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there's glitter on the floor after the party
girls carrying their shoes down in the lobby
candle wax and polaroids on the hardwood floor
you and me from the night before
Rintarou’s family holds a new year’s eve party each year. It’d be boring if not for the twins joining in on the tradition for the past few years.
Now that they’re older, Rintarou’s family allows them to indulge in the champagne that gets passed around a few hours before the turn of the year. It’s stupid, but it creates the illusion that they’re more grown up than they actually are.
And they certainly aren’t, if the twins bickering over something completely trivial on the floor of his bedroom is of any evidence. RIntarou’s laying on his stomach across his bed. He rubs his nose and wonders what time it is.
His phone says they’re only five minutes away from midnight, so he tosses his pillow in the general direction of the brawl happening nearby.
“What?” Osamu groans.
“Nearly midnight, you idiots.”
“Oh.”
“Don’t we need to come up with wishes?” Atsumu squints. He’s lost one of his socks, and Rintarou suspects it’ll probably turn up somewhere underneath his bed in a few months.
“It’s resolutions, ya dumbass.”
“Whatever. Same fuckin’ thing,” Atsumu argues.
“It’s not.”
Rintarou rolls his eyes as yet another fight ensues. He’s not even sure what his new year’s resolution would be.
Maybe he should resolve to focus more on what he wants. Not only from others, but from himself as well.
He’s applied to a few schools, but he doesn’t have any big plans because he has no idea what he even wants to major in. He doesn’t really have a ton of hobbies outside of volleyball and messing around with the twins and their team.
When the clock strikes midnight, the twins are still quarreling and Rintarou is still staring at the wall, trying to figure out what the hell his resolution should be. It’s nearly twenty minutes past the hour when Atsumu and Osamu realize they missed midnight.
There’s a lot of whining and complaining, which Rintarou ignores in favor of flipping onto his back and staring up at the ceiling instead. Very inspired of him, he thinks.
He’s broken out of his spell by a pillow to the face. He scowls up at Osamu, who is leaning over him, elbow pushing uncomfortably into his ribs.
“We should prolly get home,” Osamu says. “Our mom will be pissed if we drive too late.”
“Uh, I dunno if we’re gonna be goin’ anywhere,” Atsumu says behind them. Rintarou props himself up on his arm and peers over at Atsumu, who’s peeking out the window through the blinds. “It’s snowin’ like crazy.”
“Just stay overnight,” Rintarou sighs, flopping back down on his bed. “Not like my parents will care anyways.”
Rintarou thinks he’s maybe a little jealous of their mom. She’s an artist, so their home is filled to the brim with pottery and quirky crafted pieces. She’s painfully honest, and she’s called Rintarou out on his bullshit more times than he can count.
His own parents are distant, apathetic. He wonders if they'd had been more engaged with him growing up if he’d been more colorful, more rambunctious, like the twins. He thinks about the report cards he receives each year with the ever-present comment of Completes thorough work, but struggles to participate.
Rintarou pulls himself up from his bed and makes a trip to their linen closet in the hallway. When he returns, Osamu sets up a nest on the floor. He and Atsumu settle in, while Rintarou reoccupies his position on his bed. He pulls up some movie they’d seen in theaters a few weeks ago on his laptop and balances it on his desk chair. The volume is so low that they can barely hear it, but it fills the silence that has settled in the room.
Halfway through the movie, Rintarou looks over and sees Osamu knocked out under one of the wrinkled comforters. Atsumu is blinking, sleepy but not quite ready to pass out. He happens to look over and catches Rintarou staring. That’s apparently all it takes to get his attention because he stumbles to his feet, nearly tripping over the log that’s Osamu’s body.
He’s grateful that Atsumu had instantly dropped whatever petty grudge he’d been holding against himself and Osamu for dating. He gets it, he thinks. It’s kind of always been the three of them, a trio of friends. It must have felt lonely to suddenly have that dynamic shift, and Atsumu’s never been good at telling people how he feels.
Of course, there’d also been the whole… kiss thing last spring, but Atsumu had never brought it up, so Rintarou thought it safe to assume that it was a spur-of-the-moment type of charade, the type of kiss that you’d reminisce about briefly at a high school reunion ten years later. Rintarou doesn’t even know if Atsumu will give him the time of day in ten years, so there’s no point in dwelling on what was.
