Archive of Our Own ^beta

Like most conversations that Kiyoomi will probably come to regret, this one begins with Komori Motoya and ends with a migraine.

“So?” He asks, tipping onto the balls of his feet and then rocking back down with an anticipatory grin on his face, “Do you like it?”

In Kiyoomi’s hand is a single piece of pale yellow construction paper, cut into a shaky, uneven square about half the size of his palm. He holds it up, pinching it between two fingers like it’ll bite him if he gets too close, “What is this?”

“An early birthday present!”

“It’s January.”

“Valentine’s Day?”

“It’s. January.”

“It’s a congratulatory gift for making it to…” Komori glances back at the calendar on the kitchen wall, “Thursday.”

Kiyoomi squints at him.

“It’s a coupon, Kiyo!” Komori relents, tossing his hands up dramatically, “It’s a coupon for one free consultation with a real-life, not fake, totally legit potion master.”

“All the descriptors you just used make it sound even more suspicious,” Kiyoomi glances between his cousin and the crudely cut paper in his hand. He holds it up, “‘Potion master’? A child made this.”

“No. Listen-”

“An adult made this?” He lets his disbelief transfer into the set of his eyebrows, “That’s worse, somehow.”

Komori crosses his arms, “I am trying to help you.”

“I don’t need help.” Kiyoomi holds out the coupon. The pity rankles him and he doesn’t know why. Komori is his family and probably his best friend. He cares. He wants Kiyoomi to be happy.

Kiyoomi doesn’t even think he wants to be happy. He’s long since learned that sometimes it feels better to just stew in his own bitterness.

Komori shoves Kiyoomi’s hand back toward his chest, and the paper folds awkwardly.

“Take it.”

“No.”

“I insist.”

“I don’t want it-”

“Take the fucking coupon, Kiyoomi!” Komori snaps; the light-hearted teasing in his voice is chased off by the slightest twinge of hysteria. There is a pleading, forceful edge to his usually playful demeanor.

A tense silence falls between them as Kiyoomi slowly draws his hand back. He accepts defeat, but not gracefully. His jaw is set tight, and he doesn’t say another word for the rest of the morning.

Later, once Kiyoomni has finished his breakfast and long after Komori has already left for class, he sets the coupon down on the tabletop and swears to forget about it.

He doesn’t.

Kiyoomi doesn’t need to see some magical hack, he just needs rest. He doesn’t need the power of friendship. He doesn’t need a psychic, or a shrink, or a priest, or a movie marathon, or a weighted blanket. He needs someone poised over his bedside with a baseball bat to knock him unconscious at a moment's notice.

Tonight, like most nights, he tosses and turns, rolling to his other side with a huff and letting his arm flop straight out over the side of his bed. The joints in his knuckles throb in protest outside of the warm cocoon of his covers. He has no idea what time it is, too lazy to reach for the phone on his nightstand. If he had to guess, he’d say it’s somewhere between midnight and two.

Each time that he finally drifts off, he shivers himself awake a few minutes later, teeth chattering regardless of how many blankets he tucks himself under. Tonight, he’s anchored to consciousness by his frigid toes and the incessant ache in his ankles and wrists.

It takes an indecipherable amount of time for Kiyoomi to finally decide he’s sick of stewing miserably in the dark. He cuts his losses and rolls out of bed, frowning at the slight burn of the cold flooring beneath his bare feet as he pads towards the bathroom.

Under the sink is a well-loved heating pad sitting right where he left it the night before. The sewn fabric is dark blue and littered with tiny threaded stars. Thirty-six of them to be exact; he’s counted them over and over again on long, restless nights like tonight, gently roving his fingers over the cloth and tracing the constellations.

He makes his way into the dark kitchen by the dim light of the moon. The beeping of the keypad on the microwave feels too loud over the faint rattling of the barren tree outside of their window, knocking up against the building with every big gust of wind.

He yanks the door open right before the countdown hits zero, retrieving the now-warm heat pack from inside and sneaking back to his bedroom on the balls of his feet so he won’t wake up Komori. The little grains of rice inside make a soft sound as the bag flops over in his fingers. The aching joints in his knuckles and wrists start to thaw.

He sighs.

That stupid fucking coupon is still sitting on the table an hour later when he returns to the kitchen to reheat his pack. Its yellow paper is bright against the dark, second-hand wood like a beacon in the night. Mocking. Irritatingly bright.

He’ll ignore it just like he has for the last week, and try to forget about it all over again as he curls up in bed and waits for his body to go cold once more.

The truth is, Kiyoomi knows exactly what the coupon is for, or to be more specific, who the coupon is for.

But Miya Atsumu is a sham, and Kiyoomi will not be needing his services.

“Don’t you think you’re being a bit unreasonable?”

“Unreasonable?” Kiyoomi scoffs, offended. Akaashi isn’t even looking at him, too absorbed in whatever he’s typing out on his computer to spare his full attention, “You’re the last person I expected criticism from. Especially about something like this.”

“Something like what?” Akaashi finally glances up, squinting at him from behind his lenses, “Am I supposed to be more skeptical of Miya-san because of my own lineage?”

Admittedly, Akaashi is one of the only witches he knows, born from a long line of magic users spanning all the way back to the very first integrations of humans and humanoids. He hardly ever talks about it. In fact, Akaashi mentions his magical affinity so infrequently that it catches Kiyoomi off guard for a moment.

“...Yes?” He answers after a beat.

“Well, I’m not,” Akaashi gently shuts his laptop and meets Kiyoomi’s eyes, “It’s not my place to dictate who’s legitimate and who’s not. We don’t choose what we are.”

There are a lot of rumors about Miya Atsumu- some of them completely and utterly ridiculous, and others just specific enough to be believable.

Some say he’s a grifter- that he is not actually able to use magic and that his entire business is a scam. They say he doesn’t really go to school and that he just snuck into student housing one day and never left. They say he’s 400 years old, he can’t touch human skin, and his sweat has paralytic properties. They say that he owns a key to every building on campus and that he only moves through an abandoned tunnel system underneath the university.

Legend has it that if you wait around the abandoned Chemistry building on a full moon, you can hear him cackling maniacally into the night like some kind of demented poltergeist.

“That last one is definitely untrue,” Akaashi interjects with a disapproving frown, “And the Chemistry building isn’t abandoned.”

“Then why is it always empty?”

Akaashi sighs, “I don’t know, Kiyoomi-san.”

“Well. Miya’s still a sham.”

“He’s not a sham, he’s a sleaze,” Kenma pipes up from where he’s curled up on a nearby beanbag with his nose pressed into his handheld and his hair falling into his face.

“‘Sham’ and ‘sleaze’ are not mutually exclusive. Those two words are barely related.”

“Whatever,” Kenma mutters under his breath.

Kiyoomi turns back towards Akaashi, who’s looking at him now with his chin propped up on his hands and a calculating expression on his face, “I don’t think you’re qualified to badmouth Miya-san.”

“I’m not bad-mouthing him,” Kiyoomi insists, “It’s just- You know what people say-”

“Humans.” Akaashi corrects him bluntly, “I know what humans say. And since when do you care about outside opinions?” Akaashi raises an eyebrow, “Miya-san’s reputation is rooted in prejudice. You should know better. If people were saying those things about me, you wouldn’t entertain them for a second.”

Kiyoomi winces, “That’s different. You’re you. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to be skeptical of some guy running a magical medicine pop-up shop out of his university apartment.”

“Nobody is forcing you to use the coupon,” Akaashi’s words are slow and patient, as if he’s speaking with a child, “But the fact that you’ve brought it up every day since you received it suggests that you’re considering it more than you’re letting on. At least be honest with yourself as to why you’re so afraid to ask for help.”

“Afraid?” Kiyoomi sputters, incredulous, “I’m not afraid-”

“Miya-san is a good person. If you’re not going to take advantage of his skills, then at least stop contributing to all of the undeserved criticism that he gets.” Akaashi begins to pack his bag and pushes up from his chair. He gives Kiyoomi a critical look with more pity than anything, “I have class. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

In his wake, Akaashi leaves behind a tense silence as Kiyoomi remains still and rigid in his uncomfortable library chair, trying to make sense of the sick feeling in his stomach.

It feels a little like guilt.

He turns to Kenma, who’s blinking back at him over the top of his handheld device, “Do you have anything to add?” Kiyoomi sighs.

“You’re lashing out at the people who care about you because you’re exhausted and miserable.” Kenma assesses with the same enthusiasm that one might report the weather, then averts his attention back to the screen in front of him, “Citing baseless rumors about Atsumu doesn’t make you any less of a coward.”

Kiyoomi’s eye twitches, “‘Atsumu’.” He mocks petulantly, “I didn’t even know you were friends.”

Kenma shrugs, “He’s a good cook. He has a cat.”

“Where did you get the coupon anyway?” He asks his cousin one night during a commercial break between episodes of Say Yes To The Dress.

Komori straightens from where he’s slumped against the arm of the couch, “I let Atsumu borrow a pencil.”

“That’s it?”

“It was a good pencil. The mechanical ones with the good grip that I stole from the bookstore,” Komori shrugs, “He said he owed me a favor and I jokingly asked if I could get that in writing.”

Kiyoomi thinks of the shabby cut to the paper and the messy scrawl of a blue pen across it, “Is that why it’s so-” He makes a vague gesture with his hand.

“Yeah. It was kind of supposed to be a joke but he said I could use it for whatever.”

“Why don’t you just use it for yourself then?”

“I don’t need it.”

The back of Kiyoomi’s neck prickles defensively, “And I do?”

“I don’t know, Kiyo,” Komori gives him a hard look, “You tell me.”

College, for the most part, started off exactly as Kiyoomi had expected. His grades were alright, he made a few friends, and he stayed out of trouble. He was completely ordinary and unexceptional until about halfway through his second year when he started exhibiting some… concerning symptoms.

Maybe it’s some obscure disease, or an intense physiological stress response, or (god forbid) some kind of curse (he has an abrasive personality, he’s probably made some enemies). All he knows for certain is that it wasn’t always this bad.

It started out with his hands and feet: the tips of his fingers and his toes turned cold with the changing of the seasons last fall and never warmed back up. At first, he had blamed it on poor circulation and remedied the chill with wool socks and a few minutes with his fingers tucked up under his thighs to soothe the ache.

Much like the apologue about the boiling frog: Kiyoomi didn’t even realize he was freezing until he was frozen. The cold spread and stayed. Then came the sleep issues, the aches and pains, the loss of appetite, the confusion and fear. It was difficult to hide his fatigue and his shivering, so he withdrew from most of his friends, apart from the few remaining people in his life who were not so easily deterred.

Still, they learned not to bring it up. All of their harmless prodding only ever resulted in Kiyoomi withdrawing farther into himself or saying something brusk and rude.

But he knows they worry.

He sees the way that Komori frowns when Kiyoomi’s hands start to tremble while they watch TV together. He knows why Kenma and Akaashi always bump up the heater in their apartment when he comes over.

The only thing he hates more than their pity is the way that they feel obligated to care about him in secret. It’s the nature of his being, Kiyoomi thinks. He will always be difficult in every way that a person can be difficult: difficult to understand, difficult to talk to, difficult to love. It makes him feel burdensome to have such caring people in his life only to waste all of their affections. He’s self-aware enough to know he doesn’t deserve them, but selfish enough that he won't let them go.

The cold hurts. It’s an aching, constant sort of thing: the type of pain that sticks with him all day but really eats at him at night when he has nothing else to focus on but the way that his chest throbs from all the shivering.

