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By the time we turn fifteen, you’ve told more lies about me than anything else in our lives.
“Yeah, we even have the same fingerprints!”
“We both wanted to be setters, but Coach said only one setter per family so ‘Samu and me dueled for it.”
“I grew an inch taller than him last year but he got mad and smushed me back down to match.”
“He was born first ‘cause I lost at rock paper scissors in the womb.”
“‘Samu and I switched bodies once when we bonked our heads together during practice.”
“No, I’m serious here, I have three kidneys and he only has one! Also, he was born without a heart so they hadta cut out part of mine and grow an implant for him.”
“That doesn’t even make medical sense,” Rika-chan says with a sniff, and Haruto nods in agreement. They’re both cute in vapid, pointless ways that you’ll forget about by the time we get into high school. I’m flopped facedown with my forehead plastered against the desk, so they can’t see me rolling my eyes, but you can sense it even without seeing my face. You could probably sense it halfway across the world.
“C’mon, Miya, tell us the truth; you’re completely identical, right?” Haruto says, wheedling, and I hear you sigh because there’s no point explaining to people too stupid to figure it out themselves. I didn’t think you would tire of this class so quickly — some of our classmates are probably attractive or whatever, but you only seem interested in Hattori Ayako, who sits all the way across the room by the windows and spends her time sketching intricate sea turtles and re-braiding her hair to try and catch the loose strands. She’s exactly your type.
“Gotta be,” Rika-chan agrees.
“No,” I say, lifting my head to stare at the crowd. You think it’s pretty obvious I was pretending to nap, but everyone startles at the sound of my voice anyway. The crease between your eyebrows — the one we both get when we’re overwhelmed by noise or we miss a serve or we’re sick of slapping mosquitoes out of the air — deepens, and I know you’re half-sick of this group already. You always look too far forward. Neither of us likes looking back, but sometimes I search for you beside me only to find that you’ve already run so far ahead.
Haruto looks over at me but sees you. This happens more often than the other way around.
“You’re not?”
“Nope. ‘Tsumu stole one of my kidneys before we were even born ‘cause he’s an asshole. Oh, but he helped grow me a heart, which I guess makes up for the kidney thing. I can show ya the scar.” I begin to unbutton my uniform and everyone squeals as they lean in closer, but our history teacher walks in before anyone can catch a glimpse and scolds them all back into their seats. You’re the one rolling your eyes this time. Despite this, I’ll bet one or two of our classmates will take up residence in your consciousness soon enough.
You try to catch my gaze when we’re taking out our textbooks, but I’m already back to nodding off in an upright position, knowing that you’ll kick my chair to wake me before I get called on. For all that your personality sucks, I can at least assume that you’ve got my back. It’s why you knew I would immediately jump to showing everyone the thin pink line across my chest that I got falling off a tree, just like I know that you’d have some elaborate story ready about how Mom and Dad keep pictures of my heart surgery in the family album.
You’re kind of glad that it didn’t get that far though, even if it’d’ve inadvertently answered Haruto’s question.
Anyone with half a brain can figure out that even identical twins won’t share the same scars.
--
Ueno Akira is the tiny dot of pencil graphite embedded beneath the skin of your left ring finger, from the time you stuck yourself while messing around instead of doing math problems. I laughed at you nonstop until I did the same thing ten minutes later.
Akira has uneven bangs and bandaids across both knees because she always skins them while rolling around the field outside school. Her voice is quiet but she knows how to do three different kicks and she always packs up her markers back in rainbow order when she puts them away.
You’re seven years old when you decide you’re going to marry her. You don’t know how to explain to me why; you just know, so I shrug and nod and keep eating my udon. There are things you know how to explain, things you can’t explain that I can understand regardless, and things that I’ll never understand no matter how long you ramble on about them. By the time I’m seventeen I’ll consistently recognize that this is one of the latter.
Akira agrees to a swingset wedding, and the two of you pledge to share gummies at snack from now on. Two weeks after the wedding you each decide you don’t want to be married anymore because married people have lots of chores to do, and you’re both too busy for that, especially since we have volleyball. You give her the most beautiful autumn leaf you find on the playground that day as a goodbye present, and she gives you a panda sticker in exchange. You spend over an hour trying to decide where to stick it so I just slap it on your handwriting pad after listening to you whine about it for the nineteenth time. It’s still there, frayed and faded with time, and flattened under the weight of all our other grade school notebooks. You haven’t seen it since Dad packed it away, but if you ever laid eyes on it again, you would remember with sepia-soaked clarity the way Akira would always color within the lines but press down a smidge too hard on the paper, letting the colors soak through the other side of the page.
Matsumoto Yuuri is the white-pink gash on your hip that you got after tumbling down the riverbank as I dragged you along, our ragdoll legs slamming against the stones before we collapsed into the water in a heap. I know that to this day you think it was your fault I fell, but I have no one to blame but myself. I was gearing up for a flying kick at your butt and unintentionally took you down with me when you reached over to smack me in the arm for teasing you about messing up our new coach’s name.
Yuuri has a smile like a cat who’s been napping in the sun all day, and the shiniest blue-black hair that you’ve ever seen. He can do a perfect imitation of Suzuki-sensei’s nasal drone and he always gets top marks in English, but he stands out the most when your class is on the track. He leaps with such perfect form over the hurdles that you think he must have been a panther in another life. You point it out on sports day, but all I see is a tall kid who’s been good at stuff his whole life and knows it. I don’t get the appeal, but watching your eyes follow him religiously as he flies through the air, wind ruffling his hair, I can pretend for a second that I do. Maybe if I hold my breath and wish with all my might, I can pretend the reason my chest hurts is because of somebody too.
(I last for thirty-nine seconds before I have to take a breath, and there’s nothing I’m aching for but oxygen.)
You know better than to ask Yuuri out, especially since everyone in fifth grade is sure that Yuuri-kun and Naomi-chan like each other. Naomi-chan with the yellow ribbons in her hair, and the neatest kanji in the whole class, and a laugh that sounds like a windchime. All the things that people like about her are things that could never be said about you. You overflow with fighting spirit, but even you know you can’t compete with that. It’s the first time I see you accept defeat even before you step onto the court, and it’s jarring in a way that stings under my fingernails and aches in the nerves of my gums. It makes me want to shake you until your teeth rattle and you stop making that stupid sad hopeless face.
The day after you decide that you’re never going to have Matsumoto Yuuri you become even more gratingly yourself. Everything is turned up to twelve on the dial, but I just hang back and let it happen, because if you were to change...if you were to become someone I don’t recognize just to be seen by a boy who’s never spared more than a few fleeting seconds thinking about you?
Well, I’d have to punch you.
Ojiro Aran is the tiny scar on the underside of your jaw, that you got when you nicked yourself that day we pretended we were old enough to shave. You put a green bandaid on your chin while I washed the evidence off the razor, but Mom saw through your lie about scratching a pimple and scolded us for half an hour about screwing around with Dad’s stuff.
Aran-kun has a crisp, no-nonsense personality and dark, pretty eyes like polished glass that glare at us whenever we do our usual routine. He has an impressive jump and broad hands tailor-made for hitting the ball that you set for him. He worries about things like putting too much sweetener in his bubble tea and how to divide up teams fairly and whether you have your coat buttoned up the right way. His laugh is boisterous and unrestrained, in a reminder that every breath he takes is full of life. You find yourself staring at Aran even when we’re walking off the court, and that’s when you realize that this isn’t just the usual happiness that comes with playing with a spiker who can match your skill.
He’s exactly your type.
At the practice workshop I get in a jab about you falling off the bed like a moron and then Aran-kun is laughing again, and your face scrunches the same way it always does when you feel that familiar flare of envy that appears, heated and ugly, whenever I show you up at something. Aran still thinks of us as a unit, even though it’s been years since we first met him, and while you don’t want that, you want even less for me to be the one that sticks out in his mind.
Look at me, look only at me, you want to shout. I can read it on your face even if I don’t understand. We’re the Miya twins. We’re always a set until someone cares enough to see that we’re not interchangeable. But Aran knows the differences between us. Aran sees you, so what does it matter if he sees me as well?
