Archive of Our Own

“Psst,” a whisper says. “Omi. Omi. Wake up.”

Kiyoomi rolls over, burying his face in his pillow. “Go away, Miya.”

“It’s time for our tradition. You can’t leave me hanging.”

“ Your tradition. I don’t want any part in this.”

“We have to kick the year off right! C’mon, I fought Samu for the cloak, so I only have like, thirty minutes. Omi. Omiiiii.” Kiyoomi flips his blankets over his head and pointedly ignores Atsumu. But ignoring him hadn’t helped when Kiyoomi had been trying to focus on their Quidditch match a few months back, and it doesn’t help now, as a familiar weight scrambles on his back. Kiyoomi tries to buck him off to no success. “Omi. I know you're not sleeping.”

As Atsumu speaks, there’s something cold and… wet seeping into his blankets. Heavy. With the smell of earth. Kiyoomi closes his eyes and prays for the patience he doesn’t have.

“Tell me that’s not mud in my blankets,” he says. “Tell me you are horribly injured and that the only reason why my bed is filthy is because you are bleeding out and you’re going to die in the next thirty seconds.”

“Well in that case,” Atsumu says, “I have very bad news for you.”

That’s it.

“You are so annoying,” Kiyoomi snarls, flinging his blankets off along with Atsumu, whose only sign of presence is the faint grunt he makes when he hits the floor. Kiyoomi doesn’t pay him a second glance. Let him die there, for all he cares.

He stomps to his chest at the foot of the bed, digs out his cloak, and grabs his wand, casting a quick Scourgify to get rid of any filth on his sheets and himself. He contemplates hexing Atsumu, but he doesn’t know any good ones yet. Plus that stupid invisibility cloak is on him again, and he knows from firsthand experience that the cloak is stupidly good at blocking magic.

The pout is audible in Atsumu’s voice. “Stop looking at me like you wanna kill me, Omi.”

“Then stop doing things that make me want to kill you,” Kiyoomi says. He swings the cloak on and stomps off to the door, not waiting for Atsumu to catch up. It gets drafty in the castle even in September, when summer still clings sticky and humid to his back during the afternoons.

Atsumu snickers somewhere behind him. “A cloak? You that cold? What’re you, a baby—”

Kiyoomi picks up a stray textbook left in the common room to hurl at Atsumu. There: a yelp. Two paces away. He strides forward and yanks the cloak clean off Atsumu’s head.

“I’m invisible,” Atsumu says, offended. His hair is frizzy from the static.

Kiyoomi would like a word with whoever thought it would be a good idea to hand two twelve-year-olds an all-powerful invisibility cloak, and to the Miya twins, no less. Family heirloom, schmeirloom. Atsumu should’ve gotten his dead grandmother’s flower hairpin or something for all the trouble he causes with that dumb cloak.

“Not anymore,” Kiyoomi says, and turns. “Let’s go. I want to sleep.”

“You're so grumpy in the morning.”

“It’s night, you idiot . And I have Quidditch practice in the morning.”

“Grumpy,” Atsumu repeats, and ducks under the cloak with him.

They make quick work of navigating the castle paths. They might only be second-years, but Atsumu has somehow managed to learn most of the secrets and shortcuts that the castle has to offer through bribery and coercion, and his efforts show when they reach the kitchens within two minutes.

A small castella cake waits for them on an otherwise empty table, with a candle sticking out on top. It’s maybe big enough for three bites. Four, if they stretch it.

Kiyoomi stares at the cake, then elbows Atsumu in the ribs hard enough to make him stumble out from under the cloak.

“Hey!”

“You made me get out of bed for this? It’s tiny. You’re kidding me.”

“I know it’s small—alright, like really small—but the cooks had short notice and the summer break kinda killed all the love I built up over the last year, okay? That’s why I’m all muddy and gross. They made me get stuff from the forest to make this cake. And it was raining!”

“You’re pathetic,” Kiyoomi mutters, and sits down, slipping the cloak off. He sets it to the side, and after a moment, Atsumu slides into the bench on his other side.

“If you don’t like it, you're free to leave,” Atsumu mutters.

The smart thing to do would be to agree and leave. He doesn’t like it. In fact, he hates it. He hates this tiny cake. He hates being woken up in the middle of the night for a midnight tradition that’s only a year old. He hates having Atsumu slide up to him when he’s still mud-and-rain-soaked, and he hates putting up with stupid stuff like this that gets him known for being the saint to put up with Miya Atsumu’s annoying personality.

But he’s not a saint.

And maybe—from a scientific perspective, in certain moon phases and the third day of an ongoing five-day thunderstorm—Atsumu’s personality can be. Bearable. From time to time. An extremely limited time of about thirty seconds if he’s being generous, but bearable nonetheless.

Kiyoomi sighs and lights the candle with his finger. “Your wish,” he says, averting his eyes. “I made one last year so it’s your turn.”

Even in the corner of his eye he can see Atsumu’s grin spread. “Omi. You serious?”

“Shut up.”

“Omi. Omiiii. You like this stupid cake, huh? ‘Course you do, I practically made it, and you love anything that I—”

“Finish that sentence and see what happens.”

“You're just annoyed that you like me,” Atsumu singsongs, then closes his eyes and frowns, concentrating hard. It’s quiet for a few moments.

Kiyoomi studies him in the candlelight. He really is soaked to the bone.

It’s a snap decision. He casts the warming and drying charms before he realizes he’s even doing it, but his timing is awful. The magic leaves his mouth the second Atsumu announces, “Alright—” His eyes go wide, and he whips his head from the cake to Kiyoomi, who averts his gaze again. “Omi?”

“Did you finish making your wish?” There’s no reply, but Kiyoomi shoves himself to his feet anyway. “Okay, good, I’m leaving—”

“Wait, wait, wait!”

“Let go of me, idiot!”

“We have to take a bite!” Atsumu says, too loud, clinging to Kiyoomi’s arm. “And blow out the candle! Omi, wait!”

“I’ll kill you,” Kiyoomi hisses, ears hot, and Atsumu laughs—

Your chosen one, the monster mocks, dead.

Atsumu is unmoving. It’s unnatural. The position of his neck must be uncomfortable, but he doesn’t move. In the past seven years Kiyoomi has seen him sleep more times than he can count. He’s always in motion, even during sleep: whining, turning, nuzzling into Kiyoomi’s hip for warmth and the worst cramp in his neck when he wakes up.

Atsumu doesn’t move today.

Get up, Kiyoomi says. The cut on Atsumu’s temple doesn’t bleed. His chest doesn’t rise. His fingers don’t curl around Kiyoomi’s. Atsumu. I’m not joking. Get the fuck up.

Oh, how sweetly you despair, the monster sighs.

Sakusa, Osamu says. His voice is an awful thing to bear witness to, and Kiyoomi wants to turn away from it. But he can’t move. Sakusa. He’s not. I checked.

Check again, Kiyoomi bites out, muffled by his mouth pressed against the cold skin of Atsumu’s cold hand.

I did. I checked so—so many fucking times.

Something is rising in his throat. It’s white-hot and wretched. It makes him sick. It boils his skin alive and scrapes his throat raw. Hatred: call it what it is. But none of the hatred is directed at the monster smiling down at the two of them. It’s all hurtling towards Atsumu like a train, still and unmoving, and Kiyoomi wants to let go of his hand so he can stomp on it, crush all the delicate bones in the hands that held his so gently, kick Atsumu’s body to force it back up, but he can’t bring himself to move. His joints are locked into place. He is a prisoner of his own body. How dare you, he’s screaming. How dare you do this to me. How fucking dare you walk away from me again.

Sakusa.

It’s the wrong voice. Wrong name. Wrong face. The wrong color of Atsumu’s hair, the wrong robes, the wrong wand. One must die and the other must live, so why the fuck is Atsumu dead? Why wasn’t it you?

But he knows exactly fucking why it wasn’t. Again the hatred seizes him. Again it shudders and ricochets in his bones, and Kiyoomi’s snarling mouth forms the words again: Get up. Atsumu. Get the fuck up. We made a deal. You remember that? We made a fucking deal.

Atsumu doesn’t move.

In fourth year, Atsumu doesn’t ask Kiyoomi to the Yule Ball. Instead he goes with some Gryffindor third-year who’s very small and very blonde.

“I hate blondes,” Kiyoomi mutters, taking a sip of his butterbeer. It’s lukewarm, because he’s been nursing it for the past hour since the ball started. He hasn’t moved from this seat. In fact, he doesn’t know why he’s here. Finishing his Transfiguration essay would be more productive than watching Miya fucking Atsumu laugh idiotically as he spins that mouse of a blonde on the floor to his crowd of equally idiotic admirers.

It’d be easy to hate him if he wasn’t so eye-catching. He looks good today. He’s done something to his hair to make it look less like rat piss. It’s closer to woven gold under the light—his robes silky new and form-fitting, clinging to his shoulders. They’ve only broadened since the start of the Quidditch season, and he’s hit another growth spurt. In the past two weeks he’s begun to tower over most everyone in their year, except for Kiyoomi himself, and a few others. The height fits him so well it makes Kiyoomi a little angry.

The sound of Atsumu’s laughter rings out again, and he scowls.

“Don’t be a hater,” Motoya says, a grin in his voice. “You can’t hate Yacchan, she’s so cute. She helped me with my Charms review. And you can’t say that it’s because I’m an idiot when you know I’m in Advanced Charms.”

