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It’s been a week since Rintarou’s roommate left. He was already late as it was; everyone else had left for the fall break hours ago and he was still there, sweeping the floor, double and triple-checking his suitcase, making notes in his massive anatomy and physiology textbook.
Until Rintarou had sat up from where he was wallowing in sadness on the couch, a volleyball in his hands, and said, “You don’t have to stay for me, you know. You can leave whenever. I’ll be fine.”
Yahaba had stared at him and replied, pity colouring his voice, “I’m coming back on the second of October.”
“Okay. See you.”
Then he’d blown out the door, and the dorm was— is empty, and Rintarou had made a list on Monday of things he should do to feel like a human being. He hasn’t checked off a single one.
His volleyball rolls to a stop at his foot and he picks it up. He could go to the gym, maybe—it might be open.
But then again, he’s not even on the volleyball team, and he’s only been to the gym once in the three months he’s lived in Tokyo.
Also, volleyball is significantly less fun when there’s no one else to play with.
Closing his eyes, the honey-yellow floors of the Inarizaki gym are the first to come to mind. Then: a blue and yellow volleyball, air salonpas, red jackets. The smell of Osamu’s shampoo, the playful tilt of his smile. The softness of his kiss.
Rintarou rolls off the couch and pours himself a bowl of cereal, in those pretty red bowls he bought with Osamu when he first got here. They remind Rintarou of him, so he grips them tighter and pretends not to hear the heater sputtering its last dying breaths.
There are three things pinned to his bulletin board, now.
A calendar, punctuated occasionally by exams and lectures and a phone call every Saturday at 7 pm with Osamu, like clockwork.
According to the red Sharpie, it’s Saturday today. Rintarou glances at the clock. Seven hours until he can hear Osamu’s voice.
The second pinned item: a roll of film with pictures of him and Osamu, spun sugar sticky on their mouths and laughter bright on their faces. It’s washed out now, faded from years of overexposure, but Rintarou leaves it there anyway.
The third item is a list. Not just a list—rather, it’s the list. It’s made on Yahaba’s egg stationery, all bright yellows and baby blues. Rintarou thinks—no, he knows —that his roommate is an online shopping addict.
Things to do over autumn break, the cute, egg-themed list reads. He should probably get around to doing those, any of them, but his nest of blankets is so warm and his sweatpants can still go a day or two without washing and Netflix is practically calling his name. He could fester away in a pool of self-pity and bad hygiene and no one would know until Yahaba came back. What happens if a human doesn’t eat for two weeks? Or move? Probably nothing good. Osamu would get mad at him for even wondering.
He rubs his eyes and focuses on the first row of the list, which harbours a few scribbles and a tiny egg in the corner. It’s a cheery hue of yellow, sunnier than anything in the room has the right to be.
Except for the bowls, maybe, thinks Rintarou. Those can stay. Those bowls need to be bright, or else Rintarou is afraid he might forget.
He’s afraid he might forget the way Osamu snorts when he laughs and coughs at the same time. The way their hearts thump in time together, the way Osamu stands tall, unmoving and sincere, and hugs Rintarou so tight it feels like a guarantee.
He’s afraid he might forget the weight of Osamu’s head on his shoulder, what it feels like to have all 184 centimetres of moonshine holding his hand. The swoopy thing his stomach does when Osamu grins like the sound of Rintarou’s voice is all he needs to be happy.
He shakes his head. Tries for the last time to focus on the list.
_________
1. Go on a walk.
He can do that. It might even be nice, especially since most of the pretty Chinese bellflowers he likes are still around. He tugs on his jacket, pockets his phone, and takes the stairs two at a time, Atsumu’s voice echoing in his ear: no fair, Sunarin! Yer legs are longer than mine, I should get a head start.
His dorm is on the third floor. He isn’t used to the height, looking out of the window to see a parking lot below and people walking beneath his feet. He isn’t used to the people, either. He figures both of those will come with time.
The cold smacks him full in the face, unusually brisk for early autumn, but he just pulls his scarf higher up his cheeks and ducks his chin down. If Osamu was here, Rintarou would probably shove his cold hands into Osamu’s jacket pockets and steal his body heat.
Osamu complained about it sometimes, but never with any real anger, just interlacing his hand with Rintarou’s and rubbing his fingers gently to get some of the warmth back in.
Rintarou pulls out his phone to check the time. Six and a half more hours. He can do it.
The campus is bare, only a stray jacket or two left on park benches and a chip bag hanging half-out of the trash to remind him there were other people here, once.
There’s probably a student or two in their dorm right now, but even the people who weren’t going home had somewhere to be. A friend’s house, or a relative to visit, or something.
A half-dead bellflower falls on the path ahead of him. It’s a picturesque scene, the two of them make. The limp blossom opened half to the sky and half to the pavement, and Rintarou. Fingers freezing and breaths puffing out cold.
He sits down on a park bench and closes his eyes, drawing his knees to his chest.
He tries to think about nothing in particular, but memories of muggy summer days back in Hyogo slam into him anyway, the force of four years spent with Miya Osamu (and by extension, Miya Atsumu too, but as a general rule, Rintarou prefers not to think about him) enough to drop a stone in his stomach.
