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Atsumu was excited to be moving in with Kiyoomi. Really, he was.
But as he and twin brother tried to fit far too much flat-packed furniture into Atsumu's much too small, bright yellow Honda that was his pride and joy, he was cursing Kiyoomi's entire bloodline for not coming to help due a "family emergency" (in quotes because when Atsumu confronted Motoya about it, Kiyoomi stomped on his foot to stop him from giving him away).
"Ta the left, ya fuckin' scrub!" Osamu reprimanded, shoving with his entire body weight onto the shelf box. With Atsumu inside the car, having lowered the seats, trying to maneuver all the packages to fit, he was getting absolutely squashed, much to his immediate displeasure.
The blond shoved back, suddenly glad for his eighty kilos of pure muscle. "I'm gonna become my own goddamn flat-pack in a sec if you don't stop shoving, bastard!"
"'s not like yer ass can get any flatter than it already is," Osamu muttered, clearly under his breath and not for Atsumu's ears. But he had been on the receiving end of too much soft muttering for him to have not adapted in kind, his hearing heightened like a moth. Or maybe something cooler, but tomayto-tomahto.
Everything was totally quiet. The box stopped being shoved to-and-fro, there was no huffing or whining or groaning. There was only the slight shift of fabric as Atsumu pulled his phone from his pocket.
The silence was shattered when Osamu finally asked, "What're ya doin'?"
"Sending Sunarin my entire 'fuckass brother' photo folder,"
Another pause.
"YA FUCKIN' PIG-!"
"Oh, Jesus Christ,"
To be fair, it was a valid reaction to whatever Kiyoomi must've been subjected to from his point of view. Osamu and Atsumu were sweating from lugging everything from the carpark downstairs to the lifts and then to the new apartment door. There was also probably enough cardboard boxes to fill a pool.
"Yeah, thanks for yer help, princess," Atsumu sneered, lifting his shirt to wipe the perspiration from his forehead, not missing the tongue Kiyoomi darted out to wet his lips. He raised a wry brow. Kiyoomi raised one right back, mischief in his eyes.
Osamu cleared his throat pointedly. "And that's my queue. I can feel the sexual tension and I will bash that stupid nightstand into my head if I have to watch you two make goo-goo eyes at each other. Or any variant of eyes, for that matter. Good luck, scrubs. Kiyoomi, try not ta kill yer boyfriend."
"What if I pay Onigiri Miya to cater for the funeral?"
"Statement retracted, do whatever ya please,"
Atsumu made a sound of indignation, throwing his hands into the air incredulously. Kiyoomi moved closer, kissing his right cheek with an obnoxious smack and patting the left one with his delicate hand. And goddamn if Atsumu didn't nearly lose all feeling in his knees right there.
Osamu faux-gagged before high-tailing it out of there, pressing the down button for the elevator enough times in quick enough succession Atsumu was sure gamers would blanch at his speed.
As the blond turned, his hands were quickly occupied as his boyfriend interlinked them carefully, a soft expression melting over his face. "Welcome home, Atsumu."
They both leaned in for a brief kiss so smiley that it could barely even be considered one, and Atsumu let himself savour that moment, the taste of salt and mint on Kiyoomi's lips, the smooth skin of his hands, and the new apartment smell wafting out the open door moulding with their own. He basked in it, because he knew the moment they began building these flat-packs from hell, chaos and anarchy would reign.
The soft ringing of a bell made its way into Atsumu's eloquently described moth-like hearing, and he pulled away from Kiyoomi as the black cat that reminded the blond so much of his boyfriend padded towards the front door.
"Pickles!"
Kiyoomi snorted while Atsumu crouched down to scoop up the kitty. Personally, Atsumu thought it was an apt name. It reflected their joint love of pickled plums, and her eyes were a pretty green colour that contrasting beautifully with her fur.
It had been three months since Atsumu had been subjected to - god forbid - manual labour by his twin brother, taking his goddamn rubbish out the back door to dispose of it. At the end of the day, the benefits outweighed the costs, because rummaging through that dumpster was none other than a baby Pickles, feeble and scrawny. Had he still complained for an hour about Osamu? Yes. Had he really minded all that much? Not at all.
When he had brought the cat to his - his - apartment, he certainly had not expected Kiyoomi to be there, and Kiyoomi certainly had not expected Atsumu to be holding a quote un quote 'mangy' cat. It was safe to say they had slept in their own homes until Atsumu had given Pickles every single shot possible, and ridden her of anything that had the possibly to spread.