So she’s smart. Small. Blonde. Good at Charms. Meanwhile Charms is Kiyoomi’s worst subject. Atsumu makes fun of him for it all the time.

Kiyoomi stares hard at the girl’s head. “I see.”

“You’re going to murder her with your eyes, Kiyo.”

“I’m not. I don’t even know who you’re talking about.”

“Which is why you’ve been glaring holes into Miya’s girlfriend the whole night?”

“I don’t care about Miya’s girlfriend.” He spits out the word like it’s a disease, which it probably is. Atsumu spends too much time rolling around in the Quidditch field without enough layers. “The only thing I want from Miya is for him to hand in his half of our research on Felix Felicis so I don’t ever have to talk to him again.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I’m serious. He can go— marry her for all I care.”

“You’re so cute,” Motoya says fondly, getting to his feet.

Kiyoomi seethes. He should read up on hexes. He never thought he’d need them since they’re juvenile and crass, but Motoya is fast making him reconsider his decision. Just one hex should do it. Wipe that knowing grin off Motoya's stupid face.

“Stop glaring at me like that,” Motoya says. “I’m just going to get you another butterbeer and maybe some snacks because you are clearly snippy and hungry. I’m a good cousin like that.”

“You’re the worst. I hope you die on your way there.”

“So cute,” Motoya repeats, before he steps away to the refreshment tables.

To spite Motoya and to prove that he isn’t plotting to kill Miya’s girlfriend, Kiyoomi keeps his gaze locked on his butterbeer. It tastes flat and plasticy.

The one from Hogsmeade is better, he thinks, before he redirects that train of thought with another angry swallow of the terrible butterbeer. Screw Hogsmeade. Screw Miya Atsumu. Screw the damn Triwizard Tournament, and screw his Head of House for making him come at the implied threat of docking House Points.

Go to the Yule Ball for the greater good of our House solidarity, Kiyoomi, Takeda had said. It’ll be fun, Takeda had said. I just want you to cherish your school memories, Takeda had said.

Kiyoomi’s going to find a way to stuff Takeda’s pants with weasels. See how he likes his school memories.

“Someone piss in your orchids or something, Omi?”

Great.

“No,” Kiyoomi says shortly. “Go away.”

Because Atsumu is a contrarian and also an asshole, he pulls out a chair and throws himself in it instead. Kiyoomi surveys the contents of his cup and wonders if it’s enough to hurl it in Atsumu’s stupid face.

“Come on,” he’s wheedling. “Yule Ball, and you're really gonna spend it moping away in the corner?”

“I’m not moping. I just don’t like crowds.”

“No chance you would dance with me, then,” Atsumu muses.

Kiyoomi bites back the urge to say I would’ve if you asked me to be your partner, since it’s not true. There was no way he would’ve danced with Atsumu in this crowded hall even if Atsumu had asked. And Atsumu didn’t ask, so the whole point is moot anyway. Not that he cares.

This whole night is the worst.

“Go away,” Kiyoomi says again. “Have fun with your girlfriend or whatever. You can’t be that much of an asshole to leave her alone.”

“Girlfriend?” He sees Atsumu blink in the corner of his eye. “What, you mean Yacchan?”

Yacchan again. It’s a stupidly cute nickname. Does everyone call her that? Probably—she’s cute and small and blonde. Good at Charms.

Kiyoomi takes another murderous swig of his butterbeer, only to find there’s nothing in it. His scowl deepens.

“Yacchan ain’t my girlfriend,” Atsumu says.

“I don’t care what she is,” Kiyoomi says, setting his cup down. “Your paramour. Whatever.”

Atsumu starts laughing. “Omi, how old are you? Who the hell says paramour?”

“If you don’t like my word choice, you’re free to leave,” Kiyoomi snaps. His grip tightens on his cup until it’s a mess of sticky plastic in his palm. “In fact I’d prefer it if you left. Bother someone else, Miya.”

“So you can brood alone?”

“I’m not brooding.”

“Omi.” When Kiyoomi doesn’t respond, Atsumu’s voice goes soft, like the lilting notes of the piano overhead. “Omi. C’mon. Look at me.”

He did. Then he found Yacchan standing beside Atsumu. Then he stopped looking so hard.

“Omi,” Atsumu says. “I’m sorry I didn’t ask you to the ball.”

Kiyoomi’s throat closes. He blinks hard and Vanishes the destroyed cup and the sticky residue. “I don’t care. You don’t owe me.”

“I just panicked,” Atsumu says. “Everyone kept expecting me or Samu to ask them when I only wanted to ask one person, and Samu beat me to the whole date thing, and then I got all caught up in my head about it, and then Yacchan kept worrying about having a good time and stuff, so Aran suggested I take her and I couldn’t really do anything about it after that. I mean, I could, but Yacchan’s nice. I didn’t want to let her down. It’d be kind of a dick move and you're the one always telling me not to be such a dick.”

“Again, I don’t care,” Kiyoomi says.

“I’m sorry,” Atsumu repeats.

The knot in Kiyoomi’s throat unsticks at his voice, quiet and uncertain. “Well,” he says. “It’s not like I asked you either.”

Atsumu raises his head. “You wanted to ask me?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“But you wanted to?”

“No. Stop grinning. You look like an idiot.”

“Omi,” Atsumu says, beaming. “Your ears are red. Hold my hand.”

“No,” Kiyoomi says, restraining the urge to cover up his ears. “Leave me alone.”

“Okay, well, I’ll hold your hand,” Atsumu says, and then he leans over and does just that.

They don’t dance. They don’t get up from their chairs. Motoya doesn’t come back, either, although Kiyoomi sees him mouthing whipped across the room at him at some point during the night. And when Yacchan catches sight of them and approaches, she doesn’t come to steal Atsumu away; instead she bows about a dozen times and apologizes, much to Kiyoomi’s bewilderment, but Atsumu laughs it off and she manages to find another partner with no trouble at all.

What Atsumu does is hold his hand the entire night. He scoots his chair closer until their legs are pressed together under the table. He says, “Hey, Omi. Look at me?”

Kiyoomi does. He doesn’t stop looking.

One of the side effects of surviving a Killing Curse for the second time is a lower body temperature. They discover this hours after the end of the fight, when they’re sitting on the scattered rubble of what used to be a wall. The reunion had been quiet, mostly touch: a desperate hug. Ragged gasps. Kiyoomi had held onto the back of Atsumu’s robes until his knees ached from kneeling, at which point Atsumu pulled back, kissed his cheek, and led them to their makeshift seat.

“Huh,” Atsumu says now. It’s the first word he’s said to Kiyoomi since his resurrection, the first being an underwhelming, Hey. Hesitantly, he takes Kiyoomi’s hand again and frowns, pressing Kiyoomi’s palm to his cheek.

Kiyoomi doesn’t feel any difference in temperature, which is an issue. Atsumu’s normal body temperature runs higher than a hyperactive toddler in summer.

“You warm, Omi?”

If Kiyoomi’s being honest, he doesn’t think his body has circulated any blood since the moment he saw Osamu stumble into the grounds with Atsumu limp on his back, his head lolling unnaturally off Osamu’s shoulder. Lots of shitty things have happened in the war. He’ll probably hate the color green for the rest of his life and have some amount of nerve damage from the number of torture spells he’s endured.

But Kiyoomi already knows that the scene of Osamu bringing Atsumu back is one that’s going to be at the forefront of his nightmares for a while yet.

“It’s February,” Kiyoomi says. “Of course I’m cold.”

Atsumu tangles their hands together and uses his other hand to fiddle with Kiyoomi’s fingers. “Don’t think I can warm you up.”

“Do you think it’s permanent?”

“Dunno. Foster thought that my high temperature before was ‘cause of the Killing Curse the first time, so all the coldness could be like… Rebound? Homeostasis. Whatever.”

“You’re of no use to me then,” Kiyoomi says, instead of dwelling too long on the idea of Killing Curse side effects. But his mind still wanders there, to the worst case scenarios. What else could there be? A shortened lifespan? Deteriorating immune system? Damaged magical core?

Suddenly Kiyoomi’s taken by the urge to swaddle Atsumu up and deposit him somewhere far and safe, like a princess in a tower.

“I just saved the world,” Atsumu says. “Remember that? Big flashy light show? I dunno if you missed it, but it was pretty cool.”

The rhythm of their banter is familiar and comforting. Kiyoomi falls into it like a comforting bed in a dormitory that isn’t his. “Nothing you do is ever cool, Miya.”

“You're so mean to me.”

“Someone has to keep you humble.”

"I don't need humbling! In fact you could stand to build me up a little."

"Past events would suggest otherwise."

“Past events should suggest that you cut a dead man some slack!”

The retort dies on Kiyoomi’s tongue.

Atsumu says it so easily. As if he’s reading the words off a script that’s not about him.

Must be easy for him to say it, Kiyoomi thinks. When you’ve spent a number of years thinking about it, the words lose meaning. It becomes something alien and familiar. A series of nonsensical syllables.

Dead man. Two words, consonants in the beginning and end. But more accurately, Atsumu can say it so easily because he doesn’t know what it was like to watch Osamu carry a body into the grounds, face pale, unspeakable despair crumpling his bloodless mouth. That was what it was to carry the burden of a dead man; worse if that burden was your twin, and worse yet if that burden was Miya Atsumu.

The anger comes as a head rush. He shakes off Atsumu’s hand.

Atsumu’s grin falters. “Omi?”

