Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Two millimetres: that’s what Osamu holds over Atsumu.

He clasps it in a fistful, and above his head, carries it like a trophy, brandishes it with petty pride. 

It’s a yearly routine for the team to fight for honour and glory in number games for tournament pamphlets. Clipboard in hand, Kurosu-sensei records each string of digits, and around them, competition builds, in all structures meaningless. Chins tilted up, they all square their shoulders and straighten their backs, as if willing individual bones to stretch and do their duty. 

Out of the womb first is Atsumu’s usual leverage. For the first pick at pudding, and the bigger side of unevenly split taiyaki. For wielding the power, in tiny eight year old hands, to choose volleyball shoe brands alongside and all the following sets of clothing that came in two, that their parents would match them in.

Sometimes, he receives can’t you just say you’re older, you fuckin’ weirdo? Other times, it’s you act five years younger!

This time, Osamu pays him no mind, and taunts, right fist to the sky.

Spinning on the balls of his feet, a dance turns into a chase, when Atsumu snaps. He lunges at the idea of bait, for merely a ghost of an implication is enough for him to start. Hands come out in grabs for wrists, as if retrieving stolen height; and in rings, they sprint, like two fox cubs in daylight, practising for the hunt at night.

It is only for Atsumu that Osamu acts this way. And whilst everyone else bemoans Osamu and the loss of final brain cells, Suna leans back, and secretly savours these moments. For this is an Osamu that they don’t get to see all that often - the one who lets loose, unguarded, and laughs hard enough that he’s wheezing.

Because most times, their fights are nothing to lose sleep over. And rather than discomfort emerging under the usual simmer of exasperation, it is merely background noise. A soundtrack that Suna has come to associate with Inarizaki and volleyball, that almost tastes a little like home.

In the doorway, a sundial shadow looms; tilts into the gymnasium flooring to signal time out. Kita offers no words, no chiding; but even that is enough to cease a body, half a leg into the chase.

Under no false pretenses of subtlety, Atsumu lands one parting punch to the ribs, and digs in his knuckles. He orders priorities in foolish ways; for neither Kita’s heavy stare nor the first year audience, it seems, could make him reconsider.

His choices weighed up, Atsumu deems five laps for the final yell a worthy trade.

Osamu slides back into the space beside Suna, chest puffed up, and laughs when Atsumu sticks his middle finger up at him, hands tinged with two millimetres taller bait.

Suna, in turn, does not rise.

For he will deny being swept away in the twins and their antics; and only relishes in the way Atsumu’s forehead vein threatens to burst; how he never fails to rise. It’s only when he’s sure that Atsumu is no longer within earshot, begrudgingly lacing up to start his laps, that Suna points out that two millimetres is nothing.

After all, “I’m two centimetres taller than you.”

Teasing between them, grows in strength the more nonchalant they stay. Suna takes care in keeping his voice even; speaks the tones of facts, rather than outright pesters. He allows himself a glance stolen then, to watch Osamu deflate, with a slight pout that is far more endearing than he would care to admit.

(This is their personal pecking order: Atsumu at their feet, a mouthful of sand; the two of them just above, as his own personal ceiling. They bicker on their own terms, in a gentle push and pull, where Suna is determined to stay victorious.

How strange, it seems, this fierce hierarchy they have, at the base of the building. For their other teammates rise above without even trying; fall neatly in order, with Kita at the summit. Their captain who does not fight, already commands, and lines them up with a brief glance.)

Oomimi wins this round in height and the cycle repeats when Kurosu-sensei calls them for jumping reach.

Across the court, Atsumu tilts his chin up, another challenge thrown down. Osamu offers him no immediate reply, and instead, hands Suna a lopsided smile and a gentle elbow nudge.

(And despite what Kosaku says or does not say, with pointed looks and exaggerated coughs, Suna only stays as a paperweight on Atsumu’s head, to knock him down several pegs. And not because it is nice, to poke or tease or keep Osamu’s shoulder pressed against his.

Because, he insists, this is not flirting or yearning or his heart pathetically on show. And he does not seek tiny victories, in being the one to make Osamu laugh.)

On the ground, Suna watches Osamu take off and widen the gap.

Competitions like these go forgotten until Atsumu declares breaking news.

The new development is this: page six, Powerhouse Inarizaki High; Atsumu’s photograph is bigger than Osamu’s.

He waves the evidence around like a broadcaster, and dodges Ginjima’s swipe at his arm to make his way across to where Suna and Osamu are. Over obstacles of bags and water bottle racks, he jumps, as if no matches were looming overhead.

Slapping the pamphlet to his brother’s face, Atsumu jeers, and forces himself into the space between. Elbows jab, knees attack. He makes the discovery a spectacle, consuming all the attention of the room, and ignores the way the other schools poke their heads up at the commotion.

Suna rolls his eyes. Whilst rifling through his bag for tape, he points out, offhandedly, that it’s ugly. That his smile looks kind of awkward there. And some people just aren’t photogenic, in all attempts of mock comfort. He does not stop on his tape quest, because even without looking, Suna knows that Atsumu’s face is souring, and that his childish misfortune will make Osamu grin.

(He stops himself, as if trying to correct a knee jerk reaction, when he finds himself eager to catch the tail end of that smile.)

Atsumu goes as quickly as he arrives and leaves the magazine abandoned. As if to make up for those stolen minutes, Osamu presses in even closer than before.

"Look at you,” Osamu coos, halfway through drinking a sports jelly pack, “defendin’ my honour."

“Your photo’s ugly too,” Suna denies, focusing on wrapping his hand. “Atsumu’s is just uglier.”

(If Suna's honest, though he doesn't like to make a habit of it, it is a good photo.

It was probably taken at their second interhigh match earlier that year. Most of the team didn’t bother with the shutters from the stands, already acclimatised to tune out the crowds into white noise.

Suna had noticed how Osamu had looked that day, against the backdrop of the crowd and the banner from their school. He had been in particularly good form and each spike landed sure.

Atsumu had leant forward, as if sharing gossip that could unhinge lives, and in a mock whisper, asked if it was because he finally stopped being constipated.)

One hand done, Suna looks up.

Osamu’s already got his palm outstretched waiting for Suna to hand over the tape. After he does, Osamu takes his right hand into his own, and like always, begins the wrap.

“Hey, Suna?”

“Hmm?”

He’s always gentle, careful to make sure it isn’t too tight. When he lets go, Suna goes through the usual motions and tests it with a flex of his fingers.

“If you’re saying I’m photogenic-”

“I didn’t say that-”

“Does that mean you think I’m ugly in real life?”

Suna snorts and presses two fingers against his forehead, pushing him away.

When Kita claps twice to signal for warm-ups, Osamu gets to his feet slowly, left then right and readjusts his knee-pads. He outstretches a hand for Suna to take. His grip is warm.

Through the double doors they go, side by side. Suna watches the way Osamu reaches down to press his fingertips to the ground, stands upright, and takes a deep breath in, when his soles meet the court.

Attack line at their heels, they fall side by side into starting rotation. The whistle sounds, their cheering team roars. Osamu brings his hands, locked up at the fingers, to cradle the back of his head. And when Atsumu’s fist curls and calls for silence, Osamu shoots Suna a grin.

There is no better person, Suna thinks, to depend on at this moment.

Together they jump, defenders of the net, to slam down any challengers.

He was standing, in his third year of junior high, on the brink of new things. New school, new city, new ceilings to pierce. Hyogo, his parents had told him, before dinner one evening. He was on tamagoyaki duty - the only side dish he could pride himself on never messing up. When he and his family settled around the dining table, they all pretended it wasn’t burnt.

A week later, his captain had told him about the Miya Twins from Yako Junior High.

“They’re from Hyogo,” he said, over lunch on the rooftop. “Maybe you’ll meet them.”

Unlike his teammates, Suna didn’t keep up with volleyball rumours. He found no use in keeping tabs on people he may or may not meet, and only strived to break them down, piece by piece in a match.

So in reply, he lay on his back and pressed a forearm to his eyes. “It’s a big place. What are the chances of that?”

He had thought then, that perhaps the Miya Twins were something more of a bloated myth, pumped full of rumours gathered from the wrong end of the grapevine. That perhaps he’d be able to catch a glimpse in passing, and could report back to his old captain that they were nothing truly special. That yes, they were talented, but so were the other hundreds of players. That all of this was just wrapped up in the wonder called identical faces.

Just memorable and flashy; for sometimes it was not the pinpoint tosses or cross spikes that were intimidating, but the concept of two cloned monsters on the court.

The following spring, Suna couldn’t even curse. It was a wonder in itself, that of all the schools that his parents could have possibly sent him to, it’d be Inarizaki. The single school in the whole country with a population that included twin Miyas.

In line with the rest of the first years, he stood in his school issued jersey at one end, determined not to balk under intimidation from the twins at the other.

(News travels fast when you don’t want it to.

Within two days, his whole team had found out and proceeded to bombard him with messages.

Hey, his captain had typed, doesn’t this mean you’ll be in first string with them?

hey tarou, from his starting setter, dyou think you can get me tips from miya atsumu?

He rolled his eyes and sent a mass text.

I wouldn’t count on it.)

