Work Text:
you had your face buried in another romance novel.
a new one, judging by the cover he has never seen before.
osamu has lost count of the number of books, the innumerable pages, he has seen you read and pore over for the entire time he knew you, ever since he first met you.
the first novel he saw you read was a children's book, with big, easy prints and dreamy colors of pastels and blues, chronicling the journey of a princess who is ultimately saved by her prince charming.
you read it with pink stars in the purple, orange, and blue skies of your eyes, and osamu listened to you tell him the exact same story with the hopeful grin of a young girl, with dreams of meeting her own prince charming one day. osamu listened quietly even if he had already read the story together with you, over your shoulder, unbeknownst to you who was lost in a fantasy world.
his young brain wondered what your ideal prince charming is like.
⋆☆⋆☆⋆
osamu knows all about the books you love to read.
for he has heard you tell the stories to him over many summer days at the park and in late-night texts on tuesday nights. seen the way your cheeks dimple with two little dots when the guy gets the girl, saw the dreamy sighs you blew into the space across from him when they share their first kiss.
one of your favorite tales to tell is the story of a valiant soldier and his loving wife. when the soldier drowned in the river on his way home from war, the wife followed him to the same watery depths, so that she may forever be with him even in death.
"that's so morbid," osamu muttered with a raised eyebrow, opening his third pack of onigiri. atsumu agreed with obnoxiously loud chewing, making an offhand comment that you were nuts to think that is romantic.
but you only smiled a wispy smile, with eyes in the clouds and a wish in their depths, as you laid bare your secret wish to a teenage boy and his brother.
"i wish to find a love like that someday, someone i love so much i can't live without them."
his adolescent mind wondered if that is the kind of love you really deserved.
⋆☆⋆☆⋆
the first book osamu ever gave you was for your birthday in your first year of high school.
he didn't know a lot about books, or what the most popular book of the year is, or what books were on the top ten recommended list.
all he knew was the kind of stories you love, for you told him what was happening in every book you read. sometimes you would even read it out loud to him as he rested his head on his arms, languidly watching you swing your arms with passion, enacting the tale for him as if you were the heroine herself.
by telling the stories to him, would that make him the Eric to your Ariel? or would he be closer to Flounder?
osamu didn't know a lot about books, and neither did atsumu, or his classmate suna. so osamu steeled his nerves and called upon his courage like the brave knights in your fairytales, and asked kita for help. together they embarked on a weekend afternoon, hunting high and low in a forest of shelves for a treasure book with the kind of story you love.
he didn't think there would be this many for you to love, and osamu was starting to think he will never find that perfect book when kita told him to pick one that osamu himself wants for you.
two more adventures to the bookstore and osamu finally found a book with the kind of story he wants for you.
you yipped and laughed with glee when he gave you the book, candles alight in your eyes and the notes of a song trilling in your voice, even when there was no birthday cake or a gathering of friends.
it was just the two of you at a quiet noodle shop, his hair still damp from practice and you still in your uniform, stained with cream from a cheap 7-11 cake atsumu smeared on you.
"happy birthday. here's wishing ya' another amazing year."
osamu listened to you read the first page of the story over the sounds of slurping noodles and clinking spoons. he read your texts updating him on your reactions to the story through the evening. he smiled when you walked up to him sniffling the next lunch break, the book he gave you clutched in your hands.
“it’s different from what I usually read. it’s such a simple story with no drama or surprises,” you muttered, blowing your nose into a tissue.
“he was there for her from the beginning, without her realizing it. i thought she was going to end up with the other one but i actually felt relieved when it was them at the end. i love it.”
it was the fastest you have ever finished a book. and you carried it around with you long after you have finished it for the third time.
osamu knows the story by heart along with you, without ever having touched a page himself.
it was the first time osamu ever gave you a book and he wondered why he never gave you one earlier.
⋆☆⋆☆⋆
the first time osamu sees you without a book, you just had your first taste of heartbreak.
over some silly boy from the third class down the hallway, that shouldn’t deserve your tears because you had been with him for less than three months. most wouldn’t even consider it a real heartbreak.
but you cry so easily, osamu knew. he has seen the moments when the white of your eyes slowly dye pink, lifting with them a veil of gentle rain, over black ink on chalky pages. his volleyball-filled brain never understood how people can cry over words, and you cry more than he ever thought possible for someone who finds joy in reading.
as you curled into him on the floor of your bedroom, osamu ran his hand down your back with a large, careless hand.
his gaze went over the book he gifted you laying open on your bedside table, and the spines of abundant books skirting the walls. he recognized many of the titles, knows what tales of dancing princesses, dashing princes, and triumphant loves they hold.
osamu understood how much love you were capable of, and wondered where the limits of your sky stopped.
he wondered if he would ever become one of the titles that lined your shelves one day.
