Work Text:
Coming home from school, Atsumu had slung himself over the sofa, face down in the cushions and feet in the air as he groaned. He’d had to deal with so many confessions during practice today, and it was a pain in the neck. Why couldn’t people just leave him to play volleyball in peace?
Before he can roll onto his side and reach for the TV remote, Osamu strides in and casually plonks himself right on Atsumu’s back, as if his twin wasn’t even there in the first place.
“Geh! Get off, ‘Samu! You’re heavy!” Ignoring Atsumu, Osamu grabs the remote and settles where he is, crossing his legs and resting his chin in his hand as he starts channel flicking. Somehow, Atsumu manages to wriggle an arm free and grabs one of the sofa cushion, twisting as best he can to smack the cushion against his brother’s face.
“Get! Off!” The fact that Osamu is so used to this that he doesn’t even react says something for how well the brothers get along. Maybe ordinary siblings were this annoying too, Atsumu didn’t know. All he knew was that Osamu was his best friend, but also his worst enemy.
“I’ll call for mum.” Like a bolt of lightning, Osamu is suddenly on his feet, bolting out the door. Atsumu grins and reaches for the remote to put on his favourite trash reality TV program and-
Mother Fucker.
“Osamu, get back here so I can kill you!” He springs up from the sofa, heading towards the kitchen at the sound of the fridge closing. As he skids into the doorway, Osamu grabs a spoon from the draining board, holds it with his lips, and dashes away again, pudding cup in one hand and remote in the other.
“OSAMU!” His brother is having too much fun, Atsumu thinks, spotting the reflection of his grinning face in the end-of-hallway mirror. Time to take him down a peg.
As Osamu turns to go through the door on the left, Atsumu lunges. He trips over his own socked foot as the bastard jumps backwards instead, snickering as he spins on his heel and escapes into the downstairs bedroom. Atsumu growls at his reflection in the mirror.
“... I’m gonna kill him.” With a skip in his step, Osamu hops out the sliding door into the garden, closing it behind him. He takes the spoon out of his mouth and tucks it under his thumb holding the pudding cup, then drops the remote into an empty plant pot.
He trots gleefully over to where his mother is crouched down in the flowerbed, planting her autumn flowers.
“Winding your brother up again, Osamu?”
“Jus’ doing my job~.”
“You boys, honestly…” He snickers, taking the wrapper off his pudding cup and stuffing it in his pocket. They can hear Atsumu swearing up a storm as he tries to wrestle the door open, but there’s a knack to it that only Osamu and his mother have fully mastered.
“He’s worse than me.” Mama Miya raises an amused eyebrow, trying to look stern but failing as she points her trowel at Osamu’s face.
“You’re just as bad as each other and you know it.” Shrugging, Osamu digs into his pudding, eating in peace as he looks around the garden. Their mother must have been working on it all day. The grass is neatly trimmed, the rose bushes are pruned, the overhanging branches of the magnolia have been cut back, and there’s new plants everywhere.
He glances over to the small greenhouse, noting the hose poking through the ajar door. Seems like she’s started nurturing cuttings in there, ready to grow through the winter and be planted in spring.
Osamu wonders how he and Atsumu manage to kill everything they touch when their mother has double green thumbs. Must take after their father, when it comes to garden things, he thinks.
“Oh, I actually had a favour to ask you two, if-”
“OSAMU!” Having given up on trying to get the dodgy door open, Atsumu had instead looped through the whole house, out the front door, and around to the back, entering through the back gate. He looks livid, lunging at his brother, and Mama Miya sighs.
“Can we leave the murder until later? I have an errand I need you to run.” Pausing in their battle, Atsumu takes one last opportunity to lean over and eat the glob of pudding off Osamu’s spoon.
“That’s gross!”
“We have the same genetics!”
“It’s my pudding!”
“Tastes better stolen~.” Osamu growls under his breath, but their exasperated mother clicks her fingers to draw their attention, making them break apart. Atsumu now has the pudding, polishing it off in two massive bites.
“I want to use the shed to store my new gardening tools, but there’s… A slight problem.” The twins blink at her, confused and intrigued. Mama Miya presses her fingertips together like she always does when asking for something she wants.
“Something is living in there. Think you can get it out?”
“I guess we can.”
“Yeah, ‘Sumu makes me want to move out all the time.”
“Maybe I wouldn’t if you stopped stealing my socks!”
“Then stop stealing my puddings!”
“Only if you stop pushing me down the fucking stairs!”
“You trip me in the middle of the road!”
“Boys, boys! Enough arguing! Get that animal out of the shed, then murder each other!” Jumping apart, Atsumu salutes and Osamu guiltily averts his eyes. They mutter apologies, though Mama Miya only smiles as she passes over a cat carrier.
