Chapter Text
It started with alcohol-stained lips clashing together in a low-lit hallway. Atsumu pressed Kiyoomi against the wall, shuddering at the feeling of nails digging into his scalp, pulling him closer, closer. The music from the ballroom was distant and muted, allowing him to hear Kiyoomi’s panting and the urgent whisper of ‘Miya.’
“Fuck,” he ground out, head swimming. He shouldn’t have let Hinata convince him that drinking all those glasses of wine was a good idea. Even Kiyoomi was roped into it, and he had the lowest tolerance of them all.
“Fuck,” Kiyoomi hissed back when Atsumu pressed a thick thigh in between his. Atsumu started kissing down his neck, nipping and sucking, hands sliding down his sculpted torso that he could feel even through the three-piece suit.
He started unbuttoning Kiyoomi’s vest, but a semblance of sense seemed to trickle into Kiyoomi because he gripped Atsumu’s wrist to halt his movements. “Wait.”
“I know you want this.” Atsumu was certain he did, because he could feel the bulge straining against Kiyoomi’s trousers. He mercilessly dragged his thigh up and down Kiyoomi’s erection, and the resulting whine flipped a switch in him — he needed to fuck him. Now.
But Kiyoomi could always be trusted to be the last one to cling to control and reason. He bit out, “Bathroom. Now.”
They traipsed down the hallway and barged into the seemingly empty bathroom, locking the door behind them. Another cursory check confirmed that they were alone.
“Fancy,” Kiyoomi noted absently. His eyes were hazy, but curiously fixated on a spot above them.
Atsumu took a moment to watch him in vague amusement, before following his gaze. A chandelier was casting spheres on the white ceiling, gently illuminating the room in a pale golden hue.
“It’s a chandelier,” he said, and given Kiyoomi’s startled blink, answered his unspoken question. Atsumu snorted. Sakusa Kiyoomi, drunk? He’d never seen it until now, and he’d appreciate it more, if his dick wasn’t aching for relief. “Are you gonna just stand there, or are you gonna help me and remove your pants?”
“Fuck you, Miya.” Kiyoomi looked irritated but started unbuttoning his trousers. He was wearing thermal underwear, which was reasonable because it was the peak of winter, but it was still the unsexiest thing he’d ever seen. He smirked, and Kiyoomi flushed.
Shoving his pants down angrily, Kiyoomi leaned back against the counter and kicked them off the rest of the way. Atsumu greedily ran his eyes over the long, long legs, throat drying when they spread themselves. He dragged his gaze away from the flushed cock to check Kiyoomi’s expression. Something like clarity was spreading across his face, and he was frowning.
“Having second thoughts?” Atsumu asked, raising a brow at Kiyoomi in challenge. He had already unbuttoned his own pants and opened them, but he wasn’t that much of a shithead to push through with something the other party wasn’t comfortable with.
But Kiyoomi licked his lips, eyes drawn to the tent in Atsumu’s gray boxers. “Just get on with it.”
“You’ll let me fuck you, won’t you, Omi-Omi?” Please say yes, please say yes.
“Say another word and I’ll change my mind.”
Well, he couldn’t have that. He did know when to shut his mouth sometimes.
They were too impatient for foreplay. After rolling on the condom he’d earlier tucked into his wallet, he slid one, two, then three lubed up fingers into Kiyoomi, before shoving his cock in.
“Fuck,” he grunted out. “Tight.”
“Move,” Kiyoomi snapped, digging the heels of his oxford shoes into Atsumu’s ass.
No more words were exchanged between them as they rocked together clumsily on the icy marble sink, but their gasps echoed loud in the silence. Kiyoomi tasted and reeked of alcohol, and it sent Atsumu’s head spinning. Intoxicated in more ways than one, he let himself sink into drugging pleasure and heat.
They accidentally banged their foreheads together when they came, almost simultaneously. The whole thing was quick and sloppy, but Atsumu was too high on alcohol and sex to really care. It was good, they both got off, that was all that mattered.
