Archive of Our Own ^beta

Osamu meets Rin for the first time when he successfully rigged the lock on the home economic kitchen space, tumbling inside with Kosaku. Valiantly, and perhaps with a fair amount of cowardice, his newfound teammate volunteered to guard the door while Osamu run in to retrieve the surprise birthday cake for one of his classmates. It’s a plan riddled with holes waiting to erupt, but in his defense, they are fourteen and ridiculously overconfident. They probably could pull this off, conquer the world. Everything is in arm’s reach.

He’s hugging the cake box to his chest, tiptoeing back outside, when he hears it.

A sniff. A distinct sniffing sound, in blatant, open air. Osamu freezes. Bites out a what the fuck. Looks to where Kosaku is wonderfully lounging by, in blissful ignorance of this horrible discovery.

“Um,” Osamu, brilliant, eloquent, coherent, able to string words together, hacks out. “Yer alright in there?”

Another sniff, then -

“Give me another five minutes, then I’ll live.”

Osamu should really go. They planned this out to span across only five minutes in total, start to finish. He’s already wasted three. 

There is an idiot guy crying in the pantry cupboard, and Osamu may be an asshole, but he can’t just leave him. 

He goes back to the fridge. Opens it. Finds his own portion of the fridge-mandated snack that Father made the night prior. Split it in half, apologies ample to the plates when he pulls one out with a thunderous clack. Leave the broken onigiri on the plate, sitting on the bench. He wanders to the vague direction of the closeted pantry, clearing his throat.

“There’s somethin’ for ya, when yer, uh, ready. To leave, come out, whatever. I’m goin’ first, yeah?”

Pantry Boy doesn’t grace him with a reply.

Rin officially meets the Miya twins at volleyball practice. He’s three breakdowns into straight up collapse on the squeaky clean court, the fumes of Salonpas slightly nauseating to his abused senses. There’s a yell, skidding of volleyball carts going beyond their prescribed speed limit and a strangled Oi oi oi, move move! Outta the way, out out! when one cart careens by, a head of grey hair chasing after it, as a blonde menace cackles from the other side of the court.

“What now,” Ginjima - Gin - appears, put upon. 

“‘Tsumu started it,” Grey Head gripes, gangly and squeaky, fury etched in the pull of his eyebrows. 

“‘Samu, come on, ya wanted ta see what would happen too,” Blondie jeers, squawking as a tall senpai looms over him. “Aran! Hi!”

“Quit it, will ya,” gripes Aran. He straightens up when he sees Rin. “Suna, yer ‘ere. Come over, we’ll introduce ya to the madcaps. Samu, that means ya too, drag yerself over.”

Rin, who only really knows Gin, looks to the stout, friendly blonde with a sort of help me expression.

“Oh no, can’t help ya there, buddy, ya gotta show up when Ojiro-san said so. C’mon, let’s move it.”

Because Suna weighs at best two bundles of grapes, he’s tugged easily by Gin onto the fray of lovingly labelled madcaps, cringing hard into himself as Blondie lets out a cackle of demonic origins, grinning madly at him as he is shoved into the wonky semi-not-circle.

All the first years went round and introduced themselves. Grey and Blonde Heads, faces identical, salute in mismatched time.

“‘Tsumu!” Chirps Blondie. Grey Head dips his head. “This ‘Samu.”

“Thanks ‘Tsumu, really wanted to have ya speak for me when I’ve got me own mouth,” drawls Samu.

Rin heard that voice before. That can’t be Fridge Boy, Onigiri Leaver Extraordinaire, is it? It sounded terribly similar. It can’t be the jarring Blonde Extraordinaire over there, with his harsh voice, harsher than everyone here combined. Drawling and snivelly, like a crafty fox. He has eyes like a glowing, burning brand. They cut into Rin’s side when he turns to bow to the entering upperclassmen. Introductions are made. He made notes to steer clear of Kita-san.

“I’ll get that,” he jogs to the volleyball cart, noticeably dented after Things One and Two rammed their collective menaces onto it. ‘Samu’ appears by his side, noticeably still grey headed and worn. He’s a little looker, that’s what he is. A far cry from the troll twin.

Rin nods. Samu nods back. They eye one another, sizing each other up, reenacting the same energy as that Buzz Lightyear scene. Friend or foe.

“Am I pretty or something?” He says, like a challenge. Samu blinks once, shoulders easing up.

“Nah. Yer an ugly piece of work, that’s what yer is.”

“Are.”

Samu rolls his eyes, brown-grey, like a rock in space. His hands are hidden inside his pockets, gold and black. Worn. His brother wears a distinctively new jacket. 

“Yer Suna. New ‘round here. Also cried inside a pantry like a ghoul.” He observes, every detail biting.

“My onigiri saviour,” he drawls back, equally on par for the course. “How could I forget your generosity.”

There is a line sitting uncomfortably on Samu’s moving mouth. He has the face of someone who is used to much less emoting and expressing. Suna takes pity on him.

“I have scheduled breakdowns.”

The line twists into something incredulous. “Ya can do that? I thought Kita-san made that up.”

“And I got back okay, if that’s what you wanted to ask.”

Samu draws into himself, gangly limbs and hair pressed down from hair products. Rin thinks he’s a weirdo.

“How’d’ya know?” He mumbles.

“Lucky guess?” Rin ventures. “And also, you’re making it weird. It doesn’t have to be weird or anything. We’re not mates. You don’t have to check up on me.”

“Kinda felt like I hafta, but sure, rot for all I care.” Samu huffs, and pulls the cart away, stranding Rin to root there on the spot.

Rin thinks this is the first time someone had ever gotten mad at him for something as trivial as asserting his self-sufficiency. Toyooka is weird. People don’t leave him alone ever since he stepped foot in here. It has to be a countryside thing.

Samu doesn’t grace his lowly, city boy presence again, too occupied with bantering with his brother and the other two first years. It’s good. Rin isn’t here to make friends nor is he here for any deep, soul-searching reason. He’s only here because he doesn’t want to go back home straight away after school, to a feuding house. This way, he can avoid the bulk of the fights altogether. 

At cool down, he’s left without a partner, but Kita-san, the small second year senpai, waves him over, sitting with a quiet air as they stretch away. 

“Anythin’ troublin’ ya, Suna?” He asks. Leaves it open, like a slightly ajar door. Take it or leave it. There usually isn’t much of an option where he hailed from. 

“Ah,” he looks up, into clear brown eyes. Kita-san has kind eyes, but they drill deep. He looks away, cowed by the intensity. “Not anything I can’t resolve, senpai.”

“The kids call me Kita-san,” the senpai begins. Rin whips his head back to those eyes, his own widening. That can’t be… “Yer in ‘narizaki now, one a’ us, so that means yer one a’ mine too. Call me Kita-san.”

It is possible that Rin had stopped breathing for a second or five. He isn’t quite sure what he’s doing, but it’s possibly something that warrants a sympathetic hand reaching out to help him, the neglected child.

“I, ah, thank you. Kita-san.”

“Says everythin’ with ya face huh, kiddo?” Kita-san rises, smooth and elegant, every movement calculated. “Welcome to the volleyball club, Suna.”

He’s definitely choking down something.

“I’m honoured, really. Thank you for having me.”

Samu crowds into him in the changing room. He smells clean and clinical, like a soap bar. His fringe is pushed back over his head. Guy’s got a huge forehead.

“Kita-san didn’t bother ya with anythin’ weird, yeah?”

Rin puts distance between them with an elbow, cringing at this constant annoyance who won’t go away. Samu’s eyes are sharp and all over the place. He’s holding himself very still, on the designated side Rin casted him unto.

“You’re bothering me, creep. What do you want?”

“I’m checkin’ up on hopeless cases,” a mouth of crooked teeth grits out, menacing. “Or are ya fine? I’ll back off.”

Rin sees the jacket again, worn and well-cared. He heard the rustle of packaging before.

“Gimme those sweets then.”

“What,” Samu jerks away. “No. Fuck off.”

“My, what a mouth you have, Miya-kun, it really shocks the ears,” he hums, taking one step, and another. Samu shuffles back and away. The rest of the team pay them no special attention. Those twins really must get up to worse for them to pretend nothing is happening. “Those candies are mine, don’t move.” 

“Don’t call me Miya, people will think of ‘sumu when ya say that,” Samu grumbles snippily.

“Okay, then what do I say then?”

Samu has eyes like meteors in space. Brown and grey. He’s taller than Rin and is about 80% arms and legs and skin and annoying, Hyogo boy accent. He has a pocket full of old school packaged candies.

“Osamu. Name’s Osamu.”

Of all the first years, he shares precisely no classes with anyone, a reprieve he did not get to enjoy when the team decided it was their sacred duty to grace his lowly classroom with their divine presences. He was all settled at his desk, he was going to nap - and then Oonimi-senpai slid into the seat before him and the team dogpiled onto the narrow gap between his row and the next, Atsumu going through his books. Rin shoves back his sigh and only asks the gods that they won’t, heavens forbid, ask to be his friends or anything like that. He’s been targeted by two already. He doesn’t need a whole team of maniacs harping at his back.

“We’re goin’ to Shin’s place afterwards,” Ojiro-san announces, stately and tall and reliable and good. Rin trusted him. Now he doesn’t.

Kosaku raises a hand. “Who’s Shin?”

Kita-san turns to him. “That would be me.”

Kosaku immediately puts his hand down. “I didn’t ask nothin’.”

“I’m bus -”

Atsumu buzzes him, punctuated by Gin poking his side with a pencil. They share a brief high five before wagging their collective fingers in front of his nose.

“Non-compliance is not permissible,” Oonimi-san intones. “Ya must attend.”

“Or what?” He challenges. Osamu decides to pop up at the moment, passing out snacks. 

Ojiro-san, the Devil’s son at the moment, looks to Kita-san.

“Kita-san, Kita-san, do the face, do the face!” The children chant. Kita-san looks at Rin. It is a sorrowful look. He feels bad immediately. At his defeat, the Menaces cheer, taking off to the streets, hooting and yelling and jumping on people’s backs.

“It’s his I’m Disappointed Ya Don’t Wanta Meet Grandmother,” Osamu whispers to him, while slipping him yet another onigiri. “Made that last night. Could be bad, could be good. D’ya hate anythin’ in particular?”

“Kita-san lives with his grandmother?” He asks, turning to Osamu. “And I hate you.”

“Yer a dick,” Osamu swiftly replies, with the fatality of a snake striking at prey. "Yeah. Lives in a temple and everythin'. Got the whole thin' goin'."

"Wow, good for him," he intones. "Stop crowding me."

Osamu stops. Stares. He still has eyes like an asteroid taken by a satellite in galactical orbit. Brown-grey. A storm brewing for three hundred years, staining a red spot visibly in the atmosphere. He's an asshole. Rin wants him gone from his general vicinity.

"Yeah, nah," Osamu decides. Rin thinks it is possible to actually hate someone more than Atsumu. Atsumu is extremely good at annoying anyone half to homicidal intent in the time span of ten minutes. His brother is even worse. Rin hates it here.

"You'll die a gross and painful death and I will turn up to the funeral to celebrate this joyous occasion."

"Take a number, pal, plenty wants to have a hack a' me," grins Osamu, feline and mischievous. 

They go to Kita-san's house. His grandmother is very nice. Kita-san gravely informed the team that further visits are permitted, however, they must be respectful of the elderly and hygienic practices, or else. Rin is taller than this senpai. He has a tingly sense telling him that he has to obey, or else he'll have to scrub every volleyball until he no longer has fingerprints on four out of ten fingers. It's a ghastly vision.

Inarizaki apparently has some odd bonding traditions. They do everything together. Occasionally, they even pop into each other's homes to sit around, laugh at old photo albums. The countryside is friendly and close-knitted. Ojiro-san had known the twins since they were about eight. The three of them had gone to the same middle school. Kosaku knew someone in class who knew Gin. Oonimi and Kita lived near each other and had been chatting since forever. It's inevitable that they would end up in the same school.

Rin had taken up every possible invitation that vaguely alluded to his attendance, stretching far into the evening, until he was home to a blessedly stable home, both parents separated in their work spaces and caring naught for his late return home. He had insofar barred all access to his house altogether, because it isn't really a home, not like the homes he had been invited to. It's barely lived in. He hears his parents' muffled arguments every night, walks on tiptoes on most afternoons and weekends. Oonimi-san asked him if he wanted to practise one weekend. They hadn't stopped since.