Is it so bad that I might be noticed too? Is it such a tragedy that someone might want to be my friend more than they want to be yours? Isn’t it enough that everyone says your name first? Isn’t it enough that you’ve always been a bit louder, a bit sharper, a bit brighter?
We aren’t a binary star system; I know this, have known this since that time you got it into your head you wanted to become an actor and I was relegated to interviewing you with a hairbrush about the glamorous life the eight-year-old you assumed a movie star would be living. I never minded, not really. I’m your equal where it counts, and your better in the ways that matter most to me.
Even now I have no delusions about which of us centers the solar system.
All I want to know is this: am I not allowed to be anyone without you?
I want to shove you into the bike rack when I see you glaring like I’ve stolen something from you that I wasn’t even aware of, but then your expression shifts, fading into guilt. Maybe you notice that I don’t intend to back off and let you suck up everyone’s attention, because I never see you glower at me that way again. We go to the workshop, we play, we tell bad jokes, and you stop looking like you want to bite my fingers off every time Aran-kun has a comeback for one of my gags. The way you watch him like he’s magnetically charged doesn’t change, but I don’t notice this until you spell it out.
“‘Samu, I think I like Aran-kun,” you confess when we’re lying in our backyard one day after home practice. If possible, you want to avoid a brawl over this, so you’ve decided to give me fair warning before you launch your campaign against Aran’s heart. I tear out a bunch of grass and sprinkle the loose blades into the space between us and you watch as the wind drags the grass sideways so it ends up all over your face.
“Yeah, he’s pretty funny. He goes to Ina High now, right? I’ve been thinkin’ we should apply there too,” I say, because I’m not sure how else you want me to react to this news. Now that you’ve stopped being a territorial weirdo, I can let go of that twisting frustration that knots in my stomach whenever you take more than you deserve.
“No, yeah- I mean, the Ina High thing, sure, but I think I, y’know. I like him.” You use the correct words this time, so that I’ll get it, so that I’ll see that you’re announcing yourself as a rival, but I shake my head and throw more grass at you, because this still doesn’t compute any further than the belated realization that you were being so fucking annoying because you want to be more than Aran’s friend. We’ve gone through this dozens of times before, but I don’t understand yet that this time is different to you. This time, I’m the one standing in your way.
“I’m thinkin’ ‘bout confessing to him next time after practice,” you stress, and this much, I can comprehend. I nod.
“Yeah, okay. Aran-kun’s funny and cool, so it’d be fine if you guys wanna date or whatever.”
“You ain’t mad that I might confess first?” There’s a nervousness in your voice that’s unfamiliar but not unknown, and I remember the look on your face when I lied and said I still wanted to be a setter too. For a moment, you were pale and unsure. You sucked in a hard breath like you were prepared to scream, and then you let it out in a hiss of steam before yelling to me that we’d both practice two positions and that you’d be better at both of them.
(You weren’t exactly wrong, in the end.)
“Why would I be mad?” I ask, my brows drawing together like I genuinely have no idea what you’re talking about. And I don’t. My twin wants to date my friend. The matter doesn’t concern me any farther than that. You can read my lies before they even leave my mouth, and there’s nothing but confusion in my eyes.
“I- I dunno, I thought ya liked him too,” you mutter. Perhaps you’re thinking about how I make sure to move to Aran-kun’s other side whenever you start walking next to him on our way to the train station, or about the high fives we exchange after one of us spikes, or the way I lean in to listen when he talks. You see my behavior, and it’s like reading a script you’ve long since memorized. The way I act around him — there’s only one possible explanation.
You’ve put on this play before; you know every cue and line by heart. But I don’t. When you noticed me standing under the spotlight for the first time, you realized that maybe this once, you should let me have this. Just this once, maybe this was a competition you could throw in my favor, because while you had Akira and Yuuri and Natsumi and Kaoru and Ayako and Rei, I’ve never had anyone.
So you tell me you think I like Aran-kun too, and I’m lying face-to-face again with a dilemma I’ve been grappling with since you got divorced next to our elementary school sandbox.
When you gave me my heart transplant, you left out an essential function. I thought it would develop with time. I thought I would grow into it. I thought that I was just a late bloomer, but it’s in this moment, staring into your eyes that might as well be my own, that I start to realize that something inside me is broken.
There’s still time, I try to rationalize. I’m only fifteen. There’s billions of people in the world that I haven’t met yet. One of them could be the right one. One of them could fix me. Maybe it’s Aran-kun. Maybe I could try with him.
If I pretend long enough, maybe I’ll finally understand. Maybe I can be made human too.
But, between the two of us, I’ve never been the liar.
“Aran-kun’s my friend, but that’s all he is,” I tell you, shutting a door that I’d been keeping open all these years in the hope that one day I could cross the threshold.
“Really?” you ask, even though you know I’m telling the truth.
“Yep. I don’t like him the same way you do.” I don’t know how you feel about him — I’ve never known, even though it’s been spelled out an infinite number of ways in every dead and living language, in poems and stories and songs — but I know you, and I know what you look like when you fall in love.
“But- but you’re always hangin’ around him and stuff. Tryna get his attention.”
“I want him to think I’m funny and that I’m good at volleyball. I wanna hang out with him and play some video games or somethin’, but I don’t want us to kiss or move into a house together. I don’t wanna hold hands or make out or spend all my time with him, just the two of us by ourselves. I don’t think I’ve ever liked anyone. Not like that.”
Does it make it more real when I say it aloud? You stare at me for what feels like forever and I start to second-guess the thing I’ve been second-guessing my entire life, but eventually you find something to say.
“You probably haven’t met the right person yet,” you tell me, even though the idea is totally alien to you. You’ve met the right person more times than you’ve tripped over your own shoelaces. But how can you understand me when it takes you less than half a day to unravel the beauty in each person you meet? How can nothing capture my attention when it takes only a joke, a habit, a smile to steal your heart? How could we be crafted from the same mold and wind up so different? One heart too closed, and the other too open.
Would we have been normal if we’d been born as one single, whole person instead?
There’s no point dwelling on it. I can’t imagine a me without a you.
“Nah, I don’t think that’s gonna happen. Maybe you got all the liking genes,” I say with another shrug. It’s the only way I know how to tell you that we’re okay. That I’ll grow used to who I am and that perhaps someday I could even learn to be happy about it. “Stole mine from me. That’s why I got all the good looks instead.”
“That doesn’t make any medical sense,” you snap, echoing Rika-chan. You jam your knee deep into my side and send me rolling away. It’s your way of closing the conversation. I kick your ankle in both retaliation and agreement.
“How would you know? Like you pay any attention in bio.”
“More than you do, dumbass! You sleep through every class. You ain’t learned a fuckin’ thing this year.”
“Then why are my grades better than yours, huh?”
“Because you use my notes to study!”
You try and confess to Aran-kun after our last day of the workshop, but before you get the chance he tells you he hopes to see us at Inarizaki next year.
“I got used to having you two around,” he says with a grin, slapping you on the back. “You guys are kinda like the two little brothers I never had.”
I wince as he spikes your hopes down without even realizing he’s doing it. Your smile grows stiff as the words you were preparing wither in your throat, but it gives way to something more real, and you elbow him back.
“Ha, you better get ready for us then, Aran-kun. Don’t go gettin’ any regrets once you see our pretty faces everyday!”
“Actually, I’m kinda regrettin’ it already,” Aran laughs as the train pulls into his station. “See ya later, Osamu, Atsumu.”
There’s a misplaced sense of pride that seizes my gut when he says my name first, but after we wave our goodbyes I see how your shoulders slump and I’m reminded again that in at least one way, you’re stronger than I’ll ever be.
When a seat opens up I elbow you until you fall into it, squawking. You spend the rest of the ride staring out the window, asking yourself if things might have ended differently if you’d noticed Aran sooner. If you hadn’t been distracted by your two-month romance with Uehara Tsubame, or your star-crossed infatuation with the captain of the tennis club.
By fifteen, I know that something inside me doesn’t work quite right.
By fifteen, you’re wondering the same thing about yourself.
--
You’ve mostly given up lying because you aren’t a child anymore. And also because I’m not around as much to back you up now that I live in Kobe and you live in Hell.
