Chapter Text
Sakusa Kiyoomi
sora no hikaru izakaya
northern kūshinsei city
fao: Komori Motoya
medic abroad the fujin-maru airship
september 30
1916
Dear Cousin,
I hope the weather above France isn’t too terrible. I dread it when you port in London, it rains far too much and the food is subpar. It’s colder up here than it ought to be and my joints are suffering. Whatever drugs that ‘doctor’ (I say this loosely) prescribed aren’t as proficient as the morphine. But, you know how that panned out so aspirin will have to do.
How is the airship? I hear about diseases being spread rifely amongst soldiers and while I should hope a medics ship ought to be clean, you never know. Please let me know if you require any more cleaning products. Borax is harder to come by, but if you need baking soda and vinegar, there is plenty in the cellar that I can fit in my next care package. I managed to get some more Konpeitō to send you. God knows how you stomach so many sweets. Please pass on some of them to your friend, Rintaro. I hope he is making a speedy recovery and they will send him back to Hyogo soon to be with his sister and mother. Based upon your last letter, I understand you will miss him, but I’m sure you can exchange letters.
If you have received my previous letters yet, you will be aware of my current predicament. Miya Atsumu – the bane of my existence, still frequents the izakaya. Every night. He drinks so much, talks so much, and constantly bothers me with questions about my work and what I do during the day. He says — other things to me too, that I cannot repeat in case they are checking these letters. You will know what I mean. I think he is teasing me, do I bar him? I don’t particularly want to as he alone pays for my rent with how much alcohol he drinks. His friends are equally as annoying, except for Ojiro-san, he’s the most tolerable and he’s Miya’s assigned caretaker after he’s had too many drinks (god help him). He is nice though. This crowd is more the sort you would enjoy spending time with. I hope they do not end up at the medic’s ship – they may be annoying, but I am not heartless, but you would get on.
Sorry for rambling again, it has been lonely since you left.
Miya started calling me Omi when he was drunk, declaring that it rolls off the tongue smoothly whatever that means. Unfortunately his two loud friends have started to call me Omi-san and the younger one called me Omi-sama once which was incredibly embarrassing. I know you’re laughing, don’t you dare show this letter to anyone.
Thirty-six is not old, is it? Miya and his friend Ojiro-san can’t be older than twenty-one and they make me feel fifty. Sixty for Miya, because I seem to age every time he opens his mouth.
Hinata and Bokuto are even younger. Barely eighteen – they’re lucky I serve them at all. I don’t see how it’s fair we can send children to war.
Miya pays well and he cleans the tables before he leaves, even when he is blind-drunk which is pretty amusing. I clean the surfaces again once he’s left because I don’t know where his hands have been but the gesture is nice I suppose. His hair is growing out, it’s not blond anymore and it’s quite respectable. Though when the sunlight cast through the window, it looked almost gold. I don’t know who you might tell, but keep that to yourself.
In fact, burn this. Do not show this to your new friends, I have a sixth sense about that and I will know.
I hope to see you again before next summer,
Kiyoomi.
He’s there again – because of course he is. Loud laughter reverberates around the small izakaya and the sudden noise almost makes Kiyoomi spill the sake as he pours it into several small glasses. He’s already wiped the bar down a thousand times this evening with how busy he is, and he can hardly afford to do anymore.
Miya Atsumu, already halfway cooked with rosy-red cheeks, leans on another man Kiyoomi only knows is called Aran because Miya Atsumu doesn’t shut up yelling his name every other sentence. The other two, who Kiyoomi has learned are Hinata ( Sho-kun! ) and Bokuto ( Bokkun!) , sit on the opposite side of Atsumu and join in on the laughter. Kiyoomi supposes he can hardly complain – now they’re stationed up in the sky they bring in good business – even if Kiyoomi has had to reluctantly hire a few of the local girls to help him with the drinks orders on weekends. None of them have the same standards of cleanliness as he has, but he needs the help if he wants to sleep more than four hours a night.