Atsumu settles in next to Rintarou on his bed, shoving Rintarou up against the wall. Rintarou wants to complain about the lack of space, but Atsumu is warm.
“What’s your new year’s wish?” Atsumu asks, crossing his arms and resting his head on them.
Rintarou looks down at him, “It’s resolution.”
“Shut up. ”
Rintarou smiles.
“I don’t know. Maybe go to the gym more or something.”
“Lame.” Atsumu yawns and twists so that he’s pressed up against Rintarou even more, dropping a lazy arm across his back. “Mine is that we win nationals. And that I get into some stupid school.”
“I’ll pray for your future professors.”
“Fuck you,” Atsumu says quietly, eyes closed. Rintarou tries not to stare at his eyelashes and cupid’s bow.
Rintarou doesn’t know when he falls asleep, but what he does know is that when he wakes up in the morning, Atsumu is lying in a heap on the floor, Osamu balancing leftover chips on his forehead.
don’t read the last page
but i stay when you're lost and i'm scared and you’re turning away
i want your midnights
Rintarou has never been big on celebrating his birthday, but he thinks this counts as a party. Perhaps it could be classified as party-adjacent.
A few teammates and friends have dragged him out to one of his favorite restaurants. It’s known for its comfort food, and everyone seems to be enjoying themselves.
He’s sandwiched between the twins—nothing new—and Osamu is currently telling some embarrassing story about Atsumu to the freshmen. Atsumu looks ready to interject and defend himself but leans back in favor of talking to Rintarou.
“Hey,” he jabs Rintarou in the side, “I gotcha somethin’.”
“Oh, god,” Rintarou says because he can only imagine it’s some kind of gag gift.
“Don’t be like that,” Atsumu scowls. He fumbles around in his jacket pocket for something before pulling out a tiny package. It’s wrapped poorly, but the effort shows.
Rintarou takes it tentatively. He kind of hopes everyone’s too caught up in Osamu’s story to be paying attention to their gift exchange.
When he unwraps it, he’s left holding a slim, gray wallet. He chews on the inside of his cheek before glancing up at Atsumu. He’s searching Rintarou’s face for some kind of reaction, cheeks a light pink, a tell-tale sign that he’s looking for approval from someone.
“Cause yours is practically fallin’ apart,” Atsumu explains when Rintarou still hasn’t managed to say anything.
It’s true. Rintarou’s been using the same wallet for the past five years at least, and it’s definitely coming apart at the seams. It’s not something he’d think to get for himself, but maybe this is just proof that he pays for Atsumu’s lunches way too often.
“Thanks,” Rintarou says. “This is…surprisingly thoughtful.”
“Jeez, ya don’t have to make it sound like I never do anythin’ nice for ya.”
Rintarou only raises his eyebrows, which earns him a shove to the shoulder.
“I hate ya,” Atsumu grumbles. A beat. “Happy birthday, or whatever.”
Rintarou goes back to picking at his cheesecake and thinks that maybe he should try celebrating his birthday more often.
i'll be there if you're the toast of the town, babe
or if you strike out and you're crawling home
They don’t win nationals. They don’t even make it to nationals. Their season ends at the end of April, and it almost feels like the past three months of practice, practice, practice didn’t even exist.
But Rintarou’s certain they did, mostly because he has a despondent Atsumu sniffling in his lap.
Atsumu had held it together pretty well after the match, congratulating their teammates and praising them for their hard work during the season. He even managed to remain in good spirits during their post-game meal.
However, at the end-of-season party that one of the juniors was holding, things had taken a turn for the worse. Atsumu had gotten absolutely plastered, and he’d found Rintarou camped out in the backyard and immediately started wailing.
After a bit of awkward head-patting, he was now down to a mildly weepy state. Rintarou’s legs were falling asleep, but Atsumu was also falling asleep, and Rintarou would feel like a jackass for jolting him awake when he was already at an all-time low.
Osamu finds him eventually, clearly faring a lot better than his brother. He sits down next to Rintarou, giving Atsumu a rather judgemental look. The look he gives Rintarou isn’t much better.
“What?” Rintarou asks, already frowning because he isn’t sure he wants to know what that look means.
