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Chapter Text

NSDA Qualifier Taiwan

Miya Osamu

Second Place

It’s a ribbon, a red one, adorned with a large silver plate at the end. Osamu attaches it to the wall with a tack tucked perfectly below the wooden shelf he’d set up before anything else in his new college dorm.

NSDA Shanghai TOC Qualifiers

Miya Osamu

Second Place

This one is more of a proper trophy, a glittery blue column atop which a victorious-looking silver figure stands proudly. The one Atsumu received was bigger—and golden.

Yale Invitational

Miya Osamu

First Runner Up

By far his most prized. He’d wrapped it in endless layers of bubble wrap so as to preserve the crystal plaque upon which his name was etched.

NFLJ National Tournament

Miya Atsumu & Miya Osamu

Second Place

Osamu’s blithe smile faded. It was a large silver bowl affixed with a cherry wood base, sporting a gold plate with their names and ranking. Osamu had silently hoped that this particular award would’ve shattered during the trip; staring at it now was bringing back all the old feelings.

Lying on the bathroom floor with his cheek pressed against the toilet seat, his swaying body up on the giant stage while blinded by spotlights, Atsumu’s fallen face when their names were announced far too early,

his stumble.

Osamu sucked in a quick breath and set the trophy haphazardly upon the shelf. He dug around for more prizes and plaques to cover it with, those taunting words that never seemed to escape his memory. It was all his fault that they lost in the event they’d spent their lives preparing for, and he’ll never forget the mocking, sickening smile on the first-place winner’s face. A newcomer, one with this lazy gaze that he maintained even after having the first-place trophy laid in his hands. Atsumu and Osamu drove home in silence, taking turns with soundless tears.

It was on that highway that Osamu Miya affirmed two very important things:

He had to prove himself at any cost.

And he hated Suna Rintarou more than anyone else in the entire world.

Osamu was jolted from the viscous, vivid memory by the buzzing of his phone on the rather dusty nightstand that’d been left untouched by the dorm’s last patron. He scrambled for it with trembling fingers, a nervous and sour swallow travelling down his throat when he read the caller ID.

“Hello?” He answered breathlessly.

He tried to occupy himself with hanging more red ribbons from the hooks affixed beneath the shelf as a familiar voice flooded through the speaker, but he was too nervous to actually do the task, the ribbon simply hanging in midair.

“Hi dear,” his mother sounded apologetic.

Osamu stammered, “A-are you on your way?”

The moment the question had left his lips, Osamu already knew the answer. It wasn’t just the tone of his mother’s voice or the bustle happening in the background, it was a vibe that Osamu had learned to read long ago when speaking to his parents. They were about to apologize, and Osamu was about to have to pretend that he was alright with it.

“I’m so sorry, dear, Atsumu got caught up in conversation with some recruiters, and they’re talking about putting him on the individual competition team for Speech and Debate! So we may not be able to make it in time,” she said slowly in some baby-like register.

The hand which held the red ribbon lowered slowly. Osamu tried to ignore the natural drop of his stomach in disappointment and the slight ache in his chest; he’d gotten much better at suppressing those feelings over the years and reserving them only for punishing himself when he did something wrong. It seemed like a fine system.

“Will you be okay on your own?” His mother asked.

Osamu glanced up from the ground where he’d been transfixed on his beat-up blue Reeboks (a hand-me-down from his slightly taller brother). Yet, without moving left nor right, Osamu’s gaze sped right up to the mirror he’d stuck up on the opposite wall. His gray hair was sporting dark brown roots even though he’d dyed it just two weeks ago. Some pieces in the front were stuck to his forehead with sweat, an expected development after all of the hauling and walking he had to do to get every box from his junker car to his room on the fourth floor. There were dark circles under his eyes which the doctor had promised would go away once he started getting more sleep, but twelve hours proved to still not be enough, so he feared he’d have the bags for the rest of his wretched life.

The collar of his polo was dotted with sweat, but he didn’t dare unfasten the top button, not with everyone watching—

judging.

“It’s okay,” he lied through his teeth, “I can move in by myself.”

“You’re sure ?” His mother insisted.

Not like I have any choice.

“Yeah,” Osamu sighed, “tell Atsumu hello for me.”

“Will do,” his mother almost sounded relieved, “love you!”

Osamu tore his eyes from his own bitter reflection in the mirror to stare back at his shoes. There was a hole forming in the toe. He worried what would become of them when they fell apart completely. He’d never found a more comfortable pair of shoes and just buying a new pair wouldn’t be the same. He’d gotten the things pre-owned which added a certain wiggle room that new shoes lacked.

“Love you too,” he murmured.

He meant it. 

Did they?

The call ended while Osamu’s ear was still pressed against the screen. For a moment, everything was quiet enough for him to hear his own racing thoughts; perhaps they were incomprehensible, but knowing they were there assured Osamu of one thing:

He still had a chance,

and he hadn’t lost his mind quite yet.

Perhaps being alone would be a good thing for Osamu. His trophies had all been propped up on the little shelf by now, there wasn’t an inch of space left for anything else. The thought of the awards he was going to amass while at university almost made him crack a small smile—maybe he’d have to get another shelf like Atsumu did. Or perhaps the entire thing would bow under the weight of all his achievements and shatter to the ground in one fell swoop while he was sleeping. 

Osamu pulled his bottom lip between his teeth as he peered worriedly at the state of the wood, he even held his breath to see if he could hear the splintering of it in the total silence. Osmau spent a lot of his time looking at that shelf of trophies, so much that making excuses to look longer had become second-nature to his brain. The only thing that could possibly tear him away now was the thought of setting up his desk.

With a sigh, Osamu turned and brushed a layer of dust off his khakis. It was sunny that day, and he’d hauled his desk close to the window where it was beside him; if he was facing out the window, he’d get too distracted by people walking around, especially now when hordes of parents and students were heaving dollies stacked with plastic bins up the little campus hills. Osamu stared dreamily at it for only a second, watching one mother slick her son’s hair back with her hand and plant a kiss on his forehead. He squirmed out of the touch and probably griped about his mother doing something so embarrassing in front of his new flatmates, but Osamu knew he’d do the same.

Even if he was imagining his own mother kissing his own sweaty forehead. 

Osamu cleared his throat and began dutifully setting up his desk. He brushed the yellow wood just once more, watching a cloud of dust catch the sunlight as it flew all around. There was enough light streaming through the windows that he didn’t have to turn on the overhead light; Osamu hated overhead lights. They were too bright and too loud, especially when he was competing on a big stage. The spotlights would make him feel woozy and his back would begin to drip sweat within minutes. He could never tell if it was particularly the lights or the anxiety, but he much preferred the former. 

That was something he could control.

He tore open the cardboard box labeled not only with the general location of the items inside, but with a log of everything it contained. It didn’t matter, though, since Osamu had stayed up the entire week prior, running his finger down each list, memorizing the contents.

Desk , his mind chanted.

Timer

Extra Batteries

Index Cards

Pencils

Sharpener

Osamu sighed once the list had been completed by his thoughts. He reached in for the timer first, a small white block with easy-to-read numbers and perfectly maintained buttons. Atsumu had a matching one, but it looked far more worn. The letters had rubbed off almost completely and he had to smack the top to get it to work properly, sometimes. Gingerly, Osamu set the timer at the top right corner of his desk where he always kept it at home. He pulled out a brand-new package of batteries next, fifty-two of the exact ones he needed for his timer. Opening the first drawer down, he set the batteries inside, shoving it gently into the corner and closing the drawer slowly enough for them not to move.

He patted around the box for his index cards—six packets of them, to be exact. A comforting sensation flowed through his body as he ran his finger over the thin plastic which kept them bound together. Index cards were his lifeline, not just during tournaments. He stuck them up all over his walls too, providing important reminders and the occasional calendar date. He was relentless with them in the way that he found himself buying a new packet every week. And when things got particularly bad, he’d sometimes write duplicates and stick them over existing ones on his wall.

A year or so ago, he remembered an important birthday that he couldn’t forget, so he’d scribbled it down onto a baby blue index card. It read:

Atsumu’s Birthday

It wasn’t until the day came that Osamu realized it was, in fact, his birthday too.

There was nothing Osamu particularly hated about being a twin. Rather, he quite liked it. The whole “built-in best friend” stereotype was not lost on them, there were many lunches in the cafeteria and late-night training sessions where only the Miya twins were present. They were iconic in their high school’s Speech and Debate team, leagues ahead of everyone else and virtually untouchable by anyone in their district. They studied together, relaxed together, walked to and from school together, and competed together.

The Marvelous Miyas, they’d say.

Now, one Marvelous Miya was at Tohoku University on special invitation from their Speech and Debate team. 

The other Miya, debatably less marvelous, was at some other school, a rejection letter and a tear-stained Tohoku sweatshirt shoved at the bottom of his sock drawer at home.

But it was no matter. So what if Atsumu ended up at Osamu’s dream school? It was his own fault for never placing first, not once in his entire Speech and Debate career. If he had just been better, if he had simply impressed at that National tournament, then maybe he would be with Atsumu right now wearing that very sweatshirt.

Osamu shook his head with a series of quick blinks. Frantically, he searched around with expectant hands for a worn, spiral-bound journal he’d tossed somewhere whilst unpacking. He spun around a few times only to see the thing lying atop his gray-checked comforter strewn over his new mattress. He snatched it up, slamming the thing onto his largely empty desk. 

With trembling yet nimble fingers, Osamu flipped through page-after-page of his own handwriting, some in pencil and others in pen. The pages were starting to yellow from constant use and the wear of going wherever Osamu goes. There was a pencil shoved in the spiral binding which was so small that Osamu had to fish for it with his fingers which sported chewed-down nails. He’d promised to stop biting his nails after Nationals, and he had—

for a week or so. 

With the stubby writing utensil in his fingers, Osamu found the blank line beneath his next entry and poked his tongue between his lips as he began to write:

Don’t think about Tohoku.

His letters were slow and careful, he wanted to make sure he’d be able to read it later. He read it a few more times over before flipping the notebook closed with another puff of dust, revealing the torn blue cover upon which his name was etched in Sharpie, along with a large, carefully crafted title.

RULES

With a slow exhale, Osamu snatched the journal right back up and tossed it in a lower drawer without much care, a far cry from his perfectly placed batteries in the drawer above. He tried just as quickly to forget he’d written yet another rule in his book while retaining all the words within it. It was a practice of self-improvement, he’d been doing it since he was young. In some secret corner of his room was a stack of the journals he’d accumulated since he was ten years old. 

“Writin’ in yer diary again?” a younger Atsumu would always taunt from his top bunk, peeking over the edge of the railing.

Osamu would always snarl back, “Shuddup, nunna yer business.”

Atsumu wasn’t too persistent with it, especially since Osamu would always cover the words with his hands before he could get a peek, but he must have been at least a little curious after every tournament when Osamu would rush into their room and lock the door for at least an hour to scribble furiously in his rulebook.

Atsumu had probably assumed more vulgar activities, but that was just Atsumu’s usual train of thought. 

Osamu reached back into his box for the pack of pencils he’d bought just the night before. His preferred brand, the kind that glided softly against the paper and gave him a better range of movement than any other. Atsumu always bullied him for being so specific, saying that every pencil felt the same, but not to Osamu. His fingers were sensitive to changes and catches, sometimes he searched for his own pulse in the places it wasn’t supposed to be and held his own hand.

Not out of any desire, just curiosity.

Because no one ever wanted Osamu like they wanted Atsumu.

Even though they sported the exact same face and, more often than not, haircut, Osamu had always found himself on the receiving end of “can you give this to your brother” when Valentine’s Day rolled around. It took him an entire year to figure out that he could not give the chocolates to Atsumu and eat all of them himself.

It wasn’t like Osamu was all that interested in girls, anyways. He couldn’t have been, not with how enamored he was with a certain boy from his biology class. He had light, nearly white hair tipped with black, rounded cheeks and porcelain skin. Osamu would lean into his own hand for the entire period staring, watching the boy’s deep brown eyes slip from the chalkboard to his own paper, then out the window into the Japanese countryside. 

Osamu shook the warm memory from his head, remembering a rule from his book:

Don’t let anyone distract you from Speech and Debate

And he lived by that. He lived by it so much that one day, he’d decided to post the reminder on his wall.

Hence what brought him to a certain manilla envelope tucked at the bottom of his box of desk things. He held the thing delicately between his fingers and carried it to a blank space he’d identified within seconds of walking into his new room. In his childhood bedroom, he’d had to hide all his index cards in a drawer beneath his bed; he would open it once he heard Atsumu’s foghorn snores and read them over and over, sure that there would come a day where it would come true.

Osamu now ran his fingers over a wall that belonged entirely to him. He didn’t have to hide all his promises to himself in a drawer, he could display them without fear of Atsumu seeing. The drywall was thin beneath his fingers, but he swore it breathed, the room acknowledging Osamu’s existence more than his family ever had. It held the memories of all the ones who’d lived there before him, but there was still space for the possibilities of the future. 

Osamu hoped that future was full of trophies and plaques and

blue ribbons.

“First place,” Osamu whispered to himself, sticking up his first index card with a spot of tape.

That was just what it said, ‘first place’ in big, wiggly letters. He’d written it after their very first tournament in middle school where Osamu had to stand beside his twin brother while he received the glittery first-place trophy. He’d gritted his teeth and repeated the phrase over and over in his head until he could get home and jot it down. If it was up on his wall, it was more likely to happen, right?

I can beat him , another card read.

Osamu’s eyes were focused on the task at hand as he pulled more cards out of his bulging manilla folder, each bearing another affirmation that he needed to see each day.

You are better than they think.

Another card, another spot of tape.

Try harder.

Osamu sniffled as he tore off a few more pieces of tape from the roll he had hanging off his wrist.

Sleep when you’re dead.

Osamu huffed in a sort of half-laugh as he hung that particular one. He had endured so many sleepless nights that he couldn’t even count them anymore. When he was younger, Atsumu used to stay up with him and help him complete whatever homework or debate prep he was trying to do, but one day, he stopped. He simply sauntered past Osamu’s desk while sneaking a look at what he was working on, before yawning and announcing that he was going to bed. He even stopped staying up the nights before debates—

and he’d win anyways.

He always won.

You can be like him.

You just need to work harder than he ever did.

Osamu’s mouth fell into a straight line as he smoothed his hand over the graphite words to ensure the card laid flat. He swallowed thickly as the words echoed in his head, the image of Atsumu reading his acceptance letter at the dinner table far too forward in his memory. He wanted to forget it all. He wanted to pretend that Atsumu didn’t exist and even if he did, he wasn’t currently moving into Osamu’s dream university.

Suna Rintarou was probably at that university.

He had probably been recruited by that same Speech and Debate team. He was probably moving into a dorm right now, setting his own timer and extra batteries on his desk, arranging his index cards just so. But it was more likely that he wasn’t, Suna Rintarou didn’t seem like the type. Perhaps it had just been his face, but Osamu was convinced that Speech and Debate actually bored the guy and he was just there for the free cookies or something. His tie was always off-center and his hair was always effortlessly tousled in a way that suggested he rolled out of bed and showed up.

His shirt had always been wrinkled and Osamu swore he saw him sneak a puff of a vape behind the auditorium at Nationals. That was the only time they’d ever made eye contact: Osamu had raced down the hallway in pursuit of some fresh air before the final round, hoping to ward off another bout of nausea, and that was where he saw Suna Rintarou.

The boy was hunched over with his lower back pressed against the red brick exterior. He checked his small plastic watch with slim, peering eyes for a moment before reaching into his pocket. The door had been propped, so Osamu didn’t make any noise by walking out and he’d frozen in place before Suna could see him. 

Right then, Suna checked around the corner on his left for any onlookers before pulling the thing in his hand up to his mouth. From a distance, it looked like a red flash drive, but Osamu knew it was anything but, when he saw the boy’s chest rise then fall, a hazy cloud of smoke slipping from his lips and dissipating into the air. His eyelids fell in total relaxation as he exhaled and his head fell back against the red brick wall. 

Osamu didn’t know he was staring until Suna was looking right at him.

His gaze was piercing, eyes upturned and eyelids completely smooth. His dark brown eyes were lined with two rows of luscious black lashes which stuck straight out rather than curling, and he had this permanent smirk on his lips that made Osamu feel sick for a moment. They looked at each other for a few seconds, the chirping birds taking up the space which would’ve otherwise been filled with silence. He knew that Osamu had seen the cloud of smoke, but it didn’t seem like he cared.

Rather, he looked amused.

And when they were on stage not an hour after that moment accepting their awards, Osamu couldn’t stop imagining Suna Rintarou’s thin pink lips enveloped in white smoke, turning up in a sneaky half-smile, afterwards.

The thought twisted his stomach like a wet rag wrung out into a bucket.

Thus, the final index card in the folder reached his fingers. He stuck it up on the wall without reading it, knowing which words were already etched across it. As his palm smoothed over the surface, Osamu set his lips in a thin line and narrowed his eyes, the words appearing letter-by-letter from behind his fingers:

I hate Suna Rintarou.

Compared with his twin brother, Osamu was always considered the more serious Miya.

Though he’d traipsed through the same fields and fished in all the same creeks in their summers growing up, it always seemed that he had to be the firm pillar of stone upon which Atsumu Miya performed for the dazzled audience. He was the punchline to every joke Osamu ever set up, and the final act to all of Osamu’s tragic theatre. 

Osamu couldn’t tell if he preferred being out of the spotlight simply because he was born that way or because he had to convince himself of it when he was so young. Thus, he couldn’t be anything but stone-faced and literal when around others, lest he and his brother crumble as a result. Osamu wasn’t concerned with niceties like Atsumu always was, he didn’t see the point in speaking to people with whom he had no business. What was the point of being liked if there was nothing to gain from it? And Atsumu would always talk to these girls for no reason; he’d take them out to dinner only to ‘forget his wallet’ and ‘forget to call’ afterwards. 

That was the difference between them, perhaps.

Atsumu didn’t mean much by the things he did, he did them because they were things he could do.

Osamu, meanwhile, meant every single thing he did to such a degree that, at some point, meaning became a pinhole in the fabric of his life. 

Speech and Debate had meaning—

little else did.

Perhaps it was why his routine was so consistent and set. Any interruption and Osamu would simply feel off for the rest of the day. He had to wake up and swing his feet off the left side of the bed, but it wasn’t until he’d opened his eyes in his brand new room that he realized his bed was shoved up against the left wall, leaving only the right side of his bed for hoisting himself onto the floor. Osamu swallowed nervously as he scoured his mind for any solution. There was no way he could move the bed without getting up, and once he was up, there was no going back and fixing the funny feeling he’d inevitably get.

Thus, with a grimace, Osamu swung his legs over the right side of the bed and sat there for a moment, taking in the incongruence of the motion and how all his organs felt awkward and clunky within the cage of his bones. He rubbed the pad of his thumbs over the tips of the rest of his fingers to try and soothe the strange sensation, but he knew it was no use. 

It got even worse when his feet touched the floor. He spent the first ten seconds with a swaying body, sure that he was going to tumble right onto the cheaply-made tile beneath his feet. He never wore socks to bed, but the cold morning floor was almost convincing enough for him to change that. He kept rubbing his thumb over the tips of his fingers, but it was a fruitless endeavor. His exhale shuddered in his chest, then made a rattling sound in his throat. 

Just as Osamu had anticipated, everything felt off, as though the world was backwards and spinning extra slowly around him. 

“What’re ya talkin’ about?” Atsumu would ask from the top bunk when Osamu had tried to explain why he had to stand there for an extra minute.

He’d usually use that extra minute to run to the bathroom first.

But now, Osamu had his own bathroom, he could see the door from where he was standing. With all the balance he could muster, he started padding towards it and preparing to let himself inside. He’d spent an hour or so the day prior setting everything up on the counter, but it didn’t change how strange it felt to see just one of each toiletry once he was staring at it.

He’d grown up with two toothbrushes, two bottles of toothpaste, two packs of floss, two of everything his entire life. Now, just one looked so lonely, even in its proper place on the granite countertop. Osamu had bought a new toothbrush holder (Atsumu had claimed the one from home), and there was an empty hold across from the one that was housing his brand-new blue toothbrush. Osamu had spent the months leading up to college using up all his toiletries: shampoo and toothpaste and mouthwash, all of it. He pinched and rolled for every last iota because he didn’t want to open anything new until he was in his dorm room starting the school year.

New.

That was what Osamu wanted his life to be.

At least, all the counselors had told him that college would be a fresh start no matter where he ended up going, not just academically, but for Speech and Debate, too. And if Osamu wanted to prove himself to be just as good as his twin brother, he needed a fresh start. This was his chance, and any minor screw-up could send the whole plan into a tailspin.

That’s why he’d written every intention down on a clean page in his rulebook.

He didn’t need to read it, he’d memorized it:

• Go to college

• Be on their Speech and Debate team (Individual Competitor)

• Pass Regionals

• Compete against Atsumu

• Win against Atsumu

It was simple, almost worryingly so. Written out in such plain language, Osamu almost felt that it was all possible within the semester. If he could just get far enough in the tournaments, then he would eventually compete against his brother and his powerhouse school. All he had to do was win.

First place , he reminded himself.

I will win first place.

Osamu brushed his teeth—two minutes just like he’d been taught—and then his fading gray hair. He slipped on a clean stormy blue polo that his mother had said brought out his eyes, then a pair of khakis that were a little too short on him, but he didn’t want to complain then have to dig through Atsumu’s drawers once more for a different pair. His mother refused to buy them new pants. She always fretted about the two-of-everything phenomena that Osamu now missed, so she’d made them share everything short of backpacks. But she didn’t anticipate for one of her boys to be two inches taller than the other and much leaner and more muscular while the other sported a permanent layer of baby fat all over, especially in his chest.

Osamu tried to adjust the buttoned portion of his polo to not look so stretched around his chest. He flinched as he tightened the collar around his meaty neck. If he was built more like Atsumu then he wouldn’t have this problem. It didn’t make any sense, weren’t they just one egg split in two? How was it that Osamu got the genes of the Pillsbury Doughboy, while Atsumu had the body of a Greek god despite eating his body-weight in Totino’s pizza rolls every Friday night? 

Osamu had to shake the old thought from his head. It was that very thought which had landed him passed out on the stage floor at a tournament when he was sixteen then in the hospital for the longest weekend of his life. He didn’t like to think about that time. The doctor had said something about him making ‘too many rules for himself.’ Osamu just scoffed. He knew that his rules were helping him, what did some doctor know?

Clearing his throat and wetting his lips with his tongue, Osamu stood upright and checked his hair in the mirror as he tucked in his shirt and looped a rather ratty belt through the loops. The polo and khakis gave him a rather clean look where his belt seemed out of place, and his worn-out Reeboks which were sitting by the door would only contribute to the incompatibility of his outfit. 

But Osamu didn’t care. What people thought of his outfit had no bearing on any of his goals or any of the rules in his rulebook. Osamu hardened his expression and flicked the light in the bathroom off before racing out, checking his watch for the millionth time that morning.

He had class in fifteen minutes, but he wasn’t waiting eagerly for that.

He was waiting for five o’clock that evening.

The Speech and Debate recruitment meeting.

Sure, Osamu had packed a journal and a freshly-sharpened pencil in his backpack for the two classes he was going to that day, but he’d also packed his index cards and timer and extra batteries, just in case he didn’t have time to come back and grab those things before the meeting at five o’clock.

Slipping his shoes onto his feet, Osamu peered at the index cards he’d stuck up right beside the door.

Intro to Communications @10

Japanese-American Relations @2

Speech and Debate @5

Osamu nodded along as he read each thing out in his mind. His stomach flipped at the thought of going to the meeting that night. He wasn’t one to smile, but seeing those words almost did the trick.

It was this very thought that distracted him all throughout his introductory classes that day. The professors were just going over the syllabus which Osamu found to be utterly mind-numbing and pointless; he thought that about school in general, could he not just be the best debater in Japan and not have to slog through these idiotic classes? He’d just sit with his chin pressed into his palm and his eyes half-lidded, imagining all the possibilities of the meeting that night.

Maybe people would recognize him as a competitor from past competitions. Perhaps they’d watched him receive prestigious second-place awards from the audience, wishing they could be Osamu. He wondered if they’d assume he was on the Individual Competition team without him even having to say anything about it. They must know his skills from all the televised competitions; he’d done enough research on the club at this particular university that he knew they were good enough to scope out their prospective members. 

Osamu’s list of achievements was practically endless. He’d done internships and debate camps and more tournaments than he and his brother had fingers to count combined. He felt so small in those giant lecture halls full of other eager freshmen, but he knew he wouldn’t feel that way at the meeting. He hadn’t busted his ass in high school just to be like everyone else. He didn’t have any friends other than his brother to be insignificant, especially when it came to his greatest skill.

