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Atsumu wears gloves most of the time.
It's not the first weird thing Kiyoomi notices when he joins MSBY, but Atsumu carefully pulls them out of his locker and slips them on early enough that it sticks in his mind; a careful ritual, especially for a mess of a man.
It’s an irregularity. An aberration. A piece of lint that needs to be plucked off his shirt.
Although it isn't uncommon for people to wear gloves to avoid triggering a potential soulmate connection, it is strange for athletes.
Especially for setters. They're all always on top of each other, bumping into their teammates or opponents, using their hands to guide their hitters. Kiyoomi knows better than anyone how much camaraderie is built on touching, and it takes a few well placed glares before MSBY knows better than to engage in it with him.
Atsumu is the only one who doesn’t even try.
Once he starts seeing it, he can’t stop: Atsumu has thin gloves that wick away the sweat during workouts. He takes them off for games and practice, and whenever he does he's careful to only touch people through a layer of clothes.
That's why Kiyoomi's never noticed before; he's only really looked at Atsumu during games, especially when he was deciding between the Adlers and MSBY. It’s only after he joins that he realizes that Atsumu’s care on the court, minimizing touching, played a significant role in the decision.
Off the court, Atsumu is touchy and affectionate, but — Kiyoomi realizes this one slowly — it's with people who already have soulmates.
Hinata has a band of blue around his wrist, and Atsumu wraps his bare fingers around it when he’s tugging Hinata to his side of the couch to be his teammate during a board game.
Bokuto’s got five points of fingertips on his jawline; they’re gentle spots of galaxy purple as if someone held him close and called him a wonder, and Atsumu loves to poke his cheeks to wake him up from his grandpa naps.
Meian has a ring around his neck that none of them ever ask about.
Atsumu doesn’t touch that, but he does let Meian ruffle his hair.
The soulmate connection — their color — only activates when fingertips touch skin, so Atsumu is careful to avoid people with no evidence of marks.
That's why they become friends. Kiyoomi never touches people unnecessarily, and it's rarely necessary. Atsumu only touches people he can trust. Instead of a high-five, Atsumu hovers his gloved hand near Kiyoomi’s shoulder. Even though it’s explicitly a mark of distrust, it warms Kiyoomi, anyway; it’s a kind consideration for him.
They hang out in corners at JNT or V-League parties, especially when the Inarizaki guys aren't around and stealing Atsumu’s precious time, moments that could be spent being bitchy about Kageyama’s horrible taste in suits with Kiyoomi.
If Kiyoomi hazards a guess, the Inarizaki team has probably all touched each other, whether accidentally or on purpose. It's why so many people find soulmates when they're young. It's so hard to curb the impulse to reach out and touch, and in school they're always so close.
He wonders if Atsumu wore the gloves then, too. If people tried to grab his wrists or bare skin to leave their mark.
People don't really reach out and touch Kiyoomi; it's one benefit of being himself.
"Do you want a soulmate?" Atsumu asks, and it would be abrupt and unwanted if they weren't watching Barnes meet his own, right now, staring down at the orange marks on his hand in wonder.
They’re at an impromptu event, hastily thrown to celebrate a new MSBY sponsorship; Kiyoomi’s wearing a new blazer that he hasn’t gotten tailored yet and it’s itchy, but the alcohol is free and expensive, and the staff seem reasonably well trained. He just hates talking to sponsors. It’s always like they’re trying to force a connection — especially between soulmates — insistent on bare handshakes and touching, as if they could own a player forever that way.
Because Kiyoomi goes gloveless, he hangs around Atsumu at these things, and uses him as a shield against the businessmen flitting like aggressive seagulls around the room, waiting to strike.
He doesn’t answer Atsumu at first. "You don't have to say anything," Atsumu tries to bluster around his curiosity when Kiyoomi just stares for a moment too long. "I know it's probably personal."
"No, it's just…" he pauses, taking a sip of his drink in the hopes that it settles his thoughts, “I haven't really thought about it."
And it's true.
He knows that most people want soulmates, but it's so rare that he chooses to let someone into his world that he can't fathom the idea of fate deciding it.
"I don't go out of my way to avoid it," he shrugs. "If it happens, it happens." But he'd rather it not happen, not that he knows why.
"You're not a fan of chance, then?"
Chance might be a relative of luck, but Kiyoomi knows where he hangs his hat.
"Not in this."
"Huh," Atsumu says. He's quiet for a moment. Fiddles with his gloves — nice, thick ones that match his suit jacket, an unbroken line of blue wool. He’s a bit of a peacock; always cares about how he looks.