The fields were covered with grass seeds, blanched and delicate, and the air smelled like sunscreen and jasmine. His hands were sweaty, but Osamu held them anyway.
The cicadas didn’t give a fuck about what time of the night it was (are there even cicadas in Tokyo?). The windows were open, all the time. The smell of sizzling food wafted out from inside the Miya house.
Rintarou presses his lips together to stop a sound from coming out. He should stop thinking about Hyogo if he wants any chance at making it through autumn break without breaking and shelling out his bank account for a train back home.
Back in February, when his parents had told him on Skype that they wouldn’t be able to save up enough for a train ticket if he wanted to come for the new year too, Rintarou had just shrugged. It had been hard enough paying for university with a partial scholarship anyway. It made sense.
And the Miyas had offered to pay for the trip, but Osamu was having enough trouble with loans and rent and all the other financial strain that came with starting a business. Rintarou didn’t want to trouble them, back then.
The reality hadn’t quite set in yet, that he wouldn’t get to see Osamu either, so he had brushed it off and forgotten about it in favour of studying for his exam on Western models of economic theory.
Now, though. Now he shuts his eyes tight, pushes all thoughts of Hyogo out of his mind, and moves on to number two on the list.
_________
2. Stock up on groceries.
This one is doable, easily. There’s a market right at the edge of campus, dirt-cheap, that sells all manner of things—double A batteries and skeins of multi-coloured yarn and tortilla chips. They need more dishwasher liquid, anyway, and he might as well pick up some food while he’s at it.
There’s a teenager, probably around sixteen, sitting at the counter when he arrives. He looks bored out of his mind.
He doesn’t say a word to Rintarou as he scans the items, and Rintarou holds a staring match with the girl on the cover of some superhero contact to avoid making eye contact with him.
When he gets back to the dorm, Rintarou opens the blue mini-fridge, cozily tucked between the dishwasher and the kitchen counter. He loads up the empty shelves with sauces and cucumbers and freeze-dried mango pieces. Do freeze-dried fruits go in the fridge?
He should ask Osamu.
He tosses the trail mix on his desk and bites into a knockoff Akuma no Onigiri from his selection. It’s kind of dry, he notes. Could use more vinegar in the rice.
His eyes skim over the roll of film stuck on his bulletin board. Osamu’s face, tongue stuck out, eyes crossed. He needed a haircut then, hair skimming his jawline instead of cutting off neatly near his ears like it usually does.
He takes another bite of the onigiri. Swallows mechanically.
In his first semester, he’d taken a history class as part of the course requirements. It was mostly about the Meiji revolution—the last samurai, the government education system, the warships, but the only thing that had really stuck with Rintarou was that everyone (and everything) comes head to head with a severe reckoning, at least once.
This might be his reckoning, he muses. But it seems a little too low-key. No one is even around to see it happen.
He picks up his phone, and—against his better judgement—sends a text to Ginjima because neither Osamu nor Atsumu ever checks their messages, and Rintarou has only received a reply to a text he sent Kita once.
(It said: please email me next time.)
from: suna rintarou
which five ppl would you want to see you die
from: suna rintarou
like if you got to decide
from: ginjima hitoshi
what the fuck
from: ginjima hitoshi
is that a threat
from: suna rintarou
im curious
from: ginjima hitoshi
can you be less curious
from: suna rintarou
probably not
from: ginjima hitoshi
well u probably aren't the first person i’d want to see me die if thats what ur asking
from: ginjima hitoshi
everyone misses u btw
Rintarou swallows down the not-quite-a-sob building up in his throat and brushes his hair out of his eyes, glaring down at the screen.
It’s so easy to slip back into conversation with Gin. Like Rintarou isn’t three hundred miles away, like they’re back in high school and he isn’t alone in a dorm room in Tokyo, the dishwasher whirring away in the background and a bag of granola sitting on his desk.
from: suna rintarou
yeah yeah i'll see u in december
from: ginjima hitoshi
have a good one sunarin
from: suna rintarou
thanks for not even answering my question
from: suna rintarou
asshole
from: ginjima hitoshi
i aim to please
He swings his elbows off the kitchen counter. He thinks it’s probably time for the third item on the list.
_________
3. Watch a movie you haven’t seen before.
Texting Yahaba for recommendations is his safest option, but Rintarou would rather not bother him while he’s on break and besides, he has Yahaba’s Netflix password on lock anyway.
(He figured it out after the second week. It’s his dog’s name.)
So instead, he flops back onto the couch, roots around for his laptop, and logs into Netflix. They don’t have a TV in their dorm room. Yahaba has promised to bring a small one back from his house after the break, but he’s from Miyagi and Rintarou doubts the practicality of bringing a TV on a two-hour bullet train, so he isn’t holding his breath.
He puts on a random movie that he probably hasn’t seen before (they all blur together after a while) and picks up his trail mix.
He feels kind of dramatic, sprawled out on the couch in pure boredom, one of those shitty dorm room water glasses in one hand and a couple of dried mango pieces in the other.
Like the ancient Romans, or the people in those old Hollywood movies his mom likes to watch.
Or a character from an Oscar Wilde novel, the ones they read in his English literature course when they studied morals and greed and money and the meaning in art.
Love, too. Mostly love.