That’s where you assume you must be, anyway.
“Tsum-Tsum! They have black sesame! Look, look,” Bokuto says, tugging you in one direction at the same moment that Hinata loops his arm around yours and begins jumping in place with excitement over the ten — ten, atsumu-san! — different flavors of speciality milkshakes this ice cream shop has. When you tell me about this later, you can’t remember a single one of the flavors yourself. There’s nothing in your memory but the warmth of their bare hands against your skin. Hands that, if you had any kind of sense of poetry in you, you might say were crafted by the gods for you and you alone, for what is a spiker if not an extension of his setter’s will?
But you suck at poetry about as much as I do, so you just dwell on how clammy your gross arm must feel in this Okinawan heat.
“What should I get? Strawberry? Ooh, salt ice cream? Hey, d’you wanna share? We can each get a flavor and swap!”
Bokuto’s arm lands heavily on your shoulder as he rattles off this barrage of questions. You’re overwhelmed as it is, but you’re also still linked to Hinata by the elbow like the forgotten remains at the bottom of a barrel of monkeys. Bokuto is close enough that you can make out each of the individual lashes framing his ludicrously brilliant eyes, and he bears down on you like the opposite of a panic attack. His gravity is so great that you think you might just have to content yourself with living as his satellite for the rest of time. It’s not the life you dreamed of living; in your mind you’ve always been the protagonist, the singular star of your own solar system, but Bokuto burns impossibly brighter.
“Bokuto-san, he was gonna share with me!” Hinata says, now standing in front of instead of beside you. You miss his touch as soon as it’s gone, but the more pressing matter is the electric glow of the smile that he turns on you. Instinct tells you to take a step back, like a sailor recoiling from the sight of St. Elmo’s fire.
“Do you want purple yam or matcha, Atsumu-san? You prefer the ones that aren’t super sweet, right?”
“Why- why dontcha decide for us, Shouyou-kun?” you say weakly, resisting the urge to shield your eyes.
Dear God, or Kita-san, or the nearest available adult who doesn’t play for the MSBY Black Jackals, please rescue me, you beg the universe. I’ll even take ‘Samu at this point. In response, all you get is Barnes nudging you in the butt with his knee to move forward in line, which is nicer than what I would’ve done. Next to Barnes, Sakusa’s scowl deepens.
“Okay, this is what we’re gonna do. Tsum-Tsum and me will share a cone of strawberry, and then you two can get a milkshake, and then you and me, Hinata, will get the sundae-”
“Ah, sharin’ might not be such a good idea,” you start to say, noticing the unholy rage building in Sakusa’s dark, glittering eyes, but your attempts to shut down this germfest come too little, too late.
“No one is sharing ice cream!” Sakusa growls, surging forward to bust up the group with the sheer force of his disgust alone. Thomas tries to hold him back but his health-conscious fury is unstoppable. “Do you guys know many bacteria are in each of your filthy maws? Especially him.” He points at Bokuto, his arm so rigid that it’s almost begun to shake. “He licked a telephone pole yesterday! Is that what you want in your mouth?” If he weren’t wearing a mask, you would have the honor of seeing that glorious snarl firsthand, all snapping white teeth and pink lips pulled back in annoyance. You think it’s good that he’s wearing a mask.
“Omi-Omi, it’s not a big deal,” Bokuto says, trying to placate him, but Bokuto has probably never successfully comforted another living person in his life, so you try and take the lead instead before Captain Meian comes back to find you’ve all been kicked out of the shop.
“Alright, alright, we won’t share! Just take a breath, Omi-kun. Take it nice an’ easy,” you say, holding your hands out like you’re trying to calm a wounded animal. You’re careful not to touch Sakusa, knowing he’ll spray you with sanitizer if you do. Or throw salt at you like you’re a demon. Looking back at your two untamable wild cards, you tell them, “Guys, let’s just enjoy our own ice cream, ‘kay? We can come back and try the other flavors another time. Adriah-kun, wanna go first?”
Thomas, bless him, does so while you help Bokuto and Hinata decide what they should get. You herd them through the process to speed things along, and for his troubles you decide to pick up Sakusa’s tab. It’s a toss up whether he’ll appreciate the gesture or not, but you’re hoping it’ll at least help him avoid an aneurysm. If he’s glaring this much, he must really be pissed.
“Omi-kun, you want lime or orange?” you ask after ordering your own plain vanilla soft-serve.
He stares at you with those gloomy mud-puddle eyes and asks, “What makes you think I’d pick either of those?”
Your gut tells you to snap back, to give him a hearty dose of that good old Miya Atsumu temper, because half your relationship is sniping at each other and the other half is setter/spiker synergy, but that would fuck up your little peace offering so you just say lamely, “Oh, uh, I dunno. Thought ya liked sour things.” After bringing enough group orders of my onigiri for the Black Jackals to share, you’ve noticed Sakusa always chooses the umeboshi.
You continue holding out your yen to the girl behind the counter as you watch Sakusa’s eyebrows draw together, like he’s reassessing you, and after a pause he finally tells the ice cream girl, “I’ll take orange.”
“There we go,” you mutter. “Here, keep the change.”
The ice cream girl takes your money, Sakusa takes his orange sorbet, and you take your leave of the store without any casualties today. Maybe a slight dent to your pride, because somewhere down the line you inherited Aran-kun’s position as team straight man, and you think it’s really killing your hot volleyball idol vibe.
You and Sakusa catch up to the others, now hanging around a souvenir shop, in silence, until he says, with his mouth uncovered for once, “Thanks, Miya.” His mask is hanging from one ear and flapping uselessly in the wind as he tries not to smear orange all over it while bringing his spoon to his face. You rarely see him doing something so futile, and the sight warms you in a way that’s frightening, because by now you recognize your own warning signs.
To protect yourself, you fall back on old habits.
“Ah? Wait, am I hearin’ things, or did you just send some genuine gratitude my way, Omi-Omi? Is this a first? A historical event, maybe?” You flash him your brightest, falsest smile, and as expected, his bland expression morphs into irritation.
“Never mind. I take it all back.”
You’ve rejoined the rest of the group by then, so you can slip away from Sakusa before you make any more missteps. You’re tempted to go bother Hinata, who always greets you so brightly that you think you must have been living underwater in a deep sea cave before meeting him. But he’s busy looking at goofy souvenirs for his friends, and a petty part of you can’t handle listening to him talk about Tsukishima or Tobio-kun or anyone else in that fond tone he reserves for those he considers a friend and rival in equal measure.
You don’t know if you register as either one quite yet.
So you shuffle up to Bokuto instead, who perks up when he sees you, and blocks you from proceeding any further.
“Shh, Omi-Omi doesn’t need to know,” Bokuto says in a stage whisper as he hands you his black sesame ice cream. He raises his arms as if to shield you from Sakusa’s sight, and the affection that seizes your heart hurts almost as much as the brain freeze you get from chomping the top off his cone.
“Fnks, B’kkun,” you mumble, handing him your ice cream. He takes a generous lick and then hands it back, before grabbing you by the arm and tugging you into the snack store next door.
“No problem, Tsum-Tsum; you’re my partner in crime, right?” He winks before hurrying over to the sample station selling pineapple cakes. “Look at these! Help me pick out a box for Yukippe and I’ll help you choose one for Myaa-Sam. They even do gift-wrapping here!”
And how could you turn down such an offer when he’s looking at you like you’re the only thing he sees?
Bokuto Koutarou is the scar on the heel of your right foot, long and white, a reminder of how stupid it is to jump down into a rocky pool with bare feet. I watched you leap first and then had to help you hobble out of the water back toward our grandfather’s house where you tried not to cry while we ate watermelon and he bandaged up your foot.
Bokuto’s personality is like the flare of sunlight against polished metal, all frenetic energy and genuine affection, and you find it so easy to let yourself go when you’re around him. Your personality is particular(ly irritating) but when you’re with Bokuto, it doesn’t matter. That mild sense of shame that haunts you on occasion, when you’re self-possessed enough to realize that you’re being insufferable, disappears when you’re with him. He never makes you feel bad about yourself, and his unabashed excitement over the little things pulls you into his rhythm without missing a beat. You fit together almost like puzzle pieces.