He read once that there’s a moment of pure euphoria before someone freezes to death. He wonders if that’s when he’ll know that he’s past the point of no return. He doesn’t know if it will kill him, but sometimes he feels like it might. He imagines frost creeping along his body, up his legs and chest and neck until it’s freezing his eyes and his face and his tongue and his cheeks, and suddenly his breath starts coming in shallow bursts and his heart is racing so fast that he’s almost sick with it.

On a night much like all of the others, he closes the bathroom door behind him, turns on the fan to muffle the noise, and then wretches until it feels like there’s a hole where his stomach used to be.

Kiyoomi decides that he doesn’t care if Miya Atsumu’s magic shop is a grift or not.

He makes up his mind to pay him a visit.

It is a dumb idea.

Kiyoomi considers himself a cautious person. He’s boring. And sure, maybe sometimes he wishes he could be more like Komori, but if both of them were unpredictable and interesting, then the world would probably devolve into unmitigated chaos or something.

But this is definitely a Komori-brand, dumb idea.

He’s standing outside of Miya Atsumu’s door, in an apartment complex on the far corner of campus, a giant hunk of grey stone pushed to the wayside and forgotten there. Kiyoomi is looming in the hallway like a ghoul, still shivering from the cold outside under his peacoat and the chunky green scarf that Akaashi had gotten him for Christmas. In his gloved hands is that ridiculous slip of yellow paper. He clutches it so hard that it buckles in the middle under the pressure of his thumb.

He raises his hand to knock. There’s a clatter on the other side, a muffled curse, and then the door swings open to reveal a startlingly beautiful, slightly rumpled-looking blonde man in an obnoxious, green ‘Kiss Me I’m Irish’ apron.

“Are you Miya Atsumu?” Kiyoomi asks stiffly.

The man widens his eyes, “The one and only.” He responds in a thick drawl that Kiyoomi can’t place.

Kiyoomi thrusts the little piece of paper toward Atsumu’s chest, “Sakusa Kiyoomi.” He introduces briskly, “I need to redeem this, please.”

If Atsumu is surprised to see him, he doesn’t show it. He plucks the paper from between Kiyoomi’s fingers and gives it an appraising glance.

“You must be Komori-kun’s cousin. I’ve been expectin’ ya.” He steps back and gestures for Kiyoomi to follow with an easy smile, “Come on in.”

Kiyoomi follows, lured in by the warmth of his home and the smell of something cooking on the stove. He works on unwinding the scarf from his neck as Atsumu guides him towards the kitchen table.

The living room is surprisingly nice if not a little bit sparse: simple university-owned furniture and a crowded assortment of knick-knacks, shelves full of books and figurines, and jars and plants. On the windowsill sits a large black cat that leaps off and disappears into one of the adjacent hallways as soon as Kiyoomi steps inside.

Atsumu has a view facing the intramural fields from the wide windows on the far wall. From this high up, Kiyoomi can see the entire campus in a blur of twinkling lights and muted evening colors through the thick, wet snowflakes sliding down the glass. It reminds him of the apartment where he was raised: that spacious penthouse deeper into the heart of the city with the skyrise window where he would sit and watch the commotion below until the noise in his head subsided to a dull buzz.

“You have a good view.” He notes.

Atsumu grins, “Yeah. It’s nice, isn’t it?”

A timer goes off somewhere nearby and Kiyoomi nearly jumps straight out of his skin, “Am I interrupting something?” He asks as Atsumu rushes into the kitchen and quickly shuts it off.

“Huh? Oh, no, just warmin’ up dinner.” He picks up a wooden spoon and stirs the pot on the stove, “Yer welcome to sit.” Atsumu gestures toward the dining table.

Miya Atsumu is very… normal. Even his home is normal. There are no crows or bubbling cauldrons, he’s not a greasy businessman in a three-piece suit grinning like the devil. There are textbooks scattered across the coffee table and post-it notes stuck to the fridge and Kiyoomi struggles to marry the image of the regular student and the conniving warlock in his head.

Maybe Atsumu really is just a guy. A guy with questionable taste in aprons, perhaps, but a guy nonetheless.

“So what can I do ya for, Sakusa-san?” Atsumu asks from the kitchen.

Kiyoomi bounces his knee anxiously under the table, “Did Komori tell you anything?”

“Nope. Just to expect ya at my door- aloof and frownin’.” He tells him.

Kiyoomi screws up his face and Atsumu laughs.

He’s not sure how much Atsumu needs to know. He figures he’ll start with the most pressing issue, “Well, it’s- I’m just… cold.” He begins slowly, cautiously. He realizes that he’s never really had to explain it out loud before.

“Yer… cold?” Atsumu repeats, and gives him a perplexed look, “Well the ovens pre-heatin’ and yer all bundled up but I can bump up the heater-”

“No that’s the problem,” He says in a rush, “I’m always cold and I don’t know why. And the colder I get the more it hurts, and the more it hurts the less I sleep and the less I sleep the colder I get.” He sucks in a breath, “I just want to get some rest… please.”

Nothing terrible happens when he finally admits it out loud, there’s no dire consequence of his actions nor is he struck down where he sits. What was once a massive internal struggle has now been verbalized, tamped down to the size of a sentence and forced out into open air.

But the longer that Atsumu remains quiet, the more Kiyoomi starts to shift anxiously in his seat.

Is he asking too much? What if Atsumu can’t help? What if-

“For starters, if it’s sleep ya need I can definitely help,” He says as he wipes down the counter in front of him and then tossing the towel over his shoulder. He cocks his hip and leans against the cabinet, “I always keep a few sleeping draughts on hand, ya know? Just in case. It’s my best seller.”

“Really?”

“Eh, kind of,” He shrugs and then pushes off the counter, “Hold on, I’ll be right back.”

Atsumu disappears down the hallway to their left. Kiyoomi hears a door click shut and then he's alone with his own thoughts.

A sleeping draught.

It sounds straightforward enough. At this point, Kiyoomi is too seduced by the possibility of a full night’s sleep to be too concerned with the details. The larger, more ambiguous issue still remains but he thinks that even that would be less harrowing if he could get even a little bit of rest.

He startles when something bumps against his shin under the table.

The cat from earlier rubs up along the leg of his pants once more before leaping onto the table. Kiyoomi pulls back in surprise before cautiously holding out his hand.

“Hello.” He says politely, and the cat buts up against his knuckles with the top of its head in greeting, “I’m sorry for intruding.” He tells it softly as it continues to nose at his fingers.

Kiyoomi’s hand jerks back at the sound of a shutting door and Atsumu comes back into view holding a little clear vial of something pinkish.

“Kuroo,” He scolds, “Paws off the table, ya freak!” With what can only be described as a haughty sigh, Kuroo the cat slumps heavily onto his side and paws at the salt shaker, wrinkling the table runner with the twist of its body.

Kiyoomi’s never met a college boy who owned a table runner.

Atsumu sets the vial down with a huff and quickly hauls the cat up into his arms, only to deposit it heavily onto the couch nearby.

“Sorry,” Kiyoomi mumbles.

“Not yer fault, he’s going through a bit of a quarter-life crisis.” Atsumu glares at the cat, who glares back and digs its claws into the couch cushion with a pop pop pop, “Acts like he was raised in a damn barn,” Atsumu grumbles as he wanders over toward the coffee table and grabs an index card and a pen from the bag on the floor. He points an accusatory finger at the cat, who is now grooming himself innocently atop one of the fluffy blankets on the couch, “I should tell Kenma-kun that ya like putting your toes on the dinner table ya sorry sack of shit.”

He watches Atsumu, standing in the middle of his living room, dressed in a hideous apron (still), and shaking his fist at his cat. For some inexplicable reason, Kiyoomi feels his stomach swoop. He clears his throat, quickly averting his eyes and instead turning his attention to the vial on the table.

The liquid inside is more of a dusky purple, and it’s viscous like pancake syrup when Kiyoomi picks it up between his fingers and gently tilts it side to side. There’s not all that much of it; the vial fits snugly in Kiyoomi’s palm.

“Is this it?” He muses.

“Sure is,” Atsumu slips into the chair at the head of the table. This close, Kiyoomi notices that Atsumu simply radiates heat, so much so that Kiyoomi can feel it through the material of his jeans when their knees brush under the table. Atsumu smells good too: like vanilla but sharper, almost spicy. He catches a whiff of it when Atsumu leans forward to scrawl something on the index card.

Mortified, he flushes. If Atsumu asks, Kiyoomi will blame it on the heater and the thick jacket that he has yet to take off.

But Atsumu doesn’t ask; instead, he hands Kiyoomi a scribbled set of instructions in what looks more like chicken scratch than actual handwriting: “25 milliliters an hour or so before ya go to bed will do it. It tastes more or less like nothing so ya don’t need to worry about that.” He explains, “If yer still awake after two hours, take another half a teaspoon.”

Kiyoomi nods, “Alright.”

“I’m gonna be real honest with ya, Sakusa-san, this is not meant to be a permanent solution.” His tone turns serious, but his eyes remain soft, “I’m by no means a doctor, but I sure would like to help ya.”

He clears his throat, “Right, thanks, I really do appreciate your… help.” He moves to get up, and Atsumu stands with him.

“My number is on there if ya have any more questions. Feel free to… ya know, call. Or text! Or anything.”

Kiyoomi makes his way to the door, already dreading the cold trip back home, “I’ll be in touch, Miya-san.” He wraps his scarf back around his neck as Atsumu opens the door for him.

“Right. I’ll see ya around, I hope!”

“I’m not scared of you,” Kiyoomi breathes, chin propped up on his crossed arms. The vial of sleeping draught sits innocently on the desk in front of him, only a few inches from his face, close enough to make his eyes cross a little.

“You’re just a tiny bottle,” Kiyoomi continues, “What’s the worst that could happen?”

He briefly imagines himself dying from anaphylactic shock from some mysterious magical ingredient that he never knew he was allergic to, and then shakes the thought away. That’s not a particularly helpful line of though. The worst thing that could realistically happen is that the drought won't work. Then Kiyoomi will have to shiver himself awake all night once more, knowing that he had swallowed his pride and reached out to Miya Atsumu for nothing.

It’s getting late, and he’s already losing feeling in the tips of his fingers. If he waits much longer, they’ll start to tremble, and then it will be much harder to measure out the teaspoon needed. He might as well do this now before his hands are useless.

But what if something bad does happen?

Komori is asleep across the hall, but he pictures his cousin's face when he sees Kiyoomi’s shaking hands and the contraband magical potion. Then he’ll say something like ‘I wish you would have told me how bad it’s gotten, Kiyo.’ and then Kiyoomi will feel like shit because he used to be so sure that the problem would just eventually go away if he ignored it long enough.

He’s dialing the number scrawled on the back of the index card before he can consider the consequences, and Atsumu picks up too soon for him to change his mind.

“Hello?” He answers, and his voice is rough as if he’s just woken up.

Kiyoomi swallows, “This is Sakusa.” He begins just as stiffly as he had when Atsumu had answered the door earlier that same evening.

“Oh!” There’s the ruffling of sheets across the other line, “Everything alright?”

“Yes, I’m just…” The reality of the situation sets in. Kiyoomi has just called a man he barely knows late at night to… what, exactly? Comfort him? Reassure him? “This is stupid. Nevermind-”

“Wait!” Atsumu calls out before he can hang up, “No need to go runnin’ off yet. What’s up?”

Kiyoomi hesitates, “Can you stay on the phone with me? While I take it?”

“Oh,” Atsumu breathes, “Course I can. Ya got it all ready?”