Complacency can disguise itself even after it takes root and festers. It does not always come from powerhouse labels and wins from those before him, who laid foundations of the ground beneath. Nor does it stem from sentimentalities, he insists, like teammates’ backs or belief in number 11 jerseys.

For it’s not like Suna expects to win; or perhaps he does, when he finds himself loosening once the scoreboard tilts in their favour. Because he does not give in to desperate pursuit and burning lungs, and instead, savours stamina over hunger; over the want to dominate and corner their enemies, till their backs press to the wall.

It isn’t a good habit, he knows, to get used to victory.

To hold memories like glory days, and refuse to create those anew. To relive rather than live, in the moments and the seconds between. It isn’t good either, to get used to a loss. For they must take it and churn it and mould it into motive, a drive for a longer time on the court.

Post loss, they do not hold onto self pity or memories that sour into regret. They keep running and training and press forward, in hopes to challenge the sky.

It’s a few weeks before the end of second year, when Suna ducks into the gymnasium, one sneaker on, the other in hand, and steps halfway through a storm. Under each antenna, an ocean between, he finds the twins seething, sitting with their backs to each other as they lace up. 

“I said I was thinkin’ about it,” Osamu mutters, careful to keep his words pitched even. Even from here, underneath the hammer of rainfall, Suna can hear the way anger shakes his voice “Not that I’m gonna -”

“It’s the same fuckin’ thing!”

Atsumu’s head whips around, all claws raised. His voice cuts through like lightning.

(Here’s the thing.

Atsumu spits venom so often, without really meaning it, that it’s easy to just wipe it away. He gathers his poison and throws it into the air, in an arc that’s easily dodged. And while it’s extravagant, in that very particular Miya Atsumu way, it’s ultimately harmless.

But Osamu. When Osamu strikes, it burns as soon as it erupts. Reactions stem from the aftermath of shock, and instead, there is nothing they can do except tend to the wound.)

Shirts crumple, the claws come out. By the end of practice, those bruises will be sure to swell.

They stalk off to opposite sides of the court; and aim serves with the same weight as punches.

They walk home under a shared umbrella. Suna’s canned coffee stays open but goes cold, wet from the rain.

No promises were made, no obligations. But Osamu apologises anyway, that had Suna found out that way.

For someone who has been told he thinks, overthinks, then repeats three times over, on the court, outside of it, on the roads with konbini checkpoints and footsteps in between-

Suna hasn’t thought that far ahead.

He hasn’t thought past the end of this year, past their senpai’s graduation, past his own. That he wouldn’t see Miya Osamu, the twin taller by two millimetres, and who is, admittedly, photogenic and simultaneously not, for no cluster of pixels could ever truly do him justice-

Suna hasn’t entertained the thought of being able to see Miya Osamu, off of the court, and never on.

He had always thought that Osamu would stay with his brother; that they’d hold onto volleyball and conquer every sky before them, and all the ones beyond those.

Distance, Suna supposes, can sometimes be measured against heartbeats.

Ten, from assigned seats at lunch, one side of the class to the other. The rubbered toes of their chair legs, blunt from repeated journeys, dragged across flooring, with the usual accompaniment - a groan, then a creak, of wood, decades old. Their knees knock underneath his desk, cramped and too close, like sharing a secret that even Suna hasn’t even heard himself.

Osamu, with his head pillowed on folded arms. Sometimes, he presses his forehead against them. And other times, he rolls his neck to press his cheek against them instead, to tilt his face towards Suna. Staring, almost, as if trying to memorise the cut of his chin, the slope of his nose. 

One thousand, from the edge of the court to the top of the sky. Then, just half of one, after losing match point; legs jelly, wading through sand; these grains that pull with gravities of a planet each.

Sometimes, it feels like a million, in between the seconds, when Osamu leans in a little too close, whispers, a little too softly. These words that stay trapped in his imagination, spoken in nudged temples and a rumble of a chuckle, warm, and quiet, and steady.

Osamu, sleep soft and warm, tucked against the crook of his shoulder, as if moulding the curve to fit. The cold press of his nose, when he shifts through a dream, then shifts, in the space beside him.

Too many to count, when Osamu settles down; chasing sleep in the same way he does Suna’s warmth.

Spring comes and takes, leaving Suna with its usual emptiness.

The third years stand before them in the handover of dreams, looking older somehow, as if gaining overnight wisdom. He does not dodge, this time, when they reach up to ruffle his hair and blinks away tears that collect in his eyes.

Pecking order for their heights remains the same. Atsumu takes up the captain’s mantle. When Suna walks in on him in an empty clubroom, staring at the captain’s jersey in his lap, he backs out of the door, and decides to grant him one small mercy, guarding the secret as he would his own. 

The new round of first years line up with awe and nerves in equal measure, and with stars in their eyes, they shout out introductions. Suna wonders then, if that is how he had looked on his own first day, with a mouthful of nerves and a stomachful of butterflies.

Matches, as a third year, hold more weight than Suna expects.

The gaze of the crowds and of the scouts in the stands burn heavy. University entrance exams loom on the horizon. 

His future plans form stays scrunched up at the bottom of his bag.

When he stands on the court, he does not think of last times, or first times, or all the meetings in between. But instead, he thinks of Osamu, flanking his side, his teammates on the court, and his school across his shoulders.

There’s a business card that Osamu keeps tucked behind his PiTaPa card. Suna’s seen him thumb at it constantly. When Osamu thinks no-one’s looking, after practice, during class, he takes it out, turns it over in his hands, and then puts it away. It’s dogeared from repetition.

They’re walking home from school when he tells him, after Suna himself decides on EJP Raijin, decides on Hiroshima, that DESEO Hornets are asking for him.

What Suna thinks of first is: you’re not quitting, then: you’re gonna be amazing.

(But not the distance, never the distance. Not the train lines or journey times or the whole landmass between.)

What he says is: “You’re not going with Atsumu.”

Beside him, Osamu’s shoulders twitch in a barely there motion before he straightens them. Barely noticeable. Blink and you miss it.

(But Suna, in habits built without realising, rarely looks away.)

As if to study the vending machine and seriously contemplate all of its options, Osamu leans forward and holds his silence. His fingers stop to hover over a drink that Suna knows he hates, so Suna grabs his hand, redirecting it to another. He’s seen a whole graveyard of these cartons in the Miya’s household recycling, rinsed and flattened, all evidence pointing to Osamu and not his brother.

Osamu doesn’t look at him.

“D’you always havta bring him up?”

The carton clatters down in arrival. When Osamu’s hand slips out of his grasp to retrieve it, Suna tries his best not to chase his hand back into his own.

He steps away from the vending machine, away from Suna, and makes his way down the street. “D’you ever just think about me? Just me.”

(Just him, Suna can hear. Just him - not one half of the Miya brothers. Just him. Not Atsumu’s brother. Just him. Just him. Just.

Osamu.)

It’s said casually, thrown over his shoulder, like he doesn’t really care. But Suna notices it, anyway; the way Osamu tightens, then loosens, to ensure he can feel the difference before he pokes a hole and drains the tension through the puncture.

Frozen in place, Suna’s thoughts sit viscous.

He thinks of Aichi, of this year’s starting roster; thinks of white jerseys and MIYA stamped across shoulders.

Perhaps he should apologise, explain himself (for there are a million and one things that Suna wants to tell him). Or perhaps, he should settle for a joke. Tell him that the next time they meet on the court, it’ll be through nets. Tell him that he’ll personally block all of his spikes.

(Tell him-

Tell him that-

That he-)

Ahead in the street, Osamu keeps a steady pace and doesn't look back at him.

This is Miya Osamu. The Miya Osamu who will go further and jump higher than ever before. The Miya Osamu who approached him at try-outs, who always buddy tapes his fingers, who always reaches out first. The Miya Osamu who was one of his first friends in Hyogo; in a city full of unfamiliarity and a place that he didn’t know how to call home.

The Miya Osamu who deserves to be loved by the whole world.

For not the first time, Suna wonders when his back had gotten so broad.

Rushing to realign his thoughts, Suna hurries to catch up with him before the distance stretches too wide to bridge. And decides then, to correct his misstep with an offer of melonpan, split in two.

“I’m happy for you,” he says; because this is the only strand of honesty he can afford right now. “I’m really fucking happy for you,” because he is not that selfish.

Relief tightens, then unfurls, when shoulders bump together once more.

Distance, then - measured in manmade units. Crafted from worries and mistiming and confessions, reeled back.

At graduation, Suna shuffles around into so many photographs, he’s not sure if he remembers to smile in half of them. Backdrops transition in quick succession - the school’s courtyard, his homeroom, the team’s banner. Most times, Osamu lingers, never too far.

They come together, then fall apart; swept away by friends and acquaintances, and a whirlwind of sentimentalities.

Fingers clasped around his diploma, he poses for his suddenly-turned-photographer parents, before they shoo him away to make final goodbyes.

On the rooftop, the basketball team’s third years stand and yell at their kouhai below, who look up with eyes shining. He walks through streams of chalkboard congratulations and gets stopped in hallways for final catch ups and exchanges of numbers and awkward buttoned confessions in hand.