Carrying the wooden tray around the bar, Kiyoomi takes it to a nearby chabudai a few metres away from where Miya sits. Most of the soldiers, as expected, are fairly quiet and formal even when they do let loose each night. Despite Miya’s loudness, he sends Kiyoomi a sheepish look whenever he catches him glaring. The pilot looks guilty for all of three seconds, before he winks at Kiyoomi and calls him over for a drink (and, dare Kiyoomi admit, attempt to flirt with him. He’s certain he’s messing with him, though).
Miya Atsumu is disruptive, immature, too-friendly, too- touchy, drinks like a fish and yells so loud Kiyoomi thinks he might get a noise complaint from the local police–
And he’s unfortunately, probably– no, definitely, the most attractive man Kiyoomi has ever laid eyes on.
Which is a problem, especially when Kiyoomi adds flirty to his mental list of traits he has observed over the last few weeks. He’s already written to Motoya in the form of a three-page soliloquy in which Kiyoomi complained endlessly about all things Miya Atsumu. He’s yet to hear back, but that's the way things are in the war. Last he heard, Motoya was on some airship hovering over Europe – Spain, then France. His cousin is due to land in London any day and Kiyoomi plays the radio morning and night for word of his cousin's ship landing. Motoya isn’t in active combat unlike the soldiers who frequent the izakaya as of late, but he still worries.
“‘Samu does the best tonkatsu you’ll ever taste, trust me Sho-kun, you’ll never eat anythin’ from a can again if ya come visit.”
“It’s better than the cafeteria food here?”
“Oh, one-hundred percent, s’why I take ya to Omi-kun’s, best sukiyaki this high in the sky, doesn’t compare to ‘Samu of course he’s the best cook in the world, but it’s better than what they got back at base.”
“‘Tsumu’s puttin’ himself in debt just so we eat good, Shin trained him up well.”
“Oh, I’m bankin’ on Omi givin’ me a discount soon enough, repeat customer and all. I see him luggin’ in fresh crates of umeshu fer us, and that fancy beer from Sapporo.”
“In your dreams, Miya,” Kiyoomi huffs as he steps past the group. “I may start charging you tax for being so loud.”
Aran laughs behind his bottle of beer, clapping Atsumu on the shoulder but Atsumu just smirks and Kiyoomi’s cheeks heat when his partially lidded eyes trail over his trim waist before landing on his dark eyes.
“I’d pay whatever ya want darlin’, name yer price.” He winks at Kiyoomi, grinning in a way that makes Kiyoomi think he has just signed his own death warrant because he could never, in a million different lifetimes, get over a smile so bright and brilliant.
At that moment, Kiyoomi isn’t sure whether he wants to slap the smile right off his face or stand beside Atsumu’s table, bottle of umeshu in hand so he can refill his cup after every sip he takes from it. He’d pour the liquor into his palms and hold it up for Miya to lick from his fingers if he’d allow it. He never would, he’s too untouchable. The incessant flirting is a joke.
Kiyoomi knows this because in approximately two hours Atsumu will have a local girl sliding up on the bench beside him and he’ll loop an arm around her, whispering sweet nothings into her ear as he drunkenly waxes poetics that somehow have these girls tripping over their feet for him. By the end of the night, his tongue is down her throat as she inhales the menthol from his cigarette.
He simply cannot tell if he loves or hates Atsumu. The line between the two blurs with each passing day.
As he slips past Atsumu to the safety of the bar, flushed from the tips of his ears to the bottom of his neck, he silently scolds himself for such thoughts. It’s Atsumu, who definitely isn’t older than twenty-three, who gave up on a career as a professional athlete to fight in a war alongside his best friends and brother. He’s stupid – he says that his dream is just on pause but Kiyoomi’s seen the men who come back from combat. Atsumu is so full of life and Kiyoomi thinks that it’s so selfish of him, but he longs to break as many of his bones as he can so Atsumu has no choice but to stay here with him and away from his warship. But he’s brilliant, he sees things through, strives for perfection. Anything less than the best isn’t a concept that Atsumu gives a second thought to. From having the crew of the Black Jackal at his bar every night for almost a month, Kiyoomi knows all about them.