Somehow, the team had decided Rin is their pet project, something to be subsumed completely in the madcap assemble of these madly talented players. Rin isn't blind. He sees the talent coursing through Atsumu, the power in Ojiro's spikes, the fluid ways Gin shifted to connect their plays. Quiet but sure, Kosaku and Osamu are reliably there, backing up holes in their plays. We don't need such things like memory. Everyday is a new day. They can start again from scratch today, tomorrow, the day after that.

Rin isn't deeply tapped into his insecurities that he deluded himself into bemoaning that he isn't good enough. He's something, and apparently that something is worthy of the chaotically reigned Inarizaki. They are in training camp. He had been roped into rigorous cleaning down by the ever solemn Kita-san. This is also the same person who prophesised to him, solemnly. "Do things properly and you’ll be a starting player next year."

"But I'm lazy," he pushes back, no longer in deep, paralysing fear of their Kita-san. He doesn't need a fancy jersey number to denote his importance. They were readying themselves to stage a coup against coach if he didn't let Kita be something important. 

"I'm only seein' one possibility. There can be more. Tomorrow is endless," Kita-san smiles. He has nice smiles. Nice teeth. Even. Stupid hair though, but his eyes are kind.

It's a shame that Rin, suddenly, violently and out of nowhere, had the horrifying realisation that he just had a sexuality awakening, courtesy of Kita-san. This is entirely troublesome. This is not precedented at all.

"Thanks, Kita-san," he swallows, willing himself to remain roguishly unbothered. "I'll see myself off."

He runs away. Runs right into Akagi-san, returning libero from Nagoya who was doing something or another. He catches Rin, easy as catching a jacket, rights him up, and marches inside, yelling hello to Kita-san. 

"This is bad. Bad. Terrible, no good, really, what the heckity heck," he mumbles, speeding into a sprint, until he ends up at the shrine, red gates lining up the steps, winding to the temple sitting snugly at the top.

"Only the gods can save ya now," Rin hears, and then he jumps when Osamu comes out from a bush, pulling twigs out of his hair. Heart hammering wildly, he turns to shove at Osamu, who, for once, hasn't started anything. He's just standing there. But does Rin hear sense? No. He needs to be touching something, siphoning all that agitation out of his person, and somehow, violence is the answer to his present dilemma. Inflicting bodily pain onto another. A great idea. Top-notch, really.

Osamu, while still in high school, is still somewhat an athlete, no matter how much all the first years gave him shit for it, only bounces back. His eyes are alien brown-grey again, something not from this world, and he is staring, quiet, tipping from foot to foot. 

"Sorry," Rin forces out. "Sorry," he says again, lacking anything else more substantial to say.

"Eh," Osamu shrugs, long and gangly, all arms and shoulders and elbows. "I have a face that people wanna punch, 'parently."

"Atsumu told you that?" He sniggers.

"Well, people said so. I'm tryin'. It's not easy havin' any other face."

"Plastic surgery," he lists, putting a foot on the stone step. "Permanent scarring."

"Race ya to the top," Osamu, an alien among humans, sudden impulses beyond understanding, declares. Rin is already running, without even processing the reasoning behind him running. They are both sprinting with reckless abandon, free and unhinged for a glorious five minutes.

Like this, life feels unlimited.

"I had a Realisation," he confesses, like an idiot, to someone who just challenged him to an upward hike to a Shinto temple, red gates solemn and standing tall. 

"Kita-san?" Osamu grunts, twisting to lie on one side, an asteroid orb shining directly into his line of vision. Hurts like a phantom toothache, looking into that eye.

"How'd you know?"

"Mate, how do I not know? Everyone went through that period of their time here. It's not super shameful or anythin'."

Rin had grown up thinking it's wrong to like anyone who isn't a girl, whose parents are unhappy because they had to marry, no because they wanted to, in a stilted household a blow away from collapsing. It is turbulent water where he treads and he is afraid. Memories stay with him. He cannot take them away, stash them in a jar somewhere, forget. Inarizaki is ambitious and daring, forging heavily ahead without qualms about the past. He drags his feet, watches as the team falls apart then rebuilds itself. Around him, roots pull him lower and lower. That pit full of self-pity, it's filling up. He only has himself to pity and to blame.

"Can hear ya doin' that self-pitying routine. Can we stop. By we I meant ya."

"You're giving me such a headache, Miya," he complains, just for the sake of it. "Why do you always seem to appear when something is going wrong for me?"

Osamu sits up, braced on an elbow. 

"Ya don't mean to say I instigated bad luck, are ya? I accept bad omen vibes, but I don't fully bring about someone's downfall."

"Calm down," Rin rolls his eyes. "I'm not saying anything."

"Yer saying plenty from where I'm sittin'."

"Then stand."

"Har. Har."

He takes a breath in. Lets it hang. "It's not like it's a bad thing."

"Yer not makin' it sound good, mate."

"That's because you're ugly," he points out. "And have a punching bag face."

"Well, sorry, city boy, this is what I got when I came to the world screamin', can't change it now, take it up to me ma."

"But," he hears the breath leaving, rattling his bony chest. "I could be on my own. Could be worse."

"Am I," Osamu twists, lowering himself on the grass. "Makin' anythin' better?"

Rin frowns. "We'll have to see. I still reckon I can punch you once and then call it a year, I think."

"Haha, I'll break yer leg."

Atsumu decides that his food is now free property now and moves onto his portion of dinner. He's too busy debating with Gin and Ojiro on the logistics of them running into a wild animal while ghost seeking. Osamu sits by his right, eating his own dinner and his brother's.

At their tournament in Interhigh draws to a close, he sits, sweat-soaked, a blanket of intangible warmth between him and Miya Osamu. The twins are sporting raging fashionable ombre hair, dark roots showing at the top of their heads, as Osamu hangs his own big one, breathing and shaking as they gather themselves, Rin watching long thin limbs draw loose and snap tautly into the body. 

"Yer done starin'?" Osamu drawls, flicking an irritated look up. Rin spares him a shit eating grin.

"But you're so ugly. How can I not look at something so miserable?"

Akagi-san predictably does not even bat an eye as Rin flees to him, dropping significantly to grasp the back of his jersey.

"Children," Oonimi-san says, amused. He doesn't even step in between them.

"I'm being harassed, Oonimi-san!" Osamu opens big asteroid eyes. 

"Let go, Suna," Akagi tells him, even though he hasn't resorted to physical violence yet. Rin remains stuck on the back of his jersey. 

Atsumu shuffles over, grin threatening to split his face in halves. Kita-san and Ojiro bracket him on both sides, shaking their heads fondly.

"What now," Osamu squints at his brother.

"Guess who's the best high school setter right now?" Atsumu crows, flinging himself at Osamu. His brother sidesteps him.

"Oikawa Tooru?" 

"Fuck ya too, Samu. Rin, Rin," Atsumu clambers over to him. "Don't ya think I'm cool?"

"Good job, big guy," he surfaces just to nod once at the blonde menace, to appease his reign of terror. "I'm so proud of you."

At Atsumu's kicking up a ruckus, Kita-san raises a hand. They fall silent, like a charm. He smiles, starts packing up. Akagi shakes Rin off, dutifully following behind their soon-to-be third year, hooking an arm over Kita's neck.

Osamu meanders over to Rin, successfully pinching him. He thinks he deserved that.

"I'm going back to Tokyo this summer," Osamu sees rather than hear the simple declaration, and he is still very out of it. They're all piled inside Oonimi's study room, loose-limbed and dozing. The senpais had all left to gather more food. The rest of the first years have been napping. Suna had seated himself across from Osamu, hair all pushed back with a myriad of clips, acquired across a number of younger sisters in the team. They're the only two who have yet to succumb to the pull of the afternoon summer nap, Atsumu dozing happily away on Kosaku's shoulder, slumped on the table, as Gin snores away on the floor. 

"Miya," Suna says again, a twitch to his mouth. He is all sharp corners and shifty eyes. Osamu thinks he's very hard on the eyes.

"Wha."

"Thought you fell asleep."

"Thought ya be less of a bastard at some point this year too, but we can't have everythin' we want, can we?"

Suna sniggers, eyes dark and sharp. They're like flintstones. Strike them together and get a fire. Osamu swallows down a tongue and a pit full of flickering flame. He's uncomfortably awake.

"What a mouth you have on you, Miya Osamu," he lounges, like a luxurious king on a throne. "Did you hear what I said?"

"How long yer leavin' fer?"

A shoulder lifts. Falls. Suna has pointy shoulders. Atsumu fell into him one day and complained about the dark bruise he acquired for three weeks afterwards. Osamu had poked at it and enjoyed the scream of pain his brother let out. It's almost like Suna touched him at that moment. 

"Whole summer. Maybe a bit more. Why, afraid I'll run off?" There it is again, that grin that he only reserves for Osamu. He bares his own teeth in return.

"'Fraid you'll come back, ya bastard. Leave for all I care."

"Aww, Osamu-kun, you do care," Suna grins, straight teeth and sharp mouth. Osamu turns his head away, throwing himself down to sleep. "Can't run away now. You lot are all I have left."

"Things shit at home?" He asks. He always suspected. Suna smiles. It's a sharp, stinging gesture. He doesn't like how it cuts the sharp face before him into little pieces of broken glass.

"Always been shit, Miya. But it'll be less shit soon enough. Don't cry when I'm gone, yeah?"

Osamu scoffs. Plants his face on the table.

"Who'd cry fer ya?"

Osamu did anxiously wait for any update, through means of Atsumu bugging their senpais. He called in a favour. Atsumu, gleeful at gaining an upperhand on Osamu, happily complied. After a while, even he too said Osamu was being a little sad shit sack of potatoes. Osamu made the brilliant observation that Suna's name? They can call him Taro.

"One day in the future, ya’d cry lookin' back at this," Atsumu tells him, the two of them bobbing in the heat of the late summer night. 

"Yer makin' me cry now," he points out, absolutely mean about it. "Now shut yer big mouth."

The train pulls into the platform. Suna steps off, murmuring to someone on his phone, before he lifts a hand, spotting the twins. Immediately, Osamu greets him with a middle finger. Suna laughs, hangs up the call. Atsumu slams a hand onto Suna's shoulder. He has to reach now.

"Look at this," Suna grins, dirty concrete still clinging onto his clothes. "You do care."

"Shut yer mouth," Osamu tells him, though more fondly than he did with his brother, and snatches him into a hug. "How're ya so warm?"

"How are you so cold? It's literally summer?" Suna's mouth is by the side of his head. He hears Suna spitting out some hair. "It's like hugging a corpse."

Atsumu is dancing like a circus monkey around them. "Can I leave yet? Can I please go?"

"Fuck off, Tsumu," Osamu tells him. Atsumu yells something rude back before rounding off.

Suna doesn't let go of him, swinging back and forth on his feet.

"The hell ya doing," he asks. Goes along with it anyways. 

"I think girls do this when they hug," Suna observes, dry and curious. "It's nice."

"I didn't say it wasn't. Yer just weird. I don't like ya," Osamu claims. Like a liar. He doesn't hate this. Or Suna.

"You’re a shit liar, Miya Osamu," laughs Suna. "Come on, I'll walk you home."

Second year comes. Kita-san is unsurprisingly a ruthless captain. Atsumu is slowly blowing his head bigger and bigger ever since the nomination and the rumour of the Japan Youth Training Camp. Ojiro - no, Aran-san - goes in and out of his secret Top 5 High School Ace meetings. Akagi is whipping them into shape. Rin finds himself stuck with Miya Osamu, who stress-cooks with the demands of second year, feeding him creations both strange and good.

"That's a whole lotta rice, buddy," he remarks, settling by gingerly to Osamu, who's hovering by the cooling stove, shoving his hands as near the heat source as possible. "You feeding the team or something?"

"Yer complainin' a whole lot fer someone who's eatin' like half of this feast," Osamu returns, snippily, punching down. He's grown. Built more muscles, gained a bit of height. Rin is taller, just, but he's on the gangly and thin side while Osamu bulked up, along with Atsumu. It must have been a competition to see who can gain more muscles or something. Rin passes by him, a palm to his shoulder blade, and Osamu shifts, the muscle jumping, to let him through.