“Don’t say that again,” Kiyoomi says. “Don’t you—”

He shoves Atsumu back. Atsumu nearly stumbles off the rubble, but he catches himself and blinks at Kiyoomi.

He’s standing on unsteady feet, and the world seems to blur around him. His blood isn’t frozen anymore; it rushes through him hot and furious, like every cell of him is turning into poison, biting enough to kill.

“You can’t say that again,” Kiyoomi says, tight with fury. “I mean it. You can’t joke about it. You can’t.”

“Omi, I wasn’t—”

“I don’t care. Don’t say it. Not you. Don’t say that to me.”

“Omi,” Atsumu says again, and then, softer, taking his hands and nuzzling them against his cheek like he can rub the warmth and life back into them, drain out the poison and erase the memory of the worst eight minutes of Kiyoomi’s life with a simple touch: “Omi. Hey. Look at me.”

Mute, Kiyoomi shakes his head.

“Omi,” Atsumu says. “Kiyoomi. Baby.”

“Don’t call me that,” Kiyoomi manages.

“I won’t say it again,” Atsumu says, and he stands up too, tugging Kiyoomi closer until his face is buried in Atsumu’s shoulder.

Kiyoomi’s breaths come in heaving gasps. There’s something wrong with his body. Something wrong and horrible inside him, clawing at the insides of his ribcage, threatening to burst out. Around them the rubble begins to float and tremble. He tries to make it stop.

He needs to go back to normal. He needs to be grateful. Needs to treasure Atsumu and treat him so kindly that he’ll never want to leave again. But Kiyoomi doesn’t know how. How is he supposed to do this? How does he go on?

“Hey,” Atsumu says. “I promise. I won’t say it again. Not a single joke, alright? I’m not. It’s fine. I’m okay. Nothing happened. Come on, let’s sit down. You're worrying me.”

When Kiyoomi doesn’t move, Atsumu’s fingers tangle in his hair, following the curve of his messy curls.

“Omi,” he says in Kiyoomi’s ear. Another kiss, this time to his temple. “Don’t cry. You're breaking my heart.”

“Fuck you,” Kiyoomi gasps. They don’t move from the rubble for a long time.

In fifth year the monster starts killing people off and casting curses on others that makes them wish they’d died instead. Seventh year Ravenclaw Kita Shinsuke becomes collateral in a fight at the Ministry. He doesn’t die, but Atsumu tells Kiyoomi that he’s deep into a magically-induced coma until his brain activity returns.

“They ain’t sure when he can wake up,” Atsumu mutters.

His robes pool in a pile in Kiyoomi’s chair, and Atsumu himself sits at the floor of Kiyoomi’s bed, head resting uncomfortably on the bed frame. Kiyoomi should tell him he should come and lie down on the bed, but he isn’t sure how to phrase it. So he doesn’t say anything at all.

“I mean, he’ll prolly be fine. Foster said that he’s got some crazy shit in his bloodline that makes him heal super fast, so he’ll prolly wake up soon. But they don’t know when it’s gonna happen. So that’s weird. It’s just.” An inhale. “It’s just weird. I dunno.”

“Miya,” Kiyoomi says. “What do you need?”

Atsumu’s eyes flicker to him, then dart away. “I can leave if you want.”

“That’s not what I asked. I asked what you need. I don’t—” He tries to figure out the least stupid way to say it and gives up. “I don’t know what you need from me that I can give you.”

“Omi,” Atsumu says, sounding a little angry. “You think I came ‘cause I needed something? You think I’m some kinda leech?”

“Usually I would say yes.”

“Be serious.”

“...I’m not good at comforting people,” Kiyoomi mutters, humiliated. Kita Shinsuke is in a coma and he’s sitting here embarrassed because he doesn’t know how to talk to people. What a colossal piece of shit he is.

After a moment Atsumu twists, propping his elbows on Kiyoomi’s bed to look at him. “How about you come here, then,” he says quietly.

Kiyoomi frowns. “That’s all?”

“That’s all,” Atsumu confirms. Kiyoomi, still frowning, clambers down to the floor; he’d vacuumed hours ago, so it’s fine to sit beside Atsumu and lean back against the bed, turning his head to study Atsumu in the gentle mid-afternoon light.

He’d taken a shower a few minutes before he came to Kiyoomi’s room, and it shows. His hair isn’t fully dry, even though he has a perfectly functional magical core and an arsenal of spells that could lift the water right out of his hair. He curls into Kiyoomi's side, as natural as a cat seeking sun. 

Atsumu sighs. It sounds off. A half-shiver, half-real-sigh.

Just to be safe, Kiyoomi casts a Warming Charm on him. Atsumu doesn’t thank him. Instead he lowers himself to the floor and tucks his head into Kiyoomi’s lap, closing his eyes.

The knit between his eyebrows smooths away. He’s asleep within minutes. He must've not slept through the night again. Kiyoomi weaves his magic through Atsumu’s hair to dry it and extends his Warming Charm, threads it through the spaces between their bodies, all of the sleepy air in the room. He wishes there could be a spell that would chase the nightmares away too. Then he closes his eyes, leans back, and joins Atsumu in sleep.

The night of Atsumu’s death and subsequent resurrection, Kiyoomi is startled out of his daze by cold fingers over his eyes. “Guess who,” Atsumu’s voice says, teasing.

Kiyoomi aims an elbow at his ribs. “You have three seconds to get your hands off me. If you haven’t washed your hands, you can cancel that deal, because you won’t have any hands or a working ribcage.”

Atsumu’s hands disappear in a flash. Kiyoomi turns to find him rocking back and forth on his heels, grinning.

“Hey, Omi,” he says, like a prelude to a secret.

“What.”

“You wanna come on a journey with me?”

Kiyoomi thinks about it. “I’m sick of journeys.”

It’s all they’ve been calling this whole fucked up day in the papers. Journey. Adventure. A destined fight. If Kiyoomi never sees those words again, it’ll be too fucking soon.

“Ahh… yeah.” Atsumu considers this before he brightens. “Alright, you wanna go on a not journey with me? We can make it a thing. Very boring. Very safe.”

“Well, if it’s boring, I don’t want to go.”

“Wait, hey, no, come on, it’ll be fun.”

“You just said it would be boring.”

“I lied, okay? I do that all the time. I’m a pathological liar, I’m getting help for it, I promise to repent for my sins as soon as you go on this Not Journey with me, Omi,” Atsumu says in a rush. It’s funny the way he says not journey; with emphasis, the same way people say chosen one. He crouches down so that Kiyoomi has to look down at him and his proffered hand. “Come on. Come with me?”

“Did you wash your hands?” Kiyoomi asks, but he already knows the answer.

Atsumu smiles and takes his hand, pulling him out of the common room chair and up on his feet. “Double-washed,” he promises, and then they’re sneaking out of the dormitory and into the empty halls, dodging all of the portraits as they go along, like they’re kids again.

But it’s clear they aren’t. They’re different now. Older. Maybe worse. Even the portraits have started to change the way they treat Atsumu. It’s only been hours, so maybe the effect will wear off soon, but Kiyoomi can tell it’s beginning to grate on Atsumu. He never asked for the title or the fame; he just saw dying as another thing he had to do, like brushing his teeth in the morning or agility drills on the weekends.

Kiyoomi tightens his grip on Atsumu’s hand until it’s bruising, but Atsumu doesn’t complain.

They reach the dining hall in no time. Kiyoomi instantly finds the reason for their outing. At the corner of the table lies a single piece of castella cake with a sad candle sticking out of the fluffy sponge.

“Really,” Kiyoomi says flatly. “I thought you grew out of this.”

“You never grow out of midnight cake,” Atsumu says, offended, and ushers Kiyoomi into a seat on the bench. He offers a fork with a flourish, and Kiyoomi takes it. “First bite is yours.”

“What’s the catch?”

“No catch.”

“Is this the not boring part of our Not Journey?”

“Well, it’s the first part,” Atsumu says. His finger lights up with a flame in a show of wandless magic. The candle flickers in the dark, then steadies. “You gonna make a wish? It’s your turn, anyway.”

Since we didn’t get to do it in our seventh year, are the unspoken words.

“I think I’ve run out of wishes,” Kiyoomi says.

“You can’t run out of wishes, that’s not a thing. C’mon. The candle’s gonna drip all over the cake and it’ll be real gross having to pry the wax off. I know you hate that shit.”

“No, I mean it.” Kiyoomi must’ve made a dozen wishes earlier today. He’s probably run out his luck for a lifetime and then some. “You can make one if you’re so stubborn.”

“‘m not stubborn, just trying to bring back some good memories and make this Not Journey less boring.” When Kiyoomi doesn’t move, he sighs. “Alright. I’ll make a few wishes for you. Use up my wish allowances, too.”

Kiyoomi waits for him to close his eyes. He’s never grown out of that habit for all the years he’s known him.

But today Atsumu doesn’t close his eyes. Instead his gaze is trained on the cake with razor focus, as serious and solemn as Kiyoomi’s ever seen him.

Kiyoomi recognizes that face. It’s his I’m playing Quidditch to not only win, but crush everyone in the dirt face. Up until recently that was okay. Then Kiyoomi had realized that he made that same face minutes before he walked off to die.

Kiyoomi’s heart leaps into his throat. “Miya,” he says.

Atsumu doesn’t seem to hear him. “I know you're not supposed to make wishes aloud, but I’m hoping the wish gods will hear me out or something, considering I did kinda do a good deed today and all. Like the best of all deeds. Like I literally died, and dying has to be worth some good karma, right?”

