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I
i. meet
It starts how most good things do: with a mistake.
“Hey Miya-san!” a voice calls. Osamu turns and stares at the person approaching, who he vaguely recognizes from his and Atsumu’s class.
“We’re partnered for that history project but I didn’t get a chance to get your number,” his classmate says.
And Osamu knows for certain that he’s wrong, because his partner is a blond guy with much better posture.
He hands Osamu a slip of paper anyway. “Here’s mine, text me later.” Osamu doesn’t get a chance to say anything before he’s pulling his phone out and turning away.
“Suna!” someone calls from the sidewalk and his classmate’s head snaps up. He turns back for a second to offer Osamu a little wave before he trots off.
Suna, huh?
-
So it turns out that Suna had actually gotten him and Atsumu mixed up. And Osamu would be offended (he didn’t spend an hour inhaling Atsumu’s bleach fumes for nothing), but he supposes it could be worse. Suna was pretty embarrassed about the whole mix-up, but really, it had been a decent icebreaker. And once they’d all met again at volleyball practice, it was only natural that they became friends.
Suna’s pretty funny and pretty reliable. He’s good at volleyball, and nearly as good as Osamu and Atsumu at getting up to shenanigans, much to the disappointment of their homeroom teacher.
Suna’s also pretty—well—pretty. Osamu makes this realization the third time Atsumu kicks the back of his chair for not paying attention in class because he was too busy sneaking furtive glances in Suna’s direction. Apparently they weren’t as discreet as he thought.
It’s not the worst crush he’s ever had, not by a long shot, but it’s probably the one most likely to end terribly. Suna’s extremely passive about everything besides volleyball and maybe chemistry (and even that’s debatable) and has turned down every confession Osamu’s seen him receive. And besides, they’re friends, and it’d be terrible if he made it weird.
He spends enough time moping and panicking about it outside of school that it’s not actually surprising how quickly Atsumu gets fed up with it.
“So, Suna,” Atsumu chirps at lunch one day, “are ya free on Thursday night?”
Osamu nearly spits out his rice. He attempts to kick Atsumu under the table but the bastard’s already tucked his legs up.
Suna’s gaze flicks up from his phone for a second before returning. “Yeah, why?”
“Well, we bought tickets for that new horror movie, but something came up for me, so I can’t go,” Atsumu blatantly lies, because Osamu has never even heard Atsumu mention the movie.
“Okay,” Suna says, still not looking up, “what does this have to do with me?”
Atsumu’s mouth twists into that smirk he gets when he’s about to say something extremely stupid. “I’d hate to make ‘Samu go alone.” Atsumu leans in a little to stage whisper, “He gets real scared.”
Osamu’s foot kicks out again on instinct, and connects this time, and the satisfaction is almost enough to drown out his mortification. Almost. He does not get scared. Just alarmed, maybe, or startled, justifiably, he’d say. Scared, a voice that sounds horrifically like Atsumu’s adds in his head.
Suna’s finally looking up though. He looks amused more than anything else, thankfully. He’s probably going to say no, and spare Osamu the humil— “Sure,” Suna says, with about as much passion as he says everything else.
Atsumu’s grin widens even further as he rustles around in his pockets and slides a movie ticket across the table to Suna. Some petty part of Osamu wants to snatch it up and shove it in the trash (and shove Atsumu in with it for good measure), but he’s already so uncool right now, and he doesn’t even want to test how he could make it worse.
Suna slips the ticket into the back of his clear phone case.
-
The movie goes about as well as Osamu expects. He keeps his reactions down to a twitch at the embarrassingly obvious jumpscares and blatantly ignores Suna’s quiet snickering next to him. Other than that though, everything else goes pretty smoothly.
Suna starts yawning as they walk back to the train station, and Osamu’s a tiny bit envious; he’s too keyed up to even think about sleeping. It seems that least one of them enjoyed himself, so maybe this night wasn’t a complete waste.
This is only confirmed further when they get on the train and Suna falls asleep on his shoulder.
ii. hold
They officially get together at the end of their first year. Well, it’s more like when they finally put a label out loud on what they’re doing.
