t know.”

Kiyoomi fumbles inside his jacket for his phone.

“Omi, maybe you shouldn’t—”

But Kiyoomi has to know. Someone had told the press where the two of them would be. Someone had told them about the night before. The night before, when Kiyoomi had allowed himself to be careless, self-indulgent, and publicly selfish, just one time.

Suddenly he can’t remember what it was that he’d done. Had he been hanging onto Atsumu outside of the night club? Had he been caught dancing with him? Staring at him? Touching him? Kissing him?

His lungs constrict, tightening with fear. The second he thumbs on his phone, he can see the consequence of whatever’s happened—half a dozen missed calls from his mother, from his father, dozens of missed messages from the family group chat with his sisters, texts from Wakatoshi and Motoya in increasingly worried tones.

are you okay??

Kiyoomi, are you all right?

i can’t believe it. holy shit.

If you are all right, would you reply to me?

auntie’s been calling all morning, kiyo. uncle too. they’re pissed. did they not know?

Please answer, Kiyoomi. Satori and I are worried.

“Omi-kun,” Atsumu is saying somewhere next to Kiyoomi, but Kiyoomi can barely hear him. He can barely feel his own skin. “Omi, look at me.”

But Kiyoomi can’t. Because he’s accidentally thumbed to a single text from Aiko and all it says is Did you see? along with a link. And he’d gone and opened it.

SAKUSA HEIR’S WILD NIGHT OUT—WITH ANOTHER MAN!

Sakusa Kiyoomi, heir to the multibillion yen entertainment and business conglomerate, Itachiyama Group, just announced his engagement to Schweiden Adlers Setter Iizuna Tsubasa less than 48 hours ago. However, last night he was seen at a nightclub, drinking to excess and partying—with his fiance nowhere in sight. Maybe Iizuna knows of his fiance’s uncontrollable nights out, but we wonder if he knows the man whose arms Sakusa spent the entire night in.

Along with the short article are pictures of Kiyoomi from the night before, his hair frizzy, the top of his shirt unbuttoned and his sleeves rolled up. He’s flushed and his eyes are glazed. In each picture, he is obviously holding closely onto someone—his arm around Atsumu’s shoulder or his hand at Atsumu’s waist, Kiyoomi burying his face into Atsumu’s neck from laughter or leaning in close, too close, to Atsumu’s mouth.

In each image, Kiyoomi is clearly pictured. In each image, Atsumu can only be seen by the back of his head or a blurred profile caught in shadow.

Kiyoomi’s head spins. His heart thuds so fast in his chest, he genuinely thinks he might pass out. Or throw up.

“Omi-kun,” Atsumu is still saying in the background, distantly, as though from somewhere very far away. “Kiyoomi, please look up.”

But now Kiyoomi’s clicking a second link that’s just popped up, this time from his cousin.

what the fuck. this entire time?

Kiyoomi doesn’t have to finish reading the headline or see the picture for something in him to splinter.

HAPPY NEWS: MIYA HEIR ENGAGED TO HIS SOULMATE

There’s information here, a paragraph of something something something, but Kiyoomi can’t read that. He can barely tolerate the picture—some woman with long, silver hair, dark eyes, and a smile like she’s hiding a secret. On her collarbone, just peeking out from under a soft, lovely blouse of lavender are the dark lines of a little origami crane.

He drops his phone like it’s burned him.

“Kiyoomi?” Atsumu says, but Kiyoomi can barely hear him anymore.

Kiyoomi thinks it’s unfair. It’s cruel on every conceivable level—of the universe, of the fates, of Atsumu, of his own fucking body. That he should be given someone he would never have let in otherwise, who he has—against his better instincts—allowed into the little, careful circle of his life. That that someone should, over the course of years—against Kiyoomi’s better wishes—ingratiate himself to Kiyoomi, win Kiyoomi’s reluctant affections, secure Kiyoomi’s rarely offered trust, and then—

To have him be so close. To give Kiyoomi a taste of what it might be like, to have someone who matches him—someone his very own.

