Work Text:
“Hey,” Rintarou says, poking his head inside the backroom. “Your alpha’s here to see you. The one who won’t let anyone else service him but you.”
Kiyoomi finishes fixing the stubborn curl and makes eye contact with Rintarou in the mirror. “Thanks, I’ll be out.” Rintarou disappears again and the other omega in the room snickers while they get ready for their own performance. Kiyoomi finishes up in the mirror, refusing to let himself be bothered by the them. When he finishes and makes his way out, it’s easy to find Atsumu in his usual spot, sipping on a whiskey and not looking at any of the other omega working despite their best attempts. He’s dressed in an expensive suit, something that attracts the attention of dancers looking to make a good tip.
“Back again?” Kiyoomi asks, walking up to him. “What will your omega think?”
Atsumu grins, sharp canines catching on the rotating lights. “Don’t have one. You think they’d let me spend this much money on you if I did?” He finishes off his whiskey and sets it on the bartop. “Can we go somewhere more private?”
Kiyoomi nods and starts to walk away to lead Atsumu. He usually hates private dances because it’s harder to get alphas to adhere to their no-touching policy, but he doesn’t worry about that with Atsumu. They’ve done this routine dozens of times before. It started with a request from him after seeing Kiyoomi dance on stage a few months ago, and now Atsumu doesn’t even pretend like he’s here for the other dancers.
As Kiyoomi leads them to one of the private rooms, he can tell something’s different today. There’s a distant look in Atsumu’s eyes that he’s been seeing more often lately. Usually it disappears after a minute or two of dancing, but Kiyoomi feels like Atsumu’s mind is far away tonight. Once they’re in the private room, Kiyoomi pulls a bottle of whiskey from the cupboard and sets it on the table in front of Atsumu.
“You want me to dance?” he asks, bringing a tumbler over for him.
“Don’t I always?”
“You look different tonight. Like you’re not actually here.”
Atsumu studies him for a moment, the intensity of his gaze making Kiyoomi feel more naked than he’s ever been. Finally, with a sigh, Atsumu leans back and rubs his face. “Just got a lot of shit going on. It’s why I wanted to see you.”
“Do you want to talk?”
Atsumu laughs. “You offer therapy sessions for all of your clients?”
Kiyoomi shakes his head and rounds the coffee table to sit on it. “Just the special ones.”
“You know I’ll tip you either way, you don’t have to be nice.”
“Atsumu-”
“I can’t really talk about it. I just . . . Christ, this is embarrassing. I just needed to smell you.” He refuses to look at Kiyoomi when he says it and thank god because Kiyoomi doesn’t know if the dim light hides his flush. “Pathetic, right?”
Kiyoomi always wears weak scent blockers. Not strong enough to fully cover his scent, but enough that his clients get a hint of it and leave them wanting more. Tonight, without much consideration, Kiyoomi peels them off his wrist and offers it to Atsumu. He reaches for it and then quickly stops when he accidentally touches Kiyoomi’s skin. “It’s okay,” Kiyoomi says, pushing back into Atsumu’s hand. “You can touch me there.”
Atsumu watches him again, looking for signs of discomfort as he takes Kiyoomi’s wrist and brings the scent gland closer to his nose. His first inhale looks like it relaxes him immediately. His shoulders are less tense, he’s not going to jump to attention at the next loud noise, and his eyes close.
Kiyoomi’s never had a regular who made him feel this way. Most of them are disgusting alphas who push their boundaries too far but pay well to make it up, and as much as Kiyoomi hates serving them, he likes bringing home the thick stack of cash. Most, if not all of them, are yakuza. If they weren’t blabbering about it every second they could to make themselves seem tough, then blatantly showing off their tattoos would make it obvious.
Atsumu’s occupation was harder to guess when he first started coming in. He held himself like a yakuza, on high alert like one, too. But he never spoke about it and Kiyoomi’s only indication was the missing knuckle on his pinky that looked marred and poorly healed. As he started to come in more, he opened up and made a few references that Kiyoomi understood from his other clients. He’s still not nearly as open as the others, and if there’s any tattoos on him, he keeps them covered up.
“Thanks,” Atsumu says after a few seconds of taking deep inhales of Kiyoomi’s scent. “Sorry, that was probably weird for you.”
“It’s fine,” Kiyoomi says and takes Atsumu’s hand and taps their wrists together to scent him. “This was the least weird request I’ve gotten.”
Atsumu chuckles, more relaxed than before. “What’s the weirdest one, then?”
“A group of alphas asked to do lines of coke off my cunt.”
“Oh.”
There’s a bit of satisfaction that comes with surprising someone in the yakuza. “Are you feeling better?”
“About my request? Yeah, a litt-”
“No, about . . . whatever it was. You looked different tonight.” Kiyoomi crumples up the patch and continues releasing his scent for Atsumu. “Work?”
Kiyoomi regrets asking that as soon as he sees Atsumu change again. “Something like that.” He shakes his head and reaches for the whiskey to pour himself a glass. “Like I said, I can’t really talk about it.”
“Then talk about something else.”
Atsumu arches an eyebrow at him as he brings the glass to his lips. He takes a long sip, letting it settle in his chest before answering. “What about?” Then, “you don’t want to dance?”
“I will if that’s what you really want, but it doesn’t look like it. I’m not going to shake my ass for someone who isn’t watching.”
“I’ll watch,” Atsumu defends. “You know I’ll always watch you.”
“Who do you talk to?” Kiyoomi stands anyway, though he doesn’t start dancing. Instead he sits next to Atsumu, too close for the standard, and rests on his shoulder. “About the mundane things. Who do you talk to about that?”
He eyes Kiyoomi’s arm. “About my neighbor fucking her mate at five in the morning when I’m trying to sleep?”
“Sure.”
Atsumu takes another long sip of his whiskey. “No one. Maybe Bo-kun when he’s not working, but otherwise . . .”
“So talk to me.” He brushes Atsumu’s hair from his face. He doesn’t know why he does it, his body moving before his mind can catch up to him. “Are they having good sex?”
“I’d fucking hope so,” Atsumu grumbles. “They knock shit off my shelves from how hard the bed hits our shared wall. It’s like every other hour they’re fucking like rabbits, and that’s just what I can hear. I wanna know what they do for work that they have all that time.”
Atsumu’s hair is softer than Kiyoomi expected. It’s been blonde ever since Kiyoomi’s known him, and the roots barely ever show. He runs his fingers through it, scratching Atsumu’s scalp gently. “Fuck someone back. Show them what it’s like.”
“I don’t have time to fuck someone back,” Atsumu says with a short laugh. He finishes off his whiskey and lets his eyes slip shut as Kiyoomi continues scratching his head. “Too busy.”
“But you’d have someone?”
Atsumu peeks one eye open at Kiyoomi. “What’s with the twenty questions?” He settles back again, letting Kiyoomi continue his ministrations. “No, I don’t. I told you, didn’t I? I’d never be able to spend all this money on you otherwise.”