“You’re too nice to him,” Osamu says.
“Am not,” Rintarou argues.
“I know ya been helping him with his admissions essays. And don’t think we all didn’t notice the banana milk you’ve been gettin’ for him after, like, every practice.”
Rintarou turns his head enough that Osamu can’t see the sour expression he’s pulling. He spares a glance at Atsumu, watches the slow rise and fall of his body as he sleeps. Rintarou’s itching to rub his back and keep him safe from future disappointments.
“What am I supposed to do? Kick him when he’s down?” he asks instead of trying to defend himself against Osamu’s accusations.
“Ya didn’t use to have any trouble doing that,” Osamu says, and when Rintarou turns, he’s sickened to see the all-too-knowing grin he’s sporting.
“Shut up,” Rintarou mutters.
He didn’t think he was that obvious. After all, Rintarou is as good as invisible most days.
It’s something he needs to address. But not right now.
Not tonight.
don't read the last page
but i stay when it’s hard or it’s wrong or we're making mistakes
i want your midnights
Rintarou isn’t sure how he got goaded into going to prom, but it’s a total bore, as expected. The after-party, which is school-hosted, is just more of the same.
He knows his mom would be pissed if she knew all he’s doing is sitting at a table with Osamu and some guy from their calculus class, thinking about how he’d rather be at home watching a National Geographic documentary on meerkats. The tux rental was not exactly cheap, after all.
“Ya gotta be the most boring person in this room, Rin,” Atsumu claps him on the shoulder.
He turns around his chair to glare up at Atsumu. He’d been making his rounds around the hall their school had rented out for the after-party, asking everyone and their mother to dance.
“C’mon, dance with me,” Atsumu jiggles his shoulder a bit, and Rintarou scowls as he shakes his hand off.
“No,” Rintarou crosses his arms, slumping farther down in his chair. “I hate dancing.”
“Come on . Just one dance. No one else is gonna ask ya!”
Osamu snickers next to him, and Rintarou thinks he even sees their calc buddy crack a smile. He pushes himself out of his chair, which makes an ungodly screeching noise.
“Fine. One song,” he says, if only to prove to Osamu and their calculus friend that…that what? He’s fun, or something? It doesn’t matter—it’s not like he has anything better to do at the moment.
Rintarou isn’t really sure what song is playing as they make their way to an unoccupied corner of the room. It’s something with a strong bass, and Rintarou can feel it in his feet. He stands awkwardly for a moment, and, for once, he feels like he’s looking to Atsumu for guidance.
Atsumu seems to take the hint and draws Rintarou’s arms up to his shoulders, then settles his own on Rintarou’s waist.
“Have ya never danced with anyone before?” Atsumu asks, a little playful, a little genuine.
Rintarou doesn’t reply, only draws his hands behind Atsumu’s neck and rolls his eyes.
“S’okay, I can teach ya,” Atsumu promises, and there’s something about the almost-gentle tone that has Rintarou’s stomach turning.
Rintarou thinks it’s less teaching, and more him nearly stepping on Atsumu’s feet, which earns him a glare every thirty seconds or so. Rintarou thought it’d be uncomfortable—they’re both too tall for their own good, and Rintarou is more awkward than he likes to let on.
But it’s relaxing, the way they can sway to the music and tease each other over nothing. Rintarou wonders if they’ll have this—the good-natured bickering and harmless gibes—this time next year.
The thought is what prompts him to say, “Maybe just one more song,” when the first one comes to a close.
Atsumu looks funny, and Rintarou chalks it up to the way that the multi-colored disco ball makes everything in the room look like it’s been sent through a 2010 Instagram filter.
“Okay,” he says, hands still burning on Rintarou’s waist.
Okay, Rintarou agrees.
hold on to the memories, they will hold on to you
hold on to the memories, they will hold on to you
hold on to the memories, they will hold on to you
and i will hold on to you
It’s someone’s graduation party, but it’s about a month after graduation, and, if Rintarou’s being completely honest, he has no idea which of his teammate’s houses they’ve ended up at. But here he is, sitting on someone’s porch, tapping the side of a Sprite can because he’d so graciously offered to be the designated driver.