But that’s Kiyoomi’s mistake. His entire fault for being so naive as to even for a moment forget the fundamental point here—something that has never once been in question—that Miya Atsumu belongs to someone else. Miya Atsumu has always been someone else’s soulmate.

It was Kiyoomi’s stupidity to not ask before if he had been someone else’s fiance too.

When Kiyoomi looks up at Miya, it’s clear that Miya’s seen what’s on Kiyoomi’s phone. He looks at once confused and panicked. That’s how Kiyoomi knows it’s true.

“Kiyoomi,” Miya says and tries to touch him, but Kiyoomi shoves himself back toward the opposite side of the car, slamming into the locked door.

He’s breathing hard. His skin is cold and his cheeks are flushed and he can barely think. He’s so angry, he thinks he can feel his hands shaking.

“Kiyoomi, please—”

“How dare you,” Kiyoomi says.

Miya freezes. His hand is still outstretched.

“All this time,” Kiyoomi says. He can barely stand to look at Miya, but he refuses to look away. His voice shakes. “All this fucking time.”

“I don’t—” Miya says. “It’s not true—”

“It’s right there,” Kiyoomi says. “It’s in the fucking news article, Miya. There are pictures. Are you saying they’re lying? Do you think they would have the audacity?”

“Kiyoomi,” Miya nearly begs his name. “You have to listen to me—”

Kiyoomi does not.

“Your soulmate.” He breathes out. “No wonder you never said anything. Refused to say anything. You don’t care about all of this bullshit—isn’t that what you said?” His mind is racing. He can barely keep up. “You made me feel bad for bringing it up. No wonder you would always change the subject. You lied to me. You were engaged to her. This entire time.”

“I’m not—” Miya starts with a sharp inhale and then something flickers across his face. “You’re engaged.”

“Don’t change the subject!” Kiyoomi snaps. He’s starting to feel his extremities again. It’s coming to him in waves, feeling rippling up his numb skin.

“Omi, please let me explain—”

“How long have you been planning this?” Kiyoomi asked.

Miya looks like he’s been slapped.

“What?”

“All of this—seducing me. Using me. Getting beneath my defenses so that you could humiliate me.”

Miya’s face is turning red.

“What the fuck are you saying?”

“How did they know where we were, Miya?” Kiyoomi says with a sneer.

“Excuse me?”

“Last night—it was your idea wasn’t it?” Kiyoomi’s mind is going a hundred miles an hour. “Going to Onigiri Miya. Going to the club. All of it your idea. I didn’t know where we were going, but you did, the entire time. God, you planned it all.”

Miya who’s been on the verge of interrupting Kiyoomi, inhales. He nearly reels back, as though he’s been slapped.

“What?”

“You told them,” Kiyoomi says. The more he says it out loud, the more it makes sense. Everything is clicking now in his head—the entire night. Miya saying that he should trust him. Miya offering him his clothes. Miya taking him out in public, then to a night club he’s oh-so familiar with. Miya plying him with drinks. Miya dancing close to him, holding his hand outside the club, calling his family driver to take them back to his place. “My god. You set it up. You told them where we would be—where I would be.”

Miya looks like he’s torn between dismay and fury.

“You cannot be fucking serious. What the fuck are you accusing me of?”

“All of these headlines!” Kiyoomi nearly shouts and his phone nearly fumbles from his grasp as he picks it up and tries to shove it at Miya. The article that Motoya had sent him is up, but so are half a dozen similar articles linked just underneath: SPOILED SON OF CEO PARTIES ALL NIGHT, ITACHIYAMA HEIR WITHOUT HIS FIANCE, SAKUSA WILD CHILD—UP ALL NIGHT, CAN ITACHIYAMA’S SAKUSA KIYOOMI REALLY RUN AN EMPIRE?

Miya pales as he reads them.

“Shit,” he says, his anger flickering out. “What are all of these? Fuck. Kiyoomi, I didn’t—”

“All of these articles—” Kiyoomi says and he’s nearly burning from his fury, a level of anger he hadn’t known he was capable of, anger that is running so hot he knows it is only barely masking the abject humiliation he feels just underneath. “Each of these pictures. I am in all of them and you’re in none. Even though you were there too. Even though you took me there!”

