#sakusa

&&&

It’s fine that you leave. It’s not like he's holding you hostage. You’re free to make your own decisions. You’re both adults, after all.

So, like an adult, Kiyoomi goes to practice and works hard. Nails every set that comes his way and aims his serves with lethal precision. He pointedly ignores the chorus of wolf whistles that start up when they’re back in the locker room, responding to overly curious questions with a smug ‘Wouldn’t you like to know’ or ‘Not very work appropriate, Miya.”

Now that had earned him a growl, “Since when do you fuck?” 

“Since your mother asked me so nicely.”

“Don’t you fuckin’ talk about my—”

But Kiyoomi’s already gone, letting Atsumu’s rage fissile out of earshot as he slips out of the locker rooms and into the gymnasium, sneakers squeaking against the glossed court floor.

You’re there when he leaves, sitting on the bleachers as you type furiously on your laptop, the cutest scrunch between your brows as you focus on your task. You don’t seem to notice him, too deep into… whatever it is that you’re doing, so he clears his throat with an awkward wave.

“Hey.” He says, a little startled to see you, a little excited. A clipboard rests beside you, fixing a document in place that you’ve scribbled numbers all over, half the page covered in bouts of pink and purple highlighter. You’ve got your hair pulled up tight, face set into something pensive. “You look nice today. I like your hair.”

“Oh, hi. Thanks, Omi.” You smooth a hand over a lock of hair, twirling it around your fingers in focused circles, your expression melting into something warm, “You really think so? Trying something new.”

Ki, Kiyo, Yoomi, Yooms—You seem to be searching for every possible way to shorten his name. It always catches him off guard when you come up with a new one, taking steady breaths so his heart doesn’t beat out of his chest, lips fixed in a frown to fight down a smile. 

Kiyoomi nods—perhaps a bit too stiffly—remembering the way you looked last night, sleepy and satisfied and so, so cute. He wants to kiss you back into yesterday, when you were soap-soft and giggly, falling apart again and again as he worked you through it all, melting on his tongue like ice cream on a summer afternoon—

“Is… there something I can help you with?” You say when he doesn’t reply, and oh my god he’s been staring this entire time just say something Kiyoomi say anything—

“What… are you doing out here?” Jesus fucking Christ. 

“Working, if you can believe it.” You don’t seem to mind his presence, so maybe he’s not making a complete fool of himself. “The wifi in my office is shit, so I’m stuck out here until I finish this.”

“What are you working on?” He asks, craning his neck to see the source of your despair.

“Budget stuff.” You jot down a few more numbers on the sheet packed full of numbers, tilting the screen to give him a better view, “We need to order a million things before the season officially starts. This isn’t even technically in my job description.”

You tilt the screen to reveal a spreadsheet. Kiyoomi doesn’t understand much of it.

“Seems like a lot of math.”

“It is.” You hit the ‘enter’ key with perhaps too much force, “Putting my degree to use, I guess.”

“I thought you majored in English?”

“I did, but it’s all the same to them.” You dismiss him with a wave of your hand, “A degree is a degree. And someone has to order the charter bus for the game next week.”

That pulls a quiet laugh from him, “Maybe you could use a drink?”

Your eyes finally shift from the screen to meet his gaze, playful but intrigued, “Why? Are you offering?”

The effect is immediate, stomach fluttering as his chest thumps. It feels good to have all of your attention. He’s not too prideful to admit that.

“I—Yeah. Well, the guys are going out later. Team bonding, or something. You should come.” He feels a bit like a coward for using the team as a crutch, but he’d say anything to spend more time with you. “And before you ask: You are part of the team. Nobody would care about us if it wasn’t for you.”

“That’s not true. You’re all well-liked, with or without me.” Your disagreement is made clear when the scrunch between your brow returns, “Besides, nobody wants to get drunk with their PR manager.”

A half-truth. Managing their public images hasn’t been easy. Last month you had to deal with a leaked sex tape that looked suspiciously like one of the Miya twins. Bokuto can’t stop swearing during public interviews and Hinata almost got himself cancelled for inappropriate comments about the starting setter for the Schweiden Adlers. Even Kiyoomi has gotten heat in the media for turning down gifts from fans. You’ve got enough dirt on them to bury them several times over—It’s a miracle you have anything nice to say about them at all.