The way he unapologetically enjoys his life without the irritating traits that often accompany that zeal fills you with a freedom you’ve rarely felt with anyone else. You two watch shitty action movies and sad animal flicks together, and he’s found reason to cry through both. He’s always willing to partner up with you at team karaoke, and the reckless way he strains his throat trying to hit the high notes makes you sing even louder to fill in the gaps. With Bokuto, you can just be you, and for someone who’s always in the spotlight, who’s always looking to perform higher, better, faster, it’s a relief. Because he gets it too. He’s in the same boat, and he’s finally learned not to let it phase him for a second. A supergiant star, here to live fast, die old, and drag you along for the ride if you take his hand.
Bokuto is exactly your type.
Then again, who isn’t?
--
“‘Samu, it happened again,” you moan as you collapse into a seat at my counter after locking the door behind you. The snowflakes have melted even before they fall out of your hair, and you would feel bad about getting the counter all wet if you didn’t know that I was about to start wiping down the restaurant for close anyway. Even if you did feel bad, you’d still shake snow everywhere, because you’re a dick.
“What, you screwed up a new technique no one asked you to learn but y’decided to try anyway ‘cause ya wanted to look cool?” I ask without looking up. My hands are covered in tiny grains of rice that stick to my skin the way freshly cut grass clippings used to cling to my knobby legs as I ran wild through the yard trying to catch your off-center serves. I don’t quite miss those days, but I hold them close to my chest like all the other pieces of myself that might have always been pieces of you instead.
“No, it’s- it’s the other thing. Y’know, the usual. I did it again.”
I give you my stone-eyed stare, that expression that you would know from two thousand meters away and which I hope you will see as your spirit leaves your body and you’re lowered into your grave — that look where I try to eviscerate you without a sound even as I’m screaming, clear as a summer sky, we were once part of the same whole, and I thank the gods every day that I was given my own body so that I could have the satisfaction of smacking the stupid out of you myself.
In defense, you raise your hands to cover the back of your head in imitation of what I used to do on the court. But I just finish folding the nori onto the kombu onigiri that I set in front of you as an answer.
“Lemme wash my hands first.”
I wonder if the sound of the tap running is as reassuring as the taste of rice and kombu in your mouth. Intentionally or not, we’ve built our own rituals. Ones different from Kita-san’s, but ones that we take care to do right.
As you eat with abandon, making those goofy happy food noises that signify an onigiri well made, I go and unlock the filing cabinet I have in the back of house and unearth the murder board. It isn’t a board so much as a crunchy old notebook stuffed full of sticky notes and string and extra sheets taped haphazardly in. The centerpiece is an almost magnificent work of paper engineering — it’s willpower that holds the whole thing together, more so than staples or tape.
“So,” I prompt upon my return.
“Bokkun,” you mumble as you come behind the counter to clean your hands at the sink. I don’t know why you even bother getting shy about this anymore. Your taste runs anywhere from hilariously out of your league to dumpster fire abysmal, and nothing surprises me anymore.
“Bokuto, huh? I was wonderin’ when you’d go for him.” I slap the notebook down at your seat and you begin gingerly unfolding the bird’s nest of paper in the middle. It’s a complicated process that involves pulling certain sheets out before others, until the entire whiteboard-sized paper and string abomination has cracked open like an egg.
“Look, there he is,” I say as you uncap the pen with your teeth and write down today’s date next to the picture of Bokuto already pasted in there.
The murder board is the hideous, sprawling relationship map of every volleyball player you’ve ever become infatuated with since high school, complete with their teammates, the approximate date you became aware of your feelings, and whether those feelings ever got anywhere.
(Spoiler: they rarely did. But that was then, and this is now.)
The idea came to us on our eighteenth birthday in a drunken moment of genius. We printed out pictures of everyone we’d ever played with or against and spent the night gorging ourselves on strawberry cake and glueing faces into an old notebook of yours. Ever since you went pro, we had to update teams with more photos and strings connecting players together in their current configurations. It’s the ugliest damn thing I’ve ever helped make, even considering my brief art career in third grade.
“You don’t have to make it sound like it was gonna be a done thing,” you grumble as you smooth down Bokuto’s crinkled photograph next to the handsome Fukurodani setter who likes my onigiri.
“‘Course it was. You always did like the loud ones.” And the bright ones.
(Nishinoya Yuu is the burn mark on your left wrist that you got from brushing your arm against the hot tamagoyaki pan when we were making breakfast for Dad on his birthday. You jumped backward on contact and accidentally knocked me and the half dozen eggs in my hands to the ground. I got yolk in both my hair and my socks.)
“Yeah…”
“Well, ‘cept when you go for the quiet ones.”
(Ushijima Wakatoshi is the tiny divot in your thigh you’ve had since we were kids. No one knows how it got there, but you swear that you have the most vivid memory of me crashing into you while holding a dinosaur toy and stabbing you in the leg with its tail. I remember neither this event nor this toy, but I’ll always take credit for causing you pain.)
“Fuck off,” you laugh, capping your pen again. “I guess you're right. Even back in high school, I noticed him.”
“Kinda hard not to.”
I toss you a rag and you sanitize the tables and counters while I take out trash and prep for tomorrow’s opening shift. Afterwards, sitting next to you again, I reach over to untangle the green string next to Bokuto’s face that connects a Washio Tatsuki to Suna. Besides Bokuto, there’s a noticeable absence of dates next to the photographs of those connected to you by orange yarn (red would have been too on the nose, even for you). Even Hinata Shouyou’s spot remains blank, and you’d been waiting to see him again for seven years. I pluck at the thread that connects you to Inunaki, but you interrupt my thoughts before I can even ask.
“Hey, y’think I could get one more with tuna mayo?”
“I’ll make it two.”
It’s a good distraction; you know I’ll never refuse you food. You’re still looking at the murder board when I head back ‘round the corner, your line of sight fixated on someone, but I can’t be certain who. You’ll tell me about him, and Bokuto, and everyone who follows after, in time.
--
“You can’t have all of it, Atsumu,” Mom says once, booping you on the nose when you try to grab the snack packet out of her hands. I’m washing my hands in the bathroom so you were gonna pass out the crackers but give yourself a few extra since you were doing all the hard work. People who work hard get rewards; that’s what they said in school, at least.
But this is a lot to explain, so you just counter with, “But I want to,” and she laughs, loud and amused.
“Not good enough! Since it’s for the group, you’ve gotta share with everyone who wants some. Lucky for you that I only want one.”
Carefully, fairly, she takes the rice crackers and deals them out onto the napkins. Back and forth, like you’re playing cards or something.
Atsumu, Osamu, Atsumu, Osamu, Atsumu, Osamu, and one for Mom.
“Do you understand, Atsumu? You and Osamu are each your own person with your own wants and dreams, buuuut you have to share when it comes to stuff like this. Because I only bought one bag of crackers,” she says, cackling and walking away with the trash and her one cracker.
“Yeah, I get it,” you grumble as you wait for me to come back before eating. And you do.
But we aren’t going to have to share forever.
Someday you’re going to want something I don’t, and when that day comes, you aren’t going to share with anybody. You’re going to have it all.
--
“You know, Atsumu-san, you’re really good at this,” Hinata tells you as you help him shelve the books in the cardboard box you’re unpacking. He asked if anyone would be free to help him finish moving into his new apartment, and you were just so, so available. Like you always are when it comes to Hinata.
“Ah, comes with bein’ a twin. If you’re bad at sharing space, you lose the privilege of using it.” You’re thinking about the time I started encroaching on your bookcase with my toy race cars because you left them empty for more than a week.
“Haha, that makes sense. Natsu used to leave all her toys in my room too, but I bet Osamu-san is a little harder to fight than she is.”
“Oh, I dunno. She almost took you down last month.” You remember the way Hinata Natsu launched herself right into her brother after the match, almost knocking the two of them into Bokuto.