“I’m not sure what it is, but it certainly throws tantrums a lot.”
“Great. Sounds fun.”
“Wear gloves, okay?” It takes them 10 minutes to kit out, wearing thick boots, gardeners gloves, and arming themselves with anything they could use to catch… Whatever the very angry thing in the shed is.
“So… What kind of lure do we grab?”
“Why not use your feet? They stink like something only a beast would eat.”
“Says the one who steals my socks.”
“I’m saving them from the fate of ‘Sumu’s feet.”
“... You’re an ass.”
“You’re a pathological liar, a pudding thief, and general despicable human being.”
“You’re barely human.”
“I’m not even offended by that.” With a dry tone, Osamu opens the shed door, pausing before he steps in. Because something spits and chirps.
“You’re hearing that, right?”
“Yeah. I don’t think it’s a cat, ‘Samu.”
“No shit, genius.” Before Atsumu can summon a witty response, something scampers towards the twin in the shed doorway. He blinks.
“.. A squirrel.”
“What, where?!” As Atsumu shoves in to try and get a look, he ends up pushing Osamu forwards. The squirrel lunges. With a shrill shriek, Osamu pushes back.
“Move, move! Get out! Let me out! It’s fucking biting me!” The twins stumble across the garden, watching the squirrel bark at them one more time before sprinting back to the shed. Atsumu stares after it until Osamu hisses, a wince in his voice.
“It bit me…” Whipping his head around, Atsumu spots the blood trickling down Osamu’s arm, from just beneath his sleeve. There’s another one on his leg too, and maybe a nick on his shoulder. The one he holds, though, is the deep cut on the back of his hand, from where the glove slipped, that quivers in pain.
“Forget the squirrel, we need to get those washed first.”
“I’m fine, let’s do as mum asked-”
“No, Osamu. You don’t want to get an infection.” Osamu knows his twin is serious, because the only time Atsumu doesn’t shorten his name is when he’s furious, or something is wrong and he’s worried to the point of going into what Osamu calls “mother mode.”
“Squirrels can give you a rabies infection, so we should probably tell Mum and get you to hospital ASAP.” Osamu rolls his eyes.
“It isn’t that bad. Let’s get the squirrel first.”
“Osamu!” Ignoring his brother, Osamu pulls the glove on again and picks up the cat carrier. He would have opened the door to the shed again, if not for one thing. Atsumu tackles him. Tackles him!
“You! Are going! To get rabies!”
“The only rabid one here is you! Get off me!” Their brawl, of course, creates a lot of noise, just enough to draw Mama Miya from the house, tea-towel slung over her arm as she storms towards them.
“Goodness gracious, you two! Can’t you ever get along off the court?!” Guiltily, they spring apart, before she can lose the last thread of her patience. What they don’t expect is for her eyes to widen, slightly horrified.
“Atsumu! What did you do to him?!” It takes Atsumu a second to realise what she’s talking about, as Osamu clamps his hand around the bleeding squirrel bite on his upper arm, displaying the back of his hand unintentionally.
“It wasn’t him - for once - but the thing in the shed. It’s a squirrel. A very angry one.” Sighing, Mama Miya steps over and wraps the tea towel around his hand, eyes trailing the blood trickling down his upper arm from the one on his bicep.
“Any others?”
“Leg.”
“Alright, well… Let’s rinse these off then get you to the doctors.” Osamu nods, but Atsumu makes a sound of protest.
“How are you so calm about this? What if it had rabies?”
“Squirrels don’t carry rabies. If they do, I’ve never heard of it.” As much as Atsumu would like to disagree, he knows their mother is the flora and fauna master in their house, so he just grinds his teeth and grumbles. Osamu reaches out and flicks his nose with a deadpan expression.
“Stop being annoying. Just get rid of the squirrel. Lure it out, like I suggested in the first place.”
“How am I supposed to do that?!” He looks towards his mother as if begging for sweet release from this world. First, he doesn’t get to relax on the safe. Secondly, the remote gets stolen so he can’t watch his shitty TV programmes. And now, he’s in charge of evicting an extremely angry wild animal.
“Food, sweetheart. Nuts, raisins, mushrooms… Squirrels will eat all of those. I think we have some mushrooms in the side garden.”
“Great. Okay. Fine. I’ll just… Get rid of it then.” Osamu smirks at him as their mother beams, knowing full well he’s being bratty and sarcastic.
“Good~. We’ll be back after the doctors. Be safe!” Mama Miya pushes Osamu back into the house, not letting him stay long enough to say something witty to wind Atsumu up some more. Her boys are like clockwork toys, sometimes, turning each other’s keys until there’s an explosion of noise and chaos.