Kiyoomi thinks he wouldn’t mind letting Atsumu use him like that to pay back his neighbor. Atsumu is strong, respectful, and handsome. He wouldn’t mind being under him for a few hours. “Let me, then.” The words are out of his mouth before he realizes.
“Huh?” Atsumu asks him with wide eyes.
“I’m joking.” Kiyoomi swallows hard and retracts his hand. The disappointment of his cowardice settles in his mind and he really wishes he would shut up and think before speaking once. “Sorry-”
“I’d pay you.”
Kiyoomi frowns. “I’m a stripper, not a hooker.”
“You just offered to sleep with me.”
“As a friend. Whatever, I was joking anyway.” This conversation is ridiculous. He starts to get up from the couch, but Atsumu catches his wrist and pulls him back down entirely too close this time, he’s practically sitting on top of Atsumu.
“If you were actually offering, I would say yes.”
“Seriously?”
“I pay you to shake your ass in my face, baby. Why is it surprising that I want to sleep with you?”
Kiyoomi rights himself, pulling back a little because this conversation and feeling the heat radiating from beneath Atsumu’s suit is a little too much. He does want to sleep with Atsumu, but what if this idea he has of him as a kind and caring alpha gets ruined the second their relationship leaves this club? He knows some omegas who have started a relationship with some of the regulars and have enjoyed it, and some who have had such an awful experience that they aren’t willing to ever try again.
“Unless that’s not allowed,” Atsumu adds after, setting his glass on the table.
“It’s allowed.” Kiyoomi clears his throat and stands. “I can do whatever I want when I’m off work.”
“And when is that?” Atsumu glances at his watch. “It’s midnight now, so-”
“Your neighbors woke you up at five, right?” Atsumu nods. “Buy me dinner at three and then we’ll wake them up at four.”
Despite being a stripper, Kiyoomi doesn’t sleep with people. Maybe a high school boyfriend, one alpha in university, and really no one else. He doesn’t trust easily, hates being touched, and alphas get weird about him being a stripper. He knows what he’s doing with his own hands and toys, but gets lost in the complexity of sex when it’s with an alpha thinking he’s done this hundreds of times before.
That is not the case with Atsumu. He doesn’t get lost because he doesn’t have time to think about anything except how fucking good he feels. He’s come once already from Atsumu’s mouth, an orgasm that quite literally took his breath away, and now he’s getting ready to come again as Atsumu fucks into him from behind.
“Don’t be quiet,” Atsumu reminds him with an accompanying thrust. “I want them to hear you, baby.”
And Kiyoomi doesn’t even have to put on a show because the noises just slip right out. He’s never reached this level of pleasure before even with the expensive toys he’s bought for his heat. This will ruin masturbation for him because no matter how hard he tries, he’s never going to feel like this. Kiyoomi moans loudly, sheets gripped tightly in his fist as Atsumu fucks him harder. The headboard slams into the wall loudly over and over until Atsumu’s neighbors finally wake up and start pounding back to get them to stop.
Which Atsumu does not.
Instead he laughs loudly and pulls out briefly to flip Kiyoomi over so easily that Kiyoomi moans at that, too. It’s like he weighs nothing to Atsumu, just a doll to be used for his own pleasure, and Kiyoomi hates that the thought of it turns him on even more. Atsumu nips at Kiyoomi’s neck as he slips back inside. He pushes one of Kiyoomi’s legs up, using his flexibility to fuck into him deeper. The new angle has Kiyoomi’s eyes rolling back, trying to find anything to hold onto.
“Fuck,” Kiyoomi whines as Atsumu starts rubbing his clit. It’s so wet there, his hand doesn’t have much traction, but it doesn’t seem to matter to Atsumu. “‘m close.”
Atsumu picks up his pace, fucking Kiyoomi and playing with his clit until Kiyoomi’s body tenses and snaps and he comes. Slick gushes out of him with each thrust Atsumu follows up with to draw out his orgasm, and he lets out a choked moan as he feels pleasure everywhere in his body. Atsumu follows after him, the pulsing and clenching from Kiyoomi’s walls pulling out his own.
They’re both out of breath as they come down, Atsumu slipping out and falling beside Kiyoomi. Sweat drips down his chest, tanned and muscular and everything Kiyoomi imagined it would look like. There’s progress of a tattoo, some lines and colors already filled in, though Kiyoomi’s seen alphas younger than Atsumu with more.
He should get up to clean himself off, but he doesn’t trust his legs to work. He rolls onto his side instead to look at Atsumu. “Are you getting more?” he asks, reaching over to trace the red and gray swirls on his chest.
Atsumu glances down and takes Kiyoomi’s hand in his, pulling it away to kiss his knuckles. “Yeah, just gotta find the time.”
“If you didn’t spend so much of it at the club, you could probably find it.”
“Then when would I see you?”
“If you ask nicely, you can see me outside of the club.”
Atsumu grins and is about to answer when his phone rings. “Shit, give me a second.” He gets up and Kiyoomi gets the pleasure of watching him walk away as he leaves the room to answer. He tries to get up, but his legs are still shaking, so instead he sits and looks around the room. He didn’t get a good look at it when they came in considering Atsumu’s hand was already in Kiyoomi’s pants. It’s mostly bare, like someone ready to get up and move at any second. There are no personal photos or trinkets, only a few books that look worn, and clothes thrown about unceremoniously.
Atsumu is definitely the least yakuza-like regular Kiyoomi’s ever known, almost like he joined later in life because of a debt. He knows it’s not something he can ask Atsumu considering their relationship is a stripper and client who, now, fuck. It does make him curious about Atsumu’s life.
Before Kiyoomi gets to snoop any further, Atsumu comes back in. “Sorry, Omi. I gotta run.”
“Now?” Kiyoomi asks, looking over at the clock. “It’s five in the morning.”
“Yeah, well . . .” He searches around for his pants. “You’re welcome to stay. There’s some left overs in the fridge, coffee in the cupboard. If you go back to sleep, there’s a train that goes by at six and it shakes the apartment like a motherfucker.”
“You’re letting me stay?”
“Do you want me to kick you out at five in the morning?”
“You don’t think I’ll steal from you?”
Atsumu finishes pulling on his clothes and looks at Kiyoomi with an amused glint in his eyes. “If you wanted the money, you would have just taken it when I offered earlier, right?”
Fair argument. One that Kiyoomi will not comment on. “When will I see you next?”
Atsumu grins and gets closer to Kiyoomi, leaning over the bed to kiss his forehead. “You working tonight?” Kiyoomi shakes his head. “Give me your phone.” Kiyoomi knows it’s a bad idea to give out his phone number to clients, but it’s also a bad idea to go out to eat and then let them fuck his brains out shortly afterwards. Kiyoomi hands it over without much thought and lets Atsumu put in his phone number. “It’s kind of a bad area, so don’t leave before seven, and text me when you get home.”
“You do this for all the strippers you take home?”
Atsumu passes back Kiyoomi’s phone. “Just the ones I like.”
Kiyoomi doesn’t know if it was a mistake to give Atsumu his phone number because most of his notifications now are from him sending flirty messages and stupid memes. It should annoy him, but it’s more annoying that he dives for his phone each time there’s a ping.
