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Kita wakes up in a stark white room, the beeping of machines piercing through the silence. With much struggle, he turns, and sees a half a dozen needles attached to his arms and to his sides. He tries to lift his head, to lift his arms, and barely succeeds; his muscles feel far weaker than before.
Seeing him move, a nearby nurse rushes to his side.
“You’re finally awake!” the nurse chirps, “How are you feeling?”
Kita blinks in response, before saying, “My head hurts.” His own voice sounds strange to his ears, gravelly from lack of use.
The nurse turns to check one of the tubes attached to Kita’s arm, then gives him an apologetic look. “We’re already giving you the maximum dose of pain reliever we’re allowed to give, so you’ll have to bear with it, okay?”
Kita gives a small ‘yes’ in reply.
Before the nurse turns to leave, he weakly grasps at her hand and asks, “Where’s Atsumu?”
The smile plastered on the nurse’s face falters, and she squeezes Kita’s hand before saying “I’ll let your visitor in, okay? You can ask him about it,” in a small voice.
The nurse is back in a few minutes, followed by a man dressed all in black; black hair, black cap, black shirt, and black pants.
“Atsumu?” Kita repeats. He remembers Atsumu’s hair as being bleached a light shade of blond rather than jetblack, but Atsumu’s face is one he would recognize from anywhere. That is his face, he is sure.
“I’m not — ” the other man says. Confusion begins to show on Kita’s face, and his head pangs.
“Yeah, I’m Atsumu,” the other man says after a brief pause.
“What happened, why am I here?” Kita says, as he turns to look around the hospital room. “And my head really hurts.”
“It was a car accident, you’ve been in a coma for a month, Kita-san,” his Atsumu says, voice unusually somber. Strange, he remembers his Atsumu being much louder, but perhaps the hospital staff had told him off for being too noisy.
His Atsumu walks closer to his bed, and holds his hands. “I’m glad you’re finally awake, Kita-san.”
“I’m glad to see you too, Atsumu,” Kita replies with a small smile, before he drifts off to sleep.
--
When Kita wakes up again, Atsumu is no longer by his side.
“Where’s Atsumu?” he asks the nurse again.
She turns to point at the clock, and explains that it was beyond visiting hours. “But he promised to come back tomorrow,” she chimes, “so make sure to rest up so you’ll be awake when he visits!”
Kita tries his best to go back to sleep, but the dull pain of his head and of the needles attached to him keep him awake. So instead, he settles for taking the time to organize his thoughts and memories.
He realizes he remembers nothing much beyond his own name and Atsumu’s presence. He can remember his grandma ruffling his hair as a child, but he can no longer remember her face. He can no longer remember his parents’ faces.
He knows he is from Hyogo, and remembers meeting Atsumu in high school. There are scenes of Atsumu playing volleyball that flash in his mind, and he can remember the feeling of a ball hitting his outstretched arms. But he cannot remember the face or name of anyone else in their team.
Yet his memories of Atsumu remain clear and bright, as if played from a reel in his mind. Atsumu’s smile, Atsumu’s laugh, even Atsumu’s glum expression as he sulks are embedded deep into his psyche.
--
When he wakes up, his Atsumu is seated on a chair right beside his bed, scrolling through his phone.
“Atsumu,” he calls out, and all at once the other man’s attention is on him.
“How are you feeling today, Kita-san?”
Kita pauses for a while, before saying, “My head doesn’t hurt as much today, so I’m feeling better. Though I realized I don’t remember much. My memories are all hazy.”
“What do you still remember?” the other man says slowly. “So we can fill in the gaps in your memories.”
“My name, and you,” Kita gazes at his Atsumu, and reaches out to caress the other man’s cheek. The other man draws closer to help Kita touch his face more easily.
“Everything else feels blurred, but all my memories of you are so clear, Atsumu,” Kita continues. “I can’t even remember anyone else in our team, not their names nor their faces, but I know we played volleyball together. I don’t remember my parents’ faces, but I still remember how happy you looked during our first date.”
There is a pause, as his Atsumu gazes at him.
“You really love Atsu — me, huh.”
“Of course. I love you, Atsumu.”
--
Visiting hours in the ICU are limited to two hours per day, so his visitor is kicked out of the room soon, to Kita’s protests.
“You’re recovering well, so we’ll move you to a private room soon, Kita-san. Then you can spend time with any visitor, but for now you need to rest,” his nurse tells him, as she replaces the IV drip attached to his arm.
She soon leaves to attend to another patient, and Kita is left alone with his thoughts.