Distantly, Suna thinks to go on a search; to walk through the school buildings as if Osamu will be there at the end of every corridor, waiting for him. But he squashes those thoughts when he catches glimpses of Osamu in between; through oceans crammed full of people.

And in classrooms empty, save for two. 

In the end, all paths lead to journeys that must be taken.

He ends up back at the gym, empty; no net, no ball, no squeak of shoes to fill the gap. Osamu meets him there as if he knows, and through any storm, will always find him.

Chapter Text

Across eighteen years, Suna has uprooted on more occasions than he can keep measure.

Sometimes shallow, in testing new soils from hand spanned-distances; like breaking into new shoes, with new wounds greeted, in backs of ankles and tips of toes; or joining a new volleyball team after he’d gotten attached. Soft play volleyballs graduating into hard; Suna, into elementary to junior high to high. A string of first boxes unpacked in houses across different pockets of Tokyo.

Other times, it’s deeper. From the roots, clean out of the earth. At fifteen; then past eighteen, he digs the second time around.

And in theory, this should become easier with practice.

In the same way as jump serves, and learning the exact spin before it veers out of bounds. Like buddy taping fingers of your dominant hand, falling in sync with new teammates and play styles; picking apart opponents and all their weaknesses.

Suna had stuffed fourteen years of his life into boxes, and travelled west across a whole region to restart in Hyogo. Then, three years later, he goes even further, as if chasing sunset.

(In turn, Osamu goes east, in chasing sunrise.)

An apartment, newly moved into, with a leaky showerhead and thin walls, feels too large and too small all at once. Shoes, a little lonely at the genkan; a single set of cup and bowl and spoon and chopsticks. By day, he tries to settle; too busy trying to adjust to new rhythms, in warm-up drills, and social niceties, to worry about anything else. By night, he returns and fumbles with the key in the lock, of a room he is supposed to call home.

On nights when sleep evades him, does not bother hiding, and instead, sits cross-legged, facing him to taunt, he reaches for his phone, always plugged in, his thumb opening his camera roll, motions familiar.

“Suna!” the Osamu trapped in his phone screen yells. The video, taken by Kosaku which caught both Osamu and Suna in equal distance. Hands presenting cake. Candles topped with flames, casting shadows across their faces; friends topped with party hats; Atsumu in the background, party poppers at the ready. “Happy birthday!”

A voice mail hours later, carefully stepping as the day crumbles beneath their feet in the lead up to midnight. Voice, softer now, for only them. “Happy birthday,” breathed out, heavy with a different meaning.

A video of summer in third year - Osamu’s hands around Atsumu’s wrists, Ginjima’s around his ankles, Kosaku shrieking in the background, filming Suna filming them. Two swings to build up a pendulum swing, before hurtling him through the air, into the water; kicking up sand around them as they sprint away. Osamu, a little sunburnt, red high on his cheeks, shirt sea-soaked as Atsumu tackles him into the ground.

A series of high school Miya Osamus getting older, a little bolder, in monitoring how he lands on jump serves, polished through the stamped dates.

(Osamu, and gatcha machine victories. Osamu, and ice skating falls. Osamu, bright, and smiling; looking past the camera and searching for Suna behind it.)

Sometimes, he can trick himself into thinking he's back in Hyogo, in his own bed. But most times, here, bed shoved against a left wall instead of right, he rolls onto the wrong side, nose knocking against the plaster, still navigating new waters.

From his bed, he rises alongside the moon, and finds solace in the sky. How tiny he feels, amongst this sheet of darkness; how tiny the stars seem, when he manages to find them through the clouds.

He is no stranger to this; and knows that with time, this ache will bleed out and water down into warmth. But for now, he knows it will linger. This bone deep ache of homesickness.

For homemade meals and tamagoyaki, half burnt and those steps he fell into at the end of every day; even though others would argue that every street in Japan has a vending machine, for they sprout from the ground like weeds; and that every konbini provides the same selection of jagariko cups.

He is homesick for Inarizaki and their clubroom. He’s even homesick for his old teammates’ whining, and the way one of the wheels of the ball cart jiggled and squeaked, from when Atsumu and Osamu had broken it in their final year.

Past the open window, Suna thinks of this: Osamu, five hundred kilometres away and still counting.

And wonders how he’s keeping.

In Hiroshima, he starts again.

He meets previous rivals turned teammates, who ask him about neck deep benches, and Inarizaki’s towering fortress; his captain strong enough to flatten kingdoms.

Like old men, they gossip and exchange tales over cool down stretches; of high school and training camps and four walls that housed a thousand dreams. Broken down, with no labels of powerhouses or ranked aces or reputations that precede them, they speak of haunted bathhouses and permanent markers, unsheathed to attack sleeping setters.

Distances bridge, in quiet secrets shared; of homesickness and uncertainty, and a summit that seems unreachable. Rivals turned teammates, roll over into friends and 2AM talks, admittance that comes under the veil of night. In rounds they share; these memories in building blocks of homes they miss, deeply, quietly; and sometimes, all at once.

And if either Komori or Washio notice the way he trips over Osamu’s name, the way he says it far more warmly than he intends, then they are kind enough to say nothing of it.

(He learns, three years down the line, that they had always known.)

There is a certain wonder that comes with memories, and how they always seem to sweeten with time.

In all honesty, he knows that he should not spend present moments tinted rose, and there is nothing extravagant about textbook pillows and rooftop lunches; jump float serves, that do not truly bend time.

Nothing extravagant about walks home from the konbini, tape measured steps, and counting pulses, in time with his.

Checkpoints through months start to pile, in a series of half meetings and holding Osamu close when he can.

They climb through strings and meet halfway, kilometres closed by video calls over patchy wifi, and dinners in quiet corners of overlapping cities; in walls of LINE messages asking what should i eat for breakfast and wtf my neighbours are fucking vacuuming its fucking 2am and grainy photos of commercials uglier than second year volleyball pamphlets.

When either of them can, they go to the other’s matches under jabs of intel collection and reassurances that this is not fraternising with the enemy.  

Osamu comes donning his merch, back stamped with Suna’s name and number. For someone who tries to blend into the background to avoid causing a stir, the self-proclaimed brother with far more self awareness, he deems it an exception to embarrass Suna when he can. He turns up carrying a SUNARIN uchiwa adorned with hearts and a photograph, different each time. Exclusive and Never-Seen-Before, he tells anyone painted in shades of EJP Raijin, waving Suna’s face around, hastily cut and pasted, edges jagged in a job made in laughter.

Through post match highs and all the moments between, Osamu lies in waiting; on train platforms, outside lockerrooms and convenience stores, like the only familiar face they know in any city miles away from homes, first or second. Osamu tells him, “you made the ugliest face when going in for that block at the end of the second set,” as they fall into step for whatever they can shove into the granted minutes. Meals, or ten minute catch ups, or coffees rushed over burnt tongues.

In goodbyes, but without finality, never finality, and always the promise of another, Osamu turns to look at him and stretch moments that linger, no matter how fleeting.

It's always these, their usual words of parting. Of Osamu’s hands that come to close the gap, brushing Suna's hair from his face, readjusting his scarf. Suna’s hands that burrow into Osamu’s pockets, thumbing at his sleeves, stealing his warmth. All their ways to tie the ribbon neat on their offered goodbyes and finished off with any sort of variety.

But always coupled with this.

Osamu, holding the zipper of Suna’s windbreaker or his team jacket, pulling it to his chin. Fingers knotted into his wool coat, and the careful threading through button holes.

Suna, breath tight in his chest, returns the favour. Tugs the zip up to hide Suna’s jersey (definitely does not think of Osamu wearing his actual jersey) and steadies himself with a grip on his arms. 

Sometimes, Osamu tells him ‘you're gonna catch a cold’, frowning a little at Suna’s shower-damp hair, barely toweled dry in his haste to see Osamu off. Because quietly, in a press of fingers tucking stray strands behind ears, there are words relayed from their parents and their parents; that only fools catch colds in summer.

(And honestly, they’re right. Because Suna is a fool. He is a fool, he is a fool-)

Back in the changing room, EJP Raijin’s Suna Rintarou, the second highest scorer of the match, presses his forehead against the closed door of his locker, still 0112, a combination unchanged since 2014.

When Komori walks past, his duffle bag nestled on his shoulder, he pats him on the back in half-hearted soothing. His hands, through the back of his shirt, feel so different to another’s.

Hand, open palmed in the space over his heart, Suna closes his eyes, and counts.

Back in their first year, they had called him Battery Saver Suna.

Kita had pointed out, in the tone that came before his scolding, a mild second year version, “You’re slacking,” when Suna broke away from the rest of the group in their morning run, leaving them to lap him a couple of times in hopes that they’d miscount the number in which he was trailing.

“Running’s the fucking worst,” he groaned after evening practice, sweat soaked and grumpy. “I’m never running again.”

Buses never tailed, elevator doors left to close. He didn’t even run at lunch, no matter how much of an abomination they declared it, for Osamu always put aside food for him anyway. He’d run on the court if he must, if he must, but even then, though round in circles, it was to chase a ball, and someone else’s misery to prevent his own. Not to chase an invisible finish line that shifted with flimsy words, and no rewards on the line.