"How's the view down there," he smirks. Osamu's alien eyes twitch, no longer easygoing, before he stabs an elbow into his side, face twisting into a snarl. 

"It's only a few centimetres, dick."

"Aww, but those few centimetres made all the difference. Soon, Aran-san will declare me to be a six footer while you lot can hang around the five foot bar, being miserable all on your own."

Osamu doesn't deem him worthy of a retort, only turning mutinously to check on his creation. Rin follows close by, always touching him, because he runs cold, like glass, and he's firm under his palms. Osamu is tall (just not enough) and conventionally pretty for fans to gather at their games and practice. He cooks. Has alien eyes. Rin isn't blind. This is a privilege, to touch him freely without bodily injuries in return.

Atsumu would be decked, without question. Their team isn't that touchy beyond reason on the court. A pat on the back, a good job high five, a head ruffle. Only in severe moments of weakness that they request a hug during exam season. It's kinda always been stilted like this.

It's easy, reaching out for Osamu. He started leaning into it some days. Now that Rin is a bit taller, he rests his chin on this Miya boy's shoulder when they speak to someone as one entity. It's good. Rin runs warm - hot and sweltering on summer days - and Osamu is like a corpse, frozen. It's why he takes up cooking, among other things. Hands reaching out to one another, sitting next to one another, until they eventually touch, arms and shoulders and thighs pressed to each other. It's almost a habit. He doesn't know if it's a good or bad one.

The team, through means of osmosis or Atsumu's gigantic, big mouth, found out about the Suna Family Drama. They offered comforting shoulders. They asked if he wanted to do things. Kita-san even said he wouldn't be opposed to listening to his woes. Rin almost shed a tear. 

But he goes to the Miya house and hangs around their kitchen, rooting through old family albums, napping with the pet dog. Atsumu bugged him until he agreed to play spiker and Osamu fed the whole family. It's easy, fitting in like this. He had a sense this was a home and he was allowed in it.

"Are you angry," he wheedles, nudging Osamu.

"Why would I waste breath on the likes of ya," mutters Osamu, who is obviously angry.

"But you're so much uglier when you're angry, how could I not make fun of you?"

Miya Osamu pulls hard when he's mad. Heisuke-kun, unfortunate victim sent to collect them, almost cried in alarm at their violent display of comradeship.

Suna Rintarou is a city boy. His mother is recently divorced to his father, who moved back into somewhere in Honshu. He speaks with a pretentious city boy accent and can't tie his ties properly, and he purposefully makes himself shorter when he speaks to Osamu even though there's only 5 cm between them.

He runs warm at any point during the year. He's warmest at the junction between his neck and shoulder and even through clothing, he radiates heat. Lazy, clearly not unmotivated, but not extremely driven to play volleyball well either. Has a freakish spin to his torso when he spikes. Apparently he can do weird yoga tricks with that flexible core. 

Suna Rintarou didn't react when the team wanted to call him Taro or even just straight up potato. He said it was an honour. The Irish farmers would have made him their God. Nothing much bugged Suna. He's tall and slovenly and at any given moment in time, he's hanging all over Osamu.

Suna Rintarou liked Kita-san, their captain. He came to terms with that milestone realisation. He is now happily chirping away at everything Kita-san does, though to be fair, who doesn't. Suna Rintarou eats chuppets religiously. Says he doesn't get enough sugar. Suna Rintarou is Miya Osamu's current fixation.

He knows he's not even subtle about it. Literally everyone but Suna had noticed that he's harbouring a crush the size of twelve rice farms in the kanji of Suna, materialising whenever they talk and end up all over each other. Osamu doesn't do touchy. He's polite because his brother is a self-made bastard and he has to be the nice twin to balance it out, but he does not like it when people touch him without reason or consent. Suna has free consent to do whatever and Osamu would probably thank him. It's deeply irritating.

It's probably nothing. He had crushes that went away. Crushes that became friends. Crushes that crushed him and then he got over it. Suna is Suna and Osamu thinks they are close. Even best friends. Whatever happens, they'll still be them.

"Why d'ya like him though," Atsumu wonders aloud. Osamu doesn't know why he even let him in on this terrible secret, but it's that or Aran, and Aran thinks he is the Japanese Cupid. He is not. 

"I dunno. He's tall and pointy and has a stupid city boy accent. Why does anyone like anyone," he mumbles, turning to maybe gouge his own eyes out. "Why didja like Aran?"

"Because he's pretty and I like pretty things, duh," Atsumu snarks back. 

"Maybe my type is the weird type," he looks back at it. Suna is pretty weird, even if he has long fingers and smiles like Osamu is a joke all the time.

"Maybe ya should stop likin' 'im if he gives ya so much grief, ever thought 'bout that?"

"I will, I'm tryin', let me breathe, why don't ya?"

They came up one short from Itachiyama, but Atsumu loved their new nickname. The strongest challenger. He thinks it's emblematic of who they are as a team. Kita-san tells him to stop yelling. Suna tips into Osamu's left, exhausted and warm and loose. He smells like a lot of soap.

"Walk on yer own," he says, even as he shifts to support the added weight. "How much d'ya eat? Ya weigh like a house."

"It's all the food you kept giving me," moans Suna, burrowing his nose, weirdly cold, into Osamu's cheek. He absently taps at that head of curling hair. "I'm fat now, 'Samu. You have to take responsibility."

"Then die," he tells him. He trained himself so that nothing in him reacts to anything Suna says. It's all a joke to Suna anyways. "Useless prick. Can't even take care of yer own."

"Cap," Suna whines to Aran. Or maybe Kita-san. "Samu's being mean."

Aran smiles at them both, like an indulgent father. "Go easy on 'im, Samu. He's got a delicate heart."

"Ain't savin' weak hearts 'round here. If he dies then he dies." Osamu curls his own mouth, feeling the twist of amusement flaring and dying. It's no use indulging in this bygone feeling.

"Men, I love ya and everythin'," Gin begins, arms coming up. "And methinks this friendship's heartwarmin', but we gotta move on. We'll never get to practice at this rate."

It is this - Suna jokes and Osamu does not fall in. There is a pattern and nothing changes. He likes Suna Rintarou. He will never stop being their Taro, his Suna. It will be this, always.

People who are being liked, generally have an intuition for it. Like Kita-san, who gently steered away at least 90% of all Inarizaki players who had ever flounced his way. Like Atsumu with his horde of fangirls. Like Osamu with his humble crowd.

Rin knows he's a subject of scrutiny, a person of interest and affection. He's not totally blind and self-deprecating. He knows what he's good at, what he can do, what he can get away with, who he can trust. Rin knows.

Osamu knows he knows, possibly. Osamu knows he knows and they are close friends, best friends, even, and they don't talk about it.

It's inevitable though, isn't it? Part of the gay experience is confusing fascination and love for your fellow gays until you develop a friendship of homoerotic tension or you fall apart, never to speak to one another again. It'll go where it'll go. They'll get there when they get there. He is in no habit to alter the natural progression of things. It will happen. Or it won't. He will only watch.

The team who are the strongest challengers hold him who only began to excel at this sport because there are parameters where he can experiment without fear of failure. Tiptoeing around his parents his whole life had taken a huge chunk out of his personality, rendering a careful statue, a watchful predator lying in cold calculation and waiting. Unlike his brethren, there is nothing in him that is brash and aggressive and unconventional. He does not experiment. He does what's expected of him and waits for further instructions.

"Ya look pretty miserable, Suna," Kita-san tells him. Rin thinks he's borderline psychic. Akagi is yelling at Atsumu at the nets, bossing him around.

"Thanks, it's my usual face," he replies back, droll. He's gotten even better at hiding things from even Kita-san, whose crush subsides into something of mild fondness and exasperation for his captain. This is probably the only captain that he will respect. He won't look up to anyone else. They've peaked with captaincy on this count. Only Kita-san's gods can help Rin's second years to manage and scrape by next year. 

"Somethin' wrong?"

"Something's always wrong, Kita-san. But thank you."

"Y'know," Kita-san doesn't usually smile. Rin thinks it's a shame. He has nice teeth. Unlike Miya Osamu's crooked ones. That one needs braces. "Yer not alone. We're with ya, yeah?"

Aran, like an angel, appears, clapping them on the shoulders.

"All good, boys?"

"Aran-san, what are you, my dad?"

"Well, young man, I'm disappointed in ya, have ya called yer dad yet, huh? Exactly. Go help Heisuke stretch."

Training camp. Suna grew even taller. He's huge now, long and thin, hair curling at the base of his skull. Osamu is staring unabashedly. People have begun gently steering him away, because inter-team relations never end well and eventually, this will end too. High school is not forever. 

Suna is soaked under the stream of high pressure water dispensed from the hose, Akagi-san howling like a pack of hyenas. He's shaking wet hair, falling below his shoulders, rivulets of water whipping at Osamu's direction. He's only complaining for the sake of it, opening his bottle to splash at the soaked Suna, who grins, all open mouth, thin lips, wide dark eyes. Suna's eyes swim grey-green under the harsh Hyogo sun. Osamu lobs a water bottle at his head.

"Yer reckon we'll beat Itachiyama to a pulp this year?" Atsumu asks him, a foot on the low dining table. Kita-san stares at him until he tucks himself in like a proper human being.

"Well," Suna says, wedged in on Osamu's left, warm and shifting. He nudges into Osamu's space. "Can't be worse than last year."

"Yer optimism is simply upliftin', Suna, whatever will we do without ya," he drawls, sarcasm dripping sharp from the wrinkle of his nose. Kosaku across from them roars with uncouth cackles, slamming his palms into the table. Oonimi shushes them, to no use, as Akagi snickers under his breath, shovelling rice into his mouth as he pretends, wide-eyed, that no, haven't been laughing at all, whatever d'ya mean, Ren-chan?

Suna elbows him, a familiar press against his side and it stays, as he reaches out with another hand to pick up food from Osamu's bowl. 

"Yer frozen like a brick, Samu," Gin points out, kindly.

"Senpai, ya can eat my food if ya want," Riseki kindly offers. Osamu rolls his eyes at them both.

Suna's got a man bun tied at the top of his head, a masterpiece from Gin, as he sits, gazing out into the countryside. There's supposedly a meteor shower tonight, and he declined turning in early to sit out here. Wanted to be alone.

Osamu's not very good on picking leave me alone signals, so when he sees all this loner city boy gig, he readily slides into a messy sprawl by Suna's side, their arms touching. Skin on skin. There's a graze that hasn't fully healed yet on Osamu's upper arm. It itches under the contact.

"Couldn't sleep?" Suna asks. Doesn't turn to him.

"Tsumu's havin' confession time in there," he finds himself unable to suppress the damning groan. "Don't wanna be in there."

"What, are they sharing middle school shameful flashbacks? I should be in there," Suna turns, just a fraction, so Osamu can witness the sharp jawline in progress of developing, the shifting catlike mouth, the curving eyes. He's really pointy. Like a cat. Pale and dotty with hair falling all over his eyes. Osamu doesn't know why he's here, having a heart to heart with this one. At least inside, he can bully his brother for fun.

"Were ya embarrassin' or somethin', ya mug?"

"I was pretty in middle school. Can't say the same about you. You peaked at like, five, and it's been going downhill ever since."

"Ouch, save a man some grace, will ya," he huffs, cradling a hand to his chest. "Yer alright? Aran's spike didn't kill what's left of yer tiny brain?"

Suna turns to him, fully. He's scrunching his nose. 

"Very funny, Miya. No."

"Yer not alright?"

"My brain is huge. Which you won't understand, being a simpleton yourself."

"But yer not alright?" He presses, because by this point, he thinks he knows. When Suna needs a minute to think. When he's slipping into somewhere that Osamu can't follow, he hovers anxiously out here, waiting for him to come back. 

"By this point," Suna turns to face the night sky again, "I wonder why you even bother asking? Course I'm not fine, Miya-kun."

"Can I. Help?"

Suna doesn't say anything. Osamu is very good at waiting. He's waited for his brother, waited for Aran, waited for his progress. He can wait for Suna.

"You can stay with me, how about that, kitchen boy?"

"I like Ugly Bastard better."

"Guess what? You're not in charge. Sit there or go. I'm not making you."