And despite all that, Pickles preferred Kiyoomi. An outrage, in Atsumu's books. Sure, the cat didn't not like Atsumu, but when they were curled up on the couch together, Pickles would end up in Kiyoomi's lap. If Atsumu was on the couch and Kiyoomi in the kitchen, Pickles would be curling her tail around his legs and nudging him with her head. But whatever. Atsumu wasn't petty about it.
"Put down the cat so you can help me with this catastrophe," Kiyoomi grumbled, facing the boxes once more.
"That was the worst joke I think I've ever heard, Omi-kun." Atsumu grinned, cooing an apology to Pickles as he placed him in a room and closed to door to avoid squishing the clingy cat.
The raven head smirked at him, because picking up one of the nightstands. "Let's get this over with."
They began working in sync to drag everything through to their respective rooms, leaving the bigger projects in the main living area after Atsumu had moved the ugly lime green couch Motoya had gotten Kiyoomi when he had moved out that he refused to get rid of. The couch was comfortable, though, so maybe they just needed to invest in some throw blankets. Lots of throw blankets.
Now, IKEA furniture is famously the worst thing in the world to built, so Atsumu had taken it upon himself to buy not one, but two power drills so they could separate out the tasks and get everything done quicker, leaving the bigger things for working together. He pulled them out from one of the boxes in the soon-to-be spare guest room that he had stuck Pickles in that was currently a room for all their shit they had started moving into the apartment and handed one to Kiyoomi whose face fell when he apparently remembered they actually had to build all of this.
"Cheer up Omi-Omi," Atsumu teased, nudging his boyfriend who looked like a deflated bouncy castle. "We'll put some music on, plus I got that onigiri from 'Samu yesterday for when we need a break."
And either Kiyoomi was incredibly tired from their moving escapades, or he had some sort of medieval plague, but he fell forward onto Atsumu's chest, snaking his arms around his neck and sighing.
After recovering from episode of cuteness aggression Atsumu experienced, he curled his own arms around Kiyoomi's waist, linking his hands at the back. The latter tilted his head up so that his chin was still connected his Atsumu, but they were now making eye contact. "I love you,"
"I love ya, too, darlin'," Atsumu murmured, running his hand carefully through onyx black hair. The softness is both their voices was honestly sickening, and Atsumu was damn fucking glad that Osamu wasn't here. He let them stand there for another few moments, Kiyoomi shoving his face back into Atsumu's t-shirt, before, against every nerve in his body telling him to just stay in his boyfriend's embrace, he pulled away. If he wanted a bed to sleep on tonight, they had to get to working.
Kiyoomi huffed as they separated. "I'll go let Pickles out. I'm going to need moral support."
Atsumu grinned. "Spice Girls?"
The lack of response told Atsumu all he needed to know. Embarrassing Kiyoomi was just too easy. He followed his boyfriend into their storage room to rummage around and find his speaker, connecting his phone shortly after.
They both moved off to begin their respective projects, Pickles doing her very best to trip the trying-to-brood-but-I-can't-stop-smiling-because-Wannabe-is-playing Kiyoomi, to, unfortunately, no avail.
"'m just sayin', fame is makin' him a selfish fuckin' scrub," Atsumu scowled, staring daggers at the pitiful excuse of umeboshi in his onigiri made by Osamu.
"What's your excuse then?" Kiyoomi asked, snickering behind his hand when his boyfriend sent him a look of utter betrayal.
Jumping off from where he was sitting on the counter, Atsumu walked behind Kiyoomi, turning his back to him, then flopping over him like a Disney princess on her bed. "My own boyfriend, a traitor! You wound me, Omi!"
"That was the goal,"
Atsumu pressed himself harder onto him. The previous song ended, and an unmistakable intro began playing, making Atsumu shoot up, a wide grin on his face that held none of its usual smugness, just genuine joy. "Kiyo-"
"No."
"Please!" Atsumu forced his eyes to go all watery and Kiyoomi tried to avert his gaze.
"Fuck no. You are a terrible dancer, and you sing so loud I'm likely to go deaf by age 32-"
The blond gathered his courage, and stuck his index finger onto Kiyoomi lips to shush him. "Shut up and dance with me,"
And Kiyoomi was a weak, weak man, because he folded faster than you could say 'Omi'. Love did strange things to the mind, and Atsumu remembered the first time a love-addled Kiyoomi had immediately agreed to something he had suggested for the first time. The look of shock mixed with disgust had almost been funny.