Beside him, Osamu, washcloth in hand, was assigned wiping down the equipment, scrubbing away scuffmarks in vain.

Kosaku arrived with an armful of stray balls in the pitiful duties of first year, and their standing of The Bottom of the Food Chain. “What about if you could save a life? If you havta outrun a bear for me?”

“Why’s a bear-”

“Isn't it somethin’ about drownin’?” Atsumu asked, rethreading his laces, machine washed and cleaned, after Osamu left his shoes outside under post argument rainfall.

Ginjima was trying to shove the final volleyball into a bag, though it had already been overfilled three volleyballs ago. “It's ‘if two people were drownin’, who’d you save?’”

“That's easy,” Osamu said, without looking up. “Not Tsumu.”

“I'm not even one of the options, what the fuck-”

“That's stupid,” Kosaku cut in, pulling a face. “Hey, Suna. Can you even swim?”

Mission abandoned, Ginjima aimed the volleyball at Kosaku’s head, as if discovering a talent for pitching. “Bein’ chased by a bear’s dumber.”

“You’d run though,” Kosaku insisted, dodging the ball with a weird curve of his spine. “Away from a bear.”

"Or a shit loada hornets," Atsumu chimed in.

Ginjima paused as if seriously contemplating. "I'd run if it was Kita-san chasin’ me."

Together, they shuddered as if a flat stare outweighed any calamity, and then turned to look at Suna, as if deciding a lost cause.

“Suna’d let the bear eat ‘im.”

Flat on his face, Suna had only raised one finger (“Why's that the only one you use? You have a buncha others, y’know-”), too exhausted from the ten extra laps their captain had personally assigned him.

But he's running now to catch a train to Aichi after oversleeping; because of something as silly as sleep lost to excitement; butterflies that feast upon dreams had under closed eyes, bloated and exchanged for those had with eyes open. With thoughts, the ceiling swims, just as his legs feel they do, in sprinting through waves only met after a night with no sleep.

Thoughts of seeing Osamu, as if he can't see him daily in his own way.

(There's a billboard in between the seventeen minute walk from his apartment to the station, across from the Family Mart. This ad space has been reserved by Osamu’s very faithful fanclub and changes with the seasons, in a slideshow of well wishes for Christmas and birthdays and all milestones no matter how small. Suna’s personal favourites are of Osamu's debut match anniversaries always pumped full with a baby-faced Osamu.)

Slumped against the window to catch his breath, Suna waits for his pulse to slow.

No need for hornets or bears or the wrath of upperclassmen. In seeing Osamu, Suna sprints harder than any chase for the ball.

Distance marked along a train track.

A wedge of the heel of his shoe, caught in the jaws of the doors, clamped shut on his scarf. Those minutes between stations to calm his racing heartbeat, until the doors open. And together, with the threads of his scarf, he exhales.

Kosaku tells him that new prefectures are filled with new cities, with new places to explore. Suna does not entertain replies, for skies look the same no matter where you are, just as a court is a court, with the same gravity of any loss.

In Aichi, Suna walks on paths no longer foreign to him, for he knows now without looking, which stop to get off; unlike the first time, when he would count the spaces, time measured against Hyperdia’s journey planner. He takes the usual route to Osamu’s building. Out of the station, left, then down the street until he hits the convenience store, cross the street, then right. If he walks past that ad (the new January round is Sakusa Kiyoomi, and his skincare cutout), then he’s gone too far.

He greets the grandmother who lives a couple of floors down from Osamu, no longer awkward in his offer to carry her belongings. Groceries, sometimes; yokan, others. Today, she hands him two paper bags. Imagawayaki - one for her granddaughter, one for Osamu and Suna.

She offers her usual reminders, in chiding that he’s getting thinner, that he must remember to eat healthily, and to treat himself kindly, for his life is precious, and it is worth looking after. Then in parting, she asks him, when they reach her doorstep, and Suna turns for those additional flights of stairs, to look after Osamu, and keep ahold of his smile.

(And at this, Suna makes this promise far too easily; for he would guard Osamu’s happiness, with even more care than his own.)

In a tiny kitchen, assigned the title of Suna’s Favourite Place In Aichi, Osamu rolls up his sleeves and threads his neck through the apron.

It was a gift from Suna, bought in a pack of two, matching Suna’s mother’s, with little flowers climbing over his ribcage.

Suna’s sitting on the one counter Osamu grants him, his legs swinging, stealing ingredients from the chopping board (stealing glances at Osamu). Osamu spins at the twirl of Suna’s finger, waiting patiently as Suna ties the knot on his apron. It’s cute on him, Suna can’t help but think, not bothering to hide his grin behind his hand, and makes a mental reminder to take a photo of him later.

“You’ll be my resident taster,” he told him in second year, when Osamu’s hobbies shifted from eating to cooking, letting Suna be the first try at all of his experiments. And it wasn’t chocolate, not honmei or giri or whatever lay between. Instead, it was onigiri; with the usual fillings, and the not so usual ones, and Osamu watched, his eyes searching, to document his reaction, and keep them all filed away in his memory; as if a whole universe lay between.

Here, Osamu washes his hands and quickly towels them dry. “Hey, try this.”

Now well practiced, Suna leans forward to accept the spoon that Osamu raises to his lips, after blowing on it twice.

“Too salty?”

He shakes his head. “It’s good. Your food always tastes good.”

Suna’s hair flops into his face. He hasn’t gotten it cut for a while; at first, from convenience, and the laziness that came with appointments reluctantly made. Now, it’s grown into fondness.

Without looking, Osamu sticks out his wrist for the taking, with the offer of a hair tie that he keeps solely for Suna. With the other hand, he stirs the soup coming to a boil.

Always, he hands over wordless offerings. Filled with hair ties and onigiri and a scarf to give. Empty, for tape and Pocari Sweat to take. Hand outstretched, always, for Suna to place his own.

Instead of taking it, Suna ignores the hair tie, and pulls his hand in a little closer. Turns it over in his grasp, and marvels at the warmth. Traces a thumb from wrist to knuckles, through valleys carved into palms. Calluses, from constant practice, and learning the weight of a volleyball. A tiny scar at the heel of his palm, from when he had fallen off of a swing, arms out, at six.

These are the hands that can crush spirits, hands that pressed against the curve of his spine; to speak of congratulations, reassurance; goodbyes and hellos and all their landmarks. That knit with Kita-san’s grandmother, make gyoza with his own. That clip Suna’s bangs out of his face, poke at his cheeks.

(Under the fall of cherry blossoms, cradle so gently. That remember the space between.)

Wonders, trapped in the span of a hand; one, then two, when they come together.

Behind them, the rice cooker sings to signal an end. Suna releases Osamu’s wrist from hands and hair tie and leans away to gather his hair and heart into fists.

They prepare to eat - Osamu, over the stove; Suna, over the dining table, but he finds that his appetite has faded.

Suna opens cupboards and pulls out drawers to call for the usual attendance of mismatched crockery and novelty mugs, one from Kosaku, the other, Ginjima, purchased as a joke. Then, he spoons out rice into both of their bowls as Osamu sets down side dishes, and soup for the middle of the table. 

It’s warm - the way Osamu places food into his bowl, the way their ankles touch underneath the kotatsu, a hand-me-down from Osamu’s downstairs neighbour, gifted after they had bought a new one. The reminder comes, randomly, of how Osamu would hoard his food to himself, slap away Atsumu’s chopsticks with his own; but how he’d give Suna food with nothing more than a smile.

Across from him, Osamu stares, as if he could grow full on watching him eat alone.

“What?”

“Look after yourself, okay?” Osamu reaches over, tucking a flyaway strand of hair behind his ear. “Even when I’m not around to feed you.”

Despite the chill, they settle on Osamu’s balcony, after the dishes have been washed and dried, their elbows bumping over the sink. It’s barely big enough for the both of them, shoved together to avoid the potted plant, left abandoned to greet him, when Osamu first moved in.

Hands circle around mugs, the hot chocolate exhaling hard into the frost threaded air, and arms press together, their knees knocking, a thick blanket draped over their shoulders to shield them from the cold.

Below, the world lies muted, under convenience store fluorescents, and crowds, thinned out, past overtime. There’s heavy cloudcover tonight, with tomorrow forecasting snow. The first of the year. 

Osamu watches, as if he could see a whole constellation above them, as if the sky has not been eaten away by pollution in light and smoke.

Head slumped onto Suna’s shoulder, in the crook of his neck, Osamu’s hair tickling Suna’s cheek. He laughs at the cold press of his nose when he shifts. Side by side, they sit; and shuffle closer, when Osamu loops Suna’s scarf around them to share.

A sky is a sky, that looks the same no matter the land below. Wide enough to hold planes that cross distances, gather wishes that go unanswered.

Heart in his throat, Suna wonders why it looks different, when he is with him.

Back in his apartment in Hiroshima, with a too big window and too small blinds, but heated flooring, toasty enough that Osamu doesn’t mind sleeping on it, Suna picks up a call to start their weekly meal together.

Perhaps it is the byproduct of having Kita as their captain, that they keep rituals like these. Meals together despite distance; drawstring bags pulled tight after ball maintenance (though admittedly, less thorough than Kita’s). Buddy taping fingers along the same paths; from outside in, and always left before right.