It started with a text here and there, then whole conversations, and eventually making plans during daylight. Now, when Atsumu comes into the club to see Kiyoomi, they just talk. Mostly about Kiyoomi’s life since Atsumu’s lips are sealed tight about his own life, but sometimes he’ll let a detail slip here or there that Kiyoomi swallows up greedily. After, Atsumu will pick him up from the club and drop him off at home, or let him come back where they fuck until the sun comes up.
Today they’re at a park, enjoying the nice weather before they welcome the rainy season. Kiyoomi sips on a black coffee while Atsumu messily licks an ice cream cone from the convenience store. It’s not quite warm enough to eat ice cream, yet Atsumu is somehow struggling to lick up the bits that are melting. It’s on his hands, some around his lips, and Kiyoomi’s mad at himself that he still finds it cute.
“Why didn’t you get the one in the little pouch?”
“It’s not as delicious,” Atsumu tells him, doing another swirl around the cone with his tongue. It somehow makes it worse. “These are my favorites.”
Kiyoomi tucks that away with the other useless facts of Atsumu. “Did you eat it a lot when you were a kid?”
“Yeah, me and my br. . . uh, dad used to get it after school.”
“You have a dad?” Another useless item he wants tucked away in his file.
“That surprising to you?”
Kiyoomi shrugs, taking another sip. At this point he’s desperate enough to ask if Atsumu also has a mom. “I guess not.” He unzips his bag and hands Atsumu a wet wipe. “Can you try to be a little neater? You’ve been eating these for twenty years.”
Atsumu takes it and swallows half of the cone in one go. Kiyoomi really should be disgusted, but it’s a little hot. It’s probably just his pre heat symptoms -
“Fuck,” Kiyoomi swears, realizing it’s coming up quickly. He should start suppressants now so he doesn’t risk having his heat.
“What? Did you burn your tongue?” Atsumu finishes off his cone in two bites and wipes his hands and mouth with the wet wipe.
“No.” He needs to see if the club can get him some suppressants, he’ll ask Rintarou tonight when he goes in. “My heat.”
“It’s starting?” Atsumu asks in worry. “Baby, we have to get you back-”
“No, but it will start soon. I have to get suppressants from the club to stop it.”
“Oh.” Atsumu tosses the wipe into a trashcan. “Those are bad for you.”
“It’s better than having a heat by myself.” Atsumu’s quiet and Kiyoomi glances at him. “I’m not asking you to help me with it.” Kiyoomi needs to make money, Atsumu has a busy job - it would be awful. “And I’m definitely not having it.”
“It’s just an option,” Atsumu says, tucking his hands into his pocket. “I’ve never been with an omega in heat before.”
Kiyoomi chews on his lip. It’s not that he doesn’t want Atsumu to fuck him through his heat, but it’s that he really shouldn’t. It’s best not to get attached to someone like Atsumu - he’s probably got three other omegas in his clan that he’s fucking while pretending like Kiyoomi’s someone special. “I’ll see if Rin can get me suppressants,” he says, not missing the way Atsumu fails to hide his disappointment. “But if he can’t, then I’ll call you.”
“Cool. Yeah, just let me know.” Even though he’s trying to act cool, he’s barely containing a smile. “Anyway, there’s this show I watched-”
Later that night while Kiyoomi’s getting ready for a set, Rintarou peeks his head into the backroom to let one of the omegas know that their regulars are here. He meets Kiyoomi’s eyes in the mirror after. “You needed me for something, right?”
“I need suppressants. My heat is coming up in a week.”
“I’ll ask Doc. How many heats have you skipped?”
“I think three.”
Rintarou tsks and gives him a look that Kiyoomi isn’t a fan of. “You’re not gonna get approved.”
“Why? I thought it was four heats before I had to have it.”
“Yeah it was, and then some of the omegas started having to go to the hospital because they were so severe. People started looking into Doc and now she’s capping it at three.”
“Can you just ask?” Kiyoomi huffs, spinning around in his chair to look at Rintarou. “I’ll have my next one, I just need to skip this one.”
“Only because you asked so nicely,” Rintarou says, rolling his eyes and leaving.
Later, Rintarou finds him after his set and shows him the text from their doctor telling Kiyoomi no suppressants will be prescribed. “There’s services,” Rintarou says, tucking his phone back into his pocket. “Alphas who will help and then leave right after. I know how you are about strangers.”
“It’s fine, I’ll just deal with it on my own.”
Rintarou, for once, looks a little concerned. “Kiyoomi, be serious. It’s your first heat after three suppressed ones, you should have someone with you. I don’t want to find you dead in your apartment because you were too stubborn to get help.”
Kiyoomi rubs his brow, irritation flaring as he hears Atsumu’s offer in his head. He doesn’t like relying on alphas, much less one who he’s met as a client in a strip club. But the sex with Atsumu is good and he’d rather be with someone he knows is worth it than pay for a service alpha.
Once Kiyoomi gets off of his shift, he texts Atsumu.
Kiyoomi: No suppressants. Can you still help?
It’s straight and to the point like most of Kiyoomi’s texts are. And just like most of Atsumu’s texts, the response comes back with mostly vulgar emojis and a thumbs up. Kiyoomi hates how badly he wants this man.
It’s actually the first heat Kiyoomi’s ever had with an alpha. They’ve either been skipped with suppressants or handled by himself and an array of toys. It’s usually fine and the sex toy market has expanded since Kiyoomi had his first heat. He’s never had an urge to take a heat partner until now.
And-
“Fuck.”
-Kiyoomi wishes he had Atsumu sooner.
Heats make everything more intense, good or bad. Kiyoomi feels everything Atsumu gives to him - the tight grip on his hips, his balls smacking Kiyoomi’s ass, the tip of his cock pushing against Kiyoomi’s cervix. He’s too deep in heat to count how many orgasms he’s had or if this is just one long drawn out one, all he knows is how fucking good he feels underneath Atsumu right now.
Kiyoomi peaks again, back arching off the bed as Atsumu stuffs him full. When he comes to his senses in a few, he’ll be disgusted by the feeling of slick, spent, and sweat down there. Now, it’s satisfying to hear the squelch of it as Atsumu takes one last stuttering thrust and comes inside Kiyoomi again.
Kiyoomi can’t feel a thing, his body so numb from pleasure. His omega has never been this satisfied before, purring as Atsumu falls beside Kiyoomi. One of his arms is draped over Kiyoomi, heavy and grounding. Kiyoomi wraps around it with the intent to pull it into his body and let Atsumu consume him.
“I gotta go soon,” Atsumu tells him breathlessly. He told Kiyoomi he’d have to step out every so often to keep up with his schedule. The first time, Atsumu left for less than an hour and Kiyoomi still thought he would die. “One more round should hopefully knock you out for a bit.”
“Don’t go,” Kiyoomi grumbles, tugging on Atsumu’s arm harder. “Stay.”
Atsumu laughs softly at that, pushing himself up a bit so he can lean over Kiyoomi. “I’ll be back right after. I promise.”