Kiyoomi puts the phone on speaker and sets it nearby.

“Not yet.” He rubs his palms together quickly, working up a bit of warming friction before he wiggles the topper of the vial. He curses when his fingers slip clumsily.

“Everything good over there?” Atsumu’s voice comes through in the quiet of the room like he’s standing right there.

It’s nice.

“Fingers are cold,” Kiyoomi mumbles back as he finally gets the vial open, setting the measuring spoon on the desk so he can steady his pour with both hands.

“Ah, right,” Kiyoomi hears the click of something like a light switch or a lamp, “Has this been going on for a long time?”

“I guess so. Six months, maybe longer.”

“Ya ever seen a doctor about it?”

Obviously, he’s tried, but in every white-coat-adorned, stern-looking medical professional, he only sees his father. Then his throat closes up, and he forgets the reason he had even made an appointment in the first place.

He imagines their apathetic faces looking down at him, asking him how he’s let it get this bad. He gets a nose-full of that sterile smell and he starts to feel small, useless, incapable-

“I don’t like doctors,”

Atsumu hums, “Understandable.”

Kiyoomi snorts humorlessly and tries to keep still as he tilts the vial until the purple liquid is welling up over the lip, “Is it? I’m an adult who’s scared of going to the doctor.”

“Yer age doesn’t dictate whether or not yer scared of something-” Atsumu tells him, “-just how patient folks are going to be with ya about it.”

“Oh yeah? How patient are you, Miya?”

Atsumu chuckles, “I’m the most patient man in the world, Sakusa-kun.”

Kiyoomi rolls his eyes, “Right.”

Satisfied with his pour, he recaps the vial and tucks it away in one of his desk drawers.

“I am! Maybe I’ll even prove it to ya, sometime,”

Kiyoomi is tempted to take him up on that, “I’ve measured it out.” He says instead.

“Alright, bottoms up.”

Kiyoomi stalls, “Are you sure?”

“Yer gonna have to trust me for at least the next hour of yer life, alright?”

There is no reason for Kiyoomi to trust Atsumu. Not because of his murky reputation or even the fact that he’s suspiciously charming, but because Miya Atsumu has no reason to genuinely want Kiyoomi to get better.

So, yes, there is no reason for Kiyoomi to trust him.

But for some inexplicable reason, he does it anyway.

The draught is thick enough to coat his throat on the way down. He takes a sip of water to wash it down and waits for something bad to happen.

But nothing does, and he’s tentatively pleased.

“It doesn’t taste like anything.” He finally says.

“I told ya.”

“Did you do that on purpose?”

“I sure did,” He says proudly.

“Have you ever considered making it taste good?”

Atsumu whistles lowly, “Yer a tough customer, Sakusa-kun. I’ll have you know that it used to taste like shit.”

“It couldn’t have been that bad, right?”

“It was. Worse-than-cough-syrup bad. Yer one of the fortunate ones. I had a lot of very unlucky guinea pigs. My brother still hasn’t forgiven me.” Atsumu laughs brightly as Kiyoomi flicks off the lamp at his desk and makes his way toward his bed.

“Lucky me.”

“No need to thank me,” He sighs, “Just an honest day's work for a humble, virtuous man like myself.”

Kiyoomi rolls his eyes, “Kenma was right. You are sleazy.”

“Ya would me, Kiyoomi-kun.”

“Sleaze,” Kiyoomi reiterates, feeling too worn out to scold Atsumu for the casual use of his first name, slipping under the covers and placing the phone on the pillow near his head. He pulls the covers up around his chin and sighs.

“Ya wanna hear my hypothesis on how I could get the draught to taste better?” Atsumu asks after a minute.

“Not particularly.”

“Good,” He replies, “Then this’ll put ya right to sleep.”

Atsumu’s honeyed drawl thickens in the late of night, Kiyoomi finds. Every other word is rounded off, tender and half-formed as he moves on to the next one, and the next, and the next.

He must talk for thirty minutes straight about boil temperatures and moisture content and other complex things that Kiyoomi would have never considered were all that important to magic. He doesn’t say it out loud, of course, but Kiyoomi thinks that Atsumu must be pretty smart to know all these things off the top of his head. He prattles off calculations and measurements, and evaporation rates with the kind of enthusiasm that Kiyoomi doesn’t usually associate with numbers.

Soon, he finds himself sagging into the mattress, smothered under his mountain of blankets. Atsumu’s voice is a pleasant buzz in his head, warm and inviting like his home, his smile, and the cologne he wears.

“What flavor would ya prefer, Kiyoomi-kun?” His question rises through the white noise in Kiyoomi’s brain like a bubble through molasses. His eyes are heavy, his train of thought drifting off the tracks.

“Lemon, maybe.” He says after a long while, “Or peach.”

“Lemon or peach,” Atsumu mumbles thoughtfully, “Yer sounding tired.”

Atsumu’s voice is starting to sound far away through the cotton in his ears. He lets the familiar tug of sleep pull him under, and his eyes fall shut before he can say goodnight, or even reach over to hang up the phone.

For the first time in months, he falls into a deep, undisturbed slumber.

Kiyoomi has done plenty of embarrassing things in his lifetime. Like the time he cried during a school trip to the zoo when the giraffe exhibit was closed, or when he was getting his teeth cleaned and he bit the dentist’s finger hard enough to draw blood.

But none of it- none of it- compares to falling asleep on the phone with a complete stranger.

It’s been five days, and not only is Kiyoomi still mortified, but he is also running low on sleeping draught.

“You’re acting weird,” Kenma notes, more interested in interrogating Kiyoomi than eating the fries he had ordered.

“Eat your food, Kenma.”

Kenma frowns down at his food, “I’ll eat if you tell me.”

“No.”

“Why? I like mysteries.”

“Here’s a mystery,” Kiyoomi stabs at the wilted lettuce of his pre-packaged salad, “Why won't any of you ever leave me alone?”

Kenma ignores him, tilting his head, “You’re twitchy.”

“I’m not twitchy.”

“Yes, you are. You keep looking around like you’re expecting someone.”

“I’m not,” Kiyoomi snaps, and pretends like he wasn’t just watching the door.

He can never be too sure these days. Atsumu seems to be lurking around every corner. He’s in the courtyard next to the science building and sitting on the second floor of the library, and reclining out on the lawn outside of the student center (even though it’s frigid outside). He’s starting to wonder if the rumor about the underground tunnels actually has some merit to it with the way Atsumu seems to be everywhere all at once.

As if summoned by the very notion that Kiyoomi is thinking about him, he spots a familiar shock of pale hair near the entry to the student center.

“Fuck,” He hisses, jerking his bag up from the floor and snatching his jacket off the back of his chair. Kenma’s hands fly to steady the table when one of Kiyoomi’s shoes catches on the leg in his hasty escape.

“Hey-!”

“I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“We have class in an hour!” Kenma calls behind him, before glancing around the crowded dining area and slumping back into his chair self-consciously, “Whatever.”

Kiyoomi ignores him, folding his jacket over the crook of his arm and glancing over his shoulder anxiously as he makes his escape toward the other end of the building.

As he rounds the corner and the exit sign comes into sight, an arm grips his clothed elbow and tugs him into the adjacent hallway.

Atsumu spins him around by his arm, expression bland, “Yer bad at avoiding people.”

Kiyoomi tilts his chin up defiantly, “Bold of you to think I’m avoiding you.”

“Technically, I never said you were avoiding me specifically, but now I know for sure that ya are.”

Kiyoomi’s mouth twists unhappily, “Well,” He jerks his elbow back, “You’ve misunderstood.”

Kiyoomi moves to turn back around, intending to leave in a self-righteous huff, when Atsumu grabs for him again. But this time, his hand slips down his forearm and makes contact with the bare skin of Kiyoomi’s wrist, and it’s… so, so warm. For a moment, a single suspended breath, his fingers aren’t numbed and deadened reminders of his ever-persistent affliction; they’re just fingers. His hand is just a hand. A deep sigh is bubbling up from his chest-

Then Atsumu pulls away.

Kiyoomi blinks for a moment at the space where they were touching, and then finally looks up. Atsumu is clutching his hand to his chest, eyes wide.

“Sorry,” He breathes, “I shouldn’t have grabbed ya like that-”

“Is it true that you can’t touch human skin?” Kiyoomi blurts out.

“What?” Atsumu draws back in surprise, “Of course I can touch human skin! Where did ya get that from?”

Kiyoomi presses his lips firmly together.

“I just-” Atsumu relents with a sigh, “I’m always runnin’ hot. I’ve heard before that it’s… disconcertin’ to touch me.”

“Disconcerting?”

“Yeah. Unsettlin’. Uncomfortable. Worryin’-”

“I know what ‘disconcerting’ means, Miya.” He snaps and then, after a second of deliberation, thrusts out his hand between them, “Do it again.” He demands.

Atsumu’s eyebrows shoot up, “Yer askin’ me to touch ya? On purpose?”

Kiyoomi glances over his shoulder. The hallways are still empty; he can only hear the distant shuffling of shoes and the din of the food court. He shakes his limp, outstretched hand, “Hurry.”

“If ya say so,” Atsumu says, still sounding unsure as he tentatively brings his palm to Kiyoomi’s.

The relief is so poignant that it punches the air from his chest. If Atsumu is uncomfortable, he doesn’t show it. He watches Kiyoomi very, very closely as he slowly brings his other hand up and closes Kiyoomi’s fingers between the heat of his two palms.

“This okay?” He asks.

Kiyoomi nods, his bottom lip pressed tightly between his teeth.

“Okay… Okay.”

Kiyoomi begins to sag into the wall beside him. Atsumu’s hands are large and soft, apart from the slightly raised ridges of his calluses.

His palm is wider than Kiyoomi’s.

His fingers are thicker and slightly shorter.

Working hands, Kiyoomi thinks distantly, hands that are solid and useful and strong. Hands that are made to build furniture, and hold tools, and hold other hands-

The swish of an automatic door opening nearby sends Kiyoomi startling back upright, jerking his hand from the warm cage of Atsumu’s fingers. He self-consciously fiddles with his hair and looks anywhere other than at Atsumu. They remain quiet as a few students walk past the hallway and into the cafeteria.

Apart from the heating of his cheeks, the cold returns after a few seconds. Kiyoomi can’t help but notice that the warmth lingers.

“Is that- I mean-” Atsumu stutters, “If that’s all ya need, I’d be willing to-”

“No,” Kiyoomi interrupts hurriedly, “No. I only had one coupon anyway.”

As far as excuses go, it’s a lame one. Atsumu seems to think so, too. He slings his backpack over his shoulder and onto the floor with a huff and sinks down to his knees beside it. He rifles through the smaller pocket at the front before withdrawing a handful of familiar-looking yellow cards, all cut hastily with Atsumu’s familiar blue pen scrawl on the front.

‘Miya’s Magic Shop’ they say, ‘One Free Service!’.

Atsumu stands and extends the cards to Kiyoomi.

“Here.”

“I don’t need them-”

Atsumu holds up his hand, “I didn’t ask if ya needed them. Take ‘em. Throw ‘em away. Do whatever. But if ya need me, ya know where to find me.” He says, gently closing Kiyoomi’s fingers around the bundle of coupons with his warm, warm hands before lifting his backpack off the floor and walking away.

Kiyoomi has officially run out of sleeping draught. It happened on a Friday and then he had spent the entire weekend deliberating on the handful of coupons in his backpack.