“Hey, Omi–” the familiar voice beckons him– and he’s right, the way the nickname rolls off the tongue is heaven. “Come sit with us.”
“I would rather guzzle down the pisswater they serve across the street, Miya.” His voice is stern, maybe too stern. “The girls down by the aircraft plant will finish within the hour, they will keep the bench beside you warm in due time.”
Expecting Atsumu’s deep honeyed eyes to light up like the billions of stars that blanket the city, Kiyoomi resumes wiping down the bartop for the third time in half an hour. Instead, there’s a silence and he dares to look up and almost does a double take at what he bears witness to. A furrowed brow and the slight downturn of his lips as Atsumu stares at him with a calculated gaze.
“What if I wanted to hear all about ya instead of one of them fer a change?”
Kiyoomi scoffs, resuming his ministrations with slightly shaking fingers which he prays Atsumu cannot see from across the space. “I am not half as interesting as you seem to think, and I have customers to serve.”
“What about after final orders?” Atsumu asks hopefully. “Ya never drink with us, yer always so serious. I bet ya get a real pretty colour to yer cheeks after a few glasses of sake, yer really goin’ to deprive me of that? What if I get shipped out tomorrow? What if ya never see me again after tonight?”
“Then I might just have some peace– and enough alcohol and tonkatsu left over to serve my regulars, Miya.”
“Cruel, Omi-Omi, I don’t know why ya do that,” Atsumu says as he lounges back in his chair, whiskey glass hovering close to his slightly parted lips as he fixes his eyes directly on Kiyoomi.
“Do what?” He bites, regretting the question the moment Atsumu smiles, the glass magnifying those plump, pink lips.
“Lie,” he tells him, grinning like he’s caught Kiyoomi out. “Ya say one thing, but fer a split second, yer face tells another story. Blink and ya miss it — in fact I’m certain most folks wouldn’t ever notice, but ya know by now I’m not most folks.”
“You’re–” Kiyoomi doesn’t quite know what to say to that. He furrows his brow and glares directly at the wooden bar as though willing it to set aflame. “You spend an awful time watching me. Stop it.”
“Stop it?” Atsumu splutters, almost spilling his drink over Aran who’s engrossed in an armwrestling match with Bokuto. “Ya got a mirror ‘round here?”
“What’s that got to do with anything? No, wait–”
“Ha, no, no– ya ought to go look in it, and you’d know why I say the things I say.”
“Idiot,” Kiyoomi mumbles to himself as he resumes scrubbing the bartop, harder this time. “Idiot. It’s hard to believe that would ever work on any girls.”
“It’s workin’ on ya.” Grinning, Atsumu rocks back on his chair and Kiyoomi ducks down behind the bar pathetically to pretend to tidy the shelves.
“I can assure you, Miya, it is not.”
“Liar.” His voice is louder and more playful and when Kiyoomi stands up from behind the bar, Miya Atsumu is directly opposite, elbows propped up on the mahogany as he tilts his head to the side and smiles. Kiyoomi tries not to stare at Atsumu’s finger as it circles the rim of his empty glass. “Yer still talkin’ to me, so yer a liar.”
“I don’t have a choice,” Kiyoomi says as he turns to grab the whiskey without being asked. “If I ignored you, you would pester me until I responded.”
With a hand over his heart, Atsumu gasps dramatically while Kiyoomi fills his glass. “Ya don’t mean it, Miya charm is famous around here, ya couldn’t ignore me if ya tried.”
“Do you want to bet on that?” Kiyoomi asks with a raised brow.
“Sure,” Atsumu says smugly. “One drink if I can getcha to give me one of those pretty smiles that I know ya got one hidden behind that pout of yers.”
“Shame you’ll never know for sure.”
Atsumu is silent for a while and Kiyoomi catches himself thinking pathetic. Giving up already… When the young pilot finally speaks up, his eyes glistening in the lowlight of the izakaya.
“Hey, Omiiii–”
“Yes, Miya.”
“Can I ask ya a question?”
Kiyoomi sighs. “If I say no, will you ask it anyway?”