His second class was even more mind-numbing, he was practically sleeping with his eyes open when the professor finally stopped droning on and let them go. Osamu considered going back to his dorm in the meantime, but he was far too jumpy to imagine doing anything but waiting near the building where the meeting was to be held. And what an awful impression being late on the first day would make—not like he paid any mind to being nearly late for his two o’clock class, this was very different.

The campus ebbed and flowed with students walking to and from their respective classes. Some of them had their noses stuck in maps trying to find their way around, while others were shaking their faulty earbuds around before sticking them back into their ears. Older-looking students sauntered with their friends, chatting excitedly and walking with a confidence that told Osamu they knew the campus like the back of their hand. Osamu felt like a child sitting on his little bench with his backpack clutched to his chest. As far as he knew, he was still some highschool kid, it felt wrong to be amongst real adults . Who was he trying to fool? Did they know that he was young? He would be turning nineteen in just a month, but it didn’t feel soon enough, and he knew he’d still have his baby face even after his birthday so it would hardly change how everyone saw him.

It doesn’t matter , Osamu reminded himself,

what people think has nothing to do with Speech and Debate,

so it has nothing to do with you.

Osamu checked his watch again.

4:53.

That felt right. Not that he’d been cured of his imbalance from that morning, but he had this sense that being around other debaters would even him out like it always had. Usually Atsumu was there to help him, but he was probably meeting world-renowned debaters right now or presenting in one of Tohoku’s world-class auditoriums. Perhaps they had people who set up their stands for them instead of having to stumble and do it themselves.

You can be better than him.

A phrase from one of Osamu’s index cards reassured him as he approached the auditorium door. He’d checked the e-mail a million times, so he was very very sure that he was at the correct building and door, he even heard voices conversing from the inside. His heart was thrumming right at the edge of his chest, and he had this sick feeling in his stomach that just wouldn’t go away. Osamu turned the handle with his trembling, clammy fingers and let himself inside as calmly as he possibly could.

He heaved a sigh of relief when he saw other people already occupying the good-sized room. Instantly, it all felt familiar. He heard timers beeping somewhere in the distance cutting through the low volume of chatter that seemed to define Speech and Debate. Some participants were sitting next to one another, shuffling through printed papers and pointing things out to one another. Others were fixing their metal stands off to the side by a bin of extra screws and parts. 

A dusty blue book was sitting on some of the desks which had been repurposed for the meeting. Osamu cracked a small smile. It was a book he knew cover-to-cover which sat well-worn on his new bookshelf in his dorm. The thought of others reading it assured him in some small way that he would be understood without even trying.

“Hey! New kid!” A grated voice called from further in the room.

Osamu glanced up with a raised brow and a thick swallow.

“Grab one of each paper from the table and find a seat.”

Dutifully, Osamu turned to the table on his left and grabbed one of each sheet without even stopping to check what was on each of them. Chest swelling with pride, he sauntered further into the room and made a beeline for an open seat right at the front. 

I’m going to be known.

I’m going to be understood.

Osamu straightened his posture in the seat and let his mouth fall into a determined line. There were probably about fifteen or so people in the room, evident by the level of noise that never seemed to change.

“Ah, fuck that,” a voice crooned in conversation off to his right. 

Osamu tried to turn discreetly to see who had just spoken; the voice sounded so familiar that it was practically eating away at him. When his eyes fell upon the proper person, Osamu’s jaw nearly went slack.

Sasaki Shigeo

Three-time champion in high school.

He never lost a tournament in his life, Osamu and Atsumu used to watch recordings of his debates in middle school. That probably meant he was a senior now. 

Osamu’s mouth quickly went dry. He’d expected to see impressive faces, but not Sasaki .

“Didya read the new topics? I feel like they’re just all the old ones rehashed,” a girl said from Osamu’s left.

He turned slowly again, the voice ringing a small bell in his mind.

Seki Ryo.

Queen of the Quarrel.

She ran in a different district from Osamu and his brother, but everyone knew that she was notable competition. She had swept nationals entirely the year before Osamu and Atsumu competed. They were secretly glad that she wouldn’t be competing the following year, but Osamu had always wished to go head-to-head with her, just to see. But now, getting a sight of her in real life, Osamu felt an involuntary shudder travel down his spine.

Competing against her was one thing,

competing with her was another.

“Alright, folks, let’s get started.”

The same grated voice from earlier appeared at the front with sure steps and a towering form. They had a blunt, short haircut which cut across their eyes in an aggressive manner. They were wearing a clean-cut suit like they did at all their competitions. Osamu recognized them from televised competitions he and Atsumu would watch late into the night since they did tournaments exclusively out of the country. Rumor had it that they were fluent in three languages and had an entire room in their house full of trophies and medals.

Takenaka Ai. 

Four , they were called .

That was the name everyone used since the character for ‘four’ sounded just like the character for ‘death’, and if Takenaka crossed your path at a tournament, you were sure to leave with a little part of yourself dead to the world. They seemed even more intimidating close-up with their hands stuffed in the pockets of their casual gray suit. Osamu’s stomach squirmed as the entire room went silent within a second. Takenaka scoured the room for a moment with their eyes, only catching on Osamu for a split second.

“I hope you all had a chance to read over the papers you picked up at the front,” they said clearly, but quickly.

Osamu nodded, even though he hadn’t taken a single look at them.

“I’m going to go over the calendar and the guidelines for the team before assigning you to individual and paired debate teams,” they turned back towards the desk upon which they were leaning where a stack of papers sat.

Osamu shuffled in his seat to even out his posture and seem more attentive than usual. It wasn’t like he had to try, there was something naturally enrapturing about Four, and just knowing that Sasaki and the Queen of the Quarrel were sitting just rows behind him sent his heart into a frenzy. 

“Right,” Four sighed, “I assume you all know what you’re doing here and have experience with Speech and Debate. I don’t intend to babysit—”

The sound of a door latch broke the silence almost unceremoniously, every head in the place turning towards the source of the sound where a new figure had appeared. 

Tall. Lanky. Clutching a skateboard in one hand and a familiar red flash drive in the other.

“No,” Osamu whispered to himself, realization crashing over him like a monstrous wave.

“Oops,” Suna Rintarou himself muttered, “sorry.”

With a sheepish yet playful expression, Suna shuffled further into the room and sauntered confidently towards one of the only open desks that remained: the one right behind Miya Osamu.

He looked essentially the same, his brown hair effortlessly swooped in both directions and his slim eyes gazing lazily at everything around him. His backpack fell flat against his back which meant there was practically nothing inside and the black polish on his nails was chipping. Clad in a large gray, stained t-shirt, baggy jeans, and written-on white converse, Suna looked like he’d stumbled into the wrong meeting. But Osamu knew that he hadn’t. And everyone else seemed to know it too as they watched the boy slip into his seat with a light chorus of whispers.

Four looked unimpressed with being interrupted, but they continued on with only a half-eye roll. It seemed too early to start incurring punishment, and Suna didn’t seem like the type to take it seriously, anyhow. Osamu sat and seethed in his seat while Four began lecturing about the team guidelines and, eventually, the calendar of events for the semester which detailed all their tournaments and travel.

Knowing Suna Rintarou was sitting right behind him made Osamu grit his teeth involuntarily. His mind reeled with all the things he wanted to say, all the words he’d pent up after Nationals. He wanted to chew him out for smoking behind the building or being late for sign-up that morning or being late to this meeting that Osamu had waited so long for. He found himself swaying in and out of consciousness of the meeting from all those thoughts.

“You’re expected to transport yourselves to tournaments,” Four said plainly, “if you don’t drive, find someone who does, and provide gas money if you don’t wanna be a complete asshole.”

Suna Rintarou is a complete asshole, already , Osamu thought.

He heard a tapping coming from the desk behind him, the sound of  a finger being drummed against the surface. Osamu hated extraneous noise. It made all his nerves knot together in a hot bundle until it ceased. He was convinced he couldn’t even hear Four over the incessant tapping.

Turning sharply, Osamu hissed lowly,

“Could you stop?”

Suna instantly looked down at him with the same gaze he’d used up on that stage as the blue ribbon medal was placed around his neck: the look of knowing he’d won without even trying. And the sly smile was familiar too, he’d flashed it at Osamu knowing he’d watched the cloud of smoke pass by his lips and fade into the spring breeze. 

Osamu’s face went hot with fury as Suna’s brow knitted. He recognized him, but not quickly enough to know where from. That made Osamu even angrier. He turned back forward in his desk with balled fists atop the wood and an unsavory word hanging on the tip of his tongue.

“Alright, assignments,” Four finally announced.

The low murmur which had always been present in the room suddenly rose in excitement, followed by a rolling chorus of shushes.

“Calm down, it’s not the military draft,” Four groaned before staring down at their paper, “seniors get first pick, so for the individual tournaments we have me and Sasaki Shigeo.”

Osamu inhaled slowly and ignored the pit that was slowly opening up in his stomach, threatening to swallow him from the inside. He felt his hands start to shake as names were called for the individual tournaments.

Seki Ryo

Taguchi Kyoko

Suto Yoshio

Hano Shinji

Osamu waited eagerly for his name, but as he followed the swoop in Four’s voice, he felt the color begin to drain from his face.

“And—” Four said.

Say Miya Osamu.

Say Miya Osamu, please.

“Toma Kou.”

If Osamu’s face was white, then so was his entire body at this point. His ears filled with cotton and his mind buzzed as Four flipped to the next page, signaling that they were finished with the individual team names.

No, there was no way.

Osamu was a champion, he had all the medals and trophies to prove it.

How could he not be chosen for the individuals team? It didn’t make any sense.

Osamu stopped worrying about how shocked he looked as he stared down at the foreboding calendar. He hadn’t competed in doubles with anyone other than his brother. There was no way he could harness the same power with just some freshman in the room. There had to have been a mistake. Osamu felt as though he was going to hurl if Four didn’t say that it was all some cruel joke and that he actually was on the list.

“Doubles,” they called out, eyeing the newbies in the room, “if you don’t like your partner, I don’t care. Call your mom and cry about it.”

They cleared their throat and stared down at the paper. Not like Osamu was listening, his entire body felt like it was going to fall apart right onto the stained beige carpet. 

No.

No , he thought.

How am I going to beat Atsumu if I’m not competing as an individual? There’s no way…

He’d followed the steps of his plan so seamlessly. Now everything had been upturned.

“Adachi Izanami and Isobe Norio,” Four called out.

It couldn’t get worse than this.

Miyasoto Kame and Nagai Yasushi

Sera Naoki and Nakasone Shika.

It just couldn’t.

“And finally,” Four sighed,

“Miya Osamu—”

Or, maybe,

it could.

“and Suna Rintarou.”

Chapter Text

Osamu liked to consider himself a collected person.

Calm? Not so much. Cool? Even less so.

But collected? He wore the badge proudly. He stood on an unshakeable foundation of emotional suppression and an invincible poker face which had yet to be challenged.

However, having Suna Rintarou announced as his new debate partner had come the closest of any disaster in his entire life.

Osamu had to sit there for another moment wondering if he’d heard Four correctly.

Suna Rintarou.

Suna Rintarou, his mind chanted.

He couldn’t bring himself to turn around, knowing the man in question was sitting there with a smug smile and narrowed glare. He didn’t want to look at the small black plugs in his earlobes or the red vape that was either caught between his fingers or sticking out of his pocket. Osamu wanted to go back and rewrite all the history he was now caught in perpetually.

This never would’ve happened to Atsumu.

Because Atsumu was at the university Osamu had dreamed about since middle school. It was Osamu who pinned up pendants and bought sweatshirts and printed five different copies of the same application so he could fill them all out and choose the best of the bunch to send. Atsumu was probably in a meeting of his own right now, a champion in his new spot on the individual competition team.

And Osamu was here at some second-rate school with the biggest jerk as his new partner.

“Get to work,” Four dismissed them all, “get to know your partners and practice if you’re up for it.”

Right as Four’s body disappeared from the helm of the lecture hall, the lull from before rose again in the room, cut through by the occasional awkward scrape of chairs as new recruits contorted their body towards whoever their new debate partner was.

Osamu, sadly, couldn’t join in the chorus.

He couldn’t move. All his muscles had entered some stasis that kept him glued to the seat of his chair. His thoughts were whizzing trains, blurred by perpetual movement and desire to be elsewhere. His hands had gone ice cold and white. Osamu tried to lift just one leg, but he’d become a marble sculpture in his seat within seconds.

If he moved, he could try and change what felt inevitable.

If he could just stand up and walk over to Four and talk to them, perhaps they would see his dilemma and realize the grave mistake they’d made in pairing him with Suna.

“So, guess we’re gonna be working together, huh?”

The crooning voice came from behind Osamu. He didn’t need to turn to know whom it belonged to.

With a sharp, shuddering inhale and a long, arduous exhale, Osamu mustered the strength to turn and get his first good look at his partner for the semester.

Just as he’d expected, Suna was sitting lazily in his seat, one leg practically jutting out into the walkway which, in the case of a fire, would spell disaster for anyone sitting behind him. His head was tilted back just slightly, so his dark brown eyes were peering at Osamu from behind a thick curtain of lashes. The right side of his mouth was upturned slightly in some playful smile like he was the tiger in the zoo watching fresh meat be shoved into his cage—insatiable, prowling,

gaze set on Osamu.

In his right hand he twiddled the vape only because his left hand was too busy drumming against the desk. Yet, in all the swagger and confidence Suna exuded, he didn’t give off any vibes that he recognized Osamu. A slow burning frustration lit in the center of Osamu’s stomach. He chose to push it down, not one for making a scene in public.

“You don’t remember me,” the residual heat of the fire came out in billowing smoke clouds of words.

Suna furrowed his brow, eyes wandering every bit of Osamu’s upper body without a care. His drumming stilled, so did the twiddling of the vape. Soon, the right side of his lips melted as he thought harder and harder.

Realization struck him like a slow-moving car.

His eyes widened only a tad and his thin lips curled to form a subtle ‘oh.’

“You were at Nationals,” he hummed, “you and your brother were, uh—”

Suna motioned in mid-air for a moment while he tried to gather the right words, an air of mockery shrouding the entire thing. The fire in the center of Osamu’s stomach flared for a moment before he doused it once more, reminding himself what was at stake.

“Competing together,” Osamu finished Suna’s sentence for him, “we’re twins.”

Suna’s mouth stretched into a lazy smile and the hand he was gesturing with fell back to the desk.

“Right,” he replied.

Though he nodded, Osamu wasn’t so sure that he really remembered it all. The chances that he’d retained anything from their short encounter behind the auditorium were slim. Osamu hadn’t forgotten. He usually doesn’t. That was one of his skills; he remembered almost everything that had ever happened to him.

It had yet to steer him wrong.

Suna dropped the subject from his mind before he could waste any more energy on it, or so Osamu assumed from the way his body slumped in his seat, gaze affixed back on Osamu with a questioning look.

“So, where is the other half of the Twin Wonder Team?” He asked.

Osamu swallowed thickly. He felt sick just thinking about it, so having Suna mention it was probably the only thing that could truly tip him over the edge. He hadn’t spoken a word about his college rejection since he opened that envelope however many months ago, it wasn’t like he’d had any friends to explain the situation to. And his entire family had opened the mailbox together to find a packet addressed to Atsumu and a letter addressed to Osamu.

“At a different school,” Osamu said curtly with a lowering brow.

As a tense silence stretched between the two of them following Osamu’s clipped answer, Suna pulled a strange expression, hints of confusion towards Osamu’s attitude about it and mild disinterest, which he always seemed to sport.

“Hm,” he grunted softly in response, “well, lemme give you my number.”

Osamu’s breath caught up in his throat and he felt his face contort into something strange and defensive.

“Why?” He asked curtly.

Suna glanced up at him like he was crazy. He lifted his brow a bit and paused his scribbling on a torn piece of paper. Slowly and carefully, he slid the paper towards Osamu.

“So we can communicate and stuff?” He replied.

Osamu’s body relaxed enough for him to take the little corner of paper. Flipping it upright, he saw the chicken scratch of Suna’s phone number grace the blue lines.

Osamu watched as Suna’s fingers began to drum once more in a dizzying pattern: his pinky twice, then his middle finger once, then his index finger and ring finger three times simultaneously. Fixated on the unchanging pattern, Osamu almost didn’t hear Suna call for him again.

“Osamu?”

With a sharp inhale, Osamu looked back up.

“What?” He replied with a definite bite to his words.

Suna’s gaze narrowed. He did a final once over of Osamu which was slower than the last two and this time, when he was done, he smiled.

“Meeting’s over,” he said.

Osamu turned around in his seat only to find that Suna was correct. Students were shoving notebooks and such into their backpacks and heading slowly towards the door while holding boisterous conversations amongst themselves. He’d been so focused on his interaction with Suna that he’d missed the end of the meeting entirely. Had Four said something?

Four.

In one swift motion, Osamu picked up his backpack and slung it over his shoulder while his eyes scanned the thinning crowd for a certain debater in a casual gray suit. He found the person in question standing at the table full of papers, stacking them alternating atop one another.

Without even a muttered goodbye to Suna, Osamu bounded over. All the words he was eager to say hung heavy on his tongue considering he’d been gathering them since his name had been called not five minutes before.

“Excuse me,” he announced breathlessly to the Speech and Debate president.

Four paused for a moment with stacks of papers in their hand before turning to Osamu with a pointed, vicious expression that nearly sent a shudder down the boy’s spine.

“What?” They asked low and bitingly.

“I think you’ve made a mistake.”

The words tumbled out rather unceremoniously. Osamu had hesitated for a moment after seeing Four’s expression, but the phrase he’d prepared was far too ready to come out. It sounded rude, not just the words but the way Osamu said it. Atsumu was always better at charming people in conversation. Osamu didn’t see the point.

Slowly, Four’s brow quirked. They looked more unimpressed than bothered by Osamu’s proposal.

“I have?” Their voice was ice cold.

Osamu let out a breath he’d been holding in for far too long.

“I—my brother and I competed in plenty of individual competitions apart from each other,” Osamu reasoned, “if you gave me a partner for lack of experience, I don’t think—”

Four lifted a hand just as the words reached their ears, signaling Osamu to stop babbling.

They sighed, “Bold of you to assume I haven’t watched every broadcast of you and your brother’s debating, I do that for every new recruit on my team.”

Osamu shuffled his feet awkwardly in the cramped space of his small blue shoes, but he maintained a stony expression on his face.

“It’s not that I think you won’t be good on the individual team,” Four leaned up against the table, “I just think you won’t be great.”

A thin, long silver spear pierced right through Osamu’s heart. He had always been great, he had endless trophies and medals lining his walls to prove that. He wasn’t just “good” at Speech and Debate, and if he was, then there was no point in continuing with the sport any further.

His breath suddenly felt heavy, his tongue awkwardly big and dry in his mouth.

Atsumu is great.

Osamu is good.

“Miya,” Four sighed once more, “Speech and Debate is fifty percent being a good debater and fifty percent being a good teammate. You and your brother worked well together because you formed in the same womb.”

Four stood up straight, less than an arm’s length away from a choked-up Osamu, but they didn’t seem fazed by the damage they’d done in so few words.

“Good debaters do all the work on their own,” they continued, “Great debaters learn to trust everyone else.”

With that, Four abandoned Osamu in the entryway of the meeting room to shove the stacks of papers into their nice leather bag. Osamu’s heart was still incapacitated by their words, but not enough for him to need to stand there any longer. Within a few quick steps, Osamu had burst out the auditorium doors and let himself out into the pink-orange light of the sunset.

Great debaters learn to trust.

Osamu’s face twisted in confusion. Trusting Miya Atsumu was easy because Miya Atsumu never disappointed. If he said he was going to win, he always fulfilled that promise. It was the thing that made losing at Nationals so terrible: Osamu was the reason for their downfall. But if Osamu was going to become great, if he was going to defeat his brother, he had to do it all on his own. He didn’t need to trust anyone else because it would only chip away at the strength and skill he had curated for himself.

If Osamu did everything, then Atsumu would never be able to find fault in him ever again. He could transport himself back in time and fix everything he’d broken: Nationals, the rejection letter, all of it.

“Teamwork, my ass,” Osamu hissed to himself as he started down the long brick-paved walkway towards his dorm room.

Being alone with his thoughts proved to be too much, though, as the walk from the meeting room to his residence hall stretched on and on. Thus, Osamu fished his phone out of his pocket and called the only number he had ever memorized.

“Samu?” A soft voice crackled over the receiver.

“I’m going to hurl myself into the river, Aran,” Osamu said flatly.

Aran chuckled, “Yeah, alright.”

There was a faint pause between them before Aran spoke up again with a nervous waver.

“You’re not actually going to do that, right?”

Osamu scoffed and rolled his eyes.

“No, but I might as well.”

“What happened?”

Aran was a former neighbor of the Miya’s. He lived across the street in a little blue slatted house with a stray dog that always hung out near the gate. Across the street, of course, means something much different in the countryside; it was more of a trek from the Miyas’ front door to the Ojiros’ front door than you’d expect. Even so, Atsumu and Osamu would traipse over there in their tank tops and sandals, fishing poles in hand, to knock on Aran’s door and ask if he could come play.

Sweltering summer afternoons spent swatting mosquitoes from their legs, pulling fish bare-handed out of the river, and eating lukewarm egg sandwiches when they got too hungry to even speak, Osamu hadn’t forgotten a moment of it. But when Aran was invited to play volleyball for a big-name school in the city, the house with the blue slats quickly became abandoned and overgrown with vines. Osamu would walk over every once in a while when he was in high school just to check to make sure it was all there: the bike leaned up against the chain-link fence, the dog food bowl swarmed with flies, the rotting wood porch.

Sure, they kept in touch, but it wasn’t the same.

It would never be the same.

Osamu could fish and swat mosquitoes and ride his bike, but his body was different and his mind was so much less carefree. Osamu wanted to go back so bad sometimes that he found himself crashing into future things rather than anticipating them. College had come up so much quicker than he wanted and he found himself like he always was—looking back, wishing.

Now Aran was playing at a university in the United States. And he was the only person Osamu could almost consider a friend (he always liked Atsumu a little better).

“I joined the Speech and Debate team at school,” Osamu said.

“Oh!” Aran exclaimed, “That’s good, right? You love Speech and Debate.”

Osamu sighed. His steps were slower and more calculated now that he’d changed course. Going back to his room wouldn’t do him any good, he’d just be caught in an echo chamber of his own obsessions. He decided to go east toward the library instead.

“It was,” Osamu replied, “until they gave me a new debate partner.”

The sun was quickly dipping behind the horizon. Osamu wondered when the streetlights would flicker on and guide the rest of his path.

“Huh,” Aran sounded unconvinced, “and this is bad because…”

“Because I have to be on the individual team!” Osamu insisted, “If I have any chance of beating Atsumu—”

“Wait, beating Atsumu? Didn’t you guys debate as a pair for like eight years?”

Osamu tightened the strap on his backpack with his free hand as his mouth pressed into a straight line.

“We debated both ways but—yeah, sure, I guess we were partners, above all,” Osamu replied flatly.

“How are you so sure Atsumu wasn’t placed with a partner on his new team?” Aran asked entirely in good faith.

The library was slowly coming into view. Osamu felt his chest begin to deflate simply from hearing Aran’s voice over the speaker, the anger he was trapping up now visible only in wisps of smoke.

“I just have a feeling,” he mumbled.

Aran hummed. Osamu reached the glass doors of the large library bordered by a sandwich shop and a rec center.

“Do you think it’ll be tough working with someone who isn’t Atsumu?” Aran asked.

With a furrowed brow, Osamu gazed up into the darkening sky. Twilight had set in across the entire campus, bathing the beige brick in a dreamy blue which would soon turn ink black.

Osamu hadn’t really thought about working with anyone other than Atsumu; frankly, he’d been too perturbed by working with Suna to even consider it. Perhaps it would be strange sitting and conspiring with someone who wasn’t his twin brother. Maybe they would have to build from scratch all the understanding that he and Atsumu had been born with. Thinking about that made the whole prospect even less desirable.

Or, perhaps,

this was his chance to be Atsumu.

In all the years they’d competed, Atsumu had run their practice sessions, planned their strategies, and done everything that led them to success. Osamu had simply walked a step behind him, ensuring that everything Atsumu wished eventually got done. But now with such an apathetic partner, Osamu might finally have his chance to take the reins which he’d been itching to wield all along.

He could be Miya Atsumu.

“Y’know what,” Osamu replied, “no, I think I’ll be just fine.”

A small, determined smile spread over Osamu’s face.

He had to exchange final pleasantries with Aran before hanging up, but a new excitement was building within Osamu all throughout. He had never thought about it that way, about this being his chance to do what he always dreamed of doing. He felt invincible with his timer and index cards packed away in his bag that entering the library felt like a sort of silent battle cry that edged him closer to his final destination.