“I do.” He says before the courage leaves him. Kiyoomi likes that about you, too. Part of him wishes he could step into your world and experience life through your eyes—where everything is brighter, lighter, and forgiving. You always find ways to highlight the best parts of people, even when faced with the absolute worst. He figures that’s why you’re so good at your job. 

Still, he can see the uncertainty in your face about coming. “I want you to come. It would be nice if you came, I mean.” Then more quietly, “Only if you want to, though. No pressure.”

Kiyoomi is about to cut his losses, feeling like he’s pushed too far and revealed too much about himself, begging for a scrap of your attention like a dog at dinnertime. 

But you say something so astounding and unfathomable that Kiyoomi thinks he misheard you.

You say yes.

&&&

The bar they always go to is nearing empty. It’s almost midnight and still no sign of you.

The team is long gone by now since they do everything on an early schedule, including going out. Start drinking by 7pm, have your last drink around 9pm, then sober up enough to leave at 10pm to be ready for 8am practice the next day. That’s just how it goes.

So he sits in a corner booth, waiting for your silhouette to walk through the door when he probably should have left hours ago, his beer untouched and having lost all carbonation. He watches a guy on the other side of the bar completely miss his shot in a game of pool.

Huh, Kiyoomi thinks to himself, watching the condensation steadily slip down the glass, so this is what getting stood up feels like.

It just stings, more than anything else. The embarrassment is what kills him, really. You hadn’t even texted.

It begins to make sense the longer he dwells on it. It was ridiculous of him to invite you, and even more ridiculous for him to get his hopes up. Drinking with the team, really? You obviously want to maintain a professional relationship with him as much as possible, and that’s fine. He was stupid to think otherwise. Why would you jeopardize your career over him? This isn't a workplace romance.

It’s a thirty minute walk back to his apartment, but he could use the air. The trains are done for the night, so it’s not like he has a choice in the matter. Kiyoomi closes his tab, tugs on his jacket and heads for the door. 

He decides to take the long route anyways, hoping to pass through the livelier side of the city to drown the noise in his head. Stopped at the crosswalk, he waits for the light to change, when a shoulder shoves into him. It’s not a big deal. He did choose to walk through the part of town known for nightlife. Though, the thought of a drunk stranger emptying their stomach on the pavement beside him has Kiyoomi turning to look at just exactly who bumped into him.

“Oh.” He says, eyes wide, “Hey.”

“Hi.” You greet, brushing him off. The light changes and you start walking, Kiyoomi following a half-second after.

“You… ” He trails, taking longer strides to match your pace. You walk strikingly fast for someone so much shorter than him. “You didn’t show.”

You huff, walking faster. “You didn’t text.”

He… what? The only reason he didn’t text was because he didn’t want you to feel pressured. You don’t need him hounding you about an offer you seemed hesitant to accept in the first place. He was trying to be considerate, afraid to stretch his luck too far and ask for too much.

“Did you not want to come? I didn’t want you to feel I was forcing you.”

“I don’t know what to feel, Kiyoomi.”

The use of his full name makes his stomach drop, “Did you want me to text you?”

“I don’t want anything from you.” You spit, tucking yourself further into your thin cardigan. He can feel you slipping further from his reach. Kiyoomi can’t see any tears, but the tremor in your voice gives you away, “Not anymore. I just want to go home.”

“Then let me walk you.” He blurts, shrugging off his jacket to drape over your shoulders, “And it’s cold out, you should be wearing a thicker coat—”

You stop walking, whipping around so fast that it forces him to stop, too. The sudden loss of momentum makes him stumble, nearly taking you down with him. The crowd splits around you, suspending this moment in a bubble where it’s just you and him, pedestrians passing by in an indistinguishable blur.

He would have fallen if he didn’t reach out to steady you, one hand landing on your shoulder and the other around your waist. Kiyoomi’s hands retract as if burned, but the slip-up puts the two of you much closer. You don’t step back. 

“What is it that you want from me?” Your face is set into that firm expression again, the one that makes the cutest dip between your brows. Kiyoomi just wants to kiss it away, make it all better. 