“Of course,” Atsumu grins, smug. “I wanna ask about those moles on yer head–” here we go. “Ya know that’s where yer soulmate kissed ya most in a past life, right? I’m wonderin’ if ya got more below the collar, you have to, when ya look as good as ya do.”
Choking on his spit at the abruptness of the compliment, Kiyoomi leans against the bar for support and really considers barring him.
For reasons unknown, he humours Atsumu – when he thinks his voice can work again. “I don’t, if you must know.”
Atsumu gawks like he can’t quite believe it, mouth opening and closing so many times Kiyoomi has to bite the inside of his cheek to stop himself laughing.
“Well,” Atsumu says after he recovers from his apparent disbelief. “Who knows, someone new might give ya more fer yer life after this.”
The lazy smile and the way the confidence of that statement exudes from Atsumu so easily takes Kiyoomi by surprise and his lips tick up the barest amount before he fakes a cough to hide it again. Atsumu recognises that tiny smile and it takes him a moment to respond – as though he’s still processing the intricacies of Kiyoomi’s range of expression.
“...How long did it take for you to come up with that line?”
Atsumu waves a hand in the air. “Who cares! It worked, ya smiled and don’t ya dare deny it!” He announces loud enough for the entire izakaya to turn briefly and glance their way. Glowering, Kiyoomi stares down at the ground as he wills himself to suddenly catch fire. “Ya smiled, and ya got a colour to yer cheeks. Lemme buy ya that drink darlin’, I wanna hear all about ya.”
“Miya, ” Kiyoomi whisper-yells once he’s recovered from his crippling mortification. “Stop talking...If I have one drink with you, will you be quiet? And don’t call me those… Names.”
“What names?” Atsumu asks dumbly. “Perfectly innocent, I’m just testin’ the way it rolls off my tongue, ya don’t gotta worry about nothin’,” he says with a lowered voice, winking at Kiyoomi – who simply gazes back at him as though he’d just grown a second head. “One drink, then, pretty please?”
He almost resembles a puppy – a very uncute puppy, the way he looks across at Kiyoomi hopefully. Against his will, Kiyoomi’s eyes flick briefly to Atsumu’s slightly parted lips, only just managing to suppress a gasp when the tip of Atsumu’s tongue flicks out to taste the sake on them. The izakaya is a moderate temperature – Kiyoomi keeps it at a constant twenty-degrees, but when he spies a sliver of that pink tongue, he swears it gets ten degrees hotter. He unconsciously adjusts his collar and looks away, praying another customer will saunter over to order another drink.
“...One drink.” Kiyoomi finally concedes, fighting the smile from quirking at his lips when Atsumu does a mini-fist bump in the air. “But be quiet.”
Pinching his thumb and forefinger together, Atsumu mimics zipping his lips before resting his chin in his palm, staring unashamedly at Kiyoomi who stands with his arms at his sides unsure what to do.
“Tomorrow.”
Atsumu nods very seriously, intent on following Kiyoomi’s wishes. “Tomorrow, Omi.” Then, he extends his pinkie finger – still covered by his brown leather gloves. “C’mon, ya gotta pinkie swear me, don’t leave me hangin’”
Sighing, Kiyoomi looks between Atsumu and any potential customers who might serve him. With no such luck, he resigns himself to his fate and links his finger with Atsumu’s, feeling the smooth clean leather wrapping his pinkie finger. “Don’t make me regret this.”
“Trust me, you’ll be askin’ fer another tomorrow. Thank ya, one more top up fer the road?” He asks, holding up his glass for Kiyoomi to refill. Before unlinking their fingers, Kiyoomi hesitated like he didn’t want to let go.
Once he’s topped Atsumu back up, the pilot is beckoned back to his table by Bokuto and he leaves Kiyoomi with a mock-salute and a grin that makes Kiyoomi want to rush to have his blood pressure checked.
With Atsumu sitting back down, his back to Kiyoomi, he feels himself breathe for what feels like the first time in a long time. He slumps against the counter, trying not to tear out his hair.