Four had said that doing it all on his own was impossible, that he needed the rest of the team to become a great debater.

Osamu disagreed.

He was going to do it,

and prove everyone wrong by doing it all on his own.

With a concerted sigh, he dashed up the stairs which led to the higher floors of the library; the higher you went, the quieter it got. Osamu had visited each floor earlier that day to find the perfect medium between noise and silence, finding either extreme too distracting. He’d concluded that the third floor was ideal, groups would work together in low hums with individuals working silently right beside them.

When Osamu stepped breathlessly into the floor, he felt content at the familiar sight of a busy library. Some kids had huddled already around textbooks at long wooden tables while others poured over first-day assignments in secluded corners, obscured by tall shelves packed with books. Osamu enjoyed watching productivity. It had defined all his years in high school and there was a silent sort of solidarity he felt when seeing others isolate themselves for the same reasons.

But as he passed by the tables full of students in search of an empty desk, he listened in to their rather boisterous conversations.

“I tried to roller skate to class today,” one girl recanted, “but I literally took one step out of my apartment and crashed on my ass. It hurts to sit down.”

Her friends stifled their laughs with pursed lips and flat palms. One of them had to bury her head in her book to stop from giggling so loudly. Osamu’s chest deflated a tad.

“I was at a party last night and watched this guy fuckin’ demolish a beer funnel,” a guy at a different table was saying, “then I come to class today and he’s, I kid you not, my TA.”

Those surrounding him oohed and ahhed at the story and jumped in to ask a multitude of questions which all bore the same theme of ‘did he recognize you?’.  Osamu’s stomach began to slip to his feet. He only passed a few groups who were diligently studying; most had abandoned their half-done papers and partly-highlighted readings to talk to their friends and laugh at their stories.

Osamu passed a table who was discussing a crazy professor they’d all had the past year. Others were concocting a text back to a cute boy rather diplomatically. It wasn’t until Osamu reached the corner of the room with dread teasing every extremity of his body that he found a moment of silence amidst a cluster of desks with individuals seated at each, headphones shoved over their ears and pencils tapping against books.

Osamu heaved a silent sigh and tried desperately to rid all the images and sounds from his head. He felt as though he’d passed through the valley of the shadow of death. Everything within him had been drained out from his feet and what remained was hanging bones, wrung out by his own obsessions.

You’re better than them, he reminded himself.

Because he’d worked harder than any of them. He’d forgone friends and love and everything else to succeed in high school, in Speech and Debate. He had surpassed them all already, they just didn’t know it yet. And no amount of longing could keep him from what he knew he needed to do.

At least there was a single empty seat in the silent square he was standing in.  With a hint of reassurance, Osamu shuffled towards the chair and slung his bag over the back of it. He pulled it out an inch or so, just enough to fit his body inside, when he heard a voice trail from around the corner.

A familiar voice.

Osamu’s eyes narrowed. His teeth gritted. He shouldn’t have checked. He should’ve sat in his seat and put on his headphones to drown it all out. But Osamu was a creature of curiosity, It overtook him like the steam from a hot shower, obscuring his senses.

Thus, with a sour taste in his mouth, Osamu took two slow steps toward the corner, hearing the voices only grow louder. Leaning past the line of walls, he saw them.

A group of boys, probably four or so, all lounging in their own respective chairs around a vast wooden table. There was nothing on said table, not a pencil nor a textbook in sight. There were, however, four ratty skateboards leaning against the legs, one propped up on the table wheels facing the ceiling.

The boys were clad in big shirts and sweatshirts and jackets, either a beanie or a backwards baseball cap flattening their long hair. They were speaking loudly with one another, laughing boldly and letting everyone in the entire library know their business. One of them was gesturing wildly with his hand clad in shiny silver rings.

The one sitting across from him was listening on with his lips poised around a can of Monster.

The one sitting beside him was engrossed in something on his phone.

The last boy was none other than Suna Rintarou.

Osamu’s breath hitched. He felt his body grow hot merely at the sight of him, his lax expression and lazy posture. Of course he’d come to the library to do absolutely nothing. Of course he didn’t have a single pencil or paper in front of him.

Of course he was making them all laugh.

Of course he had friends.

Osamu wished he could unsee it all.

Osamu had always been the “sick child” of the Miya family.

Somehow Atsumu had been born with an iron gut and a military-grade immune system that could withstand even the most widespread bugs that would travel through their elementary school classes. Meanwhile, Osamu came home seemingly every day with some new ailment: cold, fever, sneezes, shakes. He had chickenpox, bronchitis, and strep throat—and that was only third grade. He gained a good bit of immunity in high school as his body changed and developed an actual will to live, but he still found himself at the doctor’s office with some illness every month or so.

At first, it was allergies. Then when all the tests came back negative, the doctor told Osamu that it was autoimmune. But when all those tests came back negative, the doctor told Osamu that there wasn’t much else he could do; the best Osamu could do was try to not get sick, maybe sleep more and not stress so much.

Of course, Osamu couldn’t comply with such lofty guidelines. He’d gotten the suggestion at the height of Speech and Debate season where he was sleeping just about four hours a night to ensure proper preparation. Sure, he woke up the day of their first competition with a nearly silent voice and a cough that indicated an illness close to the Black Plague, but seven cough drops and three tablespoons of cough syrup later, he had enough voice to finish the competition. Yes, he passed out in the parking lot, what about it?

While it was no fun, being sick all the time did prove beneficial to Osamu, in some ways. He could claim a sore throat when his brother and all his friends were going to the Senior Festival. He could play up an aching stomach when Formal rolled around. He didn’t want to do any of that sort of thing, but he knew simply telling his parents ‘no’ would elicit too many questions.

So, as he awoke the morning after his first day of classes with a pounding headache and two blocked nostrils, he knew exactly what sort of day was ahead.

Before he could even hoist himself out of bed, Osamu dug two cough drops out of his nightstand drawer and popped them into his mouth, cringing at the sweet yet pungent taste that swept through his nose, throat, and mouth. He grumbled as he looked at the time, far too early to be doing anything real. But he’d been the one to register for an 8AM class, so he was simply sleeping in the bed he’d built.

Or, rather, reluctantly getting out of it.

His morning was routine, familiar and comforting for the parts of his soul that still prickled with anxiety. He didn’t like getting out of bed on the wrong side and he’d only had probably three seconds of silence and peace before his mind was flooded with memories of the prior day. He’d tried desperately to forget what had occurred in the meeting and in his conversation with Suna, but it played on loop in his thoughts like a haunting recording, stuck in playback.

He hadn’t stayed at the library for too long out of fear that Suna and his friends would pass by and he’d be recognized. Thus, his homework from his first three classes rested unfinished in his backpack. He didn’t dare put them on his desk in case they messed up his Speech and Debate materials.

He’ll just do them later today.

Well, if he lived through what he had planned that night.

Suna had texted him at some ungodly hour the night prior. Now, Osamu stayed up late at night for responsible endeavors. He didn’t think that Suna stayed up for the same reason. But, even so, a message had popped up on his phone just as the clock struck three in the morning.

Suna: hey its suna

Osamu decided to let the poor grammar slide, just this once.

Osamu: Hello. I assume we’re practicing tomorrow?

Osamu set his phone face down on the desk and returned to his obsessive scouring of the NSDA website with weary eyes. But his body was shaking slightly and he suddenly felt rather sick to his stomach. He didn’t usually get texts. He nearly jumped when the phone buzzed again.

Suna: uh, i mean i guess we could ?? weve got time lmao

Osamu huffed out a breath.

Osamu: It’s better to prepare now than to scramble later. Third floor of the library at seven?

Osamu set his phone back down decidedly upon the wood surface. He tried to return to his research without another thought about the message, but his brain kept leaning back towards it like it had some magnetic pull. He found himself waiting with fingers poised over the keys rather than actually typing anything, his mind far too occupied with what Suna would say in response.

He even tried to wait a second when the response finally did come to quell some of the feelings in his body.

Suna: okay I guess

Suna: see u then..

Osamu had fallen asleep shortly after, but not until his mind had raced through every possible scenario and outcome to the meeting they were going to have.

Going to his two classes that day were simply distractions until it happened.

Osamu sniffled and self-medicated his way through two more classes. The first one was characterized by sheets of pouring rain pattering against the window, a nice sound to focus on while drowning out the professor. Osamu sat with his chin in his hand once more and thought as the woman talked at the front.

What kinds of strategies does Suna use?

How did he work so well with his former partner?

What’s his WPM?

Osamu wondered and thought himself to death while the class never seemed to end. He wanted to text Suna and ask him all these questions, but it felt overbearing. Atsumu always used to tell him how strong he came on and how that was the thing scaring potential friends and lovers away. Osamu had claimed not to care that he was doing it, but deep down he felt a little empty knowing that it was something he couldn’t change about himself. How was he supposed to stop being so intense when he didn’t always know why he was doing it?

His second class was less long and the rain had halted to let the clouds part, permitting streaming sunlight to dry up all the soaked pavement. He watched the clock tick closer and closer to five, a light lunch of a sandwich hanging out at the bottom of his stomach and stirring only when he remembered what was coming in the next two hours. He tapped his toe against the leg of the desk as the professor dismissed class, making Osamu’s stomach flip in one big loop.

Osamu wasn’t patient enough to just sit around when there was work to be done in preparation for this meeting. He hadn’t touched anything related to Speech and Debate since Nationals, so he was itching to recreate his usual setup in a brand new space and finally talk to someone who would understand.

Thus, Osamu picked a perfect moment where he knew the library would be emptying out for the next class and beat the wave of incoming students. He bought himself a coffee from the kiosk out front as he waited for this prime moment, getting rather anxious as he was shoving coins into his wallet with the watchful eye of the guy behind him silently and simultaneously pushing him out of the line. Osamu grabbed a sleeve for his coffee and entered the library just as he heard a barrage of students exit the neighboring buildings.

His doctor would be most displeased with his choice of beverage—he’d told Osamu long ago to stop drinking caffeine if he had any hope of sleeping properly again, but Osamu couldn’t resist the taste or the smell or the slight buzz of energy it gave him. He’d lived on cold brew during his late nights in high school and now he needed the slightest pick-me-up before his meeting with Suna Rintarou.

He’d timed the entire thing rather nicely since there were some good open tables on the third floor. He sat at a few, shifting slightly and checking his surroundings to make sure it was perfect. The first two were alright, but the third was absolutely perfect. Osamu sighed contently before slinging his bag onto the table and pulling out his things uniformly.

First his laptop,

then his flashcards,

then his pencils,

then his timer.

He’d changed the timer batteries that morning, just in case.

When he was satisfied with the placement of everything after endless fiddling, Osamu sat and opened his laptop, opening websites he’d long forgotten. He cracked a smile at the sight of Tabroom, the long list of circuits and results through which he used to scour at all hours of the day. He had a journal sitting in a drawer of his desk chock full of all the debate results he could possibly record by hand. He’d write the competitors and the scores, whether they were aff or neg, and who the judges were. Osamu had memorized some of the judges and their preferences. He and Atsumu always used that knowledge to their advantage. If they were anything in their competition days, they were cunning. Being a good debater is only partly speaking the right way, knowing to whom you’re speaking is just as important.

That was Osamu’s plan with Suna, he was going to use the proper tactics to get the man to do his bidding. He could be charming like Atsumu, he just had to try. He had to think about his past and prepare.

“Maybe yer just not cut out for that aspect of life,” Atsumu shrugged, “it’s not a big deal, ya don’t have t’be charming.”

Osamu sighed from the lower bed, turning a silver medal over in his hands and running his fingers over the inscription.

“Ya don’t realize how good ya have it, Atsumu,” he replied, “cause yer just naturally good at all these things.”

“Don’t blame me fer it!” He exclaimed.

“I’m not!” Osamu bit back.

Atsumu huffed, “Sounds like ya are.”

Osamu rolled his eyes in annoyance before glancing once more at the medal. It was just one comment from a judge who stated that Osamu was too ‘cold and critical’ in his approach to debate. He just needed to loosen up and allow the ideas to come naturally—

“Like your brother does!” She’d said.

Cold, critical, so unlike Atsumu—

that was all Osamu was.

Frankly, years later, Osamu didn’t care so much about some random woman’s comment. He was fine being cold and critical. Hadn’t it gotten him this far? He was scrolling through Tabroom like a proper debater, scoping out the competition for the coming semester. He was so focused on this very task that he nearly didn’t feel his phone buzz in his pocket.

He tugged it out with a grimace to see Atsumu’s name plastered over the screen.

Atsumu: hey man! just checkin in, bet u had ur first speech meeting...HOW WAS IT?? have u gotten ur subject for the next tournament? what’s the individual team like?

Osamu swallowed thickly. His stomach felt sour.

Atsumu: individual team here is fuckin insane, day one we were runnin drills and bouncing off each other like pros. it was better than anything we did in high school, i wish u were here to see it!!

Atsumu: but i’ll see u at the next comp right ?? hope we get to go head-to-head >:)

Ropes of electricity shot down to the very tips of Osamu’s fingers which were shaking and hovering over the keys. His eyes felt dry from how long they’d been open and staring intently at the messages. For just a moment, he’d forgotten about the school Atsumu was at and the team he was a part of now. Osamu’s lips trembled slightly as he moved to reply.

But he couldn’t. The right words weren’t coming to mind. He didn’t know what to sat without sounding bitter or distant or whatever else that judge had admonished him for almost five years ago. He could only sit there with breaths rattling around in the iron cage of his chest.

His eyes flicked to the time.

7:10

Suna was late.

It was infuriating enough to pull Osamu’s attention away from the messages to the door which lay dormant. No sign of Suna and no text, either. If you’re going to be late, isn’t it common decency to text?

Osamu began to seethe. He closed out the messages with Atsumu and opened his conversation with Suna just to make sure he hadn’t missed anything, but the last message sent was confirming the time late the previous night.

Suna had probably forgotten. He cared so little about Speech and Debate that he was with his friends in some abandoned parking garage making a fool of himself on his skateboard. He was getting drunk at someone’s house or taking a long nap in his dorm. Osamu wasn’t a stranger to being forgotten, so he knew every excuse in the book.

7:14

Osamu gritted his teeth and checked the door again.

Incompetent, uncouth, ill-mannered.

That was only the tip of the iceberg when it came to words Miya Osamu had used to define Suna Rintarou.

7:16

The flame that had nearly extinguished in his stomach since the meeting the prior day began to grow once more, enveloping Osamu’s insides in a gentle heat. It was a nice distraction from how sick he’d felt thinking about Atsumu.

7:19

He’s not coming, Osamu thought.

The bastard.

Osamu closed his laptop first with a harsh click. He picked it up and shoved it in his backpack, followed by his pencils and his reading glasses. The anger inside of him was growing by the second, and if he didn’t want to have a meltdown in the middle of the library, he had to leave now.

It was just when he’d turned off his timer that he glanced to his left and saw a familiar figure standing in the doorway.

Suna Rintarou.

Suna Rintarou in an oversized blue button-down and baggy black sweatpants, the same beat-up converse covering his feet. He looked around for a moment before catching a glimpse of Osamu sitting at the table with his backpack in his lap. Suna cracked a half-smile before sauntering over to the empty seat, skateboard in hand.

“You’re late,” were the first words to come out of Osamu’s mouth, angry and sour.

Suna peered at him, “Some of us have jobs, okay?”

Oh.

So he hadn’t been sleeping or getting wasted or hanging out with his jerk friends. He’d been working, probably held late by something he couldn’t control. Osamu was a man of reason, and this seemed like the only good reason to be so late to a vital meeting. Though he’d have liked to stay angry for longer, Osamu could feel the flame in his stomach already flickering and growing small. Suna slammed his backpack onto the table and sighed while adjusting the fit of his clothing.

Osamu slowly set his backpack back onto the table and pulled his laptop out, once more. Opening it, he eyed Suna. He hadn’t pulled anything out of his backpack, he was just rubbing the skin around his eyes which was dark and baggy like he hadn’t slept in ages.

“So—” Osamu blurted out, “what’s your style?”

Slipping his glasses onto his face, Osamu finally got a good view of Suna’s tousled hair and now confused expression.

“My what?”

Osamu furrowed his brow.

“Your style,” he repeated, “how you witness in cross-examination, what you do first when you get your topic, these are the kinds of things we have to figure out now or we’ll be deers in the headlights come competition day!”

Osamu felt his words grow clipped and heated the longer he spoke. It had been a while since he’d used any of these words, and they still rolled off the tongue so easily. However, Suna looked like he was sitting across from a crazed man; his eyes were wide and his mouth was slightly agape.

“I guess—I don’t really have a style?” He replied sheepishly.

Osamu craned his neck to look at the man closer and make sure he wasn’t telling some sort of sick joke.

“You have to have a style,” Osamu insisted, “how else would you properly prepare? Are you more contextual? Literal? What sort of evidentiary basis do you usually give?”

Suna’s mouth was still agape as he shook his head in utter disbelief. Osamu felt like he was speaking an entirely different language to him. How had this guy beaten him and Atsumu at Nationals?

“I’m gonna level with you and admit that I only know all of those words separately,” he said lazily with a growing smile.

Osamu’s bones began to burn inside his body. It wasn’t fair. There’s no way this guy surpassed the Marvelous Miyas when he didn’t even know what Osamu was saying. It didn’t make sense.

“Sorry,” Suna held his hands up in surrender as he sensed Osamu’s intensity, “I did Dramatic Interpretation for the first few years, the time I went to Nationals was the only year I ever did Public Forum Debate.”

Dramatic Interpretation. That was an individual competition type where speakers would prepare a portion of a play or prose up to ten minutes in length to perform for the judges. They were scored on oratory style, character choices, and overall memorization of the text.

It was basically theatre. Osamu wouldn’t admit it out loud, but what they did always seemed a bit too easy, it didn’t hold the challenges he believed true debate presented.

But knowing that Suna did Dramatic Interpretation for however many years felt—wrong.

“What?” Osamu asked in disbelief.

Suna rolled his eyes, “I know I don’t look like someone who would be good at that, but that doesn’t have anything to do with skill. I was fuckin’ good at the event.”

Osamu had to take another silent moment to stare at Suna’s relaxed expression and crossed arms, swallowing the viscous concept of Suna performing a dramatic monologue in a suit.

He’d probably look good in a well-fitted one, something that hugged close to his slim figure in a color that complimented his pale, almost pinkish skin. Osamu always appreciated a competitor with a well-tailored suit.

For no particular reason, of course.

“Fine,” Osamu sighed and felt his brows pinch, “then I guess we’re starting at square one.”

Osamu opened his laptop and heaved one more beleabored sigh while Suna watched on with a smirk. He took out his timer and pencils next while preparing what he was going to start with.

He knew his prior words sounded cruel, but it was what he was thinking of at that moment—

“Y’know your face can get stuck like that, right?” Suna remarked with a point while taking a swig of his water.

well, that and possibly choking Suna Rintarou to death from across the library table.

Chapter Text

Since that night, Osamu had vowed to do most of the preparation alone.

The date of their first competition was looming faster than he had anticipated, which meant most of his nights were spent hunched over Tabroom and running through old notes that he’d kept in a binder, inches thick from countless competitions with his brother. He still went to class, but he found himself ill-prepared most of the time and, when he actually had done the homework, he was losing participation points by staring out the window attempting to anticipate the judges that would be at the competition and what subject they might be presented with.

Whenever he wasn’t thinking about two Saturdays from now, he was thinking about Suna Rintarou.

Despite all his best efforts, Osamu couldn’t even begin to imagine Suna doing Dramatic Interpretation. What kinds of wealth did they have to coax him with to do something like that well enough to win awards? Maybe he was a natural, a savant when it came to speaking. Or maybe he was just damn lucky. Like Atsumu.

Osamu felt his body buzz with contempt as he flipped through yet another video of Suna he’d found on the internet. Sure enough, he was standing there in his well-fitted suit with a more juvenile haircut performing a monologue from Othello with practiced perfection. His facial expressions were spot-on every single time and his hands were always in the proper place. It was like the monologue had possessed him just for those ten minutes because when he was on stage accepting his first-place trophy, he’d sported the same half-lidded disinterest he wore around Osamu.

And that wasn’t the only thing pissing Osamu off. In a rather banter-ish back-and-forth between him and Suna at their first library meeting, he’d only been able to convince him into meeting two days a week for preparation. It was a sort of debate, perhaps, where Osamu could only sit there slack-jawed, marveling at Suna’s natural quick wit. And he smiled the entire time as if he knew he was going to win before the argument even started. 

Hence, Tuesdays and Thursdays were born. Tuesday had happened, Thursday as well. Nothing impressive happened at those meetings beyond Osamu drilling speech topics into Suna’s head while he just sat back and asked stupid question after stupid question. Osamu had walked home from their meeting in the latter half of the week wondering what Suna had done with his first-place trophy from Nationals. Perhaps it was collecting dust in a garage somewhere. Or maybe he’d tossed it in the backseat of his car after the competition and forgotten entirely about it as clothes and fast-food bags piled atop it. 

But Osamu wasn’t going to lose his cool. Atsumu would never lose his cool in a situation like this, he’d just go with the flow like he always did. And if Osamu was going to dominate at this next competition, he had to align himself as closely with Miya Atsumu as he possibly could. Even if that meant domesticating Suna Rintarou and molding him into the best damn debater the association had ever seen.

Then there were nights where Osamu would lay awake and wonder if all his work was in vain. If Suna had really won Nationals, then he wouldn’t need so much prep and fretting to do well, but Osamu just still couldn’t believe it. He probably had a partner who was fantastic enough to cover for them both. Or he’d likely just had a crazy lucky streak that day. Or one of the judges was on drugs. It had to be one of those because no matter how many ways he spun it, Osamu could not imagine Suna Rintarou winning first place at Nationals. 

The thought was almost comical to him, actually.

Thus, Osamu found himself sitting once again at the library, the same old wooden table and the same white clock ticking on the opposite wall. Seven had passed four long minutes ago. Suna still hadn’t given much explanation to his chronic lateness besides something mumbled about his “part-time job”, but Osamu also hadn’t held back on any of his criticism for such a habit. Perhaps if Suna ran from his job to the library, he wouldn’t be so late.

It was a joke that Osamu told himself, an image he could giggle at of Suna running through campus—

it was a joke, at least, until Suna appeared in the library door panting with the front of his embroidered work polo soaked in sweat.

Osamu’s lips parted in surprise as he watched a breathless Suna burst through the glass doors with his backpack swinging wildly across his shoulder. He lifted a tentative hand to smooth back the parts of his hair that were sticking up from the wind while he pulled the front of his polo shirt with the other hand in an attempt to dry the sweat that had damped the front. Osamu swallowed and felt a nervous feeling settle in his stomach as Suna wet his bottom lip with his tongue, eyes searching for their usual spot. 

When their gazes finally met, Suna’s face fell into a matter-of-fact expression. He lumbered over with as much energy as he usually had.

Once he reached the table, Suna stood and stared intently at Osamu with one sweeping gesture of the front of his body. His tight-fitting polo stretched across the broad front of his body and was tucked into a pair of gray slacks that looked snug. If Osamu looked closely, he could read the name of the college embroidered on the left side of his chest with “Campus Recreation” sewed below it.

“Look,” Suna said breathily, “I fuckin’ ran, you happy?”

Osamu’s brow knitted. His eyes grazed once more over Suna’s ensemble and his slightly crazed and panting expression to top it all off. Suna had certainly run, but Osamu wasn’t feeling so gracious that day.

“You’re still late,” Osamu muttered before staring back at the screen of his computer.

Suna didn’t bitch or yell like Atsumu would’ve done. In fact, he just rolled his eyes and plopped down in his seat, backpack slamming onto the table with a similar thud. 

Instantly, he unzipped the main pocket and started digging inside of it. Osamu tried to discreetly peek over his computer to watch; perhaps he was pulling out his own laptop or a Speech and Debate book or maybe a pencil.

Instead, Suna pulled out a bunch of gray fabric which looked more like a shirt than any of the things Osamu had been thinking about. He set the shirt onto the table and did a quick check of the students around them, all of which were engrossed in their own books or computers. With nimble fingers, Suna unfastened the two little buttons on the top of his shirt and, before Osamu could object, pulled the entire thing over his head.

Osamu tore his eyes back to his keyboard with a sharp inhale as he watched Suna shed his entire shirt in one swift motion. He swallowed nervously as he waited for Suna’s bare chest to be exposed to the entire third floor of the library, but was able to heave a small sigh of relief when he saw his white, ribbed tank top, which was equally as soaked with sweat. 