He swirls the water and pretends that he’s holding a wine glass instead. The filter they own is probably broken because upon closer inspection, the water seems sort of murky and not totally drinkable. He shrugs and downs the whole thing in one go.
What am I even doing? he wonders with shocking clarity after he’s been sitting in the same spot for so long that there’s a Rintarou-shaped indentation in the couch cushion. Half the movie is over and the main couple is kissing in the rain.
The boy is crying. His trail mix is almost empty. He’s been putting off a bathroom trip for at least fifteen minutes and his bladder is practically crying for help.
And it’s still only 1:30 in the afternoon.
He doesn’t bother to pause the movie before heading to the bathroom and brushing his teeth. He washes his hands, applies eyeliner (even though no one else will see him), and puts on deodorant. He might as well try to stay presentable, even though a cocktail of loneliness and apathy is eating him up from the inside-out.
If someone were to eat him, he would probably taste like peanut m&ms at this point, with how little else he’s consumed in the past twenty-four hours.
He’s been living alone for seven days and it’s starting to feel impossibly draining.
He thought he’d be more excited about the prospect of free reign for two blissfully lecture-free weeks, but listlessness had kicked in only three hours after Yahaba went back to Miyagi, replacing any vestiges of motivation with—nothing.
(Well, trail mix. Trail mix now fills the spaces where enthusiasm had leaked out. He’s like a shell of a person at this point. Or a deflated balloon. Half empty space—maybe helium, half m&ms and raisins and bits of granola.)
Even before the fall break, the homesickness was still there. He still longed for the smell of the Miyas’ house when dinner was cooking and the vending machines near Inarizaki that sold Chuupet sticks by the dozens and the goddamn cicadas, which he never thought he would miss.
His roommate is nice. They bond over high school volleyball, over long-distance relationships, over coming from rural outskirts to the biggest city in Japan. They’re friends, for the most part. And yet…
Yahaba is from Miyagi. But for Rintarou, he’s come to represent Tokyo. A tangible reminder that he isn’t in Hyogo no matter how hard he wishes he was, and he won’t be back there for another few months.
Rintarou doesn’t regret coming to Tokyo for university, per se. He knows there’s more opportunity here than anywhere else, and he’s lucky to have been accepted, but it doesn’t stop the yearning from creeping in every so often.
He’s sitting on the couch, debating the pros and cons of going back to the market to buy three (or four) more bags of trail mix, when the buzzing of his phone cuts through the haze of lethargy.
After half a minute, he finally manages to find his phone. A caller ID flashes on the screen.
Ah. It’s Yahaba. The Roommate.
(That’s his name in Rintarou’s contact list, at least).
He clears his throat and presses the answer button. “Hey, Yahaba. What’s up?” His throat is dry and scratchy from disuse.
He doesn’t think he’s spoken to another human being since Atsumu called him on Tuesday, when Rintarou tried and failed to disguise the loneliness staining his voice.
“Nothing much,” is Yahaba’s reply, tinny from the other side of the line and loud in the heavy silence of the dorm room. “I just wanted to check in on you.”
Rintarou barely refrains from rolling his eyes. “I’m fine. Go have fun. Talk to your family. Meet up with your boyfriend.”
“I’m actually with him now,” Yahaba says cheerfully, sounding way too peppy for Rintarou’s current cloak of despair. Then, a muffled hiss clearly directed elsewhere: “Will you shut up for half a second? I’m on the phone.”
“Listen, Yahaba,” Rintarou tells him. “I appreciate it, really. But don’t waste time on my account. I’m not gonna die,” he finishes, matter-of-fact. Probably not. Hopefully not. Absently, he pops another peanut in his mouth and swallows without even chewing.
“If you say so.” The doubt in Yahaba’s voice is palpable. “But make sure to get some fresh air, okay Suna? And call your friends, I’m sure they miss you too.”
It’s stupid that such a simple phrase is enough to make him sob, but that’s what his life has come to. He can barely breathe through the lump forming in his throat, so he just chokes out, “Yeah. I’ll see you in October, I guess.”
“Don’t die while I’m gone! I don’t really wanna drag you to class when I get back. Kyoutani Kentarou, fuck off and let me— ”
Whatever Yahaba is going to say next gets cut off by the line going dead. Rintarou rests his head in his hands.
Less than four more hours until he can see Osamu’s face. His stomach churns (although that might just be his digestive system trying to deal with the onslaught of assorted nuts and dried fruits) and he practically aches with longing.
He squeezes his eyes tight, trying his hardest to remember the sound of Osamu’s laugh and his sloping nose and his dumb, boyish grin that always has one side of his mouth pulling up higher than the other.
Rintarou’s lip trembles. His eyeliner is almost definitely smudged by now, but he can’t find it in himself to care, so he just focuses his attention back on the movie.
_________
4. Do a Sudoku puzzle.
Rintarou likes to think of his skills and weaknesses as a system of checks and balances.
For example: he can drive well and doesn’t get stressed out during traffic jams, so it only makes sense that he can’t cook. He’s incredibly flexible, and also lacks the mental muscles needed to fill out the crossword. His speed and stamina are better than most; ergo, he sucks at math.
He can jump really fucking high, and so to counteract that, he has no semblance of intelligence when it comes to logic puzzles.