(Even now, Osamu places his hand, open palm, to the edge of the court in greeting, before he steps onto it.)

Over the line, Suna can hear the clatter of Osamu’s pots and pans, the tick of the stove starting.

On his own counter, an end of a breadloaf sits on the edge of expiration. He does not contemplate its nutritional value, nor thinks twice about the rumoured magic stuffed in gluten free. Osamu doesn’t even need to ask what he’s eating, and has stopped bothering to fish for clarification, as if honing another useless talent of Food Packaging ASMR, and identifying brands with eyes shut.

Either that, or Suna has become predictable with age.

(And if so, then Osamu has too.

It will be comfort food today, a full spread of a meal not suited for the likes of just before bedtime. Suna knows from the string of messages he had received earlier that stem from bad days at training. Botched receives and home run serves; the feeling of the ball and how it just didn’t sit quite right.)

Placing a plate down onto the table, Suna shrugs, even though he is long out of Osamu's line of vision. “People eat toast for breakfast all the time.”

“It’s not breakfast.”

“It is somewhere in the world. Besides,” Suna counters, checking the clock on his microwave, in time to watch the hour shift, “does 1AM really count for dinner, either?”

One slot jumps high enough to pierce low ceilings. The other jams, as usual, and decides to give off light smoke, along with all the other crumbs trapped at the bottom of his toaster.

Already well practiced, he opens his window and squints.

In a city sprawling with people, Suna does not pretend to notice the lines of konbini but instead, looks along the horizon, as if he can see the roof of Osamu’s building complex from here.

When he settles on his couch, television turned off, sounds of the city filtering through his open window, he wonders, out loud, if half a can of beer would be pushing his luck.

Osamu snorts. Through static, his rice bowl and table laden with side dishes rattle. "You’ve got such shit eatin’ habits.”

“Well, so do you.”

In thanks for meals, they eat together, as if setting a table over cities that lie between, their dietitians’ rules be damned.

Here’s the thing.

In the moment, you think that you’d remember grudges to last entire lifetimes. Mistakes that linger, often on the edges of sleep; arguments, too, though warped by night.

Suna isn’t young enough to think that he would remember each point lost, but just the ones that really matter. Points stolen, not won; taken from foolishness and not pure strength. He thinks that he’d remember that bitterness of losing, that feeling that dug deep under his skin, of each enemy that burrowed their way beneath his skin. 

This is what he remembers instead.

Not the number of points, that block error.

But meals together, spread across joined desks. Hands clasping onigiri, with just the right amount of force.

Osamu, under the sunlight, leaning over, to pluck a grain of rice from the corner of his mouth.

He remembers this: how hands are careful when bandaging jammed fingers; how hands always come out to help him up, for just a second.

And he still wonders what it would be like to hold on a little longer.

The first time Osamu made the journey out to see him in Hiroshima, Suna reached out and told him to stay the night.

It’s raining, he could’ve said; it’s late, another; easy reasons that were not truly excuses, and ones that did not take root in soil so honest.

I missed you, is what he would never say.

(I’m probably in lov-

grabbed and smothered and crushed into dust, even when it dug into palms, and threatened to split new grooves through his skin.)

Instead, he offered this: neither request nor demand, and never a confession. Just a casual shrug of the shoulder, and I have a futon; freshly laundered and smelling of the detergent that Osamu had told him he liked once.

(It was third year, the second night in training camp. Osamu had rolled over, his hair still wet from the bath, warm and groggy and half an ankle into sleep. And when he breathed in, his nose pressed into Suna’s shoulder, he hummed, content, into a faceful of fabric.

Too focused on brushing Osamu’s hair from his face, Suna had missed the audience filling the room. The way Atsumu scowled from his futon on the other side of the room, along with Kosaku taking a photo, shuttersound full volume, and the almost polite avoidance of eyes from Ginjima.)

The measured length of that night - from Suna’s bed to the lumpy futon where Osamu lay, lightly snoring. Suna counted heartbeats with the rainfall, against the steady rise and fall of Osamu’s chest. Osamu, in a dream, unaware of the marathon that Suna’s pulse was running.

Years down the line, Osamu becomes well acquainted with Suna and his malfunctioning toaster; the way his air con wheezes through a swallowed cloud of dust. He no longer knocks to signal arrival, and replaces it with a LINE message, usually followed by a Sally sticker, and says ‘I’m home', only half joking, as he toes his shoes off at the genkan, key in hand.

Tonight, Osamu greets with back ache complaints, so Suna, long since skirting over these unsaid words, offers his bed.

“Not like that!” he hisses, sud-soaked hands shoved into Osamu’s face, decked out in a teasing eyebrow. Heartbeats between, he snatches the words back and hoards them to himself.

(Tomorrow, when they part at the train station, Suna will curse himself and his inflated reaction. For between them, they say I’ll marry you, no eyelids batted, over copied homework, and a box of fried chicken on bad days, because these are words given so easily, with no heavy load behind it.) 

For someone who prided himself on never rising to the bait, he hands it to Osamu to dangle it before him, and raises his claws to it as soon as it settles in Osamu’s palms.

“I’d be a bad host if I left you on the futon,” he says, in defence, before muttering darkly, “But whatever. Fuck being a good host. ” After all, it’s just Osamu, and polite formalities have long since been outgrown. “Fuck you and your back pain. Take the futon.”

“Good.” Against his kitchen counter, Osamu leans over, steeples his chin in his hands and smiles. “Since when was I a guest?”

(Two hours in bed with the lights switched off, they speak until Osamu complains again, of back pain and hard floors and EJP Raijin’s middle blocker and his personal vendetta to sabotage the DESEO Hornets.

Even in darkness, Osamu laughs, for he immediately knows that Suna’s reply is a scowl, before he shuffles over as if granting him the space that has always been his for the taking.)

Another distance - the sliver in between a shared bed. 

(One more - when Osamu drags his duvet cocoon right beside Suna’s bed, and he snakes a hand out, wrapping his hand around a wrist. A pull, when he sends him tumbling down to join him and close the gap.)

Chapter Text

Middle ground is a postseason get together in March so Osaka greets the two of them at the train station, bringing weather comfortably thawed to ready itself for spring. Osamu, in turn, greets Suna with a little wave and a suitcase far bigger than a five day break needs.

“What the hell did you pack?” Suna asks when he’s within earshot at the station exit. The wheels of Osamu’s suitcase stutter as they make their way towards Atsumu’s apartment, empty now, while Atsumu runs an errand. "Where do you think we're going?"

Osamu waits until they’re free from the crowd, weaving in between the masses, before falling back into step. “It's basically empty,” Osamu clarifies, “but my grandparents asked for those chocolates –the special White Day ones– from my endorsement. I dunno if you’ve seen it but–”

Suna has.

He has replayed all seven versions of the CM so many times that they feel stamped onto his brain in an infinite loop. Each and every single scene. All unsuspecting and inconvenient and impossible to shake away, for they'd creep in between the split seconds that his mind wanders, returning it, unfailingly, to that stupid CM and all of its impossibilities.

Here’s Osamu in one, it reminds him, decked out in his jersey, combing his hair back with his fingers and smirking. Here’s Osamu in another, donning a three piece suit with a bouquet of flowers in one hand, box of chocolates in the other.

There is one that stands annoyingly above them all; disruptive and outright rude with its sheer audacity, catching him unawares when he’s trying to take his weekly shopping-list-roll-call during the grocery run. It seeps into Suna’s memory, into the spaces that should be held for things that are far more important than the way Osamu holds his gaze with the camera — the likes of restaurant menus and phone bill dates and his neighbour’s cousin’s lecturers' names — and Suna deems it the worst of the whole selection, the current endgame villain in his life. His cousin, Ayako, had sent it to him in their LINE chat with no comment to accompany the swooning sticker and against his better judgement, Suna had opened it at practice, in the lull between spiking drills.

There, he was greeted with an Osamu looking into the camera, a pretty blush high on his cheeks, his gaze too heavy and his voice pitched far, far too warmly when he asked, “Do you think of me as much as I think of you?”

(And in reply, Suna, heels of his palms pressed to his eyes, received Washio’s serve with his face.)

Out in the street, Osamu continues on, oblivious to Suna's current crisis and where he’s stuck, mind sifting through the stack of comments he has filed away; the string of tweets and bottomless fanboards and the abomination of endless scroll.

(The way Miya Osamu-senshu, DESEO Hornet’s opposite hitter and resident ideal boyfriend, has half of the country’s hearts in his grasp. ‘What would it be like,' comes the current mystery gripping the nation, ‘to be the one that he comes home to every night?’)

Osamu reaches out to readjust the slipping strap of Suna’s duffle bag so it fits more comfortably on his shoulder, and the shift of weight is what finally pulls Suna back into focus, just enough for him to hear, “I asked if I could get some and got ‘em shipped to Tsumu’s ‘cause I’m movin’ and he’s been complainin’ that it’s takin’ up too much space.”

And for once, Atsumu wasn’t exaggerating.

Shoes toed off in the genkan, luggage dumped just beyond, Suna tilts his head, raises an eyebrow and asks, “How many did you ask for?”