As Suna fiddled with his shirt on the table, Osamu peeked above the edge of his laptop screen to get another look at his slightly soiled undershirt decorated with a thick silver cross on a long chain that hung against his sternum. Suna was thin but decidedly built. Maybe he’d played a sport in high school? Who has time for sports and Speech and Debate? Osamu was more and more baffled by Suna with each passing moment, he couldn’t stop staring and wondering.

Osamu’s body slumped as Suna slipped on his gray shirt and pulled the oversized sleeves down to cover his upper arms. He cleared his throat, stretched his neck either way, and assumed his usual position in the chair before noticing that Osamu had been staring the whole time. His brow lowered and the corners of his mouth ticked up.

“Y’good?” He muttered.

Osamu came to with a sharp breath and stumbled over words he hadn’t prepared to say.

“Y-yeah,” he stammered and placed his hands back over the keys.

Osamu felt like he was clawing through thick fog in his own mind to find the right words to say to quell the silence that had befallen them. He sniffled a few times before adjusting himself in his seat and finally finding the productivity pocket of his brain. 

“So—” Osamu composed himself, “we should really talk about our style.”

Suna quirked a brow.

“Our style?”

Osamu nodded, “How we work as a team since the debate is two-on-two.”

Suna chuckled for a quick moment at a joke he’d probably made to himself. Osamu glared at him just long enough to regain his attention. That was the thing, Suna’s mind seemed to move at this egregious snail pace which he didn’t seem bothered by in the slightest. Osamu couldn’t imagine him getting out more than two words in five whole seconds, much less reaching the efficiency of the usual debater. 

But he must have some sort of skill, right? If not, then Osamu’s nightmares would surely return, the ones where he was blinded by the stage lights and forced to speak on a topic he hadn’t prepared even an iota for. The dreams usually ended with his feet hitting cold tile, then the side of his cheek, and him waking up on the bathroom floor—his own bathroom floor. He’d blamed Atsumu for trying to play a prank on him the first time, but when Atsumu was at camp one summer and Osamu was home, he found himself in a similar position every night, a shudder running through all his bones and a faint feeling of nausea deep in his body.

“Like, my brother and I,” Osamu continued, “we had a pretty textbook style, but it’s okay to be predictable if you’re an expert at the style you’ve chosen. So we could probably just work on that—”

Suna pouted for a moment and leaned back in his seat, fiddling with the end of his silver chain necklace. Osamu sat up straighter.

“What?” He asked as if Suna had said something wrong.

Suna’s brow rose and his eyes went wide.

“Nothing,” he said, “keep going.”

And so, Osamu did. He pulled out the book in question which laid out the style he and Atsumu had used for years, the one which had given them win after win in their prime. The pages felt familiar beneath Osamu’s fingers, even though it belonged to Atsumu. Every once in a while, he’d sneak it off his brother’s bookshelf and flip through the pages, choosing to ignore the “ATSUMU” written in giant letters on the inside of the cover. He would’ve done the same if it was his book. But now, sitting in such a public place with the book under his fingers, Osamu still felt a streak of daring fear run through him. Perhaps Atsumu would walk in and see that his book was stolen and then see how Osamu was better at all the things he did than him. 

Of course, that wouldn’t happen—

Atsumu was at least seventy miles due east.

And all Osmau had to prove his worth was a ratty old book with his twin brother’s name scrawled on the inside cover.

Suna watched along rather intently, nodding every once in a while but looking overall confused by the terminology and the long paragraphs. He peered his thin eyes over the words Osamu pointed at and pursed his lips at some of the concepts.

“You don’t like it?” Osamu asked quickly and defensively, words clipped by his own insecurity.

Suna looked up at him again with the same raised brow as before, eyes still disinterested.

“It’s fine,” he shrugged, “just a little methodical for me.”

Osamu stared at him for a quiet moment.

“Too—methodical?”

Osamu’s name might as well be “methodical.” Everything he did had a time frame and an order and a proper way contrasting an improper way. Being “methodical” was how he won debate after debate. Being “methodical” was how he got into college. Being “methodical” was all Osamu really had.

Suna must’ve watched Osamu’s face pinch tightly at the assumption. His mouth ticked into a half-smile while he looked up from the book and into Osamu’s eyes. Osamu wasn’t one for eye contact, but Suna kept inhaling like he was going to say something important. It was a vicious waiting game, one that was silent and steady, possibly just like the two of them. An elastic band stretched between them, begging to be released; but the release came with the knowledge that one of them was holding the end and the other would be snapped. 

Osamu could sense the shift in power, but he certainly wasn’t going to admit it.

“Y’know, I watched you and your brother debate,” Suna admitted, “and I’m way better with images than I am with words so, think about this.”

For the first time in any of their meetings, Suna peeled his back from the chair and leaned forward until his elbows were planted atop the table, his hands lazily hanging in the air and his head pushing towards Osamu with an insightful look.

“You ever play volleyball?” He asked.

Osamu punched his brows.

“No,” he admitted (sports weren’t really his thing).

“Fine, but have you seen a game of volleyball?” Suna insisted, “Are you familiar with the game?”

Truthfully, Osamu was. He had this strange addiction to the Olympics that would glue his butt to the couch at home in front of the TV for as long as the games lasted. He’d watch every single event no matter how strange it seemed: curling, competitive kayaking, synchronized swimming. But he did watch the volleyball games. They were far more fast-paced than baseball but not as mind-boggling as American football. He didn’t want to admit that it felt good to tell Suna ‘yes’ in that moment.

Osamu just nodded.

“So, imagine this,” Suna gestured with his hands around an invisible box, “your brother as the setter, right? He was the one who prepared you for all your talking points, he said specific things in his segment knowing exactly what the other side would say in retaliation.”

Osamu imagined a debate. He could see himself and his brother standing at odds with another pair, suits tight around their chests and the time on their clock quickly running out. He could almost see Atsumu setting the information to him, bringing up every talking point that they had prepared in their long nights. He imagined the tips of his fingers grazing the words and hoisting them up into the air, impenetrable to the opponent’s blocks.

“And if your brother is the setter, then you’re the spiker,” Suna explained, a new fervor in his voice, “when that counter comes back, you’re the one who plants all that information your brother prepared into the opponent’s court.”

Osamu imagined that, as well. The palm of his hand hitting the edges of those same words with a resounding thud that shook the podiums and the seats of the auditorium. He imagined the opponents how they always were on the court, belly-down on the wood with weary eyes staring up at the spiker who had just scored on them. It was an exhilarating sight, one akin to the feeling Osamu would get when he watched the opposing pair’s faces go blank after his successful counter. It made his heart beat. It made him salivate like a predator searching for any sort of prey, dead or alive. Osamu was insatiable behind the podium. 

He wanted every spike.

He wanted every point.

“Thing is,” Suna’s voice lowered, “I’m not a setter.”

Osamu tore himself from his daydream and glanced back at Suna, who was sporting a subtly apologetic expression. 

“I’m no good setting up information or anticipating what the other side is gonna say,” he admitted.

Osamu’s heart sank. All his expectations, all the hope that he could simply recreate the power of him and his brother had melted to the ugly carpet floor of the campus library. He watched it ooze out the door and disappear entirely from existence. Perhaps he had been right at the beginning and Four had been wrong.

Suna was the wrong partner for him.

“But,” Suna insisted.

His brow went low. His eyes narrowed into a thin line of determination. His mouth hadn’t ticked up into its usual smile, but he didn’t seem too thrilled as much as he seemed—

ready.

“I’m a damn good blocker,” he whispered.

Osamu knitted his brow and leaned in closer, curiosity swirling at the bottom of his stomach.

“I may be no good setting up the information for you, but I am the king of doing shit on the fly and making my opponents seem like idiots, no matter what points they bring up,” he continued.

Osamu tried to imagine it. He was essentially his own setter and spiker in this situation. It was entirely his responsibility to anticipate the other side and set everything up just right. It was a frightening handful of jobs to have, he had never even considered doing it alone. But knowing that Suna would be waiting on the other side, prepared for any spike of their opponents—

Osamu could almost feel himself getting excited about the match he was dreading for so long.

“They go left, so do I,” Suna leaned back in his seat, “and with no delay. Usually, the first thing that pops into my mind is the best course of action, so I go with it.”

Osamu had to sit back in his own seat and think for a moment, the image still so fresh in his mind. He could hear every word, every smack of the ball on the court, the calls for sets and cheers from the crowd. It all applied so perfectly to debate, he was almost taken aback. All the reading he’d done, all the preparation he and Atsumu had dedicated to their style had been watered down to a simple metaphor. An image he couldn’t quite shake.

Then, Osamu melted.

His determined ghost of a smile turned into a line of stone. His eyes shining with anticipation muted in color. Realization gripped at his weary bones like a mother admonishing their child for straying away. Hearing Suna talk like this without missing a single beat, Osamu was surprised.

Surprised that Suna Rintarou was so much smarter than he thought.

Maybe even smarter than Osamu.

The thought took a hold of Osamu’s mind before he could quell it, condemn it to the prison where he kept all his other negative feelings. The tips of his fingers began to scrape along the smooth front of the book he’d been reading out of not ten minutes earlier and his entire body buzzed with rage.

He’s smarter than me.

He’s just like Atsumu.

Osamu stared down into his lap.

He’s just like Atsumu.

A hard lump formed in his throat.

I was supposed to be Atsumu.

With quick, swift motions, Osamu shoved his closed laptop into his bag, then the textbook.

“What, are we done?” He heard Suna ask teasingly through the ocean of blood rushing through his ears.

Osamu didn’t reply. He couldn’t. His tongue was on fire.

Instead, he just kept shoving things into his backpack: pencils, his timer, his notebook. The rage coursed through him at an agonizing pace that ensured he’d be absolutely insane by the time he got back to his dorm. But he knew if he opened his mouth, sour things would come out of it; things he wouldn’t be able to take back.

He rushed out the glass doors without another look towards Suna or his stupid silver necklace or his stupid smile. He wanted out. He wanted out of the library, out of this school he didn’t want to go to in the first place, and out of this partnership with Suna Rintarou. 

As the slightly cool late-summer air hit Osamu’s face, he felt the familiar sting of tears prick the corners of his eyes. He wasn’t a sad crier. He didn’t weep over dogs dying in movies or videos of soldiers returning from war. Miya Osamu was a frustrated crier. When everything felt like too much in his head, the only remedy was to let it all explode through hot tears that streamed down his face in twin ravines. 

As he waded through the remaining people walking home from their final class of the day, illuminated by the inky strokes of night, he tried desperately to hold back this particular feeling. He gripped the strap of his backpack tighter and tighter while gritted his teeth behind sealed lips. If he could just get back to his room, then he could cry there in privacy.

The only place in his home to cry privately had been his parents’ closet.

He and Atsumu would fight all the time, sometimes petty wrestling coaxed by their friends, which would end with a particularly fierce hair tug and a series of shouts to their mother while the other tried to soothe the pain away, but other times, their fights were made of words shot at each other through slammed doors and stomping feet. It was those fights that would hurt Osamu the most, make his body feel like it was on fire and create all those frustrated tears he knew so well. He couldn’t go to his room to cry because his room was also Atsumu’s room, and he couldn’t be seen in such a state by his brother who was far too accustomed to teasing than he was. 

Thus, Osamu would rush into their parents’ bedroom and shove himself deep in their tiny closet, letting the thick coats and satin blouses overtake his tiny form while he wept, soft cries and little tears streaming down his face, wetting the collar of his shirt. If he was quiet enough, Atsumu wouldn’t be able to hear him. As badly as he wanted to turn on the light while he was in there (a rather rampant fear of the dark), he knew doing so would signal his location to mean twin brothers. So he sat there shivering and crying over an argument he’d usually forgotten at that point.

This was the first time in Osamu’s life that he had a place of his own to cry. He had a room with a lock and a bed that was shadowed by his brother’s. He was doing a rather good job of holding all the tears in, too, when he left what was considered the quad of campus and entered the loop which was far less crowded bar the occasional student walking by with a pizza box in hand and a large sweatshirt covering any semblance of their identity. 

Osamu could see his residence hall in the distance, but only through a thick veil of hot tears. He was trying to hold it back, that was all he wanted. Once his back was to the inside of that door, then he could sob and punch his pillow all he wanted. But he wasn’t there yet, he was walking in front of a sandwich shop which had a surprising amount of patrons for eight in the evening. 

It crept up on him, starting at the knot in his throat and making even his cheekbones ache. It begged for him to let go of the hold he had of his mouth. He kept swallowing thickly, fumbling for his keycard in his pocket. 

He thanked the Lord that the elevator was empty when he stepped into it. He pressed his proper floor number and hoped that the fluorescent lights which bathed the entire place in a sickening white glow would burn the tears right out of his eyes.

His breath shuddered hot and uneven out of his nose. Osamu watched the number tick far too slowly for his liking. If there was someone waiting on the other side when he reached his floor, he couldn’t care anymore. His face was contorted like he was trying to hold back tears and his swallows were far too frequent to be normal. 

The moment the doors opened, he dashed out onto his floor and kept his eyes trained on his feet as he turned one corner, walked, then turned another. Fumbling for his room key once more, he swiped himself in and let the breath become even more broken and wobbly. Tears were forming now, large and hot at the line of his eye. Even his lip was trembling as he swiped the card once and then another time, each attempt a failed one.

“God fucking damnit,” he hissed.

His first mistake was opening his mouth. It was like all the emotion he’d been holding behind his teeth had been vomited over his hands and the doorknob. One tear had streaked down his cheek from the sheer effort of opening his now unlocked door, and he was surprised he even got the damn thing closed before his back hit the wood and he slid to the ground, head instantly ducking between his knees and his arms wrapped around his shins, pulling his legs tight to his chest.

With his eyes closed and his small whimpers coursing through the still air of his dorm room, Osamu could almost feel those thick coats and satin shirts tickling his arm; Atsumu was outside the door, shaking on the locked handle and calling out his name and the bandaid on his knee was curling up from the sweat and dirt of the outdoors. 

Osamu wasn’t a kid anymore, but he couldn’t help but feel like one as he wept into his knees and made himself as small as possible while doing so.

And, just like always,

he couldn’t even remember why he was crying.

Another dull day of classes passed. This time, there was rain. It was pretty consistent. Osamu awoke to a gray patchy sky which began to spill right as he left his residence hall in pursuit of his first class of the day. He sighed, remembering his umbrella was inside. There was no point walking just to be on time if he was going to be soaking wet, so he trudged back up the stairs and fetched his umbrella from where he always left it: the third hook from the right beside his door. 

The air was rather heavy and humid, he felt like he was sipping it through a straw as he walked and listened to the soft pattering against his umbrella. By the time he reached the quad, the toes of his blue Reeboks were soaked. His sock was just damp, but it was an unpleasant sensation, nevertheless. 

He’d stared at himself in the mirror for a long time that morning, pulling at his puffy, red-rimmed eyes for what could’ve been three-quarters of an hour. He hoped it was subtle enough to look like allergies. If anyone asked, he was going to say the rain kicked up the pollen. Not like anyone was going to ask. He didn’t talk to anyone in his classes. Or outside of his classes, for that matter. Osamu liked to keep to himself because if no one knew him or paid attention to him, then it wouldn’t matter if he didn’t show up at all one day.

Osamu would rather be a ghost than anything else, haunting the halls and reduced to a mere urban legend if anyone were to talk about him.

Thus, he haunted the empty space of his classes that day with his chin in the palm of his hand and a pencil stilled between his fingers. His mind felt cloudy and his body felt tired. It was as if his bones had melted while he cried the previous night and now he was left with the gelatinous aftermath. He had to be gentle with himself if he had any hope of regaining solidity. But he couldn’t give himself any time to rest, not after his realization from the previous night. 

And certainly not when their very first competition was the next morning.

His nightmares had started up again. Luckily, something about the layout of his dorm room had stopped his sleepwalking habits and the worst he would do was wake up lying horizontally in his bed rather than vertically with his arms clutched around his legs, holding them flush to his chest. The bib part of his shirt had soaked through with hot sweat and his hair was plastered to his face, but he’d certainly had worse from sleepless nights. 

Whenever the prospect of that coming Saturday entered his mind, he’d feel sick, like he was on a rollercoaster, but he wasn’t having any fun, and the only way he could get off was to wait for the end. It was torturous, the waiting, just like what Suna had made him do when they sat in the library the night before. They’d done minimal preparation together, but it was nothing compared to what Osamu had done on his own. While as a team they seemed pretty rickety, Osamu had hunched over his laptop late into every night, predicting every possible outcome for the match at hand. If Suna screwed up, then he could take over. If they lost their rhythm, he had a million different things he could do to save the situation. He just had to remember them all. 

That’s what he wanted to write in his notebook:

Remember everything.

An impossible task for the normal human, but a fairly easy one for Miya Osamu. Freakish memory, that was what his parents would call it. Then, in the same breath, they’d compare Osamu’s aptitude for memorization to Atsumu’s far superior aptitude for learning. While Osamu could remember, Atsumu could know with just as much ease. It always put a sour taste on Osamu’s tongue, but he was never one to argue with his parents. That was Atsumu’s job. 

Class ended. It rained again. Osamu didn’t realize until five or six in the late afternoon that he hadn’t spoken a word the entire day, not even to himself in the mirror. He wondered if he should call Aran. Maybe not, he was probably at practice. As Osamu scrolled through his phone before yet another one of his classes, he stumbled across Atsumu’s name. Perhaps he should call—

No.

That’s a distraction.

Calling Atsumu will only make everything worse.

Osamu kept scrolling. It wasn’t a very long list, mostly his family and kids he’d met in Speech and Debate who always needed rides to competitions, so he quickly reached the latter half of it. And there he saw his name.

Suna Rintarou.

It hadn’t been long since their spat. Well, one-sided spat, perhaps, but Osamu didn’t know what Suna thought of him now that he’d stormed out at such a strange point in their meeting. He probably thought Osamu was crazy. Maybe Osamu was. 

With a sigh, Osamu clicked his phone closed. The professor began to talk and he nearly slipped back into another nightmarish episode of sleep.

Nothing could be worse than the one he had the night before their first competition, though.

He’d tried to coax himself to sleep before three AM after countless hours at his computer preparing and memorizing and working himself practically to death, but all his thoughts were too fast and loud to sleep after all of that. Thus, Osamu was left tossing and turning in his bed while the same phrases played on loop in his mind.

Remember…

If this happens…

Maybe you could…

What would Atsumu do?

Like a worn-out recording, the same question pervaded his every thought. He tried to remember all their prior debates and their pre-competition traditions, but none came to mind when Osamu really needed it. When he did eventually think himself to sleep, it was restless, the kind that you awaken from feeling like you’d just now closed your eyes.

He awoke to a clammy sensation in his fingers and legs. He struggled to hold the toothbrush right and he kept dropping his shampoo in the shower. Osamu was more of a mess than usual on competition day. The only thing that filled him with any sort of energy was the bright sun and cloudless sky outside his window.

The competition began at ten. Competitors had to be signed in by nine-thirty but, really, getting there at nine was your best bet. Osamu pushed his arms through a blue button-down and fastened his tie just like his dad had shown him years ago. He messed with his hair a tad, gelling it back into something sensible and sleek, then he pulled on his gray suit and fastened just one button an inch below his ribs. He checked himself obsessively in the mirror for any stray hair or misaligned shoelace, and he only left the room when he’d achieved perfection. It was only eight-fifteen, after all, and the drive to the auditorium was twenty minutes, twenty-five if there was traffic. He’d mapped it the night before, following the long road with his cursor to take note of any possible spots where cars could pile up and cause him to be late.

Osamu hated being late.

Perhaps it was the only thing he hated more than Suna Rintarou.

His drive was quiet. Though Osamu enjoyed the lulling chatter of the radio when he drove, he opted to travel in silence that morning, a click playing in his ear every time he swallowed thickly. His stomach was stirring, preparing to vomit his dinner from the night before the moment he saw the stage. Osamu’s knuckles were going white around the steering wheel as he reached his first stoplight. He inhaled cold air from the vents of his little Toyota Camry and exhaled something broken and shuddering. 

He kept darting his tongue out to wet his creasing, dry lips, but the air conditioning was so high that it would suck all the moisture out within seconds. But if Osamu didn’t turn the air all the way up, he would start sweating and feel even more nauseous. And throwing up in his car was far worse than throwing up in the comfort of the auditorium bathroom.

He reached the parking lot with fifteen minutes to spare before nine, so he sat with his back pressed up against the seat and his eyes focused on a fixed point of the brick building. There were probably two other cars in the parking lot but in the way there are always two cars in a parking lot with no owner and no way home. Osamu sat for what felt like hours, swallowing all his anxiety which had knotted up in his throat and wiping his sweaty hands on his pants. Sitting beside him was his backpack with his laptop, laptop stand, timer, and his usual stack of printed notes and index cards with the exact same things handwritten on them. He and Suna had done some proper work in preparation for this day, but their parting had been less than sweet, leaving something undetermined between them. And knowing that Suna’s style was decidedly different from his previous partner’s--Osamu could feel himself getting more and more nervous as he considered possibilities he hadn’t conjured even in those late nights of torment.

Atsumu probably had a competition that day, too. He wondered how prepared he was. He probably had a group of teammates rallying around him, checking over his notes ad nauseum. Or maybe his school had a laminator he could use for free to quell any fears of smeared pencil or pen on the index cards. Osamu kept checking the clock on his dashboard as if he expected it to come to life and swallow him whole. 

More people had started to gather when nine rolled around. Osamu joined them casually with notes in hand after he adjusted his suit one too many times in the reflection of his car window. He held his bottom lip in between his teeth as he neared the front doors of the grand building, already seeing familiar sights through the tinted glass. 

Sitting at the entrance was the sign up table manned by three college students (or, at least, that’s how they looked). There were clipboards full of names of all who would be competing that day. Once everyone had signed in, they would post the pairings and dismiss you to whatever room you were assigned to for that day.

This was simply a district competition, there was nothing qualifying about it, but a warm-up never hurt especially when everyone had new partners and such. Osamu was half-relieved by the knowledge that the outcome had little bearing on making it to Nationals, but putting on an impressive show was still important even if the results were low.

Osamu approached the table with a sigh and smiled dully at those who were sitting opposite him. They explained the mechanisms of the competition while he searched for his name and scribbled his signature in the proper slot, but the voices were merely a buzz in Osamu’s ear as his head rushed with blood. He glanced at the empty sheet for a moment where, soon, names would be scrawled to indicate pair-ups. His fate rest in that sheet. And in Suna Rintarou.

Who wasn’t even there yet.

Osamu had relegated himself to a seat in that long hallway after signing in, wanting to be the first thing Suna saw when he walked through the door.

In case he gets lost, Osamu had joked to himself.

He knew he wouldn’t see Atsumu there. They were competing in different districts. But a small part of Osamu was waiting for the blonde to waltz through the doors at any moment with his signature grin. Because without him, it felt wrong. Everything felt off to Osamu without Atsumu there beside him. He’d gotten up on the correct side of the bed and felt stable all morning, but the seesaw tilted without warning and now he was wondering if the world had always been at this angle.

Ten minutes passed, Suna didn’t show.

Osamu checked his phone and crossed his legs.

Five minutes passed, still no sign of Rintarou.

Osamu started to bob his foot and listen to the barrage of people now crowding the sign-up table, all in their nice suits and slacks and pencil skirts. Osamu’s eyes caught onto every brunette that entered the building, but none of them were Suna.

Another ten minutes passed.

Osamu started to grow nervous as he watched the minute hand tick closer and closer to nine-thirty. All the worst-case scenarios flooded his mind. If Suna didn’t show up on time, they would be eliminated, and while this wasn’t a qualifying competition, it would still leave a bad impression for the rest of the season. 

Four minutes remained until sign-ups closed.

Osamu’s chest started to tighten. He checked the door again to see that the crowd was starting to thin and funnel into the auditorium. He’d seen Four and the others enter the building, they’d waved to him before following the crowd into the main room. Suna was the only club member that remained.

Two minutes until sign-ups closed.

Osamu tangled his clammy fingers together and muttered a quick prayer to whoever was listening.

C’mon, please, please, please—

“Sorry ‘bout that,” a voice broke through his concentration.

Stumbling through the glass doors with less than a minute to spare was none other than Suna Rintarou, mid-way through buttoning his shirt and trailing a sleek black blazer across his shoulders. He completed the very last button with a sigh and a teasing smile to those who manned the table. He flicked through the papers with his long fingers to find probably the one spot left empty where he signed his name with a small flourish. When he looked up, he made instant eye contact with Osamu.

The feeling was immediate, the wave of sickness rushing through Osamu’s entire body like he had become a ship on a stormy sea, destined to break and bow. Perhaps it was seeing Suna actually show up and knowing that the competition they were about to engage in was completely real, but Osamu had to double over and slip into the bathroom beside him before the feeling got any worse.