He sits on the kitchen counter to prepare himself for Sudoku-solving. There are technically two stools to sit on, but both of them look like they could snap at any moment and they make Rintarou’s backside go numb if he sits there for too long. The counter is honestly much more comfortable.
He has a Sudoku puzzle that he tore out of one of Yahaba’s magazines spread out on the table and a pencil with sunny-side-up eggs dotted on it held tightly in his hand.
Unfortunately, he does not take to Sudoku half as well as he had hoped. Less like a duck to water and more like…a turkey to a salt flat. Or something.
He’s filled in one column so far and half a row, and he’s pretty sure he’s going to have to start again. Is death by Sudoku possible? He’ll have to ask Osamu.
But Osamu might hear that and try to kill Atsumu via Sudoku, so it might not be the best idea.
Aran is probably a better choice. For all his head-shaking and disappointed sighs, he at least tries to give answers when possible.
It’s after half an hour of scrolling through Instagram and searching up “Sudoku tips” that he calls it quits. He throws down the pencil, making a much bigger deal of it than he needs to, and walks away from the counter.
The puzzle is half-completed, which is much more than Rintarou expected to complete, so he offers himself a pat on the back for a job partially done.
Osamu might be good at Sudoku, muses Rintarou offhandedly. Better than Atsumu, at least.
Rintarou will get to ask him in three hours.
The problem with having weekly calls—the Long-Distance Conundrum, as Yahaba has termed it—is that there are only so many minutes in which to relay so much information. Rintarou has around two hours to catch up with Osamu on his entire week (and vice versa), assuming neither of them are too tired to talk.
The first caveat of the Long-Distance Conundrum is that so many things don’t translate well. ‘You had to be there’ moments or funny incidents that require too much context for the five minutes he can afford to spend, or things Rintarou doesn’t know how to say that would normally be obvious.
If they were in the same room, Osamu would be able to read him and find out what he wants to tell him. But as it is, they just have shitty laptop speakers and emojis and fuzzy video calls to clue each other in.
Which isn’t even counting the number of things he forgets to say altogether. As soon as the call ends, he’ll inevitably remember five things that slipped his mind and think, I should have said this, and talked about how last week I…
Then he’ll find himself wishing, again, they could have talked just a bit longer.
Even if Osamu texted regularly, it wouldn’t come across the same way.
It’s difficult enough being a face on a screen. Trying to cram every little bit of emotion into a few thousand pixels would be so much worse.
He’s like a dragon, hoarding every precious second he can talk to Osamu with iron talons and rationing them out carefully, wary of spending too many at once.
Saturday evening is the one time they’re both free and don’t have to get up early the next day; they had tried other days, sure, but they typically ended with Rintarou falling asleep at his laptop or Osamu replying in monosyllables because he was too exhausted to think about crafting proper answers.
He’d never had to worry about this before, when they were in each other’s company every waking minute.
Now it makes him want to cry, or scream. Or use next year’s tuition money to buy a train ticket.
Then he could go back to Hyogo and hug Osamu for the first time in months. Finally get rid of the homesickness twisting his stomach into knots. A fair trade, he thinks.
Rintarou was incredibly, wholly unprepared to uproot his entire life and move to Tokyo, despite his excitement at living away from home for the first time. The adrenaline had only lasted for two days at most before yearning set in and started hanging over him every day like a fog.
Six months later, it’s not as bad, but being alone brings it rushing back. Like he’s still sitting on the stained dorm room carpet, pressed between his bed and the wall, shaking with how badly he wants to go home.
Hyogo isn’t even his home—not really.
He’d learned to play volleyball in Aichi, grown up with trips to the market next to his middle school. Had to say goodbye to all his friends when a scout from Inarizaki gave him a pamphlet and he accepted.
But in the three years he lived in Hyogo, somehow the rice fields and cobblestone pavements and shitty aircon systems came to mean more to him than his childhood in Aichi ever had.
He looks out the tiny, smudged window of his dorm room and wonders if Tokyo will ever do that to him. Almost immediately, he dismisses the possibility.
Tokyo has his English literature course and his cool economics professor and Yahaba. Rintarou likes all of them, but they feel impossibly fleeting.
Tokyo doesn’t have Miya Osamu.
It strikes him suddenly. His trail mix-addled, Sudoku-ed out brain leads him to the epiphany that it’s not really about home, after all, or even Hyogo. It’s about Osamu.
It’s about the fact that more than any place, Osamu is what makes him feel at home.
Rintarou’s favourite memories from Hyogo are all courtesy of Miya Osamu. Midnight runs for milk bread and convenience-store onigiri; knees knocking, hearts racing, stupid and reckless and in love.
Sure, Atsumu contributed occasionally, but Rintarou mostly just remembers the best insults thrown and the petty satisfaction he felt from one-upping him.
Now, Osamu’s video calls are the highlight of his week, when they’re both punch drunk on each other’s voice after so long, swapping stories and jokes and random pet names.
One time, they held an informal competition to see who could say the sappiest things without getting embarrassed (mostly for Rintarou’s entertainment). Osamu was so mortified after calling Rintarou ‘sweetheart’ that his neck and face flushed brick-red.
It was the hardest Rintarou had laughed in months. His cheeks hurt afterwards from smiling so much. His heart was full to bursting and he felt like he was walking on air.