In the middle of the corridor, they tower over the box, their slippers only half on. Osamu scratches sheepishly at the back of his neck. “... Seven?”

The grand total turns out to be sixty-three.

Sixty-five, initially –according to the post-it note slapped on the top-most one– and hitting the shelves today. All wrapped in layers of pink and white, adorned with hearts and blossoms, and finished off with Osamu's face plastered on the front. Each of the different flavours is stamped with a special QR code message that Suna will watch, no doubt, feeling torn between these two: parading around the act, to tease pretty embarrassment from Osamu, in shapes of shoves to shoulders, ears tinted red; or keeping secrets, silently folded and wedged in the back of his mouth to avoid Komori’s line of questioning. Suna can imagine it now – that glint in Komori’s eye when he brings it up in that artificial brand of offhanded. The way he’ll be persistent in picking at the weakest parts of Suna’s defences, enough to push Suna’s face into betraying him as he fails to wrestle down the blush. 

They set up camp in the middle of Atsumu’s living room floor, the package torn open and overflowing, television a gentle hum in the background. Into little piles they go, mentally labelled with siblings and neighbours and auntie down the road who offers Osamu more fruit than he knows what to do with. A strategy to get rid of them, crafted after making executive decisions that high-school-them would have never; accepting now, that stomachs are no longer bottomless and that living off diets of White Day candies remains unwise.

A rustle comes, of packaging ripped open and Osamu shifting towards him, when Suna’s midway through transferring the pile set aside for Osamu’s extended family. With chocolate edging into Suna’s periphery, his gaze does not break from filling the suitcase, mouth leading in the chase instead, until Osamu bounces the chocolate off of Suna’s lips a third time, before stealing it away again.

“Gimme,” Suna whines, patience whittled as he finally looks towards Osamu who responds with a little bratty shake of his head, a shade more endearing than Suna thinks is fair. “I licked it, it’s mine.”

So Osamu pulls his arm back in little loop-de-loops as he coos, “Ah~” complete with those signature noises of saccharine sweet couples cropped from dramas that he’s been watching with Komori at 2am.

It’s not a self indulgence, Suna insists, so much as it’s a habit to fall to Osamu’s whims, when Suna openly rolls his eyes at his antics before playing along.

“Is it good, Sunarin?”

Suna takes his time chewing whilst he bats his eyelids at Osamu. “You’re so annoying~” he tells him, keeping his voice sweet as he gazes up at Osamu from beneath the splay of his eyelashes, and absolutely does not relish in the way he shocks laughter out of Osamu.

Osamu crowds him then, reaching out for Suna’s face to squish his cheek in between a finger and thumb. “Does my lovely Sunarin want another?” And laughs harder when he’s shoved back by an openhanded push across the face. He grins, looking oddly triumphant and all the stupider for it, as if he had accomplished a feat so groundbreaking, one that came in shifting mountains; instead of acts as simple as these, for Suna yields to him easily, would likely yield to him always, in ways that Osamu doesn’t even know. Because really, he’s spent years now, not knowing how to stop.

Surrounded by cellophane in reds and whites and pastelled pinks, lap full of chocolates; the sticky taste of caramel in Suna’s own mouth, Osamu looks all of seventeen again — annoyingly handsome as he grins with armfuls of ribboned gifts — and so abruptly, that Suna finds himself winded by the memory of it, subconsciously crumpling the box in his hand with nothing but a faint register of the noise.

Here is that same Miya Osamu —from fifteen through to eighteen— who had been so disarming in his awkwardness under heavy handed attention, who had never gotten quite used to receiving such earnest confessions, who left behind a trail of broken hearts on February fourteenth.

Each year, there were letters shoved into shoe lockers, decorated with hearts and cute stickers and tied to cellophane bags of chocolate in fancy knotted ribbons that Suna had no idea how to curl. February fourteenth had become an important day of sorts –the National Day of Dread– with excited classmates and bets thrown down over whose lockers would be bursting at the seams. But for Suna, all that bloomed in the pit of his stomach was a certain unease; one that he'd written off as something born from simple annoyances like endless corridors brimming, limbs pouring from doors thrown-open, faces pressed against glass windows in their haste to get front-seat views of confessions.

And he’d convinced himself that it was all down to these things –a vending machine detour that took triple the time it should've, a gymnasium thundering with crowds far larger than usual– didn’t allow it to fester into something far more ugly, far more honest, for Suna's never truly been the type to pick apart feelings for what they are and where they stem.

Instead, he'd left it at that; just February fourteenth and the fate of being an unwilling spectator to the awkward skirting around homeroom entrances, elbows goading and jabbing at sides, and asking Ichinose, who sat closest to the back door, if Osamu-kun had a moment?

Just February fourteenth, with Osamu bashfully scratching at the back of his nape in picture perfect confessions on rooftops, in courtyards, by shoelockers. Too many to keep count and never accepted.

“But isn’t this honmei?” Osamu had asked, when they insisted that he should still accept the sweets even if not their confessions, that even if nothing could come from this, they wanted to just tell him, that they wanted him to just know; to just be here with Osamu and all of their honesty if only for a moment.

Because even when Osamu had rejected them – his ‘sorry, I can’t return your feelings’ all soft and muted as if he were the ikemen in every shoujo known to mankind – he’d broken their hearts so gently, had wrapped up his words in the softest of smiles, had apologised so sincerely, so earnestly, that they were all left with a certain ache of longing and the bittersweetness of a first love worth having.

What’s the point, Suna had thought, picking shavings off of his eraser as Osamu had ducked out of the class for the third time one morning, of putting yourself on the line like that?

But now. Now. He thinks of those strings of February fourteenth and all the moments in between, each walk home from practice when Suna’s steps felt sluggish; nervous in a way that he couldn’t quite understand. Thinks of the two of them, with cellophane wrappers torn open, chocolates shared between them, and Suna left wondering if there would be anyone that Osamu would accept. If Suna had managed to break down all sense of self preservation, scrounge together enough resolve, to go all-in for once, and uproot it and lay it all bare.

Would Osamu have received his own in the same way? With gentle eyes and a small smile and that Osamu-branded rejection, his kindness devastating and tucked into the linings of his voice?

(‘You know that’s not true’, comes that traitorous thought that perks up in its refusal to be silenced now.

And, in the trailing moments after, comes another to remind him, ‘But if not back then,’ unfailing in its response, ‘then at least he would now.’ And at least that, Suna knows to be true.)

“Hey,” Suna thinks a voice calls, words lost somewhere in the telephone wires knotting between his ears, "you okay?"

When Suna finds his gaze turning down towards the chocolates before him, the Osamu there stares back at him.

The photo, admittedly, is nice. His outfit is flattering, his hair is styled, artfully tousled, each flyaway purposeful; but the Osamu sitting across from him now, with a line on his cheek from the press of his flu mask, bangs mussed from cap removal and undercut on the other side of overgrown, is the one that gathers all of Suna’s attention in fistfuls; draws him in like a moth to a flame.

And really, there’s nothing that has been able to capture Osamu in his purest form, no amount of pixels that could do him justice. Not that billboard in the middle of Shibuya, the UNIQLO window displays where he's decked out in those 20 Colours of Cashmere; nor that second year volleyball pamphlet spread that Suna had teared out carefully, to keep tucked in between the pages of his chemistry textbook, hoarded like a secret. 

(How foolish Suna feels sometimes, feeling young and stupid and cowardly all over again; sitting across from Osamu right now and thinking that he’s the most beautiful person he’s ever seen in his life.)

"Hey," Osamu repeats, looking far too concerned when Suna jolts out of his daze and looks towards the Osamu across from him now, real and there and still too far away. “What are you thinking about?”

There is a certain danger, Suna knows, the way he could rupture their perfect balance. How safe they are right now; how comfortable they are; the longer he stays in his cowardice. How quickly that could change, if he just leans forward in the space between them, says, only half jokingly, would you hate it if told you I want to kiss you? Asks, a little foolishly, should I have told you then? Am I too late?

(If he just admits, a little pathetically, I still think about that day. Still think: ‘what would have happened if I had answered you differently?’)

So he swallows everything that weighs heavy in his mouth and scrunches his nose up. Takes each moment built too sturdy from regrets and what-ifs and if-onlys and crushes them all into dust. “Couldn’t you get a Chuupet CM instead?” he complains, schooling his face into a shade of unimpressed.

Osamu stares at him for a moment, prying almost, as if waiting for a sign that Suna will yield, that Suna wants to yield, that he wants to be given that opportunity to rip through the mask. He drops it though, when Suna doesn't, and takes his cue in rearranging his expression into something more playful.

“Wow, Suna Rintarou-senshu,” Osamu replies. He presses a hand to his heart and reaches the other out to flick Suna on the nose. “So ungrateful. I’m over here, handin’ over my heartfelt feelings.”

Chocolates fall to the sides, abandoned, and bait comes into willing palms. And in a flurry of limbs, Osamu launches himself over, tackling till Suna's back hits the floor, laughing all the way.

(Once, some time in his third year, Suna had made a promise with Ishikawa, his seatmate from first year and a member of the girl’s volleyball team.