The anger is reflexive and sudden. “I told you to not—”

“Fuck,” Atsumu mutters. “Sorry. I forgot about your thing. Right. I’m fucking this up already. Shit.”

He says your thing like it’s another one of Kiyoomi’s oddities. Something to be grouped with his germaphobia and routines. It’s the second time today that Kiyoomi’s felt so furious, and it feels alien to him. He isn’t in the habit of getting mad—like genuinely, venomously mad—at Atsumu.

Today has been odd in a lot of ways.

“Sorry,” Atsumu says again. “Just. I’m feeling a little frazzled here, in case you haven’t noticed. You prolly have. Since you notice everything about me, which is. Yeah.”

Not true. Kiyoomi hadn’t noticed the stuff that mattered. The anger deepens into something approaching fury. “You piss me off. You know that? You’re really pissing me off.”

Atsumu lets out a half-sigh and half-laugh, holding his head in his hands. “God. Yeah. I know. Just—I’m sorry. Let me make a quick wish, alright? And then you can tell me to fuck off like you usually do. It’s… you're really fucking me up here, Omi.”

“That’s rich, coming from you.”

“You know how if you say a wish out loud, it won’t come true,” Atsumu says abruptly.

The change in topic throws him off, but it isn’t the first time Atsumu has done this. This conversation, like a dozen others, will become another thing they don’t return to. That’s fine. Kiyoomi couldn’t give less of a fuck. So he exhales and says, “Yeah, I know.”

“And you know how we’ve never told our wishes to each other before.”

“Yeah?”

“And you know—”

“Is there a point to this, or are you talking out of your ass again?”

“I’m trying to work up my nerve, you asshole!” Atsumu snaps, before he lets out a low groan. “Fuck. I keep fucking this up. Just—”

Rabid inhale. Exhale.

Kiyoomi watches him. That’s why he almost misses the words.

“I wish Omi would reject me when I ask him out on a date in ten seconds,” Atsumu says.

The candlelight vanishes. Atsumu doesn’t blink.

And Kiyoomi. Kiyoomi stares.

“Can you,” his mouth says, while the rest of him struggles to come back online, “repeat that.”

“Well, I’m on a time limit of ten seconds.”

“I don’t care. Repeat that.”

“I wish Omi would reject me when I ask him out on a date in ten seconds?” A pause. “Like, negative-four seconds now. Six. Seven.”

There’s almost an audible click as his brain returns to full functionality. But he can’t say anything. He tries. His mouth opens and closes. Atsumu doesn’t move, staring at the snuffed-out candle as if it’ll give him the answers he’s searching for.

Another funny thing is that Atsumu has had the answer for years now. Since first year, if he was quick on the uptake, and sixth year if he wasn’t. Kiyoomi isn’t an idiot. He knew. He knew that Atsumu knew. All of those kisses, hand holding, snuggling up against him in the Great Hall as if to mark his territory.

Seven fucking years of it. And this is the time Atsumu chooses to put an end to this bullshit?

There’s a war in his chest. Inside him fights the warm, unbearable fondness and that anger, pooling in the pit of his stomach.

“You piss me off,” Kiyoomi says again. Atsumu cringes, but he continues, “I’ve never met anyone else who makes me this fucking pissed. Is this what we’re doing? We’re ending it now?”

“Ending what?” Atsumu says.

“This,” Kiyoomi says. “You and me. Pretending like there’s nothing there. You’re done with it now?”

“‘Done’ sounds a little final. I’d prefer something like, ‘start’ or ‘new’ or—”

“Atsumu,” Kiyoomi says, low. Atsumu’s mouth snaps shut. “I’m asking if you’re done fucking around.”

Atsumu’s jaw grinds for a moment. There’s something he wants to say that he’s holding back with the last tether of control.

Say it, Kiyoomi dares him. Say everything you’ve been holding back. Seven fucking years, you asshole. I know it’s there.

Finally Atsumu says, “Yeah, Omi. I’m done fucking around.”

“Is that so,” Kiyoomi says.

Three moments, in flashes: Kiyoomi takes a furious bite of the cake. His hand tightens around the fork to hurl it into Atsumu’s face.

Then he tosses the fork aside, grabs Atsumu’s collar, and pulls him into a bruising kiss.

He should be softer. Less angry, less teeth, less, less, less. He needs to calm down. He can’t. He kisses harder until he feels Atsumu make a startled noise, but Kiyoomi doesn’t give him time to adjust. He leans in and pushes Atsumu down on the bench, swallowing the surprised gasp, and he swings his leg over Atsumu’s thigh until they’re pressed together, hip to hip, chest to chest, until he can take Atsumu’s face in his hands and kiss him the way he’s wanted to for years now.

Someone’s heart is thudding against his ribcage. He can’t tell whose. Atsumu tastes like sugar, honey, the gently burnt tops of bread. At some unexplainable point in time the kiss eases. “Hey,” Atsumu says, and kisses him again, gentling it further.

Kiyoomi doesn’t say a word. He doesn’t have the voice for it.

When he tugs Atsumu closer, Atsumu goes easily, arms winding around Kiyoomi’s waist, wandering up to cradle his jaw and lay a thumb there, stroking back and forth. Kiyoomi opens his mouth and swallows him in. He wants Atsumu whole. He wants to see if he can pry the secrets out from behind Atsumu’s teeth.

“Omi,” Atsumu murmurs, when they finally pull back. His mouth is kiss-swollen and beautiful. There’s a smile crinkling his eyes. “Omi, you like me?”

“Idiot,” Kiyoomi says, and kisses him again.

Kiyoomi savors it. He burns it into memory. Atsumu’s body is warm and solid beneath his. It’s so alive. So much of everything he thought he’d lost. Atsumu. Alive, alive, alive. He tries to remember every detail. The sound of Atsumu’s hitched breaths. The quick patter of his footsteps as they run back to their room, sneaking kisses and half-smiles against the ruined walls. The way he says Omi, hey, Omi, look at me, I’m right here. The first soft press of his mouth against Kiyoomi’s forehead, and a second, quick against his mouth, like he just can’t help himself. Atsumu’s hands are cold against the curve of his spine and waist, but they heat up soon enough.

“Do you even know?” Atsumu murmurs sometime in the long night, words blurred against Kiyoomi’s hip. “How long I dreamt of—how long I’ve wanted this.”

Stupid question. Atsumu has told him since day one, and again, and again. Of course he knew. It’d be harder to not know. There’s another question they should be asking instead.

But he doesn’t want to ruin it. Not today. So he tugs Atsumu back up and hides the syllables in his mouth and hopes Atsumu won’t look for his secrets, either: that vat of poison simmering in the hollows of his bones.

Let him have this one day or week or month. However long it lasts. Let him have this one fucking thing for as long as he can have it.

Something shifts in the twins after they return from the summer for sixth year. They become noticeably withdrawn, quiet, sticking to only each other. They don’t linger in the hallways to talk, and only attend the bare minimum number of classes necessary to pass class. When they do, they’re snappy, irritable, magic prone to lashing out more often than not.

On Atsumu’s part, he stops coming to Kiyoomi’s room. He barely acknowledges Kiyoomi at all.

He tolerates it at first. Maybe Atsumu is stressed about the near-death experience at the end of their fifth year and the attacks that have been ramping up. He’s Osamu’s brother—of course it makes sense that Atsumu would be worried about this. Among Atsumu’s many flaws is his tendency to try to tackle things on his own, like a self-sacrificial idiot. So Kiyoomi gives it a day. The days stretch into a week.

By the time the weekend hits, Kiyoomi is at the end of his rope.

It isn’t the first time Kiyoomi’s had to pull Atsumu’s head out of his ass, and it probably won’t be the last, either. The routine falls to him naturally: he keeps his eyes on Atsumu throughout dinner, gets up when Atsumu finishes eating, and follows him all the way to the Gryffindor common room.

It’s obvious Atsumu knows that Kiyoomi is following him. He takes strange paths, sneaking into hidden passages behind suits of armor, tickling portraits for access to unused stairs, even leaping from one broken hall to another in his attempt to shake Kiyoomi off. None of it works. Kiyoomi’s known about that damn map since the twins got it in third year, and he sticks to Atsumu with all the tenacity of his house animal, refusing to let Atsumu out of sight for a moment.

Then Atsumu reaches the Gryffindor portraits and brightens. He whispers a password that Kiyoomi doesn’t catch, scrambling past it too fast for Kiyoomi to follow.

The portrait swings shut. “Sorry, hon,” the lady says apologetically. “Only Gryffindors allowed past this point.”

Kiyoomi’s eyes narrow. “Who says I’m not a Gryffindor?”

“Your tie, for one.”

He’d forgotten that he was wearing that. Second option it is, then. “How about this,” Kiyoomi says, raising his wand. “If you let me in, I won’t scrub your damn portrait off. I have business with that son of a bitch Gryffindor. I’m going in.”

An indignant squawk. “You can’t—”

“Deletrius,” Kiyoomi snarls, and makes it halfway into the movement before the portrait yelps out a, “Alright, alright!” and swings open.

As he passes, stashing his wand back in his pocket, he hears the portrait mutter, “Students get scarier each year, goodness.”

He stomps his way up to Atsumu’s room, ignoring the whispers at his entrance. Is that a Hufflepuff? some of them whisper. Yeah, that sixth year Prefect, Sakusa Kiyoomi. Why’s he here? Wasn’t he dumped by one of the Miya twins?