Over the past two hours, his Atsumu had told him stories to fill the gaps — of how he was the revered captain of their team during their third year, and how he had managed to keep the Inarizaki team grounded and disciplined despite the colorful personalities of everyone in the team. His Atsumu had scrolled through his phone to find pictures of each member of their team, along with a little snippet of this member’s personality.
There was Ren Oomimi, their middle blocker, who used to drink tea with Kita all the time. Aran Ojiro was their ace, and he was also a good friend of Kita’s. Hitoshi Ginjima, their wing spiker, had a fiery personality but he always meant well. Rintarou Suna was a middle blocker, and he was always snapping pictures on his phone. Michinari Akagi, their libero, was more on the quiet side but also joined in all the team’s hijinks.
His Atsumu took his time with each explanation, lest he overwhelm Kita with information overload. Kita gladly took in all that he was told, to make up for his lost memories.
“Is that everyone on the team?” Kita had asked the other man.
After a short pause, the other man had nodded. “Yup, that’s everyone in Inarizaki’s team. The regulars, I mean. We can go through the pinch servers and reserve members some other time, before they visit you.”
Kita couldn’t help shake the feeling that there was someone else missing, another member of their team. But his mind yielded no other face nor name, so he decided to leave it be. His Atsumu would not leave anyone out, after all.
-- /// --
After leaving the ICU, Osamu sits by the hospital’s lobby and pulls out his phone. The first person he decides to call is Aran. The other man picks up after a couple of seconds, and immediately asks, “Osamu, how’s Kita-san? Any news?”
“He’s awake. But…,” Osamu trails off.
After a few seconds of silence, Aran asks, “But what?” in a soft voice.
“He’s forgotten everyone. Everyone on our team, and even his family and parents. ‘Cept ‘Tsumu.”
“Oh.”
There is silence between them again, save for the muffled sobbing from Osamu’s end of the line.
“I couldn’t tell ‘im, Aran. Couldn’t tell him ‘Tsumu’s gone. He thinks I’m him.”
Aran is at a loss for what to say, and mumbles an ‘I’m sorry’. He could hear Osamu blow his nose from the other end of the line, and stifle a sob.
“I didn’t know what to do,” Osamu continues, voice quivering. “I can’t tell him now that I’m not actually ‘Tsumu, can I? I don’t wanna hurt him.”
“But Osamu, what are you planning to do? You can’t pretend to be Atsumu.”
“We have the same face, and I know ‘Tsumu inside and out. Pretendin’ will be easy.” Osamu’s laugh is completely devoid of joy. “If it means Kita-san would be spared the pain, if it means ‘Tsumu will live on just a bit more within me, then I’ll take it, Aran.”
--
Osamu spends the next few hours removing traces of himself; deleting pictures with both him and his twin in it from his and Kita’s phones, deleting his own social media accounts, telling his former teammates and friends to call him Atsumu.
“They must be thinkin’ I’ve completely lost it”, Osamu mumbles as he rests his head on his hands. “They’re not wrong.”
--
His request to be called Atsumu was met with protests and violent reactions from his friends.
“Osamu, don’t be such an idiot!” Ginjima practically screams into his phone. “There’s nothin’ we can do to spare Kita-san from the truth!”
“I don’t mean to keep it from him forever,” Osamu replies, his calm voice a stark contrast to Ginjima’s. “Just until he recovers his own memories.”
“And if they never come back?”
“Then I’ll stay as ‘Tsumu.”
--
“Osamu, what exactly are you thinking? Or not thinking?”
Osamu cringes, hearing Suna’s judgment from the other end of the line.
“You can’t do all this to keep Kita-san from suffering.” This time, Suna’s voice is soft. “What about you? You’re hurting too.”
Osamu answers with silence.
--
Begrudgingly, everyone accepts his request to be his twin.
“Only until Kita-san is physically better,” Aran says.
“Only until Kita-san’s memories are back,” Ginjima says.
“Only until Kita-san would be able to handle the truth,” Suna says.
He accepts everyone’s conditions. It won’t be forever, just until it would be okay for Kita-san to say goodbye to ‘Tsumu. Just until he himself could say goodbye to ‘Tsumu.
--
It was strange. His twin had always taken his things; taken his favorite shirts and jackets, taken his pudding from the fridge, taken his game consoles and every little thing he could to annoy his twin. His twin had taken their shared crush on Kita-san, had made Kita-san the love of his life.
But now that ‘Tsumu was gone, instead of revelling in finally having the things that had been taken from him by his twin, Osamu was at more of a loss than ever.
--//--
After a few days in the ICU — days filled with nothing but the monotony of staring at the stark white walls of his hospital room, punctuated by his Atsumu’s 2 hour-long visits —Kita is finally moved to a private room.