However when he thinks about the coupons, he thinks about Atsumu, and when he thinks about Atsumu he thinks about Atsumu’s hands, and when he thinks about Atsumu’s hands he starts to wonder if he’s warm like that all over. How would it feel if Atsumu touched him more? Slid his hands under his shirt, placed his fingers gently in the spaces between Kiyoomi's ribs like piano keys then chased away the chill from his chest-

“I don’t want to alarm you-” Komori starts just as Kiyoomi raises a much-needed cup of coffee to his lips, “But you did pour salt in there instead of sugar.”

Komori’s warning is a second too late, as Kiyoomi has already taken a large sip. He lurches out of his chair, barely making it to the kitchen sink before he spews salty coffee all over the freshly cleaned sink.

“Fuck,” He gags, dragging the back of his hand over his mouth and turning to glare at his cousin, “You watched me pour salt in my coffee and still let me drink it?” He accuses, angrily filling up a glass of water to wash out his mouth.

Komori throws his hands up, “I thought you were doing a bit!”

“Why would I be doing a bit, Komori?”

“Because you were trying to make me laugh?”

Kiyoomi slams his hand down on the counter, “It was obviously a mistake!”

“Don’t yell at me!” Komori complains, “I thought that kinda stuff only happened in sitcoms.”

“My life is a sitcom,” Kiyoomi grumbles, appetite ruined. He’ll just skip his morning coffee today, it’s not like anything could make his day worse.

“It’s more like a Shakespearean tragedy!” Komori calls out to him as he leaves to get ready for class.

As it turns out, Kiyoomi’s day can get worse.

After the coffee incident, Kiyoomi trips over a slab of uneven sidewalk outside and scuffs his knee (he’s forced to walk to class with a bloody patch on his jeans).

He arrives at his statistics lecture later than usual and loses his spot near the front where he can see (he always forgets to wear his glasses).

His new temporary seat creaks loudly every time he moves and there’s gum on the rungs (he knows because he accidentally touched it).

Mondays are his busiest days. He attends his statistics lab directly after the lecture in a dismal mood (his lab partners are just as dumb as he is; they turn in their lab exercises half-empty).

By late afternoon, big, threatening storm clouds are crowding up over the horizon, so Kiyoomi takes shelter in the quiet basement floor of the library to spend some much-needed time studying. But hours pass and he remains unproductive. He stares down at the worksheet in front of him until the numbers start to move and a pounding headache builds between his temples.

“Oh fuck me.” He mutters as he re-emerges from the library a few hours later to find that the sun has been blotted out and the weather has taken a severe turn for the worse. There are fat, wet, snowflakes falling from the sky fast enough that the sidewalks are already soaked. The few students still out and about are covering their heads as they hustle between buildings.

Kiyoomi and Komori’s shared apartment is on the other side of campus, and the wind cuts through his layers so brutally that it stings his skin. He doesn’t want to catch his death walking back to the apartment, but he also doesn’t want to get stuck in the library.

Kiyoomi does, however, know somebody who lives nearby.

There is melted snow dripping off the hem of his jacket and onto the carpet below his feet. His curls are sticking to his forehead and the back of his neck, and the only part of him that’s dry is the long-sleeved shirt he has under his coat.

His teeth are chattering, as per usual. He thinks, forlornly, that the cold will remain even when he manages to dry off, and then his mood worsens further.

He hadn’t even stopped to consider that Atsumu might not even be home. Maybe he has a night lab. Or some kind of meeting. Or a date. He definitely should have called first, like a decent human being.

Still, he knocks.

He’s so relieved that his lip starts to wobble as soon as the door opens and Atsumu’s fluffy blonde hair comes into view. Kiyoomi feels an intense swelling in his chest, an emotion too foreign to identify but it’s a good one and that’s all he needs to know.

He thrusts out a familiar, yellow slip, damp with the snow and trembling in his fingers.

“I’d like to redeem this, please.”

“This is not necessary.”

“It is.”

Kiyoomi takes the bundle of clothes in his hands and pushes them back into Atsumu’s chest, “It is not.”

Atsumu shoves them back and Kiyoomi gets a distinct sense of deja vu to the tug-of-war game he played with Komori and the coupon just a weeka and a half ago, “Yer clothes are wet-”

“They’ll dry.”

“Yeah. But yer not supposed to wear them while they do.”

“I can’t wear your clothes.”

Atsumu frowns at him, “Why the hell not?”

“Because-” Kiyoomi flounders, “Because we barely know each other.”

A slow grin spreads across Atsumu’s face, and he wiggles his eyebrows, “You wanna get to know me before ya wear my clothes? How very old-fashioned of ya.” Despite his teasing, Atsumu swallows hard. Kiyoomi follows the movement along the strong line of his tan throat, distracted by the golden skin there and the droplets of water sticking to his collar and the neckline of his shirt. He must have just gotten out of the shower. His hair is half-dried and frizzy at the temples.

Kiyoomi snatches the clothing from him and promptly turns on his heel, slamming the bathroom door shut behind him. He refuses to look at himself in the mirror lest he see the state of his hair so he changes facing the towel rack.

They’re both tall, so Atsumu’s clothes fit him ,almost perfectly apart from the sweats falling a bit short around his ankles. The sweatshirt that Kiyoomi pulls over his head is soft and faded so much that he can barely make out the shape of a cartoon onigiri with cartoonishly large feet on the front.

Atsumu had the foresight to lend him a pair of long, woolen socks as well. They’re a pale, baby pink. Kiyoomi sighs, shocked by his own fondness for a man he’s spoken to twice (three times, but he tries not to think about that night over the phone for the sake of his own sanity).

Dry and warm, he follows the smell of food and the sound of clattering dishware down the hallway and into the kitchen.

Atsumu has his hip cocked to the side, leaning against the counter with one hand splayed on the counter and the other one stirring a pot on the stove with a wooden spoon.

Kiyoomi glances around with a frown, “Where’s your cat?”

“Huh?”

“Your cat. I haven’t seen him.”

Atsumu freezes, “Uh… he’s busy tonight.”

“... He’s a cat.”

“Yes, a very busy one. He just stays here when he feels like it. He’s not actually my cat. Or anyone's cat. I’d say he’s Kenma-kun’s cat more than anything.” Atsumu grumbles as he pulls down two bowls from the cabinet next to the stove, “Go sit down, Omi.”

A few minutes later, Atsumu is setting a steaming bowl in front of him. Kiyoomi gives it a stir, “Is this squash?”

“Yeah,” Atsumu hovers above his chair, “Do ya not like squash?”

“No, I do, I-” He frowns, “You didn’t have to share your dinner, Miya. This is too much-”

“Bullshit, there’s plenty for both of us,” Atsumu dunks a lightly toasted slice of bread into his bowl, “My ma always told us that eating is about sharing. Besides, this is all part of the package. I make ya dinner and then I warm ya up with my hands.”

Kiyoomi gives him a flat look, “There had to be a better way to phrase that.”

“There wasn’t,” Atsumu insists.

The soup is delicious: rich, creamy, and buttery. It warms him from the inside out and Kiyoomi grits his teeth, “Of course, you’re a good cook. What else?” He grits out as he angrily scrapes at the bottom of his bowl, “Do you also volunteer at the animal shelter? Help old ladies across the street?”

“Actually, I-”

“No,” Kiyoomi holds up a hand, “I do not need you to answer that.”

Miya Atsumu is the bane of his existence if not solely for his chivalry, and his generosity, and his ‘welcome home’ eyes, and his-

“Omi.”

His head snaps up and Atsumu is looking at him from across the table. His eyebrows are pulled together in concern.

“Yer shaking.”

Kiyoomi glances down to see the spoon in his hand wobbling in his grip. He sets it down with a cough, cheeks flushing in embarrassment.

“It’s fine. It’s just getting late. It happens, it’s part of my… thing.”

“Omi-”

“I said it’s fine.”

Atsumu insists on cleaning up after dinner. This way, Kiyoomi gets a few minutes to wander around his living room unsupervised.

He’s not shy about being nosy. He’s already here, and Atsumu is fascinating. He trails his finger over the spines of the books on the shelf near the television. None of them are books that Kiyoomi would consider ‘light reading’, “Are you some kind of genius?” He asks as Atsumu wipes down the dining table behind him.

“Now yer just flatterin' me,” Atsumu shoots him a boyish grin, “But nah. Not a genius. Definitely pretty smart though.”

“What do you study?”

“Chemistry.”

“God-” Kiyoomi hooks his finger on the top of a particularly well-loved-looking book and pulls it out. ‘Fundamentals of Calculus’ says the cover, and Kiyoomi grimaces, quickly shelving it again.

“Why do you have so many books about math, then?”

“Chemistry is math, sometimes. Most of the time. Also, I like numbers,” He shrugs, “Math makes sense. It’s straightforward, no funny business, just steps and solutions. One right answer, usually, except for… Actually, I won't get into it-” Atsumu rambles as scoots between Kiyoomi and the couch, resting his palm on the small of his back as he moves past and settles onto the cushions.

Kiyoomi swears he can still feel the brand of Atsumu’s hand through the thickness of his sweatshirt.

“I’m almost failing my stats lab.” He admits suddenly for seemingly no reason at all. It’s not something he’s proud to admit, especially in front of someone with so much apparent educational prowess. But he gets the feeling that Atsumu won’t think any less of him.

His face brightens hopefully, “I can help-”

“No,” Kiyoomi points at him, “No more favors from you.”

“Your loss,” Atsumu rolls his eyes, “But speaking of favors,” He pats the cushion beside him and reaches for the remote on the coffee table, “Come here. Yer teeth are chattering.”

Kiyoomi hesitates as he hears the sound of a quiet, staticky laugh track from the TV behind him. Atsumu is staring up at him, blonde hair tousled and leaning back casually against the corner of the couch.

He snorts when Kiyoomi carefully places himself as far away as possible.

“That’s not gonna work, Omi.”

Kiyoomi swallows hard, “Come closer then.”

Atsumu raises his eyebrows and then scoots over until their thighs are pressed together. Kiyoomi can feel the heat of him through the layers of their pants and, despite the rigid set to his spine, his brain still gets foggy enough that he doesn’t jerk away when Atsumu reaches for his hand and closes his palms around it like he did a few days ago in the hallway.

“Gimme the other one,” Atsumu murmurs, and Kiyoomi easily complies.

He sags back into the couch behind him, pressing up against the line of Atsumu’s shoulder as the other man gently massages the stiff, swollen joints of his fingers.

“Is it true that you own a key to every building on campus?” Kiyoomi asks.

Atsumu throws his head back in a genuine laugh, “No.”

“Oh.”

“I do have a key to the chem building, though. That’s where I do a lot of my-” He waves his hand around, “Stuff. There’s no room in this apartment for potion-making. I still have to buy all my own supplies, but it’s a pretty sweet set-up, good for big batches. Nothing nefarious about it. I go down there when I can’t sleep. Probably doesn’t help the rumors.”

Kiyoomi’s heart stutters at the mention of Atsumu’s dodgy reputation, confirming what Kiyoomi has already expected that Atsumu knows how people talk about him, “Does it bother you? The things they say?”

Kiyoomi feels Atsumu shrug his shoulders, “Not all of ‘em. Not a huge fan of the ones that make me out to be a big evil mastermind.”

“Maybe just the mastermind part,” Kiyoomi grumbles, glancing back over at the textbooks on the bookshelf.

“I think yer overestimating my smarts, Omi, but I’m happy to let ya inflate my ego if ya want.”

“You’re insufferable.”

Atsumu shifts his arm to drape it across the back of the couch and Kiyoomi tries to lean in closer without being too obvious about it.

But Atsumu notices, “Clearly ya just can’t stand me,” He teases.