Kiyoomi hisses at him and tries to bite Atsumu’s hand that moves to brush his curls. “You won’t be fast.”
“I will.” He gently flicks Kiyoomi’s nose. “I got you to come back to, right?” Kiyoomi wants to hate him, but his omega is so satisfied and pleased with Atsumu that it’s impossible. Even more so when Atsumu disappears beneath the sheets to pull two more orgasms from Kiyoomi.
It’s late when Atsumu gets back. Whatever he said he had to do kept him longer than Kiyoomi thought it would, and he’s had to handle a wave of heat on his own. His cries were for Atsumu while he pretended that each toy he stuffed deep inside himself was from the alpha. It didn’t even matter if Kiyoomi was annoyed with Atsumu when his omega wanted him so badly, that just the thought of him was enough to sate it.
But now Atsumu’s back and he reeks of cigarette smoke and blood - nothing like his usual scent of amber. Kiyoomi scrunches his nose at it the moment Atsumu walks in the room. “You reek,” he grumbles. “Don’t even think about dirtying my nest.”
“Sorry,” Atsumu says, stripping his tie. “I wanted to take a shower first, but my alpha was antsy about leaving you here too long.” Atsumu stands at the foot of his bed, far enough away that his scent won’t taint the perfectly curated nest. “Did you miss me?”
“I missed your knot.”
Atsumu laughs at that. “Not my mouth?”
“Shower. Now.” This kind of talk already has Kiyoomi slicking up. “Wash twice.” When Atsumu walks away, Kiyoomi buries his nose into the pillow Atsumu’s been using to cleanse his palate. An alpha’s scent has never affected him this way - even in heat. He’s used a few here or there from friends, but he’s never been addicted to them the way he is with Atsumu. Even in the club, where scent patches are required, Kiyoomi used to do anything to catch another whiff of Atsumu’s. The pain in his belly starts again and he can feel his omega start to overcome his mind - the need to be bred, bonded, and claimed. Atsumu’s so close yet so far, taking the long shower that Kiyoomi forced him into. He pumps out more and more of his scent to entice Atsumu back, even going so far as moaning his name.
Atsumu is barely dry when he gets to Kiyoomi, leaving a trail of dripping hair and wet stains on the nest as he crawls beside Kiyoomi. It means nothing to Kiyoomi, who welcomes him in and starts scenting him and leaving burning kisses across his skin as he pulls him closer. He reaches for Atsumu’s arm, brushing his bicep when Atsumu hisses and jerks back briefly.
“Sorry,” Atsumu apologizes, diving back into Kiyoomi’s neck like nothing happened.
“What’s wrong?”
“It’s nothing, don’t worry about it.”
“Miya-”
“I’m fine. Lie back for me.”
Kiyoomi doesn’t and instead rolls over to flick on his bedside lamp. Now that there’s more light, he can see the scratches and bruises across Atsumu’s body and the graze on his arm. “You’re hurt.” Even his eye has a bruise blossoming beneath it.
“It’s just a scratch.” Atsumu goes to kiss Kiyoomi on the lips, but gets his cheek instead as he turns away at the last second to see Atsumu’s arm better. “Baby,” Atsumu whines. “Please stop worrying about it.”
“I’m in heat and my alpha is injured, of course I have to worry about it now.”
“Your alpha?” Atsumu asks with an annoying smirk, but Kiyoomi is too concerned about the bruises and cuts to notice. His omega isn’t even horny anymore, only crying that Kiyoomi let Atsumu out of their nest and now he’s hurt. “Baby, I’m fine.”
Kiyoomi and his omega are in a different space now, mumbling to himself as he leans over the wall of pillows and blankets for his first aid kit that he keeps under his bed. Until he confirms that Atsumu is safe and taken care of, he doesn’t want anything else. Atsumu keeps talking to him, telling him that it’s fine, but Kiyoomi barely hears him.
“This is overkill, the bullet barely nicked me,” Atsumu says unhelpfully and then backpedals when Kiyoomi’s eyes go wide. “Wrong thing to say.”
“Bullet?” Kiyoomi snaps. Is his nest so awful that Atsumu had to go get fucking shot at to avoid coming back? This is awful, Kiyoomi can’t believe he let his alpha go out there and almost die - he should have been safe here with him and if his nest was better, if he was a better omega -
“Kiyoomi,” Atsumu calls out, using his thumb and index finger to lift his chin and pull his eyes back to him. “I’m fine, I promise.”
“You’re hurt.”
“You’ll kiss it better, right?”
Kiyoomi nods, pulling away and going back to his first aid kit. He needs to do this to take care of Atsumu and show him how good of an omega he can be. With careful and gentle hands, Kiyoomi gets to work patching Atsumu up. He’s only taken care of little things - cuts, bruises, scratches. Nothing as serious as a bullet wound, but his first aid kit is stocked for minor surgery and then some because of his paranoia. He just never thought he’d need to use it like this. With each ointment and bandage that Kiyoomi puts on, he leaves a kiss. On the last one, Atsumu is the one to throw everything to the side and tackle Kiyoomi again, leaving his own arrangement of kisses and scenting him until Kiyoomi’s omega is purring.
Atsumu doesn’t leave in between waves again after that, only to take a few calls when he thinks Kiyoomi is asleep. He always sounds stressed, speaking carefully and strained like he has a secret that’s fighting its way out. Kiyoomi never understands the code he speaks in, something only his clan knows, but he doesn’t like hearing him worried.
At the end of Kiyoomi’s heat, Atsumu fucks him through it gentler this time like it’s more meaningful. Before it was to get Kiyoomi through a painful and unpleasant heat, now it’s to send him a message. Kiyoomi thinks he understands it when Atsumu kisses him so softly it nearly brings him to tears, or when he holds Kiyoomi’s body with calloused hands and admires every inch of it. Whatever this is between them has changed.
He wants to tell Atsumu that he wants something more with him, he’s just waiting until this heat has completely left him and he has a clear head. He never gets that chance, because when Kiyoomi wakes up in the morning, Atsumu is gone.
It’s been three weeks since Kiyoomi’s heat, and Kiyoomi hasn’t heard Atsumu or seen him since then. Once he left, it’s like he disappeared off the face of the earth. He wouldn’t answer a call or text and Kiyoomi didn’t see him at the club. Before, when he was only a regular at the club and nothing more, he would disappear sometimes, but never like this. By the end of the first week, Kiyoomi was confused. The second week he was worried. It’s the end of the third week and he is livid. That stupid fucking alpha, confusing Kiyoomi by acting sweet and caring when in reality he’s just like all the other alphas. He just wanted to fuck an omega in heat and leave.
It’s affecting his work, too. Some alphas get off to a dancer who looks uninterested in them, even paying extra for Kiyoomi to be rude to them. But his scent is so acrid and strong, it’s bleeding through all of the scent patches he has. Dancers move out of the way for him, clients avoid eye contact with him, and it feels like everything is just wrong.