But Atsumu knew Kiyoomi's tells, and the little downward tilt of his chin meant he was trying so hard not to smile as the former grabbed both of his hands and pulled him from one of the newly built stools. They had eventually given up doing it in separate rooms, moving everything into the living/kitchen space and taking the built objects to their rooms after they had been finished.
Because of the speaker, had been Kiyoomi's excuse, but that downward tilt of his chin said otherwise. Always did.
"You are an insufferable idiot," Kiyoomi grumbled.
Atsumu smiled bright. "Maybe. But you love this insufferable idiot."
That got a proper smile out of Kiyoomi, along with an eye roll so dramatic Atsumu was ready to put him in acting classes.
Despite his supposed aversion to dancing with Atsumu, Kiyoomi was quick to pull out all the sickly sweet stops, twirling him around the kitchen, dipping him, spinning him out, then pulling him in close by the waist, sometimes leaving a quick peck on his cheek that left Atsumu keening internally.
The song ended, the silence amplifying the panting of the two men, and then Atsumu's love-sick giggling as Kiyoomi pressed soft little kisses all over his face and jaw. Their lips met in a real kiss next, mouths slotting together like they had done so many times before. Atsumu's hands curled into the hair at the nape of Kiyoomi's neck. Kiyoomi trailed his fingers up and done the sides of Atsumu's torso.
Pickles made her departure when they began to deepen the kiss, clinging to each other a little more desperately, Kiyoomi walking Atsumu backward until he hit the counter. They broke apart huffing, both with an easily recognisable hunger in their eyes.
But then the rational side of Atsumu's mind kicked in and he lowered his chin to his chest, breathing a laugh. "Kiyoomi, I'd love ta do this with ya, but we don't have a bed to do it on."
The raven head's eyes widened, darting around the room and stammering over words to try and find an excuse. "What about the couch?"
Atsumu sent a look, eyebrow raised and eyes landing on each unfinished piece of furniture still making their new living room look like a bomb site. Kiyoomi sighed. Atsumu was one stubborn bastard, and he clearly wasn't in the mood to have a back and forth about it.
Kiyoomi flopped his head into Atsumu's chest. "The one day you decide to be a reasonable, responsible human being,"
He laughed, grabbing Kiyoomi's jaw and pressing one lasting kiss before freeing himself of his muscled prison against the cool counter top. "Come on, let's go open up the mattress and let it un-shrivel, then we'll finish everything in here and save the bed frame for last."
The raven head made a sound of agreement, shuffling behind Atsumu to the master bedroom. Pickles was napping on the floor, the master being only carpeted room other than the spare one, which was shut to avoid her digging up her food and eating it all, or trying to eat something she shouldn't have getting sick. Basically, she had taken after her uncle and loved to eat.
Atsumu cooed to the kitty, apologising and kissing her furry head as he lifted her from the floor and plonked her gently into Kiyoomi's arms. The mattress was in a long box on the floor, vacuum sealed in plastic inside that. Kiyoomi handed him a box cutter to get through the tape and, Jesus, they were going to have a lot of recycling to deal with in the morning.
He sliced it open easily, sliding the cylinder out of the box, which he then gave to Kiyoomi to throw somewhere in the living room to deal with later. He lined it up so that the mattress wouldn't hit any walls or the windows, also giving Kiyoomi a little flick of his hand to keep him out of the possible danger zone, because the gods knew he would never hear the end of it.
"And now, for my masterpiece, this cylinder will become a rectangular prism, and expand tenfold!" Atsumu waved his box cutter around like a magic wand, making ooh and aah noises. Pickles and Kiyoomi exchanged a glance in Atsumu's peripheral vision as his boyfriend scoffed.
"Can you believe this is your dad, Pickles?" he whispered. She let out a low meow that somehow sounded bewildered.
Atsumu stuck his tongue out and continued his performance. He yelled, "Abracadabra!", cutting through the plastic, and the mattress popped into existence, indeed expanding, but perhaps not tenfold. Something more modest, perhaps. Like…threefold.
"Voila!"
"Incredible," Kiyoomi deadpanned. "Let's go finish these fuckass chairs, then the bed, and go to sleep. I haven't felt this sleep deprived since I was fifteen."