That memory is second only to when Osamu helped him move in. He had stood in the middle of the cramped dorm room, boxes in his arms, Rintarou’s past and present and future all at once, and Rintarou had blurted out, “I love you so much.”
In retrospect, it was as cheesy as all-get-out, but Rintarou treasures the smile that had lit up Osamu’s face almost as much as the bright red bowls they’d gone out and bought that day.
He crouches down to pick up a pile of dirty clothes strewn on the floor. His biggest pet peeve with doing laundry in the dorm is there’s always someone else there—crying, or cramming for an exam, or trying to deal with a hangover.
But considering the campus is a ghost town right now, it’s the perfect time for number five.
_________
5. Do at least one round of laundry.
This one is probably—no, definitely—the easiest on the list. But Rintarou drags his feet regardless.
He takes his time putting all his clothes in the bag, counting coins to make sure he has enough for washing and drying. He digs a pair of ratty sneakers from the back of the closet.
It’s not the physical act of doing the laundry that makes him so unenthusiastic. Rather, the prospect of leaving his cozy (albeit run-down) dorm room and lugging a big bag of dirty clothes down three flights of stairs is what causes him to opt-out of the stairs altogether.
He hangs a left at the end of the hallway where he’d usually go right and presses the button for the elevator instead.
He’s never seen anyone use it, but he hopes to god that it works.
The bright ding of the elevator arriving stands in stark contrast to the creaking sound it makes as it lands. It sounds like it hasn’t been used in thirty years.
The doors open, at least. If it plummets to the bottom of the shaft without notice, it would take another week for anyone to be back in the building, and even longer for someone to come looking for him. He steps inside anyway and presses the button for the second floor.
It doesn’t move for almost two minutes. Rintarou contemplates opening the doors again and surrendering to the stairs, which would certainly be more efficient.
As he gets ready, finger poised over the button, the elevator groans and drops a level. His stomach feels like it drops with the metal box too and he puts a hand over his mouth.
If it keeps going like this, jolting and making suspicious sounds every few seconds, he thinks he might be sick.
Thankfully, it continues to the second floor smoothly. He has an inkling of an idea that it probably hasn’t gone up to the fifth floor in a decade and he staggers out, knees weak.
For all its faults, the laundry room is a net positive.
Besides the damp smell, the tumbling of the dryers and watery swish of the washing machines sound like white noise. The room is always warm from the constant dryer cycles. When his nose gets used to it, the clamminess goes away and starts smelling like clean linen too.
He uses a random folding chair to swing himself up on top of an unused washing machine and dangles his legs over the edge.
He pulls out his phone and taps in the password, then checks the time—a little more than two hours left until he can call Osamu.
According to a new Instagram post, Aran is in Tokyo this week, trying out for some V. League team. Rintarou double-taps to like the picture and closes the app.
He knows he could have gone professional if he tried. He had thought about it, too, in the months leading up to the university entrance exam when they started consulting with the career counselor at Inarizaki.
Most people (read: Atsumu) expected him to try for the V. League, or at least apply to a college known for its volleyball team, but he did neither of those things.
It was primarily out of a want—no, a need for job stability, now that his dad’s immune system is rapidly deteriorating and most of their household bills go towards medication.
But Rintarou’s career choice also stems from some tiny, perverse desire to go against the grain, weirdly enough. For anyone else, a job in economics would be the grain to go against in the first place.
It sounds even more stupid when put into words, because he sacrificed his only passion for some stuffy four-year degree in economics. A subject in which he’s painfully mediocre.
He hasn’t even joined the volleyball team at university. It isn’t that he dislikes the team—the players are agreeable enough and the gym is fine, if not state-of-the-art.
From the first (and only) time he attends a practice, it just doesn’t feel right. Playing in a new city, with a new team, at a new university.
He has pointless gripes with the gym itself, too. The energy is different. The floors don’t squeak the same way as the ones at Inarizaki. The changing rooms don’t smell like air salonpas. They use Molten volleyballs instead of Mikasa ones.
More than the volleyballs they use, though—the people aren’t the same.
Which isn’t to say they aren’t good, because they are. But none of them possess the quiet self-confidence Kita has, or Atsumu’s blustering arrogance. Ginjima’s intense hot-headedness, Aran’s endless strength and motivation and passion. Osamu’s raw power, tempered by sharp instinct.
None of the people on his university’s team remind him of home.
Rintarou turns down the invitation to come again next week. And the week after.
He can feel his muscles getting weaker, his joints getting less flexible, the technique he honed over years of training begin to lessen. He’s practically an old man at this point. Despite all of that, he can't bring himself to go back and tell them he's changed his mind.
The spin cycle on his machine slows, then stops altogether. He grabs a basket from the corner of the room to toss all the clothes into.
He sits down on the floor and separates them into piles—clothes that can go into the dryer and clothes that can’t, sorted by colour.
Usually, he wouldn’t go to such lengths, but he has endless time to kill and he might as well do something special to celebrate his first time doing laundry in two months.
He picks up the rest of the clothes, damp with residual moisture, and hangs them up. He can use as much space as he wants to. No one else is here, after all.