There, leant over the communal sink, Ishikawa had looked over to her captain and sighed forlornly, nursing a crush that had lasted their whole high school years; and perhaps even, a little before then.

It had been something shaped from shoujo manga, the way Ishikawa had met Ito in middle school. Two girls, a deflated volleyball; shoes, too new and not yet broken into, that gnawed steady bites into the backs of ankles. An offering then, in the shape of a bike’s basketful of konbini snacks and accordion sheets of Shin-chan band aids.

And it was general knowledge, really, for most of their year group; their story tilted slightly based on who was telling it, angled through knowing looks and badly concealed giggles when shaped as the worst-kept secret of the girl’s volleyball team. And even outsiders had been convinced that between Ito and Ishikawa, it wouldn’t be a matter of if, so much as when.

“Megumin’s so cool,” she said, hands pausing under running water, paying no mind to the way puddles were pooling at her feet. Beside her, Suna had followed her gaze to one Ito Megumi overhead.

There wasn’t anything in particular that she was doing; nothing groundbreaking, really, to write home about.

Suna tilted his head, trying to collect together the scraps of something magical and mould it into what Ishikawa was seeing. Because it was no difficult feat to admit that Ito was cool. She was cool when she did her service aces, when she had squashed that monster spider with her slipper that time in training camp, when she managed to obliterate Atsumu in all of their silly little competitions, volleyball or DDR or everything in between.

At a loss, he came up empty-handed, and decided that it was easier to admit defeat in this certain game of eye spy, no wonders to be found this time around. For a brief moment, he considered nodding along if only to appease her, but decided against it as he shut off the taps. “She’s literally just carrying books.”

And to that, Ishikawa looked unperturbed. Dried her hands with flicks of her wrists and started making her way back to their class.

“What’s your point? She doesn’t need to do anything." Her hands, then, were brought together, fingers linking behind her. She skipped to her own rhythm down the corridor ahead of him, a spring folded into her steps as if unable to contain the tiny joy from seeing Ito alone. Suna remained rooted to the spot, and when she turned around to look at him, laughter spinning into the heels of her feet, she looked so earnest in her happiness. "I just think that she looks the prettiest whenever I’m looking at her.”

How rose tinted this glass was, to plaster itself so unapologetically across any view.

Suna had laughed, though not unkindly, for it would take far more than that to sting her, and had asked, “You still haven’t told Ito?”

“I’m a coward!” Ishikawa announced, far too easily, and stuck her tongue out at him, continuing on when Suna fell back into step. “But at least I know,” chin gesturing over as Suna’s gaze followed, the back of Osamu’s head looming into view. “At least I’m not kidding myself.”

And for once, Suna didn’t spend time on words of denial that were always wasted on Ishikawa, who was stubborn and right most of the time, almost frustratingly so; and who managed to inspire a sense of honesty that Suna failed to evade.

“Besides,” she continued on, shaking her bangs out of her face and bringing her hand into a fist as if she were the main character in some hero manga, puffing up in declaration, “I’ll stop being one by graduation.”

But graduation had come and gone, and Suna’s message – did you stop being a coward, deleted and replaced with how did it go – was left unanswered.

On the third day of silence stamped read and no other signs of life, Ishikawa had called him when he was on the walk home from the convenience store, a plastic bag looped around his wrist, stuffed full of a peace offering for his sister.

“Ask me some other time,” came her voice through the static, past the swell of self depreciation and defeat, all brittle laughter with its edges blunt now. “Next time, I’ll be able to say yes,” she had told him, with a renewed determination and a promise to be kept for the years, “and you’ll be able to tell me that you’ve stopped pretending.”)

By the time May rolls around, Suna finds himself back in Hirakata. He's not usually in Osaka more than once a year, but he ends up running a delivery errand to his aunt under phone calls from his parents mildly tinged with guilt tripping in the shape of ‘I see that our hotshot son is too busy to help us’.

Again, come the floodgates, and he braces himself for fallout. He gets wrangled into a four hour unplanned but equally expected pitstop at his aunt’s house, under fire for terrible sleeping habits and endorsements that don’t include household appliances and the apparently personal attack that comes with his lack of a significant other.

“It’s been a while since you’ve dated,” his aunt goes on to say, halfway through spooning more rice into his bowl. “And even when you did, it’s never been serious! When are you going to settle down?”

Beside him, Ayako, breathes a tiny sigh before shovelling more food into her mouth. Suna, in turn, feels no weariness.

(After all, it’s true, what she says.

A string of half-hearted s and simple pleasantries in occasional homemade bentos and walks hand-in-hand to cafes that were deemed popular amongst couples. Those cafes that had queues wrapping around neighbouring buildings, that had cute photo-worthy interior design and romantic lighting that casted shoujo bubbles across the walls and ceilings. Ones he often ended up going to with Osamu, knees knocking beneath their too-small tables as Osamu kept score on his patented cafe review list.

It was almost a pattern really, with Mukai, who had broken up with him in the middle of a window shopping sort-of-date. “We make terrible boyfriends,” he had said, absentmindedly fiddling with the string of his Beams bag, and Suna had been so willing to agree – a tiny, petty part of him tempted to ask, 'Boyfriends? Are we even that?'

Though Suna’d argue that it was an upgrade from a previous sort-of-relationship, which had ended without the sought-after fanfare on his part. Suna stayed stubborn in his refusal to rise to the bait after he was told ‘this isn’t working anymore’, paired with an earth rumbling sigh (misplaced, in Suna’s opinion) and he didn’t bother to restrain himself as he blurted out, ‘was it ever?’

One of his more successful relationships had been with Tsurumi-san. She was as patient with him as she was kind, even when she shouldn't have been, when any other person wouldn't have been, and had left Suna developing a fierce loyalty to her instead.

It’d been an easy relationship and an even easier end of one. A simple, “Let’s break up,” mentioned almost breezily, in between sips of peach tea, straw slightly stained pink with her lip tint. “We’re better off as friends.”

And to this, Suna had pushed the stray ice cubes in a circle at the bottom of his cup with his straw, the clink of ice against glass drowned out by the cafe chatter. “Yeah,” came his easy agreement. “We are, aren’t we?”

To their already ladened table, another set of pancakes was ordered, fluffy and sweet and an advertised little bite of heaven, and it was easy enough, natural enough, for Suna to lean in for a parting hug at the end of the afternoon.

Tsurumi-san had lingered then, had cupped his cheek in the safety of her palm, and Suna could smell the light scent of her perfume on the inside of her wrist. In that moment, she’d looked so devastated, a certain sorrow that was almost guarded from Suna and his probing.

“Having second thoughts?” Suna had asked when the silence had stretched on too long and Tsurumi-san was looking progressively more miserable by the second. There was something about her that had made Suna want to become bratty and cute and charming; taking any form that would make her laugh, her happiness his motivation. “Did you realise that I’m a catch after all?”

But Tsurumi-san didn’t yield to any laughter, and instead had crumbled further still, catching her lip between her teeth in worry.

“You look after yourself, okay?” she told him, ignoring his weak attempts of distraction. “You’re allowed to want, you know. You’re allowed to go for things.”

There was a stint then, with a fellow athlete. Kawauchi Jirou, from the swim team; and along with him, a certain thrill that came with being with someone who understood that drive, that bone-deep need to make the cut. Kisses then, snuck behind lockers, the dewy kiss of chlorine on his skin and laughter kissed into his mouth as Suna’s fingers ran through wet hair. Swim meet tickets pressed into palms with I want you to be there breathed into his skin, cheering from the stands as Jirou settled into his spot on the starting block, and a drawer-full of stolen boyfriend hoodies, that fell slightly short at the wrists but drew broader across the torso; Kawauchi stamped heavy across his shoulders.

A quiet, “You don't have to always play it safe, Rintarou," whispered into the dead of the night, two days before Jirou had planned to leave for Australia, passport on his bedside table and two suitcases stuffed with shirts and toiletries and dreams, big and bright and folded down to size.

By then, Suna had stopped being completely bothered by it. He had found that relationships, if sailed past the point of ease, were more trouble than their worth. But should it be concerning? That he’s never had one of those types of breakups? Those drama worthy arguments that led to drowning sorrows and heavy gazes and the taste of bad decisions lingering the morning after.)

At his aunt's dining room table, Suna gives a closed mouth smile. “Don’t you always say that famous people are stupid for dating instead of focusing on their careers?”

“And athletes not being in a relationship has its own charm,” Ayako decides to pipe up, trying to alleviate the oncoming trainwreck. Mentally, to his endless to-do list, Suna adds ‘get her an autograph from her favourite figure skater that he sometimes passes at the gym’. “Fans like that these days.”

His aunt, unfortunately, shares no such sentiments. She pulls a face and shakes her head, scoffing and looking far too grave for a subject like Suna’s inadequate dating life, disregarding Suna completely as she frowns at Ayako. “He’s not an idol. ”

“Not with that kind of face,” his cousin agrees, nodding sagely, and Suna demotes her from the thirty-second status as favourite cousin, all positive thoughts he’s ever had of her destroyed. “But other athletes totally have that ikemen vibe going for them! Wasn’t Oikawa Tooru a Junon Boy in high school?”

From where Suna's been drawing circles with his chopsticks in the miso, he stops and grimaces. “What? No. Where did you even get that from?”