He scuffs his heel, fidgets a little more. And then Kiyoomi breaks the silence with a thought that’s been lingering on his mind for too long.
"You're not a fan of soulmates." It's a statement, not a question, but Atsumu sighs in relief that Kiyoomi's the one to bring it up.
"Ya ain’t wrong, Omi-omi,” Atsumu says. He didn’t realize it till now, but it’s like Atsumu’s been a string pulled so taut, finally unwound. There’s a slack to his shoulders that wasn’t there before, one that Kiyoomi recognizes from all the times they’ve hung out before, one-on-one.
But the tightness? The stress?
He sees it on the court, in the handshake line, whenever Atsumu meets a new person and sees their bare skin, winces away from it, the same way Kiyoomi does.
"Why?" The question slips out of his mouth without his consent. It’s unfathomable, this revelation; of all people, Atsumu loves deeply. On the court, he's so giving.
If there were anyone made for soulmates, it would be Atsumu, so why-
"Ushiwaka's in Poland." A non sequitur, and one Kiyoomi can’t make any sense of.
"What?" Kiyoomi squeaks, briefly drawing everyone's eyes towards their corner, until Atsumu waves and drags Kiyoomi away, hand on the inside of his elbow, to a balcony outside of the venue. "Atsumu, please, you must tell me. Is Wakatoshi your soul-"
"Please stop spreadin' rumors, Omi. You’re catastrophizing," Atsumu hisses, leaning close. The blue of his suit looks nice in the moonlight, soft gray flecks in the fabric like stars.
An aberrant observation.
"But he's—" Kiyoomi’s imagination is faster than Hinata’s quick; he wants to say that Wakatoshi doesn’t fit Atsumu, but he can see where they’d fill in each other’s gaps. And he’s never seen fingerprints on Wakatoshi’s body, but he could be hiding it.
Atsumu’s eye is twitching, a tell-tale sign of that feeling that sits somewhere between amused and annoyed. "Omi, be serious. If we were soulmates, why would I be wearin' gloves still?"
"In case you were keeping it a secret." Kiyoomi not-so-secretly loves a drama, and the whole saga is taking shape in his head. "You didn't want anyone to know, so you had to pretend to not have matched."
Atsumu is gaping like a fish. "What. You've seen him naked, he's got no marks!"
"Concealer. Foundation. Carefully placed bushes."
As Atsumu sputters over the idea of bushes and twigs, Kiyoomi thinks about it.
Really.
Uses all his brain cells and everything.
He can see it so clearly. Of course Wakatoshi and Atsumu are soulmates. A hitter and a setter is a match made in heaven. They have strong serves, they both have a sense of humor that can be classified as atypical, they both secretly love Tendou’s terrifying truffles. The two of them look good together, and it would be advantageous to keep their match a secret lest people question Atsumu’s thirst traps too closely, or start to murmur about why they’re in different countries.
He can't believe Wakatoshi never told him.
Kiyoomi pulls his phone out, ready to send some angry texts, time difference be damned. He’s halfway through a draft when Atsumu grabs his phone and tosses it off the balcony.
"What is wrong with you?" He feels nothing but horror, watching it arc through the sky. It takes a long time for him to hear the thump of it hitting the grass.
"You've got a strong case, it'll be fine. I had to stop ya from ruining Wakatoshi’s afternoon. Night. Morning." Atsumu frowns. “Whatever time it is over there. You know he’ll just start to believe we’re actually soulmates, and then it’ll be a mess to clean up.” He reaches up to rub the bridge of his nose, but the fabric is too smooth to offer relief to his burgeoning headache so he pulls off the glove.
His hand is a little paler than the rest of his skin, nails carefully trimmed and moisturized. Kiyoomi never gets the chance to see this up close. He's a little mesmerized.
There's a tiny scar at the base of one of his fingers, so pale it's impossible to see from a distance.
It looks soft.
"One day," Atsumu sighs out, once he’s recovered, "I wanna crack open your skull and see what's inside."
"That's a crime," Kiyoomi says, reflexively. “In multiple countries, too.” Maybe even all of them.
"You're a crime!” Before Kiyoomi can snip back, Atsumu barrels forward. "Look, Omi, think about it. Kageyama's in Italy. Hinata's going back overseas, Oikawa left us all behind. Hell, Suna's god-knows-where the Raijin are-"
"Do you really not know? Have you never looked at a map?"
"-and Aran's a half hour away, but he's the only one!"
