Chapter Text
I watched TV. I had a Coke at the bar. I had four dreams in a row
where you were burned, about to burn, or still on fire.
—Richard Siken
The funeral takes place on a Sunday. Kiyoomi’s got a ballpoint pen wedged into the pocket of his slacks and it bursts when he squeezes it too hard, halfway through Osamu’s meandering eulogy. His slacks were black in the first place but now they’re tacky with ink, and his hands and the lining of his pockets are stained purple. He excuses himself to spend a half-hour in the bathroom with a packet of Clorox wipes and a ruined sheet of notebook paper.
It wasn’t a particularly important sheet of notebook paper, he tells himself, crouched over the sink. The automatic faucet whistles. There hadn’t even been any writing on the paper, just precise indents from where he’d folded and refolded it at every possible red light. A crinkled edge from where he’d accidentally nicked his finger on it in the parking lot. Nothing special.
The automatic faucet quirks its dehydrated lips up at him. No, Kiyoomi thinks. The paper was never special. He was never going to use it, anyway. He runs another Clorox wipe over the blue-black stain on his pocket.
“Kiyoomi. I think it’s a lost cause.”
Kiyoomi looks up. He doesn’t get startled, really, not anymore, but the back of his neck still prickles when the heavy bathroom door slams shut behind Ushijima Wakatoshi. Maybe this is how life is going to go, now—a phantom touch at the base of his neck, and the subsequent urge to drench the world in hand sanitizer and light it on fire.
“I’m going to run this through the wash when I get home,” he hears himself say, still unable to pull his hand away from his pocket. “I have a good stain remover.”
“You’re making it worse.”
Wakatoshi takes two steps forward, cautiously, sort of like he’s approaching a traumatized animal with bared fangs. It’s the kind of shit they put on TV during ad breaks to pull on your heartstrings, except he’s trapped him between the sinks and the door instead of in a cage at the animal rescue center. Kiyoomi pinches the wipe between his thumb and index finger.
“Kiyoomi,” Wakatoshi says. There is an impressive frown line between his eyebrows. “Is everything okay.”
No, Kiyoomi wants to say. No, everything is not fucking okay. My pen burst and my paper is ruined and we’re skipping a fucking funeral service to stand in the bathroom and cry over ink stains. What do you think, Wakatoshi. Do you think everything is okay? But being upset with Ushijima Wakatoshi is an ultimately pointless affair, and it’s not like Wakatoshi had meant anything bad by it, anyway. He’d just gotten tasked with history’s most unfortunate agenda to date: attempt to comfort Sakusa Kiyoomi in the restroom of a funeral home. He’s probably making a conscious effort to not glare right now. Resting bitch face will do that to a person. Kiyoomi would know.
“I really liked that pen,” he says finally. Its shell sits in the basin of the sink, innocently leaking purple onto the porcelain. Kiyoomi reaches up to turn the tap on.
“This isn’t about your pants?”
Kiyoomi grips the edge of the sink. It’s not about the pants, or the pen, or even the way Osamu’s mouth looks like Atsumu’s until it opens. “I can buy a new pair of goddamn slacks, Wakatoshi.”
“Do you need me to drive you home?”
“No.”
This is why it’s pointless to get mad at him. Wakatoshi had always been good at getting to the point. He does not stop to get mad when people are rude to him.
“I have a packet of hand wipes in my car,” Wakatoshi says, because now he has apparently given up. Given up on Kiyoomi and his violet hands and his too-sharp teeth. Wakatoshi, regrettably, only exhibits empathy when he is at the end of his metaphorical line; Kiyoomi has been here a handful of times and has hated every second of it. “They won’t do you any good. But if you want them, you can have them.”
“I—”
He takes the wipes.
It’s all over the news: V.League Star Miya Atsumu Dead At Twenty-Three. They always show a badly-cropped picture of his memorial photo along with the headline. One of the newscasters breaks down on live TV, so Kiyoomi switches channels. He prefers cooking shows.
Meian keeps texting him pointless I’m sorrys and It’ll be okays. What the fuck does he know? What the fuck does he know. He’s got a wife and two kids and an attitude respectable enough to be praised by seven separate television anchors. Meian Shuugo knows nothing about arson of the heart. He knows nothing about what it’s like to hurt so badly that the shape of your pain blossoms from your fingertips. He knows nothing about fear, about a want so intrinsic he wouldn’t even have a name for it, about the way the sky turned bruised-knee purple when Atsumu first opened his mouth and threw the both of them into a collision course. Meian Shuugo knows fuck-all about anything.