He sits. Suna leaves to go to bed first. Osamu watches the meteor shower alone.

Rin is in the Miya's kitchen. He's watching Osamu bustle around, wide shoulders shifting. He gives this guy so much shit for being a little bit shorter than he is, but he's huge in this kitchen. Thick corded arms, solid thighs and calves. Wide shoulders. A budding athlete.

"Will you play volleyball after high school, Osamu-kun?" 

It just slips out, but he's curious. Atsumu is away on a national youth training team. He's going places with that hunger of his. Osamu, on the other hand, is a perpetual question mark. There's no telling what will turn out with him. Like a true Inarizaki disciple, memories do not chain them down. Osamu could come with Atsumu as a package deal. He could forge his own path. There's no telling.

Rin himself doesn't know where he wants to go. But others do. He doesn't. He's too bogged down with his own memories. 

"Dunno. Not in a rush," Osamu shrugs. "Ya nervous or somethin'?"

He shrugs. "Yeah. Who wouldn't be?"

"I'm not an expert on these things, but it's yer own life. If ya dunno then ya don't. There's really no rush."

Rin doesn't feel warm and giddy all over, but the little seed of admiration begins fluttering anew in his chest. It's different from the crush with Kita-san. That's all awed mouth and racing pulses. Osamu had a whole lifetime of sedating the monster boy Atsumu. He's subdued, measured. He acts unhinged with Rin, but that's because they're comfortable with one another. They're such little shits. It's an enduring friendship. 

"Wow, listen to you go, Kitchen Boy. It's almost like you're a counsellor."

"I'm goin' to pour hot oil on ya. Watch it."

He thinks it's okay to like this. To let himself have this. Just for a bit.

"But you never told me what you wanted to do."

Osamu stills. Stands straighter. Maybe a little more dignified.

"My own onigiri business. I wanna build a franchise, cook and support. Sort of go down my own path. I love cookin'. I like volleyball, but I wanna do somethin' on my own." 

"You know what you're doing?" He teases, but it's mostly shit talk. Osamu always has some sort of a plan.

"D'ya?" The other boy shoves him, nothing in the touch at all.

"Touche, Miya-kun," he grins, catching a Miya Osamu's hand. It clenched in his grip, but doesn't pull back.

The second years have started being hounded by teachers about career choices and consequently, universities. Loudly and obviously, Atsumu had been broadcasting about how he will for sure, be offered a spot in a V-league team and will be packing his bags to join one, full steam ahead to becoming a full-fledged, professional athlete. Aran too. A lot of the team. Rin is shuffling in and out of the teachers lounge, blinking blankly at his preference sheet. University is a yes, but for what? Before, when he sort of lived under an authoritarian regime, someone always decided how he should act and what he should be. He spent years of his life depressing the Queer Life, and he's only playing catch up now. He hasn't gotten a hang of living for himself or doing something on his own. His mother is trying to cope, all by herself with a teenage son. He should be doing something to relieve her burden, pay back the debt of life that she granted him. That's the usual life plan.

But the selfish part of him, the little voice, chanted volleyball. Their loss to Karasuno felt real and chafing. It's a collective wound they kept picking at. Even though Kita-san assured them that they played well enough, they felt bad. They let him down, though logically, that didn't make any sense. They didn't let him down. It's sports. It's a balancing act of skill and luck all of the time. They are the greatest challengers, but they didn't have luck and the skill set that the Karasuno bunch had. Didn't mean they were bad.

He put down Undecided. The teachers can hound.

Graduation comes, and between the whole team and what's left, they cry about ten buckets of tears. Kita-san allows teary hugs and promises of visit. Aran lets the twins hang off him. Akagi gathers them around, makes them swear that they'll be good. Oonimi gravely ensures them that any mischief, they'll be answerable to him directly. Because he will know.

Rin sees Kita-san last out of the second years - soon to be third - and bows.

Kita-san catches his elbows at the same time that he said - "I had a crush on you."

"Thank you," Kita-san blinks once. "It seems that I was the object of many crushes."

"You can't blame us. Anyways, now that we both know, I wanted to uh. Also thank you. You've made these past two years something to look forward to. I'll make you proud, Kita-san."

"I've no doubt," Kita-san smiles. Like a warm sliver of sunshine. "Yer a well of untapped potential, Suna. Go where you want to go. Don't ever let go of anythin' ya love."

"Okay, I'll make you prouder, how about that?"

Kita Shinsuke laughs, closed eyes. Rin's heart taps once. It would have been nice, to fall in love with Kita-san. Unfortunately, there is no niceness for Sunas. They're all doomed.

"There had never been any doubt, Suna. You were brilliant, right from the beginning."

"What'd'ya talk about, Taro?"

"You're gonna be a shit vice captain, so I'll look after the club. Stand around and look pretty, Miya."

Atsumu and Gin roar with approval. Osamu slams a graduation bouquet at the back of his blazer, petals falling onto the back of his shirt.

Third year comes, and Rin has an inkling that easy comes at a cost and he's looking directly into it now.

It's an established routine and muscle memory. Osamu complains about his hair every morning. He fussed over their ties. Practiced motion, fingers and cloth. Atsumu runs ahead to yell at Riseki. Miya Osamu smells like vinegar and steamed rice. He has braces and his skin is uneven from fucking off to a mountain lodge with his grandfather. 

Rin hasn't had so much freedom before. It’s ironically suffocating when he’s allowed free reign of all this vast space to roam and he hasn’t the faintest clue where to go. 

“Why do you look like a slob, even till this day?” He says, palms on the rapidly-growing-famous Miya Osamu’s broad chest. Bet he even has abs too, the fucker. 

“Yer askin’ me and not the actual slob, ‘Sumu?” A corner of Osamu’s mouth twists. “This double standard’s killin’ me, Taro-kun.”

“One day, I’m going to actually, genuinely, murder you, you watch out, Miya boy.” 

“Aww, but ya missed me over the summer. Remember how ya cling to me - ow, ow, assault, assault, an innocent citizen’s being assaulted o’er here, a lil’ help?”

Rin goes home. Willingly waits for his mother by her study. Suna Fuyuo wanders by, looks at him, tilts her head into her study. He makes himself comfortable, sprawls back on his palms, legs kicked out under the low genkan. Mother emerges with her stack of paperwork, reading glasses perched on her head.

“So?” She arches a brow. “Complaints? Questions? Praise?”

“Did you always, like, know what you were doing?”

She scoffs, though not unkindly. What an acrid woman. He would die for her happiness. “Not all the time. Certainly not at seventeen.”

“Will you disown me if I don’t go into college?”

“It’s always good to have more than one roads to take. Culturally, I’d say ‘go to college so you won’t be denied opportunities later on’, but emotionally and as your mother, I know you’ve got ideas on where you want to go, so I might as well hear it now.”

He picks at his joggers. “Well, volleyball has been fun. I want to see how far I can get with it.”

“What about after? You got a plan?”

“Nothing yet. I’m lazy so like, what’s a lazy, minimal-effort job?” 

She hurls a pen at him, nailing him in the middle of the chest. 

“Nothing’s easy in life, kid. Only people who are truly good at something can make the thing look easy and effortless. Remember that in your thick head.”

He lowers himself, gently, and then all at once. 

“I’m doomed to suffer, that’s just how it is.”

“What else are you good at? Or did we ruin you beyond repair? What won’t you hate doing? Numbers, writing?”

“What’s something, like, sport-ish?”

She grumbles, but ultimately scribbles something out, then lobs a crushed ball of paper onto him, as he crawls to an elbow, unfolding it.

“Huh,” he blinks. “Yeah, sounds good. I’ll jot that down.”

“Do you ever use your brain ever?”

“To be honest, nah,” he sits up fully, palms on knees. “Mother. Did you know. That I want to make you proud always?”

She blinks, tilts her head to one side. 

“You’ve literally never disappointed me, kid. I’m proud of you, just because. You don’t have to prove anything to me.”

“That’s it?”

“I’ll come back with a list if you want, but you don’t have to earn my pride. You were born my pride. Our name is literally reliable. You’re going to go far, kid. Or not. Bad or good, you’re mine, I’m proud of what you’ve done and what you’re doing. Not much is going to change that, Rin.”

He blinks. “Oh. Okay. That was strangely emotional.”

“Oh I’m so sorry, did you actually want me to not be good at this?” She arches another brow. “I’m sorry you didn’t know about this, but I am very proud of you. College degree or not, you’re not going to stop being mine. I’m learning to be responsible for you. I hope we’ll be able to learn together, to be a family again.”

“Ah,” he sucks in a rattling breath. “Isn’t that a given?”

“You don’t owe me anything. I made you, I wanted you to be here. You didn’t ask to be born. You’re fully justified to feel any way towards me.”

“Right now I just feel overwhelmed,” he admits. “And a bit lost. I thought you’re gonna know, like, what to do with me.”

“What, run your life for you?” She smirks. “D’you want that?”

He twitches. “No. But habit’s hard to break. I’ll adjust.” He twists and turns where he sits. “Did you mean it? That you’re proud of me no matter what?”

“Is this about the liking boys thing?” She turns a page. He hits himself in the face. “Yeah, I knew. Doesn’t change anything.”

“Huh,” he rubs a palm over the red spot on his face. “Okay, anticlimatic. You have made everything literally so futile, I hope you know that you’ve cut my dramatic monologues down to only two.”

“Teenagers,” she rolls her eyes. “When are you lot not dramatic?”

The first years and second years spent about three days respecting Atsumu, before they realised that Osamu is the one to actually mind their manners around, and that Rin is the true power seat of Inarizaki. Every clerical matter had been streamlined to him and he had solved about twenty inter-team disputes ever since the year started. The leadership feels strange, but he likes being looked up to, as the tallest member of this munchkin nation, but also as a reliable senpai. 

The Miya twins are still beacons of fame to their school, but more scouting agents have been mingling in the fringe, even chatting to coach and on occasion, the Miyas. Riseki spiked a particularly mean serve at his awaiting palms and while he slammed it down, that hurt. These people hit hard. He presses his palms against the side of his thighs, biting down a whinge. Osamu is too far away to hear. He’s not going to trudge all the way over to where he stands with his twin, negotiating with another scouting agent. Atsumu leaves with the agent, visibly fuming. Osamu lingers at the doorway, hands shoved deep in his shorts.

“Samu!” He calls. Weird alien eyes flick up at him. He raises a solitary middle finger at the fuming face and watches as it switches into pure irritation. 

The respected vice captain must have spewed out something uncaptainly, because their libero startled, dropping a volleyball. Osamu rights him before picking up a stray volleyball, turning it in his palm. Rin squints. Wait. What - oh shit -

Atsumu is training to be a server of all styles, Avatar bending all elements, but through freakish twin genetics, Osamu’s serves are also terrifyingly ground-denting. He genuinely put a dent on a court once. A first year, Tsubasa, refused to be near him for about a week after. 

The serve sails by him, shy of his ear by about a hair’s width, and slams down onto the ground with a harsh thwack . Gin yelps, before whirling to Osamu to chew him out. 

“Stop rilin’ ‘im up, senpai,” Riseki calls out. Osamu throws up his arms as if to yell thank you.

“Always known that Samu would get Hei-kun in the divorce,” drawls Kosaku from somewhere behind him. Rin shows him a particularly rude middle finger. 

“Well, I ain’t gettin’ Atsumu,” Osamu bites out. “Someone go get ‘Tsumu before he decides to run off to Tokyo.”

Kosaku sprints off, before Rin starts harping on him too. Osamu switches from gently correcting a first year’s form, because he actually has an image to maintain, unlike four out of five other third years. Rin meanders to his side, hands up because he’s thrown immediately into a headlock, laughing for mercy as Osamu ruthlessly shakes him so that a week of his life is shaken clean out of him.

“Seriously,” he wheezes, hair all over the place. “You’re so easy to stir up, Samsam.”

“‘sthat another nickname?” Osamu looks up at him, mouth set on a mean grin. “Should I what, make a habit of callin’ ya Rintarou now?”

 He shrugs. “Can’t be worse than Potato-senpai.”

Osamu’s grin is full of braces and boyish mischief. Rin thinks about how Mother said things are only easy because people worked hard at it. They’ve worked hard at this. They’ll keep working harder.