“I didn’t!” Miya says—nearly pleads. He reaches for Kiyoomi again, but Kiyoomi snarls at him and he backs off. “Please, ya gotta believe me, last night was—I didn’t do any of that, I was just tryin’ to help you! C’mon Omi, you know me, you gotta trust me—”

“Don’t call me that,” Kiyoomi snaps. He’s breathing so hard he thinks he might accidentally will himself into another panic attack. “They’re talking about you and your soulmate. Your fiancée. Your bright, reliable, responsible future together. While my reputation is in ruins. And it’s your fault. You did this to me.”

Miya shakes his head. He looks like he’s on the verge of a panic attack himself, but Kiyoomi cannot spare an iota of sympathy for something so transparent. He might have been fooled once, but it will be a cold day in hell before he lets himself fall for something like that again.

“I was stupid to ever trust you,” Kiyoomi spits out and that’s when Miya cracks too. “I don’t know you at all.”

“How could you say that?” Miya says. “How could you think I’d—why would I do that?”

“You know why,” Kiyoomi says.

“Tell me,” Miya says and there’s a shift there, like—he’s swallowed all of his hurt, walled himself off to defend against what he cannot defend against. “Say it to my face, Sakusa.”

Gladly.

“You set me up,” Kiyoomi says. “You’ve been lying to me all along. You knew you couldn’t win against me once Iizuna and I announced our engagement.”

“Your engagement.” Miya shifts into a sneer. “You mean the one you were runnin’ away from last night? The reason you were in my bed, Kiyoomi? That engagement?”

“You knew I had the votes,” Kiyoomi nearly snarls back. He can’t let Miya know he’s landed a blow, no matter how obvious or painful. “That all I needed to convince the Board was a partner. And I found one. And you couldn’t stand that.”

Miya looks like he’s swallowed a lemon.

“So you took me out last night,” Kiyoomi says. He’s nearly in disbelief—it’s so obvious now that he’s saying it out loud. How could he have been so stupid? “You wanted to undermine my relationship with Iizuna—you did this to humiliate me. And it fucking worked.”

Miya laughs at that and it’s so high and so bitter that it’s nearly cruel.

“God, do you hear yourself? Is that what it’s like in your head?” he says. “Always the fuckin’ victim, ain’t you? Oh poor rich boy Sakusa Kiyoomi, doesn’t have a fuckin’ soulmark and so he can’t do shit, like fucking stand up for himself to a room of people so old they barely have a fuckin’ pulse.”

Kiyoomi flushes hot with anger.

“How the fuck dare—”

“Oh spare me!” Miya says. He’s pissed now. “You’re always whining and then not doing shit about it. You know, you don’t have to have a soulmark to be taken seriously, Sakusa-kun—”

“That’s easy for you to say—”

“Shut up!” Miya snaps. “You don’t get to say what is or isn’t easy for me. You aren’t me. You aren’t in my position. You don’t know shit about having a soulmark, so don’t fuckin’ sit there and say what’s easy for m—”

“Oh tell me what’s so hard then!” Kiyoomi nearly shouts. “Tell me, Miya—what about having the one thing that society demands you have is so fucking difficult for you—”

“You know your problem, Sakusa?” Miya sneers. “You’re a fuckin’ coward.”

“Excuse me?”

“Yeah, you heard me,” Miya says. His face is red now; he’s breathing hard and shaking all over. “You want something and you refuse to fight for it. Instead, you just make stupid excuses. Your personality is too difficult to find someone. You’re too cold and rigid and off-putting for someone to want you as a partner—shut the fuck up! You’re rich and you’re hot, you’re literally gonna inherit a fuckin’ bazillion yen company. People have gotten fucked for a drop of that. So you want a partner? Fucking find one. You want a different partner than the one who you’re fucking engaged to? Then find a different one! You don’t want one at all? Then tell the Board you don’t. Stand up to them or don’t, but don’t fuckin’ make it my fault.”