He knows not to get involved with clients. It almost never works out, Kiyoomi had thought that maybe he and Atsumu were the exception. What a fucking joke. It’s like a client thinking they’re more to a dancer than just cash tips - Kiyoomi is the fool.
On one of his days off, he watches cringe videos about taking your life back from an alpha. He skips most of it just to get the gist of it, ignoring the self empowering words of affirmation in the morning. He refuses to acknowledge that Atsumu did that much irreparable damage to him. He just needs to find himself - god he cringes at that idea, too.
His first stop is shopping. During the beginning of the third week, Kiyoomi had a fit of rage and threw out everything that reminded him of Atsumu. Clothes, pillows, towels - anything with that bastard’s scent on it got thrown or burned in the back alley behind the club. After that, he books enough self-care appointments to make a dent in his bank account and scrub away the skin that still remembers Atsumu’s touch.
As the sun is starting to set, he feels like a new person. Atsumu is far from his mind and his scent is changing to something sweeter than before.
Unfortunately all the progress he’s made gets wiped when he spots someone that looks very similar to Atsumu in an underpass as Kiyoomi’s heading to dinner. Kiyoomi only catches a glimpse, but he’d recognize those features anywhere, but he knows Atsumu never comes out this way. It’s one of the more useful pieces of knowledge Kiyoomi stored away, learned after too many glasses of whiskey and kissing Kiyoomi - maybe something to do with clan boundaries. It’s why Kiyoomi picked this area.
Regardless of who the stranger is, it catches Kiyoomi’s attention. He’s talking with two other men, his body stiff from stress as he gesticulates angrily. The cigarette in his hand is barely left, just a small stub to drop to the ground beside the other discarded butts. One of the other men says something that really seems to piss “Atsumu” off and he nearly lunges for him. Kiyoomi’s seen enough angry alphas to know where this leads and he doesn’t want to stay and become a material witness in a murder. But as he starts to leave, “Atsumu” looks up and catches his eye, knocking the wind from Kiyoomi’s lungs at the piercing stare. “Atsumu” quickly looks away after, turning to the side to avoid Kiyoomi’s eyesight.
Kiyoomi knows it’s not him. Atsumu wouldn’t be on this side of town and the hood was up, casting a shadow over his face that made Kiyoomi’s imagination fill in the rest. He keeps his head down after that, refusing to look anywhere else as he heads to dinner.
It’s a new restaurant that a lot of the omegas at the club have been recommending to him. Kiyoomi usually avoids restaurants since he doesn’t know the cleanliness of the food preparation, but Keiji had assured him that the place was clean. Even the reviews online commended the sanitation and the taste of the dishes.
It’s a small hole in the wall restaurant with only a few tables, but Kiyoomi plans on picking up his order and eating at home. The elderly couple greets him as he enters, ushering him to the bartop to speak. “I’m here for my pick-up for Sakusa-san.”
“Ah, yes. Osamu!” the elderly woman calls out. “Pick up is here!”
An alpha walks out from behind the drape shortly after with Kiyoomi’s bag in his hand, and -
“Oh for fuck’s sake.”
When he gets home, he shuts himself in his apartment, closes his curtains and doesn’t watch anything on the TV just in case some fucking actor is another Atsumu look-alike.
There’s something off about the club that Kiyoomi senses before he even sets foot inside. It’s unsettling, like the calm before a store. Kiyoomi tries to shake it off as he walks through to get to the backroom, but he’s stopped by Rintarou whose eyes aren’t their usual relaxed and knowing ones. Instead they’re wide and worried, darting around as he walks Kiyoomi to the backroom. “Someone reserved the club tonight.”
“The whole club?” Kiyoomi asks. It’s usual for some wealthy clients to reserve the private rooms, but to rent out the entire club is unheard of. “Who?”
“Meian Shugo.” Kiyoomi doesn’t give the reaction Rintarou wants, so he repeats, “Meian Shugo. Meian “The Butcher” Shugo. Fuck, Kiyoomi. How do you work in this shit and not know the kumicho of the fucking Jackals?” Rintarou’s hand shakes with the need for a cigarette. Kiyoomi knows he’s probably sporting at least four nicotine patches under his oversized tee. “Christ, I thought you’d at least know from Miya.”
The name stills Kiyoomi. “What?”
Rintarou might actually strangle him. “Miya’s one of his boys. You two fucked and he never told you?”
“No,” Kiyoomi defends, a little lost for words. “No, we just fucked. That’s it.” The simplification of their relationship hurts, but he knows that’s all it was. “He didn’t tell me about what he did. I mean, I knew he was yakuza, but-”
“Okay, whatever. I don’t have time to explain their entire tree. We’re all hands on deck tonight, no fuck ups, don’t piss anyone off, give them whatever they want. I mean it, I don’t want to clean your blood from the fucking floors.”
As Rintarou ushers him into the back, he knows his main concern should be having this many yakuza in the same building, yet his heart is hammering because he knows Atsumu will be here tonight. As much as he’s convinced himself he’s over Atsumu, he knows that just isn’t true - not when his name can shake him like this. He thinks seeing Atsumu will have more of an effect on him than seeing this many yakuza members in one building.
It’s tense as everyone gets ready for the night. Alcohol is stocked with more on the way from their supplier, Rintarou is stuck in a corner stuck on the phone with a pained look in his eye. It’s clear he wants the yakuza here less than anyone else, but his hands are tied. The alpha who owns the bar would rather sacrifice their dancers than displease Meian Shugo. Some of the omegas are crying as they do their make-up from the stress of it all. The club tonight has gone to absolute hell.
There is no warning when the Jackals arrive, just a loud chorus of laughter and the stench of over a dozen alphas. Everyone grows tense again, the shots that were offered wearing off quickly. Rintarou appears in the backroom again, vibrating phone in hand and hair disheveled. “Remember,” he calls out, hair disheveled and phone vibrating in his hand with another call, “let’s just get through this night. I want to see you all tomorrow, alive and safe. If it gets bad, come find me, but please . . . stay safe.”
Well.
Kiyoomi’s rose colored glasses of Atsumu come off after that. At least tonight will be easy to forget about him if he’s just as disgusting as these other alphas.
The night hasn’t been great so far. Kiyoomi’s been touched by more alphas tonight than he has in his entire career here. Every time he turns around to glare at the alpha, he catches Rintarou’s wide eyes from the middle of the room, shaking his head. Kiyoomi’s jaw hurts from gritting his teeth, and he’s had to change his scent patches twice already from how irritated he is. It’s worse in the private rooms where vulgar language flits from followed by vile laughter and clinking glasses. His eyes are tearing up from the smoke, and he knows there will be a bruise on his arm tomorrow from one of the alphas grabbing him too hard.
Yet the worst of it all is seeing Atsumu. He looks rough, though Kiyoomi refuses to let that do anything to his heart. Even with the dim lighting, he can see just how purple the bags under his eyes are like he hasn’t slept in weeks. He’s sporting a new bandage on his hand where he was missing part of his pinky finger. Still, Kiyoomi refuses to feel sorry for him - he chose this life, these are his consequences.