🛩️
The night passes quickly – Kiyoomi’s rushed off his feet, traipsing back and forth to collect glasses. He’s irate, dodging loud soldiers that only get louder as the night wears on – not knowing how they can knock back so much liquor and then wake up the following morning to repeat it all over again after a day’s training.
Predictably, Atsumu is drunk again. Though he’s quieter than usual and despite Kiyoomi hating himself a little bit for picking up on it, it makes him uneasy. He keeps busy, flitting around the izakaya to try and calm his nerves. His joints sting, and he finds himself rolling his wrists between orders.
“Hey, Omi-kun,” Atsumu slurs as he stumbles back up to the bar, clumsily sitting down on one of the stools. “Ya got a refill?”
Turning, Kiyoomi observes the state of him. Still walking, eyes still open – however his companions are nowhere to be seen. Kiyoomi does not want the responsibility of making sure Atsumu doesn’t fall over a railing on the way back to the barracks and plummet through the clouds to his death.
He pours Atsumu a cup of water. “On the house.”
Groaning, Atsumu pushes the water across the bartop back towards him. “Could really do with somethin’ stronger.”
“I’m not having you fall asleep in my bar,” Kiyoomi sighs, gently placing the cup back in front of Atsumu’s arms. “It’s this or nothing.”
“Stubborn one aren’t ya?” Kiyoomi doesn’t respond. “Fine, but I’m about to be real annoyin’ with ya as a trade-off.”
“You weren’t already?”
“Ha,” Atsumu laughs softly. “Yer a funny one–” he pauses, lifting the cup to his lips to take a long gulp of cold water. Some of it misses his mouth and trickles down his chin to dirty the once-clean bartop. “There, happy now?”
“Overjoyed,” Kiyoomi deadpans. “Where are your friends?” Atsumu’s eyes are fluttering, closing slowly before opening again. He really hopes he isn’t about to fall asleep.
“K-Kou and Sho-kun went to bed, Aran-kun’s havin’ a smoke and some air. Ya hopin’ to get rid of me so soon?”
“Exactly that, yes.”
“So cruel to cast me out in the cold all on my lonesome,” Atsumu sighs, folding his arms in front of him to rest his chin on. “Ya know, I feel like you’d get on with a friend of mine. Well, my old senpai. Ya remind me a bit of him, he was kinda strict on me and ‘Samu growin’ up but he meant well. Now he has a farm down in Hyogo, the pair of ya would bond over like rice or some shit.”
“Bond over…Rice,” Kiyoomi repeats, blinking.
“Yeah! Ya seem like the type.” Atsumu sends him a dopey, whiskey-drunk smile that Kiyoomi openly rolls his eyes at. “Aran’s real close with him–” Atsumu smirks as he says this and Kiyoomi raises a brow but doesn’t question it. Whatever mysterious happenings occur in Atsumu’s brain after an entire bottle of umeshu is a total enigma. “Ya should ask Aran about the r-rice when he’s back.”
“I seem like the type,” Kiyoomi mimics. “I can’t tell if that’s a compliment or an insult.”
“What? No the rice is good! The best in the country, I swear on it,” Atsumu exclaims passionately. “...Man, I haven’t been there in forever. Not since school.”
Kiyoomi feels as if he should have cut the conversation short the moment it started, but he cannot help himself, for reasons he doesn’t wish to think about. “...How old are you?”
“Twenty! Well, Twenty-one in exactly one week – don’t ya forget it, I’ll swing by fer my birthday gift.” Atsumu winks, in what Kiyoomi presumes is a poor attempt at charming him.
“Bold of you to assume I’ll be letting you back here at all, considering how much you drain my cellar.”
“Aw but ya gotta,” Atsumu pouts, leaning to the side until he’s almost falling from his chair. “See–” he hiccups. “It’s goin’ to be the shittiest birthday, ‘cause I haven’t been without my little brother before this war and I haven’t heard word from his company in–” Atsumu pauses, as though deep in thought. “Five months, almost six. He’s alive, I’d feel it in here if he weren’t, but we celebrate with Aran and Sunarin every year. And now it’ll just be me and Aran.” Atsumu chuckles, but it’s a little hollow than the raucous laughter from earlier. “Don’t tell him I said that, I love Aran like a brother, but he’s not ‘Samu, y’know?”