He was stable enough to lock himself in a stall and make it to his knees when the sour stuff all came up, his chokes and sputters echoing through the luckily empty communal bathroom. He dry heaved a little after the bulk of it but felt a whole lot of nothing in his stomach. He didn’t eat on competition days for this reason. He always threw up, anyways, but this way, there wouldn’t be so much of it. One trip was always sufficient.

Yet, no matter how many times he found himself in this exact position, it never got any easier or felt any more pleasant. His mouth was sticky, the taste strangely akin to the center of a Warhead, and all his bones had turned to mush. Osamu stretched his arm over one side of the toilet seat and cushioned his cheek with his bicep as he took some regulatory deep breaths. If he stood up too quickly, he’d pass out, so he always took an extra moment to stare at the stall wall and wish he’d never been born.

With his stomach emptied, Osamu felt a hell of a lot lighter, but the nervousness had settled into his bloodstream now, coursing through every limb. He had to get up eventually and check the assignments, but he was so comfortable sitting on the gross tile floor with his arm stretched over the toilet seat. 

The echo of his own breath in the empty bathroom was almost enough to cover the noise of the door opening and a voice following closely after.

“Osamu?” Suna asked lazily from the entryway.

Osamu pinched his eyes closed and groaned internally. Not only was he in such a humiliating state to begin with, now Suna had to look at him in said state. Osamu swallowed the rest of the sour taste and lifted his head from his arm.

“Yeah?” He replied weakly.

“You okay?” 

Osamu sighed. He checked the collar of his shirt for any chunks before steadying himself to his feet, one bone at a time. 

“Yeah,” he murmured in response before opening the stall door.

Suna was standing next to the door with Osamu’s things in his hand—he must’ve left them on the bench where he was sitting. His brow curled slightly in worry as he caught sight of Osamu’s pale face and red-rimmed eyes.

“You sure?” He asked in a lower voice.

Osamu nodded and fibbed, “Had some bad eggs, I think.”

Suna took a few steps towards him as Osamu washed his hands to somehow feign that he had just taken a routine trip to the bathroom. When he’d dried his hands with some towels, Suna handed him his things.

“We can talk to the head of the competition if you’re not feeling well,” Suna mumbled.

“I’m fine!”

It was as strong as Osamu could make his voice sound, but it was obviously enough to catch Suna off guard. He gulped his own words down before snatching up his papers and making a beeline for the door with Suna in tow. 

Osamu wasn’t going to let this stop him. He felt light and dexterous now that he’d gotten the worst of the anxious feeling out of the way. He watched a crowd begin to form around a bulletin board which indicated that the final pairings had been posted. Osamu’s heart started to patter as he got closer to the murmuring crowd, hearing small whispered cheers and groans of dejection float from every direction. 

He used his rather broad shoulders to push through the now thinning crowd and check for his and Suna’s debate room. He didn’t care who their opponents were, that was actually the least of his worries, he just needed to know where he should be in the next fifteen minutes.

“402,” he barked to Suna once he’d certified that it was the correct number.

“Huh?” Suna called after Osamu who was already speeding towards the stairs.

“402,” Osamu repeated without turning, “that’s our debate room.”

They traveled up three flights of stairs before reaching the fourth floor, both panting at the very top step. Suna less so, perhaps it was no coincidence that he worked in Campus Rec. Osamu still made it his mission to be the first to find the room, following the numbered rooms down the hallway until he turned one corner and saw 402 in plain numbers painted beneath the window cut-out.

Osamu exhaled audibly and turned to Suna who had been following rather diligently behind him.

“Find it, Columbus?” He teased.

Osamu hardened his brow.

“I know what I’m doing.”

Suna shrugged, “I don’t doubt that ya do. You’re a pretty intense guy.”

Osamu’s brow untangled for a chaste moment. He had been called mean names, mostly by his brother and by other kids in Speech and Debate. They had used the word ‘intense’ before but always with this curled lip or distaste in their voice. Suna didn’t say it any of those ways. He just stated it like it was some fact.

Osamu didn’t quite mind the name when Suna was saying it, perhaps.

They had to wait for an awkward, silent moment while the judges got themselves prepared. The other pair approached a few minutes later with all their things gathered, including their backpacks. Osamu and Suna stared at them for a moment before the door opened and they were invited inside.

The air was always tense when debaters were getting set up, but Osamu reveled in it. He sighed in relief when he put his laptop stand together with practiced precision and turned on his timer while everyone else still struggled. He felt invincible standing there in his suit and tie, laptop at full-charge and timer zeroed out. He didn’t notice Suna struggling with his laptop stand until much later. 

Once all of the participants were ready, the judges shared a look with them, a silent question of whether they were ready or not.

As the debate began, Osamu felt his first word tumble out of his mouth, and it felt—

off.

He cringed at the heavy feeling of it on his tongue and the clunky nature of all the words after it. He was never like this. Osamu was always so overprepared for everyone else’s failure that he’d failed to account for his own. His heart began to speed up as he raced through what remained of his argument to try and make up for his blunder, but the watchful eye of the judges was too much for him to bear. Osamu was so used to riding the stream of his and his brother’s prestige that didn’t know what to do when he missed that stream entirely.

Osamu’s mouth went dry. His stomach plummeted to the floor. He was speaking, but his brain wasn’t catching up to his words. Everything felt so much bigger at the college level as if he’d entered an entirely new lake and was nothing more than a beta compared to all the other fish. Maybe the judges had meaner looks on their faces. Maybe his timer was broken and going faster than usual. 

How did his words sound?

How was his posture?

Was he making any sort of sense?

Osamu was panicking, but he couldn’t show even an ounce of it, not to the judges and especially not to Suna Rintarou who he could feel staring at his back, eyeing him like a hawk. 

When he was finally finished with his segment, Osamu’s knees nearly gave out and made him crumble to the floor. Usually, once he got in the swing of the debate, he would feel fine, but everything was different here. The floor was moving. The hairs on his arms and legs were standing up. He’d fumbled his very first word and had to watch everything that came after it tumble like dominos. 

He didn’t realize that he wasn’t listening to the counter until Suna tapped him firmly on the shoulder and cocked his head toward the laptop where they would take notes for their rebuttal. Osamu felt his face blush bright red as he hunched over his laptop and desperately tried to tune his ears to the opponents who were obviously far more practiced than them.

But his and Suna’s elbows kept bumping into each other. They were positioned too closely on the table. Every time they’d collide, they’d take a second that they didn’t have to look menacingly at each other before returning to their work. Osamu was far too distracted to come up with a good rebuttal, all he could do was trust Suna’s ability to “wing it”.

Something sour and sick settled into Osamu’s bones as the opponent’s timer went off. Osamu elbowed Suna in the stomach as hard as he could when the timer sounded, causing him to double over and vocalize a quick “ow”. His voice echoed through the room. Osamu looked up only to see their opponents mid-word, staring at the two of them like they had gone crazy.

Osamu had mistimed. He’d imagined the sound of the timer. 

And he’d gotten Suna’s attention at entirely the wrong time.

Pulling his face back towards his debate partner, Osamu watched Suna’s eyes widen and his brow fall too low for comfort. The opponents slowly eased back into their argument following the interruption and, two and a half minutes later, were actually done with their segment.

Osamu’s face went hot and beet-red once more as he stared at his computer, Suna’s voice starting to flow through the room. He was doing a fine job, most of it cleaning up the mess Osamu had left, but something was still off. 

It was like the two of them were in a canoe fighting for the seat in the front, neglecting the backside entirely. And when they paddled, they couldn’t agree on which side to paddle on, so all they could do was go in circles. Osamu felt like he was going to hurl again as the keys on his keyboard started to blur together.

Suna kept talking, the slightest waver in his voice which Osamu was sure was the work of his elbow to the poor boy’s stomach. He lamented the fact that he’d have to speak again as opening his mouth might seal his fate.

What was Osamu doing? How could he go from being a high school debate champion to being a royal fuck-up at a warm-up competition? 

Had he not studied enough? Had he missed one crucial element of his preparation process?

Had he somehow gotten worse since high school?

Atsumu was probably doing his absolute best at a district competition, right now. He had probably laminated those stupid notes and decidedly not elbowed his teammates in the soft part of their stomach. But of all the things Osamu could only predict, there was one thing he knew for sure.

Miya Atsumu would never flub the very first word of his debate.

The match seemed to last forever. Osamu found himself stumbling over his own words again and again. His mouth was desert dry, his tongue too large and awkward for the space it had been given. He wanted to crumple to the ground and go to sleep and never wake up again. He wanted to dunk his head in the bathroom toilet and suffocate himself. He wanted to—

“Time!”

The judge’s voice pulled Osamu’s attention forward. 

The match was over.

“No,” Osamu whispered to himself.

“We’ll post results in an hour or so, go ahead and wait in the auditorium,” another judge informed them.

No, Osamu’s mind chanted.

No, no, no.

How was he going to redeem himself if the match was over? It couldn’t be, how long had it really been going on? 

How bad had he truly fucked up?

All Osamu could do was stand frozen behind his laptop and mountain of index cards as both the judges and the participants packed up their things just as efficiently as they’d assembled them. Osamu’s mouth hung agape as the others began to leave.

It didn’t feel right, the match didn’t last as long as his other ones. His entire rhythm had been thrown off. If he’d had another chance, maybe he could’ve—

“Hey,” Suna said, shaking Osamu’s body with a firm grip on his shoulder.

Osamu stared at him with wide, aching eyes.

“What the fuck is up with you?” Suna asked bitingly, yet sincerely.

Osamu stared at him for a moment in fear, knowing that everything that had happened during that match was his fault.

Or, maybe,

it wasn’t.

“You got here late,” Osamu seethed.

Suna’s brow furrowed.

“What?”

Osamu huffed, “You got here late and threw me off my rhythm. That’s why I stumbled.”

Suna tore his hand from Osamu’s shoulder and reeled back at the insinuation.

“Oh, so this is my fault?” He poked his own chest.

“Glad we’re in agreement,” Osamu muttered as he slung his backpack over his shoulder and raced toward the door.

“What?!” Suna said even more insistently as Osamu sped away.

By the time he’d reached the door, Osamu felt that same firm grip on his shoulder once more, this time tugging him around. Suna’s eyes were more expressive than ever before, full of fire and loathing.

“You can’t pin this on me,” Suna hissed, “it’s not my fault I’m not your stupid brother.”

Osamu refused to let up.

“But you were late this morning and for every other meeting we’ve had,” he seethed, “maybe if you’d have gotten here on time—”

“I have a fucking job!” Suna threw his hands up in the air.

“It doesn’t matter! The only thing you should care about is debate!” Osamu screamed at him. 

Suna’s hands lowered slowly, his pinched expression beginning to loosen. He grabbed his backpack from the table and pulled his arms through the straps without taking his eyes off of Osamu.

“But it’s fine,” Osamu mumbled, “we’ll just practice twice as much, meet every day if we have to, we’ll get such a good rhythm down that nothing can interrupt it—”

“Hey,” Suna called his attention back up.

“Because you not giving a shit about any of this isn’t going to jeopardize my chances of winning!” Osamu cried, poking an insistent finger into his own chest.

Suna’s face melted into something even more sinister than before. He let out one long, heated breath before speaking again in a dangerously low voice. A shudder fell down Osamu’s spine at the sight. He gulped and watched Suna lean towards him an inch or so. He was a little bit taller than Osamu but much thinner, like a shadow.

“You don’t know a single fucking thing about me, and you never tried to” Suna said in a near whisper, “and I’m the one who doesn’t give a shit?”

With his parting words, Suna slipped behind Osamu and shoved himself out of the door, leaving Osamu standing there alone with his backpack and his sweat-stained shirt. All he could do was stare at the linoleum floor, Suna’s words echoing in his mind.

You don’t know a single thing about me,

and I’m the one who doesn’t give a shit?

Perhaps it was the collection of everything that had happened that day surmounting in one unfortunate moment,

but Osamu felt like crying again.

Chapter Text

Osamu couldn’t help but drag his feet towards the auditorium where their next Speech and Debate meeting would be held. His head felt like a bowling ball attached to his shoulders by a mere pipe cleaner, any sudden movement would ensure the thing popped right off and rolled down the quad. His nose was stuffy—allergies. Or, at least, that was what he was going to tell everyone at the meeting. It wasn’t any of their business how recently he’d cried.

He couldn’t even bear to attend the awards afterwards knowing exactly how they would score. Suna had left before the ceremony even began but not before shooting Osamu a rather flat expression before racing off in his junky car. It was almost as if Osamu wanted his eyes to be full of fire and his mouth to be pulled in a taut line—seeing him with that old disinterested expression was somehow worse.

And now, just minutes away from another meeting, Osamu was dreading the fate of seeing the same face. He’d spent a while in front of the mirror trying to stretch and pinch at his red-rimmed eyes, hoping to mask the reality of his emotions. There was an unmistakable gauntness to his face that would give him away, though. But only if everyone at the meeting was as perceptive as his twin brother always was.

Osamu let a slow, deep breath fall from his nose. Everything inside of him had crumpled up like a million balls of lined paper, bits from the spiral edge littering all the empty space left behind. He’d spent all of Sunday in some form of the fetal position choosing to stare out his grim little window instead of actually thinking through anything; he’d gotten out of bed only for a cold bagel in the morning and a near-expired, half-eaten ham sandwich somewhere between midnight and his eventual food-induced coma.

It wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. Osamu always needed a day after terrible competitions to do nothing, trapping himself with his own thoughts as a sort of punishment. The memory played on loop in his mind: his stumble at the beginning, his ill-timed jab to Suna’s stomach, and the feeling in his stomach when the end of the match was announced.

But none of them felt quite as sickening as what happened after.

Osamu refused to touch the memory until the sun itself had touched the horizon of campus. Everything seemed to culminate to it in his mind, this massive black abyss that he knew he’d eventually find himself floating through, he just didn’t have the courage yet. The absence of the sun, however, made the darkness a little more comforting, and he’d worn every other memory down to rags.

He stepped carefully inside the great thing, hearing Suna’s voice instantly.

You don’t know a single thing about me,

Osamu shuddered beneath his blanket.

And I’m the one who doesn’t care?

Of every terrible memory from that morning,

why was this the one making Osamu feel the worst?

In fact, Suna was right. Osamu doesn’t care about him all that much. Why should he? He’s chronically late and obviously didn’t prepare enough to be able to save a floundering Osamu. If he’d just done what Atsumu always did—

“Fuck!” Osamu hissed to himself before burying his head beneath a tear-stained pillow.

His stomach was in knots. His throat felt dry and patchy. Even his fingers shook between the folds of his pillowcase.

Suna Rintarou was making his physical body fall to pieces.

Seeing him again at the meeting might actually finish the job. That was why Osamu was going to do everything in his power to avoid the man’s gaze. If they didn’t look at each other, they wouldn’t have to talk about what happened. And if Suna wasn’t going to give Osamu the satisfaction of being outwardly angry with him, then Osamu was going to beat him at his own game.

A deadpan expression, that was what Osamu needed— a bone-chilling, flat, disinterested expression to give Suna Rintarou a taste of his own medicine. And you bet he’d practiced in the mirror before leaving his dorm.

As prepared as Osamu felt, however, the strap on his backpack was uncomfortably tight across his hunched shoulder and there was something sharp in the side pocket digging into his arm. That was how it all truly felt: no matter how much Osamu did to cover it up, the same things still nagged and prodded at him relentlessly. He wasn’t stupid, so he knew he’d have to address them eventually.

Actually walking in to the meeting room was more chilling than any winter breeze.

The same hum of chatter rose steadily amongst those who had already arrived and cozied up with their partners. The upperclassmen were lounging in a section separated from the rest, sipping on sodas and laughing heartily at one another’s jokes. Osamu wished to be one of them, and he was so close to it he could nearly taste the Coke on his tongue. But, alas, he was relegated to the other side of the room where his desk from the past few meetings sat vacant.

He avoided eye contact with one person in particular, someone he was hoping to evade the entire evening. Yet, he had a feeling the predator would find their prey eventually.

And not a minute before the meeting was slated to begin, a lanky figure slinked through the front door with a skateboard in hand. Osamu had been staring into his lap and moving his lips silently in the form of soothing words meant for his own psyche.

Keep the face steady.

Don’t let your emotions get the best of you.

The figure neared him, a shadow in the corner of his eye. A gust of air indicated that the shadow himself had sat right beside Osamu, slipping his skateboard beneath the seat and slamming his bookbag rather haughtily atop the wooden surface.

Don’t look up, Osamu thought,

you have nothing to say to him.

“Alright, folks,” Four called from the front of the classroom.

Osamu craned his head up slowly, avoiding Suna’s presence to his left at all costs.

“Like always, I’m gonna come around and discuss your performance at the last competition,” they said, “even if you did well, you can do better.”

Osamu’s stomach began to sink again inch by inch. Not only was he going to have to face Four, he was going to have to listen to a critique from them, too. His face threatened to twist in disdain, but he wouldn’t allow it, not with Suna sitting so close.

“If I hear you make excuses, I’ll vom,” they said plainly, “so don’t do it.”

Slowly, Osamu laced his fingers together and began to pull hard at the skin surrounding his bony knuckles. The self-soothing practice wasn’t anything official, but it’d been his go-to mechanism before scary tests and even scarier competitions. Slowly, his heart was climbing up his throat, giving him a good reason to keep his dry lips sealed.

They took care of some other things, club-keeping and such, then a blurb about the next competition which was only two short weeks away. Even though Four’s eyes were wandering all over the crowd, Osamu could feel something particularly fiery bear through his skull whenever they looked his way. He supposed it was just a prerequisite for what would come later.

As always, the meeting ended with a clap of Four’s hands and a rise in the chatter volume of the room. Osamu swallowed thickly as he felt Suna shift beside him. He couldn’t look him in the face, he just couldn’t.

Thus, they sat there in silence, the same tension from after their match stretching taut between them, threatening to snap. Osamu’s breaths were hot and slow, in through his nose and out through his mouth. Suna didn’t move a muscle; even his usual drumming finger atop the desk was still.

Four did as they said they would, going around to each pairing with one praise and a slew of critiques to follow it. Osamu wasn’t close enough to any of the others to listen in, but he could see Four’s brow fall heavy over their eyes every time they transitioned from a vague phrase of congratulations to a laundry list of corrections. He gulped over and over, willing his heart to return to its proper place before the Angel of Death passed over him, but two hard hands atop the front of his desk seemed to shake everything in his body out of proportion.

He knew who was standing before him with their fingers tented over the wood, a still fury in their bones. Osamu said a little silent prayer before looking up.

Four’s eyes were narrowed, their short-cropped hair falling flat over their brow; their lips were pulled into something nearly non-existent, a subtle enough expression to almost be mistaken for mild disdain. But anyone sitting in Osamu’s seat would know that it was much too terrifying to be considered “mild” by any stretch.

“I want you to tell me,” Four began, their voice thin and their words drawn out, “how my two nationally-ranked high school debaters heard that start bell and—choked.”

Spit nearly flew from their lips with their final word, a more sinister look twisting into their features. Osamu slid slowly and unconsciously into his seat to try and evade the inevitable. Suna didn’t move.

Four was silent for a moment, their eyes dashing between the pair as many times as possible.

“I didn’t pair you two together to choke,” they hissed, “I paired you two together because you’re the best motherfuckers I’ve got.”

Osamu wanted to feel his chest swell with the pride of the compliment, but he was too busy commanding his stomach to stay still. And Four didn’t seem so much congratulatory with the compliment as they meant for it to be a weapon of sorts.

“And don’t think I haven’t picked up on your little cold shoulder game,” they said lowly.

Osamu stared down at his desk. So did Suna.

Using their hands as supports, Four slowly leaned towards them, inch by insufferable inch until their faces were a mere foot apart. Their words seemed to rumble from a deep place in their throat—menacing.

“I better see some teamwork out of you two at our next competition, or I’m cutting you from the team entirely.”

With a flourish, Four tore their fingers from the surface of the desk and turned towards another group, their face untwisting and returning to something neutral. Even as they walked away, the chill of their words hung heavy along Osamu’s shoulders, he could even feel Suna shift uncomfortably in his seat as the icy tone began to melt and drip down their backs. Osamu suppressed a shiver.

“They’re right,” Suna hissed.

Instinctively, Osamu glanced over to see Suna looking straight ahead, the same half-lidded gaze and lazily formed lips. All his plans of being mysterious and void of emotion flew out the window as he felt his brow furrow.

“What are you talking about?” He replied in a low voice.

Suna shrugged, “If we can’t figure out how to work together, then we don’t deserve a place on this team.”

Osamu tasted something sour on his tongue. Anger? No, this was different.

“Think I don’t know that?” He snipped.

Suna blinked over at him without turning his head, thin brows slipping further and further down his face.

“No need to get worked up about it,” he hummed teasingly, “don’t want a reprise of last time.”

Osamu’s fist clenched in his lap beneath the desk. His molars ground together, smoothing the ridges and points.

“Don’t start,” Osamu replied haughtily.

Suna lifted his hands in a mocking surrender, “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

“Would it kill you to take something seriously, for once?”

Osamu’s words felt smooth and scalding, far too easy to let slip out. He’d turned in his desk now, practically begging for Suna to do the same and allow them to fight while properly matched. Atsumu was always easy to coax into a fight, he had too much pride to just walk away. But Suna didn’t act like that. He didn’t have any reason to engage because Osamu really wasn’t threatening anything he cared about.

Suna didn’t reply, he just huffed a quick laugh and turned away, crossing his arms loosely over his chest.

“Maybe then you would’ve been on time—” Osamu began.

“Would you stop pretending like you know everything about me?”

Suna turned, then, his voice rising a pitch or two. Osamu felt his chest tighten when their eyes met. Suna’s gaze was far too similar to the one he’d used back at the competition. Osamu sealed his lips unconsciously at the sight, worried that something else might slip out without his permission.

Suna’s mouth hung open, the ghost of his words still threading through their exchanging breaths. Until now, he’d barely moved at anything Osamu said, he’d barely cared.

Osamu had found it,

the chord—

the one to strike to get something, anything out of Suna Rintarou.

Suna huffed, then grabbed his bag.

“I gotta go to work,” he muttered while fishing for his skateboard below the desk.

Osamu didn’t respond, he simply watched with fiery eyes as Suna slung his backpack over his shoulder and stormed out of the small classroom, his posture slumped and his limbs like tall sticks barely holding up the bulk of his body. Osamu’s chest was still tight and hot, like the feeling someone gets the day before a massive cold incapacitates them.

He could feel his heavy breaths brushing along the knuckles of the hand he had perched atop the desk. Suna disappeared quickly behind the front door from whence he’d entered, and Osamu had never been happier to see him go.

Because now he had all the time in the world to pull out his laptop and start an entirely fresh document, one he was going to perfect to such an enormous degree that no stumbled word or mistimed jab could ever shake.

Single-handedly, somehow, Osamu was going to turn the entire thing around.

And he didn’t need Suna Rintarou for any of it.

The meeting ended soon thereafter, but Osamu stuck around for another minute or so just to prove to Four how hard he was working to win at this next competition. Still, Four eyed him strangely, particularly the empty desk to his left, before relenting and picking up their bag in preparation to leave. Osamu watched as they slipped out the front door in a harrowingly similar fashion to Suna before slamming his laptop closed and shoving it in his backpack.

Despite all his efforts to distract himself with Tabroom and the like, Osamu could still feel the residual anger buzzing in his chest. He couldn’t stop thinking about Suna. Osamu didn’t consider himself weak-minded by any stretch—

so why couldn’t he stop hearing Suna’s voice in his head?

You don’t know a single thing about me,

and I’m the one who doesn’t care?

With a snarl, Osamu tore himself from his seat and made a beeline for the door that had been staring at him the entire meeting. The silent classroom felt nice for a moment, Osamu wondered if he could stay late all the time just to experience it again and again. The moment ended swiftly; Osamu was far too perturbed to feel any sense of peace.

And his hand was itching to reach for his phone, anyhow.

He swore he wouldn’t call him, it would do nothing but damage to his psyche, but he was also the only person who would understand Osamu’s predicament. He’d stared at his blank phone screen once every hour since Saturday morning and thought about doing it--seeing Suna at the meeting was apparently the push he needed to pick up the damn thing and dial a number he should’ve deleted from his phone a month ago.

Osamu sped out into the dry, clear dusk, the sun kissing the horizon as it always did. He let the cool air invade his nose and chest as the phone rang once, then twice, then a third time.

“C’mon, idiot,” he muttered under his breath.

A click. Then a crackling voice.

Well, it was more like a multitude of crackling voices.

“Hello?!” Miya Atsumu shouted into the receiver.

He was somewhere loud. People were shouting so viciously in the background that Osamu could almost hear Atsumu’s hand cupping the speaker to try and consolidate any noise he could. Osamu’s brow dropped as he heard the thumping music beneath it all.