Fuck. How could sex with Sakusa Kiyoomi be good?
As they awkwardly cleaned themselves up after the deed, Kiyoomi, sounding a lot more sober, stated, “This won’t happen again.”
Atsumu zipped up his trousers. “You don’t have to tell me. I don’t do repeat performances.”
They straightened themselves up in prickly silence, unable to do anything about their flushed and wrinkled appearance. They headed out, keeping a respectable distance between them.
“That was weirdly good,” he couldn’t help but say as they walked back up the hallway towards the party, the beat of the music greeting them. “Wasn’t it?”
“Passable,” Kiyoomi dismissed.
Atsumu threw him a sideways glance, smirking. “Sure. Let’s pretend you’re not limping right now because you begged me to fuck you harder.”
Cheeks flushing bright red, Kiyoomi treated Atsumu to a glare that could kill a bird mid-flight. Man, this dude is such a stuck-up prude sometimes, he thought.
But now Atsumu was in possession of the knowledge of what it was like to have him panting and needy and screaming his name. A funny little feeling curled in his stomach. He wanted to do it all over again.
Shit. He was an idiot, but he knew when he made mistakes. This was one of them, he understood that even with all the alcohol coursing through his veins.
--
He didn’t expect to regret it so soon, though.
When he woke up to a scroll of notifications on his phone, Atsumu ignored them. He dashed into the shower and let the water drench him, hoping it would wash away the memories of last night’s activities.
It didn’t.
Damn, I really slept with Omi, he thought. And then, Shit, it can’t happen again.
All conversations were cut off when he walked into the kitchen. Everyone swiveled their heads to stare at him, except Kiyoomi, who was acting like the dining table was the most captivating thing in the world.
An ominous feeling pricked at him. “What?”
Their team captain, Meian Shuugo, rubbed his face. He looked exhausted. “Atsumu-kun, sit down.”
His apprehension intensified. Warily making his way to the table, Atsumu pulled out a chair and sat. He eyed Kiyoomi, and received a glare in return. Well, okay then.
Seconds passed without anyone saying anything. He ran his gaze over his teammates, who were either avoiding his eyes, or staring back at him in shock and horror.
“Okay, what is it, what?” he finally demanded, patience running thin.
“A’ight, I’m just gonna rip off the band aid,” Inunaki Shion, their libero, said. “Dude, you and Sakusa are viral.”
“And?” That was hardly news. They were often viral. All of them were, but most especially him and Kiyoomi, as well as their fellow ‘monsters’ — as people endearingly dubbed them — Hinata Shouyou and Bokuto Koutarou.
“Let me clarify. A photo of you and Kiyoomi, um — kissing — during the event last night is viral.”
His brain refused to process the words. He stared at Inunaki, wordlessly asking him to take it back.
Inunaki didn’t. “Now I am completely horrified, because ew, but seriously...are you two fucking stupid? In a charity event? Which had official photographers?”
“An official photographer is behind this?” he asked angrily. This whole thing sounded fishy to him. Hired photographers were supposed to be professional. He and Kiyoomi weren’t even in the ballroom when they both lost their minds.
“I called the event organizers,” said their giant hitter, Oliver Barnes. “Because the photo was one of two hundred posted on their Facebook. They said it was a slip. They took it down but…”
“It’s too late,” Meian said solemnly. “It’s everywhere.”
Atsumu snatched his phone up from where he’d placed it on the table, ignoring messages from Osamu, and quickly tapping on his Twitter app.
What greeted him was an unfortunately high quality photo of him and Kiyoomi in the hallway. Kissing was a nice way of putting it — he wasn’t sure if it could even be called that, what with their lips all shiny with spit, and his own tongue peeking out as it slithered its way into Kiyoomi’s mouth. They were dishevelled, and Atsumu was in the process of removing Kiyoomi’s suit, and that expression. God. He wanted to see Kiyoomi's face exactly like that again, and a tiny part of him was glad to have it immortalized.