⋆☆⋆☆⋆
the third time osamu saw you without a book for yet another extended period of time, you were in your second year of high school and had just experienced your third not-so-heartbreak.
his hair is still damp from practice, you were still in your wrinkled uniform and atsumu is noisily slurping down noodles, making a rare appearance of not staying late after official practice is over.
“so he broke up with ya’ cause ya’ wouldn’t kiss him?” osamu asked curiously, all too aware of his heart simultaneously aching and soaring at your words.
a flame of embarrassed red rose and streaked your cheeks and dipped the tips of your ears with its vermillion shade.
“i didn’t want to give him my first kiss...it didn’t feel right,” nervousness mixed in with the mortification on your face, as you admitted yet another secret to a teenage boy and his brother.
a spluttering of disbelief and splashing soup made osamu grimace in distaste.
“ya’ mean ya’ haven’t even kissed someone before?!” atsumu is utterly bewildered.
the crimson of your skin grew to a brilliant hue of ruby, and osamu was not aware of himself comparing it to strawberries in early spring, until he realized that his family always went strawberry-picking in march.
you shook your head with a self-conscious whisper of “no...i want it to be with the one.”
atsumu made a careless comment about how the first two probably didn’t last either because of that very same reason. “right, ‘samu?”
osamu saw the boundless sky of love and joy of your eyes sow itself with just a hint of doubtful gray.
“nah, if she doesn’t want to, she shouldn’t.”
osamu wondered what else he could have said when the gray didn’t recede.
⋆☆⋆☆⋆
the first time osamu saw you without the book he gifted you is when you were in your last year of high school, and you had just given your first kiss away.
to some boy in the third class up the hallway from his, that osamu thought didn’t deserve your kiss because you were saying you didn’t feel as happy as the heroines in your books when they first shared theirs, and your disappointment troubled him.
“why did ya’ give it to him then?”
he is very aware of his heart simultaneously aching and soaring again, just like that day in the noodle shop with atsumu and you. is it selfish of him to feel happy that you didn’t enjoy your first kiss?
“i don’t know...i guess, it’s kind of silly to save the first kiss, isn’t it?” you smiled sheepishly at him, the sky in your eyes lighting with the phosphorous yellow of the streetlamp. the area of gray in your sky reached further, guided by the yellow light beaming down on your head, as if you were the heroine in a tragedy stageplay.
“life isn’t a fairytale, and i have to compromise to find the one.”
osamu didn’t know a lot about books, neither did he believe in fairytales. if life is a fairytale, they would have won nationals last year and kita and the now-graduated third years would have a gold medal in their rooms.
but he still wondered why he wasn't brave like a fairytale knight and reached out for you when you stood up to go home.
⋆☆⋆☆⋆
osamu counted less and less books with the kind of story you love over the next few years.
⋆☆⋆☆⋆
the number of not-so-heartbreaks osamu counted increased.
⋆☆⋆☆⋆
you cried more and more after each one.
they were all true heartbreaks to you, and they only kept hurting more with each new face and name, repeatedly peeling off the unhealed scabs of the previous hurt, and littered new wounds in your dreams of an ideal love.
the gray of your sky deepened and darkened, and osamu could no longer see the endless warmth of purples, oranges, and blues behind the clouds.
⋆☆⋆☆⋆
osamu wondered if this was just another extended period without a book as you nursed over the latest not-so-heartbreak or if you had completely stopped reading altogether.
⋆☆⋆☆⋆
he realized too slow and too late that it was the latter.
and wondered if this was why he wasn’t your prince charming.
because he was just too slow each time to reach for you.
⋆☆⋆☆⋆
this is not the first time osamu has seen you across the counter in his shop, a bottle of nihonshu and o-choko in front of you.
it never stops at just three bottles in recent weeks, and osamu will always cut you off after the second now.
the sky in your eye is no longer just a deep, dark gray.
It was black, and he can’t see it anymore.
next time, he is going to serve you nothing but water and tea, is what osamu thought as he pushed open the door to his apartment, one arm holding you up against his side. osamu quietly listened to you mutter drunkenly about the latest kouki, or tatsuya, or kenta. there was even a foreign-sounding ryan in there somewhere.
his heart ached, and soared, that osamu was not one of the names listed.
when he placed you down on his bed, opting to retire to the couch for the night, osamu paused when your hand clumsily reached for his in the unlit walls of his bedroom.
under the indigo shade of the moonlit room, osamu listened as you confessed a third secret, to a man, no longer a teenage boy.
and you were no longer a young girl who read, no longer a teenage girl who grasped at the fading smoke of a fairytale romance.