Hinata’s sheepish laugh makes his eyes crinkle in a way that guides your gaze to his face. You’re used to watching Hinata; it’s basically part of your job description. But in rare moments like these when it’s just the two of you, away from the safety of stadium noise and a dizzying crowd, you really get the chance to see him. The curl of his hair that always lifts when he takes flight, the sharpness of his teeth that grows more obvious when he’s smiling. The way he doesn’t feel any inhibitions about clapping you on the back or hooking his chin over your shoulder to see what you’re looking at.
You’ve entered dangerous territory.
“She’s way stronger than she looks,” Hinata is saying as he rips the tape off another box. “But she can’t beat her big bro yet!”
“She might have a chance in arm wrestling,” you tease, even though Hinata’s bulkier than you.
“I’m not that much of a scrub!” Hinata cries, and you scruff a hand through his hair affectionately.
“I know. I shouldn’t’ve called ya one the first time we met, Shouyou-kun.”
“Oh, you still remember that? I did take a ball to the face right before we talked, so I guess I can see why.”
You want to tell him that you remember enough about that first match to write a dissertation about it, but you keep that to yourself and tease him about his choice in ugly rugs instead.
Hinata Shouyou is the knife wound you gave yourself in our third year while trying to chop tomatoes for the class cafe during the school festival. You were still pissed about me choosing food over volleyball and you accidentally took it out on yourself. Lucky for you, it was just a short, shallow cut across the back of your hand, but you were kicked out of the kitchen and forced into an ill-fitted waiter’s uniform for the rest of the day. You came to my class’s haunted house to try and convince me to switch spots, but I’d already put on too much fake blood for it to be worth my while.
Hinata is a natural disaster given mortal form, but instead of ruining lives he beautifies them. It’s his unparalleled cheer and his natural ability to connect with everyone around him, both in game and out. You are no exception to his rampage. We encounter him for the first time in our second year — fast and wild and hungry — and you sear that memory into your mind so that you’ll never lose sight of it. You would let Bokuto eclipse you and you wouldn’t even fault him for it, but Hinata…
...god, you would let Hinata Shouyou burn you alive.
He’s a bouncing bundle of fearless instinct and conditioned skill. He’s constant in his fervor and indefatigable in a way that seems almost inhuman, but the way he always ignites with the desire to do more, learn more, be more — it’s both familiar and comforting, because at least in this way, you’re kindred spirits. But in other ways, you’re playing catch-up. You’re so good at what you do, but does the rest of you measure up? You’re kind of an asshole, you know that. It’s never really bothered you much before, but are you deserving of Hinata’s attention, when he’s so kind and inspiring and beloved?
You’ve been waiting your entire life for Hinata Shouyou, and at the same time, you feel like the reverse cannot be said. You need Hinata, but does Hinata need you?
You’d like to think he does. You’d like to think that your ability to match him on court the same way Kageyama used to means that you’re worthy of his time. That’s how Hinata makes you feel, at least. You’re left wondering if everyone who plays with him can empathize.
The last time you played against the Schweiden Adlers you took Kageyama out to lunch afterwards. In part because you really did miss his silly face and also to try and surreptitiously pick his brain about being Hinata’s setter. His advice, given in mostly too-blunt statements and confusing sound effects, was about as helpful as the amount of effort it took to interpret. His mind just works faster than his mouth. You talked for longer than expected, given Tobio-kun’s spareness when it comes to things other than volleyball, but you still learned a bit about how he feels about his team and their current standings.
When the two of you exited the restaurant and began walking back to his hotel, there was a moment when you almost gave in to your temptation to ask the real questions that had been blooming under your tongue.
Did you ever feel the same way I did? Did you ever look at him and think to yourself: oh, finally, finally, here you are. I’m so glad I was fated to find you.
But the words drowned just as fast as you thought them into existence, because you realized that it didn’t matter. Whatever they are to each other, you could never truly grasp.
Because Kageyama, too, is transcendent.
(Kageyama Tobio is the dark plum-red mark on the meat of your left forearm, left by one of my canines when I bit you for stealing my last pudding cup. You yowled ten minutes straight because I wounded you and I yowled right back because all I could taste was blood, and not pudding. We didn’t speak to each other for about 50 hours, until you threw a whole six-pack of pudding at my stomach for me to eat alone, and I offered to let you bite me back. But Dad caught you trying to take your pound of flesh and you landed in hot water again.
Sorry about that, by the way.)
Kageyama doesn’t play or think the same way as you do, and the connection he has with Hinata is colored with ten years of history that you’ll never have shared. Kageyama occupies a space in Hinata’s life that you can’t begin to try to emulate, so even if you got the answers you were looking for, you would have no choice but to forge your own path forward anyway.
So you clapped him on the back, saw him off with a wave, and walked back to your own hotel feeling like a starfish that fell in love with the sun.
--
You’re enamored with half your teammates, and you’re dealing with it. You haven’t told me yet, because you were hoping it wouldn’t be a repeat of high school, but after a year playing with this team you finally accept that you’re fucked.
Bokuto and Hinata, you can handle. It’s killing you, but it’s fine. You get why you like them so much. The tiny crush of admiration you’re building on your captain — similar to your feelings for Nicolas Romero — isn’t an issue, because he’s in a committed relationship. Same with the simmering attraction you’ve had to Hoshiumi Kourai since your last game against the Adlers. No matter how impressive he is, you don’t see him often enough for those feelings to become a problem.
Unlike Sakusa.
Sakusa Kiyoomi is the jagged line southwest of your navel from your appendectomy. I remember how sick you were in the days leading up to the hospital, and the frantic look in your eyes mirroring mine as you went into the operating room. That was the first time I could remember us spending the night apart. Mom and Dad both told me it would all turn out okay, but I think that was the first moment I had to consider the possibility of living without you.
Sakusa wears a mask any time there are more than five people around him, he lint-rolls his clothes during downtime, and he never washes his hands for fewer than 25 seconds. His amazing flexibility only applies to volleyball. In all other realms, he’s particular and devoted and he stares you down like you’re not worth wasting the words to explain why your suggestions are profoundly idiotic. Even if you’re just telling him that maybe he should try a different sandwich. And then he’ll take your sandwich suggestion without acknowledging your help.
He’s painfully consistent with his routines and he digs under your skin in a way that nobody else ever has. Sure, Suna used to tease you too — everyone in Ina High did — but Suna never slunk by to throw some scathing constructive criticism at you while you were already having a meltdown of mortification in the locker room. As much as you want to sneer back at Sakusa when he does it, half the time you’ve got nothing good up your sleeve because he’s actually funny, unlike you, albeit in a dry and awful way. Most of the time his digs are about your inability to follow through on something you thought would be insanely cool. Most of the time, he has a point. It drives you to antagonize him right back, because even if you’re not the sharpest of wits, you want to draw out a reaction, like this is some kind of game you still think you can win.
Sakusa Kiyoomi brings out some of the worst parts of you, and yet. Somehow, it’s Sakusa who drives you to lengths that no one else will. Maybe it’s just to shut him up, or to prove you can stand toe to toe with him, but there’s nobody on the team that pushes you so hard to be better.
You want to match Hinata’s skills because it’s what he deserves. But Sakusa makes you want to be better for yourself. Because beneath the sharp comments and sideways compliments, he thinks you’re capable of soaring even further. He wants to be certain that when you start a job, you finish it. So when he goads you, you can’t help but sink your teeth into the idea of improvement yet again, because who you are is never as good as who you could be. And you both know it.
You’re hustling down the hallway after your shower, so that you can get home before the snow starts again. You see Sakusa leaving the coach’s office, and you take a few quick steps to catch up with him so you’ll exit together. You entertain the thought of power-walking to overtake him, but since he hasn’t done the same to you yet, you decide to just walk like a normal person. It’s nice, actually, like you’re going somewhere together. His wavy hair is tucked under a hat and there’s a scarf wrapped tight around his neck; you recognize it as one Hinata bought him for the holidays last year.
“So,” you say, because you’ve always thought that silences were made to be destroyed, “Whatcha think about our chances with Kiryuu at top form again?”
He glances over at you as he says, “What are the chances of you breaking an arm before the match?”
Is that a threat? you wonder, boggled. “Uhh, hopefully real low?”