Atsumu growls under his breath, glancing at the shed where the cute, cursed creature lives. First, though, he makes his way to the side garden. It’s not really a separate garden, but rather a little area partitioned off by a wall of ivy climbing up a white trellis, with an arch to walk through.
Towards the back, there’s a small butterfly tree that’s constantly pruned into perfect shape. When it blossoms with beautiful purple flowers, their garden fills with butterflies and bees. The bees, Atsumu doesn’t like, which is common sense since he’s been stung before. The butterflies, Osamu hates. Lepidopterophobia was the official diagnosis.
But the tree isn’t in bloom yet, so it’s safe for Atsumu to approach without caution for bees. Just as his mother predicted, there’s a healthy bounty of mushrooms growing in the damp, dark soil between the tree, the trellis, and the fence. It’s the perfect place for them to grow.
“Gotcha. Getting that bastard out of here can’t be that hard now.” He strolls over to the shed, tosses the mushrooms into the cat carrier, and opens the shed door. Once more, there’s a bark and spitting noise, and the squirrel scampers into sight.
“Don’t you look at me like that. You bit my brother. I’m gonna make sure you go far, far away.” With that said and done, he walks to the centre of the garden, and waits.
And waits.
And waits.
Just as he’s getting fed up and contemplates going indoors to take a nap whilst the house is empty, there’s movement. He resists the urge to bolt over, knowing it would scare the squirrel back into the shed. He tiptoes over, slyly smirking.
“... What.” There, in the cat carrier, are two squirrels. Atsumu blinks off his shock as he slides the carrier door into place, locking it. One of the squirrels, munching on the mushrooms, has a twisted leg. Obviously, it limps.
“Well, you’re not the one who attacked ‘Samu.” His eyes drift to the other one, cheeks stuffed with the mushrooms.
“You, on the other hand, definitely are. You little shit. Only I’m allowed to hurt ‘Samu.” He glares at it, but… He can’t help seeing something about these squirrels, something familiar, something… Brotherly. His eyes soften.
“Guess you were just protecting your twin too, huh? I get that.” He sighs as he watches them, allowing them to finish the mushrooms before he picks up the cat carrier.
“S’only a short walk to the forest. You’ll be happier there. Tons of acorns, trees, and probably more mushroom that our garden can produce.” He walks as he talks, making his way through the streets to more rural paths, then up into the mountain forest.
As the grass blends into a floor of pine needles, and he spots plenty of berry producing plants, trees with nuts, and mushrooms, Atsumu crouches down and puts the cat carrier on the ground.
“Don’t bite me. Unlike ‘Samu, I bite back.” Unlocking the carrier door, he tugs it open and quickly backs off. The first squirrel hops out, scurrying around to investigate before returning to its injured friend. Atsumu watches as the duo move into the bushes, out of sight and into their new home.
“Guess I’d better check on my brother too, huh?” He starts off walking, but the thought of Osamu bleeding and hurt and the way his hand was shaking has Atsumu speeding up, and when his thoughts turn to infection, he sprints.
He sprints through the backstreets and along the road and back home, because that’s his twin. Bursting into the front garden, he drops the carrier aside wherever it lands and slams the door open.
“Osamu!”
“What?” The cranky call from the living room has Atsumu sigh in relief and he strides in, painting on a smirk and crossing his arms smugly.
“What’s got you so pissed off~?”
“I had to get a fucking Tetanus shot.” Atsumu laughs, cackling as he slumps against the back of the sofa Osamu is sprawled on, reaching over to poke his arm. With a glare and pout, Osamu snatches his arm away.
Asides from the plaster over where he got the shot, his hand is heavily bandaged, his arm is wrapped, and there’s a large gauze over the bad bite on his leg.
“Guess you won’t be practicing tomorrow, huh?”
“No. I’m not allowed. Not for a week.” Atsumu winces. The thing is, Osamu gets frustrated easily. He gets cranky, grumpy, and snappy. In some respects, he’s worse with people than Atsumu is, but volleyball keeps him calm. The rest of the week, especially near the end, is going to be hell.
“I’ll get you some pudding, ‘kay?” Narrowed eyes scan him like he’s planning something.
“... Why are you being nice? It’s weird. Stop it.”
“Wha-?! I’m allowed to be nice sometimes!”
“It’s not like you at all.”
“Well, maybe I’ll poke your wounds instead then!”
“Go for it, Risu.” Squirrel. Osamu just called him squirrel. He stares blankly for a moment before sneering.
“If anything, that squirrel should be named after me. I beat you up first.”
“Whatever you say, ‘Sumu.” Atsumu’s lips twitch upwards into a smile. He’s relieved. The worry from before ebbs away, knowing full well that his brother will be okay.
Still, he might tease him a little bit for getting bit by a squirrel. Maybe tomorrow he’ll swap Osamu’s lunchbox for a bunch of mushrooms…