It’s actually Suna who says it first, much to Osamu’s surprise. It’s the Valentine season and Osamu merely watches as Suna turns down yet another confession with a simple, “Sorry, I have a boyfriend.”
Osamu nods and turns back to his textbook before realizing— “Boyfriend?” he asks out loud.
Suna blinks at him from his desk. “Yeah, I mean, unless you—”
“No!,” Osamu blurts out, “I mean, yeah… Boyfriend.”
Nothing really changes after that, except they stop skirting the questions when their friends ask. And Atsumu stops making fun of them for not defining the relationship or whatever. Small mercies.
-
Suna kisses him for the first time a week later outside the gym after practice. The whole team pretends not to see (except Atsumu, of course, who does an exaggerated gag when they make eye contact), but Osamu finds that he doesn’t really mind. He wants to hold Suna’s hand in public and go on real dates and kiss him again, and it’s nearly unfathomable that he’s allowed to do that now.
He’s allowed to have this, to finally want something for himself. So he plants another kiss on Suna’s lightly flushed cheek and flips Atsumu off for good measure.
iii. break
Maybe he should’ve found it inevitable. Maybe he should have broken it off on the day he realized that volleyball wasn’t going to be his future. Maybe he should’ve pulled Suna aside the day he dipped out of practice to study for the entrance exam.
Suna shows up at his house unannounced one day. And maybe it’s the sharp air of the winter-spring cusp, or maybe it’s the way it’s nine a.m. on a Saturday, or maybe it’s the looming threat of graduation, but Osamu just knows.
Suna gives him a minute to pull on a hoodie and some sweatpants before leading him down the street.
“I’m going to sign with EJP,” Suna says while they wait at a crosswalk.
Osamu was prepared for that, deep down, but he trips over the sidewalk and nearly pitches into the road anyway.
See, the thing about being allowed to want something is that it’s hard to stop wanting once you start. He’d stopped wanting volleyball a while back, for reasons he can’t quite articulate, not even to himself. But he doesn’t know if he could ever do that for Suna. If he could simply stop wanting to see him everyday, to stop wanting to feel Suna’s pulse under his fingers, to stop wanting to glimpse a tender smile tucked behind a hand. He still wants those things, but he knows that he doesn’t need them.
He remembers the day that Atsumu had gotten the offer from MSBY. Osamu had been the first to find out, of course, and he’d known from that moment that his brother would take the offer. There wasn’t a world where he wouldn’t play volleyball and chase it until he couldn’t any longer. There isn’t a world where Atsumu doesn’t need volleyball.
But there is a world where Osamu doesn’t need Suna; it’s this world, right now. This is a fact, but it doesn’t make him feel any better.
Osamu nods. “That’s really good, I’m really happy for you,” he says, because he is. Of course, they could try to make it work, but their paths seem to be diverging too much. They come to another crosswalk, but Osamu steadies himself this time.
“So,” Osamu says, “are we breaking up?”
Suna stops and Osamu nearly asks why before realizing that they’re back in front of his house. It’s strange, because they’ve stood here so many times before, after a date or after school, weekdays and weekends, spring, summer, fall. He’s kissed Suna here; he’s gently unlaced their fingers here.
“I guess so,” Suna says. It’s a bit anticlimactic how simple it is.
Osamu doesn’t know whether he should reach out and pull Suna into a hug, or something, but before he can decide, Suna shoves his hands in his pockets and turns around.
II
i. meet
They do keep in touch, but it doesn’t quite feel the same. Maybe a congrats after a match, or a happy birthday. There’s not much there, really. Rintarou would even say that he texts Atsumu more than Osamu at this point. He’s supposed to say that he doesn’t miss it. He’s supposed to say that he doesn’t think about Osamu, doesn’t stare at the sparse text thread at midnight sometimes. It’s been more than four years and moving on was supposed to have happened years ago. He blames his job sometimes. Being a V. League player keeps him busy nearly year round, so there hasn’t been enough time to sublimate his pining. Or at least that’s what he tells himself.