They all congregate at Kita-san’s place, a bulk of the team. They’ve successfully bullied the alumni into attending their games at national and Atsumu promised savagely that they’ll crush Karasuno this year. The second years tease Oonimi-san over his couple look with Kita-san. Aran calls them halfway through the feasting and yelling. Riseki and Gin started a backflip challenge. Rin is draped bonelessly across the broad back of one Miya Osamu, peering at a tiny phone screen at a half-pipe compilation. 

“Yer so pointy,” Osamu complained, but shifted to make him comfortable. “Do not stab me where I’ll bleed out fer sure.”

“But who will feed me then?” He asked the crowd, and coughed when Osamu elbowed him. “Ow, you’re the sharp one, Miya.”

Atsumu proudly announced that he won’t be attending university. Osamu said something along the same route. Rin thinks they’re growing apart from a dynamic twin volleyball genius freaks, but it’s not a bad thing. Not everyone hungers for the same thing. Apparently the twins made up over that initial yelling match. They’re good now.

“As long as yer happy,” Kita-san had smiled. Rin thinks loving Kita-san had been something he never regrets, ever.

They crushed Karasuno. Came up second, but it’s a good victory. The alumni all turned up at their games, cheering viciously. Atsumu and Osamu body slammed each other as the scores got announced. Rin didn’t even feel mean enough to make fun of Osamu’s face of braces crashing into his shoulder. The kiddies cried. Gin hoisted the coach off his feet. The Inarizaki support crowd went absolutely bonkers.

"Kita-san," he accosts their captain out by the stairs. "Did we make you proud?"

“Ya made me very proud, Rintarou,” Kita-san ruffles his hair. “Always had, always will.”

Third year pulls slowly to an end. Rin still fixes Osamu’s ties when it’s been carelessly pulled apart or picked at. Osamu presses close to him, touching, but not full on embracing, on bus rides, walks home, when they stand next to one another. It’s easy. There is no memory of this. It had simply been.

“Staying here after graduation, are you?” He asks, as they wash dishes, arms deep in soapy water.

“Ya leavin’?” Osamu flicks him a look. He shrugs.

“Probably. Still waiting.”

“For?”

“College offers. And scout, the likes. Who knows what tomorrow might bring?” He nudges, a butterfly of a touch. “Don’t cry when I’m gone.”

“As if,” Osamu scoffs. “I might not stay here for too long, if things go well, so. I dunno, call me or wha’ever, I’ll see to ya.”

He grins. “You’re too nice, Miya Osamu. What if people take advantage of that, huh?”

“I’m movin’ away from those people,” comes the scathing reply. “And I’m not nice to everyone.”

“Are you nice to me?” 

Osamu turns, face going through a variety of motions. He settles on disgust. 

“Nah. Yer don’t deserve it.”

“Wow, cold. At least be a little bit nicer about it.”

“I hope ya die out there.”

“Narita,” he says, into the water, and the cool skin of Osamu’s elbow. “I’ll be at Narita. So I’ll die out there.”

“Maybe they’ll have the halfpipe equipment,” Osamu wonders. “Betcha I can pull off those tricks.”

“You’ve literally not snowboarded a day in your life, how can you even do that?”

Osamu’s eyes set, and he’s on a roll. Rin thinks it’s cute, that he’s set and there’s no putting off this roll now. It’s an avalanche rolling to a landslide. 

“That’s what weak people say. I’ll come down one day.”

Rin bumps hips with him, grinning. “Kay. I’ll take you skating and the like.”

Graduation is very anticlimatic. They’ve got their diplomas. The children cry. Atsumu is packed and hustled off to one side of the country. Rin is going east. Kosaku is studying something something plants and Gin is just floating about, helping people here and there. They’re no longer striking out as a unit. Maybe this is it.

“Team motto’s bullshit for life,” Gin declares. “I’ll see yer bastards in a year or two. ‘Tsumu, tickets to yer fancy Jackals game, delivered to my mailbox, y’know where I live. Rin, do not die in an avalanche. Ko, leaves are meant to stay on plants. Samu, I’m movin’ in next door. Now scram. I’m talkin’ to the kids.”

Riseki wanders over to Rin, after getting a pat down from Osamu. He bows once.

“I’ll see you in the V-League, senpai,” he promises, like a threat. Rin startles out a laugh and holds out his fist. Riseki bumps his own against it, retreating back to his crowd. Atsumu appears by his side, pulling him into an uncomfortable hug.

“Aiya, aiya, my baby Taro, off to Narita, cold snowy terrains, to die, desolate, like a caveman, while the rest of us get to enjoy our long lives, what a shame, what a shame -!”

“Leave me alone, Atsumu.” He wheezes out, but doesn’t dislodge the hold. “I’m not going to miss you.”

“They all say that,” Atsumu relinquishes his hold. “But then they’ll cry when they see me.”

“Pretty sure they’re not tears of joys, but okay.”

“I can’t go anywhere in the divorce, I hate it here.”

“The orphanage, Tsumu. They’re always taking applications.”

“Owwie, Taro-kun. That hurts,” Atsumu clasps his chest. “But really, yer will live and all, yeah? I cannot go to Samu, I think I will literally get murdered.”

“I’ll see you at the reunion, Tsumu,” he puts up a hand. “Gotta go say bye to everyone.”

Osamu’s got half a head of dark roots. His brother tells him he looks like a K-pop boy on most days and he learns some choreographies specifically just to freak Tsumu out. Suna offered to retouch it a couple of months ago, but he wanted to grow it out and cut off the dyed ends. Atsumu will go on his blonde destructive path and Osamu will go on cooking rice and being entrepreneur-ish. The braces will come off, straightening his teeth. The hair will be his natural shade. He’ll be his own person, growing into someone who isn’t half of the Miya Twins. 

“I’m amazed your braces remained intact,” Suna is lounging on his bed, staring at him upside down as he roots out Atsumu’s shit from his room. “Volleyball spikes and all.”

“Not a blocker, buddy. Don’t have serves and spikes comin’ for my face all the time,” he chucks a shirt at a corner somewhere, before throwing himself onto the bed, crushing Suna under him. Suna’s fast, but not fast enough. He groans, twisting to break free from Osamu’s bulk before going limp, sighing as he feebly turns to speak to his shoulder.

“Can you let me go?”

Osamu is comfortable here. “Nah.”

“Seriously, you’re so heavy. How.”

“It’s all the rice.”

“Have the grace to defend yourself a little?” Suna wheezes. “Samu, seriously, let me breathe.”

He rolls off, coming up on an elbow. “Oh shit, are you dyin’ down there?”

An eye roll, sharp and green. “I’m not dying that easily.” Suna uncurls himself, rising like something much more graceful than a six foot one of teenager has the right to be. Osamu likes him so much that it physically hurts him in the back of his mouth. They probably have tonight and the Suna Send Off, then - everything less.

“Why the face,” Suna raises a palm. Osamu goes to him. “Toldcha you’ll miss me.”

“I’m literally goin’ to poison yer food on the ride to Narita,” he threatens, with his face against Suna’s warm palm. “World’s huge.”

“Indeed, brace face, but,” Suna is close. Really close. He can trace acne scars on this boy’s face. He has a mole inside the whorl of his ear. “World doesn’t have you, does it?”

Suna doesn’t quite kiss him. But he comes close. Maybe he did even more. 

“You’re something special to me, Miya Osamu. Samsam. I’ll turn up on your doorstep one day, yeah?”

Osamu is really good at waiting. He thinks this has got to be a cosmic joke. This is the gods testing him.

“D’ya like me or somethin’, Rin?”

Suna Rintarou smiles, shrugs. “I don’t know. But I’m not saying goodbye. You can’t get rid of me that easily.”

“Oh. Ah. Okay? The fuck was I goin’ t’do, let ya go easily?”

“My, Miya-san, that mouth you have on you,” Rin hides a grin behind his palm, pulling his hand away from Osamu’s face. “Be good. Do good. I’ll see you.”

“When?”

Suna Rintarou touches a closed fist into the centre of his chest, like a promise.

“When we’re ready, buddy.”

It must have been about two years since Rin last saw Atsumu. He heard all about his raging successful debut as the starting setter of the powerhouse Black Jackals. That and also Atsumu called him about four thousand times since the news. Rin is balancing part-time schooling with professional volleyball training. Kosaku has a YouTube channel and also is making tea back in Toyooka. Gin had travelled across four continents by now. Onigiri Miya is picking up. Oonimi-san teaches calligraphy in Nara. Akagi-san plays volleyball, and Kita-san, beloved by many, happily spends his days out in farm fields. Rin made friends with his teammates, though he’s close with Komori, who’s got a host of embarrassing stories to spill on the nation’s ace, Sakusa.

His text history with Osamu is embarrassingly sparse. They’ve chatted over the halfpipe competition at last year’s winter Olympics. But other than that, they’ve barely texted or called. Gin wasn’t in the country last year for the meetup. They’re apparently making it this year. Rin can’t come, the starting lineup tryouts are happening when everyone else has free time. He’ll just have to pull an Aran and video call in. 

“Dude,” Atsumu yells, probably inebriated, arms thrown around Akagi and Kosaku’s shoulders. “Yer better get in, or else.” 

“How’d you gonna beat me up from all the way in Hyogo huh,” he challenges, squinting as he does a head count. “You’re missing a few.”

“Comin’ in late,” Kita-san calls out. “Samu had to finish up a business proposal.”

Gin whistles. “Fancy.”

Riseki cringes away as Atsumu comes drunkenly his way. “Senpai, ya ditched me to deal with ‘im.”

Rin folds a palm over the right side of his chest. “I’m so sorry, Heisuke. Congrats on being scouted and also on your award. I am never shutting up about your achievements.”

“Redirectin’ isn’t cool, senpai!” Riseki cries, even as he chokes out a brief I made it. “Betcha talk about us all the time.”

“That’s true,” he confesses. “I never shut up about Kita-san. Sorry, cap.”

“I’m flattered,” Kita-san bows gallantly. “Oh, I think that’s Samu.”

Atsumu crows my brother, as Rin panics. Wait, wait, not like this, not like this -

“Ah,” he sees the notification. “Mother’s calling, do you heathens mind?”

Gin gasps out a yes, we fuckin’ do! as Osamu shuffles in, freezes at the sight of Rin’s grainy image, before turning back out.

“Ya fought or somethin’?” Kosaku asks, as Rin rapidly taps out of the call. “Yah, Rin -!”

He fled. There’s no other way of looking at this.

“Ah, fuck,” he says to the hand over his eyes. “Hah, fucked that up, I fucked up, should not have done that, gee, gee, ah.”

About six months later, he gets a call from Osamu. Rin drops his phone into his lunch and then fishes it out. He misses the call.

"I need you to not laugh,” he opens the call, once Osamu picks up.

“Good to know ya haven’t died, gonna laugh anyways,” is the predictable answer.

“Dropped my phone into my rice, missed your call, how’s the business,” he rushes, hoping that maybe adult Miya Osamu is less prone to picking him apart. 

Nope.

“What a dumb fucker,” the other end hacks out, wheezing around a laugh. “How’s the tryout?”

“It went,” he reports back, stiff. “I don’t wanna talk about it.”

“Roger. Got it. How can I offer my services then, since we’re not updatin’ each other on our lives?”

He stares at the call. This seems suspicious. “Yeah, why did you call?”

“Ha, well, ‘bout that…”

No adult person well into their fifties and forties, had ever sat Osamu down and told him hey kid, once you’re twenty and got a semi-stable job, you will do dumb things like get on a train to catch up with an old schoolmate because your brain thought that was a good idea at 2 in the morning. He’s at Narita station anyways, shifting, and settles down to wait, as the call tapers off to running sounds on Suna’s end, who’s doubtlessly sprinting to collect him. It’s a different area - Osamu knows Suna’s address, but he doesn’t know how far the station is from where Suna holed himself up in.

Suna appears, in a thin jacket, because he’s probably used to the cold, frowning as he scans around. He sees Osamu, and breaks into a sprint, seizing the collar of his thick duffle jacket.

“You fucker,” he greets him, hair curling, breath warm in a rush of steam. “You’re an icicle right now. Come on.”

“How’d’ya got here so fast?” He asks, as he’s being aggressively dressed by a harried Suna. “Taro, potato boy, it’s fine. I’m not gonna drop.”