The last whisper makes his rage spike, and he slams open Atsumu’s door, firing all of the hexes and jinxes he knows off the top of his head: impediments, weakenings, and an unending arsenal of stinging hexes. Books crash to the floor; mugs, plants, all the dumb souvenirs from years of Hogsmeade trips.

There’s a startled yelp. “Wait, Omi, wait—”

The weakening hex hits Atsumu first, and he goes down with a crash. Kiyoomi advances on him and hurls a stinging hex across his face, his chest, and his left knee. “You,” he hisses. “You pigbrained, egocentric, selfish motherfucker! You fuck around with me for six years and now you leave me alone? Fuck you. Fuck you!”

“Omi, I said wait!” Atsumu squeaks, scrambling back until he hits the wall. The blood drains out of his face. His hands pat around for his wand, but his search must come up futile because Atsumu turns back to Kiyoomi with his hands raised. “Alright,” he says. “I know this looks bad.”

“You fucking think?”

“But will you stop for just—ow, fuck—just one—Omi, c’mon, I’m sorry!” Atsumu cries, diving behind his desk to dodge the storm of hexes. The wood splinters with the force of Kiyoomi’s magic. Kiyoomi stops casting long enough to catch his breath, and Atsumu uses the chance to peek over the desk. “I’m sorry, I am. Shit’s been happening. I didn’t want you getting involved—”

“I should kill you,” Kiyoomi says, tightening his grip on his wand.

Atsumu yelps and ducks behind the desk again. “I’m sorry, okay! It’s just that everything’s kinda getting serious, and I mean really serious, like you-might-die-and-the-world-is-gonna-blow-up-into-ashes serious, like—like Komori might be held hostage and you’d watch him get tortured kinda serious, okay, like that’s the shit we’re dealing with, and it’s better in the long run if you aren’t involved with any of that! That’s why I’ve been avoiding you!”

Kiyoomi glowers at the desk, where he tries to imagine punching through it to strangle Atsumu. “And Osamu?”

Meekly: “What about him?”

“What does he think of this. You fucking idiot.”

“He agrees?” A very short pause. “Well, Sunarin’s been pissed at him too ‘cause Samu avoided him for a bit, so they talked it out and made like, an ongoing deal that they’ll stick it out for as long as possible since Sunarin’s got no family anyw—”

“So let me get this straight,” Kiyoomi says, low. “Osamu had his problem and fixed it. And you, being the fucking idiot you are, didn’t. Why.”

“Because… you're gonna kill me?”

“Here’s a plan,” Kiyoomi says, stalking forward until Atsumu comes into view. “How about I fulfill that fucking prophecy right here and now.” Atsumu’s jaw tightens. Kiyoomi bends to yank Atsumu in by the collar, wandpoint digging into the underside of his chin. “If I kill you, then that should be fine. No one gets hurt besides you. And you’d have it coming anyway, trying to do things for me that I didn’t fucking ask for!”

Atsumu’s face twists into fury. He yanks Kiyoomi’s hand off his robes, shoving him back. Kiyoomi’s wand goes clattering across the floor. “I don’t get why you're so worried!” Atsumu shouts. “‘s not like we’re anything like Suna and Samu, Omi! We ain’t dating, and last I checked, you're not the boss of me either!”

“Miya—”

“You don’t owe me jack shit, remember! You're the one who said that!”

Kiyoomi flinches. He regrets it the moment he does, because Atsumu’s face falls, and he slumps into Kiyoomi’s chest. “We ain’t dating,” he repeats. “So it doesn’t matter. You don’t owe me anything. Not like them.”

Kiyoomi swallows. He curls his fingers in Atsumu’s hair, at the base of his neck. “Is that what you think?”

“Believe it or not, I do listen to you,” Atsumu says.

“What’s that have to do with this?

“You tell me I’m a dick all the time. The hell you wasting your time for, on a scrub like me?”

“Don’t fuck around,” Kiyoomi says, angry. “Not about this, when you know how I feel. When I know how you feel, too.”

“Omi,” Atsumu says, in that horrible exhausted voice that's haunted him for too long. “C’mon. You can’t do it for me. You can’t risk your family. I’m not that important.”

Things click into place. “Is that why you won’t ask me out?”

“Already scares me how close you’ve gotten,” Atsumu admits, barely audible. “I dunno what I’d do if—if we were real, and then I lost you. If I was smart I should’ve never gotten close to you in the first place.” A short sigh. “Selfish motherfucker I am. You got that right.”

Kiyoomi had always thought it was odd, the way he was Atsumu’s only friend from beginning to end. Suna Rintarou had been Atsumu’s friend by association. It was more a companionship that developed as a byproduct from his time around Osamu. But Kiyoomi—he had been the only one Atsumu sought out of his own volition.

It was strange. Atsumu was handsome. Likable. Funny when he wasn’t being an asshole. By all rights he should’ve been one of the most popular in their year, if not the whole school.

Kiyoomi gets it now. Already scares me how close you’ve gotten.

The fucking idiot.

It dawns on Kiyoomi that he should be careful with what he says now: that the next words to leave his mouth could define their relationship for a lifetime. What does Atsumu want from him? More than a romantic relationship—what does Atsumu need from him? Protection. Comfort. Something he can’t get from Suna or Osamu.

What can Kiyoomi do, when Atsumu’s so hell-bent on protecting him to the point that he shuts out Kiyoomi like this?

“I’m not going to change your mind,” Kiyoomi says, picking out his words with all the delicacy of brewing a trigger-hair potion, and Atsumu lets out a shaky breath. “I know I can’t. And I can’t understand what you and Osamu are going through either. But I—I want to be here, okay. I want you to let me be here.”

The response is immediate. “I can’t ask that of you.”

“You’re not. We’re not dating, anyway, and we don’t have to be either. I know that’s not—” This time he has to inhale, just as unsteady as Atsumu. “I know that’s not what you need from me. So I’ll make you a deal, and you’re going to take it.”

Atsumu’s laugh comes out hollow. “Is that so.”

“It is so, because the deal is this: I’ll stay safe. I’ll mind my own business. I’ll help where I can and I won’t go further. You tell me to stop and I’ll stop.” Kiyoomi bends over Atsumu’s head, tugs him closer until he can press a tiny kiss to the top of his head. Then he lets go to look Atsumu in the eye. “But you don’t shut me out,” he says. “You don’t do this shit to me ever again. You don’t walk away from me.”

Atsumu squeezes his eyes shut and bows his head. A fine tremor begins to run through his body. “Omi,” he manages, sounding choked. “I don’t know if you understand. I can’t let you get hurt. I’d do anything. I’d do anything to keep you and Samu safe.”

“I know,” Kiyoomi says.

“Omi. You gotta stay alive. No matter what. You have to.”

“I will.”

“‘m terrified, you know that? I don’t wanna be doing this.”

“Yeah.”

“But I have to,” Atsumu mumbles, and leans in to bury his face in Kiyoomi’s chest. “I have to to do it. There’s no one else who can do it. But I just wish—every damn day. I wish I wasn’t hurting you with all this bullshit. Wish I was someone else.”

“Atsumu,” Kiyoomi says quietly. “You idiot. You think too highly of yourself.”

The teasing insult does the trick, and Atsumu laughs, pulling back with a shake of his head. “Always right on the money. The hell was I thinking? I’m just the spare, anyway.”

“He doesn’t get it,” Osamu says.

Kiyoomi doesn’t flinch, even though it’s the first word they’ve spoken in the past two hours up on the Astronomy Tower. The night wind is biting and cold. Neither of them conjure up any blankets. The coldness grounds them both and makes Atsumu’s warmth dozing between them all the more apparent. They need the reminder. Or at least Kiyoomi does.

He chances a brush-through of Atsumu’s golden hair, and does it again when Atsumu doesn’t stir. His roots are beginning to grow out.

Osamu keeps his eyes on the sky. Maybe he’s seeing the same thing Kiyoomi is: the visage of Atsumu on his broomstick from just a few months before the war, swooping in brilliant circles through the clouds.

“Did you know,” Osamu says, “that he was dead for fifteen minutes. Kita told me the time later. Took fifteen minutes for him to wake up and walk it off like nothing happened.”

“I heard,” Kiyoomi says, because Kita had told him the same thing when he’d found Kiyoomi wandering sleepless in the halls, his awareness of his body blurring at the edges. Kita was kind like that. Maybe that had been why he became the assistant Herbology professor straight out of his belated graduation. Something about him leaned into caretaking, as natural as Atsumu to flying and Motoya to fighting.

Kita had talked to him in calm tones. It was the lack of inflection in his voice that put Kiyoomi at ease more than anything, telling the facts of Atsumu’s temporary death to ease the burden of the situation.

He was dead for fifteen minutes. Then he sat up, deflected a curse for Osamu, and fought. There’s only been one person who survived the Killing Curse twice. Nobody knows how he did it. Not even Atsumu.

Why are you telling me this?

There’s no point in thinking about it any further, Kita had said, and Kiyoomi knew that what he really meant was, You can’t change anything about it. All of your worrying about his new symptoms, the fact that he died twice, and his dishonesty—they’re all in the past now. You can’t change it.

There was solace to be found in the unchangeable, but something fucking depressing in it, too.

“Kita told me the same thing,” Kiyoomi says.