“Tsumu?” He asked warily.

“Samu! Hey!” Atsumu shouted even louder.

Someone shouted on Atsumu’s end about beer. Maybe shots. Osamu couldn’t quite make it out.

“Where are you?” Osamu asked, his pace slowing.

“HUH?”

Atsumu’s voice got impossibly closer to the speaker, Osamu had to distance himself a bit from the device so as to not blow out his eardrums.

“Where are you?” Osamu enunciated.

“Oh!” Atsumu laughed, “some guy on my floor is having a party.”

Osamu swallowed thickly. The buzzing anger in his chest descended into something viscous and dark—

jealousy?

“Oh,” Osamu mirrored him, a bit dejected and pace slower than ever before.

“Didya wanna talk?” Atsumu cried into the phone.

The volume in the background had risen even further to the point where Osamu couldn’t hear himself think. The same guy was chanting something now, Osamu still couldn’t make it out. He pulled his bottom lip between his teeth and held it there tightly, feeling the ridges bear into the soft, pink skin.

“No,” he fibbed, “I called you accidentally, actually.”

“Oh, really?” Atsumu still had to shout into the phone, but it sounded like he’d moved to a quieter corner of the party.

“Yeah,” Osamu lied again, “there’s nothin’ to talk about.”

“Okay!” Atsumu agreed a little too readily, “Catch ya later!”

Osamu didn’t even have time to articulate his own goodbye before the connection was cut and he was left alone, unmoving in the center of the university quad. He couldn’t quite quantify how he felt, it was all a big soupy mess in the center of his body. Atsumu had never been a partier in high school; sure, he’d had friends, but his focus had always been Speech and Debate. He spent most of his time with Osamu.

While Osamu had considered that Atsumu would be happier than him at a big important school on their big important Speech and Debate team, he’d never considered that Atsumu would be happier than him about anything else. Maybe a few friends, a date or two—

but not a casual party,

not having the time of his life.

Osamu stared down at his phone, Atsumu’s contact information still splayed across the screen. The confusing soup of emotions began to separate into distinct shapes, jagged rocks of existence poking into the fleshy parts of Osamu’s sides. For years, it had only been the two of them.

But now that they were apart, Atsumu had readily filled the space in between.

And Osamu had no one.

Well—

No, he reasoned with himself, you’ve already screwed that up, just find someone else.

With determined eyes, Osamu looked up at the healthy crowd of people now filling the quad: some sat down for an early dinner with their friends while others trudged back from a long class, yawning every few steps. None of them looked at Osamu, they didn’t even glance in his direction on accident.

Osamu had been at this new university for a little over a month already,

and the only person he’d spoken to, truly, was Suna Rintarou.

It shuddered through him, the realization. Not only had Atsumu ended up at his dream school, he was living his dream life, one surrounded by friends and opportunity. Osamu felt like a failure, all he’d done since getting to college was screw up. Hadn’t he come here to prove himself? To overtake the very sibling who probably didn’t think about him at all?

The feeling came in waves. It began as a ticklish lapping at Osamu’s ankles, rising steadily up the expanse of his legs until it reached his waist. The panic set in then, the realization that eventually, he was going to be choking on the very water that he’d deemed unthreatening at his feet. He could feel it teasing the creases of his elbows, climbing slowly towards his face and whispering his fate even from so far below his ears.

Osamu had to walk. If he stood there any longer, he’d drown.

He chose any direction. Whether it was the direction of his dorm didn’t matter to him, he just had to move and escape the intoxicating grip of the ocean around him. It felt like swimming, his arms parting thick pools of honey to march even a step closer to his destination. The sun was setting quickly, threatening to bathe the campus in twilight before Osamu found where he was going. Where was he going? He had to be going crazy. Maybe he should just walk to the nurse.

He turned one corner, then another, choosing to walk down a winding path lined with thick brush and towering trees. He’d never been to this side of campus, he’d never had a reason to journey that far. All his classes were to the east and walking in the direction of the setting sun was less than ideal for his eyes. But night was near, and Osamu hoped he wasn’t walking into some open field where he could be murdered without anyone hearing his screams.

He sighed with relief as a bright barrage of lights appeared in the distance, starting as a speck and growing steadily into a chorus of white spots. The tips of his fingers tingled with anticipation as he marched towards it, his phone feeling heavy in his pocket after his last conversation and the straps of his backpack still far too tight on his shoulders.

As he neared the lights, the shape of a building began to cut through the unformed darkness. Edges of concrete and tall lamp posts gave source to the white spots and it only took him a few more insistent steps to see the plain language on the sign to his left.

CAMPUS RECREATION

Osamu’s lips sealed. His eyes shot back to the giant building, particularly the windows which stretched from the ceiling to the floor and crowded beside one another all along the front wall. It was like that on both floors, and through them, Osamu could see general shapes of bodies running on treadmills or rocking on ellipticals with headphone cords swinging wildly. Crickets chirped all around him, singing songs of the impending night. Osamu stared once more at the large, concrete sign lit by two little spotlights on the floor.

He recognized the font.

It was the same one embroidered on the polo Suna was wearing that one night in the library.

The thought that followed Osamu’s realization was one he’d usually brush off as insanity or what he called “Atsumu behavior”, but all the rationality he’d usually employ had slipped off his shoulders somewhere on that winding path. He could still hear Atsumu in his ears and the raging party in the background. If he simply did all the things he’d always done, then he could only end up as he’d always been.

Alone.

The very idea flooded Osamu with an anxiety he didn’t think could be contained in his own body. But he just had to see if it would work.

You know, for science.

Thus, with a tug on the straps of his bookbag, Osamu marched headfirst toward the front doors of the recreation center, the same lights beginning to blind his eager eyes. Upon entering, he felt a whoosh of air conditioning hit his slightly sweaty face, all while he squinted beneath the fluorescent bulbs above. It was nice and clean in the facility, but it all still smelled faintly of sweat which was no surprise to Osamu. The wood floors were freshly mopped and reeked of Pinesol.

Osamu glanced around, hoping to see Suna standing at the entrance or something simple like that, but all the attendants at the front desks were unrecognizable. Osamu pursed his lips and let the low hum of surrounding workout machines lull him into his own thoughts.

He probably looked like an idiot standing there in a nice shirt and jeans when all the people passing him were clad in athletic shorts and ill-fitting t-shirts; you know, the things people wore to work out. Osamu knew they were shooting him confused glances, but he couldn’t care, not when he had someone he was looking for.

“Are you comin’ in?” A college-aged girl asked from behind the front desk with a quirked brow.

“Oh! Yeah,” Osamu muttered, fumbling for his student ID in the recesses of his pocket.

He stood there for a longer moment than necessary while the girl eyed him up and down like he was a crazy person for showing up to the recreation center without a water bottle and, apparently, his student ID.

He sighed in relief when his fingers located it and he swiped it in the machine with practiced ease (he had too many trips to the dining hall to thank for that). The desk attendant still watched him warily as he passed through the threshold and into the gym, Reeboks squeaking along the sparkling-clean floors. Still, he didn’t have time to mind her. He was looking for a very specific head of soft, dark brown hair to appear amidst the masses.

He passed through an army of weightlifters, an absolutely terrifying bunch to him. They all seemed like they knew what they were doing, and Osamu didn’t dare enter when he didn’t know a word of their language or any of the implicit rules that governed the space. He glanced over to his left, but there were only doors leading to empty, darkened rooms.

Osamu climbed the wide stairs and watched a few others descend on the other side, furrowing their brows at him in puzzlement. Osamu glanced over, hoping that one of them would be Suna, but he was only disappointed when he reached the top of the steps. The second floor housed rows upon rows of ellipticals and treadmills, each person leaving the customary space of one machine between them and another gym-goer.

Amongst the sounds of feet slamming against the motorized belt, Osamu was having trouble organizing his thoughts. Behind him, two rooms were occupied by small groups of students all watching an instructor at the front: one room on bikes, the other on mats. The entire experience was overwhelming, almost enough to make Osamu want to leave.

Around the corner was the basketball court surrounded by an elevated running track. There were a few guys on the court playing a pick-up game, but no one else around. They laughed and joked with each other as they missed basket after basket. Osamu watched them for a moment, the same black blob amalgamating in his stomach.

“What the fuck are you doing here?”

A low, hissing voice appeared behind Osamu and nearly made him jump out of his slacks. He turned to see Suna standing there with a rag in one hand, a spray bottle in the other, and an expression that could melt steel. He wore the same black polo with the fine embroidery on the chest with the sleeves that hugged his biceps in an almost tantalizing way. Osamu had to force his eyes up from the impeccable fit of Suna’s khaki slacks, knowing that staring was the last thing he wanted to do.

Suna leaned in an inch further as if to ask the question again.

“I’m just—” Osamu stammered.

His mouth had gone dry. He felt his hands start to tremble.

Now or never.

“I’m sorry.”

The words slipped out so seamlessly that there was no way he didn’t mean it. Suna’s face softened just a bit and he relieved Osamu of his close, menacing stare.

“What?” He asked, lips almost unmoving.

“I’m really sorry—about what I said t’you,” Osamu murmured, feeling his accent peek through his insecurity.

He hung his head, eyes casting down to the dirty converse on Suna’s feet. His pants were cropped a little above his ankle, but Osamu had a feeling they were supposed to be like that. He dug the toe of one of his own shoes into the wooden floor; both pairs were covered in their fair share of first, but Suna’s looked well worn, perhaps well-loved—

Osamu’s shoes simply looked tired.

“Are you?” Suna asked plainly.

Osamu looked back up in earnest.

“I am, seriously!” He insisted, “I’ve just been thinkin’ about everythin’ and Saturday was so terrible, and I just—”

Somewhere in his ramblings, Osamu had started ducking his head again as if Suna was going to hit him across the face or something. He couldn’t stop staring at his dumb worn-out shoes or mumbling to himself like an idiot. He could feel his face growing hot, particularly the tips of his ears.

“You’ve got a lotta fucking nerve,” Suna hummed and rolled his eyes.

Osamu stepped towards him, “Just listen to me—”

“You act like I killed your goddamn dog in the meeting today and now you’re sorry?”

A sour taste spread over Osamu’s tongue. The night had felt so long, he’d almost forgotten entirely about their argument at the meeting.

“Yeah, basically,” he admitted.

Osamu was never one for social tact. Suna seemed to be the first person to actually appreciate that.

“Hm,” Suna grunted and straightened his posture.

Osamu glanced at the floor, “I just need you to—I dunno, it’s stupid—I was thinking—”

“Just say it, Miya,” Suna interrupted him.

“I want you to teach me how to chill out!”

Osamu’s voice was much louder than he’d like it to be. It was so loud that a couple nearby patrons had turned to stare at him, eyeing the boys shoved close in the corner.

He and Suna were particularly close, he just hadn’t noticed it until now. He could faintly smell Suna’s body spray, something piney and subtle. Osamu’s teeth and tongue suddenly felt too large for his mouth, his own words still echoing between the gaps.

“What?” Suna whispered, his face twisted in puzzlement.

“I—” Osamu messed with his fingers, “I want you to teach me how to—y’know, be chill.”

With a still twisted expression, Suna lifted his head and glanced to his left, then his right.

“Like—chill?” He asked again with a quirked brow.

“What part of this are you not getting?” Osamu snipped at him.

Suna lifted his hands in surrender, “I’m sorry, it’s not a request I get all the time.”

“I just want you to teach me how to be friendlier and—” Osamu got caught up on thinking of another word to say.

“Chill?” Suna filled in the blank for him.

Osamu sighed. He sounded stupid. It all sounded stupid. What was he thinking? One whim outside the building and suddenly he’s making a fool of himself to his sworn enemy, the exact man he’d promised to destroy?

Suna exhaled slowly, their tongue darting out to mess with their bottom lip. His eyes were confused for a few moments more before they softened into contentment, then sparkled with an idea.

“You ever rock climbed?” He asked lowly.

Osamu’s brows pinched, “No.”

The corners of Suna’s mouth ticked up into a teasing smile.

“Come with me.”

It was a whirlwind of events that landed Miya Osamu in the back room of the recreation center with incredibly tight climbing shoes velcroed over his feet, standing before a long, tall wall of colorful rocks fastened with screws. Suna was standing beside him in similar garb, but his shoes were his own personal pair and he had some sort of bag hanging off of his hip. Osamu had tried to peek inside, but Suna had strung the thing shut before he could see.

Suna planted his hands on his hips and gazed up to the rock wall with a small smile. His eyes darted from one colorful rock to another as if he was drawing a slow line between each.

“So, I guess this is something you know about me now,” he said, “I like rock climbing.”

Osamu’s chest loosened a bit at the calming lilt of Suna’s voice. He didn’t sound angry, not in the slightest. In fact, he sounded almost excited to be sharing an interest with Osamu.

“See,” Suna pointed up to the wall, “those colorful rocks are called holds, there’s a bunch of different types, but beginners don’t really need to know that stuff. All you need to know is that they’re the things you--hold.”

Suna chuckled to himself at the obviousness of it all. Osamu kept glancing over to his face from the wall, wanting just one more glimpse of the gleam in his eye.

“Watch,” Suna commanded gently.

With confidence, he sauntered towards the wall and placed his hands readily on one red hold and one orange hold before shuffling his feet onto some below. Suna scaled the thing with little resistance, his gangly arms long enough to reach halfway up the wall, alone. Osamu watched with stunned, parted lips as Suna slapped the very top of the wall and glanced down with a smile before leaping off the side and landing cleanly on his feet.

“This is an easy wall, at least by my standards,” he remarked, “so it’s a good place to start!”

Osamu’s eyes shot over.

“Start?” He reiterated, aghast.

Suna nodded, “Yeah, to climb.”

Osamu’s head shook.

“No,” he chuckled, “I’m not climbing up that thing.”

“Why not?” Suna’s brows pinched, but he still laughed.

“Because I—” Osamu gestured to the wall, “I’m not good at this kinda stuff!”

Suna rolled his eyes and pushed Osamu by the shoulder towards the wall.

“Well, no one’s good at this stuff the first time they try,” he scoffed, “just put your hands where I did and give it a go!”

Osamu gulped as he eyed the red hold, then the orange one. He hadn’t paid much attention to where Suna’s feet had gone. He should’ve, shouldn’t he? Why did he pay more attention? If he had, then he would—

“You’re thinking about it too much, just climb,” Suna insisted calmly.

Osamu’s trembling fingers rose to the level of the holds, but his body refused to move any closer to it. Suna was watching him. What if he fell? What if he reached for his very first rock and fell right to the ground? Then Suna would probably laugh at him. He’d probably think he was a failure, doomed from the start and never destined to accomplish—

“Dude,” Suna neared him, “hands—rocks—climb.”

It sounded so simple when Suna said it like that. Osamu stared up to the top of the wall once more.

“You said you wanted to learn how to chill out,” Suna continued, “the first step is realizing you can do things without thinking too hard about it.”

In the very next beat, Osamu grabbed the hold with his hand. It was slicker than he expected, the grit holding loosely onto the skin of his hand. The hold was awkward in both hands, so unfamiliar that it didn’t come naturally to him where to put his feet as it had to Suna.

“There ya go,” Suna egged him on, “now put your feet on those little shelves right down there.”

Suna’s voice wasn’t as flat and plain as usual. It was more sonorous and expressive, far closer to the voice he used in competition than the one he employed in the library. Osamu tried to grip the holds with all the strength his arms could muster before hauling his feet up, one-by-one. He could already feel his body shake and a dribble of sweat roll down his spine. He was wearing slacks, after all.

Then again, so was Suna.

He’d made it onto the wall. Osamu looked down at his body and felt his chest swell with pride as he observed each limb clinging solidly onto a part of the wall. But then, he looked up. Fear swirled in his stomach. There were so many holds of varying colors, how was he supposed to know which one was correct? What if he grabbed the wrong one and everything went south? Oh god, what would Suna think of him then?

“You’re thinking again,” Suna said from a foot or so behind him, “don’t worry so much about picking the right one, you could grab any of them and they’ll help you get to the top.”

Osamu’s brow knitted. He tilted his head slightly back.

“But isn’t there a right way to get up?” He asked in a wavering voice.

Suna shrugged, “Not really. That’s the thing about rock climbing, everything’s correct in its own way. Maybe there’s ways to get up faster and easier, but it all gets you to the top, regardless.”

Osamu tilted his head back to face the wall and released a long, belabored sigh. His arms were already wobbling from gripping the holds so tightly—he wasn’t sure how much longer he’d be able to hold out. And if he went to grab another hold, it would only make him more unstable.

But if Suna was right, then there was no proper hold to choose. He could go for any of them, and he’d still somehow reach the top.

He chose a green one a few inches above his right hand. Green was Atsumu’s favorite color. But just as his weary hand got a hold of the slick rock, Osamu’s body gave out and tumbled to the slightly soft yet still painful mat below. Osamu grimaced at the pain shooting through his backside and the swirling, sick feeling in his core from the subtle workout. There weren’t that many others in the gym since it was a Monday night, but Osamu still felt every eye trained on him, especially Suna’s.

Cheeks and ears tingeing pink, Osamu scrambled to his feet and hunched over to undo the velcros on his shoes.

“I think I’m done,” he whispered quickly.

“What?” Suna leaned towards him, “Don’t sweat it, everyone falls.”

Osamu sniffled, “I didn’t even make it anywhere.”

“But you got on the wall! That’s something in itself.”

He knew Suna was just trying to make him feel better. He knew Suna was a liar. He never should’ve come to the gym or called Atsumu or stayed late after the meeting. He should’ve just stayed in his dorm where he was safe and never thought anything of it. Because the feeling in his body was just as it had always been, the potent sensation of failure.

“Hey, Samu,” Suna tried to coax Osamu, who was frantically pulling off his shoes, “c’mon, just try it again. I fall all the fuckin’ time, okay?”

Osamu had to stop at the sound of Suna’s voice and simply rest his upside down head, all the blood surging forward into his reddening face. Osamu shut his eyes for a moment and willed the tears back. He was awful at everything. The only thing he was good at was—

well, you know.

And he wasn’t even good at that anymore, either.

“Falling isn’t failing, Samu,” Suna crouched beside him, “failing is walking out of this gym, right now before you’ve even tried.”

Osamu pinched his eyes closed even tighter. His face was so hot, tears were still welling in the corners of his lashes. He couldn’t try again, he just couldn’t. What was the point? Only to fail again?

Falling isn’t failing, Osamu.

Osamu took in one deep breath. He thought of Atsumu and whatever stupid party he was attending. He thought of his parents and their phone call from the day he moved in; it felt like years ago, now. And then he thought of Suna crouched beside him in expectation.

“Fine,” he huffed.

True to his word, Osamu straightened his body back up and stared blankly at the rock wall before him. It looked simpler now, but only a little bit. He couldn’t imagine himself getting to the top—

but he could probably make it up a foot or so.

With a shuddering exhale, Osamu stepped towards the wall once more, eyeing the red rock and the orange rock. Suna was silent, but Osamu could feel his gaze watching over him, quiet and steady. Osamu curled his fingers around one hold, then the other. His arms felt like jelly after his initial attempt, but there was a new energy flowing through his veins. He could feel the swell of his biceps stretch the thick material of his blue polo shirt as he hoisted his feet up one after the other.

Osamu pulled his bottom lip between his teeth and gazed up once more to the wall above him. His right hand flew instinctively to that same green hold that he’d reached for last time, but the fingers faltered before it could touch the plastic. Osamu’s eyes swept slowly yet surely to his left where he saw a big blue hold bolted to the wall.

Blue, he thought,

that’s my favorite color.

Thus, Osamu held once more onto the red hold and used his other hand to reach for the blue, positioning his fingers as solidly behind the block as he could before pulling himself up. The burn in his muscles was instantaneous, but his feet were floundering too much to care. He scraped his toe along the flat portion of the wall for a few seconds before finally finding a foothold large enough for him to dislodge his other foot and find some other shelf.

Once he felt his body steady along the wall, he glanced down at his right hand, which was still holding onto the red hold for dear life. Could he do it? Leave everything he knew and all the things that had been taught to him and trust that it would be okay? Could he just—

“That’s it, Miya,” a voice encouraged him.

It was enough to tear his fingers from the familiar hold and reach for something entirely new. And before Osamu knew it,

he was higher than he’d ever been before.

“Holy shit,” he hissed to himself.

The moment of glory was short considering his fingers slipped slick and sweaty from the plastic and sent him hurtling towards the earth, but the residual feelings remained bright and warm in his chest. Osamu scrambled to his feet and disregarded the sharp pains in his backside from the tumble. And just as he did, he saw Suna rushing towards him out of the corner of his eye. The boy grabbed his shoulders and began to shake him rather violently.

“That’s it!” He shouted with a beaming smile, “You fucking did it!”

Osamu felt the knot in his throat begin to unravel into an unconscious smile across his face. Perhaps it was simply the rocking movement of Suna’s hold over him, but Osamu just couldn’t help it.

Suna’s smile was even wider than Osamu had ever seen it, his eyes glinting with a joy he didn’t think possible from the careless boy. He’d never shown such fervor for Speech and Debate. Osamu wondered…

“See? You just gotta keep getting on the wall and one day you’re gonna touch the very top,” Suna said rather breathlessly, his broad hands still caging Osamu between them.

Osamu chuckled a bit and felt strands of his soft gray hair fall into his slightly teary eyes. Suna’s hands were still tight on his arms. He’d stopped shouting and jostling Osamu around so much so now they stood with their toes just inches away and their heaving breaths mingling between their chests. Suna’s beaming smile faded into something small and understated, Osamu’s stomach plummeted to the floor. They hadn’t been this close since their confrontation twenty or so minutes ago.

Perhaps it was the adrenaline of his success or something in the air of the rock wall, but if Osamu could just lean in—

“So,” Suna asserted, cheeks tingeing pink and hands torn from Osamu’s arms, “that’s—that.”

Osamu felt his throat constrict as cold air began to hit the warm spots where Suna’s hands had once been. The boy turned back towards the wall and swiped at nothing on his flushing cheeks. It was rather hot in the climbing gym. Osamu was just waiting for the air conditioning to kick in.

But the lack of cold wasn’t an explanation for the electric feeling on his skin where Suna’s fingers had pressed in nor the downright deranged thought he’d had while being held so tightly. All he could do was gulp and try desperately not to stare at Suna’s ass while he tackled a slightly harder wall to their right.

Yet, amidst any uncertainty, Osamu couldn’t help but let his mouth curl into a small smile. He gazed at the wall like some beast he’d slain, even though he’d gone nowhere near the top. Because wasn’t it all just a series of what he’d already done? If he did that same thing over and over, eventually, he’d reach the top.

Right?

And if he could climb that wall, he could climb any of them.

A buzz in Osamu’s pocket tore him from his fantasy. He furrowed his brow and fished the thing out of his pocket. On the screen was a text from his mother long enough to need some foreboding ellipses at the end. With a thick swallow, Osamu opened the message.

Mom: Hi honey! I know you gave us your schedule so we could see some of your matches, and we were planning on attending the next one, but your brother just got recruited for an extra competition in Tokyo which just happens to be on the same day :(. We’re so sorry, honey, but this isn’t something that happens all the time. You’ll have other competitions, right? We can come to those. Love you.

It was almost as if Osamu didn’t even have to read the message to know what it was going to say. He’d hoped that having his parents there would be the good luck charm he needed to do well at his next debate, and since they’d come to every match in high school he knew they cared. But as the message began to settle into his bones, sour and stinging, Osamu realized the truth:

They’d always been going for Atsumu.

Osamu’s smile fell. His entire body hurt, especially his arms. Perhaps his heart, as well.

“What’s wrong?” Suna asked breathlessly beside him, a thin sheen of chalk over his hands.

Osamu didn’t respond. He couldn’t. He simply sealed his lips and tore off the stupid velcro shoes before storming towards the front doors in his socks.

“Where’re you going?” Suna called after him.

Osamu shoved his phone in his pocket and gritted his teeth as a ball of tears choked up his throat. He slipped on his comfy old Reeboks and pulled his backpack over his shoulder, relentless with his focus even as he heard Suna rush up behind him.

“Hey, I thought everything was good,” his voice was softer than before.

Osamu’s head felt like it was filled with cotton. His chest was heaving with cries he couldn’t set free. It took all the remaining strength in his arms for Osamu to push open the double doors which led out to the recreation center lobby. Suna was still following after him.

Thus, Osamu turned and pulled as flat of an expression as he could. He kept his teeth close so as to trap any cries, especially when he saw Suna’s soft yet puzzled expression.

“Just leave me alone, okay?” He spat.

Without another look, Osamu turned and stormed out, headed for the front doors. Suna had stopped following, or at least, that was what Osamu assumed when he heard silence behind him. Part of him wishes he’d kept going, pursued him right out the front door, but another part of him was happy for the moment alone.