It’s only been a few minutes but Kiyoomi finds that he can barely keep his eyes open. Between the blessed warmth of Atsumu’s body and the low drone of the TV, the last week's worth of miserable tossing and turning begins to catch up to him.

“You smell nice,” Kiyoomi mumbles.

“Ya think so?” Atsumu uncurls the fingers hanging over Kiyoomi’s shoulder and presses the back of his hand against Kiyoomi’s bared throat. He feels a rush of heat so grand that he can’t help letting his eyes finally flutter closed.

Outside, the storm rages on. But here, tucked under Atsumu’s arm, Kiyoomi thinks that he could let a hurricane roll through campus and sleep through the whole thing.

“Go ahead and get some rest.” Atsumu says, and it’s the best idea that he’s ever had.

Just a few minutes, Kiyoomi promises himself as he stops fighting the pull of sleep, just until the storm passes.

Kiyoomi wakes up to the absence of the whistling wind outside and the realization that he is more horizontal now than he was when he first drifted off. He cracks open an eye, squinting directly into the blue-ish glare of the TV, and freezes.

At some point, they must have slumped over to the side. Atsumu is on his back and Kiyoomi has managed to squeeze himself partway between his shoulder and the couch.

It’s mortifying, or at least it should be. Kiyoomi has his cheek squished against Atsumu’s chest and he’s at least eighty percent sure he’s drooled a bit on his shirt. If Atsumu was conscious, then Kiyoomi would probably already be out the door in his panic. But he’s not- he’s sleeping soundly beneath him- so Kiyoomi lets himself savor the moment.

He gingerly props himself up on his elbow. There’s not a shred of tension in Atsumu’s face. He probably works hard, Kiyoomi thinks. Between his classes and his side gig, he wonders when Atsumu has time to do the things that he likes.

Whatever those things may be.

Kiyoomi finds that he wants to know. He wants to know what Atsumu does when he’s not potion-making in the musty basement of the chemistry building or doing calculus for fun. Maybe he doesn’t have any hobbies because his free time is filled with wayward souls like Kiyoomi who can’t seem to solve their own problems.

Kiyoomi is careful as he lifts himself up over Atsumu and off the couch. He tiptoes back into the bathroom in the hallway to retrieve his clothes, sighing in defeat when they’re still damp from the snow. He rolls them up with a grimace. Luckily, his jacket had mostly dried where he had draped it over the back of one of the chairs at the kitchen table.

The cat is back when Kiyoomi turns back around, perched on the windowsill and dimly backlit by the cloudy sky behind him. Even in the dark, Kiyoomi feels the weight of his big, gilded-eyed stare. He looks away, only to catch sight of Atsumu’s prone, sleeping form once more, sleep-soft and tempting in a way that Kiyoomi is unfamiliar with.

He decides to leave before he can do something stupid, like tenderly brush the hair away from Atsumu’s forehead or crawl back onto the couch and let the rise and fall of Atsumu’s chest soothe him back to sleep. For the first time in a long time, he feels content.

Before he goes, he fishes another coupon from the front pocket of his backpack and leaves an extra coupon on the coffee table. He exits out into the hallway, and then further still into the cold, still night. The residual heat follows him through campus like a shield against the bitterness of the wind and the somber feeling of being alone once more.

Kiyoomi unlocks the front door to his and Komori’s apartment as carefully as he can, tiptoeing into the entryway and quietly shutting it behind him.

“Well, well, well-”

Komori has turned the recliner to face the door, his arms are crossed across his chest with a thunderous expression on his face like a disgruntled spouse, “Look who’s finally decided to come home.”

“Komori-”

“Where the hell have you been!” Komori throws his hands up, “I’ve been worried sick.”

“I’m fine-”

“There was a storm! No call. No text? Why didn’t you answer your phone?” He demands, and then his wide eyes get wider, “And whose clothes are those?!”

“They’re mine.”

“Oh yeah?” Komori raises an eyebrow, “You own pink socks?”

Kiyoomi looks down at where Atsumu’s socks poke out from the tops of his boots under the hem of his too-short sweats.

“...Yes.”

“Liar!”

“I love pink.”

“Well, you don’t have the complexion for it.”

“That’s not very nice.”

Komori glares, tightening his crossed arms and tapping his foot.

“You should go to bed. It’s late.” Kiyoomi mumbles, eyeing the dark hallway towards his escape.

“I know it’s late Kiyo, that’s why I was worried-”

“I’m fine. Just lost track of time.”

“Okay? But where-”

“I was out. With a friend. Working on… stats homework.” He lies, and it’s so obvious not because Kiyoomi is a bad liar but because Komori has known him the better part of all his life.

“Is that what they’re calling it these days?”

“Seriously. Just needed some help and then couldn’t leave when the weather was bad.”

Komori chews on his response for one heartstopping minute before sighing and dropping his arms, “Just… text me next time. So I don’t think you’re dead in a ditch.”

“I would never get close enough to a ditch to be caught dead in it,” He mumbles as he finally makes his escape. Before he can disappear into his room, Kiyoomi stops and ducks back into the living room where Komori is standing in his pajamas with a crease between his eyebrows, “Uh… thanks. I’m sorry I worried you. I’m fine. Seriously.” He tries for a reassuring smile.

For a moment, Komori is dumbstruck. He looks at Kiyoomi like he’s just broken into song or grown an extra pair of arms. Kiyoomi takes this opportunity to leave, fleeing down the hallway to his bedroom on pink-socked feet.

He lasts three days before he uses his next coupon.

Kiyoomi shows up at Atsumu’s door much less soggy but still just as needy.

“I brought your clothes back,” He explains, holding up the bag in his fist, and Atsumu immediately steps aside to let him in.

Now he’s pressed up against Atsumu’s side again, watching him quietly as he skims through the dense, vocabulary-riddled paragraphs of his chemistry textbook. Kiyoomi discovers, much like last time, that something about the warmth and the accumulated sleeplessness makes him more pliant. Softer. He rubs his cheek against the curve of Atsumu’s shoulder with a sigh.

“How many credits are you taking?”

“Eighteen.”

Kiyoomi jerks up, “Eighteen? Are you kidding me?”

“Dead serious.”

“You’re so fucking annoying, Miya. Eighteen credit hours?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

He shrugs, “It kind of just worked out that way. I do better when I’m busy anyway. If I have too much free time I get very-” He makes a vague motion around his head with his hands. “Anyways, yeah. Eighteen. I’m taking this extra elective about music theory? It’s fascinating stuff, honestly.”

Kiyoomi leans forward to scrutinize his face for a moment, “You should really let me pay you for this.”

Atsumu snorts and turns his attention back to his homework, “Nah.”

“Why not?” Kiyoomi demands.

Atsumu shrugs, not meeting his eyes, “Don’t worry about it.”

Irritated, Kiyoomi fidgets with his hands and stares at the side of Atsumu’s face, “I’ll buy your groceries.”

Atsumu snorts, “I don’t need ya to buy my groceries, Omi.”

“Then let me bring you lunch. When you’re busy on campus.” He insists.

“I-”

“Please,” He implores seriously, glancing from eye to eye when Atsumu finally looks back up at him.

After a moment of tense eye contact, Atsumu concedes, “Fine,” He sighs, “Since something tells me yer not going to let this go.”

Kiyoomi relaxes against his side again, satisfied.

The more time they spend around each other the more Kiyoomi notices that Atsumu seems… exhausted.

He slips through the basement door to the chemistry building with their lunch in one hand and their drinks in the other. He finds Atsumu passed out at one of the lab tables, surrounded by little unlabeled jars, with his cheek pressed against his open notebook. Kiyoomi thinks back to the last time he had seen Atsumu asleep like this and shakes the thought away.

“Hey,” He says, tapping his foot against the rungs of Atsumu’s stool, “Miya-”

Atsumu wakes up with a start. There’s a little divot down the side of his cheek where his face was pressed against the notebook's spine, and his eyes are bleary.

“Shit,” He groans, rubbing down his face, “Sorry.”

“You’re not getting enough sleep,” Kiyoomi concludes, setting their lunch down on the lab table and sitting on the stool across from him.

“I’m sleeping alright.”

“Then you’re overworking yourself.”

“I’m really not, Omi,” He assures Kiyoomi and digs into his burger ravenously, “Ya should have seen me last semester. Now that was overworking myself.”

Kiyoomi crosses his arms and presses his lips together, unimpressed.

“Anywho-” Atsumu takes a sip from his drink, “How are ya? How was class?”

Kiyoomi ignores his attempt to change the subject. He raises his eyebrow.

Atsumu sighs, “Yer going to go bald if ya keep worryin’ so much all the time.”

Kiyoomi frowns, reaching up to self-consciously touch his hair, “That’s not true.”

Atsumu rolls his eyes, “I’m just busy lately. Lots of orders. Lots of people in need of my services.”

“Like me.”

“Yer different,” Atsumu brushes him off, “You don’t think I sacrifice babies and terrorize the student body.”

Something sick and guilty turns in Kiyoomi’s stomach. How different could he possibly be? His relationship with Atsumu, at its core, is parasitic. He glares at the purplish circles under Atsumu’s eyes and thinks that he might actually be worse than the others.

He takes advantage of Atsumu’s generosity and gives nothing in return.

“Why do you still help them?” Kiyoomi asks quietly, “If all they do is talk about you behind your back?”

“Not all of ‘em. Most of my regulars are oddballs… like me. They’re not the same people slanderin’ my good name. And the rest of them- well, sometimes the people that need the most patience are the least capable of givin’ ya the same grace in return.” Atsumu looks thoughtful, “I like to think that most people who give me a chance end up changing their mind.”

Kiyoomi can’t work up the nerve to look him in the eyes, “They don’t deserve you.”

I don’t deserve you, he thinks to himself.

“Life doesn’t work like that, Omi,” Atsumu pulls a sheet of labels towards himself and starts smoothing them across each tiny glass bottle, “If kindness was transactional, then I don’t think there would be much of it at all.”

“There’s already not much of it.”

“All the more reason to give it out freely, huh?”

Kiyoomi doesn’t have anything to say to that. Instead, he silently watches Atsumu work. His fingers are surprisingly dextrous. He’s good at handling delicate things: from fragile flasks to expensive ingredients to thorny emotions.

The air-conditioner kicks in overhead with a groan. Kiyoomi shivers and tries to subtly rub away the goosebumps that rise up along his arms.

“You cold?” Atsumu asks and then before Kiyoomi has the chance to answer, he’s already shucking off his hoodie and passing it across the table, “Here, since I run hot,”

The dark red fabric is plush between his hands and furnace-hot as he fits it over his head and pokes his arms through the sleeves.

Atsumu looks at him for a long moment before averting his eyes back down, “Looks good on ya.”

“Don’t say that or you’ll never get it back.”

Atsumu shrugs, “Whatever ya want, Omi.”

“You have to start telling me no.”

Atsumu scoffs and rolls his eyes, “You say that like it’s easy. Ya got big doe eyes. I can’t just ‘tell you no’.”

“Well… try.”

“Sure,” Atsumu’s lips quirk up, “Whatever ya want, Omi.” He repeats and dodges the crumpled-up napkin that Kiyoomi aims at the center of his forehead.

Kiyoomi slips a coupon into the front pocket of Atsumu’s hoodie before he returns it.

He only has a few left. He promises he’ll leave Atsumu alone once they’re gone

“So I’m guessing your thing with Atsumu is supposed to be a secret,” Kenma says one day when they’re alone in the library.

Kiyoomi’s gaze snaps up from the books in front of him. Kenma has his hood pulled up over his head and his cheek propped up against his fist.