Osamu is silent. Then he says, “Eight minutes I carried him. All seventy kilos of that fucking idiot. Arms shaking like you wouldn’t believe. The entire walk to the school grounds, I kept having the thought that maybe I should’ve done more weights. Would’ve made it easier to bring him back.”

Kiyoomi can’t unstick the knot in his throat enough to reply.

“I can’t tell you the number of times I stopped to check his pulse ‘cause he was still warm. Wondered if I’d missed something, you know? Maybe I imagined it. Maybe I didn’t check properly.”

“But you did.”

“I did,” Osamu agrees, and finally he lowers his head into his knees and exhales, wet and shaky. Even then he doesn’t release his grip on Atsumu’s wrist, one thumb pressed to the skin below his wrist bone. “Must’ve checked more than a dozen times. And he doesn’t get it.”

Three weeks have passed since the end of the war. Kiyoomi barely remembers any of it.

The House of Sakusa is a long and noble line of magic, dating back to nearly the birth of magic itself. Among the list of notable ancestors include famous Quidditch players, writers, and seers—the last seer being his grandmother from his mother’s side, blinded from an early age.

He’d met her at six years old, wedged between the corner and a library shelf, curled up on the windowsill beside a potted plant.

“Kiyoomi,” was the first thing she’d said to him, when she found him there. She bent to touch his cheek.

For some reason, he welcomed it. He didn’t have a problem with her touch like everyone else’s. Her palm had been as cool as lakewater.

“You’re living a difficult life, it seems. You’re lost and you don’t know what to do, or how to find the way forward. You try so hard. You hold so much love. I wish it would be okay.”

“What are you saying?” he whispered, but she wandered away after that. He found out later that his grandmother had never seen him at six years old. She saw the futures spreading out before him, the Sakusa Kiyoomi of eleven, fourteen, seventeen years old, and beyond.

It didn’t terrify him. But it unsettled him, and it remained in his memory to the day he walked into the castle in his first year.

He’s in his sixth year now, and for some reason the memory resurfaces as he finishes up his Head Prefect rounds and turns the corner to rest for the night. A figure emerges into the light. He lifts his lamp and calls, “Who’s there? It’s past cur…”

He trails off.

Atsumu raises his head slowly—too slow. He’s slumped at the base of the portrait, holding an unmoving figure to his chest. The gray hair shifts in the light. It’s Osamu. They’re both pale, shaking. There’s something at the corner of Atsumu’s mouth that looks like dried blood.

His eyes are dark and desperate. “Help me,” he whispers. He leans his forehead against Kiyoomi’s frozen leg with a ragged inhale. “I didn’t know who—who else to go to.”

It’s a six-minute walk to the Potions stores from here. He can make it two if he runs. His mind races, hands growing cold. What does he need? A bezoar? Chocolate? Phoenix tears?

Kiyoomi unclasps his cloak and wraps it around the two of them. Atsumu buries his face in Osamu’s hair. Osamu doesn’t stir.

“Stay here,” Kiyoomi says, and then he runs, runs, runs. His grandmother’s words ring in his head after each frantic step.

You try so hard. You hold so much love. I wish it would be okay.

“Here’s a fun game we can play, instead of doing all this fucking homework and ignoring your perfect boyfriend,” Atsumu says behind him. “It’s the brand new Unlimited Wishes game. I’ll go first. Stop being such a goody-two-shoes and pay attention to me.”

“You’re ridiculous,” Kiyoomi says, continuing to scribble out his Potions essay.

It’s a good day today. He woke up with his body in good condition—no ache in his joints, no strange fogginess in his head, none of that oppressive weight over his chest that he’s become aware of more and more as of late. He hasn’t spent a single minute zoning out or staring at the wall. Atsumu catches him when he does, but it’s nice to be present and fully cognizant of his actions without the extra help. Recently it unnerves him how much he doesn’t remember his day-to-day life.

Ergo: the Potions essay. He needs to work on it while he still has the energy and mind to do it properly.

Not that Atsumu gets the memo.

“Ah, ah, that ain’t how the game works. Come on, our relationship is on the line here!”

“Our relationship must be more fragile than I thought, then.”

“Hey, no, don’t say that. Omi. C’mon. Look at me.”

Kiyoomi sighs, but there’s no use deterring Atsumu when he gets like this. Obediently—for now—he sets aside his parchment and twists in his chair to stare at Atsumu pouting on his bed. “Fine. What now.”

“Now you make a wish!”

“Leave me alone so I can do my homework.”

“You can’t make any wishes that negate the other person’s wish,” Atsumu says, offended. “That’s not how the game works.”

“Somehow,” Kiyoomi says dryly, “I have a feeling that this game is rigged.”

“I’ll have you know, I never cheated a day in my life. Except in all my Ancient Runes assignments. But that’s different.”

“You should be expelled.”

“They love me too much.” Then, “Well? Wish time, Omi-kun.”

Kiyoomi thinks about it. “Anything?”

“Within reason,” Atsumu allows.

Let me do my Potions homework while I pay some amount of attention to you , is the wish on the tip of his tongue. He does have to get it done, after all. It’s an easy wish. Within reason. Doesn’t negate Atsumu’s at all.

But between the grin curving Atsumu’s eyes and the way he swings his legs on the bed like a little kid, the words emerge without his consent. “Don’t leave,” he says.

Atsumu blinks. “Leave where?”

“Here. Me.” The embarrassment hits a moment late, and his ears flood with heat. “I don’t know. Forget it.”

Atsumu’s eyes go liquid and soft, as if Kiyoomi’s just said something unbearably cute, instead of unbearably humiliating. Kiyoomi wants to bury himself inside a box and never come out.

Don’t leave. The fuck. Talk about clingy.

“Don’t,” Kiyoomi says sharply, when Atsumu opens his mouth. “I take it back. I don’t want you to do anything. My wish is for you to sit there like a cactus and never say a word to me again.”

“Omi—”

“I said not a word.”

“Baby,” Atsumu says, because he’s a manipulative dick who knows how to pull out all the stops, and Kiyoomi glowers at the floor. “It’s fine. I like it. I like it a lot. I like you a lot.”

“I’m going to Transfigure you into a rat and hurl you out the window.”

“Nuh-uh. You wanna keep me. You want me to never leave.”

“I never said never,” Kiyoomi says hotly. Then he hesitates with his next retort. He never said never, but… a part of him did wish for it.

A very small part. But a part nonetheless.

Atsumu seems to catch the pause, like the bloodhound he is. “So you okay with me leaving in two weeks? Tomorrow? Three years? What’s the timeline here?”

“Now,” Kiyoomi says, pulling out his Potions assignment again. “I would like you to leave now.”

“Omi, c’mon, throw me a bone here!”

“No.”

“Omi,” Atsumu whines, pulling Kiyoomi’s blanket up over his head. “You don’t love me? You don’t love your hero of a boyfriend? The one who heroically came back from death to give you a kiss and buy you all the best stuff from Hogsmeade? The heroic one who you told not to leave?”

“Say heroic one more time and see if you make it through the night unscathed,” Kiyoomi says.

Atsumu grins. It’s bright and easy. If Kiyoomi took a picture and compared it to the Atsumu of five years ago, he’d be hard-pressed to find a difference—but something catches at the back of his brain. What is it? The way Atsumu talks? Or the off-color grin? His jokes about his death and how Kiyoomi doesn’t love him?

It’s been a month. Atsumu keeps saying it.

How much do you love me?

You ever wonder why we’re together?

Hey, Omi, are you happy?

Kiyoomi breathes in, musters up every ounce of courage within him, and stares hard at Atsumu. “You asked me how long,” he says. “So I’ll give you a timeline.”

“What, now?”

“It’s forever,” Kiyoomi says. Atsumu’s grin vanishes in favor of surprise. “You don’t leave forever. That means I don’t leave you either. You and me, leaving isn’t what we’re going to do. I mean that. You leave me, and I’ll track you down and bring you back even if I have to knock you out with a rock to do it.”

“Omi,” Atsumu says.

“You’re not running. You’re not leaving. You’re not going to think I don’t love you when it’s about all I know how to do, and you’re not going to make dumb wishes about how I should pay attention to you when you take up the whole goddamn room.”

Atsumu is staring at him, wide-eyed.

“You make me so frustrated sometimes,” Kiyoomi says, shaky now. “You’ve never seen yourself the way I see you. You’re an idiot and a blanket hog and chew too fucking loudly. You’re intolerable, you’re loud, you never think before you act. God knows why I love you. But I do. I love you.”

It’s the first time Kiyoomi’s said it. The expression on Atsumu’s face is almost too much to bear.

“What if,” Atsumu says. “What if I fuck it up. ”

“I fuck it up every day, in case you haven’t noticed. So there’s that.”

“You don’t understand,” Atsumu says, almost desperate. “What if I fuck it up, like forreal. What if I fuck it up so bad that it’s better if we leave? What then?”

“You realize this is my first relationship, too,” Kiyoomi says, and at that Atsumu manages to crack a small smile, some of the anxiety dissipating. Kiyoomi chews on his lip. “I don’t know. We’d have to get there first and think about it. But after all we’ve been through, I don’t think I’d want to let you go that easily.”

“Me neither,” Atsumu says, quiet.

“So there’s that,” Kiyoomi says.

“Yeah,” Atsumu says.

Kiyoomi pulls his Potions back to him, trying to calm the tremor in his hands. “Now,” he says, “you’re going to let me finish my homework. And you—you’re going to brush your teeth and shower. And after I finish, I’m going to kiss you until we fall asleep or fuck or both, it’s your decision. But that’s my wish.” He lets out a breath and picks up his quill to hide the fact that his hands are shaking. “You got all that?”