He and the twins had camped out on the porch swing, chatting about nothing at all, until Osamu had ducked out to find some of the old seniors, who were home from college for their summer break.
Now he’s sitting alone with Atsumu, occasionally swatting at the mosquitos that are having a field day feasting on his legs.
“I decided on that school in Florida,” Atsumu says at some point. He shakes his can, the dregs of his beer making a tinny noise as they slosh around.
“Huh,” Rintarou says. He tries to envision Atsumu in Miami, where he’d visited for a campus tour a few weeks back. He doesn’t know a ton about Florida. He thinks Atsumu might look right at home walking the beaches, maybe learning how to surf or walking home at midnight beneath a canopy of palm trees.
“Yeah. They have a pretty good team. Remember that squirrely kid from nationals? He’s going there too, I think.”
Rintarou hums. He watches as Atsumu leans forward on the bench and squints. Rintarou follows his gaze towards the pool, where Osamu has cornered Shinsuke. Osamu’s cheeks are flushed under the fairy lights hanging on the adjacent fence.
“Osamu is crazy if he thinks Shinsuke will give ‘em the time of day.” Atsumu rolls his eyes. “Plus, Shin’s going to school out in California, right?”
Atsumu’s cheeks are just as flushed, but he runs warm, so Rintarou suspects it’s due to the impending summer weather and the light buzz he’s riding on.
“What do ya think about a long-distance relationship?” Atsumu asks, and Rintarou wonders if the party will be winding down soon, wonders if his can of soda has gone flat, wonders if there’s an unsaid with me at the end of that question. Wishful thinking, he supposes.
Rintarou is suddenly hit with a flurry of images of late-night Skype calls, postcards covered in chicken scratch, and stuffing his backpack with enough warm-weather clothes for a quick flight across the country.
“It’d be hard,” he says finally for lack of anything better.
“What about you?” he tacks on as an afterthought.
“It’d be hard,” Atsumu agrees, “but I could do it for the right person.”
“Too bad none of my adoring fans have confessed yet,” he says, and it’s enough to break whatever seriousness the conversation had held.
“You sure the dorm rooms in Florida are big enough to house that massive ego?”
“You’re a real ass, did ya know that?”
please don't ever become a stranger
whose laugh i could recognize anywhere
It’s supposed to be a going-away party, so the Miya home is filled with family and neighbors, a few friends. Rintarou thinks it’s kind of silly because Atsumu is the only one really leaving for college—Osamu’s school is only about an hour away, so Rintarou knows he’ll make the drive home every other weekend or so.
Still, there’s a melancholy feeling that sits below the surface of the party. Rintarou doesn’t want to think about it, so he settles down in his usual spot on their living room couch and watches from a distance as Osamu gets grilled on his college plans by an overly-zealous aunt.
Osamu notices and sends him pleading glances. Rintarou only grins, no intention of going over to save him.
“Don’t tell me ya feel sorry for him,” Atsumu settles down next to him.
“Nah, he deserves the interrogation,” Rintarou says. “He ditched me after graduation when my grandma came over to take a zillion pictures. Retribution.”
Atsumu snorts before leaning into Rintarou’s shoulder.
“Do ya wanna go grab somethin’ to eat?”
Rintarou looks at the dining table some twenty feet away, heavily stocked with snacks and various family-made dishes stored in tupperware containers that would inevitably get left behind by aunts and uncles and become permanent fixtures in the Miya’s kitchen.
He then looks at Atsumu, who’s giving him the same pleading eyes Osamu had. Only Atsumu’s speak of wanting to get a break from all of this, not just one overbearing aunt.
“Fine,” Rintarou sighs, allowing himself to be pulled up off the couch by Atsumu.
He follows him into the kitchen, where Atsumu grabs the keys for the car he shares with Osamu. Soon it’d become Osamu’s alone. Rintarou ignores that thought.
“Where are you going?” Atsumu’s mother frowns from her place in front of the counter, where she’s pulling out a new sleeve of plastic party cups.
“Just goin’ to get some food,” Atsumu replies hastily.
“We have food.” His mother frowns further.
“Just really want some fries. I promise, we’ll be back in, like, a minute,” Atsumu holds his hands up, as if that will placate his mother, who simply sighs and rolls her eyes.