Because in the darkness of night, Osamu could cry,

and no one would see.

Chapter Text

If the past week had been a storm, the one that followed was the suspicious calm it left in its wake. The clouds were still overhead, dark and menacing, but the sea was still, sloshing waves finally retiring to their natural ripple. Osamu couldn’t help but feel uneasy at the sudden change, especially as he sat on the third floor of the library on the night they usually met.

He wasn’t expecting Suna to show up. Frankly, Osamu wasn’t expecting to see Suna at all until the day of the competition with how he’d treated him at the rec center. He’d laid in bed that night with the entire evening taunting him, calling out his weary name and asking why he left so suddenly. The only thing that could make him feel slightly better was convincing himself that Suna hated him just as much as he hated Suna.

But, that was the thing,

Osamu didn’t hate Suna Rintarou.

Perhaps when the year began, he could cite the slow-burning fire in the center of his chest or the crawling feeling in his skin as signs that he absolutely despised the careless boy, but those things had fizzled into nothing sometime in the past few days. Now when Osamu thought about Suna (which was more often than he’d like), he felt entirely normal. They’d spent a good ten minutes together at the rock climbing gym without a snippy remark, so that had to count for something.

And now that he wasn’t expecting him at the library, Osamu wasn’t bothered in the slightest.

He was content scrolling through his computer and scribbling frantic notes into his binder, even as the clock on his computer ticked to read 7:00. He was so engrossed in his work, the light of the screen drowning out anything else, that he didn’t notice the figure standing across from him until it spoke.

“Hey,” it muttered.

Osamu’s brows pinched first. Then he looked up warily. Settling himself into the seat across from him was Suna Rintarou. Osamu’s chest tightened, and he fumbled a bit with his glasses, sliding them off his nose and setting them atop his keyboard.

“What are you doing here?” The words slipped from his mouth.

Suna glanced at him, puzzled.

“It’s Tuesday,” he replied plainly.

Osamu checked the clock again—7:01.

Suna was on time for a meeting he didn’t even think they were having.

“But I thought—” Osamu stammered for a moment while still gathering his thoughts, “what I said to you last night—”

Suna sighed and rested his back against the chair beneath him.

“I mean, you looked like you were worked up over something,” he shrugged, “but I knew it didn’t have anything to do with me.”

Slowly, Osamu’s face began to pinch in thought.

“Unless it was my fault!” Suna sat up a bit straighter and held out his hands, “Then, in that case, I’m sorry.”

Frankly, it was a half-assed apology, but Osamu always preferred half-assed apologies that were sincere rather than phony versions of anything else. He watched Suna’s eyes glint with worry beneath the awful overhead lights in the ceiling.

“People don’t look ya in the eye when they’re tryna trick ya,” Atsumu had told him once, “they can’t take the guilt.”

Suna Rintarou was definitely looking right into his eyes. Osamu shifted a bit in his seat before letting a stale breath fall from his nose. The air outside was finally beginning to cool, fall fast approaching in the seeping colors of the leaves. Osamu much preferred fall to any other season: sweating made him feel icky, the snow hurt his feet, and spring brought nothing but allergies to his already harrowed body. Autumn was the only season that hadn’t disappointed Osamu—yet.

And now he had an excuse to wear his favorite soft gray sweaters rather than the itchy, constricting polos. He felt so calm and contained with a thin button-up just peeking out atop the collar of his sweater—it was like a permanent hug. And when it got even colder, he’d be able to wear his boots. Osamu loved his boots. His Reeboks must love them, too, since it was the only break they got all year.

Suna was still wearing his usual garb: a grossly oversized t-shirt atop an even more misshapen pair of jeans. Osamu had never seen him without the dusty black converse, even at their last competition. Perhaps the judges had taken some points off for it which really wouldn’t surprise Osamu in the slightest. Yet, the piece of clothing seemed attached to his person. If he didn’t have them, he wouldn’t be Suna.

“So what’re we thinkin’ for this next competition?” Suna asked lazily, already gnawing at a raw spot on his thumb.

Osamu perked up, not sure he’d heard his debate partner correctly.

“Excuse me?” He blurted out.

Suna’s brow rose, “What’s our plan? We gotta show out at this next competition if we don’t wanna get kicked from the team.”

Osamu glanced down at his laptop. He had lists upon lists of corrections and preparations, but he was almost self-conscious in the presence of Suna. The man who he’d once felt superior to now sat across from him in some humble position, his right leg pulled up his chest, and the left one lounged somewhere beneath the table. Perhaps he would laugh if he saw the chaotic Excel spreadsheet on Osamu’s computer.

Osamu hated being laughed at.

It was the only thing his stone-faced tolerance couldn’t stomach. Maybe it had something to do with those kids in fifth grade or always being the butt of the joke in his own family, but Osamu much preferred to be in on the joke than the one having stones pelted at them. The humiliation aspect of it all was enough to make the prospect unappealing, but the fact that he’d have to live with that moment forever was the real kicker.

But Suna hadn’t laughed at him when he failed at rock climbing the night before.

Fell, Osamu reminded himself, not failed.

Suna hadn’t even chuckled at his obvious lack of muscle tone. In fact, he’d celebrated when Osamu hoisted himself up a mere inch on the wall. That memory had swiftly replaced the one Osamu had of him and Suna arguing after their last competition; it was now the repeating landscape in his head that, more often than not, lulled him to sleep. And now, whenever he found himself in the man’s presence, he could feel his bones go cold—

but in a good way.

“Are you being serious?” Osamu tried to say as kindly as possible.

Suna’s brow quirked and the corners of his mouth ticked up into a smile.

“Don’t tell my friends, but yeah,” he chuckled.

Osamu felt his once-tense body begin to melt into the seat beneath him. Unlike the other times, Suna’s eyes looked focused and ready, his posture facing forward with only a little laze to the shoulders. Osamu had to swallow thickly and compose himself back at the computer, the tips of his burning fingers hovering over idle keys. What was he doing again?

Right, Speech and Debate.

The Thursday that followed was eerily similar, the calm in the wake of a massive storm.

Except, Suna brought gifts.

“Uh, you drink coffee?” He asked sheepishly as he entered the library with one hand masterfully balancing two steaming cups and the other gripping onto a bag of baked goods for dear life.

Osamu’s face pinched as he sensed Suna’s slight air of nervousness. Suna didn’t get nervous. Was he trying to butter Osamu up to ask something?

“Sure,” Osamu replied, reaching for a cup of coffee partly to spare the man from holding it any longer.

Suna sat in the seat across from him just like always, and instantly dug into the bag of sweets, pulling out a croissant.

“I got a couple things that I thought you’d like,” he muttered, eyes focused in the bag, “but you give me sugar-free vibes, so—”

“Excuse me?” Osamu interrupted him in a strained voice.

Suna peered up rather innocently. He wore a playful smile.

“I dunno,” he shrugged, “you just seem like one of those kids who had to eat carrots when the rest of the class got birthday cake, y’know?”

Osamu scoffed and leaned towards the man who was spouting nonsense across from him.

“Why would you think that?” He asked, exasperated.

Suna’s smile grew, “I dunno! I just—”

“You think I got this extra fat from eating carrots?” Osamu lowered his voice and poked viciously at the extra flab on his arms.

Suna’s eyes slid from Osamu’s arm to his face. His expression softened as he took in the man’s appearance.

“You do kinda have a baby face,” he said softly.

Osamu’s brow lowered for a moment, his teasing smile fading slowly but steadily. Something stretched between them: expectation, perhaps. But Osamu could feel himself going red as they stared at each other for one second too long.

“That’s not a very nice thing to say,” Osamu muttered lowly.

Suna shrugged again, “It’s not a bad thing.”

You do kinda have a baby face.

If Atsumu had said it, Osamu would’ve leaned across the table and choked him. Maybe Suna wasn’t so similar to Atsumu after all.

“Gimme that,” Osamu demanded, pointing at a frosted donut.

Suna’s brow rose, “Yes, sir.”

Sliding the napkin across the little wooden table, Osamu could smell the sweet scent already wafting from the chocolate icing. He loved sweets. And candy. And cheesecake (his favorite of all time). He used to hoard a box of Skittles underneath his bed because if Atsumu knew he was eating a handful before bed every night when they were kids, he would’ve gotten told on and had to forgo his midnight snack. Now, Osamu could leave his candy out in the open and eat it whenever he liked.

“Thanks, Suna,” he said softly before deciding where to press his fingers into the dessert without squishing the dough.

“Eugh,” Suna groaned, “don’t call me that.”

Osamu’s brow furrowed.

“Your name?”

Suna shook his head, mouth full of croissant.

“My last name,” he said in a garbled voice, “call me Rin, please. All my friends do.”

Call me Rin.

All my friends do.

Osamu’s face froze, his bones turning to icicles which would shatter into a million pieces  if tossed to the floor.

Friend.

Friend.

Were he and Suna—

friends?

Osamu had never had a friend before—no one other than his twin brother. But Atsumu didn’t really count; Osamu had always thought that if they didn’t share a womb, they would never willingly be friends.

Frankly, Suna was the very first friend Osamu had ever had in his life.

“Okay,” Osamu mumbled, trying to mask the tremble in his voice with the chatter of the library and the redness in his cheeks with the massive donut before him.

Another Tuesday came, and Osamu was walking on air.

He felt himself smile for the first time in a while as he bounded towards the library, only fifteen minutes earlier than their meeting time. He had to take a deep breath before stepping inside to calm his nerves. It was strange; Osamu wasn’t the type to get jitters like this unless it was for a competition. Maybe because the debate was on a Friday instead of a Saturday, he was beginning to get anxious already.

He wondered when the sweats would set in.

And his hypothesis was rather sound until he opened the door to the third floor and glanced at his table to find it already occupied by a certain Suna Rintarou.

Suna was lounging in the seat, one foot pulled up to the chair and the other balancing against the carpet. He had one hand flying over the keyboard of a rather beat-up little laptop, and the other stuck between his teeth, gnawing at one nail for a while before moving onto the next. The subtle blue light of the computer screen illuminated the sharp features of his face, his nose and cheekbones. But it also reflected off the surface of his glasses.

Glasses?

Suna didn’t wear glasses.

“Oh, hey,” Suna mouthed, waving Osamu over the moment he noticed him.

Osamu felt like a misprogrammed robot walking over; all his movements were stiff and in need of a spot of oil, and his mind seemed to have abandoned him completely. He found himself settling into the stiff seat without a word, only able to gape at the circle, wire-rimmed glasses, which were perched on the bridge of Suna Rintarou’s nose.

“Hey—” Osamu hesitated, “Rin.”

Suna smiled as a response. Osamu’s stomach flipped entirely over itself.

“So I’ve been scouring the records from the past few years, trying to figure out how often they repeat topics so we could maybe know if there’ll be repetition for Friday,” he said, eyes glued to the screen.

He cares.

Osamu’s chest swelled.

He—

cares?

“Woah,” was all Osamu’s brain could produce in that fateful moment.

“I mean, all I’ve got so far is a formula that checks out, eh, eighty percent of the time?” Suna shrugged, “But it’s got a lotta variables. Still worth a try though!”

Osamu’s brow lowered, “Are you good at math?”

“You could say that,” Suna replied casually.

Osamu glanced down at the paper sitting haphazardly beside the computer. The entire thing was filled with a frenzy of calculations, most of them entirely illegible to Osamu. That was how he knew Suna was downplaying how smart he really was.

“I’m shit at it,” Osamu chuckled.

Suna glanced up with a puzzled expression. He slid his glasses off his face to give his eyes a sort of break, but Osamu was almost sad to see them go. He didn’t mind, however, the way Suna dragged the skin of his face down just slightly to really accentuate the bonyness in his features.

“No way, you’re like a super genius,” he replied.

Osamu scoffed, “I’m definitely not. I’m actually pretty ass when it comes to school.”

Suna planted his elbows on the table’s surface and let his chin fall into his right hand, his gaze propped up by the curve of his shoulders over his lap.

“No shit,” he hummed.

Osamu had to look down at his laugh to keep from giggling. When had he ever giggled?

“Speech and Debate’s kinda the only thing I’m good for,” he muttered, fingers fidgeting with a loose thread on his khakis.

“Doubt that,” Suna said, finally leaning back into his seat to get a good stretch.

Osamu’s tongue darted out to wet his lips, and, for a moment, he wondered if Suna was right. For as long as he could think and talk, Osamu had believed Speech and Debate to be the one thing he’d ever truly be good for, and if he could be the best, then he’d never have to worry about disappointing anyone. He threw away every opportunity knowing he’d be no good. He put off studying to research topics and build his speaking stamina. He took the standardized placement test once and had to watch Atsumu take it over and over, knowing he could get a better score than the last time.

Speech and Debate was all Miya Osamu was good for.

That, he knew for sure.

“I think you’d be good at a lotta different things,” Suna said, “it’s rare that real people are one-trick ponies.”

Osamu looked up at him with narrowed eyes, desperate to detect any sign of jest.

“I mean—” Osamu’s breath hitched in his throat as Suna’s eyes met his, “I’m not a bad chef.”

Suna clapped, then let his arms stretch wide like he was about to take flight, a matter-of-fact look on his face.

“There ya go!” He said, “You’re a chef.”

Osamu rolled his eyes.

“Well, I’m not a chef.”

“Why not?” Suna leaned forward again, “Chefs are people who are good at cooking, you’re good at cooking, and by the transitive property, that means you’re a chef.”

Osamu couldn’t help but snicker at Suna’s logic through a tight-lipped smile, his eyes drifting down to his backpack on the desk.

“What’s your signature dish?” Suna pointed at him casually.

Osamu looked up for a moment in thought, pursing his lips, so the top one met his nose.

“Onigiri,” he replied boldly.

With an aspirated ‘ooh’ and a pinched face, Suna’s body flopped towards the desk. He buried his head in his arms for a moment. Osamu sat before him, puzzled by what emotion was being expressed. He was confused only until Suna sat back up, a longing gaze on his face.

“You’re speakin’ my fucking language with that one,” he crooned, “My mom made the best onigiri. I think I ate it like every day of primary school.”

Osamu crossed his arms, boldness spreading through his chest.

“I bet mine is better,” he half-teased.

Suna’s eyes narrowed playfully, his mouth curling up slowly.

“Oh, yeah?” He joked, “I think that’s bullshit until proven true.”

“You’re on,” Osamu replied.

In accordance with the joke, Suna stuck out his hand all business-like for a handshake, sealing their onigiri agreement. Osamu was quick to reciprocate, accustomed to formal handshakes. But the moment the skin of his palm grazed along the surface of Suna’s, Osamu felt his body turn to ice again, tingles of nervousness teeming right under his skin. Suna’s hand was hot, and his fingers were rough and calloused.

Rock climbing, Osamu remembered.

They stayed like that for a long moment, their hands grasped across the table, and their eyes caught in a stalemate, waiting for someone to shoot or retreat. Osamu took the bullet, tearing his eyes back to the surface of the table and releasing Suna’s hand after one hearty shake.

“My favorite filling is salmon,” Suna teased as they both returned to their work.

Osamu used the few seconds he had digging through his backpack to will the rush of blood in his face back into his body and try desperately not to vomit.

Just as Osamu had predicted, the prickling anxiety only grew as the days went on. He’d spend all of his classes deep in thought, mostly about the upcoming competition,

and, by association, Suna Rintarou.

He wondered what kinds of classes Suna was enrolled in. Osamu didn’t even know what his major was. Why had he never asked what his major was? That’s like the quintessential question of college. You ask someone what their major is, then try to relate by talking about someone you know in that same major, then you stand there for a moment in silence before making up something about having a class or lunch to get to.

Maybe it had something to do with math? Osamu would never willingly do a bunch of meaningless calculations on a sheet of paper in the library, so someone who would must care about math at least a little. And the calculations were entirely meaningless—there were a lot of things Osamu did that could be considered as such. Also, it was nice to see Suna committing himself to the success of their partnership; the idea crashed like a wave against Osamu’s fragile chest.

He found himself waiting eagerly all through Wednesday and Thursday morning. He changed his outfit not once but twice in his dorm, searching for that old blue polo that his mother had said brought out his eyes. Even as he made his old onigiri recipe from memory, he found himself fumbling the bag of rice and dropping more than a few slices of salmon on the floor. He couldn’t keep his hands from shaking, not when he was imagining Suna picking up the very onigiri that he was shaping and taking a bite. Maybe he would hum in appreciation or smile brightly or maybe—

“Gah!” Osamu screeched at himself, covering his eyes with a clammy palm.

Flopping onto his bed, he decided to watch the small pot on the hot plate boil from a distance. The rice was sitting washed and ready on the corner of his desk, and the salmon he’d picked up from the fishery that morning was tucked in the coldest part of his janky little mini-fridge. He’d gone to great lengths to ensure his onigiri was made of the best ingredients, which may have meant skipping his classes that morning to drive to the fish market in the next town over.

From Osamu’s view on the bed, he could see his homework piling up at a different corner of his desk from the rice, sequestered into a shadow. It was mostly packets and readings for his various courses, which he’d decided to forget entirely. His eyes swept across to the adjacent wall, where he saw the index cards plastered all over it.

It seemed like he was putting a new index card up every day, slipping back into his old habit of writing the same phrases and pinning them over the old ones. It seemed like a jumbled mess now. Most of the cards were at wonky angles that would make them tough to read head-on. Even from afar, Osamu could make out the brightly-colored reminders.

You can be better than him.

Winning is the only option.

Osamu’s mouth fell into a straight line.

I am going to beat Atsumu at Nationals.

Breath slipped hot and slow from Osamu’s nose. He blinked himself to another part of the room, wanting to relieve his brain of the thought of his brother for a little longer. His throat felt patchy even from seeing his name and knowing he’d already sullied his chances of achieving what he’d come to college to do.

It took a long moment for him to notice that the water in his little pot was boiling over, little puddles sizzling atop the hot plate.

“Fuck,” he hissed to himself, hoisting his heavy body off the mattress.

His throat still felt dry and strange as he walked towards the library later that evening with a tupperware of onigiri in hand, but it was almost a good feeling now. The top of his stomach had filled with some sour sensation that no amount of water would dilute, and he kept forgetting to breathe. He’d only remember when he’d catch a glimpse of his tomato-red face in the window’s reflection of other buildings.

Halfway there, he even had to take a moment to consider whether he’d remembered to bring his laptop or not. He was so focused on getting this onigiri to Suna—

“Is that what I think it is?” A familiar voice called Osamu’s attention.

Sauntering towards the door of the massive library, in the opposite direction of Osamu, was Rintarou himself. Osamu’s feet turned to stone atop the sidewalk, and sweat poured so quickly from his hands that he was afraid he’d drop the glass tupperware between them. Suna gave his board one last good push, so he was merely a foot away from Osamu, then stopped the thing with his foot along the concrete, so the nose swiped in a semicircle right at Osamu’s toes. Suna grabbed the thing with practiced ease and tucked it under his shoulders, using the convenience of his hand position to adjust the long, ragged strap of his backpack, which crossed over his broad chest.

His hair was different that day, more styled. At least, that was what Osamu assumed.

“It—uh—” Osamu stammered, eyes forced down to the lid of the tupperware.

His fingers fumbled with the edge. He looked like an idiot, didn’t he?

“Here,” he said plainly once the lid was removed to reveal two onigiri.

He waited an extra beat to make sure Suna was looking at the food when he glanced back up. Suna stared into the tupperware with a slightly slack jaw; Osamu could almost imagine a comical dribble of drool falling from his lips.

“Salmon?” Suna asked without looking up.

“Yup,” Osamu gave a clipped reply, “salmon onigiri.”

Oh god, I’m an idiot, he thought.

“Do ya wanna eat ‘em in the library?” Osamu asked, desperate to move the awkward encounter to a familiar location.

Instead of agreeing casually like he usually did, Suna’s eyes narrowed, and his mouth began to stretch into a smile.

“Actually,” his voice lowered.

All of Osamu’s insides scrunched up into a tangled ball. Suna’s smile only grew as he took a step closer and leaned in. Osamu could smell his deodorant. He felt like he was going to pass out.

“A friend of mine is having a party tonight,” he said slowly, “and I think you and I should go.”

Osamu’s face fell. The onigiri was heating up the bottom of the glass dish and pressing into his sensitive palms.

“We—we can’t—” Osamu’s mind was still trying to process the word ‘party,’ “We can’t go to a party, we have a competition tomorrow.”

Suna’s shoulders slumped, “A competition we’ve been working our asses off for all week! Shouldn’t we take a break to make sure we’re in top shape tomorrow?”

Osamu’s face pinched in worry as he pulled the onigiri back towards his stomach.

“I just—” his voice wavered, “I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

Osamu’s body was prickling like it had in the days leading up to that moment, especially as Suna leaned towards him with a soft, pleading look.

“You said you wanted to learn how to chill, right?” He said, “Well, consider a party your first test.”

Slowly, Osamu’s tongue darted out to wet his nearly trembling, dry lips. Suna’s free hand was hovering a few inches away from his arm, and he wondered if Suna would touch him if he protested any longer. Yet, his mind was swimming with the suggestion:

Your first test,

an assessment of how well you’ve learned to chill.

Still, Osamu’s brow curled at the thought of spending the night prior to a big competition at a party rather than studying his butt off.

“It’s not a huge thing,” Suna reassured him, “it’s just a couple friends, and I’ll make sure nothing happens to you.”

The promise filled the cold spaces of Osamu’s body with a sudden warmth. He had to suppress the corners of his mouth, which wanted nothing more than to tick up in delight.

I’ll make sure nothing happens to you.

Atsumu was never that protective. He only kept an eye on Osamu because their mom told him he had to.

“C’mon,” Suna pleaded in a near whisper, “it’ll be fun.”

Uncertainty rolled in waves over Osamu’s thoughts. It was constant enough to feel practical, the logical thing to do, being sitting in the library and pouring over his notes just one night more. But Suna was so close; if he leaned forward, he could maybe even feel his breath.

And hadn’t Atsumu been at a party the week prior?

I am going to beat Atsumu at Nationals.

If Osamu couldn’t beat him at Nationals,

then maybe he could beat him at this.

“Fine,” Osamu blurted out.

Suna’s eyes widened a bit as if he was surprised to even get an answer out of his co-competitor. The moment the shock wore off, however, he was smiling again and straightening his posture a tad.

“That’s what I like to hear,” he crooned, “let’s go.”

Cocking his head to the south of campus, Suna began his trek through an entirely different part of campus with Osamu glued dutifully to his side.

“Gimme one of those,” he said at some point during the walk with grabby hands at the tupperware.

Osamu held the container out to him and watched as Suna pinched the top of one gingerly with his pointer and thumb, both of which were adorned with chipped black nail polish. Osamu watched closely as the veins in the back of his hand moved and rippled just beneath the surface of his skin while he pulled the onigiri up to his mouth. He didn’t even take a moment to look at it or smell it before digging into his first bite, shoved through an unhinged jaw.

He chewed for a moment, then grinned. Then his eyes nearly rolled into the back of his head.

“Mother of god,” he groaned.

Osamu held his breath for a moment, unsure what emotion was being conveyed by Suna’s exclamation—at least until he turned to Osamu with blown-out pupils and a matter-of-fact look on his face.

“This shit’s better than a blowjob, I swear to god,” he said in a low voice.

As the words registered in Osamu’s mind, he felt his face run as red as the hot plate in his dorm; if it were to rain, the droplets would’ve sizzled into steam upon touching the surface of his skin. He’d heard the word before but never used so casually or in such an unrelated context. Osamu’s mouth went dry, and his voice grated along the sides of his throat as he watched Suna take another greedy bite, obviously mindless to the dirty comment he’d just made.

“Alright, fuck my mom’s cooking,” he said through a bite, “she’s shit. You’re the real deal.”

“You can’t say that about your mom!” Osamu replied dryly, his face still burning up.

He wondered if Suna noticed when he looked over.

“I’m an honest guy, what can I say?” He shrugged, “And she’s dead, so—”

Osamu’s eyes went even wider as if that was even possible. He nearly dropped the container that time.

“I’m—I’m so sorry!” He blurted out.

Suna glanced over with a concerned expression.

“It’s good. It was a while ago,” he replied calmly.

Osamu swallowed thickly as he and Suna walked further toward the south side of campus together. He’d clicked the lid back onto the container and slung his backpack around so he could shove it back into the main pocket. All the while, his mind whirled with all the new things he was learning about Suna Rintarou.

“How old were you?” Osamu asked quietly.

“Thirteen,” Suna replied instantly, “She got really sick really fast, it was weird.”

Osamu stared down at his shoes, his dumb blue Reeboks. Was he really going to a party dressed in a polo, slacks, and his dumb Reeboks?