Suna squints at him, but pulls the glove over his left hand anyways. He’s rummaging through his pockets, holding Osamu’s gloveless hand. It’s like years haven’t passed between them. Suna is even taller now, but he grew into his height. Solid. Baby fat no longer on his stupid cheeks. Strong grip. Long arms and legs. He’s so long. How is he so long?

“Drove,” Suna says, muffled, as he pulls something from his inner pockets. “Can’t find where my other glove is, just, stick close.”

Osamu’s brain short-circuited for an agonising ten seconds as he blinked at the pair of thin glasses slipping down Suna’s long nose. They could be holding hands. He can’t hear anything beyond the rush of blood roaring in his ears. 

“Ya.. can drive,” he finds himself repeating.

“New license,” Suna murmurs, before pulling him, limp and malfunctioning. “C’mon, my car’s outside.”

It is terrifying being in the same car as the guy who refused to tie his shoelaces for all of three years of high school and he’s now driving you to oblivion. Osamu vacillates wildly between attraction and fear, which he thinks is an accurate mood board. Suna drives slowly, maybe because he can sense his fear, but they’re at a small flat in less than ten minutes, Suna scrambling out to open the door for him, like a gentleman.

“You alright?” His eyes are green and brown and wow, this had been a terrible, no good idea.

“I might’ve died a lil’, but otherwise, I’m here,” he finds himself saying. “Also one side of my body could be frozen.”

The kotatsu is homey and toasty in Suna’s place. It’s a sparse living space, but it holds way too many blankets for someone who runs warm as Suna does. He comes back with four down blankets and throws them onto Osamu. His blood is circulating again, but maybe it’s circulating a little bit fast, swerving a little to a stroke maybe. 

“Are you warm yet?” Suna puts a warm palm to his face. “You’ve gone pale.”

“Found out me secret, Suna. I’m actually a vampire,” he croaks out, because the comedian in him will live on as his body dies. 

“Ha. Ha,” Suna squints back, still wearing his glasses. “I’ll leave you alone soon enough, just -”

Osamu’s hand shoots out to grab at anything he can hold on, which is looking to be Suna’s thickly corded arm. 

“Ah,” he swallows. “Don’t go?”

A complicated expression flits across Suna’s face, but then again, Osamu’s face is also doing the same thing. They have all these years between them. They’ve been apart for as long as they know each other. Three years together, three years apart. They’re different people now. Feelings changed. Things happen.

“Kay,” Suna settles on a soft look. That’s new. “Can’t really say no to you, can I?”

And they’re back to the easy banter. 

“Ya said no plenty of times before.”

“Name me one time. Name me one.”

Osamu thinks it must’ve existed. High school seems like a lifetime ago. Suna grins, shoving his face and his glasses close. 

“Time’s up. I’ve never said no. Case closed.”

Osamu wins out the cooking duty for the night, when he pulls the ‘I’m a professional cook’ card on Suna who shuts up. They’re two grown men in a tiny kitchen meant for one adult who isn’t anything above the 1.6m threshold, and they’re touching each other a whole lot, brushing each other by accident, brushing against each other on purpose. The whole package. Osamu’s skin tingles when Suna brushes against him. Tingly. Like it’s always been.

Nothing’s changed, on his end. It’s been subdued, but, the essence is still there. Oh gee, is he going to be those geezers who never stop loving people once he starts? Is that his legacy?

“You’re like an ice block,” Suna hisses as he flinches away from Osamu’s bare arm. He persists by shoving a whole hand onto the side of his long neck. Suna recoils, slinking away. Osamu is laughing at him, clutching at his stomach. “Not funny.”

They’ve packed away Suna’s cold lunch for another day, but Osamu had been surreptitiously adding bits of the discarded lunch into their dinner, until wow, what a mystery, there’s no lunch left in the fridge. Suna probably knows, but it’s been them doing whatever the hell they want since the age of fifteen till now, so nothing much had changed.

“Are the pipes open?” He asks, halfway into stealing everything that Suna painstakingly piled onto his bowl. Suna lets him get away with it. 

“It’s literally autumn,” Suna curls his lip in distaste. “There is no snow. You are so dumb, I don’t know how I can stand you.”

“It’s the cooking and the shoulder to waist ratio,” he speaks around a mouthful of food. He sees Suna glancing up and down, hand coming over to grasp at a shoulder, then dropping to a hip. Okay then. 

“A Dorito,” Suna nods. “That’s what you are.”

“Yer washin’, I hope ya know that.” He says, shoves more rice in. Files Suna’s warm touch against his hip to the Panic Corner of his headspace.

“Can’t take you snowboarding, but I’m buying something for a teammate’s birthday, so we’re going out,” Suna tells him after dinner, already wrestling on boots. Osamu lazes about, eyes on the ceiling and twitches out of his food coma as Suna’s green eyes hover around his vision, frowning down at him. “Up. You’re coming with me.”

“But I already cooked for ya,” he whines. Hopes it works. 

“They have ice cream stalls out.”

He stops dragging Suna down. “Are ya buyin’?”

“Fuck’s kinda favour am I asking if I don’t bribe you?” The other snorts. “You’re not eating your weight in ice cream.”

“I don’t need ta be on a diet, ya forget,” he grins, already putting on jackets. He’s possibly wearing one of Suna’s. It’s warm. “I’m gonna eat ya out of yer money.”

“I actually make a fair bit too, you know. You’re not the only accomplished one out of the two of us,” Suna yanks him up, because he’s stronger now and can lift an entire person to their feet with minimal difficulty. “Put on a beanie.”

“Spoilsport,” he boos, even as he accepts Suna’s wrestling the worn beanie on his head. “This yers?”

“Who else?” Suna rolls his eyes, crushing Osamu’s hand in a tight hold. “My dad’s?”

“Possibly,” he shrugs, going along. “I dunno everythin’.”

“You’ve failed me terribly, Osamu-kun. Truly a letdown.”

“Ha. Ha. Laugh it up, I’ll trip ya on yer front door. Watch those giraffe feet.”

Osamu doesn’t eat his weight in food, but he does share an ice cream with Suna. Suna frowns at how bitter it is and drops a sharp chin onto Osamu’s shoulder, huffing warm breath while he consumes his ice cream and hopes for a swift death.

“Smells like coffee,” Suna notes, nose by his ear. 

“Ya wanna know if I taste like ice cream too?” He asks, like an idiot. Suna blinks, before his eyes drop to Osamu’s mouth.

He hums around a mouth of miscellaneous sounds. “That’s a thought.”

“Suna.”

“Fucking hell, Miya, call me Rin. It’s been six years.”

“Fuck off. I’ve liked ya. For all this time. Into the future too.”

“I know. You’re not exactly subtle.”

“Now what?”

“I don’t think it’s fair, to ask you to wait. But, ah, I don’t know. You don’t deserve anything that’s unsure.”

Because Suna Rintarou is a gentleman and a well-bred city boy with the samurai codes of honour instilled into his bones, he sends off a glum Osamu to the station, waits quietly with him for the train. This confession and this sort-of denial feel about three years late, but Suna has a track record of delayed life events happening to him, so he’s forgiven. Somewhat.

“Will I be able to see you? Where do you live now?” 

“Nara,” Osamu stares resolutely at anywhere that isn’t Suna Rintarou. “Ring before ya come screamin’ my name.”

“What,” Suna Rintarou smirks, shifting his weight on a foot, “like a fan of yours?”

“I’m leavin’. Goodbye.”

Suna Rintarou raises a hand. His face is resigned. “I missed you. Sorry I sent you away like this.”

This is unfair, but perhaps this is the best they can get where they are.

“I missed ya too, ya big ugly mug.”

“Funny thing to say, ugly fucker,” Rintarou parrots back, eyes green and brown. “Are things going to be uncomfortable between us?”

Osamu likes the easy comfort. They’ve built years of relations on their ease around one another. They’ve worked at it. Seems a waste to tear it all down over one sort-of rejection.

“Nah,” he decides. “Don’t be too friendly though, I’ll … get the wrong ideas.”

Rintarou’s eyes are green and brown and he steps back, smile sad and resigned on his sharp, pretty face.

“Keep the jacket, Samsam. I’ll see you.”

“Kay.”

The next year, they met up once during the random reunion coerced by Akagi-san, who was feeling a little nostalgic. It’s possibly a ploy to check up on Osamu and Rintarou. They acted perfectly civil, tousled a few times, set some old anxious hearts at ease. Rin stayed back for a few weeks, chatting with his mother, doing admin work, running around on Kita’s farm and terrorising the kids at Inarizaki, before he started cleaning out his room.

The room was where it’s all been painfully clear.

“Huh,” he observed, brilliantly. “Wow. I was so ugly.”

“I provided half of those genes,” Mother cleared her throat. 

“Maybe I got less ugly because you provided half of my genes,” he replied, mollifying. She paid for his flat in Narita. 

“How’s the Miya boy?” Mother asked, because she had never been kind for a day in her life and she knows everything, before he knows the Things.

“Atsumu’s doing great, ma, I can get his signature if you want -”

“You know full well I meant the one you’re angsting over. The one who came over all the time. Braces. Cooks. Cap.”

“The cap is stupid, you’re right.”

“Don’t lie. You think it’s cute like how he thinks your glasses are cute. We are getting derailed. The boy, Rintarou. What’s going on now?”

He looked at the random shot from probably a lifetime ago, knew the answer he probably knew for a while. Nobody considered kissing their friend without a shred of romantic implication in it. Apparently he sighed a lot for someone who allegedly isn’t mooning about his maybe-lover.

“Turned him down.”

Suna Fuyuo bore this one. She knew what sort of angst rituals he cycled through.

“Wasn’t too sure, were ya?”

“Well, how can anyone be sure, really, is the question.”

“Well?” She asked. Waited. Rin has a terrible habit of late realisation, panicking, and then falling right into it. Being gay. Playing volleyball. Driving. Glasses. Miya Osamu. 

“I don’t want to lose what we have if it goes wrong,” he admitted. The fear made him hurt one of his closest friends. It tore him up, doing that to Osamu. His Samsam.

“Had it gone wrong yet?”

“It had. Somewhat. But it hasn’t changed all that much.”

“And?”

He put the photo away, his unabashed grin bright under the layer of dust, Osamu’s alien eyes peering into his face, an adoring light in the line of his braced mouth. 

“I want to hold his stupid hands and kiss him when we want to, all the gross love shit, I don’t know why it’s… taken so long. To realise. Holy shit.”

Mother rested against the doorway, smile stuck between proud and all-knowing.

“You’ve always known. Kinda need someone to spell it out.”

Suna Rintarou had an actual adult (Mother) who warned him against driving hours to someone’s house in the dead of the night. He obviously didn’t heed that advice. He took shelter in Gin’s flat for about a month, before doubling back to Narita. Gin was not surprised about the development. Apparently he thought it would take even longer.

Hey, he sent off a text, pre-empting the worst, I’m coming down to Nara in four months.

K, the text bounced back. That had been it.

Suna Rintarou is a dirty little liar because he does not turn up in four months, as scheduled, he turns up in three, appearing two days before Valentine’s, tall and solid in front of Osamu’s doorstep, pushing his hair behind his ear.

“Samu,” he breathes out, glasses bright and eyes brighter. “Sorry I was an ass to you. I’m not going to intrude in your home, I’ll just say this and go.”

“Did ya drive - ya said four months -” he’s hissing and trying to pull Rintarou into his home. The entire block is awake. The lights are on. He is not going to be able to explain why a famous volleyball player is yelling at his doorstep and he never will be able to once Rintarou fucks off back to Narita.

“You’ve got weird alien eyes and your shoulder to waist ratio is insane. Cold like a block of ice. I can bet you can’t snowboard for shit. I’ve known you for like, what, eight years now. If you’ll still have me, I’d like to ask you to go on a date. With me.”

Osamu eyes him. He’s serious. He’s dead serious. Now the neighbours will ask - Osamu-kun, did a handsome volleyball player ask you out? 

“Who the fuck else will I go on a date with, ya nut job,” he closes his eyes, prays for strength. Opens his eyes. Nope, bastard’s still here. “Now will ya get in? My neighbour will ask questions.”

“Oops,” Rintarou ducks in, absolutely unrepentant. “Sorry.”

"No yer not.”