“What?” Kiyoomi breathes.

“You haven’t told Komori. Or Keiji. Or me, technically.”

“There’s no ‘thing’ between Miya and I.”

“That’s not what I heard,” He mutters, pulling his phone out of the front pocket of his jacket and opening up some kitschy puzzle game.

“From who?” Kiyoomi demands.

“I have eyes everywhere.”

“Are you being frustrating on purpose?”

“Maybe,” Kenma just blinks at him, “I’m just saying I don’t think there’s any reason to hide it. It’s cool if you like him.”

“It’s not like that,” Kiyoomi insists. Kiyoomi is a leech but he wont be a leech forever, he wont be like the others.

Kenma lowers his phone into his lap and looks across the table at Kiyoomi for a long minute. He sighs, returning to his game.

“You should probably make sure Atsumu knows that.”

Kiyoomi is staring vacantly at his statistics study guide for the upcoming exam when his father contacts him for the first time this semester.

Kiyoomi feels a pit in his stomach and a rush of cold from his spine down to his toes. He stares while it vibrates on the desk to his left for so long that it eventually goes to voicemail. Then the guilt hits him and he redials.

“Hey, sorry,” He mumbles when his father picks up.

“I won’t keep you long. Are you busy?”

Kiyoomi wonders if there’s a right way to answer that question. If he says yes, will he seem rude? If he says no, will he seem lazy? He gnaws at the inside of his cheek.

“I have a minute.”

“Your grandmother wants to send you something. I need your address.”

Kiyoomi lets a relieved sigh filter quietly from his mouth, “Oh… Okay, I’ll text it to you.”

“Your mail keeps ending up at the house. You need to fix that as well.”

“Okay, I’m sorry. I’ll fix it.”

“Alright.”

“Okay…”

His father is silent for a moment, “I trust that school’s going well?”

“It’s going fine.”

“And your grades?”

Kiyoomi’s stomach clenches, “I’m having trouble with stats but- but I have a friend that’s helping me.”

“You don’t need a friend, Kiyoomi, you need a tutor.” His father sighs on the other line, “This isn’t an excuse to have a social-hour when you should be studying.”

“I’m not. I’m really trying-”

“Kiyoomi, there’s no reason that you should be struggling this much; you’re not in particularly high-caliber courses. If you wanted to succeed in your academics, then you would. I’m getting tired of this.”

“I know I’m sorry, but I’m just- I’m just struggling right now.”

“Struggling how, Kiyoomi? You’re not going hungry. You don’t have a job. What could you possibly be struggling with?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, if you’re having so much difficulty with your intermediate classes then I suppose it’s for the best you’re not taking the med school route after all,” Kiyoomi can picture his face: stern and disappointed, “It’s just not for everyone.”

“Right.”

He hears the rustle of papers on the other line and the squeak of a leather chair, “Well, get your grades up. And send that address.”

“Okay, Dad.”

“I’ll talk to you later.”

“Yeah, bye.”

He sets his phone back down on the desk. It’s as if the sound has been sucked from the room and all that’s left is the buzzing between his ears. Kiyoomi’s hands and feet start to go numb with the cold. He can feel it crawling up his torso up to his throat.

Suddenly, he’s sixteen again, spending long, miserable nights at the dining room table crying over his math homework. He thinks about the first C he ever got in high school, the tutors, the expectations, the heavy, sidelong glances from his father during both of his siblings' college graduations.

“Kiyo?” Komori calls from the couch when Kiyoomi storms past him on the way to the door.

He doesn’t say anything as he slips his arms through his jacket sleeves and forgoes the zipper with his frozen fingers.

“Wait, where are you going?” Komori checks his phone, “It’s almost eight. It’s cold-”

“I’m going out.”

“Okay… where?”

“Does it matter?” Kiyoomi snaps, “I’m an adult. I’m going out. End of story.”

Komori draws back, surprised, “I know you’re an adult…” He says slowly.

“Then act like it.”

Komori crosses his arms, “I’m just worried about you. You don’t have to be a dick about it.”

“I never asked you to worry! Can’t you let me leave my own fucking house without pathologizing it?”

Komori purses his lips and nods, “Sure, Kiyoomi.” He turns back around to face the TV with an air of false nonchalance, “Do whatever you want.”

Kiyoomi bypasses the anxious guilt in his gut as he takes his leave, shutting the door behind him with a bit too much force and barely stops to lock it behind him.

“Ya probably need to apologize,” Atsumu tells him, combing his fingers carefully through Kiyoomi’s curls.

He huffs and turns his attention back to some obscure video essay about a topic he hardly cares about droning on from Atsumu’s laptop at the foot of the bed. He’s curled up on his side with his head in his lap. The fabric of Atsumu’s sweats is soft beneath his cheek.

They’ve never spent much time in Atsumu’s room. But Komori was right, it is late, and the last thing Atsumu needs is back pain from another night cramped tightly together on the couch. So here they lie, on top of the covers and bathed in the yellow-ish light of the bedside lamp.

“I know.” Kiyoomi says after a moment, “I’m an asshole.”

“Komori-kun is probably already over it. Besides, I’ve said worse things to my brother times ten and he still talks to me just fine.” He chuckles fondly, “Yer lucky Komori isn’t the fightin’ type like Samu is. He probably woulda shoved my head in a toilet.”

Kiyoomi shudders at the thought, “Komori isn’t my brother.”

“He might as well be.”

“I have actual siblings, you know,” Kiyoomi tells him, “They’re all decorated medical professionals. I’m the dumb one.” His self-deprecation comes out much less humorous than he intends. The bitterness in his voice is raw and obvious.

“Hey,” Atsumu flicks him hard in the middle of the forehead, “None of that. Yer not dumb.”

Kiyoomi reaches up to rub at the sore spot with a frown, “It’s true.”

“Why? ‘Cause yer bad at stats? Stats sucks. Who cares?”

Kiyoomi pushes himself upright, “Oh, easy for you to say. You’re good at this stuff. I’m not.”

“Okay,” He reaches over to tentatively tuck a curl behind Kiyoomi’s ear, “Isn’t that all the more reason to let me help ya then?”

Atsumu’s fingers linger on his skin, slowly trailing down the sharp curve of Kiyoomi’s jaw before they fall lightly down onto the bed between them. Their faces are close, so close that Kiyoomi can see the dark flecks in Atsumu’s eyes. He sucks in a dizzying inhale of spicy-sweet cologne and thinks that it wouldn’t be so bad to close the distance just to know what it’s like, just to feel Atsumu’s warmth from the source.

But really, it would just be one more thing to take from him. And Kiyoomi is afraid that Atusmu is too kind to say no.

“No,” Kiyoomi says for him, answering the dialogue in his own head along with Atsumu’s question that still lingers between them. He lays his head back down on Atsumu’s thigh and closes his eyes, “You have enough to worry about.”

“Why can’t I worry about both? You and everything else?”

“Because-” Kiyoomi’s words peter out with his breath. He hides the hitch in his throat with a cough, “Because you don’t- we’re not- You don’t owe me anything.”

“So?” Atsumu’s hand returns to the dark mess of Kiyoomi’s curls.

“So, don’t try to make this more than it is.”

Atsumu’s hand freezes in his hair, his fingers still and softly pressing into the side of his temple. It takes him a minute to respond, “Sure, Omi.” He says quietly, “No problem.”

They don’t speak much after that. Atsumu pretends to be invested in whatever is playing on his screen and Kiyoomi stays where he is even though Atsumu’s withdrawn his hands.

He overstays his welcome like usual. Kiyoomi falls into a fitful rest curled up by Atsumu’s side like a kicked dog, leeching warmth from where he can.

When he wakes up a few hours later, Atsumu is sprawled out on the bed beside him. He’s snoring softly and the laptop screen has long since gone dark. Kiyoomi gets up and digs through his backpack as quietly as he can, looking for his coupons and finds the very last one. He didn’t realize he had let it get this far. How did he already run out? The paper is soft and crumpled. He traces his fingers over the scribbled words like he’s trying to memorize the bumps where Atsumu pressed his pen too hard.

With cold, shaking hands, he sets it on Atsumu’s bedside table, and then he leaves.

Kiyoomi does not look back.

It was never supposed to be forever. Maybe it was a mistake to come to Atsumu after all. He feels colder on his walk back home than he ever has before. Somehow, even Atsumu’s warmth knows it shouldn’t linger long.

Kiyoomi skips class the next day, and then the day after that. He hasn’t spoken to Komori since their little spat the other night and he only leaves his room once the apartment is empty. At some point his phone had slipped off his bed. He hears it buzz occasionally until eventually it stops.

If he picks up his phone then he’ll want to call Atsumu, and he’s promised himself that he won't rely on Atsumu anymore. He’s all out of coupons. He doesn’t have any more excuses to take up his time.

There’s ice in his veins. He can hardly move apart from the slow blinking of his eyelids but he doesn’t think he would want to even if he could. Maybe he’ll just stay like this. Maybe there’s no point in battling this big, unrelenting cold front that claws at his back each time he stumbles. Maybe he’s tired of running from it and it’s time to let it consume him.

He watches idly as the shadows stretch across his bedroom floor. The afternoon fades into evening and the temperature outside drops.

There’s a soft knock at his door, “Kiyo?” He hears Komori ask through the door, “I just wanted to let you know I’m going out tonight. I’ll be back tomorrow morning, probably.”

There’s a moment of silence. Kiyoomi can hear the faint rustle of clothing, “Kiyoomi? I know you’re in there,” Komori jiggles the lock and sighs, “I’m sorry about the other night. I know sometimes I nag you too much but… anyways. I’m sorry.”

Kiyoomi’s eyes start to sting.

“You’ll text me if you need anything, right?”

Komori sounds so defeated, and it’s all his fault. He would have leeched the life out of Atsumu too, he knows it. Atsumu is generous and Kiyoomi is selfish and it’s dangerous to want to keep him close because Atsumu won’t know he’s freezing until he’s stuck to Kiyoomi’s side like Komori is.

Surprisingly, Kiyoomi’s friends give him his space. He slips from day to day with minimal interaction and somehow manages to avoid Komori. He knows it’s only possible because they let him get away with it.

He does, however, acquire a very interesting shadow.

“You’re not very sneaky,” He grumbles, resting his head on his forearms and frowning as his guest leaps onto the secluded table he found in the back of the library, “I don’t think you’re supposed to be in here.”

Kuroo chirps in reply.

“What are you? A bad omen?”

Somehow, the cat manages to look offended. He bats at Kiyoomi’s pen in retaliation and sends it skittering out of reach. Kiyoomi supposes he deserves that.

Kuroo sprawls across the table with a heavy sigh, as if burdened. It reminds Kiyoomi of the first night that he met Atsumu and he feels a pang in his chest. He reaches out and lightly prods at one upright, fur-tipped ear.

“You probably shouldn’t be out like this. Don’t you think Atsumu is going to get worried?”

He draws his fingers back when Kuroo nips at them.

“Sorry,” Kiyoomi mutters and Kuroo chirps again, mirthfully this time, almost as if he’s mocking him, “I wish you hadn’t have knocked my pen all the way over there, though.”

Kuroo stretches out and reaches for the pen, batting at it until it’s within reach. Kiyoomi narrows his eyes.

“Thanks…” He’s quiet for a moment, “You’re the weirdest cat I’ve ever met.”

Komori and Kiyoomi never stay angry at each other for long. Eventually, the effort it takes to avoid each other becomes too burdensome and the cold war ends with a cracked joke (Komori) or some well-intentioned act of service in lieu of words (Kiyoomi).