He smiles brightly upon seeing his Atsumu waiting for him in the room.
“If your condition remains stable after a few days, we’ll discharge you,” the doctor says after taking his vitals for the day. “You can have other visitors as long as you don’t overexert yourself,” the doctor continues.
Later, when the doctors and nurses have left the room, Kita turns to look at his Atsumu, and says “Will our other friends visit?”
The other man nods. “They want to come tomorrow, ‘s that okay with you Kita-san? If you’re not feelin’ well enough I can ask them to come some other time.”
Kita shakes his head. “No, it’s fine. I want to see them soon. I can’t remember them well, but maybe I’ll remember when I see them.”
He is met by another nod.
--
The next day, the rest of their friends come to visit, bringing fruits, snacks, and tea with them.
“How are you feeling, Kita-san?” a tall dark-skinned man — whom he recognizes to be Aran from Atsumu’s pictures and descriptions — asks him.
“I’m feeling a lot better. Especially since Atsumu has been taking care of me these past few days.” Kita gestures towards his Atsumu, and smiles.
He sees the smile on Aran’s face falter a bit , though maybe he was just seeing things. Perhaps it was a trick of the light.
“Do you remember us now?” someone with spiky hair —perhaps Ginjima?— asks him.
Kita shakes his head in reply. “Everything’s a haze, but it’s not so bad now as it was a few days ago. I can remember granny’s face a bit more, and I remember scolding the team for pranks they did, though I can’t remember who I was scolding yet.”
“You don’t have to remember the scolding part, you can forget that part,” another friend with foxlike eyes—maybe Suna?—replies in a deadpan voice, and the rest of them laugh.
The afternoon flies by quickly, as they share snacks and tea and stories of their high school memories. Every once in a while, the person telling the story would pause in the middle of sharing their tale, and would mix up people’s names.
“We’re growing old and forgetful, huh,” Aran says with a nervous laugh, as he tries to get the name of the person who had a fistfight with Atsumu correctly.
“That’s just you,” Suna retorts, “I remember everything perfectly.”
Kita laughs at the bickering, then yawns.
“Tired already, Kita-san?” his Atsumu quickly goes to his side.
“Mm. I don’t have much energy yet, but please come again some other time, I enjoyed everyone’s company.”
The rest quickly pack up their belongings and head for the door. His Atsumu heads towards the door as well, but Kita calls out after him with, “Atsumu, stay with me?”
“I won’t be long, I’ll just accompany them to the door,” the other man says, squeezing his hand gently.
--//--
Once they’re outside the room and no longer within Kita’s hearing range, the others turn to look at Osamu.
“Are you okay?” Aran is the first to ask.
“I’ll cope,” is Osamu’s answer. “You all could see it too, right? The way Kita-san looks at Atsumu, looks at me , like he’s...like I’m the most precious thing in the world. I just...I can’t...”
“Only until he recovers his memories,” Ginjima places a hand on Osamu’s shoulder, and squeezes.
“He’ll be ready to face the truth soon. You should get ready to tell it,” Suna follows up, after giving Osamu a half hug.
--
He stays with Kita in the hospital room, day in and day out, save for the day before Kita is to be discharged.
“Kita-san, I’ll clean up our house and run a few errands today, okay? The nurse has my phone number, you can ask her to call me if anything comes up.”
A frown is on Kita’s face, but he nods anyway.
After making sure Kita’s vitals were clear for the day, and after giving his phone number to the nurse, he makes his way to Kita and Atsumu’s house.
It is an hour-long drive from the hospital to Kita and Atsumu’s house, and he takes this time to strengthen his resolve. He was going to remove all traces of himself from their house. He was going to be Atsumu.
At least until Kita was okay.
At least until Kita was ready to say goodbye to Atsumu.
The hour-long drive did not prepare him for the barrage of memories hanging on the walls of Kita and Atsumu’s house, however. Pictures of him and his twin from high school were perched by the entryway, beside a picture of Atsumu with Kita during their first date. On the coffee table, there’s a printout of the selfie he took while Atsumu was proposing to Kita right after Atsumu had been part of the winning team in the Olympics. A framed picture of the three of them together during Atsumu and Kita’s wedding from a few months ago was hanging on the wall of the living room, right on top of the couch. On the fridge, there’s a small photo of him and Atsumu as kids, and another photo of him teasing Atsumu as the latter tried harvesting rice for the first time.
Deleting pictures on his phone and social media was one thing. Being faced by printed copies of his memories was another matter entirely.
He takes a large cardboard box, and begins to put every framed picture, every worn and torn photograph with him and his twin, inside it. It takes a few hours; there are photographs and traces of him everywhere in Atsumu and Kita’s home, a testament to how big of a part he played in his twin’s life.