Atsumu snorted. It wasn't even ten p.m. yet, but he knew full well Kiyoomi had begun to take a lot better care of himself once he joined the Jackals. He had been forced to in order to keep up with the physical and mental strain of playing on a professional volleyball team with online fans and critics scouring your every move. His sleep schedule had changed drastically from college, and Atsumu had spent the first month of Kiyoomi's joining being scared shitless when coming to get water in the share house kitchen in the early hours of the morning to see Kiyoomi doing either yoga, or cooking, or reading something. It had been a slow adjustment, but now his bed time was nine-thirty, and even that would sometimes be a stretch for him.
So they finished the chairs, and got their hands on the flat packed bed frame they had laid haphazardly leaning against the couch.
"We should take this into the bedroom and built it there. It won't fit through the door frame if we try and build it here," Kiyoomi analysed, beginning to maneuver himself to carry the box at one end, Atsumu at the other.
"I don't think I'm ever going to touch an allen key ever again after this," Atsumu pouted, trying his darndest not to step on any of the fifteen loose tools and screw and nuts and bolts that had come with the furniture. The 'nuts' joke had long since lost its novelty on Atsumu, and had just never ever come into existence for Kiyoomi.
Kiyoomi paused for a moment, and that familiar chin tilt caught Atsumu's eye. He kept moving as quickly as he stopped, but as if Atsumu was going to let this go. He was eternally curious about the contents of Kiyoomi's mind. "What?"
His boyfriend looked up. "Hm?"
"You thought of something funny. What was it?"
Kiyoomi looked like a fish out of water. "How could you possibly know that?"
"We were bitter rivals for the first year ya played for the Jackals, and I am a firm believer in the phrase 'keep your friends close and you enemies closer'. I noticed shit,"
A smile twitched at the edge of Kiyoomi's lips. "So, what you're saying, is that you're obsessed with me?"
Atsumu scoffed, but he couldn't quite keep the blush down, could feel it permeating the tips of his ears. "Stop trying to change the subject. What's so funny?"
Kiyoomi paused for a moment, and Atsumu could feel his hesitation like the physical entity. He wetted his lips with his tongue before he finally spoke up; "Allen key just sounds a lot like Aran key."
The silence that followed was so thick Atsumu could cut through it. He stared at his boyfriend. He maintained eye contact for a moment before he moved his eyes anywhere but Atsumu. "From the bottom of my heart, fuck off."
The blond burst out laughing, and he had to put the package down as he clutched at his stomach, tears springing into his eyes. Kiyoomi used his vulnerable position to push him sideways so he fell over, crashing onto the floor. Atsumu let out a mangled complaint before continuing to laugh so hard his face and stomach hurt.
Each time he'd calm down, he would look at his poor, tired boyfriend, arms crossed over his chest, with a pout on his lips and cheeks red enough to be a beacon, he lost it again. He tried pushing himself up at one stage, and accidentally put his hand on one of the hundred allen keys they now possessed, and he slipped and fell right back down, which set him off once more. He hadn't laughed this hard since Hinata and Bokuto had tried to do the splits and sent their physical therapist into cardiac arrest when they both came hobbling over.
Kiyoomi kicked him, hard, in the back, and that finally spurred him to lift himself - carefully this time - from the floor. He still couldn't quite hold back all the little giggles shooting up his throat, but Kiyoomi seemed adamant on ignoring them entirely, so he stood up, kissed him on the cheek, told him he loved him, and lifted up his side of the box he had put down.
"I hate you,"
"Nah, ya don't,"
A sigh that probably caused a hurricane. "No, I don't."
When they finally got through the door of the bedroom, they carefully leaned the box up against the wall. While Kiyoomi made sure it wouldn't fall on them, Atsumu turned to prop the mattress up against the wall to give them more space to work with, only to met with a force of resistance very few were capable of dismantling.
In the middle of the now fully expanded mattress was Pickles, curled up in a ball of darkness and nose tucked under her sleek tail. She was breathing evenly, her chest rising, and she looked so peaceful that Atsumu wanted to slam his head into the window. "Kiyoomi,"
The man turned around, making a noise of questioning at the low volume of Atsumu's voice. His eyes landed on the cat, and every single one of his facial features melted. His eyebrows fell out of their constant upward-turned scrunch, laid relaxed on his forehead. His nose un-scrunched, and his jaw loosened from where it was perpetually tightened. Atsumu could never be more happy to say that he had been on the receiving end of that look sometimes, because that look was equal to about one hundred of his grimacing expressions, so the maths evened out.