After a week and a half of silence and awkward hallway interactions, Kiyoomi works up the nerve to wander into the living room while Komori is watching TV. He doesn’t say anything, just curls his back against the opposite armrest and gingerly rests both of his legs in Komori’s lap. Komori rests his hand on Kiyoomi’s ankle, pats it twice.

Kiyoomi’s throat clicks as he swallows back a dozen awkward apologies. He opens his mouth, closes it, turns away again to face the far wall and the window that faces the street. Komori probably already knows what he wants to say anyway.

‘I’m sorry’, ‘I’m trying’, and ‘It will probably happen again’. There is forgiveness in the way Komori absently fiddles with the hem of Kiyoomi’s jeans and drums out a quick staccato on top of his shin bone.

Maybe Atsumu was right and they really are more like siblings than he thought.

Kiyoomi hasn’t seen Atsumu since that night after his fight with Komori.

Atsumu sent a few messages the morning after Kiyoomi left, apologizing for falling asleep and wishing him a good day. He sent a picture of something bubbling and blue in a small cauldron on the lab table and made a quip about the warmer-than-average weather.

But his messages became more infrequent as he surely started to realize that Kiyoomi wasn’t going to respond. He tried calling once on the third day of radio silence and then he didn’t try again.

The last text he sent was the day before yesterday saying: ‘Are you okay?’

He finds he misses Atsumu more than he resents himself for using him. Gentle touch is a hell of a drug; it’ll do things to you, like make you believe that you might actually deserve it. Sometimes he can almost convince himself that Atsumu might miss him too, might think of the short hours that they shared in each other’s company and wondered what could have been if Kiyoomi was better adjusted or at least less of a dick.

They hardly know each other, really. Kiyoomi knows more things about Atsumu from word of mouth than from Atsumu himself and that doesn’t bode well.

But he knows what Atsumu’s cooking tastes like, and how his home is decorated. And he likes Atsumu’s warm hands and he doesn’t find them disconcerting at all. With a pang in his chest he realizes he’ll never feel them on him again and he never did find out what Atsumu likes to do for fun.

He’s probably a jock. Kiyoomi has felt his muscles over his clothes.

Kiyoomi curls his trembling hand into a fist and presses it to his mouth. The clock on the wall next to the TV blurs a little bit from the tears in his eyes. They well up, and well up, and then spill over onto his cheeks, and he’s miserable- he’s miserable-

“I’ll be here whenever you’re ready to talk about it, Kiyo.” Komori tells him, and Kiyoomi might not be able to say thank you, he might not even be able to say sorry, but thirty minutes later when he finally composes himself enough to go make himself a cup of tea, he brings Komori a cup too.

And when the tea is gone, and the warmth seeps back out of him, Kiyoomi puts his head on Komori’s lap and cries through two episodes of Say Yes To The Dress. Komori doesn’t say a word about the tearstain on his jeans when they finally get up to go to bed.

People are staring. Kiyoomi puts his head in his hands and prays that he’ll disappear.

“Stop it,” He hisses when a big, soft paw pats at the top of his head. The paw retracts slowly, only to return seconds later with a vengeance.

“Cut it out!” Kiyoomi jerks his head up and glares, only earning himself more stares from around the atrium.

Kuroo sits back on his haunches and yawns. Kiyoomi has never seen such a small action convey so much smugness.

“You can’t be in here,” Kiyoomi tells him seriously, an edge of hysteria in his voice. He’s nearing three days with hardly any sleep and he can hardly string words together, “You’re not even a service animal.” Kiyoomi purses his lips when Kuroo swats at his hand, completely lost to what he’s supposed to do in this kind of situation, “You’re Atsumu’s responsibility, not mine.”

Kuroo hisses.

“Right. Sorry,” He scrubs a hand over his face, “I’m talking to the cat,” He mumbles wearily, “I’m losing my mind.”

He lets his hands fall back to the table, “Look, I’m getting ready to leave anyway.”

Kuroo puts his head up gently into the underside of Kiyoomi’s chin.

“Is that it? You just want me to leave?”

The cat leaps down from the table, turning back and pinning him with those large, unusually colored eyes until Kiyoomi finishes packing up and throwing on his coat.

There are still eyes on him. Of fucking course there are. He’s some freak talking to an unusually large cat in the middle of campus. At this rate, he’ll have a reputation even stranger than Atsumu’s. They’ll be two peas in a pod- he winces- they would have been two peas in a pod.

“Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god-” Kiyoomi mutters under his breath as they leave the building.

“I think you might be the devil,” Kiyoomi accuses once they’re out the door and away from earshot. He swears- he swears- that he sees Kuroo roll his eyes.

He’s so mortified, in fact, that it takes him a long while to realize that Kuroo is herding him in a very familiar direction. Kiyoomi stops dead in his tracks and crosses his arms.

“No. No way,” He clenches his hands, “I know what you’re trying to do.”

Kuroo takes another step and chirps at him.

“I can’t. I can’t do it.” He insists and steps to the right, back in the direction of his own apartment.

Kuroo meows plaintively, voice pitching up at the end like a question.

“It’s better this way. I would have fucked it all up really bad sooner or later, so it’s fine, he’s better off.” It feels like a weight off his chest when he admits it, “He’s really good, you know? I know you’re not his cat but take care of him. Don't… ruin his carpet or anything like that. God,” He bends over and braces his hands against his knees, “I’m an asshole.”

His chest heaves, and his vision narrows, and he comes to the sudden realization that he is mere moments from having a full-on emotional breakdown in the middle of campus.

“Kuro,” Kenma’s voice crashes through the haze, and it sounds disapproving.

Kiyoomi opens his eyes to see Kenma scoop Kuroo up off the ground and into his arms.

Akaashi is next to him, carrying a small box in his hands that clinks softly when he shifts.

“Hello Kiyoomi-san,” He says politely and holds up the box, “I have a delivery for you.”

“What?” Kiyoomi reached for the box in his outstretched hands, “What is it? From who?”

Akaashi neatly arches one brow, and then reaches into his jacket pocket and pulls out a slip of paper, “He refused to tell me what it is. He wants me to tell you, ‘It’s lemon flavored. Working on peach.’”

“I think,” Kiyoomi swallows hard, eyes burning, “I need to go home.”

“Probably,” Kenma shrugs and sets Kuroo back down on the ground, “You look terrible.”

Kiyoomi looks down at the box and his heart thunks painfully in his chest. His name is written on the top in the most terrible handwriting in the world. The tape is crooked like he was in a hurry, but Kiyoomi bets the labels on the bottles are perfect.

There is a faint tremble in his chest. Something warm unfurls from within him. It feels a bit like hope.

There’s not much that can wake Kiyoomi from his Miya-Atsumu-induced potion slumber. So the fact that the noise outside of his window rouses him at all is a testament to how loud it is. He blinks into awareness, slowly connecting the thumps, scratches, and wails outside to the reason why he’s no longer peacefully dreaming.

“What the fuck,” He grumbles, palming the bedside table for his glasses and sliding them onto his face. He switches on the lamp and gapes at the shadow pacing back and forth outside on the ledge, “What the fuck?”

Kiyoomi stumbles out of bed and throws open his window, “Kuroo!” He hisses, “What the hell are you doing here?”

Kuroo immediately welcomes himself into Kiyoomi’s home, only to dart directly towards the door and bump his head up against it.

Kiyoomi closes the window with a sigh and turns back around, “I won’t be bossed around that easily.” He crosses his arms, tucking his frigid hands under his armpits, “You are a cat. And I am a grown man.”

Kuroo raises his paw in an unsettlingly deliberate way before dragging his claws down Kiyoomi’s bedroom door. He meows once, long and low like a plea. His voice is raspy, probably from sitting in Kiyoomi’s window and screaming at him until he woke up.

“Is something wrong?” Kiyoomi asks tentatively.

Kuroo meows once, quicker and higher than the previous. Kiyoomi understands this as an affirmative.

“I can’t believe I’m talking to the cat. Again.” He mutters as he opens the bedroom door.

Kuroo immediately darts out, running low to the ground with his head on a swivel as he navigates towards the living room, pausing in the entry before loping over to the front door on soft feet.

“Outside?” Kiyoomi hisses, making sure to keep his voice as quiet as possible, “It’s the middle of the fucking night!” Still, for whatever reason, Kiyoomi slumps heavily onto the floor and starts pulling his boots on over his double-socked feet.

“You’re lucky I sleep in layers,” He grumbles. Kuroo reaches up to bat at the zipper of Kiyoomi’s coat hanging in the entryway, “Obviously, I am going to wear my coat, Kuroo. Not all of us-” The living room floods with light, and Kiyoomi’s jaw snaps closed.

“Kiyoomi…” Komori’s eyebrows are drawn all the way up to his hairline, “Are you… okay?”

Kiyoomi opens and closes his mouth, “I… you can see him too, right?” He jams his thumb over to Kuroo, whose tail is swishing impatiently.

“The cat? Why would I not be able to see the cat?-”

“No. No, yeah, I just thought it might be one of those things where- you know what? Nevermind, forget it-”

“You’re freaking me out, Kiyo. What are you doing?”

Kiyoomi pushes himself up and grabs the coat off the hook, “I’m… going to follow this cat and see where he leads me.”

“Is that… safe?”

“I’m 75% sure he’s not some demon.”

Kuroo meows, offended.

“Okay 85%.”

Komori squints at him for a long second, “I’ll get my shoes on.”

The trip down through the apartment building and outside onto the dimly lit campus sidewalk is mostly silent apart from the sound of their breathing and the creaks of the doors. Kiyoomi pulls his jacket tighter around himself to fight the sting of the winter air.

“Do you… do this often?” Komori asks, warily watching as Kuroo leaps a few strides ahead and begins walking through campus with purpose.

“No. I actually avoid him as much as possible.”

“The cat? Why?”

“He’s meddlesome.”

“He-” Komori points in Kuroo’s direction, “Is meddlesome? Whose cat is that?”

“Nobody- I mean I don’t think anyone actually owns him, but it seems like Kenma is his favorite-”

Kuroo cuts a diagonal line through campus, ducking around buildings into dim alleyways and shrouded sidewalks overgrown with weeds. Kiyoomi feels Komori’s fingers wrap tightly around his elbow.

“Are you sure he’s not a demon leading us to our death?”

Kiyoomi is coming to fear that they are headed back towards Atsumu’s apartment and he balks as it sinks in. They’re in too deep now and they can’t just turn back around. And either way Kiyoomi is going to have to explain to Komori what might be about to happen. Atsumu is probably pissed. Maybe he’ll punch Kiyoomi right in the face for taking clear advantage of his time and resources and then completely ghosting him.

“Komori,” Kiyoomi swallows, sick with nerves, “There’s something I need to tell you, and you might think it’s silly but-”

“But you’ve been sneaking around with Miya Atsumu? Yeah, Kiyo, I know. You came home in an Onigiri Miya T-shirt. His brother owns a restaurant or something in another town, so yeah, I put two and two together pretty fast.” He looks over at Kiyoomi and swallows hard, “And honestly, this is going to sound so weird but you smelled like him, he’s got that…” Komori gestures vaguely with his hand, “Super recognizable cologne?..”

Kiyoomi widens his eyes, “I know. What is up with that?”

Komori muffles a laugh in his palm, “You’re not really sneaky either.”

“Hey, I- First of all, we were not sneaking around. Not like that.” Kiyoomi swallows, “It was a… business relationship.”