He’s been secluded in one of the corners, sipping the same whiskey he’s had all night and watching it all. He pretends like he isn’t looking at Kiyoomi, but he can feel Atsumu’s eyes glued to him all night. Though Atsumu hasn’t taken an omega. It’s almost like one of their usual nights months ago before they got involved - sitting and waiting for Kiyoomi to find him, ignoring every other omega who comes his way. Kiyoomi doesn’t know if that pisses him off more than if he were to take an omega to a private room.
A calloused hand touches Kiyoomi’s waist and pulls him tightly against his side. The alpha reeks of liquor and cigarette smoke mixed with his strong musk. “How about this one?” he calls out, grinning at Kiyoomi with sharp canines. “Who wants to see him dance?”
Whatever remaining alphas were around the main room cheer for the alpha, standing and making crude jokes at Kiyoomi’s expense. It’s only from them that Kiyoomi realizes the alpha is Meian and Kiyoomi’s blood runs cold. As he’s being led towards the private rooms, he shoots a look back to Atsumu who’s already standing and walking back with them.
A few other omegas get pulled in with him unwillingly, giving nervous looks to each other as Meian leads them to the VIP room. His grip on Kiyoomi’s waist is tight, restricting his movement if he wanted to slip away. The VIP room has some other alphas with dancers in there, though at the sight of Meian, they all stand and make room for him. Any that don’t fit inside the room leave shortly after the others alphas have taken their seat.
“Miya,” Meian says with a grin, “didn’t think you’d want to be here tonight. You look like I made you cut off your ring finger. Oh wait.” The alphas laugh as Atsumu takes a seat on one of the leather chairs.
“He used to go to strip clubs all the time,” another alpha shouts. “Had a dancer he was in love with.”
“Fucking perv,” Atsumu spits back, avoiding looking at Kiyoomi. “Followed me home and watched me jack off, too? You’d probably like that, Shion.”
“Fuck you,” Shion snaps, pulling an omega onto his lap. “Fucking freak is what you are. Who the fuck goes to a strip club and sits in the fucking corner all night?” Shion holds out his glass for someone to fill up. “Can’t get it up?”
“I know you’ve watched me do it, jackass.” Still, Atsumu doesn’t touch another omega. Even as some of them start dancing, Kiyoomi sees the way he avoids looking directly at them, instead staring off at the wall behind him.
“You gonna dance or what?” Meian asks, smacking Kiyoomi’s ass. “Fucking love it when they look mean.”
It’s a rotation of serving the alphas and dancing for them. Kiyoomi does his best to avoid being seated on their lap, but it’s hard when the room is so crowded and one wrong move has him landing on someone’s hardon. He doesn’t think there will be enough disinfectant in the world to rid him of these awful scents and touches. He puts on a brave face, gritting his teeth and biting his already swollen tongue each time someone’s dick is rubbed into his backside. He’s taking the rowdiest night at the club for granted, wishing he could go back to some kind of normalcy.
Meian’s eyes turn people to stone - both omega and alpha. Whichever unlucky soul he’s focused on freezes under his watchful gaze, and he’s very interested in Kiyoomi. If he were refusing to look at Atsumu before, it’s even more so now. He knows Meian will pick up anything Kiyoomi gives off, and he refuses to give him that satisfaction.
As the alcohol settles in their blood and more alphas join the packed room to suck up to Meian, Kiyoomi uses the excuse of restocking the alcohol to slip away. He brings the bucket of melting ice with him with steady hands until he gets outside of the room and feels like he can take his first real breath. The water sloshes in the bucket as his hands shake, the tension finally releasing from his body and feeling nothing but weak. He stumbles back towards the bar, not sure he can even make it that far without having to take a gasp of air.
A hand touches his back and he snaps, “get the fuck off of me!” He regrets it the second it leaves his mouth, ready for the lashing he’ll receive if he’s pissed off the wrong yakuza member. But it’s Atsumu, holding up his hands in defense.
“Sorry,” he says, taking the bucket of ice from Kiyoomi. “Are you okay?”
Kiyoomi scoffs. “What a stupid fucking question.” Atsumu opens his mouth to apologize and Kiyoomi glares at him. He takes a step to get away from Atsumu, but his leg gives out and he stumbles forward. Atsumu catches him just before he hits the floor, righting him and taking the bucket to set it on the ground. Kiyoomi wants to snap at him again, shove him off and tell him he can go fuck with someone else’s feelings, but it’s the first time all night that he’s felt safe. It’s why he puts up no resistance as Atsumu leads him towards the back office where there’s an alley entrance.
He offers Kiyoomi his jacket, draping it over his shoulders, and wisely doesn’t say anything while he lets Kiyoomi breathe in the night air to clear his head. Though it smells like garbage and piss, it’s worlds better than Meian’s suffocating stench. There’s a hint of Atsumu’s scent that he must slowly be releasing, and Kiyoomi hates how quickly his omega whines for it.
Now that a few minutes have passed and Kiyoomi has visibly relaxed, Atsumu decides it’s time to piss him off again. “I’m sorry.”
Kiyoomi scoffs. “It’s always the same with you alphas.” He wishes he smoked so he’d have something to soothe him through this conversation. “You find an omega to fuck and play with their emotions and then you fucking disappear.”
“I didn’t want to.” Atsumu scratches his scruff in frustration. “Fuck, I wish I could just tell you everything, but . . .”
“Like you told me everything about yourself?” Kiyoomi rolls his eyes, tugging Atsumu’s jacket tighter around him to stop the chill. “I learned more about you in that fucking room from them than I did when we were fucking for months.”
Atsumu groans in frustration. “It’s not like I fucking want that, Kiyoomi!” He drags his hand down his face, the bandaged one that Kiyoomi used to love to kiss. “You don’t know how fucking hard it is to do what I do!”
“Fuck omegas? Kill people? Smuggle drugs?” Kiyoomi needs to give back this jacket. The overwhelming scent of Atsumu is making his omega beg Kiyoomi to forgive him. “Or make some pathetic stripper fall in love with you?”
Atsumu freezes, looking at Kiyoomi with wide eyes. “You do?”
“I did,” Kiyoomi clarifies, hating the way Atsumu looks at him like that. He’s such a fool, falling for a client - yakuza nonetheless. They’re nothing but vile criminals. “Until you fucked me like you loved me and left the next fucking morning!”
As Kiyoomi finishes spitting his words, the back alley door swings open and Shion walks out. Both Kiyoomi and Atsumu quickly look away from each other, separating and looking like two cats caught with the cream.
“Boss wants us back,” Shion tells Atsumu. “Wants to give a victory speech.”
“Yeah,” Atsumu acknowledges. “I’ll come in a second.”
Shion looks between the two. Kiyoomi keeps his eyes down, but he knows the connection is forming quickly in Shion’s eyes. He made the most jabs at Atsumu in the room, seemingly knowing everything about him that Kiyoomi refused to be stored in his own file for Atsumu. “This him?”
“Is this who? A dancer? Yeah, good fucking observation , Wan-san.” Atsumu’s got a defensive tone, one Kiyoomi’s never heard before tonight. “I said I’ll be in in a fucking second.”