“am i weird for being too eager to love?” it was more an insecurity, rather than a secret.
he kneeled by the bed, one hand running down your back just like the way he did during your first heartbreak, and the other carefully wiping the crystal rain that fell from the inky gloom that used to be a boundless sky.
a sky he realized too slow he liked gazing into, looking for the pink stars of youth that dotted the canvas of pastels and dreams.
“nah, ya’ just have more love in ya’ than ya' can hold,” he whispered, calloused palm splaying on your wet cheek, his thumb pushing gently up at a puffy, sleepy eye.
and just for a little bit, for a very fleeting moment, osamu thought he saw a hint of purple and pink.
“he said that i am crazy for loving so fast, that it was too much. that i am nuts for wanting to do it right.”
all of them did.
“a lot of people just don’t know what to do when they’re given love freely. we live in a generation of dating apps and quick matches. they’re all scrubs.”
a truth, neither unfortunate nor fortunate, which osamu has seen happen in his friends and college classmates. osamu will be lying if he said he did not indulge in it once or thrice, as he coped with watching you vainly try to find your prince charming in the next guy that never wanted to wait, over and over. as he dealt with missing his chance yet again. he can't keep up with the swipes.
“...i don’t think i belong in this generation. i don't like short stories. they hurt so much more.”
osamu watched you fall asleep to the thunders of your storming heart, his thumb still damp like his hair after practice, as the rain continued to fall even in the world of your dreams.
and he decided that he will be faster this time.
as soon as the kouta, or takumi, or whatever the current name is, when he and you are officially over, osamu will reach out for you for sure this time.
⋆☆⋆☆⋆
osamu still wasn’t fast enough.
⋆☆⋆☆⋆
osamu can count the number of times he has been truly angry in his life on the fingers of one hand.
from the moment he received your misspelled texts and phone call, your tipsy voice asking if he could pick you up, followed by an unfamiliar voice pushing for you to stay and have some ‘fun’ to which your refusals were completely ignored, all osamu saw and felt is anger.
even atsumu was surprised when osamu abruptly declared the shop is closing early, and that his twin is coming with him to a party. atsumu had no illusions that they were actually going to be doing any partying.
the first finger was for when he and atsumu argued about going their separate ways after high school, when he decided he will not follow in atsumu’s footsteps and shadows into the world of professional volleyball.
the third finger is for now, as he stared down the bastard that reeked of alcohol with every breath he took, his lip split with an angry red from where osamu’s equally red fist met it. behind him is you, disoriented and splayed on the bed of a stranger with your clothes disheveled, makeup smudged into messy splotches on your skin by a new wave of rain.
the music from the house party boomed through the bedroom walls, and osamu is faintly aware of atsumu smartly diverting curious gossipers and the occasional drunk couple looking for a room elsewhere.
takuya, or kouta, or takumi, whatever his name is, should have been just another not-so-heartbreak in your long list of heartbreaks, a list osamu intended to put an end to.
osamu just never saw the scum behind the ever-changing names.
there has been the occasional jerks amongst the many that simply never worked out, but this is the first real villain you had the misfortune and naivety to catch.
the fourth finger is for you, for not having seen the dirt behind the face, for allowing your sense to be clouded in your search of that love you so coveted. osamu isn’t angry at you for the kind of pure love you sought and gave in return.
he is angry that you lost sight of yourself in your desperate search for it.
the second finger is for himself, for being too slow to realize his own feelings, for being too slow to act each time. he shouldn’t have hesitated, shouldn’t have waited.
he should have been brave enough to lay his heart out to you in the same way you kept laying yours out for others, trusting that they will not break it.
(they didn’t break it, they just kept squeezing a little bit tighter with each new short story you began with the next hikaru )
he shouldn’t have waited all these years, and still chose to wait some more, for you and the scum now to be over with, to reach out for you.
(because is that not the polite and gentlemanly thing to do? what would a real prince charming have done?)
“ya’ and her are done, got it, kouta ?” ice seeped in from his boiling blood.
“i-it’s takuya-”
fucking takuya.
“whatever, takumi. now get out of here.”
when osamu took you home and stayed with you til morning's light, he has resolved that there won't be another takuya, that there won’t be another short story for you to start.