Sakusa nods, like he agrees. “But you don’t know for sure. The Rockets are good, but so are we. You’re not gonna show up with less than 100% of what you can bring, and it’s the same for everyone else. Whatever happens, we’ll see it through.”
“Right.”
It takes a second for you to realize he never actually answered your question, but it’s rare for you two to have a regular conversation, so you take it.
“See ya tomorrow, Omi-Omi,” you say, waving lazily in his direction as you’re about to push open the lobby doors, and then a chill attacks you, running up your spine through your still damp hair and you sneeze wetly three times in a row.
Sakusa recoils, practically plastering himself against the wall so you don’t get any of your snot and spit on him. You are, admittedly, pretty gruesome right now, even to those without mysophobia. You think he’s gonna high-tail it out of here and leave you to your humiliation but instead he unzips the front pocket of his bag.
“Disgusting. Use these. And go back and dry your hair before you leave. Don’t you dare develop a fever, or you really will end up with a broken arm. Bye.”
He pulls from the bag a fresh, unopened pack of tissues and chucks it straight at your chest. You snatch it out of the air and tear it open to try and clean yourself of snot so you can get in the last word before he leaves, but it’s too late. He’s out the door already. As your way of saying thanks, you backtrack to the bathroom and clean your hands as thoroughly as you’re sure he would want you to, and then you sit down and blow dry your hair. You even put on a woolen cap for good measure. You don’t want him to follow through on his threat.
As you’re walking back home, you take the time to examine the pity gift your teammate pitched at you. The tissues are high quality, and the plastic packaging is decorated with little ducks instead of an ad, so they must be ones that Sakusa bought to use himself, but gave to you anyway. An involuntary smile finds its way onto your vacant face.
Maybe it’s his way of caring about you, like Kita-san used to do.
(Kita Shinsuke is the lengthy scratch curving around your right bicep near your armpit, a war wound from tumbling off a low ledge and into a rose bush out for blood. I have a matching whiplash-thin mark on my left calf from jumping in after you. We were banned from coming near the gardening club for the rest of middle school.)
Or maybe he just wants you to stop being gross. You haven’t decided yet.
You stew in your own misgivings for a few weeks until you’re in Kobe and banging down my door five minutes after close again. I’ve barely unlocked the door before you’re ranting about stupid spikers and going out for drinks and beautiful eyes and other bullshit that I can’t hear much less comprehend.
“Shut up and sit down. You can have a takana onigiri if you chill the hell out.”
It takes you a minute to actually comply, and I dangle your onigiri over your head until you do.
“Can’t you be nicer?” you demand after scarfing down half. “I’m goin’ through a quarterlife crisis right now, you don’t even know- the amount of stress I’m suffering is off the charts, and it’s all ‘cause-”
“You’re in love with half your team?” I ask, waiting for you to spray rice everywhere before jumping onto defense. You don’t disappoint.
“You could at least have the decency to wait for me to tell you!”
“Why would I ever do that.”
You’ve made the tactical misstep of stuffing the rest of the onigiri in your mouth so you all you can do is make muffled noises instead of getting in a comeback. You jab your hand sharply at my backroom several times until I acknowledge you.
“You want the board?”
“Yerggh.”
“‘Tsumu? Whatcha having an existential crisis about now?” a familiar voice asks to your left after I disappear out back.
“Oh? Suna’s here too?” you ask, both happy and wary to see our former teammate sit down next to you.
(Suna Rintarou is the puckered mark over your right shoulder blade that you got falling off the back of my bike as I began gliding down our neighbor’s hill. You came rolling after me, gathering scrapes and cuts all the way down. I made the mistake of looking back at you when I felt you fall off, and crashed into a metal pole and went soaring into the asphalt for my trouble. It felt like there was gravel in our cuts for weeks afterward.)
“Yeah, he was in town visiting family and I told him to swing by.”
Suna leans his cheek against his hand and says, “You tryin’ to get rid of me?” He’s as sharp as you remembered, and we both realize belatedly that he’s the worst possible person to be having this conversation in front of.
“Uh.” I pop my head back out. “You still want me to take it out, or…?”
“Yeah, s’fine,” you allow, after a moment’s deliberation. “He probably already knows anyway.”
“Alright.” I hand it over to you and you grimace before wiping your hands and opening it up for Suna. “So this is the murder board.”
“Lemme see what you’re so worked up about.” By the time you’re done unfolding the whole thing, Suna is nodding to himself. “It’s all the volleyball players you’ve liked, right?”
We both goggle at him in surprise. Suna’s smart, but I hadn’t thought anyone could decipher this horror show of string and paper so quickly.
“How’d you know?” you demand, aghast that all your secrets could be so easily uncovered.
“I mean, you drew little hearts all over the thing.”
“Ah,” I say, starting to clean up my counter for the night. “I told you that was a stupid idea.”
“You’re a stupid idea.”
“I’m telling Mom.”
“Fuck off-”
“...am I on the murder board?” Suna interrupts before we really get into it.
“Are you on the-” you scoff, laughing at this inane question. “Is he on the murder board, he says! C’mon, Rintarou-kun, I can’t believe you’re even askin’ me that-”
“You’re right here,” I say, pointing at that faded yearbook picture of him beside Oumimi. You slap my hand out of the air.
“Oh, we’re all here. Aw, cute, you already liked Aran by middle school, huh? And Kita-san, and me, and...hm. This is...wow. I feel like I shouldn’t have seen this.” He lowers it back down after coming to the realization that you used to have a crush on our entire team.
“Now imagine that, but with the Black Jackals,” I say. You make a rude gesture in my direction.
“It’s different from high school,” you claim as you begin writing a date next to Sakusa’s picture. “Those were just schoolboy crushes. This is- it’s different. It’s more.” A glance upward to meet my eyes tells me that you think you’re telling the truth. Perhaps you are.
Suna looks you up and down, analyzing you all over again even though he knows you to a depth unique to the other Inarazaki club alumni of our class. Whatever he finds this time makes him smile. He traces the strand of yarn that ties you to Hinata Shouyou and asks the only question that matters. “So? You gonna do something about it this time?”
“I don’t know,” you confess. And if the existence of this uncertainty weren’t unfamiliar enough, you follow it up with, “Should I?”
“When have you ever asked for our opinion on anything?” Suna asks, speaking for himself and me.
“If you can’t even decide that much, you should probably go buy yourself a brain before doing anythin’. Here, salmon.” I set one onigiri out in front of each of you.
“Thanks for absolutely nothin’,” you grumble, but your eyes remain fixed on us, instead of the murder board. I feel stupid when the belated realization sets in that you didn’t come here for advice, but for distraction. Suna and I can provide that much.
“Wanna see the pictures of Akagi and Gin tryna help Kita-san flood the fields?” I ask, jerking my head toward my desk.
“I’ll grab ‘em,” Suna says, because he sees you’re already eating. Soon, you’re too busy laughing at Gin falling backwards into a puddle to even look at the murder board. I quietly slip it back into my cabinet while you’re helping Suna wipe down the tables for me.
You’ll figure it out eventually. You always do.
--
We have a screaming match in the middle of our last year of high school. It starts with volleyball, as everything does.
Practice ends, and as we’re packing our bags to leave the gym, I can already sense that you’re simmering over something. At least you have the good graces not to have this fight in front of the team, so I let you build to a boil as we’re walking past the fields toward home. The sun is beginning its descent and burnishing the grasses gold.
“Alright, just say it. What the hell are you mopin’ about? Is it that dig I messed up in the last set? I already told you I wasn’t gonna do it again.”
It takes you a few minutes of further boiling before you spit out, “Your shitty performance is just part of it. Just ‘cause you’re not gonna keep playin’ doesn’t mean you should be phoning it in. We haven’t retired yet, shithead.”
“I told you, I was havin’ an off day! Newsflash, it happens. We can’t all be like you, high an’ mighty Young Master Atsumu.”
“Well, maybe if you actually still gave a shit about volleyball you wouldn’t have this problem.”
You’re clearly trying to rile me up so you can let your anger out on someone. “Fuck off, you know I care. Stop making this a bigger thing than it should be just ‘cause you’re pissed off about something stupid.”