He wrapped his arms around Atsumu's waist from behind, hooking his chin onto his shoulder, still with that painfully soft look decorating his face. "Should we call it quits? Technically, all we really need is a mattress."
There was a small part of Atsumu that wanted to say no. Wanted to try and convince himself they had come so far, and maybe they could just build it without the extra space, and quietly enough to not wake the sleeping cat. But the bigger, more reasonable part of his brain that had been on absolute fire that afternoon reminded him he had to know when to stop. This was absolutely that time.
The sky out the window was dark, lights and billboards illuminating the night. It was a Friday night at ten-thirty p.m. in Osaka, one of the most populated cities in Japan, and he knew going down onto the streets would open his ears to all the noise of young adults going to bars, restaurants bustling, lines forming for clubs, friend groups chattering, tourists clicking their cameras and staring in wonder and awe. But right now, in this small, two bedroom apartment, Atsumu was looking at his tired boyfriend, whose eyes were drooping, and his sleeping kitty, curled up on a brand new mattress with no sheets, and he was at the whim of the cosmos.
"I think so. I'll go get the blankets,"
Kiyoomi let out a breath on his neck, giving him a peck and unravelling himself from Atsumu. He crouched down to fall onto the mattress as the latter quietly made a path in all the rubble first to the bathroom for middle of the night bladders, then to the spare room, carefully looking through boxes to find the million blankets they owned because the moment winter hit, Kiyoomi lost every cell of warmth in his body.
He gathered a couple into his arms, and he was grateful they already smelt like home, so he wouldn't be smelling the gross aroma of plastic and factory on the mattress all night. He switched off the lights as he went, but somehow the apartment didn't feel unfamiliar. It already felt lived in, with the half unpacked mugs sitting on the kitchen counter, the smell of umeboshi from their onigiri early filling the room, and the ugly fucking lime green couch emitting an aura around itself. It felt like home.
He returned to the bedroom to find Kiyoomi on his side, already half asleep and breathing deep. Pickles still hadn't woken, and Atsumu threw the blankets onto Kiyoomi's motionless body, earning a little grumble-slash-sound-of-apprecitation before he moved across the room to close the curtain so they wouldn't be woken by the sun rising the next morning. He crossed the room one more to turn off the light switch and shut the door just enough that Pickles could still get out if she chose to at some point during the night.
Then it was his turn to flop onto the makeshift bed. He mostly flopped on Kiyoomi so as not to disturb the cat, though, earning him a soft groan in protest.
"Scooch over," Atsumu whispered, trying to squeeze into the gap between Kiyoomi and Pickles, because gods forbid he wasn't the centre of attention. Kiyoomi grumbled deep in his chest, but made room to accommodate for Atsumu.
They were both turned onto their sides facing Pickles and the window opposite the door, Kiyoomi's chest against Atsumu's back as arms wound around him and soft breaths fanned the nape of his neck.
In mere moment, Kiyoomi was out like a light, body relaxing and breathing evening out further. Atsumu wasn't far behind, but apparently he had disturbed Pickles, because when he looked over at her, little green eyes peeked out from behind her tail, almost glowing in the dark and watching him. He smiled.
The cat paused for a moment, but then she stood, stretched briefly, and Atsumu was ready for her to make her dramatic departure from the bedroom to go curl up somewhere else, but then she tucked herself into the curve of his body and settled down once more, and Atsumu was near tears.
He was in a sandwich of boyfriend and his cat, and he didn't think anything had ever felt so right before. The blankets covered him in warmth, and Pickles had sat on the edge of one, essentially tucking him in, and it smelt like home. The whole place felt like home. The last time Atsumu had felt this sense of content had been years ago, when the despair the leaving of his father had caused finally wore off, and he, Osamu, and his ma all stood in the kitchen making dinner together. He had been eight years old, and had one missing front tooth. Osamu had the same, but it was the other tooth. They had heard every single twin joke ever the day they lost them.
The twins stood on stools as their mother showed them how to shape onigiri, and Atsumu remembered the light in his brother's eyes. At the end of the day, he actually hadn't been all that surprised when Osamu had quit volleyball after high school. He had always had a calmness around him when he was in a kitchen Atsumu just never saw when he played volleyball.
He remembered feeling warm, and safe, and loved. The phrase home is where the heart is resonated with Atsumu on another level in that moment.
So on that makeshift bed in a new apartment stuck between Kiyoomi and Pickles under the blankets, he had never self more warm, more safe, or more loved. He had never felt so at home.