Shion still doesn’t leave, stepping farther out and walking in front of Kiyoomi. He’s shorter, though that doesn’t take away from his authority. Whoever he is in the chain of command, it’s much higher than Atsumu. “No, I mean the hooker you were fucking.” He dips his head to catch Kiyoomi’s line of sight, forcing him to lift his head.
“No, it’s not. He was from a different club.”
Shion looks over at Atsumu - the tension in his jaw and shoulders, how defensive he is, their situation. “You’re a shit liar.” He snatches Kiyoomi’s wrist away from the jacket and pulls it towards him so quickly, Kiyoomi can hardly react. He watches Kiyoomi as he peels back the scent patch and brings it to his nose, taking a deep inhale. “Oh fuck, it’s him.”
“It’s not,” Atsumu snaps as Kiyoomi yanks his arm away, smoothing back over the scent patch.
“His heat scent was all over you that week you fucked up, remember? It was so fucking good, I stole your shirt and jacked off to it for a week straight.” Shion grins at Atsumu. “Oh, Meian’s gonna love this.” He turns to Kiyoomi again. “On your kn-”
Before Shion can finish his command, Atsumu has Shion pinned against the wall, his forearm pushed into his throat and lifting him from the ground. “I’ll fucking kill you.”
Shion still has enough air to laugh, a vein popping from his forehead at the exertion. “Meian will take more than a finger.”
“Not unless I tell him I found the fucking rat whose been skimming his blow.”
For once, the smug grin gets wiped from Shion’s face and he turns pale. “How did you-”
“You’re not the only one who notices the shit that goes on.” Atsumu slowly releases Shion, lowering him back to the ground. “Keep your mouth shut about him.”
He holds Atsumu’s glare for a while, a stand-off between the two alphas, until he backs down first, glancing towards Kiyoomi one last time. “Fine. You should be more careful, you know what happens to omegas Meian takes an interest in.”
“He’s going home.”
Shion spits by Atsumu’s feet. “Whatever. Fuck you and your bitch.” He leaves shortly after and Kiyoomi lets out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding.
“Are you-”
“Don’t fucking ask me if I’m okay.”
Atsumu nods, pressing his palms into his eyes. “Fuck,” he curses, leaning against the wall. “I’d say I’m sorry, but I think that’d piss you off, too.” He takes a deep breath. “Look,” Atsumu starts, turning back towards Kiyoomi, “do you have some place out of town you can go to? A friend’s house? Family?”
“Why?”
“Get a hotel, I’ll get you the cash if you need it.”
“Atsumu,” Kiyoomi snaps. “You’re scaring me.”
“What about Hawai’i? I hear it’s beautiful all year round.”
“What’s going on?”
Atsumu chews on his lip, walking in front of Kiyoomi and fixing a curl into place. “The city is gonna be rough for a little while. I need you to be out of it so I know you’re safe.”
“What’s going to happen to you?”
Atsumu laughs cynically at that. “Who fucking knows, shit.” He looks between Kiyoomi’s eyes. “Can I kiss you?”
Kiyoomi scoffs. “You’ve never asked before.”
“Yeah, well I didn’t fuck up before.” He tucks a curl behind Kiyoomi’s ear.
“It’s a goodbye kiss.” It’s not a question, Kiyoomi has an awful feeling.
“No, just a goodluck one.”
“Okay.” Kiyoomi lets his eyes slip shut as Atsumu leans in and kisses him softly. “I’m still mad at you,” he says after.
“I’d be surprised if you weren’t.” And because Atsumu is greedy, he steals another kiss. “When it’s all over, I’ll explain everything. Well, mostly everything. Unblock my number, okay?"
“Why should I? How do I know you won’t just disappear again?”
Atsumu steps back and grins at him. “Because I love you, too.”
There’s no news from Osaka for days even though Kiyoomi listened to Atsumu and took a train up north to stay with his grandparents. They live rurally without all the city accommodations Kiyoomi is used to, but they do have a radio and a television that only works if the antenna is turned the right way. Each night, he listens to the radio as he bathes. His phone service doesn’t work well and even though he unblocked Atsumu, he doesn’t get a text from him.
One night, as he’s listening to the radio, his stomach gurgles. He’s been eating more than he ever did in Osaka because his grandmother swears he’s too thin, and because of it, he’s started to put on weight. He’s bloated most of the days, body not used to eating as much as he has. Today he’s been nauseous, barely able to stomach anything or even look at his grandfather’s pickled vegetables. He ate something small at dinner, but now it’s threatening to come back up.
He tries closing his eyes and sinking lower into the tub to wash away the nausea, but it’s not working. The last thing he wants to do is throw up in the bath, so he quickly scurries out and expels anything that he did eat today into the toilet. Tomorrow he’ll eat lighter, do some meditation so the stress doesn’t make him sicker.
But come morning, he’s still nauseous. His grandfather shows him the umeboshi he picked up from town, and Kiyoomi rushes to the bathroom immediately after.
“Kiyoomi-chan,” his grandmother says, knocking on the door and peeking her head in. “Are you feeling all right?”
Kiyoomi flushes, though nothing came out. He leans back against the wall, rubbing his forehead. “I don’t know, maybe it’s a stomach bug.”
His grandmother looks down the hallway both ways before slipping inside. “In Osaka,” she starts, closing the lid of the toilet and sitting on it beside Kiyoomi, “do you have anyone?”
“Like friends?”
“Yes, and maybe more. Is there anyone you’re seeing?”
Atsumu comes to mind, but Kiyoomi isn’t sure why she’s asking this. His family doesn’t know what he does in Osaka and he prefers to keep it that way to avoid awkward family gatherings. “Not really.”
“So there is someone?”
“Why are you asking?”
She sighs and pats his knee. “Your scent . . . It was like your mother’s when she was pregnant with Keishi-chan. I know sometimes omegas get worried and run away-”
“I’m not pregnant,” Kiyoomi defends, now realizing exactly what this looks like. An unexpected trip north to visit his grandparents who he hasn’t seen in ages, staying with them and anxiously waiting for his phone to ring. “I just have a stomach bug, that’s it. Or my body isn’t used to the food up here, or-”
“Why don’t you take a test, hm?” The wrinkles around her eyes have grown, but they still crinkle when she smiles like they used to when he was a kid. “And if it’s negative, it will be our little secret. Ojichan doesn’t have to know.”
Kiyoomi’s too much of a hypochondriac to let his grandmother’s intuition go unheard. Even if he says ‘no’ now, he knows that it’s all he’ll think about until his next heat. “Okay,” he says quietly.
Kiyoomi and his grandmother go into town later that day, telling his grandfather that they’re going to pick up some things for dinner. They stop at the same convenience store just on the outskirts of town to get the ice cream Kiyoomi used to pick out as a child. Their basket is almost the same as it was twelve years ago except for the pregnancy test box sitting at the bottom in shame. It’s only worse when his grandmother knows the cashier and they begin chatting about life while she rings them up. There’s a brief moment of hesitation when she picks up the pregnancy test and she glances between the two of them before quickly scanning and shoving it into the bag.