It wouldn’t take a genius to figure out what happened after.
This wasn’t just a viral incident. This was a scandal.
He stared blankly at his phone screen, shame spreading in his gut. Not again, he thought with more than a little dread. I haven’t even recovered from the last one.
“Are you two together, then?” Hinata asked, brown eyes blown wide.
“No,” he and Kiyoomi denied at the same time.
“Did you…” Adriah Tomas, their middle blocker, looked like he was going to regret what he was about to ask. “Hook up there? In the public hallway?”
“Of course not,” Kiyoomi snapped. “I’m not that stupid.”
“We did it in the bathroom,” Atsumu supplied helpfully, and Kiyoomi sent him another lethal glare.
“Oh my god,” Bokuto breathed out. He looked lost and Atsumu suppressed the urge to pat his head. He liked Bokuto, he was probably Atsumu’s best friend, if his twin wasn’t counted.
“Gross, gross, gross.” Inunaki looked pale. “Are you sure it was empty?”
“Please tell me there aren’t any sex videos waiting to be distributed,” Meian said in a pained voice. “Please.”
“It was empty,” Atsumu assured. “I checked.”
‘Checked’ was overstating it. They had just sent a cursory glance around the bathroom and bent down to check the cubicles before they were going at it like rabbits.
What were they thinking?
“Anyway,” Meian sighed. “Foster’s on the way. He’s...not happy.”
Right on time, a knock sounded on the front door, making them all jump. Meian stood up and strode over to let their guests in, and they all meekly trooped to the living room.
Their head coach, Samson Foster, walked in, silent and expressionless. On his heels was their publicity manager Yuma, who looked like she’d eaten a lemon.
“This is a disaster,” Yuma hissed. “What were you thinking? And at a charity event, too! Have you no shame?”
Everyone turned to look at him and Kiyoomi, who looked down to avoid their eyes.
“If it were just Atsumu-kun, I wouldn’t be surprised, but you, Sakusa-kun—! And how could you keep such a thing from us? How long has this been going on?”
Kiyoomi cleared his throat. “Nothing’s going on, there’s no thing.”
Understanding dawned on her face. “Oh, this is even worse.”
“I don’t know how to feel about this revelation,” Foster said. “I was clinging to hope that you were secret boyfriends, this mess would have been easier to fix.”
“Yeah, no.” Atsumu rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. “Um, sorry, Coach.”
“You should be. This isn’t your first offense, Atsumu-kun.”
His teammates cringed, probably remembering his many PR messes, the latest of which was when he stupidly allowed a fan to sit on his lap during one of their night outs. He found out too late that the girl’s friends were taking a video, and once he did, he shoved her off his lap and straight onto the floor.
The video of the incident, of course, went viral, and not in a good way.
And that was just last month.
Yuma seemed to have calmed. “You know, this might be a good thing. You know how Atsumu-kun has been building a bad rep lately.”
“I told you,” Atsumu began defensively. “That girl—”
“Yeah, yeah, you panicked,” Yuma waved him off. “But let’s not forget your other...victims.”
Inunaki snorted. “‘Victims’ is the right term.”
“Now, this is too big for us to simply ignore. But for a change, the feedback isn’t so bad.”
Kiyoomi perked up. “It’s not?”
“Well, there are many who are judging you of course, and ‘canceling ’ you or whatever. But the majority of the people are actually pleased.”
“Pleased?” Atsumu found that hard to believe. People could be such vultures, waiting for the chance to drag him down and devour him.
“Oh yes. You’ve accumulated a ton of fans overnight. There are Facebook pages dedicated to ‘SakuAtsu’ now.”
His brain whirred to catch up. Connected the strings of their names together; half of each — SakuAtsu.