⋆☆⋆☆⋆
“i’m sorry. i’ve been really stupid. a real scrub,” you sniffed, the skin of your eyes like pink cotton balls.
“yea, ya’ have.”
osamu hummed as he looked around your room. he saw the book he gifted you all those years ago, laid out on your desk with a thin film of dust.
around but untouched. there but unnoticed.
kinda like him.
“ya' still have this.” he ran a finger on the cover, cleaving through the dark clouds of dust that has fallen over the fairytale in the last few turbulent weeks.
the clouds in your eyes shifted when osamu lifted the book.
something you were always aware was there but not truly truly aware.
a steady, quiet presence, always with you ever since he gave it to you, whether in your school bag, your purse, the corner of your bedside table or desk, it was never shelved like the many other novels on your walls.
it was different, as it was a book you never sought out but was instead gifted.
with the care of an antiquarian, you cleaned the dust off the gift, a quiver in your fingers of what can only be described as ache, at your negligence of something so treasured. so taken for granted.
“of course. it’s my favorite.”
“ya' have always been lookin’ for that prince charming, ever since we were kids.” the hint of a wry grin tugged on his lips.
a pause, the brief moment before rainy skies rumbled.
“...yea, i never really grew up, did i?” got your head stuck in the clouds of childhood dreams and imaginations.
don’t hesitate anymore. call upon the inner knight like he had when he asked kita for help.
“oi.”
it isn’t a pause, nor a hesitation, when osamu didn’t continue immediately. he was ensuring that he had your full attention, that he can see your eyes before he spoke.
If- when, the skies cleared, he didn’t want to miss it.
didn’t make him any less nervous though. it felt like he was about to walk into a storm when it really shouldn’t because you were not a storm.
if anything, you were caught out in a storm and he was going out to get you.
“ya' read this book properly, right?”
your brows scrunched, puffy red skin creasing with them. “plenty of times.”
“then you know what happens in the end, right?” he asked, voice a whisper, fingers slowly reaching for your hands on the freshly cleaned cover.
a silence- that calm, transitory quiet that comes when black nebulas fold to the light of the sun, splashes of color shyly peeking through- rolled into the room, wafting into the little space between him and you.
a small space, like the lid of a box that was not fully closed, carelessly overseen by children eager to move onto the next exciting thing, and children who put off what they should be doing now for later.
a shudder of a breath, from you or from him, he wasn’t sure.
“i’m no prince charming. heck, ya' ain’t no princess yerself,” he smiled at the way a pitched laugh stuttered out of you, breaking through the rain that he knows is going to fall.
he’s a pretty good weatherman now; easily reading the way pink would slowly rise and turn into scarlet in the sky of your eyes, like a red sunrise before the clouds rolled in.
it always reminded him of that saying,
‘red sky in the morning, sailors take warning.’
“and this took me forever because there were a lot of side characters, and even a true bonafide villain, that got in the way-”
another laugh, and the rain fell. after a long, long time, it truly fell.
and that’s good ‘cause the sky is the most beautiful after the rain.
a hand lifted without him realizing, brushing a lock of hair that stuck to the rolling droplets on your cheeks.
“-but i think it’s about time ya' started a chapter with me. what do ya’ think?”
and there it was, the purples, oranges and blues.
clear and bright, without a trace of gray.
and this time, when osamu’s heart soared, there was no ache, no doubt or hesitation of whether it was selfish of him to fly.
he felt it deep within him, the wings he has kept down for a page too long, spreading freely to finally lift him into your boundless sky, weaving into the pink stars that dotted them once more.
he wants to be the next romance story you start.
if he could, he will be your last romantic short story. the story to end all short stories, for you, at least.
if you would let him, osamu wants to be the last page you flip in your romance novel.
and if you would have him, he wants to be all the pages in between the first and the last for the rest of your lives together.
you placed a teary kiss onto his palm, holding it to your cheek with a cheeky smile.
“i should have just done the main storyline and skipped the side stories.”
osamu has lost count of the number of books he has seen you read for the entire time he knew you, ever since he first met you. lost track of all the familiar titles he has never even read, but for some reason, knows by heart.
he may have lost count but that’s alright.
because the most important story is the one you are starting here, with him, now, in the present, as he finally leans over to give you that proverbial kiss, that one, the Hollywood Kiss that has the entire audience sighing in relief.
he’s no prince charming, and you were certainly no princess, and life is not a fairytale.
but whenever you may need it, he will give you a helping hand, an attentive ear, and maybe another punch to someone deserving of it, to give you that push you need to remember yourself, and find your way back to the happy ending he knew you deserved.