He shoves the box away to the attic at the end of the day. The house feels bare.
Right before he heads back to the hospital, he drops by Onigiri Miya, and puts a ‘closed until further notice’ outside.
--///--
“Somehow, the house feels a bit emptier than I remember,” Kita muses as he enters their home for the first time in a while. “Though my memories are still hazy, so maybe I’m just mistaken.”
“It’s the same as before, Kita-san,” the other man replies.
“I remember you liked being in pictures a lot, you’re quite vain after all, Atsumu. There are less pictures here than I thought we would have,” Kita continues as he looks around their home.
His Atsumu gives a noncommittal shrug. “Got kinda tired of seeing my face everywhere at some point.”
“Well, I’ll never grow tired of your face.” A bright smile is on Kita’s face; an expression shown to no one except Atsumu. “Let’s say we take more pictures to hang up?”
The other man nods, and gives a small smile in return.
--
The one thing Kita is sure of are his memories of Atsumu; when his eyes are closed, his memories of his beloved play clearly like a video projected on a screen. And so it strikes him as odd that his memories don’t match up perfectly with reality.
The differences between the Atsumu of his memories and the Atsumu of his everyday reality are subtle, but he can't help but notice them.
For one, this Atsumu doesn’t cling to him as much; there would always be a reassuring arm around his shoulders, a hand on his own, but it somehow feels more careful. Atsumu’s touches have grown more hesitant. And this Atsumu still showed affection, but his kisses were always chaste. His hands never wandered.
Kita dismisses his thoughts. Surely Atsumu was just wary of pushing him too far in his current state of health?
Surely he was just overthinking?
--
“Atsumu, why is your hair black?” he asks right before his Atsumu enters the bath.
The other man pauses for a while, and replies with, “It was too much of a hassle to keep dyeing it, my hair was dead and I was spending too much on conditioner.”
--
“Atsumu, do you want ootoro as usual?” he asks as he prepares their dinner.
“Anything is fine, I eat anything.”
Kita ponders on this for a while. “Hm, you used to be pickier with food.”
“Everything you cook is delicious, Kita-san,” his Atsumu says.
--
“Atsumu, since when did you know how to cook?” he asks as he watches the other man prepare their breakfast.
“I kinda just picked it up?” is the reply, after which he is handed a freshly made rice ball.
Kita takes a bite. “Hmm. Your rice balls are really delicious.”
--
“Atsumu, why won’t you call me Shinsuke? You used to keep insisting on it,” he asks upon hearing Atsumu call him Kita-san yet again.
“I’m just more used to saying Kita-san, I guess.”
“Call me Shinsuke again.”
He is met by a nod, and a murmured "Shinsuke".
--
His memories came back slowly after getting discharged, usually in the form of dreams. He now remembers being classmates with Aran, remembers scolding Suna for taking photos all the time, and remembers having to deal with Ginjima’s quickfire temper. He remembers the days spent drinking tea with his granny, remembers her stories of the deities and the gods.
But every once in a while, he would dream of there being two Atsumu’s. An identical copy to his Atsumu.
And after a couple of days of vague and hazy dreams, he gains clear memories of their last game in high school together; he remembers another person, with an identical face to Atsumu, wearing number 11. Remembers his name.
The name “Osamu” is on his lips as he wakes up. Beside him, Osamu wakes up upon hearing Kita say his name.
--
“You’re Osamu.”
It is a statement, not a question, and Kita’s face is unreadable.
“You remember?” the other man, Osamu, asks.
“I had a dream, a really vivid dream. Probably a memory. We played together in a match against Karasuno, and we lost so Atsumu was sulking. You were also there.”
Osamu’s reply is a somber glance, before he turns to look down at his hands.
“Why?”
Osamu’s voice is small as he answers with, “You thought I was ‘Tsumu and I didn’t wanna hurt you by saying that he’s gone.”
Osamu stifles a sob, before continuing with, “And maybe I just didn’t wanna let go of ‘Tsumu yet, it still doesn’t feel real. And your memories are the last thing tying him to this world. You saying goodbye to him felt like...like he’s gone for good.”
“I’m sorry,” Kita sobs, not really knowing what to say. “For having you pretend to be him for my sake. For not being able to tell sooner. You must’ve been in a lot of pain.”
“He loved you so much, you know? He couldn’t have borne to see you so sad.”
“Osamu,” Kita’s voice is barely audible, “he loved you too. He'd want you to be happy too.”
--
The next morning, at the brink of dawn, they bring flowers to Atsumu’s grave.
Osamu watches as Kita gives Atsumu a silent farewell, before giving a farewell of his own.