“Sure,” Atsumu says, hoarse. “Whatever you want, Omi.”

I’ll meet you at the train station, Atsumu had told him, three weeks before the end of summer. Might have to go radio silent for a few weeks ‘cause I got some stuff to do with Samu, but I’ll see you soon.

Take me with you, Kiyoomi had said.

Can’t risk you and your pretty face, Atsumu had said, grinning. But I’ll see you, alright? Train station, first train at 6AM.

Never seen you wake up that early before.

Gotta do it. Me and Samu are fugitives now. Hey, don’t look like that, hey. It’s kinda sexy to be a fugitive. We can have secret rendezvous and shit.

Go fuck yourself, Kiyoomi had said, and watched Atsumu fly off into the clouds, laughing, his cheek warm from Atsumu’s mouth.

Kiyoomi walks into the train station at 5:30 AM. The sun hasn’t broken over the horizon yet, so he sits at an empty bench in an empty station, his luggage propped against his knee. It’d rained all week, and his joints are aching.

He wants to see Atsumu.

5:40 comes and passes. Fifty-five. Fifty-eight.

At 6 AM, the train rolls in, but above the noise of the engine, he hears something else. He whirls. There’s no shift of dust to mark Atsumu’s invisibility cloak. No cocky grin to greet him. Something rustles against his ankles.

It’s a gray cat, purring.

“Hi,” Kiyoomi says to the cat, and sits back down, feeling like a fool. Atsumu is late. It wouldn’t be the first time.

At 6:15, the train rolls away, and Atsumu doesn’t appear.

7:30 AM. Atsumu doesn’t appear. Motoya crouches at his feet. “You want me to take your luggage?” he asks softly. “Meet you at the welcoming ceremony?”

Kiyoomi doesn’t think he can speak, so he just nods.

8 AM. Atsumu doesn’t appear. Motoya is gone, along with more students.

8:30 AM. 9. 10. Kiyoomi glances at the clock and thinks, One more hour; he is a fugitive, after all.

At noon, his stomach rumbles. He’s weak with hunger. Out of his pocket comes a granola bar he’d meant to save for a break between classes, and he waits for another few hours.

He misses the ceremony, along with the first day of school.

The sun begins to lower. Then it sets.

Atsumu doesn’t appear. Kiyoomi picks himself up and takes the last train away. He doesn’t hear from Atsumu until months later, on the same day when he walks into the forest to his death.

“He says he wants to become an Auror,” Atsumu spits, hurling down his parchment on his desk. Kiyoomi watches him prowl around the fireplace in silence; there’s something oddly hypnotic about watching Atsumu in motion. He’s fluid in every movement, each step falling seamlessly into the next. Kiyoomi thinks he’ll never get tired of watching Atsumu move. “Is that fucking ridiculous or what?”

“Osamu does have the grades for it,” Kiyoomi points out.

Atsumu whirls around. “You agree with him?” he demands. “You think he should be an Auror? Fight people and shit with that personality of his?”

“You’re the one who told me he was good at it.”

“Being good at it and wanting to do it are different! He hated that shit! Every second being on the run with that jerk was a nightmare, just every fucking minute full of whining and complaining and never shutting up about how terrible the food was. You know what you eat as an Auror? Chicken breast and unflavored spinach in a smoothie. I’m making it up, I checked—that shit’s on the brochures about their nutritional plans.”

“You seem invested in this,” Kiyoomi says. Sometimes the only way to cool Atsumu down when he gets deep into his temper is to make him realize how he’s reacting.

It does the trick. Atsumu throws himself on the carpet and slams his face into Kiyoomi’s thigh. “He’s killing me,” he says, muffled, and Kiyoomi carefully does not flinch.

It’s been two months. It should be plenty of time to get over it, but sometimes it doesn’t feel like the time has passed at all.

“I don’t even know why he wants to become an Auror,” Atsumu mutters. Kiyoomi drags his attention back to Earth. “What’s the point? We’re finally done fighting, and the first thing the idiot wants to do is throw himself back into it?”

“Maybe he has a savior complex. He is your brother.”

Atsumu lifts his head to glare at him. “Don’t even joke about that, Omi.”

Kiyoomi doesn’t blink. “I’m not.”

“Do you agree?” Atsumu says. Back to square one. Kiyoomi sighs. “I’m serious. You got those secret chats with him all the time when you think I’m sleeping, so maybe he’s told you stuff he hasn’t told me. ‘Cause he doesn’t—”

Atsumu cuts off. He’s been doing that more often these days. Kiyoomi frowns. “Miya,” he says.

“You think he should be an Auror?” Atsumu says, instead of addressing the unfinished sentence. “Is that what you guys talk about?”

“He’s never told me about it,” Kiyoomi says honestly. Most of their nights together are spent in silence, mostly when the nightmares get too bad and they have to spend the hours in quiet vigil, eyes trained on the rise and fall of Atsumu’s chest. Very rarely they’ll commiserate about their woes with Atsumu. Not healthy as far as coping mechanisms go, but he hasn’t failed any exams yet, and neither has Osamu, by the sounds of it.

“I just don’t get it,” Atsumu grumbles. “Asshole punches me in the face ‘cause he doesn’t wanna go into Quidditch professionally with me for his restaurant business, and the next day he’s handing me a knut and telling me to shove it up my ass ‘cause he’s gonna be an Auror. How petty is that?”

Maybe as petty as stealing his identity to die in his place, is the scathing thought. Kiyoomi shoves it down.

But the thought does lend a light to this situation, and he takes a moment to consider his words before he speaks.

“Atsumu,” he says, and Atsumu grunts. “He’s not being petty about it.”

“Then what? He wants to take back the glory of being the chosen one again? Jerk can take it, I’m sick of being bombarded by interview requests by weirdos.”

“You’re not thinking about this properly.”

“If you're so smart, feel free to enlighten me.”

Kiyoomi tries. He does. He opens his mouth and almost says: I don’t think Osamu wants to become an Auror. I just think it’s the only way he knows how to punish himself for letting you die in his place when that was meant to be his job. I think he hates himself and you for dying, so much that he’s willing to make life worse for everyone involved. I think he knows that your love for him is a weapon that nearly killed him once, and he’s willing to use it to kill you, too. I think you don’t understand how much your dead body haunts his dreams because it haunts mine and you still haven’t noticed. I think you don’t get how you can loathe a person and love them at the same time when all you do is one or the other, and never both.

His voice doesn’t leave him. He just sits there, frozen, hands going numb by his sides, until Atsumu raises his head and blinks at Kiyoomi.

“Baby,” Atsumu says, then scrambles up to settle his weight in Kiyoomi’s lap, grabbing Kiyoomi’s face in his cold hands. “Hey. Hey.”

“Stop that,” Kiyoomi says. Sometimes the density of Atsumu’s unending kindness makes him want to crawl into a hole and fucking die. Kiyoomi isn’t even the one who died, and he’s more fucked up about it than Atsumu himself. It’s pathetic. He can’t breathe past the shame of it.

“Nah,” Atsumu says. He presses kisses to Kiyoomi’s cheeks, nose, forehead. “I won’t. You can’t make me. You don’t need to think about it. We don’t need to talk. I’m sorry.”

“You’re not,” Kiyoomi says. “If you were, you wouldn’t have done it. You would’ve told me. You would’ve—”

It’s an unfair argument. He knows it’s unfair the moment he says it, to leverage Atsumu’s love for Osamu and the unwinnable circumstances against him.

“I’m not sorry, you're right about that,” Atsumu agrees. He kisses Kiyoomi’s moles and rubs their cheeks together. “But I can be sorry that it happened. I’ll stop nagging Samu about this. Let’s move on, okay? It’s fine. We’re okay. I’m okay. Nothing happened.”

“You can’t just—can’t just keep letting us not talk about things. We should—we need to. We need to talk about it.”

There’s so many things they don’t bring up now. Why Atsumu did it. If Atsumu wanted to die, or if he thought there was no other choice, or both. If he would do it again. How he even feels about the whole thing.

A part of Kiyoomi wants to know the answers, but most of him checks out the moment it’s even referenced in conversation. He’s stifling them, he knows—all these hidden landmines that they have to tiptoe around now. He misses the old them. He misses when he wasn’t so fucked up. When he could talk to Atsumu like normal and care for him like normal and just be fucking normal.

But already that heaviness is settling in his chest again. His mind wants to drift away from here. He’s so tired of feeling too much to the point he feels nothing at all.

“When it’s my fault,” Atsumu says quietly, “we don’t have to talk about it. Lemme take care of you now. Do everything I couldn’t before. Treat you right. That’s one thing I don’t have to fuck up, at least.”

Atsumu’s weight in his lap grounds him. He takes slow, measured breaths until he doesn’t feel so itchy in his own skin. The little details begin to come into focus. The worn cotton of Atsumu’s hoodie against his body. The smoky warmth of the fireplace. The quiet murmurs of the common room outside. “You treat me right,” Kiyoomi says.

“Do I?”

In answer, Kiyoomi leans forward to kiss Atsumu’s strained smile off his mouth.

The prophecy said: Born at the break of a red dawn on the fifth of the tenth month, the power to vanquish the dark rises; one must die, while the other must live.

In objective words, it foretold the fate of one of the Miya twins and the vanquishment of the monster.