“Really? It was someone though,” Ayako insists. “Who was it… Sakusa Kiyoomi? Or Bokuto Koutarou’s old setter, what was his name?”

“Akaashi,” Suna replies, “but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t him-”

“Oh!” his aunt interrupts, steamrolling right through Suna's words, and claps her hands together looking delighted all so suddenly. “Wasn’t it our Osamu-kun?”

Suna laughs. “Osamu?” The image of high school Osamu blinking slowly at a street scout with zero trust and absolute certainty that he was getting scammed forms in his mind. “No way would he go for that.”

Ayako hums. “He totally gives off that energy though! I saw that CM that he did for Tsubame Shinko where he’s wearing the apron and brewing coffee.” She wiggles her eyebrows, looking far too gleeful, and elbows Suna’s arm enough to jostle his sleeve into his soup. “Miya Osamu, the nation’s boyfriend. Or husband, now, right?” her question directed to Suna as if he knows.

Unfortunately, Suna does indeed know that Osamu has been upgraded to husband since he had come out with a string of commercials that scream domestic. His latest detergent one where he’s doing the laundry and ironing and flexing his arms a little unnecessarily for something as banal as fitted-sheet-folding was a massive hit. 

"So?" Ayako prompts, nudging him again, "What is it like, to come home to Miya Osamu?"

(And perhaps, Suna reflexes are unpolished, when he offers none of his usual responses in laughing or shrugging or a deadpan joke.

For this is tilting into territory that he’s been adamant to steer clear of, has been restraining himself from entertaining. But it’s all far too easy to imagine, this idea of getting to be the only one that Miya Osamu comes home to; all built from snapshots that he has long become familiar with, habits he’s grown to know as well as his own.

The press of a hand against his back as they shuffle around each other in the kitchen; footfalls familiar, and navigating lands through touch alone. For Suna knows this, and the way Miya Osamu sounds, voice rough with sleep as he shifts in between dreams; the smell of his shampoo lingering on his pillowcases; the way he always drapes a blanket over Suna when he finds him asleep on the couch, always takes Suna’s glasses off, careful not to wake him, always lowers the television volume into a steady lull.

How he sinks into a chair after a particularly long day, how his socks are usually mismatched. How the genkan is strewn with sneakers and flip flops and the occasional pair of dress shoes, while his house slippers always return, neatly lined up; how when doing the dishes, he always washes cutlery last.

And Suna indulges himself even further, when he thinks of all of those habits in between; that Osamu always sees him off at the door, patient, always, even though Suna keeps stretching out those goodbyes; that he’s always warm in his greeting when he kicks off his shoes and says ‘I’m here’; and warmer still, when he’s the one to tell Suna ‘welcome back’.)

He ends up saying none of this though, and Ayako is kind enough to weave new conversations into the fold and let the tailends of the thought rest.

(That night, Suna thinks of the distance between the not-quites and the nearlys in a space for two. No spares, no guests, no extras; no clothes borrowed or moments stolen, as they part for train rides back.

No longer cities or prefectures or year-long dreams apart; just a home there, for two to always return to.)

At their reunion in Hyogo, Osamu widens the gap to a four millimetre victory. Atsumu stands, scandalised as he insists that club stats are full of lies, and demands a rematch immediately, ready to slip off his geta.

It’s become another routine, these meetups. Year round, they find each other in little pockets in between the months; meals here and there, impromptu arrivals on doorsteps under the guise of business trips; but the whole team –Kita-san’s team– always returns to this summer festival in Hyogo as if another checkpoint in time. There are rules now, traditions too, put in place after Ginjima had arrived in town wearing jeans and a t-shirt. His next door neighbour had deemed it a crime and inflated stall prices based upon clothing choices, with the only acceptable currency being customers decked out in yukata.

Over years, they come together with offerings of nothing newsworthy. Sometimes it’s the talk of a string of failed goukon or a wedding planned by all the neighbourhood aunties, with only one half of a couple. Others come with Akagi, saying offhandedly, “I wanna quit my job,” his hands tucked into his sleeves, “hey Shinsuke, d’you have any space on your farm?”

This year, Atsumu hands out autographs to those who do and do not ask, paired with an offer to seal them with a kiss pumped full of the promises from the national team’s most charming setter.

Hum low in his throat, Kosaku taps an index finger against his chin in thought, then widens his eyes in makeshift wonder. “How are you gonna get Kageyama to kiss them all for you?”

Atsumu chokes on his drink. “Tobio?!”

They all make noises of approval, singing praises to Kageyama Tobio-senshu and his pinpoint tosses, goodie two shoes or not; the way the court stretches out, as if his to command.

When Suna delivers the final blow in a suggestion of selling the signed photos, because he’s already got a bunch of photos of Atsumu, he doesn’t need any more, Atsumu raises a pointed finger to the sky, as if he could shower down a decade’s worth of misfortune.

(Then, finger still hovering, he backtracks, offers an exclusive range, and tries to bargain for 80% of the profits.)

They catch up and place bets on rosters and this coming season’s V.League champions. Kosaku brings out a magazine and they all flock like neighbourhood gossips to coo over Aran and his double page spread in all its glory. And from the earth once more, their competitions rise, swapping out Inarizaki’s gymnasium flooring for winding paths, their rows of stalls, and their endless supply of festival games.

“Your hair’s so long now,” Osamu notes, after Suna shakes it out of his face again, gearing up to take on Ginjima’s challenge of goldfish scooping. He pulls him to the side to offer the hairband on his wrist and Suna plucks it off with a grin.

“If I win,” Suna promises, looping the band around his tiny ponytail a third time, “I’ll buy you another kakigori.”

Their feet fall in step, into the same usual rhythm that Suna has missed, for it comes with muscle memory, burrowed past his skin from when he was fifteen. They go, like usual; together, then apart, lost in the bustle of the festival.

But like before, like always, Osamu finds him through the crowds when Suna scuffs, catching uneven ground. A hand pulls his body in towards another, familiar warmth finding rest on the small of his back.

“Clumsy,” Osamu says, voice on the brink of teasing, fondness humming in his chest.

Suna rolls his eyes. “You’re one to talk.”

(Once, when Osamu and Atsumu had waded waist-deep into one of their competitive streaks, Suna had gotten caught in the crossfire, bodies crashing as his geta went flying into the whirlwinds of crowds. Suna had risen to the bait that day, swept up easily as he dove in, lunging for the tailends of Atsumu’s robes. And into the chaos of Kosaku’s wheezing laughter, Ginjima’s sputters as he wrestled with his own footing, Suna had lost all grudges as quickly as they came, distracted by the sting of pavements under tender heels.

In the aftermath, tucked in a pocket of quiet, Osamu had knelt before him, his hand light when cradling Suna’s ankle, when brushing asphalt from the softs of his soles.)

No shoes lost this time around, but Suna stays close anyway, hands returning to grasp forearms and elbows and wrists, till they stray past the heart of the crowds and settle deep into the evening.

Overhead, the sky blooms in reds and whites and yellows, as Suna steps forward and reaches for Osamu's hand. And draped beneath the cover of laughter in the night, Suna feels young and daring and oddly fearless, a little drunk off cheap beer and kita nishiki sake; drunker still, on the way Osamu looks so free.

Here, they do not speak of sprints through the rain, of the bubble that builds under convenience stores at night, and their harsh, artificial lighting. The dangerous toeing, of lines marking classmates and best friends; defenders of centre line gates, standing three metres deep.

They do not speak of an afternoon in spring; of missing second buttons and brushing petals from hair, dyed grey. Of the two of them in the doorway of an empty volleyball court, with Suna’s hands clasped in his. The way Osamu had taken half a step forward, and Suna, one step back, in a rejection thrown down through distance.

(How it was then, in split seconds, that Suna had realised that some things were irreversible when Osamu did not follow, and instead, offered a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. When at the entrance gate, Osamu held his hand for one breath of a second, and let go.)

And nor will they speak of this.

Of a night in summer, the fireworks muffled under raging pulses; of pulling Osamu in close, with fingers knotted into the front of his yukata.

Of missing lips, and instead, catching the corner of a mouth, in the dip below a cheekbone. An embarrassed grin hidden against his shoulder; skin flushed pink, from ears to cheeks to nape. Another, to feel the press against a barely there dimple, to run fingers through his hair; and burn the shape of him into dreams.

And Suna does not think of a December in second year, a night too cold to be hunched over the bathtub in a t-shirt, thin and worn and stained with developer. How that night, he marveled at how Osamu’s hair was softer than he had imagined it’d be and noticed the mole on the back of Osamu’s neck. How he pressed a thumb to it to discover these points of weakness – Osamu, in being so ticklish; Suna, in never knowing how to look away; for he’s spent just shy of a decade failing in this, with Osamu warm and open and devastatingly wonderful, his limbs loose from laughter.

He does not think– of anything more. Only Osamu,

and leaning closer still, to press their bodies together, chase the taste of laughter back into his mouth. And admit that this is not a crush, in no matters fleeting; and it will not fade in a scab left unpicked.

Because close enough here, Suna could ask him, so honestly, ask him, a little foolishly,

Do you know that I’m in love with you?