“Whoa,” Komori whistles and shakes his head, “Never expected you to be the type to pay for sex, Kiyo.”

Kiyoomi shoves him away by the shoulder with a huff, “We have not had sex.” He hopes it’s dark enough to hide the way that his cheeks heat up.

Komori grins slyly, “...Yet?”

“Ever!” Kiyoomi hisses, “We have not had sex ever-” And he has plenty more ill-advised things to say after that but then he notices where they are. Kiyoomi’s eyes land on the awkward, ugly concrete of the Chemistry building dead ahead. His stomach drops.

He jogs up the stairs to the entrance and Kuroo drops behind him. They all slip through the cracked door, across the lobby and towards the staircase.

“Miya?” Kiyoomi calls out as he reaches the landing, dread settling into his stomach when he spots him, passed out at his work desk surrounded by vials of all different shapes and sizes and colors, “Atsumu?” He asks, softer, and reaches out to touch his shoulder.

Up close, he can see the sweat dotting Atsumu’s hairline and the way his hair falls damply into his eyes. His eyebrows are drawn tightly, and his breathing sounds shallow. He’s warmer than usual. A lot warmer than usual. Kiyoomi can feel it even through the fabric of Atsumu’s hoodie. He’s not dressed for the outside weather. He’s wearing a pair of grey sweats and a baggy black hoodie. It doesn’t even look like he brought gloves.

He reaches up and lays the back of his hand across Atsumu’s forehead. He startles when he feels Atsumu lean into the touch with a low relieved moan.

“That’s nice-” He rasps, “I’d know those frigid, boney hands anywhere.”

Kiyoomi flushes, and he glares down at the side of Atsumu’s face, “You’re burning up. More than usual. You’re seriously so stupid, Atsumu-” He pushes Atsumu upright by his forehead and uses the other hand to snap his notebook closed, wary of the way the potion bottles rattle on the desk.

“Whoa, easy-” He smirks weakly, “No need to get fiesty.”

“I’m taking you home.”

“‘M fine. I’ll just crash here.”

“Absolutely not!”

“Omi-”

“Uh, hello?” Komori speaks up.

“Komori-kun, nice to see you again,” Atsumu drawls with a charming grin, completely delirious.

“I see you’ve met that cousin I told you about?” Komori raises his eyebrow.

Atsumu laughs nervously, “We’ve got a… business relationship of sorts.”

“Yeah. I heard,” Komori says dryly.

“Once again,” Kiyoomi interupts, “We are taking you home. Komori, get his other side.”

They each duck under an arm, stringing Atsumu up between them and slowly maneuvering him around the table. Atsumu is still surprisingly sturdy despite how obviously unwell he is.

The narrow stairs are tough to manage, but eventually they’re back outside under the half moon where the wind is starting to pick up. Atsumu sighs and rolls his head back, “Actually, just leave me out here.”

It’s not until halfway through their slow, stilted journey that Atsumu realizes that they are not headed towards his apartment.

“Wait Omi-” He jerks his head up alarmed, “We’re going to your apartment?”

Atsumu’s feet slip and Komori and Kiyoomi both grunt, heaving him back upright as they cross the wide, dark street towards their apartment complex.

“You need supervision, it seems.” Kiyoomi snarks.

“Oh, I see,” Atsumu glances over at him with an unreadable expression, “Now you want to see me.”

Kiyoomi’s mouth snaps shut and whatever nag he had on the tip of his tongue fizzles out. He sighs, “That’s not what I-” He shakes his head, “Let’s just… worry about getting you inside, Miya.”

With plenty of curses from Kiyoomi and a surprisingly lack of commentary on Atsumu’s side, they get Atsumu up into the apartment. He doesn’t miss all of the suspicious glances that Komori casts his way when he insists that they place Atsumu in Kiyoomi’s room instead of the couch.

“Don’t.” Kiyoomi mutters as Komori sidles up to him. He fills up a glass of water from the sink and grabs some painkillers from the cabinet above the pantry, “Don’t say anything.”

Komori’s smile is mischievous, “You have a thing for him.”

“I do not have a thing for him.”

“You do. Does he know?”

Kiyoomi rounds on him furiously, “No he does not know. And you won’t tell him or I’ll shave your head in your sleep.”

Komori’s mouth drops open in a comical ‘o’ shape before he giggles, “Whoa. So mean. I could have sworn I just trekked across campus in the middle of the night to rescue your sick boyfriend.”

“He’s not my boyfriend,” Kiyoomi turns his nose up and heads back down the hall, “And thank you, I guess.”

Atsumu is lying flat on his back in Kiyoomi’s bed, staring around his room with wide eyes, not even bothering to hide his interest.

“This is not what I thought your room would look like.” He eyes the bookshelf across next to the bed, packed full of manga and figurines and various other gacha that he’s collected, “I didn’t realize you were such a nerd, Omi.”

“Whatever,” Kiyoomi rolls his eyes and hands him the water and the pills, “Not everyone decorates their apartment for a magazine photoshoot.”

“I’ll have ya know, my Ma decorated my apartment.”

“That answers a lot of questions for me.”

Atsumu rolls his eyes, “Will ya help me out of this hoodie. ‘S too hot-”

He sits up with extraordinary effort and Kiyoomi leans forward quickly to place a hand under his back and help push him up, bunching the fabric of his sweatshirt as they pull it up and over his head. He’s wearing a thin, white T-shirt, already damp with sweat.

“Your sweatpants-”

“Yeah,” Atsumu pants, clumsily pawing at the thin blanket on top of him until Kiyoomi takes pity on him and pulls it off, “I could probably go without the blankets tonight.” He chuckles, which turns into a cough.

“You’ll catch a chill.”

“I really doubt that, Omi.”

Atsumu swallows back the painkillers and chugs down half of the water as Kiyoomi pulls his desk chair up to the side of the bed. He sits, pulling his knees up tight to his body and wrapping his arms around himself, shivering.

Across from him, Atsumu’s hair is damp with sweat again after mostly drying during their walk through campus. Moisture collects along his temples and his neck, pooling in the divot of his collarbone where the neck of his T-shirt has stretched.

“How long have you been sick?”

“Couple’a days. Got behind on work and couldn’t sleep. Didn’t realize it would get so bad.”

“You should have called-”

“You wouldn’t have answered,” Atsumu interrupts him.

“...I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Atsumu closes his eyes, “Yer right. I shouldn’t have made it something that it wasn’t. Wasn’t trying to make you uncomfortable or anything. Just wish ya would have talked to me instead of disappearing.”

“I wasn’t- It wasn’t that, I just got… scared.”

“Scared of what, Omi?” Atsumu looks back over at him, eyes glassy and tired in the lamplight, “Don’t tell me ya believe all those things they say about me. Did ya think I was luring ya into a sense of security so I could corrupt yer soul or somethin’?-”

“I did!” Kiyoomi admits too loudly. The wry smile on Atsumu’s face fades slightly, “I did believe those things about you. Well, not that specifically but I knew you had a bad reputation and I thought you were sketchy-”

“Ouch.”

“And I let you help me for free anyways. And you were too- too good to me and you had no idea that I was just as bad as the rest.” He’s staring down at the patterns on the rug, anxiously fiddling with the cuff of his sleep pants when he hears Atsumu snort.

Kiyoomi looks up to meet his soft, kind eyes, tilted up in a smile, “Is that what you’ve been agonizin’ over?” He chuckles hoarsely, “Omi I was not under the impression that you liked me when we met. Have you been having some moral crisis over that this whole time?”

Kiyoomi can feel heat creeping up the back of his neck, embarrassed, “Well, yes. I was using you-”

Atsumu clumsily reaches for him, circling his warm fingers around Kiyoomi’s ankle, “That is not what was happening-”

“It was!”

“Ya didn’t twist my arm and make me hold yer hand.” Atsumu sighs, “Spending time with you? Touching you? None of that was a chore by any means, Kiyoomi. I made fake coupons just to maybe see ya again. I’m not too worried about the extra legwork of ruining any pre-conceived notions ya had of me.”

“You dont get it,” Kiyoomi reaches down to lightly trace a finger over Atsumu’s knuckles, “I’m a lot. I’m difficult, I’m going to wear you out-”

“I’m no stranger to hard work, Omi.”

“I just don’t understand why.”

“Really?” Atsumu groans and rubs his free hand over his face, “You can’t think of a single reason why?”

Kiyoomi presses his lips together in protest and Atsumu makes another tortured sound.

“Yer going to make me say it out loud.” He sighs, “Kiyoomi,” He struggles to prop himself up on his elbows, “You’re so beautiful, and witty, and funny. I like you so bad.” He swallows hard, “I’ve been trying to play it cool but I don’t think I can spend any more time pretending like ya don’t drive me absolutely crazy-”

“Atsumu-”

“-Never met anyone like you in my life. Kinda wish I knew more. Kind of hoping you’ll give me a chance-”

“You- It’s the fever talking-”

“No,” Atsumu reaches for his ankle once more and jerks the chair closer to the bed, “This is the fever talking: I wanna touch you and not pretend like it’s only for your benefit. I’m tired of not knowing if you feel it too.”

“Ugh,” Kiyoomi groans, pressing the backs of his hands into his burning eyes, “You’re so sappy.”

“Kiyoomi,” His grip tightens ever so slightly, “I’m not an asshole. So if yer not into it, just tell me right now. You could probably call Kenma and Akaashi to come pick me up if ya needed space-”

Against his better judgement and every health guideline ever, Kiyoomi leans down and interrupts Atsumu’s spiraling with his mouth. He clumsily lowers his feet to the floor and leans forward as he presses his mouth to Atsumu’s.

“I’m into it. Obviously, I’m into it,” Kiyoomi’s hands are on either side of Atsumu’s neck, softly stroking the heated tendons there with his thumbs, “Ask me out on a date when your brain cells aren’t cooking in your head.”

“That’s some pretty gross imagery, Omi,” Atsumu tries to sound playful but exhaustion is clearly seeping into his voice. His eyes look heavy, “Are ya going to come lie here next to me?”

Kiyoomi grimaces, “And contract whatever illness you have?”

Atsumu’s mouth drops open, “Ya just kissed me! We already swapped spit!”

“I would hardly call that ‘swapping spit’-”

Atsumu reaches for his waist and pulls him farther on top of him, “Oh yeah? You wanna try again?” He breathes.

“No, you heathen,” Kiyoomi puts a hand over Atsumu’s handsome, blushing face and pushes him away before falling gracelessly onto the bed beside him, “You’re sick. I’m supposed to be taking care of you.”

“Yer doing just fine,” Atsumu’s heavy head lolls back agains the pillows, “Feelin’ better already.”

“Oh yeah?” Kiyoomi turns on his side to look at the outline of his profile in the dim room. He raises his hand and places it back over Atsumu’s forehead. The other man visibly relaxes with the contact. Soon, his breathing starts to deepen, and his features fall slack.

In the quiet of his room, warm and content for the first time in forever, Kiyoomi lets himself smile.

There are a lot of rumors about Sakusa Kiyoomi- some of them completely and utterly ridiculous, and others just specific enough to be believable.

They he’s descended from a long line of royalty, and that he can’t go out in the sun. His father runs a crime syndicate, and his cousin is actually a hired bodyguard. Some say he’s covered in tattoos, and that’s why he’s always so bundled up.

Even stranger is his relationship with campus-cryptid Miya Atsumu. There’s a rumor that their relationship is forbidden, and that’s why they spend so much time together on campus at night.

They say that sometimes, if you hang out around the abandoned Chemistry building, you’ll hear the faint sound of bickering echo from somewhere not so far out into the night.