In subjective words, the prophecy took those twins, stitched them together by the body and soul with one monosyllabic conjunction, then it ripped them apart with the threads still fucking bleeding at the ends.

Suna thinks the worst part of the prophecy is the ambiguity. Osamu thinks it’s the number one. Atsumu doesn’t have any thoughts on it at all.

Kiyoomi knows it’s that whole fucking thing. A seventeen year old saving the world. Who the fuck let that happen?

“I wish you’d told me,” Kiyoomi says, after the first of many fights between the twins.

The silence sits as he wraps bandages around Atsumu’s bloodied knuckles. He does a shit job of it, but there’s no way Atsumu is willing to head to the infirmary when Suna’s already there with Osamu. It’s too soon to put them in the same room now. They’re making home turf in Kiyoomi’s room, not that it puts Atsumu at any ease.

“You know why I didn’t,” Atsumu says.

“I know.”

“I didn’t tell anyone.”

“I know that too.”

“I didn’t tell Samu. It’s the only thing I’ve ever kept from him for so long.”

That makes Kiyoomi pause. “How long did you hide it?”

Atsumu’s eyes lower to his feet. “I dunno. A while.”

“Atsumu,” Kiyoomi says.

Atsumu blinks, then grins, squeezing the tips of Kiyoomi’s fingers. “Hurting my hand more than you're fixing it, Omi,” he says.

“Atsumu,” Kiyoomi says again. His grip doesn’t relent. “How long?”

“You just gonna get mad if you know.”

“I’m already mad at you, so it doesn’t matter.”

“What? Since when? What’d I do?”

“I’ll answer if you answer.”

Atsumu considers that, chewing on the inside of his cheek. Eventually he says, “Since third year, I guess. Started making concrete plans then. The invisibility cloak, the hair dye. Stuff like that. But it came to mind since… I dunno. First year, maybe. Someone had to keep Samu safe.”

Kiyoomi’s breath seizes. He doesn’t blink for a long while.

Then he forces the stale air out of his lungs and continues bandaging.

“Sometimes,” he says, so quiet that he can barely hear himself over the crackle of the fireplace, before he shakes the rest of the sentence off. No, not today. He has to be patient. He has to handle this; there’s no one else. He changes tack. “First year. So what was that, eleven years old?”

Atsumu’s eyes linger on him for a long moment before they finally lower to their tangled hands. “Yeah,” he says. “Wasn’t until we came to school that people started looking at us different. Changed the way I thought. Prolly changed the way Samu thought, too.”

“Eleven years old,” Kiyoomi repeats softly. Seven years, three hundred sixty five days per, countless minutes in each of those that they spent together, that they breathed together, that they touched and grinned and loved so fucking much it ached.

And Atsumu never said a word.

“‘m sorry.”

“You’re not.”

“Well, I dunno how to be anything other than fucking sorry,” Atsumu bites out, before he backpedals with a frustrated exhale. “Fuck. Sorry. I didn’t mean that. Didn’t mean to snap at you.”

“You do that a lot,” Kiyoomi notes.

Atsumu blinks. “Do what?”

“Start to tell me things, then change your mind.”

“I’m—that’s not what I’m doing. I tell you things all the time.”

“It’s not like I’ll break the moment you stop hiding the fact that you have emotions.”

“I’m not—I ain’t—” Atsumu struggles for words, before he eventually settles on, “I ain’t hiding anything. It ain’t hiding when it ain’t important enough to talk about in the first place.”

Kiyoomi’s voice comes out scathing. “Is that what you told yourself when you quit telling me things? Or did you have another reason?”

“You make it sound like we don’t talk, Omi.”

“Well, we don’t. Not about the stuff that matters.”

Atsumu stays silent. Kiyoomi finishes bandaging, but doesn’t let go. Below the skin he can feel the flutter of Atsumu’s pulse, strong and steady even after half a decade of planning to ensure otherwise.

You didn’t send me any letters, Kiyoomi wants to say. Osamu sent a dozen to Suna and you sent me none. I haven’t seen you in fucking months. When did you lose so much weight? Where did you get that scar on your arm? Why didn’t you take me with you? Why do you keep breaking our deal?

“Took you long enough,” he says instead.

Atsumu grins and doesn’t move forward to touch him. Not a single finger. “Missed you, Omi. You don’t even know how much.”

“You’d be right about that,” Kiyoomi says. It’s the truth, after all.

“Sakusa, you know you can’t fix my problems with Tsumu by creating new ones with him.”

“Atsumu and I don’t have a problem.”

“You look like you wanna kill him most days.”

“That’s my resting expression.”

“Sakusa.”

Kiyoomi digs his nails into his palms and lets the pain ground him enough to materialize the truth into the night: “Sometimes he pisses me off so much.”

“Alright,” Osamu says, blowing out a long breath. “That kinda night, huh.”

Typhoon season has hit with a frenzy. For the third day in a row, rain thunders down on the tower, sluicing past the bricks and the sprawling landscape outside. It’s enough to drown the horizon. It’s certainly enough to make his joints throb with pain. But he doesn’t go to Atsumu for relief. If he were here, Atsumu would kiss the knobs of his shoulders and hips and wrists. Atsumu would press heat packs on the spots where his joints make him want to cry, and Atsumu would lay with him until the pain quieted down to a manageable sensation that didn’t trap him inside his own body.

Instead, Atsumu is sleeping in his own bed, and Kiyoomi is up here, simmering in his own fury and self-pity.

It’s pathetic.

“He doesn’t get it,” Kiyoomi says. “You said that before. But I thought that was fine because at least he got me .”

It’d be an exaggeration to say Atsumu had always understood him, with their ease in touches, the comforting rise and dips of their conversations. That came later, but first there was Atsumu in his first year Potions class, willing to partner with anyone who wasn’t Osamu, even if that ‘anyone’ happened to be a too-impatient Kiyoomi. Then there’d been the quiet nights researching in the library for the newest conspiracy of the year. Shared candlelight in the Restricted Section after hours. Swooping in taunting circles around each other during Quidditch games, practice matches, and during simple nights, cutting through the wind like they belonged there together.

Nothing in the world came easy to Kiyoomi. If someone broke the components of him down like ingredients to a potion, they’d find restraint, swallowed sentences, diligent routine. Loving Atsumu was like that. Another routine to build and live by.

“I never had to question where I stood with him. Now all he does is have me doubting myself. It’s the worst fucking feeling in the world.”

Sakusa. I checked.

Kiyoomi hisses out a breath between his teeth. “I mean second worst. Whatever.”

“You know he wasn’t the only one who changed,” Osamu says.

“I know. I’ve—” Become intolerable. Needy. Untrusting and stubborn and someone who should learn how to mind his own fucking business. All words Atsumu has said to him before. All words that Kiyoomi deserved. He curls into his knees and thinks about becoming so small he disappears into a speck of dust, and then, nothing. “I’ve changed too.”

“It fucked us up,” Osamu says, “didn’t it.”

“I can’t trust him. I can’t be sure that he’s telling me the stuff that matters.”

The stuff that matters? Atsumu had said, incredulous. The fuck is the stuff that matters? Me and you, that’s the stuff that matters. You’re the one who said that first.

I’m not talking about the shit you want for dinner or when you wanna go flying. I’m talking about—do you want me, even? Or am I someone you’re with because I’m the only thing you imagined having for yourself?

Do you even hear yourself right now?

I’m asking you if we’re together because I’m convenient.

Nothing about you is convenient, Omi. God.

“What if he does it again,” Kiyoomi says. The pain washes over him in waves, and he has to take slow, measured breaths. “What if he—what if he walks into another forest and doesn’t come out.”

“If you can’t trust him,” Osamu says, then stops.

“I don’t know how to deal with it,” Kiyoomi says.

In total Atsumu spent four minutes alone in the forest. Another three, once Osamu made his way to him. Then the final eight from the forest to the school. Those fifteen minutes have done more to fuck Kiyoomi up more than the entirety of the past seven years.

“He doesn’t get it,” Kiyoomi says. “When you said that you weren’t just talking about him not understanding. You were talking about how he doesn’t get what it means to love him back.”

“Yeah,” Osamu says. “Sucks some major shit, huh.” Then: “Sakusa. Release the magic. Your hands are shaking.”

Kiyoomi’s magic falters before it picks back up again. Casting magic amplifies the pain in his joints, but he doesn’t stop. The scrying image of Atsumu in his bed, dozing away, stays strong in the air. “No. I can’t.”

“You can. He’s safe.”

“Do you honestly believe that?”

“Well, you're not exactly making it easy for yourself, either.”

“Fuck,” Kiyoomi mutters. “It’d be better if he weren’t such a good liar.”

Osamu’s eyes flicker to him. “Are you doubting everything he’s doing now? Is that the issue?”

“I don’t get how you accepted it.”

“That’s easy—I didn’t accept it.”

“You can talk to him without getting pissed. That’s acceptance. But I suppose it helps that he… At least he took you with him.”

“He just wanted to keep you safe,” Osamu murmurs. “That so bad? Ain’t the worst thing in the world to be protected.”

“You and him,” Kiyoomi says, “are exactly the fucking same sometimes. Who the fuck is going to protect the two of you, then? You answer that, and I’ll walk back downstairs right now.”

“Aren’t you fucking ruthless,” Osamu says, but he doesn’t contest it. In silence they stare at the image of Atsumu sleeping together. Two useless protectors waiting in the night.