Rintarou is watching from the doorway, and Atsumu is halfway to meeting him there before he swings back around and gives his mom a quick kiss on the cheek. Rintarou recognizes the face she makes—he’s seen it on his own in pictures. It’s what he likes to dub the Atsumu Miya Apologist expression.
They end up at a pizza place a short drive away. The pizza there sucks, but the fries are amazing—the sickeningly greasy kind that will inevitably result in a stomach ache hours later. But Rintarou isn’t thinking about hours later.
He is thinking about right now, how he’s stuck sharing a booth with Atsumu, a large order of fries in the middle of the table. Atsumu sips at a strawberry milkshake, and the tabletop shakes a little as he bounces his leg up and down.
Osamu has sent them both a few texts along the lines of where r u, but Rintarou figures replying can wait. He chews on his straw, a nervous habit that he’s yet to break.
Rintarou leaves tomorrow to visit extended family, and Atsumu is set to leave for school in three days. Rintarou wants to ask if they’ll stay in touch, if their friendship will transcend past commiserating over high school struggles together. Rintarou isn’t the outwardly sentimental type, and he’s not sure how to get the words out without baring his soul.
“Are you gonna miss Osamu?” Rintarou asks in lieu of what he really wants an answer to.
“No way,” Atsumu wrinkles his nose, setting down the fry he’d been drowning in ketchup. “I can’t wait to not have to share a bathroom with that pig.”
Rintarou takes that as a yes.
He tries to picture Atsumu on a college campus, making new friends, flirting with pretty people, failing tests, winning games. It’s easy to envision, and maybe that’s what Rintarou doesn’t like about it.
“What about you?” Atsumu asks, gracelessly shoving the ketchup-abused fry, along with four others, into his mouth. “What are you gonna do without me?”
Rintarou had decided on doing a year or two at community college before committing to any specific school. With no clear major in mind, he figures he can at least get his gen-eds out of the way for a fraction of the price.
“Finally get some peace and quiet.”
Atsumu laughs, thankfully after swallowing the monstrous amount of fries in his mouth. Rintarou half-smiles, deciding the entire situation is very gross. Still, he commits the moment to memory. He downs the rest of his sickeningly orange Fanta and fishes for one of the soggier fries.
“I mean, I’ll see ya over Christmas break anyways,” Atsumu says.
Rintarou nods, decides it’s not worth mentioning the out-of-country travel plans that his parents had already scheduled over his winter break.
They pick at the last few fries less like vultures, more like venus fly traps—slowly, carefully, aware that the end of the food will signify the end of the night.
Atsumu finally takes the last one, leaving Rintarou to bunch up all their dirty napkins into the empty fry container. Atsumu drops off their trash while Rintarou gets a soda refill for the drive home.
“Ya want me to just drop ya off at your house?” Atsumu asks as he starts the car.
“That’s fine,” Rintarou says nonchalantly, while his brain is going into overdrive, trying to come up with a billion and one different ways to prolong the evening.
The drive to his home is quiet. The radio is buzzing low, and sometimes Atsumu hums along. Rintarou wants to tease him, tell him he’s tone-deaf, but he thinks he might say something stupid and sappy instead.
“Thanks for ditchin’ with me,” Atsumu says after he parks outside Rintarou’s house.
“Yeah, well,” Rintarou shrugs, “I’m not big on parties anyways.”
Rintarou thinks that if this were a movie, this would be the part where they confess to each other and promise to visit one another every other month. Atsumu would lean in, kiss him like he did over a year ago, maybe even better this time. Rintarou would make sure they never grew apart.
But it’s not a movie, so all that happens is that Atsumu says something along the lines of I’ll send ya an ugly keychain when I get down there, before kicking Rintarou out of his car.
Atsumu shoots him a generic text a few weeks after he’s settled in, and Rintarou replies with an equally lukewarm update on his own college situation.
A month later, Atsumu texts again, blathering on about his new team and how much he hates his classes. Maybe Rintarou’s reply isn’t interesting enough because he gets left on read.
Three months later and Rintarou still hasn’t pitched his soda cup from the stupid pizza place. It’s become somewhat of a relic on his desk, and it taunts him as he pores over notes before an exam.
Each time he goes to throw it out, he hesitates—he’ll get to it eventually.
Just not today.