But if that were true, he wouldn’t be standing here, would he? Onigiri Miya, the sign reads. When Atsumu had caught wind of EJP having a game in Osaka, he’d texted a location and nothing else. So imagine Rintarou’s surprise when he looked up the address on Google Maps.
(He ignores the fact that it kinda hurts that Osamu didn’t even tell him about it himself.)
The first thing he notices when he pushes the door open is the electronic bell tone that chimes above him. The second thing is the fact that the interior isn’t as garish as he’d feared.
(Maybe the terrible decor in their bedroom really was Atsumu’s fault.)
However, when he gets to the counter, all of these thoughts slip away. Osamu looks mostly the same, which makes sense, considering it’s only been four years, not 40. This means he still looks good. And Rintarou is already regretting coming here. Why does he ever listen to Atsumu?
They stare at each other for a solid moment, before Osamu clears his throat. “Hey, uh, it’s been a while.”
Rintarou nods, because there really isn’t anything he can say in response.
“What can I get you?” Osamu asks, and right, Rintarou's a customer.
He points randomly at something in the display case. He shuffles a little as Osamu rings him up. Rintarou considers just leaving without saying anything else, but Osamu nods towards the counter, so he takes a seat.
The onigiri’s good, great even. He’s reminded of the many, many times after practice when the Inarizaki team would head to the konbini across the street from the school and play janken to figure out who’d have to run inside and buy a dozen onigiri. Maybe the rosiness of the memory makes it easier to compare the day old, plastic wrapped onigiri to the ones here, made by Osamu’s hands.
ii. hold
It becomes a habit, taking every break he can to make the two hour trip to Osaka. The onigiri’s good, he justifies.
Sometimes, he gets to Onigiri Miya early enough on a Sunday morning that it isn’t even open yet. Rintarou likes those visits the most, he thinks. He watches Osamu do prep; watches his hands, careful and steady, shape onigiri. There’s a lot of love in those hands, Rintarou knows. A lot of warmth, especially when they would cup his cheek or squeeze his shoulder. He knows those hands, or at least he knew them back in high school, spiking a ball, or holding his.
“Do you ever regret it,” Rintarou asks, “leaving volleyball?”
Osamu doesn’t look up from the counter, but Rintarou can see his mouth curve into a smile. “It makes me happy, feeding people, making them happy,” he says quietly, “so no, I don’t think I could regret it.”
“Well, do you miss it?” Rintarou asks, and maybe he’s not quite asking about volleyball anymore. Do you miss me?
Osamu’s hands pause, and he looks up. “All the time,” he says. And maybe deep in those gray eyes, Rintarou can see that he isn’t talking about volleyball either.
iii. stay
It’s another syrupy Sunday morning. It’s been nearly three months since the first visit, and really, at this point, no one really thinks he visits just for the onigiri.
“Why do you keep coming out here?” Osamu asks.
Rintarou considers giving one of his usual sarcastic responses (I was in the area, or I have nothing better to do, etc.), but something stops him. “I like being here,” his mouth says for him, before he can think better of it.
Osamu presses forward, “But why?”
And Rintarou could lie, or say something about missing their friendship from high school. He could even just shrug the question off. But the more he thinks about it, the more he wonders why? as well. He doesn’t have the words for everything he’s thinking about. He doesn’t know how to describe the nostalgia and the memories and the ache in his chest whenever he leaves his apartment at five a.m. to catch a two hour train.
Osamu stares at him expectantly and Rintarou has no idea what he’s expecting to hear.
“I like—” Rintarou tries, “I like seeing you.” He can feel himself flush because he’s never been good with words, especially not with things like this. He worries for a second that he’s read the whole situation wrong. That Osamu just tolerates his presence, or that he rushes to make Rintarou’s favorite onigiri if they happen to be out when he drops by despite his insistence that he doesn’t mind.
But then there are Osamu’s hands, one tacky on the side of his jaw, the other pressing familiar fingers against the back of his neck, tugging him close across the counter. Osamu tastes like the umeboshi he sneaks from the supply jars. He tastes sweet.
He tastes familiar.