“No I’m not. But I will brave the questions with you.”

“How gallant,” he mutters, as he comes easily to Rintarou’s side, fitting against his neck. “Worst confession I’ve ever got. Dunno why I let ya in.”

“Because I’m your type?” Rintarou chances. Osamu pinches him. “Heh, probably not.”

“Yer nobody’s type, ya ugly fucker,” he breathes out. Rintarou - Rin - fuckin’ Suna - is putting his arms around him, warm and solid. “Stop holdin’ me so tightly.”

“Kay.”

“Yer still holdin’ me.”

“Do you want me to stop?”

“Just because yer right doesn’t mean ya should say it.”

Rin stays the night. Osamu is convinced it’s been a heartbroken dream but he wanders out to a heart attack - Suna Rintarou, wandering in his house, long legs and arms in full display, wearing shorts and t-shirt in this weather. 

“What the fuck,” he says. “No, seriously, what the fuck.”

“Good morning to you too, you ugly piece of shit,” Rintarou says, inspecting a plant. “Wow this is actually a living one.”

“Y’know, I’m actually regrettin’ everythin’ I said last night, let’s pretend like we’re fightin’ again, I think me sulkin’ around was more productive to socie...ty.”

Suna Rintarou is smiling at him. He has eye bags the size of pond pebbles. He looks like shit. Osamu had never loved him more.

“Can I hold you?” The bastard asks, because he is actually a gentleman and shouldn’t be let loose in human society.

“What good are ya for then,” he says, opening his arms. “Come over.”

Osamu forgets that well, they met when Rintarou was breaking down. Inevitably, there is a breakdown on the way. It's a delayed response to current events. Osamu doesn't think it's cute. It's pathetic. Huge guy nearing two metres and he cries over literally anything. Osamu is patting him down, watching the timer tick by. This surely cannot be a train ride into straight up marital domesticity. 

"Sorry I made you upset," Rintarou sniffs. His eyes are red and puffy. Osamu had to take his glasses off for him when he declared the crying session would begin Now. He's so ugly. Osamu has really unfortunate tastes.

"I'm sorry that yer sorry and yer face looks like that," he huffs out. "Yer a big baby, ya know that?"

"That you still love? You can hate me too, that's like, fine, I have a spikeable face."

He grins. "Join the club, four eyes."

"You do not know how to comfort a crying person," Rintarou complains, even as he looks like he ate his next string of words as Osamu leans down, puts his hand in that mess of curling hair and pushes the long fringe all back. "At… all. Huh."

"I pull hard," he smiles around a threat.

"Betcha bite hard too," Rin snarks back. Osamu squints. "I'm not saying, go full on carnivore on me, but I could be into it."

"I am literally never goin' near yer ever again."

"Five more minutes, and then I'll stop being disgusting," Rintarou promises, eyes closed. "You probably don't like that."

"I don't like how this is all happenin' very quickly for my little brain to catch up to," he waves wildly around, with one hand. People will have to kill him to extract the other hand out of Rin's soft head of hair. "But nothin' changed."

Rin peeks open a green eye. 

"You've never touched my hair before."

Osamu is trying very hard to be anything but panicked, but yes. Wow. That is true. Nothing wrong at all.

"Good. Teh know," he wheezes out. 

"Nothing had to change! Please don't panic. We can't have turns on the panic button, it's going to rip us apart," Rin panics, hands going to his shoulders, neck, arms. He's all warmth and volleyball-rough hands. He had lifted Osamu like he weighs less than a bag of rice. He didn't think Rin can be gentle, for all their years of roughing each other up. 

"What changed then," he croaks out, because they're not great at talking and this is going nowhere.

"Fun fact, Samsam," Rin smiles, fond and exasperated, like he's laughing too at the fact that they're holding each other, trying their damndest to comfort, and failing at it. "We get to decide, as a unit, what will change and what won't. We'll try our hands at talking."

"Sounds like a terrible idea," he states. "Here's a thought - I'm not listenin' to any crap yer spewin', I'm shit at words, yer shit at words, we're both just wingin' it."

"Great," Rin drawls, still touching him. "Do I stop this, or?"

"Or?" He tried and did not lift a brow. Both brows came up.

"I love you, you gigantic rice nerd," Rin grins. Osamu puts a finger on the corner of his mouth, feels the line of his body aligned to get his face where it wants to hear, which is where Rin's mouth is. It is a terrible first kiss. They do not know what they are doing.

"Yer shit at this," he says, into the warmth of Rin's mouth.

"Says you," Rin bites back, slotting his mouth, warm and wet, over his. They're not even kissing, their mouths are just touching. Osamu is burning from the back of his mouth to the back of his neck, all along his arms. It is possible, that he could die from this alone.

"Hafta practise more, Rin," he decides, arms tangling into the back of the idiot's big head. Baby hairs fall apart at his grip. He is ripping hair from Rin's skull.

"You're killing me, Samu," Rin announces, like it's news. "Seriously."

"Best fuckin' murder story, dick, say thank you," he says to the corner of Rin's mouth, red and smiling, as he climbs onto the solid thighs of a pro athlete, bracketing his hips with his legs.

Suna Rintarou is slow to realise things, unlike Osamu who realises fast and processes it very slowly after. Osamu is possibly still processing. The reality feels a little surreal and his little brain refuses to see this as his new reality. Suna Rintarou after realising all the clues goes hard and doesn't go home. He spends a month brewing up trouble in Nara so that the neighbourhood now asks how Rintarou is when they see Osamu at the supermarket. Rin laughs at him over the phone in one long cackle and then tells him I really miss that mouth of yours, Miya Osamu. 

Suna Rintarou has a terrible habit of absently touching Osamu when he's in near range while his mouth is spewing something truly horrid and Osamu is the same. He's only finding out about the back tattoo that this boyfriend of his has when he was pulling the collar so much that it slipped and a portion of the tattoo peaked out. 

It's a nerd print of a fox. He wants to trace every inch of that back. Possibly with his everything. It’s weird. Make it stop.

They did end up on that very nice date in Nara Park. Rin spent a long time blinking, bewildered, at deers bowing at him. Osamu called him stupid no less than ten times, even though they ended up drinking tea like an old married couple in the afternoon, sitting close enough for eyes to double back at them, Rin laughing into his shoulder, Osamu shushing him. They stuffed leaves down the back of each other’s shirts. Everything felt a little like Osamu’s world remained the same but shifted everywhere a little to the right, working to accommodate the missing place that Rin conveniently filled in.

Truly, Osamu had come to terms that he’s in love with this moron for something like seven years - almost a decade - and he’s fully okay with the yearning reality. It’s a little jarring when it’s reciprocated, because he really conditioned himself to think only in the worst light possible in any given situation. People come together and fall apart. He just hasn’t prepared himself for the reality that people who fell apart also come back together. Sometimes people don’t split up. At all. They work to stay together.

He’s still bumping into corners and bruising himself and they fight a whole lot. Nice words and honeyed phrases aren’t their fortes and the distance doesn’t help. The thing about adulting is that they have this space of their own to keep alive and balancing a relationship on top of the hecticness of A Job holds grounds for a lot of arguments brewing. It’s hard, sometimes, not being able to reach out for Rin when he wants to. Rin with his ugly crying face, Rin who fits his face into Osamu’s neck, Rin who unironically lets his little fans pin little sparkly clips into his fringe, Rin who charmed the neighbourhood with his weird cartwheels and fancy volleyball jersey. Apparently Rin is just as bad. Osamu received complaint phone calls from numerous friends of Rin’s angsting. It’s legendary, apparently.

This thing between them - it’s not new, but it’s taken on a new appearance. The essence is still the same. He spent a long time hovering around Suna Rintarou, had always wanted to pick him apart, had always wanted to stay close to him. Whether they ended up one way or another, they’ll always reach out for each other. 

“Oh,” Rin had said, before he was called back by an irate coach. “Happy Valentine’s. If you want to come up for White Day, we can do something together.”

“Like what?” He leant against his doorway. 

“We’ll find out when we get there, gee, stop planning for everything,” Rin laughed at him, long and green and pale, his throat baring the chill of spring like a disgusting northerner and Osamu threw his arms around his neck, pulling him in. It’s familiar. They know each other.

The thing that is terrifying about love is that it’s groundbreakingly just this tiny speck. Osamu thinks love has to follow a formula, a path set out for him to follow. He’s structured, has a contingency plan when things go hellish, knows what he’s doing. Suna Rintarou had appeared at the age of fifteen, long and a crybaby, looked at all these carefully constructed plans and said ‘Nope’. He had not stopped since. 

Maybe love is terrifyingly mundane. It’s nine o’clock texts to make fun of early bedtimes. It’s shifting grocery bags all to one hand to crush long fingers in a grip. It’s fussing over ironed creases until they decide to throw a jacket over it and call it a day. It’s sending terrible memes when they can’t sleep until they get a heckling call to go the fuck to bed. It’s all the crushed collars under hard grips and aggressive rearrangement of limbs under the covers. Maybe love is mundane. Maybe love can be easy. They’ve worked hard at it, but even if they had not, Rin’s long fingers fit into the ridges of Osamu’s spine and the span of his hands cup Rin’s face entirely. They are what they are. They become the people they will become, together.

“Ma,” he calls home. “Rin’s comin’ over for Obon.”

“Goodness, the Suna boy? How sweet of ‘im. Yer brother’s comin’ too, Samu.”

“I could’ve meant literally any other Rin, ma.”

“Of course, darlin’,” she is having so much fun. “Tell ‘im yer ma said hi. I’ll pay a visit to his ma too.”

“Uh - kay?”

To nobody’s surprise, it was not a surprise that Osamu is officially bringing someone home. Osamu had an inkling that he found out about this last out of literally everyone. To his consolation, Rin also shares the brain cell, so he trips into the Miya threshold like an idiot - Osamu’s idiot - and tails Father around like a devoted son. Osamu’s parents had apparently made peace that they were getting another son and welcomed Rin in like a long lost child, open arms and open vaults. He’s on the registry, Osamu just knows it. This is all happening too fast and too sudden and he doesn’t like how he’s still adjusting.

“Are you angsting?” Rin presses a warm cheek against his temple. Osamu steps on his foot.

“G’away.”

“Aww, but you’ll miss me otherwise.”

“I am literally holdin’ a knife.”

“Kaa-san, Samsam’s being mean to me,” he calls out, like a dickhead, and Mother does not react to their antics. Atsumu wanders in, steals a slice of fruit, waves at them even as they’re stuck in an impasse, Rin pressing his face into Osamu’s. He flicks his brother a brief middle finger before the door opens, a polite ‘sorry for the intrusion’ and they’ve stashed away the impasse, bundling together. 

“That the date?” Rin asks into his hair.

“Hundred percent,” he murmurs back. “C’mon, before Tsumu buries him.”

Suna Rintarou wears the number 19 jersey on his team, EJP Raijins. He consumes jelly chuppets like they’re his lifeblood. Sometimes he goes swimming with his contacts on. They’ve yet to snowboard together and he lives near Akita. It makes no sense that they are where they are, Rin sleep-warmed and trying to crawl into Osamu’s skin, but they’re here. They’ve arrived. They will set camp. They will stay.

“How t’fuck are ya so long,” he grumbles, just for the sake of saying something, rearranging arms and legs around him. “Hoggin’ the fuckin’ blanket, leavin’ me t’freeze to me death.”

“Stop movin’ so much,” Rin groans, and nearly clocks him on the mouth.

There are no rings nor have there been talks about anything beyond. They will get there when they will get there.

“Winter Olympics is this year huh,” Rin squints at the calendar, his nose almost touching the paper. Osamu rolls his eyes, ceiling-wise, and stares directly at the glasses tucked into the front pocket of the moron’s shirt. He’s not going to bother.

“We’re finally goin’ snowboardin’ or yer got a no good excuse to bail out now?”

“Nah,” Rin grins. He’s sharp and warm and he thinks that every time he smiles, Osamu will do whatever he wants. “Let’s invite the team.”

“Ya askin’ or tellin’ me?”

“Dunno. You tell me.”

(Turns out Osamu is really good at halfpipe snowboarding. The coaches at Akita begged him to come work with them, part-time, please Miya-san, think of how much business you can also draw in. Rin spends about three parts hissing in pain and four parts howling in laughter, along with a ruthlessly cackling group of friends. Osamu hates it here. He’s never going anywhere else.)