Barely knowing Atsumu beyond his drinking habits and taste in women, Kiyoomi is surprised to be struck with an unexpected pit of sadness for him. It’s in his eyes – memories of back home with his brother and best friends. Kiyoomi doesn’t know what to say in response, so he glances around the near-empty bar. Before he can change his mind, he sits down beside Atsumu. He’s not one for pep talks, but he supposes it wouldn’t kill him to sit with Atsumu until Aran returns to careen him back to barracks.
“Here,” Atsumu says, clumsily pulling his wallet from his jacket pocket. He flips the leather open and pulls out an old black and white photo. There’s Atsumu, with his twin, and three others. They look about fifteen or sixteen. “That’s me if ya couldn’t tell – the handsome twin, and ‘Samu, Rin, Aran and Kita-san. My best friends.”
Kiyoomi wonders what it’s like to grow up surrounded by people who care for you like they seem to do Atsumu. He only has Motoya – who’s far younger than him and has been stationed at the aircity over Spain for over a year.
“Ya got someone ya miss?” Atsumu asks, just as he tucks his wallet away again. “Ya must have someone. Brothers, sisters, friends, a cute lil somethin’ waitin’ on ya down on ground-level.” Winking, Atsumu tries to elbow Kiyoomi playfully but misses and nudges the air, almost falling straight onto him. Over a decade of working behind a bar has given Kiyoomi a sixth-sense when it comes to drunk people so he moves quickly, catching Atsumu’s arm and steadying him with a frustrated tsk.
“Sit upright, if you fall on the floor I won’t pick you up again.”
“Omi-kun, but it looks like I’m fallin’ fer ya!”
“You know what. I regret giving you water, if you carried on drinking maybe you’d be asleep right about now.”
Atsumu pouts, and it is absolutely not adorable. “So cruel when I’m here drinkin’ away my sorrows.”
Kiyoomi is silent for a long moment. When Atsumu leans on him a little, he doesn’t pull away.
“I have a cousin–” he starts, flushing pink with his gaze averted to the wall opposite. “He’s a medic. Twenty-six, but he’s the only one who I’ve ever been close to. I haven’t seen him in a year, though we write to each other often. He’s the only one who stuck around despite my peculiarities. It’s strange, when you take someone’s presence for granted and then one day they’re just…Not there anymore.”
“Yeah…” Atsumu replies solemnly as he sips his water. “I couldn’t sleep fer a solid ten days when I shipped out for the first time. Shared a bunk fer eighteen years of my life with ‘Samu. He’s a snorer, used to drive me insane , and used to wake me with these nightmares sometimes and when we were little he was always comin’ up to sleep in my bunk. It’s crazy, ‘cause I used to kick him in the shins in the night on purpose and then we’d be scrappin’ at three in the mornin’ until we got yelled at by our ma–
Suddenly not bein’ woken up by him was just wrong. I’d give anythin’ fer the scrub to be pesterin’ to sleep up in my bunk. We used to fight so bad, almost as often as we got on, kickin’ and hittin’ each other, our ma always used to smack us up the back of the heads and force us to do chores together until we made up. I’d give anythin’ to have a fight with him right now. Better than wonderin’ if he’s goin’ to die tomorrow on the ground in America.”
Kiyoomi is silent, sitting with a rigid back as he glances sideways at Atsumu. He has no idea how to comfort him, so he just sits and listens, his heart shattering at how someone barely out of highschool could be shouldering so much at once. He’s so carefree and confident, it’s hard to imagine he’s got all this inside. Kiyoomi thought he was the only one with fears, but he supposes everyone has them. Even the best airship pilot in Japan.
“‘Samu was supposed to stay home, go run our pa’s restaurant like he always wanted while I signed up to fly the airships. Suddenly, they’re drafting ground soldiers and he’s bein’ called up. He’s with Sunarin, at least, but it fuckin’ sucks. I hope we can go home soon, yer cousin too. He sounds like a good guy fer stickin’ by ya.”