The machine starts with a shudder. He leaves the room, taking the stairs this time. He’ll come back for the clothes later; maybe even tomorrow.
One and a half hours to go. It feels like forever.
_________
6. Update your calendar for the 2nd semester.
Even though most of Rintarou’s friends would react with shock or revulsion at the number of math-related courses he’s taking, he likes all his classes.
Still, his second-semester course load is significantly worse than his first. He’s taking calculus, statistics, 20th-century economics, and some random computer science class for the course requirements.
He knew all of this beforehand, but it looks so much more daunting when he unpins his calendar from the bulletin board and starts to map it out.
There’s a fun story associated with his calendar.
It was originally a gift from Ginjima to Osamu during their annual Christmas gift exchange, probably supposed to be some subtle dig about showing up on-time or not missing practice.
But all four of them believed (and still believe) strongly in the tradition of regifting, so the next day it had shown up on Rintarou’s desk, wrapped in gold wrapping paper, with a pack of onigiri stickers laid atop it and a card that said simply, “Merry Christmas, Sunarin. You might need this calendar more than I do.”
It turned out to be true.
At the beginning of his freshman year, Rintarou soon discovered that he was a hot mess without Osamu to steer him in the right direction or Kita to say, “Are ya sure yer headed to the right class? ‘Cause last I checked, yer not in chemistry.”
Now he clutches onto that calendar like a lifeboat—writing a list in his phone’s Notes app of deadlines he needs to add, decorating it with onigiri stickers when he’s in an especially good mood. It’s saved him from more than a few overdue finals.
With some trepidation, he replaces the English lit on Monday afternoons with stats lecture. He continues in the same manner through the other columns, occasionally checking his laptop for exam dates and academic events.
He grabs another set of Yahaba’s stationery, the watermelon ones this time, and highlights all the important events. Organization is the one area he knows he can’t afford to slack off. He uncaps all the markers at once, breathes in the (maybe toxic?) Sharpie smell, and gets to colour-coding.
An hour of hard work and messy handwriting later, he finishes the last letters of ‘Econ final exam’ with a flourish. He recaps all the pens and pins the calendar back to the bulletin board.
Ten minutes (or six hundred seconds, his math brain supplies) until Osamu time.
_________
While Rintarou rummages through the cabinets, he sets his laptop down on the counter. He finds a pack of pre-cooked noodles in the back of the pantry, probably left by Yahaba. They’re going to expire tomorrow, so he puts the kettle on and waits for the water to heat up.
He wiggles his legs up onto the counter, pulls out his phone to check the time. 6:59. He opens Skype on his laptop and waits for the app to load.
The bandwidth is usually taken up by college students studying or submitting papers online, but today it only takes a few seconds.
The happy green button next to ‘Miya Osamu’ is absent; he isn’t online. Rintarou calls anyway, figuring he must have forgotten to open the app.
It rings four, five times. No reply. Call again later?
He frowns. Osamu has a bad track record for being on-time, but he’s never missed one of their video calls. Rintarou is starting to get worried.
When the kettle goes off, he hops down from the counter and pours hot water into the cup of noodles. He grabs a pair of strawberry-themed chopsticks (again, courtesy of Yahaba) and stirs, blowing to cool the noodles down.
Half a minute goes by. It’s 7:01 now. Osamu still isn’t online, but he rings again anyhow, just in case.
The dial-up sound echoes in the overcast silence. It rebounds back and practically punches him in the gut, like a massive tidal wave of gloom.
Any other day, he’d try his best to forget about it and call again tomorrow, maybe use the time to do some stats homework. But today—this week, even—is lonelier than usual. The homesickness lodges itself into Rintarou’s lungs like a persistent thorn and cuts off his airways. His throat tightens.
He finishes his cup noodles quietly. It's hard to choke them down, and they taste like plastic, with a hint of cardboard. He doesn’t know if it’s because of the terrible quality or just loneliness overtaking his taste buds, but it doesn’t really matter anyway.
The Skype button never flashes green. He waits ten more minutes, but he finally surrenders and sends a message to Atsumu with shaking fingers.
His eyes are so blurry, he has to retype it four times.
from: suna rintarou
hey dipshit do u know where osamu is
from: suna rintarou
we’re supposed to video call rn but he isnt picking up
from: miya atsumu
oh shit um Σ(っ °Д °;)っ
from: miya atsumu
idk where he is?
Rintarou narrows his eyes.
from: suna rintarou
is that a question or an answer
from: miya atsumu
sorry sunarin {{(>_<)}}
from: miya atsumu
im not home atm
from: miya atsumu
trying out for a team in osaka this week
from: miya atsumu
i havent heard from samu in a while
from: miya atsumu
u could try gin? he might know
from: suna rintarou
k thanks
A fat tear rolls down the bridge of his nose. It splashes on the screen. He sniffs and rubs his eyes fiercely.
from: suna rintarou
do u know osamu’s whereabouts rn
from: suna rintarou
we were supposed to call at 7 but he isnt online
from: ginjima hitoshi
hmm
from: ginjima hitoshi
i met up w him this morning but i havent seen him since
from: ginjima hitoshi
sorry i couldnt help more
from: suna rintarou
its fine
from: suna rintarou
thanks for trying
Rintarou goes through the rest of his routine methodically. He closes down Skype, leaving his laptop open on the off chance Osamu does call, and puts it out of his mind.