So Kiyoomi doesn’t reply to Meian’s texts, or Inunaki’s texts, or Tomas’s texts, or Akaashi fucking Keiji’s texts. He turns his notifications off. He doesn’t reach for a charger when his phone dies. There’s no point—he’s got three news apps and all of them are mourning the death of Miya Atsumu. Kiyoomi would rather quit volleyball than read another news article mourning the death of Miya Atsumu. He leans back against his couch cushions, letting his phone rest loosely between his thumb and forefinger.
“Hey, Omi-Omi,” Miya Atsumu, who is dead, says from the kitchen.
Kiyoomi drops his phone.
Miya Atsumu, who is dead, is sitting on top of the kitchen counter. He’s wearing a blue bomber jacket and black jeans, the clothes he’d died in, and he sort of looks like he wants to set the world on fire.
“I couldn’t write you a eulogy.” Kiyoomi’s hands are shaking. Miya Atsumu has been dead for six days. Why is he here? How is he here? Is Kiyoomi hallucinating? Has he finally gone entirely insane?
“When was the last time ya slept, Omi-kun?” Atsumu asks. He taps at the edge of the counter, fingernails bitten raw.
“Can I touch you?” Kiyoomi asks instead, because he’s desperate and there’s a gaping Atsumu-shaped hole in his chest cavity. His shoulders are shaking. He’s crying, probably, but that seems fair.
“Where the fuck’re your manners,” Atsumu says. “Wine n’ dine me first, Omi-Omi.” He claps a hand to his chest. “I can’t believe how quickly you’ve changed. It’s been, like, a week.”
“That’s so fucking gross,” Kiyoomi says shakily, and his throat tightens around a surprised laugh. It comes out as a desperate, choked sound, the kind Atsumu would always give him shit for trying to force down. He wipes his face with the collar of his shirt. “I can’t believe I missed you.”
“Oi, what the fuck is wrong with—are you crying,” Atsumu says, and Kiyoomi steps forward and blinks until he can see the planes of Atsumu’s face, the individual hairs brushing his forehead.
“Can I touch you,” Kiyoomi repeats hoarsely.
“I mean, you can try?”
Kiyoomi tries to hug him. His arms go straight through Atsumu’s torso.
“I couldn’t write you a eulogy.” Kiyoomi’s hands lie flat against the countertop; Atsumu’s rest gently on top of his. He can’t feel anything. No pressure. No warmth. “I went to your funeral with an empty sheet of notebook paper, and the ink cartridge in my pen exploded about halfway through. I left early.”
“That’s okay,” Atsumu says. Softly. When he talks like that, the hole in Kiyoomi’s chest rips open another millimeter. He is going to bleed out someday, and no one will be alive to pick up the pieces. Sakusa Kiyoomi, star-crossed lover. Tragic hero. So fucking tragic.
“Everyone keeps texting me. About you. Coach Foster emailed me contacts for two different therapists.”
“You gonna go?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
Empirical evidence shows that Miya Atsumu is not currently alive. And yet:
“Hey, d’ya think I can change outta this shit? This shirt’s got a stain on the hem and I notice it every time I look down.”
“What’s it from?”
Atsumu frowns. “Barbecue sauce.”
“I couldn’t write you a eulogy. Because I’m in love with you, and I didn’t know how the fuck I was supposed to say it any other way. I’m pretty sure nobody wanted me to get up there and shout I love you at an urn.”
“That would’ve been embarrassing as shit,” Atsumu says. “Maybe it’s a good thing you dipped.”
Atsumu is still six feet under when Kiyoomi wakes up the next morning. His phone sits atop a stack of books on his nightstand. It’s plugged in. Why is it plugged in?
He has five missed calls from Meian and a singular text from Hinata Shouyou: i need to talk to u. Kiyoomi ignores them both.
Atsumu is nowhere in the apartment, but that’s to be expected. He’s dead. He’s in Hyogo, somewhere—Kiyoomi has seen the ashes and the urn and the family grave.
Maybe he should text Hinata back. He’ll probably come knocking later today, anyway, because he’s either telepathic or just well-acquainted with sadness. Hinata has always looked like a veteran of despair. It’s in his smile, the set of his shoulders, the angles of his wrists. Hinata could probably teach him a thing or two about how to fix the world after it splits into perfect halves.
Kiyoomi’s phone lights up. He shuts it off and goes to make breakfast for two.
Hinata knocks around five o’clock in the evening, just after Atsumu materializes in the middle of their living room. He’s sitting cross-legged in his favorite chair, and he’s still got on that bomber jacket and jeans and the shirt with the barbecue sauce stain on it. He jerks his head towards the door when Kiyoomi hesitates.