Kiyoomi doesn't get why Atsumu keeps saying facts. The teams their friends — and Oikawa — are on. Why does that matter?
His confusion must show on his face, because Atsumu relieves him. "We're athletes, Omi. It means for years we're gonna be chasin' our dreams, no matter how far that takes us. Maybe overseas, maybe for decades."
Trades and offers and international matches. Iizuna moved down from the north to play at Itachiyama, and when he's drunk his dialect is incomprehensible. Kiyoomi has five different time zones on his phone, just to make sure he doesn't call someone when they should be sleeping.
Suna still doesn’t understand Kansai-ben, or at least pretends he doesn’t.
"I'm not like that, Omi," Atsumu says, finally. Voice small, like the distant stars. "If I meet my soulmate, I’d need ‘em right there with me. I couldn’t rest, knowing they were outta my reach." He flexes his bare hand, involuntarily.
Imagine those fingertips on someone else’s skin.
“Touchin’ someone else, and seein’ the colors bloom? That don’t mean much to me; just that there’s the potential for somethin’ big, somethin’ beautiful. Love doesn’t just happen, you know?”
Kiyoomi knows; it took effort to love volleyball, effort to love his friends. "And if your soulmate were a volleyball player - "
"That means they'd leave me, probably. And I don't think I could stand that. Losin' — even for a year or two — the person meant to love me. We’d give up so much valuable time tryin’ to make that love bloom. And who knows what’ll happen after the wait? What’ll be left behind?"
That confession rests between them for a moment.
Kiyoomi doesn't really have words. Nothing to make it better. He imagines a dried up seed, unable to sprout. A flower that’ll never blossom.
"So you're going to wait until you retire?" It comes out, eventually. His voice is soft, like he’s trying to soothe. It's just a new kind of drama, a new story.
Atsumu nods. "That's the plan. Settle down."
"What if you never find them?" It's a risk.
People are more social when they’re young. It's harder to touch — and be touched — later on.
"Whatever will be will be," he says, shrugging.
But also, he has to ask. "Do you think your soulmate will be upset? Isn’t it selfish?" It's a fear that Kiyoomi realizes he has, too, blooming like color on his heart.
Upset that they waited so long. Upset that they didn't want them for a while. Just upset that, in a world that makes it so easy and foolproof to love, Atsumu and Kiyoomi did it the hard way. Waited. Let themselves grow thirsty, waiting for affection that may never come; take a risk, rather than snuff out the spark.
This is why Kiyoomi’s avoided touch for so long; it’s a kind of discomfort he could never handle.
Atsumu doesn't hesitate. "Probably," he shrugs, "but I think they'll understand eventually. Otherwise we wouldn't be soulmates. They’ve gotta understand my hunger."
He turns to Kiyoomi, smiles in that strange way that makes him look fox-like, eyes shut tight. A little otherworldly, inhumanly content. Willing to starve, just so that the meal is perfect.
But then they open, and the grin softens.
"Hey, Omi, thanks for listenin’.” He pats the air above Kiyoomi's back with his gloved hand. Kiyoomi can’t help but snort to hide his smile; it’s such a Miyan Affectation, even though there’s no bare skin to touch.
It’s nice, standing next to Atsumu, in a rare silence; it’s like he’s allergic to it whenever they hang out, always needing something to talk about. Inside — through the half-shut door – the event must have turned into a real party, because there’s a roar of cheers. Has Barnes left with his soulmate? Has someone else met their match?
He really wishes he could find out without having to go inside. If only he still had his phone, to check the group chat. Catching a glimpse of it out in the grass, he huffs, annoyed. Atsumu is insane. He better make it up to him.
As if in answer, Atsumu pulls out his own phone when it beeps, squinting down at the screen. "Oh, Bokkun says the dessert trays are out, we should go— Omi?!" He shrieks, because, overcome by an impulse he’ll question for the rest of their lives, Kiyoomi grabs his phone and throws it.
This, too, is something they share: a need for revenge.
Luckily Atsumu’s phone is also in a nice case — they bought them together, after one-too-many fights led to cracked screens and worse — and it lands with a soft thump on the grass.
"Payback," he cackles, unmoved by pastry. But his laughter fades quickly because Atsumu is too quiet. He expected yelling, a fight. Angry words. An unbroken status quo.
Not silence.
When he looks at him — really looks — he realizes why.
Eyes wider than the moon, Atsumu holds up his ungloved hand: the one he held his phone with.
There, on the backs of his fingers, so deep they could blend in with the night, are the smudged lines of dark blue fingerprints.
Soulmarks.