“It isn’t- look, jackass, I’m pissed off at you because you’re just walking away from everything we’ve been doing for the last ten years! I’m mad because you’re giving up! Because you’re leavin’ me behind!” you shout, your voice going hoarse on the last word.
“Oh, c’mon, you’re being dramatic,” I laugh, because when have I ever been the one moving too fast, too far? “You’re the one who’s gonna go off and become a pro. Maybe even go to the Olympics or something.”
“Yeah, and that could be you too!”
“You always knew I wasn’t gonna keep playin’ after high school-”
“Yeah, but that was- I thought you were gonna change your mind! You think you’ll really be happy doing something else by yourself?” The way you sneer those final words, that by yourself, cuts to the bone. Of course I’ll be by myself. I know that by now. We can’t be each other’s shadows forever.
I was always meant to be someone without you. I was always meant to be alone.
“Of course I am. I’m not like you, ‘Tsumu. I love volleyball, but not enough to shape the rest of my life around it. There isn’t much of anything I care enough about besides makin’ good food.”
“You’re seriously gonna ditch me to go work in a restaurant? Just because I’m startin’ to pull ahead of you? Are you really that much of a sore loser?”
I know better than to let you drag me down to your level, but I can never turn down a fight. I plant my hands on your chest and shove you hard enough to make you stumble. “Shut the fuck up, you know that ain’t the reason why. Besides, who’s ditching who? We weren’t gonna be stuck together forever anyway, dumbass. You’re gonna go pro and then get married and have some kids and then we’ll see each other every year at holidays and shit. That’s how these things go.”
“...you really think I’m gonna stop hangin’ out with you just ‘cause I’ve got, like, fuckin’ kids or whatever?” You look so baffled by this turn in conversation that you don’t even take the time to retaliate. You just charge onward. “Aren’t ya gonna be around to do uncle shit?”
“I don’t fuckin’ know, maybe? The point is, you’re gonna have a life without me anyway, and the volleyball thing is just the start of it. It’s better for you to just get used to it now.”
“Why though? You think that’s gonna change anything? That’s no reason to quit playing. If you’re pissed about me movin’ away with my family or some bullshit why don’t you just do the same-”
You make me want to rip my hair out and cram it down your throat. Why can’t you just shut up and listen for once in our fucking lives?
“Because, you stupid asshole, I can’t! I’ve told ya before that we’re not the same, but you never listen because you’re an absolute dumbfuck! It isn’t just volleyball, or our personalities, or how much more invested you are than I am! We’re just fundamentally different people and you need to accept it. I’m broken inside and we both know it! Don’t you think I wanna change? Don’t you think I wish I loved volleyball as much as you, or that I loved anything or anyone as much as you do?” I scream at you as the sun sets fire to the horizon. I’m burning up like a meteorite in the atmosphere, and all you can do is stand there on terra firma and watch me vanish.
Your face contorts uncomfortably as you remember what I told you last time. “I mean, there has to be something-”
“Food’s the closest thing, ‘Tsumu. I need you to accept that. Cooking for people, feeding ‘em, providing for ‘em — it’s my way of connecting, of helping. It’s what I want to do. And maybe it doesn’t seem as ambitious or impressive as what you’re going to do one day, but it’s what I want. I don’t care if you never understand, but I need you to accept it.”
You stare at me for a long, silent moment before gritting out, “Alright. Okay. If that’s the life you wanna lead.”
“It is.”
“And for the rest...even if you’re doin’ your own thing, you don’t have to do it all yourself. Maybe- maybe you could learn to want to be with somebody?”
“No, ‘Tsumu. I can’t. Not the way you do. I’m gonna spend the rest of my life alone.”
This time you do wallop me in the arm. “You’re not alone. That’s the whole point! You’ll never be alone, you dipshit. You have me, don’t you?”
Atsumu, you goddamn idiot. Of course I know that. You’ll always be my brother, but someday when you finally get your shit together you’ll also be somebody’s boyfriend, or lover, or husband.
And that — that desire to someday belong with someone who loves me. That’s something I’ll never have.
I’m so much more tired than my seventeen years when I finally gather enough nerve to tell you, “I know I do. I know. But I’m never gonna love somebody the same way you do. I’m never gonna matter the most to anybody else. You can give yourself away to all those people good enough to deserve your time, but I can’t do that. I can’t ever mean more than I already do.
“D’you think I’m happy knowing that I’m never gonna share myself with somebody? That I’ll never be able to build a life with a person that I love? That I don’t know how to love? How do you think I feel knowing I’ll always be missing the part of me that makes me normal? How do you think it feels to be hollow in a way that nobody can ever fill? Don’t you think I spent the last seventeen years hoping someday I could be fixed?
“Don’t you think I want to be human too?”
You reel back like I’ve slapped you, and then, before I have the chance to gulp down a breath, you pitch forward again, grabbing me by the collar almost hard enough to tear my uniform. You’re even angrier than you were at the start of this fight, but I’m too exhausted to immediately grasp why.
“Stop talking like you’re some kind of fucking alien! If you’re broken, then so am I! Is there something wrong with me, ‘Samu? Is there? I fall in love with anybody who smiles at me the right way or who shows even the slightest bit of competence at anything! The only thing it takes sometimes is just the right words at the right time to send me head over heels. It’s like my heart doesn’t have a filter, and no matter how many times it ends in heartbreak I do it all over again! If anyone’s fucked up between the two of us, it’s pretty obvious who it is! So tell me, you asshole, what’s wrong with me?”
Your eyes are furious, but you don’t feel angry at me anymore. Maybe we’re both destined to crash land back down to earth. But that doesn’t seem fair. You should be a fixed point in the sky.
How could you ever be broken? How could there ever be anything wrong about your capacity for love? And why couldn’t I see that we might have shared the same worries all along? We share everything else.
I take hold of your wrist, but I don’t have the energy to shake you off. Awkwardly, earnestly, I tell you, “Of course there isn’t, idiot. You’ve just- you’ve got a soft heart, that’s all. You’re a douche and you’re annoying as fuck but you see all kinds of good in people. You see what makes each of ‘em beautiful. There’s nothin’ wrong with that.”
You take a breath then shake me once, vigorously, as if trying to loosen all the stupidity from my brain like sand from a shoe.
“Then if there’s nothin’ wrong with me, there’s nothin’ the hell wrong with you either, you moron! You love Mom and Dad, don’t you? And Granny, and Auntie Miho and little Kenta?”
“Obviously I do, but that’s different-”
“So what if it’s different? So what if you’re different? Why do you care? Do you think it’s fun, falling to pieces each time someone I like looks right past me like I’m not there? D’you think I like knowing that I could break my own heart all over again each time I put myself out there? And even if they love me back, how do you think it feels to know someone has so much power over me? You know I hate falling behind or lettin’ someone get one over me, but what do you think being in love feels like sometimes? It’s terrifying to know that no matter what I do, it might never be enough! It’s even worse to know that that’s okay!
“But it’s not like that with you. You love your family and your friends and your team. No bullshit, no mysteries, no mind games. Not with you. No matter what happens with everybody else, I know I always have you. And it’s the same for me. Do you think you’re less fuckin’ important to me than all the people I’ve fallen for? Do you think any of them are ever going to know the Atsumu I was when I was three or ten or fifteen? Do you think anybody can ever understand me the way you do without even trying?
“Just because you love differently doesn’t mean you love less, you stupid jackass!”
You’re trembling by the end, and I think I might be too. The tears bubbling over in your eyes reflect my own, and I hate it. Hate feeling like I’ve been sliced open and put on display for you to see, and while I’ve always been better at processing and you at deflecting, we’re in the same miserable, vulnerable boat here, so you do the only thing that makes sense.
You jerk forward and slam our foreheads together. The impact is hard enough to snap my jaw closed, and we both stagger back in pain, clutching the red spots on our faces.
“What the fuck,” I snap, even though I expected it.
“Shut up, shut up, I’m in too much pain to deal with your voice.”
“And whose fault was that? I’m gonna sue you for emotional damages.”
“I’m gonna kick your ass if you try.”