“Aren’tcha gonna get that? Who is it, anyway?”
Kiyoomi sets his book down on the coffee table. “Hinata.”
Hinata knocks again. Three times, hard enough to make the door shake in its wooden frame. “Omi-san?”
Atsumu raises an eyebrow. Kiyoomi opens the door.
“Omi-san,” Hinata says. He steps past Kiyoomi, into the genkan. “Sorry for the intrusion.”
He looks terrible. He looks like how Kiyoomi is probably supposed to look. Messy hair. Indigo under-eyes. Nails bitten down to the cuticle.
“Shouyou,” Atsumu calls from the living room. “Can ya hear me?”
“I’m very sorry for your loss,” Hinata says. He slips his shoes off and hands Kiyoomi a plastic bag. “I don’t think anyone could have expected this.”
Hinata looks like he’s about to cry, like he’s already cried three-and-a-half times today. Kiyoomi shuts the door behind him.
“Aw, fuck, Shou, yer gonna make me feel bad,” Atsumu says. He steps into the entryway and runs a hand through Hinata’s hair. “Hey, look at me.”
You’re standing through me, dipshit, Kiyoomi thinks. Atsumu’s hand slips through Hinata’s hair before it drops back to his side. Kiyoomi’s side. Atsumu is quite literally standing in him.
“Shit, he can’t see me, can he?” Atsumu mumbles.
“Do you want tea?” Kiyoomi asks, stepping through Atsumu toward the kitchen.
“Please. I—I brought yakisoba.” Hinata gestures to the bag. “If you want any.”
“Omi-Omi, ask if he can see me,” Atsumu hisses. Kiyoomi ignores him.
“Thank you,” he says. “Hinata. I really do appreciate it.”
Hinata smiles, but it’s all wrong. It goes funny somewhere in the middle. Hinata had written a eulogy, Kiyoomi remembers. Hinata had made everyone cry when he’d talked about high school and how when he’d first met Atsumu, he’d felt like he could touch the vaulted ceilings and come back alive.
Kiyoomi makes him barley tea.
“It’s weird, isn’t it,” Hinata says softly. He cradles his cup in his palms like it’ll shatter if his touch is anything more than feather-light. “Atsumu-san’s gone, but the world’s still moving.”
Atsumu is gone. Atsumu is sitting cross-legged on the dining room table. He sticks his tongue out at Hinata, who rubs his knuckles absentmindedly.
“Yes,” Kiyoomi agrees. “He’s gone.”
“It’s like—I didn’t expect it to stop, but it’s…strange that it hasn’t.”
Kiyoomi nods. Atsumu frowns at him.
Hinata runs his thumb over the rim of his mug. When he looks back at Kiyoomi, there are tears in his eyes.
“I really do miss him, Omi-san.”
Hinata’s voice is high, wavering, earnest, his heart in his throat. This is the kind of love people make movies about. This is the kind of love that gets declared on rooftops, on the edges of the world.
“You must too, huh,” Hinata says softly.
“Yeah,” Kiyoomi says, and it sticks in his throat with the fifty thousand other bone-dry lies packed beneath his tonsils. All the little ones.
The bed is too big without another body in it, so Kiyoomi sits in Atsumu’s desk chair and scrolls through his texts instead. His parents and brother have offered their condolences for his teammate. His sister has offered her condolences for his boyfriend. Both had found out through the news, and Kiyoomi had put off responding because he hadn’t known what to say.
It’s okay, he responds now. He’d never known how to lie to her, before. The world hasn’t ended.
She texts back immediately: kiyoomi its ok to be sad. u owe him and urself that at the very least
Atsumu would have hated this. He’d never liked pity. Maybe that’s what Kiyoomi had seen in him at first: the way he’d take second best lightly, and then not at all. He would dig his feet into the sand and learn to do better. Pity was a consolation prize, and Miya Atsumu had never won consolation prizes.
do u want me 2 come over
No
i can take a vacation day i have a few saved up
I’m fine
its ok to not be fine u know
Kiyoomi scratches at the peeling edge of his phone case. His neck itches. He blinks at the notebook sitting face-up on the desk, a page ripped clean away from the margin.
Yes. I’m fine
suit urself. if u want me over just call
i love you kiyoomi you know that right
Yes.
ok. goodnight
Kiyoomi turns off his phone. His hands are shaking.
“You’re dead,” he says into the empty air.
Atsumu smiles, caught in the doorway. “I’m still in love with you.”