“I want—” He tries, panicked eyes darting around your face to catch every microexpression. “I want whatever you want. I invited you tonight because I wanted an excuse to see you. I’m sorry I didn’t text. I didn’t want to push. Earlier it seemed like you didn’t want to come.”

“Of course I wanted to come! You’re just so—” You gesture towards him vaguely, “I don’t know! You don’t acknowledge me at work. You rarely text. You just followed me on Instagram. What am I supposed to think?”

Kiyoomi could rip his hair out. In hindsight, his choices seem nonsensical, but every decision had been a carefully calculated measure.

“Fuck, I was over-thinking.” He can feel his heartbeat in his throat, “I was overthinking it so bad—” 

You huff, adjusting his jacket over your shoulders. You don’t look convinced.

“I swear I was trying to do right by you. I didn’t know if you wanted other people to know, or if this was a casual thing, or if—”

“You could have talked to me, maybe?” You cut him off, “Fucking asked me?”

“I… didn’t have the guts to ask. I don’t know what I would have done if you just wanted to be friends.” The words catch in his throat. “I wouldn’t have known how to stand next to you at work and pretend that was enough. I still don’t.”

He’s rambling now, inhibitions now forgotten at the crosswalk when you first bumped into him.

“I think about you all the time. At practice, at home—” he gestures vaguely between you like that explains anything, “I replay every conversation we’ve had trying to figure out if I imagined it or if you actually—” he cuts himself off, “And then you leave. Every time, you just—leave. Like it didn’t mean a thing.” His voice drops, quieter now, shy. “And I didn’t know how to ask if it did.”

You’re both still blocking the walkway, the city moving around you in blurred streaks of noise and neon. Neither of you move, your fingers twitching at your side like you’re not sure what to do with them. Your mouth opens, then closes. For a second, it looks like you might say something.

You don’t.

Still, Kiyoomi holds your stare, refusing to be the one to look away first.

Finally you shake your head, but there’s no malice in it. Your voice comes out quieter than it should, “You are so fucking stupid.” 

“Yeah.” He agrees easily, no arguments to be made, “—But I can do things differently from now on. If you even want to continue this. I just—Let me walk you home? Please, can I walk you home?”

“I am home,” You gesture to the building behind you with a tilt of your head. “This is my apartment.”

Not that he would know. You’ve never invited him over.

Kiyoomi recalculates, face warm. “Let me walk you to your door?”

Your smile takes him by surprise, small as it is, keys jangling loudly as you pull them from your purse, “Sure. Don’t want to get lost, now do I?”

Your sarcasm fails to deter him. Kiyoomi is a man of his word, so he escorts you the final ten paces to your doorstep, not-so-discreetly wiping the sweat from his palms. 

“I have to know. What were you doing when you bumped into me earlier?”

Your gaze drops to your shoes, rocking slighting as you shift your weight from your heels to your toes then back.

“Being petty. I didn’t want to show up too late or too early. I was waiting for you to text me, so I wouldn’t look stupid.” You exhale a quiet laugh. “But you actually didn’t text me. And it suddenly felt like I was reading too deep into this. I was heading home when I saw you at the crosswalk.”

“Where’d you go for all that time?”

“The bar next door.” You snort, “I had drinks with my friend instead. They really helped me figure out my feelings.”

The thought of you dressed up, waiting anxiously for a text that never came makes Kiyoomi want to fall to his knees. Your friends probably hate him, too, and they’d be right to do so. It takes significant effort not to bang his head into the sidewalk.

“Could I…” He feels a flush creep up his neck, “Could I try again?”

You debate his question for a short while, Kiyoomi’s heart a sledgehammer in his chest. Clumsily shoving your keys into your bag, you extend a hand and give him your full name.

He scrambles to take it, your hand soft against his calloused palm, and it feels like something new. 

“Sakusa Kiyoomi.” He reintroduces himself with a firm shake and a boyish grin, “Are you doing anything next weekend?”

haiii the sun is out and i feel like a person again. its actually so embarrassing how slow i am at writing i totally understand if u want to stone me in the town square. i have like 5 longer wips to finish so expect more at some point in the future probably!!