“Not if I break your legs first.” I kick blindly at your shins and you attack me back with quick jabs at my calves. While dodging each other, we stumble into the field and collapse atop the long grasses, arms and legs outstretched like we’re making snow angels. Staring at anything but you helps the tears dry before they can fall, and after a few endless minutes of watching clouds swim through the cotton-candy sky, I’ve got myself under enough control to look you in the eye again.
You must agree, because you start talking before I get the chance to sort through my still restless thoughts.
“I know we’re not the same, ‘Samu. No one knows that better than we do. But I thought- I didn’t think that meant one of us leavin’ the other behind.” It sounds almost like an apology, but you never say you’re sorry about anything.
You’re the one who decides that, I want to say, but it would be a lie not to acknowledge my part in the matter. Maybe I was naive about how easily a constant could be changed.
“I guess it doesn’t. We’re taking different paths from here on out. But I’ll be there if you will.”
“Okay. I’ll hunt you down if I hafta.”
“You won’t. I’m gonna make a name for myself. You’ll always know exactly where to find me.”
“You’re that serious, huh?”
“‘Course I am.”
“Yeah?” You raise an eyebrow, looking skeptical. “You don’t sound it.” You glare until I cup my hands around my mouth and inhale as deep as I can. This is one of your whims I can indulge in.
“I’m gonna be happier than you’ll ever be!” I holler toward the sky with so much force that my lungs strain against my ribs.
“Say it like you mean it, idiot!”
“I’m going to be happier than you until the day I fucking die!”
“Then prove it! Show me that better life of yours!” Your face is red with exertion and I know we look like a right pair of fools lying in a field and screaming into the sunset.
“Fine!”
“Good!”
“Great!” I try to yell, but I start coughing from the dryness in my throat.
“Alright, that’s enough,” you say, smacking me wildly in the chest and face without looking. After standing, you glance down at me, and I think for one inexcusably ignorant moment you’re going to help me to my feet. You start sprinting toward home instead.
“Dickface,” I grumble, scrambling to catch up to you before you run too far without me again.
--
“How’d you get those?” You pause in the middle of chopping spring onions to poke the spattered sear marks on the underside of my left arm. It’s New Year’s Eve’s Eve, and we’ve already fought over cake, cleaning duties and blankets since coming home. I’ve strong-armed you into helping me make dinner and start osechi prep as an apology for reminding our parents why they probably shouldn’t miss us.
“I fucked up while trying to get the karaage out of the fryer.”
“When you were working at that izakaya?”
“Yeah.”
“That was like four years ago. Can’t believe I never noticed ‘til now.” You resume chopping but I can feel the stillness in the air that usually precedes a tactless question from you.
“It’s in a weird spot; not like I expected anyone to really see it. It ain’t any worse than my other kitchen scars.”
This prompts you to start trading scar stories, which is a little silly since you still know most of mine. Some of them mirror yours. Others are all my own making. None have ever cut me to the quick the same way as yours did to you.
When I finish peeling the potatoes we switch places because your knife work is still rudimentary at best. I’m actually slightly surprised you haven’t seen more improvement; used to be that you’d never let me stay better than you at anything for long. Another branch in our paths, I suppose.
The kitchen is one place where you have learned to contain your inherent tendency toward being a pain in my ass, so we make it to dinner with only one minor scuffle. I reward you with the chance to be my sous chef again tomorrow, and you flip me off in return. After dinner we continue the long new year’s clean, and after that we make up some excuse to get out of the house, tripping over ourselves to knock the other person out the door first.
We wander westward until we reach the stretch of fields on the road back to Inarizaki. I’m sure the slope we decide to roll down isn’t the same as the one we lay in those years ago, but when the grass gathers on our hair and clothes as we tumble our way down, I feel like we’re falling into a space that sits between then and now.
When we finally slow to a stop, you shove my calf off from where it’s squishing your arm but otherwise remain still. It’s cool enough that we should have buttoned our coats up, and the thought brings certain faces to mind. Aran-kun, Kita-san, Sakusa Kiyoomi. Thinking about Sakusa reminds you of the way he tugged the sweatshirt hood over Hinata’s head on your way back from your last game of the year, and thinking about Hinata reminds you of how he subconsciously imitates Bokuto once he starts bouncing on his heels, and thinking about Bokuto reminds you of the exuberant way he offers to help Sakusa stretch (or fold into a pretzel).
And from there, the memory of a warm hand at the small of your back helping to keep you upright as the two of you shuffle out of the bar. The prickle of sour cherries against your tongue as he passes you all the unripe ones. A long wail of despair that collapses to the ground when you flip your hand to reveal your pair of aces. The fan of dark lashes against his cheek as he looks down at his taped fingers. The scent of strawberries and sugar lingering on his hands as he hands you a crepe. The sting of his fingertips digging into your shoulders as he uses you as a shield from your captain’s yelling. His barely audible hum of an old tv jingle as the two of you walk the aisles looking for Inunaki’s favorite brand of instant noodle. The strands of his hair brushing against your arm as he lifts you up to toss you into the ocean. A hot can of coffee that he mashes against your forehead as you stand beneath the train station shelter waiting for the rain to subside. His voice cutting through the cacophony of the court as he calls out your name.
The way your heart aches in three different ways for each of them.
There are too many words in creation for you to sift through in order to name all the emotions that swim just beneath the tendons of your chest, too close to your heart to be misconstrued. You are stricken with silence as you stare up toward space and remember how terribly real your feelings are. How crushingly human you are, despite all efforts and evidence otherwise.
I’ve always appreciated the quiet in a way that you still haven’t learned to do. While you try and find a way to tell me what’s been weighing on your mind since you came home — since you first heard Sakusa snoring lightly beside you on the bus, since you first watched Bokuto dance his way through your connected hotel rooms, since you first made Hinata laugh at one of your muttered jokes — I trace the curve of the moon with my eyes and wait. I’ve grown better at it since we were children. I’ve grown better at many things.
I used to think that if I loved long and hard enough, my love would transform. I would attain that higher form of feeling; I would be able to scrape up shards of my heart to give away like you do. Hard work never failed me before, so why not here as well? I used to wonder what I could give up to repair this one unacceptable imperfection. There had to be something I could exchange for the chance to become whole.
But by twenty-five, I’ve come to terms with it.
By twenty-five, I’m okay with who I want to be. I know I’m going to be happy.
The fabled twin telepathy that you like to tell people we have kicks in. “D’you really think you’re livin’ the happier life?” you ask, slapping the back of your hand against my cheek, and it’s a question as much about volleyball as it is everything else.
I don’t have to hesitate anymore. “‘Course I am. I’ve got a thrivin’ business and I’m not losing my damn mind over three idiots I gotta see every day.”
“Still nobody?” you ask after a brief silence. It’s a perfunctory question you ask mostly to get on my nerves; you’ve memorized the answer long ago.
“Born without a heart, remember? Oh wait, sorry, you weren’t there for that.”
“Asshole,” you mutter, the way you do every time I remind you that I’m older.
“What about you? Still everybody?” I prod. Maybe I’m not as good at waiting as I thought.
You still haven’t found the perfect words for it, but that’s never been enough to stop you before. You’ve never been tied down by the expectations of others. Why let yourself be limited by what the rest of the world thinks is fair? Why let yourself aim for anything but the highest peak? You’re Miya fucking Atsumu and you’ve been too aware of what you want for too long to simply let it slip away.
By twenty-five, you’re tired of waiting and wondering.
By twenty-five, you realize you really could have it all.
“Maybe I’m delusional. I’m selfish and stupid and in love. But I want everything,” you say, and I nod, because I don’t understand why you love each of these people who cascade into your life like falling stars, but I’ll always know you as well as you know me.
“Then take it.”
“Is it that easy?”
“You tell me,” I say, breaking eye contact. “Are you gonna confess?”
You don’t ask me who I’m referring to, and I don’t ask you who you’re thinking about. Maybe it’s all of them. Maybe it’s someone I’ve never even met. Whoever you choose, they’ll be worth it.
“Yeah,” you say as the stars blink into existence over a world that doesn’t yet know it should prepare itself to receive you. “Yeah, I think I will.”
Overhead, constellations spill across the sky — scars left behind by those before us trying their best to become human too.