“Motoya is…He’s younger than me, and it should be me looking after him but I’ve found it’s the other way around.”
“Yeah?” Atsumu asks, his face so close to Kiyoomi’s it burns. His breath, despite stinking of strong whiskey, has Kiyoomi fighting the urge to lean in. He ought to run away, put a halt on whatever game Atsumu is playing with him.
Kiyoomi shifts away from him, but only by a few inches. Atsumu’s fingers drum on the headrest behind Kiyoomi’s seat and his heart thunders in time to the tune he mimics. God, he’s pathetic.
“It’s the ones ya least expect takin’ care of ya, I suppose. Yer all alone here now Omi? No girl? No you know–”
The door swings open and closes so loudly, Kiyoomi jumps in his seat and stands quickly, almost stumbling over in his haste to increase the gap between him and Atsumu. He already left Tokyo to avoid rumours and suspicion, he didn’t need that business in Kūshinsei too.
“‘Tsumu, had to dash back to make sure ya didn’t fall asleep–” Aran staggers across the bar, only slightly less drunk than Atsumu, and claps a hand on his back. “Yer not botherin’ our host again, are ya?”
“Botherin’?” Atsumu flashes him a grin and it seems whatever melancholy plaguing him suddenly shifts to the distant parts of his mind. Kiyoomi wonders if, at night, it resurfaces for Atsumu too, or if he simply drinks enough to keep those nightly thoughts at bay. “I’m charmin’ as hell, just ask Omi.”
“That is up for debate, Miya.”
“He’ll annoy ya until ya fall in love with him,” Aran says loudly, tugging Atsumu up by his shoulders until he stands, swaying before retaining his balance and grabbing onto Aran’s leather bomber jacket. “Thank ya, Sakusa-san, you’d think he had more respect fer his elders, if he– or any of us are any trouble, come let me know.”
“Kita-san trained him well!” Atsumu shouts with a laugh, almost tumbling over until he leans against the table again.
“Yeah? Shinsuke’s goin’ to start hearin’ all about how yer tearin’ up the local izakaya’s if ya keep bein’ a menace– Sorry Sakusa-san, we’ll see ya tomorrow–”
“Ya wouldn’t Aran-kun, traitor– and wait I gotta– hic– help clean up!”
“You’ll do no such thing,” Kiyoomi chides with a voice softer than expected as he looks at Atsumu, a little cross-eyed, smile at him. “Go to bed, Miya, you can barely stand.”
Pouting, Atsumu argues a little more with Aran, and then with Kiyoomi as he insists he is perfectly sober (while swaying so far to the side he’s almost vertical). Eventually – when he starts yawning and complaining he’s hungry, he relents and allows Kiyoomi to walk him and Aran to the door. By now, they’re the last of the patrons inside and the only light is from the streetlamps outside.
The clouds hang low when they step outside and Atsumu reaches a hand up to the air to touch one with the sort of glee one would only possess on their first day up in the heavens. Yet he brushes his hand through it like he does every night instead, turning and shooting Kiyoomi a lazy smile, honey eyes lidded.
“I’ll see ya tomorrow, Omi-kun!” He waves as he’s dragged backwards by Aran. “One day I’ll give ya lots of moles fer yer next life!”
Aran looks at him like he’s a little insane, then sends Kiyoomi a final, lasting look and mouths sorry.
For which Kiyoomi mouths back take care.
Once they’ve disappeared around the corner, Kiyoomi exhales deeply, feeling as though he finally has space to breathe. There’s a puddle from yesterday morning’s rain and he observes his tired, slightly dishevelled appearance in it. His cheeks are flushed and slightly sweaty and he grimaces at the feel of the clothes he hasn’t changed out of since that morning.
It takes him an hour to tidy up and prepare for the following day, and after a long soak in a hot bath, he sinks into bed to think about how Atsumu’s skin might feel beneath his fingertips.
He tosses and turns as he dreams of lips dotting his bare skin with constellations that map the skies above.