Atsumu burst out laughing, and the rest of the team followed. “That is the stupidest shit I have ever heard.” He looked at Kiyoomi. “Can you believe this, Omi-Omi?”
“I really don’t want to.”
“So,” Yuma cut in. “We can either let people think we have not just one, but two idiotic playboys on the team, or we ride this opportunity.”
Apprehension dripped down his spine again. The room went quiet.
Yuma sighed. “We won’t deny the relationship rumors.”
“You’re...asking us to pretend to be in a relationship?” he asked, thoroughly astonished. What the hell was happening?
“That sounds like the easiest and most effective solution,” Foster said, stroking his chin in thought. “Yes, that would fix many, many problems. It would do wonders for Atsumu-kun’s wild reputation if they find out he and Sakusa-kun are lovers, especially now that we know the public approves.”
“We aren’t lovers,” Atsumu protested.
“We’re not even friends,” Kiyoomi added.
“Regardless, a photo of you two—” Foster paused, seemingly searching for words. “Canoodling, to put it lightly, is splashed all over the news and social media —”
“Canoodling,” Atsumu repeated. “It was a drunken mistake —”
“It was a moment of weakness,” Kiyoomi interjected.
“We cannot afford another scandal,” Foster said with finality. “We’re telling everyone you’re in a relationship.”
“You can’t just do that,” Kiyoomi said crossly.
Foster sighed. “No, we can’t, but you know what’s on the line.”
Meeting his coach’s eyes, Atsumu pressed his lips together, recalling the brands that cut ties with him and the millions of yen worth of endorsements he lost over one single badly-taken video.
“Think about it,” Foster advised. “Let us know before we start practice again on Monday.”
--
He sulked back to his room and let himself collapse in bed with a huff. It wasn’t often that his life sucked, but when it did, it really sucked.
Although it had been sucking more than usual lately. Bitterness and frustration surged up in him as he was faced with the realization that there was no one to blame but himself.
When he made the decision to become a professional volleyball player when he was sixteen, he thought the popularity aspect of it was pretty damn cool. But it was merely the cherry on top of his big dreams. He had his sights fixed firmly on the game, fueled by the determination to see how far his passion for the sport could take him. Sure, he had fangirls even back then, and he did enjoy the boost to his ego, but they were never a big enough deal to factor in his life choices at all.
But high school popularity turned into nationwide fame, and cute glitter posters turned into damning news headlines, and suddenly, so many eyes were tracking his every move. It wasn’t an overnight development — it happened slowly over time, so slowly he barely noticed at first. Back then, he’d been highly pleased when he'd notice his follower count steadily rise over time. It wasn’t until he was going viral over the stupidest things that it all exploded in his face.
Fame was a double-edged sword, he learned. It earned him sponsorships and endorsements and modeling gigs, allowed him to meet some truly awesome people, granted him the comfortable life he was living now. Unfortunately, fame also meant being held to unreasonably high standards, which he had no choice but to meet. The public seemed to forget he was just human, too. So fucking what if he wanted to go dirty dancing in the club? Why was it a crime to let some girl sit on his lap?
It wasn’t so much his actions that he regretted, but rather the consequences of them. The only reason they were even considered scandals was because everything he did was blown out of proportion.
He rubbed his face. Fuck, sleeping with Omi was a mistake though, whichever way I look at it.
This mess only served to remind him why he never mixed business with pleasure. He could handle the cheers and the jeers when it came to his performance on the court; hell, he could handle all the publicity, good or bad.
But he would never forgive himself if he ruined his life, if he ruined volleyball because of an ill-advised one night stand with his prickly teammate.
And with that, his mind was made up. He’d been in this industry long enough to understand there really hadn’t been a choice in the first place.
Sighing, he reached out to pick up his phone. Time to face the music. Sometimes, he really didn’t know whether to bask in the limelight, or regret not staying in the shadows.
Fake boyfriend, huh? He can do that. He’ll play their game, and he’ll win.