The way back home is silent. Kiyoomi nibbles at his ice cream, the weather outside finally starting to get warm enough for it. His grandfather is reading the paper when they get back, talking to his mate about what the police did down south. His grandma quickly grabs the test and pushes Kiyoomi along with it while she distracts him, showing him the ingredients they picked up.
Kiyoomi’s never taken a pregnancy test before because he’s never had to. He should have been more careful and paid better attention to when he needed to take the contraceptive during his heat, but Atsumu spoiled him. He follows the directions, trying not to be grossed out by his own piss, and leaves the test on top of the box as it develops. They got the fanciest one the convenience store had, but it still takes a while.
He’s too afraid to check on it, his back turned to it as he counts down in his head. As the numbers decrease, Kiyoomi’s nerves increase. They’re to blame for throwing his phone when it starts ringing in his hand. He manages to catch it before he falls into the toilet, and answers it quickly when he sees Atsumu’s name.
“Hello?”
“Omi,” Atsumu says with a relieved sigh. “Fuck it’s good to hear your voice.”
“Atsumu,” Kiyoomi breathes out, holding a hand against his heart. He never thought he’d miss that stupid nickname so much. “Are you okay?”
“Better now that I’m talking to you. Have you been listening to the news?”
“No, I’m-” Kiyoomi starts, turning around to find the small red radio he’s been keeping in the bathroom. Just as he looks for it, his eyes catch on the fully developed test with two pink lines on the white strip. “-pregnant.”
“Huh?”
“Oh shit.”
“Kiyoomi,” Atsumu’s voice muffles through the phone, but Kiyoomi’s about five seconds away from panicking. He looks at the test again, and it’s about two seconds now. “Hey, Omi, listen to me. Breathe, okay?”
Atsumu kind of helps, though his voice still sounds miles away. “What the fuck, Miya.”
“Where are you at?”
“Miya.”
“Baby, tell me where you’re at? I’ll come to you.”
Kiyoomi slips down the wall, positive test in one hand, phone dangling loosely from the other. “My grandparents’.”
“Can you send me their address?” Kiyoomi doesn’t answer, too busy looking at the test. “Baby, please send me the address, I’ll be there today, I don’t care where it is.”
“Okay,” Kiyoomi whispers, voice barely steady. “Come.” He hangs up shortly after while Atsumu’s in the middle of saying something and thinks he manages to text him the address. His brain is too empty aside from the second pink line on the test and matching it to the box results on the back.
His grandmother comes in shortly after, though her reaction is much more pleasant than Kiyoomi’s. She helps him up and gets him to his room, a long ramble of caring words and positive thoughts that don’t penetrate Kiyoomi’s own. He stares at the ceiling, letting time pass with a blank mind until the sun sets.
Kiyoomi doesn’t know how much time has passed until there’s a knock on his door. He assumes it’s his grandmother coming to check on him or bring him dinner. He calls out for her to come in, curling up on his side. His hand has been finding its way to his stomach unconsciously, feeling the slightly rounded belly that he thought was just weight gain from being overfed by his grandparents.
Someone sits beside him on the floor and scents him. It’s like he comes back to life when he smells Atsumu’s scent, his thoughts starting to gather again, and he turns over to face him.
“You look like shit,” Kiyoomi says without meaning to, though it’s true. For starters, his arm is in a sling. At least the bags under his eyes have slightly lessened. “Why are you here?”
“You asked me to come?”
“I did?”
“Kind of.” Atsumu brushes his curls away from his face. “I would have come anyway.”
Everything is starting to catch up in Kiyoomi’s mind - the test, the phone call, the news. “What happened?”
“Well, you started having a panic attack-”
“No, I mean in Osaka. The news coverage was spotty.”
“Oh,” Atsumu says and leans back on his good arm. “I can’t go into too much detail because of the trial.” Kiyoomi frowns at that. “Oh right, you don’t know. I was undercover in the Jackals for the last two years, building a case against Meian to take him down. Shion’s a fucking tool, so I knew he’d already be sniffing you out to hurt me, and once the raids started, I didn’t want him getting away and finding you. He’s dead now - ah shit, I shouldn’t have said that-”
“You’re a fucking cop?”
Atsumu pauses, confused. “Isn’t that better than being a yakuza member?”
“I guess.” Atsumu laughs at that but the movement jostles his shoulder, causing him to wince. “You’re hurt again.”
He lights up, like he’s been waiting for Kiyoomi to notice. “It was pretty cool aside from almost dying. Like those cop movies where they chase the villain up to the rooftop and have a final stand-off before they both pull the trigger.” He does something with his face that Kiyoomi thinks is him trying to show off, but it’s a bit too dark and it’s like the first time he’s ever pulled a face like that. “They called me Quickshot in the academy.”
“Who did? Actual people?”
“Yes!” Atsumu rolls his eyes. “God, you’re mean. I almost die, fix up the city that you’re living in, and this is the thanks I get?”
Kiyoomi shrugs. He shuffles around under the covers and gets hit with another wave of nausea. “You knocked me up.”
Atsumu’s eyes soften, his good hand reaching out to offer his scent gland. “Sorry about that. I thought you were taking the pill.”
“I was, but you fucked me so dumb, I must have forgotten one.” He glares at Atsumu when he starts grinning. “Don’t get attached.”
“Oh,” Atsumu says meekly. “You’re not going to keep it?”
Kiyoomi scoffs. “I’m a stripper. How many successful strippers do you know who are knocked up?”
“Do you still want to be a stripper?”
He started doing it to pay his bills in university and continued doing it when it paid him better than the job he got his degree for. It doesn’t mean he likes it, just that he no longer needs to rely on his family for handouts. “Not really, but it pays well.”
“Let me take care of that.”
“I still don’t know anything about you,” Kiyoomi grumbles. “Everything I knew was probably a lie, right?”
“No, not with you. I mean, yeah some stuff, but-”
“Like what?”
Atsumu chuckles. “I don’t actually have a dad.”
Kiyoomi smirks. “I knew it.” He takes another inhale of Atsumu’s scent, the nausea and discomfort oozing out of his body as he relaxes. “Tell me everything about you, then. The good and the bad, I don’t care.”
Atsumu hums, gently stroking Kiyoomi’s cheek. “I have an identical twin in the city. He works at a restaurant on the east side of town.” So Kiyoomi wasn’t hallucinating. “You know, I really thought you caught me that day under the overpass. I was talking with my bosses and you were looking right at me. You’re kinda frustratingly observant, picking up shit I’d say accidentally and remembering weeks afterwards. It was hard being careful around you, especially since I wanted you to know everything.”
Kiyoomi watches Atsumu closely, studying his face. There’s still bags under his eyes and he looks like he could sleep for a week straight. Carefully, not to bother either of their ailments, he moves over on his futon for Atsumu. “Are you tired?”
“Fucking exhausted.”
“Sleep. You can tell me everything in the morning. If you’re going to be the father of this pup, there can’t be any more secrets between us.”