He showers and brushes his teeth. After some deliberation, he uses some of that hair treatment Yahaba has been raving about recently, does a few stretches because his back is nearly screaming in pain, and changes into a pair of sweatpants.
He crawls into bed earlier than any human should and pulls the covers up past his eyes. He feels like he’s six years old again.
It’s only eight in the evening. Dusk hasn’t even begun to set in yet, but he can’t muster up the energy to get anything else done. A pit of helplessness and desperation sits heavy in his stomach. He hates it.
In his heart of hearts, Rintarou knows he shouldn’t feel so stranded, so lost after one missed call. Osamu is leading his own life in Hyogo, a life that Rintarou left behind in exchange for the limitless opportunities and high-rises of Tokyo.
Osamu has responsibilities and friends and duties that Rintarou isn’t privy to, secrets that he isn’t even aware of.
Granted, most of them aren’t supposed to be secrets in the first place. But with only two hours a week and a few texts here and there, they end up secrets anyway.
Rintarou is proud of him for getting his shop off the ground so quickly. When Osamu is happy, he’s happy too, because he loves Osamu. He loves talking to him and spending time with him, celebrating his highs and commiserating his lows.
But he can’t help the doubt that creeps in every so often.
It leaves his chest tight and his lungs struggling for air, like he’s sat down right after doing laps and the lactic acid is building up in his muscles, sapping all his energy.
Day after day, the homesickness and the longing and the loneliness intensify tenfold, condensing into a big cloud of misery that follows Rintarou around when he tries to go about his day.
It’s debilitating. He wants to go home.
He wants to come back from university to the smell of food cooking, and Osamu’s laugh, and him ruffling Rintarou’s hair in affection when they walk past each other.
He wants the weight that’s plagued him since April to fall off his shoulders and leave him lighter than before. He wants to stop worrying about the lack of a green button, of all things, and a time limit of two hours. He wants so badly it aches.
Without a plausible explanation for the lack of a reply on Osamu’s part, he thinks up endless possibilities. Maybe he’s blocked Rintarou on Skype—he’s probably tired of his voice. Or maybe it’s a trip abroad, which would take him even further away from Rintarou than he already is. Or a new partner. Cooler and prettier and smarter than Rintarou.
Each one makes his gut constrict more. He’s known for a while that Osamu would eventually decide he isn’t worth it and go off in search of something better. It wouldn’t be too hard to find.
Osamu runs his own business. All Rintarou has are his red bowls.
He rolls onto his side, trying to get rid of the throbbing sensation taking up residence below his ribcage. The tension in his lungs is lessening and he finds it easier to breathe.
Still, the tears keep coming, whimpers and sudden hiccups catching in his throat and turning into full-fledged sobs.
He curls up into a fetal position and blinks away the tears collecting on the fringes of his eyelashes. His nose is red and his eyes are swollen already, but he sniffles and rubs at his eyes with his sleeve.
On the last day they studied Oscar Wilde in literature class, they had read some of his plays. Pompous, flashy tales of people blowing all their money and chasing after impossible dreams and becoming corrupted by eternal wealth. Hiding their sadness under a fragile veneer of luxury.
The Importance of Being Earnest. Act 1: “The very essence of romance is uncertainty.”
Algernon was talking about proposals and marriage—and cucumber sandwiches, sort of—but Rintarou is thinking of Osamu, this time. And home.
In an empty dorm at 8:30 in the evening, under the covers of his crappy dorm bed with the squeaky mattress springs that Osamu helped him set up, Rintarou thinks Algernon couldn’t be more wrong.
_________
It’s approximately one in the morning when Rintarou is rudely awoken by a knocking at the door. Whoever it is has been knocking for at least five minutes, and it’s only getting louder.
He hopes it isn’t Mr. Nishimura, because as much as he likes the university groundskeeper, he isn’t looking forward to dealing with his rambling past midnight.
He rubs the sleep out of his eyes with his fists and works some of the knots out of his hair with his fingers.
He tries to untangle himself from his comforter, where he’s somehow managed to twist all of his limbs into a pile of blankets and pillows, and stumbles towards the front door.
It takes him three tries to open the door. He misses the doorknob twice.
“Oh,” he says faintly. And oh, because it’s Osamu, standing there in his six-foot-tall glory, with a plastic takeout bag and a baseball cap on his head and a tiny smile on his lips. Rintarou squints in the harsh light of the hallway. “What are you—why are you here?”
Osamu shrugs. “Hi to you too, Rin. I wanted to see ya. And Tsumu said ya sounded sad when he called the other day, so I thought ya might like the company.”
Rintarou shuts his eyes tight. His eyes are puffy and he can feel the tears coming. “Thanks. I—I needed it, I think.”
“Rin?” Osamu looks alarmed, but he keeps his voice low, if a little panicked. He cups Rintarou’s face in his hands and rubs the contour of his cheek tenderly with a thumb.
The sound of his name on Osamu’s lips makes him hiccup weakly.
“What’s wrong? Rintarou?”
“I—can you just hold me? Please?”