They don’t quite move in together, but one day, Osamu drops a key into the left pocket of Rin’s sports jacket the same time Rin slides something across on the table, and they stop to inspect the mutual exchange.

“Key,” Suna Rintarou, eloquent spokesperson of his V-1 League team, observes. “To where?”

“The fuckin’ Swiss banks, genius, where else,” he bites into his mango. “My place. And call before ya break in.”

“Oh,” Rin blinks down. Looks up at him. “That’s awkward. I also just gave you my key.”

“Half my shit’s in yer place already, it’s been a long time comin’ anyways,” he shrugs. Really, they’re downplaying such a huge step. Just the other day they fought for ten minutes long on table arrangement because Oonimi-san came over. He asked them, good-natured as always, if the divorce was impending. 

“So,” Rin begins. Osamu doesn’t look up from his accounts and emails. 

“Do me a favour. Don’t.”

“I was going to ask you to go to Switzerland with me, actually.”

Osamu looks up then, eyes narrowing. “With what time and money?”

“I don’t spend shit on anything and I subsist on air. I’m working two jobs, which I’m paid well in, mind you. My boyfriend is good at snowboarding and I can speak German, I think it makes perfect sense for us to fly to the Swiss Alps and gaily exist there.”

As always, Osamu focuses on the important things in life.

“Since when d’ya speak German, dipshit?”

Two months later, he’s dividing up time with his business partner, Natsume and taking a break in a first time since he started out with Onigiri Miya. She thinks it’s about time he takes a break and actually acts like a twenty-something, instead of a conglomerate fifty middle-aged miserable director. Rintarou appears when they’re wrapping things up. Natsume thinks that his sudden and impromptu holiday makes all the sense.

“You must be the beau,” she reaches out in a handshake. “Samu never tells me much. I was convinced you weren’t real.”

“Maybe I’m a very realistic mirage,” Rin lifts a brow. “I’ve been told I’m too unreal sometimes.”

“I see, I see,” Natsume nods, pulling her hand away. “Not big on touching, are you?”

Rin’s smile is sharp. Maybe a little threatening too. “Only Samsam for me, I’m afraid.”

Osamu puts away the files and checks that the details have all been correct. He’s not going to miss business deals for two weeks, but a brand could be contacting him while he’s skating down a snow slope. Never can be too sure of where life leads. 

“When we’re done,” he clears his throat. “Rin, we’re packin’. Natsume, don’t be too mean to the kids.”

“Bring back a jar of snow!” She waves, unlocking her phone. “Or a snowboard!”

“Does everyone around me just know how to snowboard and I just missed out on secret snowboarding lessons?” Rin asks no one. Natsume waves them away one last time, and Osamu drags him out by the arm.

“Let’s go to the south,” Rin tells him, tattoo crawling up his craning back. Osamu traces the inky tip on the pale skin, a rough finger on smooth skin. “There’s a lake I want to show you.”

“It’s two weeks. We’ve got time,” he yawns into a kiss. Rin wrinkles his nose and pulls at Osamu’s ears. They’re too wrapped up, sprawling on each other, to notice the photographers.

Osamu meets EJP Raijin for the first time ever since the photos took Japan in a frenzy of ahh, ahhhh and ahhhHH. Their little honeymoon had been sliced short, Rin is summoned back immediately to Japan and Atsumu hounds up Osamu’s door, half checking and half panicking over his twin making the news. In the worst outing of like, the entire history of public outing.

“Yer right?” His brother asks. He always looks like a rat, blonde and slimy, on most days. Osamu does not know what thought process went through Sakusa’s head, but it definitely wasn’t anything rational if he picked his rat brother. Osamu loves this brother of his. Sakusa picked a weird and stupid guy, but it’s a choice nonetheless. 

He’s getting a phone from Rin. EJP Raijin wants to see him.

“I’ll see ya later, yeah, Tsumu?” He shrugs on his cloak. Atsumu yells something rude after him.

EJP Raijins are at least a little bit nicer than the newspaper, though Rin is visibly agitated, arguing with the coach. Osamu arrived just in the afternoon, as Komori picked him up, waving cheerily from an old Subaru with another teammate, Washio, both clad in pale cyan uniforms. They exchanged pleasantries and Komori told him something along the lines of shit sucked, we might have to pull a press conference. Osamu looked out the window vacantly. He wanted to see Rin.

When he meets EJP Raijins in their motley assembly for the first time, he didn’t quite expect to hear -

“Suna, I’m not letting you go just because the press outed you!” The coach screams, as Rin turns to him, mouth harsh, about to yell something back, as the Pick Up Crew pours in.

“Hi,” Osamu waves once, then puts his hand in his pocket. “Are we interruptin’?”

“Why’d you come right away, you moron,” Rin hisses at him, before coming over to shrug off his jacket to put it over Osamu’s shoulders. “I’ll bully Komori to drive you back. You don’t need to be here for this.”

“He literally just said ya can stay,” he points out, even as he reaches out to pat Rin an absent hello. “Right, coach?”

The coach closes his eyes. “Suna, it’s fine. We want you to stay. Wouldn’t be the same without you here.”

Komori, cheerily, returns with a mug of something. He hands it to the coach. “Yeah, you really bring the comedy to things around here.”

“I’m so glad I contributed to something,” Rin’s mouth twists. It’s possibly a smile. “And really, I don’t want to pressure anyone. I didn’t take care of my public image representing the team, I should face disciplinary action.”

Osamu wraps his hands around a trembling fist. Holds Rin with his own, like this. This can be their little embrace.

“Yeah, like a press conference,” mutters their setter. “You must be the other Miya. I’m Sakishima.”

“It’s fine, we all hate my brother,” he nods, cracks a grin. “Really, Rin, it’s fine. D’ya want me to go?”

The team turns pleading eyes to him - please please do not Leave us. Rin sighs, face turned into his hair. He smells like bitter wind and agitation runs in his limbs. Osamu isn’t even yelling at him for slouching this badly.

“Maybe you should take a few minutes to collect yourselves,” Washio turns them to the alcove outside the meeting room. “We’ll talk to coach.”

“Thanks, Washio-san,” he bows. Rin goes with him willingly.

“Do me a favour, Suna Rintarou,” he tells the trembling mouth pressed to his. “Stop thinkin’. It’ll go where it’ll go.”

“Surely it can’t be that easy,” Rin twists himself around Osamu. He feels a little bad to nag him about it. Perhaps losing a leg is a worthy price.

“Nah, but we’ll figure it out yeah?” He looks up, into mopey green eyes. “Yer and me. Ya got a whole team backin’ ya up. I’ll go where ya go. This shit’s for life, Rin, we’re not getitn’ rid of each other any time now. Maybe ever.”

"That has got to be one of the shittiest confessions ever, to date," Rin bemoans.

"How many d'ya got to make that claim huh?" He asks around set teeth, but it's mostly banter. Light-hearted. "Ya got me, y'know that yeah?"

"And what are you saying right now?" Rin whispers, baring himself, like a moron, out for Osamu to take him apart.

“Damn shame if yer jus’ leavin’ now that things are goin’ good, ain’t it?” 

EJP Raijin as an entity loves Osamu, not because he’s the cooler and clearly better twin, but because he brings their second tallest player to his heel easily with a look and they, who have been tormented by Rin for years, delight in this fact.

“Another Miya?” Walter, who’s hip and engaged with the youth, as Komori sniggeringly informed him over a bar of split Snickers. 

“Wow that’s perfect Japanese,” Osamu chokes out. “I’m Samu.”

“The cooking brother!” Exclaims Walter, like a tall and enthusiastic foreign dog breed. “I’m humbled to make your acquaintance!”

Rin snuffs down his giggling at Osamu’s back to lean over, murmuring something in brief German to Walter, who returns the words with a barrage of rapid fire German, too fast to even be an actual language. Walter winks, obvious and cheeky, at him, before bounding around his team, catching up in loud Japanese. He’s obviously fluent. He’s speaking in a faked foreigner accent.

“Coach,” Rin bites out. “What now?”

“Miya-kun,” the coach turns to Osamu. “Do you have a nice suit and possibly a nice tailor? We’re going to put you both in a press conference. Clear things up. Add things on. We’ll draft a speech. It’s much better if we admit the truth before the media spin some wild tales on us.”

Rin flounders at the same time that Osamu chirps, cheery - “Roger that, sir.”

Life and everything that goes in it boils down to very basic, mundane, boring things. It’s why people romanticise the hell out of everything they do. They want excitement and fun and thrill and the constant euphoria of being alive. Living, so-so, kills the person. You’re not really living. You’re just here. 

Rin doesn’t think his mundane, easy life is so-so. He fought hard - against the ruthless media of a conservative nation and a lack of sponsorship from brands and fans leaving - and long - himself, most of the time - to get where he is today - kissing the curve of Osamu’s head good morning and good night, smelling the steamed rice smell of him. It takes a lot of work to make something effortless, easy. It’s a testament of will and tenacity that result in the seamlessness of things, of how smooth it flows.

He romanticises the hell out of his own life, because it’s quiet but it’s by no means boring. They’ll never be able to prove the legality of their bond, but it doesn’t mean it’s any less real. In the summer before Rin’s 33rd, he got married in Switzerland, to what is possibly the biggest pain on his neck, thorn by his side. Quite a number of people he didn’t know showed up - Fukurodani grads, apparently - and his patients also flew out, excited about the international event. It apparently got press coverage, but that could be all falsified by the photography-frantic Hinata.

He’s old and he’s probably grown too comfortable by Osamu’s side. There is a matching silver ring on Osamu’s hand - who still cryptically hasn’t told people about who he’s married to - and it sits, cool and grounded, when he cups Rin’s jaw, pulling him down for a kiss hello. See you soon. I’m goin’ out to see Hiroto-san. Train well. Sometimes they wear their rings to the bath and Atsumu spends four months laughing at their Youtube history of ‘how to clean your silver wedding rings’. They might get a dog. There is a cat who naps on the lounging chair in their Narita place, meowing softly when Rin offers him milk. 

(Marco Walter launched enthusiastically about Rin’s stupidity when he finally got a hold of him, but held off the bulk of the rant when he saw the Miya friend. Male friend. Companion. They were photographed together. He had possibly risen up in notoriety beyond that of his athlete brother.

“My dear Rintarou,” he asked, gentle. “Is he one of yours?”

Rin didn’t need to look at Osamu. It’s been this way - for a while before, now, and a while ahead. 

“Osamu’s one of mine. I’m one of his. We’re each other’s.”

“How good for you,” Marco beamed. “Good enough to put the team in jeopardy.”

“Marco, I already got yelled at -”

“How irresponsible. You are representing your team even when you are out in public -!”)

Osamu puts down his newspaper, like an old man, to squint, with judgment, at Rin’s careful placement of their miso soup bowls.

“The fuck’s this,” he wrinkles his nose. He’s wearing Rin’s shirt. It’s tight on his Dorito shoulders. 

“Fuck you too,” he returns, easily. “Miso soup.”

“Pretty sure yer been feeding me miso everyday now,” Osamu picks the bowl up regardless, unaware of the implication. “What’s next? We got a joint tomb or somethin’?”

Rin opens his mouth to answer. Osamu glares.

“Gross,” he pulls a face, even as he reaches over to grab at Rin’s left hand, tugging on his ring. “Yer gross. What a shit take. I wanna refund.”

“We never got a marriage certificate,” he smirks. “You can’t return me to the faulty husband department.”

“Pro’bly because it doesn’t exist,” his husband rolls his eyes. “And yer so shit that they wouldn’t take ya back in anyways. I have to do society a solid. Take ya on and all that.”

"Miya Osamu, onigiri saviour of my heart,” he humours. Osamu almost pulls out a finger from his hand. “Ow , what, I’m right, you’re hurting me ‘coz I’m right.”

“There is literally only good intention ahoy,” sniffs Osamu, relenting his demon grip. “Nothin’ more to it.”

“Of course,” he sips his soup, loud and obnoxious. “How could I ever suggest otherwise? It’s not as if you’ve done something as gauche as marrying for love. What an absurd notion.”

“Rin, yer runnin’ ya mouth real wide for someone within throwin’ distance. I’d watch it if I were ya.”