Kiyoomi’s seething now. He seriously thinks he might punch Miya.

“You have every fuckin’ thing in the world in the palm of your fucking hands to you and you won’t put anything on the line because you’re too fuckin’ scared to do it,” Miya spits out. “So don’t make up bullshit conspiracy theories when the truth is you’ve been using me as an excuse to not stand up to your fucking mother.”

“Don’t fucking talk about my mother—”

“You’re a fucking coward,” Miya says again and this time his tone is so cutting, Kiyoomi feels it like a slap. “After everything we’ve been through—after all this fuckin’ time—this is what you believe. Not because you really believe it—no. It’s just the easiest narrative for you, ain’t it, the thing that needs the least explaining. You don’t have to do the fucking work if I’m the fucking villain.”

Kiyoomi opens his mouth, but Miya doesn’t let him get a word out.

“You’re scared of this—you’re scared of what might happen if it actually means something,” Miya says. “If I actually mean something to you.”

Kiyoomi shuts his mouth. He feels like he’s been punched in the stomach.

“You’re scared that if you choose me, if you take a different path—if you don’t marry some guy you’re not actually in fuckin’ love with, if you don’t do everything your family tells you to do, you’re gonna be a fucking failure somehow. That everyone is gonna think you’re a fucking failure. Who cares, Kiyoomi? Who fucking cares?”

“I care!” Kiyoomi says angrily and his chest aches from how tight it is, from how difficult it’s becoming to breathe properly. “I know you don’t know the meaning of the word, Miya, but some of us actually give a shit about what is expected of us!”

“Excuse after excuse,” Miya says, bearing his teeth. “It’s bullshit. You’re bullshit. You’re scared, just admit you’re scared!”

“Of what.”

“Of wanting this more than your stupid fucking company,” Miya snarls, his hands curled into Kiyoomi’s shirt, and Kiyoomi’s body snaps away so fast, he nearly hits his head back against the window.

His chest is hurting and his heart is pounding and the noise in his head is at such a feverpitch, it’s nearly unbearable. What is the truth when you don’t want it acknowledged? What is a lie when it’s what you have sought your entire life? Kiyoomi’s teeth ache. He’s angry beyond belief. He can’t bear to look at Miya.

Miya won’t let him look away.

“And by the way, asshole,” Miya says. He grabs Kiyoomi by the shirt collar and drags him closer, his hot, angry breath washing over Kiyoomi’s face. “You fucking came to me last night.”

For a moment they’re so close and they’re so electric—so fucking tight and hurt and livid, like two livewires just seconds away from being tripped—that Kiyoomi is aware—hyper-fucking-aware—of just how little space there is between their mouths.

And maybe any other day. Maybe any other time.

But this doesn’t feel like any other time they’ve fought. Kiyoomi’s hurt and he’s humiliated and he’s furious. He’s had his trust shattered and with it, his heart.

The thing is, Miya talks a lot. He, fundamentally, likes to hear himself talk. But what he says bears no impact on reality. It doesn’t actually matter what Kiyoomi wants—what lies he’s willing to swallow, what truths he’s unwilling to speak into life. How much it means, they mean—could mean, do mean, would mean—is inconsequential. It doesn’t fucking matter if Kiyoomi is or is not scared.

The truth is the same either way—Miya heir engaged to his soulmate.

The humiliation is the same either way.

This is the last time Kiyoomi will ever allow himself to be vulnerable. He will never let Miya Atsumu near his heart ever again.

“You lied to me,” Kiyoomi says. He can’t help the hurt that creeps into his voice, but it does not shake. He—Sakusa Kiyoomi—does not shake. “You betrayed me, Atsumu.”

Between one breath and the next.

Miya’s expression flickers—anger to anguish, bitterness to regret. He looks wholly wrecked, like he knows there’s no way to fix this, even though he desperately wants to.

“It wasn’t me,” Miya says and his voice cracks. “Please, Omi. Believe me.”

But he doesn’t.

God, it’s too little too late, but Kiyoomi just doesn’t believe him anymore.