A nod. Osamu steps forward and closes the door quietly. He envelopes Rintarou in his arms, gentle and tender. He smells like home, like clean laundry detergent and jasmine and cooking food, and Rintarou inhales the scent like it’s the first time he’s breathed fresh air in six months. They stand there for what feels like forever. He clutches tighter into the fabric of Osamu’s shirt.
His voice is mellow and calm when he speaks. “D’you wanna talk now? Or just keep doin’ this? ‘Cause it’s nice and all, but I sorta wanna know the story ‘fore my shirt gets soaked.”
“Sorry. I was really—” Rintarou sniffles into Osamu’s shirt and laughs wetly— “really fucking worried, earlier. When you didn’t pick up. I thought…I thought you didn’t love me anymore, or something. I don’t know. I missed you a lot. It’s been a weird week.”
It really has been, he thinks. He realizes they’re still standing in the doorway, so he pulls back and moves to sit on the couch. Osamu follows him.
“Yeah,” Osamu says. He rubs the back of his neck with a hand sheepishly. “This is kinda embarrassin’, actually. I wanted to visit as soon as Tsumu told me, but I couldn’t get a day off till today. And then I boarded the wrong train. To Shimane. Took me a while to figure out where to go after that. I was gonna surprise ya by showin’ up before our Skype call.”
Rintarou feels the corners of his mouth lift. He hiccups, then replies, “Which didn’t happen. Obviously.”
Osamu hums. “The cell service on the train was terrible. I didn’t tell anyone besides Tsumu, and I wanted him to keep it a secret, so I couldn’t send a message or anythin’.” He places a hand on Rintarou’s shoulder and squeezes, comforting. “‘M really, really sorry for worryin’ ya. I didn’t wanna spoil the surprise.”
Rintarou rubs a hand over his face. He makes an involuntary sound in the back of his throat. “It’s fine. How long will you…be here?”
“I gotta leave by Monday noon.”
“That’s—better than I thought.”
“Isn’t it?” Osamu says, clearly pleased with himself. “I left Riko—y’know, the other chef—in charge for the weekend, and she ain’t got any problems handlin’ stuff. So we got some time.”
Rintarou presses his lips together and tries to hold back the onslaught of affection that hits him. In lieu of an answer, he leans over and kisses Osamu.
His lips are chapped and salty from the tears, but Osamu places a hand on his neck and kisses back harder. He pulls back with an almost imperceptible smack and wrinkles his nose. Rintarou whines softly.
“Why d’ya taste like trail mix?”
_________
Fifteen minutes later, they’re curled up under the covers. Rintarou’s bed is tiny.
It barely fits one twenty-year-old man, let alone two, so they end up with their ankles overlapping. Their legs twine together and Rintarou pillows his head on Osamu’s chest, gentle and familiar.
“Hey, Sunarin.”
“Hmm?” Rintarou mumbles. He’s half-asleep. His leg is cramping from the weird angle, so he shifts slightly and looks up at Osamu, eyes heavy-lidded.
“Lemme know if ya wanna see me, or yer feelin’ homesick, next time. I know I can’t come to Tokyo all the time, but tell me and I’ll try to sort somethin’ out, okay?”
“‘Kay.” As he drifts off, he murmurs absently, “‘M glad you’re here.”
“Me too. It was gettin’ lonely, back at home all alone. ‘S not the same without you.”
It’s not uncertainty, realizes Rintarou, that’s the essence of love. Rather, it’s the fact that love is, undeniably, so much more than the sum of its parts—whole and radiant and perfectly imperfect.
At its core, love is the product of thousands of moving parts.
Hundreds of variables. Age, career, distance.
Coefficients. Skype calls. Text messages. Work, and stress, and time.
Constants. The way Osamu sings along to songs on the radio, full-throated and enthusiastic even when he doesn’t know the words, shimmying his shoulders and bopping his head in the passenger seat while Rintarou tries to pretend he doesn’t love it. The way he greets Rintarou after only a few hours apart, like he’s drinking up every inch of him and doesn’t want to look away just in case Rintarou isn’t there when he looks back.
Constants, the smile in Osamu’s voice tangible over the wispy phone lines. The light touch of his fingers when he shapes rice into onigiri. Delicate and easy. The difference between his smile in photos and his real one, the one that comes out after some dumb joke Rintarou makes. It's too private to be caught on camera.
Thousands of moving parts, golden and glowing and substantial. Rintarou clings tight to every single one of them.
_________
Come morning, they use the red bowls for breakfast. It’s the cold takeout Osamu brought yesterday. They don’t bother microwaving it.
Osamu manages to solve most of the Sudoku by the time Rintarou has finished eating.
They sit on the floor of the creaky elevator, pressed shoulder to shoulder, sharing stories on everything and everyone. Rintarou talks about his economics class until his mouth hurts. But as soon as he stops, Osamu says, “Keep goin’. I like hearin’ ya talk ‘bout stuff ya love.”
“Oh? Stuff I love?” Rintarou raises an eyebrow.
“Yeah.”
“Like you?”
Osamu groans and swats him. “That was so cheesy.”
They sit on top of a washing machine, waiting for another load of laundry to finish its cycle. Osamu’s eyes are bright under his baseball cap, warm and loving and kind. He looks like home.
Rintarou really, really wants to kiss the grin off his face. So he does.
He tastes like trail mix and jasmine.