“And my dad’s kind of a fuck-up, so I lived with my grandma for a while,” Suna continued plainly.

Osamu wanted to say something comforting. His mom had only died five years ago, after all. How was he so calm about it all? Shouldn’t the wound still be fresh?

“My grandma worked on the weekends, so I’d just sit at home and watch public access TV,” Suna explained. “And that was how I got into Speech and Debate, from watching competitions on, like, C-SPAN and stuff.”

Osamu had been on C-SPAN before; he wondered if Suna had ever watched one of his early competitions. He wondered if he’d inspired a young Suna Rintarou to pursue Speech and Debate.

“I’m sorry all of that happened,” Osamu replied plainly, knowing that nothing he said would ever be enough.

Suna just shrugged again, “Not like I can go back and change it.”

A particularly heavy breath fell from Osamu’s chest. He’d never thought like that. The past, for him, was something to be remembered, picked apart, brutalized until it was stripped to its bare bones because then he might be able to truly understand it. He didn’t know how people could simply accept things and move on. It didn’t make any sense.

“That’s my buddy’s place, that building right down there,” Suna pointed down a narrow alley of buildings to a dormitory that was fewer floor’s than Osamu’s and seemed to have bigger units inside of it.

Osamu’s dormitory was the freshman hall. He didn’t have to live there, but his parents had told him living there would help him make friends. He got a room in that building just to prove them wrong.

Upon walking into the lobby, Osamu felt his body seize up. A couple people were sitting on the couches in front of a TV, most of them huddled around a movie that had started right as the sun had gone down. Others were cramped at nearby tables, surrounded by books and computers and loose papers. They all looked older, like real adults. Osamu felt like a child walking through their domain.

These must’ve been apartment-style dorms. Upperclassmen usually lived in that sort of style so they could bypass the roommate thing and feel more grown-up with a kitchen and a living room. Osamu worried about having to share a space with other people, so he was happy in his single-room and private bathroom. Yet, all the upperclassmen seemed friendly with each other. Osamu watched two who were engrossed in conversation join them on the elevator. They joked around, shoving each other playfully into the opposite wall.

Osamu folded his hands politely in front of his body. His eyes glanced carefully over at Suna who was leaning against the side of the elevator, waiting for the door in front of him to open. Osamu wondered if he and Suna were the kind of friends who could joke around with each other like the other two.

Then, he looked down at his outfit. He was not dressed for a party. Even if he’d been given forewarning, he didn’t own a single thing that could be considered “party attire.” He would’ve stood in front of his closet like an idiot for two hours before coming up with some bullshit excuse to get out of it. But as the elevator doors opened and Suna stepped out confidently, Osamu knew there was no way he was getting out of this one.

Even from down the hall, Osamu could hear the party in the distance, the bass of the music thumping through the cheaply carpeted floors. He swallowed thickly and fiddled with his fingers, a thick nervousness falling like a large stone in the pit of his stomach.

What was he thinking? He couldn’t go to a party, not the night before a competition. But Suna was walking so close to him, and if he stopped, he’d have to explain himself like some sort of coward.

And Atsumu would never back out of something like this.

Atsumu would go to the party.

Thus, Osamu closed his eyes and inhaled deeply as they approached the door. He waited for Suna to knock or open it or do something, but he felt a gentle hand on his right arm instead. The rough heel of Suna’s hand touched the soft skin of Osamu’s upper arm, the fingers pressing into the fabric of his polo. Osamu was jolted to life, his gaze falling to the side where Suna was looking at him encouragingly.

“I’m not gonna let anything happen to you, promise,” he said softly.

Osamu wanted to nod, but all he could do was let out that long inhale, transfixed on the deepness of Suna’s brown eyes beneath even the harshest of fluorescent lights. He watched something move out of the corner of his eye and found Suna’s other hand outstretched to him, his picky extended.

Slowly but surely, Osamu extended his pinky and hooked it around Suna’s. They stayed there for a moment, fingers interlocked and gazes set on one another.

“Promise,” Suna mouthed.

He unhooked his pinky before Osamu was ready, then opened the door to let a flood of voices and thumping music fill Osamu’s senses.

The smell came next, a discreet stench of cheap beer that smelled frighteningly similar to Atsumu’s suit after the winter formal in their third year. Osamu suppressed a grimace as Suna grabbed his wrist and wove them both seamlessly through the thick crowd.

Suna had said only a few people, right?

There were more people than Osamu could count, most of them double-fisting gold cans and leaning against the wall, deep in conversation with some other party-goer. It was loud—louder than Osamu liked it to be. He was tempted to cover his ears as they maneuvered into the kitchen, but Suna’s hand was wrapped around one of his wrists.

Suna’s hand was wrapped around one of his wrists.

Osamu gulped as his skin prickled. People were shouting over the music, but everything seemed to drown out when Osamu glanced at Suna’s long, bony fingers wrapped confidently around the circumference of his wrist.

The apartment was small and crappy and not made to accommodate so many bodies, so their trek to the kitchen wasn’t all that long. And Osamu could finally breathe since there were significantly fewer people in that particular part of the apartment.

There was a tall, built guy standing at the other end of the kitchen finishing off a golden can of his own. He shook the last drops out of the thing before crushing it into a flat disc with his bare hands and tossing it skillfully into the trash can. He was wearing a poorly-cut muscle tee made from a university shirt and these shorts that left nothing to the imagination, his rippling thighs out for everyone’s viewing pleasure (especially Osamu’s).

When he saw Suna, his eyes went wide, and he grinned.

“Rintarou the Great!” He cried, extending his hand for a handshake Osamu didn’t recognize.

“And—” the man pointed at Osamu with a puzzled expression.

“This is Osamu,” Suna replied, removing his hand from Osamu’s wrist and placing it on his upper back instead. “He’s a friend of mine from Speech and Debate.”

A friend of mine, Osamu’s mind chanted.

He couldn’t help but smile.

“Nice to meet you,” he said a bit too formally.

“Good to have ya here!” Suna’s friend cried, “Love this look you got goin’ on, too, sorta mid-nineties poindexter?”

He motioned all over Osamu’s body with his hands. Though Osamu thought he was making a joke, he sounded too sincere for that to be true. Still, Osamu pursed his lips and suppressed a laugh.

“I guess?”

“And you’re kinda built, man,” he chuckled. “Y’ever thought about weightlifting?”

Osamu had never heard his body be referred to as “built.” Fluffy? Yes. In need of exercise? Absolutely. But those things felt so negative; why did this random man’s words make him suddenly feel so powerful?

“I—no, I haven’t,” Osamu replied in a small voice.

The boy peered at him, “I’d think about it, really, you look like you got a core of steel.”

Osamu just laughed awkwardly in response and waited for Suna to rescue him.

“We’re gonna walk around a bit,” Suna pulled through with a pat to Osamu’s back.

“Oh, for sure,” Suna’s friend replied, “If you two wanna drink, there’s stuff in the kitchen, if you two wanna smoke, there’s some guys out back, and if you two wanna fuck—”

“And that’s our cue,” Suna pushed on Osamu’s back to guide him past the host of the party and toward the table of drinks that was just on the other side of the half-wall.

“Hey, no judgement here!” His friend called after him, “Love who ya love!”

“Oh my god,” Suna said under his breath as Osamu watched his cheeks tinge pink.

Just outside the kitchen was a rather rickety-looking table stacked high with coolers sporting every color of can Osamu thought could exist. Suna peered at the menagerie knowingly before tightening his hand a bit around Osamu’s shoulder.

“Okay,” he pointed to the left, “those taste like piss, those ones taste like sparkling piss, and these are just pissy enough that you can ignore it.”

As he spoke, Suna reached for two golden cans which were poking out of one of the coolers. He lifted the hem of his shirt to wipe the cold condensation from each before sticking one towards Osamu’s chest.

“Y’don’t have to drink it, seriously,” he shook his head, “I can get you water instead.”

Osamu would ask for water. Miya Osamu would chicken out and ask for a lukewarm glass of water at a too-loud college party and sit all by himself on the couch which was caving in at the corners. But he was too busy being Atsumu to be Osamu—and Atsumu would not only accept this can of beer but down the thing as quickly as he could.

“No,” Osamu replied, “I’ll drink it.”

Suna’s eyes widened in shock a bit as Osamu popped open the tab, even with his stubby-nailed fingers. He gulped nervously once when looking at Suna, then another time when he got a whiff of the drink in his hand. The aluminum can was impossibly cold against the wrinkles in his palm, but it only seemed to spur him forward into taking a sip.

Carefully, he pulled the can to his lips and tipped it just enough so a sliver of liquid would pass into his mouth.

And, yeah, piss was a pretty close description.

Maybe motor oil was more spot on.

It burned in Osamu’s mouth, and it burned likewise, slipping down his throat. As badly as he wanted to suppress his grimace of distaste, he wasn’t able to. Thus, Osamu’s lips screwed up, and his eyes squinted at the top of the can, which now sported little puddles of the vile drink.

“You get used to it,” Suna shrugged, his voice nearly cut through by a chuckle.

Osamu swallowed dryly to try and neutralize the flavor before taking another sip. He was so incredibly focused on making it taste good with his mind that he didn’t process that he was standing like a statue amid all the action. Action, of course, being a massive shuffling of sweaty bodies from one room to another. It took a gentle push from Suna’s hand on his shoulder to get him moving; their direction pointed towards the same couches Osamu had concluded looked questionable a few minutes ago.

“C’mon big guy,” Suna crooned from behind him. “It tastes better when you’re sitting.”

Osamu quirked his brow, “That’s not possible.”

“You don’t know until you try!” He teased.

Truthfully, Osamu was looking forward to taking a seat, and he could admit that the sour beer tasted just a little better with his ass in a plush spot. Suna shuffled close beside him, lounging his arm across the back of the couch (thankfully on the other side), and his legs spread casually in front of the coffee table. Osamu tried to appear just as lax, but the best he could do was lean his back fully onto the couch and spread his legs as far as his khakis would allow.

Though he’d feared being underdressed, there seemed to be a nice variety of outfits happening in such a small apartment. There were some girls in dresses and heels dancing with boys in basketball shorts and wrinkly t-shirts while other girls in their sweatpants charmed boys in their best club attire, chunky golden rings, and suede bomber jackets. The more Osamu looked around, the less out-of-place he felt.

“Hey, Miya,” Suna tapped his arm and gestured generally towards a different section of the party.

There was a girl there, tall and curly-haired. Her eyes were sort of low and obviously affixed on Osamu. The thought that he was being observed made him cringe inwardly.

“Think she’s into you,” Suna whispered, trying not to move his lips in such an obvious way. “Why don’t you go say hi?”

Osamu’s breath hitched. The beer that was now floating around in his stomach had gone stale and hard, a brick threatening to pull the whole organ down to his feet. Above all, his heart was racing, but not for the reason Suna would think.

Because how was he supposed to admit that the feeling of Suna’s whispering breath in his ear was much more appealing than anything the girl across the room had to offer him?

He took a swig of his beer for courage and did what he knew Atsumu would do.

“I don’t really—like women,” he admitted in a small voice, “at all.”

Suna was close enough that he could hear Osamu’s voice, but absolutely no one else could. His brow knitted for just a quick moment before returning to its neutral position.

“Oh, okay,” he shrugged, leaning back into his seat like the entire thing had never even happened.

Osamu gripped the can of beer closer to his stomach. His body was flooding with a puzzling sort of relief—Suna hadn’t gotten mad at him, but he hadn’t made a big deal of it either. Most people ask an invasive question or two or maybe congratulate him awkwardly for, who knows, being gay? But Suna just sat like he had, drink glued to his lips and eyes scanning the party for any more figures of interest.

Osamu eventually joined him once the brick in his stomach had finally dissolved, and with his back flush to the cushion, he was able to see things from Suna’s perspective.

Among the thick crowd were some pretty passionate couples making out in secluded corners. It seemed strange to Osamu—he wondered if they’d been dating before this night or if they’d met at the drink table. He couldn’t imagine kissing someone he didn’t know. He hadn’t kissed anyone at this point, so the probability that he was absolutely shit at it was too high to take the chance. Thus, all he could do was watch and grimace when he got a glimpse of their battling tongues.

God, he thought, Atsumu’s probably into all that shit.

And, as far as he knew, so was Suna Rintarou. He was probably scoping out some girl to take home which would leave Osamu to find his own way back to the dorms. Not that he would be mad or anything, it wasn’t his business what Suna did in his free time. So why did it make Osamu feel so sick to think about him doing such a thing?

“Y’know,” Suna said after a thick swallow of beer, “when I was a freshman in high school, I made out with this guy beneath the bleachers at a lacrosse game—”

Wait,

what?

“And I kid you not, this motherfucker gave me a cavity,” Suna leaned in and emphasized, “I was cavity-free all my life until that idiot decided not to brush his teeth before necking some band nerd during a high school sports game.”

Oh, there was so much information for Osamu to process.

He had said guy, right?

“So I slipped the bill for the filling into his locker,” Suna chuckled, “he knocked me out later that day—one punch, and I was done for.”

Osamu tried to politely chuckle along with the amusing story, but his mind was buzzing with a million other things.

Marching band?

“Um—” Osamu hesitated, wishing he had an amusing makeout story to tell, as well.

“I just didn’t think cavities were contagious,” Suna finished off his story and his beer at nearly the same time.

He hoisted himself up off the couch and pointed his can towards Osamu.

“I’m getting another, you want one?” He asked.

Osamu lifted his heavy can an inch.

“Uh, no, I’m good,” he replied.

“Better start keepin’ up!” Suna teased as he walked back towards the table outside the kitchen.

Suna was right; he did have a lot of catching up to do. Maybe if he hadn’t been so engrossed in Speech and Debate in high school, then he could’ve asked that beautiful white-haired boy from his biology class to the Formal and kissed him beneath some rusty bleachers. If he hadn’t been such a stick-in-the-mud, he probably would’ve gone to a party like this a long time ago and learned how to drink nasty beer like it was lukewarm water.

Osamu had to catch up,

and he had to catch up fast.

“Bombs away,” he whispered to himself.

And down the hatch, the drink went.

Drunk was an understatement.

A more proper word might be—

slammed.

Miya Osamu was slammed when the clock on the wall hit one.

Not that he would know what time it was—numbers had started looking like little stick people thirty minutes ago. The only sense of the passage of time he had was the army of empty golden cans sitting on the coffee table in front of him, dutifully separated from Suna’s collection. Though he had a much higher tolerance and didn’t exactly fit the definition of “slammed,” Suna’s eyes were plenty glazed over, and every time Osamu looked over, he was smiling at nothing, rosy cheeks forming like apples on his face.

“Miya!” He shouted, flopping back onto the couch.

Osamu’s mind was swimming with a strange cocktail of noises, but he heard Suna’s voice clearly through it all, and a giggle arose from his stomach in some unconscious response.

“Heh, ye-ah?”

His voice was slow as molasses, words dripping languidly from the tip of his tongue and just barely being brushed by his lips; he couldn’t feel them anymore, after all.

“You—” Suna pointed a finger enthusiastically into the sky, “are so fuckin’ smart.”

Osamu squished his face and shook his head.

“No!” He cried, “I’m stupid. I’m as stupid as they come. I should just drop out of college.”

He felt Suna’s hands grip his left arm in desperation, poking into the fleshy mass that surrounded his bones.

“Don’t do that! Then who’s gonna be my debate partner?”

Osamu could hear the pout in his voice, but he didn’t dare look over.

“Anyone,” Osamu tried to shake him off, “I’m nothin’ special.”

Though his mind was basically a clear jelly at this point, Osamu could still notice his thick accent coming through. He wished he could stop it before it got too bad.

“That’s a fucking lie,” Suna leaned in close to the side of his face, Osamu could smell the beer on his breath.

Like a seesaw, his head flopped to the left, and Osamu was faced with a far-too-close Suna and a situation he would’ve never allowed sober. But they sat like that for a moment, eyes grazing over each other’s faces and noses begging to touch.

“You’re—ama-azing,” Suna poked his chest, “you’re the best.”

Suna’s finger was still pressing into the soft skin of his chest, the other knuckles of his hand brushing his shirt. Osamu felt like holding that hand.

“And you’re too—hard on yourse-elf,” Suna slurred.

Osamu’s face fell. His cheeks burned. Sober, his body would’ve been screaming for mercy with such proximity to such a gorgeous boy, but Osamu’s mind was too occupied with piss-poor beer to care about anything else.

And besides, Suna’s hand was on his arm now.

“I’m not hard enough—onmyself, ahthink,” Osamu slurred in response.

Suna’s face curled at that, but not in amusement, more in distaste. His hand gripped lightly around Osamu’s arm.

“D’you even like debate?”

Through the thick fog of his inebriation, Suna’s question seemed to echo. A shudder fell down Osamu’s spine as it repeated itself like a ghost refusing to leave its old home.

Do you even like debate?

Do you?

Osamu’s instinctual answer was yes. Why would he do something for so long that he didn’t even like? But he supposed he’d never really thought about it, too busy moving from one competition to the next. Sure it was terrible to vomit so much and feel as awful as he did before every debate, but winning felt so good in comparison.

Right?

“Wuhll,” he pouted, “yeah.”

Suna pursed his lips and leaned back a bit, much to Osamu’s disappointment. He wanted to look at Suna’s glassy deep brown eyes forever. Perhaps it would help him forget—

“Oh my go-d,” Osamu began to giggle, “we have a competition tomorrow!”

Osamu shouldn’t have been laughing about such a thing, but here he was. And Suna was quick to join in, his smile spreading slowly and teasingly over his face and his first few laughs leaving his nose in snorts. They fed off of each other’s unbridled joy for a moment, giggling and snorting until their stomachs hurt.

At some moment in his laughter, Suna had placed his hand on Osamu’s shoulder and planted his forehead atop the back of his hand. The pressure pulled down on Osamu’s body and nearly destabilized him, sending him hurtling towards the couch cushions. But he maintained his composure and instead let his ear fall just a tad so it could brush the incredibly soft hair on Suna’s head.

He wanted to stay in that moment forever. He wanted his ear to be touching Suna’s hair for the rest of his wretched life. He wanted the pressure on his left shoulder and the shake of Suna’s laughter to echo through his own body.

But he had a competition tomorrow.

“C’mon!” Osamu whined, “We gotta go-o-o.”

They laughed a little more, mostly while trying to help each other up in an endless battle with the broken couch. Osamu’s body felt warm and loose, like a sudden gust of wind could detach his arm entirely. So when Suna wrapped his arm around his shoulder for stability, Osamu was convinced he was about to become a mere pile of organs, skin, and bone.

“Let’s go!” Suna shouted triumphantly, pointing towards the front door.

The crowd of people had thinned considerably, so it was easy to slip out the door and into the hallway without causing any mass injury. The only thing that could maybe cause that was the absolute stumbling mess of Miya Osamu and Suna Rintarou.

“My apartment’s—that way!” Suna cried, his cheek pressed against Osamu’s shoulder and his finger pointed towards a collection of trees.

“But my place is closer,” Osamu protested, “let’s just go there.”

“You’ve neverseenmy place,” Suna said, “how d’you know what’s closer?”

“Because mine’s thatway,” Osamu pointed in some other vague direction.

He felt Suna sigh against his body.

“Yeah, okay,” he complied.

Thus began their stumble towards the east side of campus. Or, at least, that was the direction Osamu hoped they were moving in.

“Heh, heh,” Osamu giggled, entirely unconsciously.

“What’s so funny?” Suna asked him in a cracking voice.

Osamu just giggled more. Nothing was particularly funny; he just felt like laughing.

“I dunno,” he muttered.

Things around Osamu looked familiar, but his feet were refusing to move in the direction he wanted them to. The cottony feeling in his brain was so pleasant that he wondered if there was a way to stay like this for the rest of his life—without a care in the world and with someone he couldn’t get enough of hanging off his shoulder.

His apartment appearing in the distance was a godsend, honestly. Osamu could’ve sworn they had way further to go. But just as he began to stumble towards the front doors and fiddle with his keycard, Suna leaning on a pole close behind, things started to get fuzzy and black.

Anything that happened after might as well not have existed at all.

Light.

That was what Miya Osamu woke up to—

A viciously, violently bright light, perhaps the gates of heaven itself.

“Oh my god,” was the first thing to leave his incredibly chapped and peeling lips.

A painful throb started in the front of his head and traveled all the way to the back in a slow wave. He hadn’t even opened his eyes yet, and everything hurt.

Not just his head, but his hands and his back and his feet—he felt like fire ants were eating away at him all over. His head hurt so bad that all his thoughts were mere clouds, wisps of ideas and recollections.

With his eyes still pressed closed, Osamu smacked his tongue against the roof of his sticky mouth, tasting something he didn’t quite remember yet.

“Shit,” he groaned, tentatively opening one eye.

The light was even more blinding and only seemed to intensify the throbbing feeling in his head. He wanted to fall back asleep forever, but his head even hurt too much to do that.

Osamu had to ease himself into opening one eye fully then the other without absolutely blinding himself. All the light was coming through his window and reflecting off the flecks of dust floating around his bedroom. It was quiet and serene just for that moment where Osamu was sitting up in bed, nursing his aching back and watching the slow-moving particles dance through the sunlight. His head still hurt, and his mouth still tasted awful, but it was nice.

What was even nicer was the man curled up on his bedroom floor.

It was Suna, he knew by the hair. He was cuddled up in a thin blanket atop a yoga mat he must’ve snatched from the back of Osamu’s closet. His shirt was twisted up all around his torso, and his socked feet stuck out from the bottom of the blanket which he was obviously too tall for. Though Osamu couldn’t see his face, he could hear his soft snores sounding from the floor—a low enough rumble to not bother Osamu in the slightest.

The corners of Osamu’s mouth ticked up just a bit. His chest swelled with a strange warmth right before his stomach plummeted, knowing what the feeling meant.

“No,” he sighed, remembering the gorgeous, white-haired boy from his biology class in high school.

Osamu swallowed the bile that accompanied every crashing realization. It didn’t make any sense—there was no reason to a single bit of it—but what other reason would there be for the absolute feeling of dread in Miya Osamu’s body?

Absolute feeling of dread, he thought again.

Feeling of dread—

“Oh, fuck,” he hissed, another tsunami of realization crashing over his body.

Adrenaline pumping through his otherwise fatigued body, Osamu scrambled for his phone on the nightstand and powered it up, tempted to block his vision from what he knew would be a terrible discovery.

They had a competition today.

It was 10:02.

And they had a debate scheduled for 10:15—

on the dot.

Chapter Text

“Fuck,” Osamu hissed, “Suna!”

Formalities always came more naturally to Osamu, especially in moments of panic such as this. But the man didn’t stir.

“Wake up!” Osamu shouted, tossing a pillow forcefully right at Suna’s face.

It was then that Suna came to, rubbing his eyes and nursing what was probably a similar headache to Osamu’s. But the sheer rush of adrenaline that was coursing through his veins was making all the awful groggy symptoms go away and replacing it with an unmatched terror.

10:03.

“Wha?” Suna murmured as he sat upright.

“We have a fucking competition in ten minutes!” Osamu cried.

It took Suna an extra second to process what Osamu had said, the words dripping into his consciousness one by one, but as he began to piece everything together and glanced at the alarm clock on Osamu’s nightstand, his eyes went wide.

“Shit,” he hissed, tearing the blanket off of his legs and scrambling up.

Osamu felt like he was holding his breath as he rushed out of bed, nearly tripping on Suna’s makeshift sleeping situation as he barreled towards his closet.

“I don’t have anything to wear!” Suna shouted frantically from across the tiny dorm.

“Here!” Osamu threw a button down right into Suna’s stomach with scary precision and started flicking through all his pants to find a pair that was too small on him, at least.

“Fuck,” Suna hummed to himself as he started shedding his shirt from the prior night, “fuck, fuck.”

Osamu felt like he was going to vomit, the headache and the terror and the hangover all hitting him at once. He fumbled with his sleep shirt, then with the fastenings on his button-down. If it was any other situation, he probably would’ve felt awkward about taking off his pants and exposing his boxers to Rintarou, but he really didn’t have any other choice. Thus, he let his soft pajama pants pool at his ankles while a blush formed over his cheeks in the few seconds it took him to locate the pants he’d set out the night before.

“Need pants,” was all Suna could say to him from a few feet away.

Sure enough, Suna was standing in the corner with the end of his button-down hanging just at his waistline, the hem of a pair of black briefs hugging the meaty part of his thighs. Osamu felt his eyes catch on the shape of it all, the least clothed he’d ever seen the man. The blush in his cheeks slipped down the sides of his neck.

There’s no time for this!

Be gay later!

“Damnit,” Osamu hissed to himself, pulling his own pants on and using his free hand to toss the smaller pair he’d found for Suna.

With his hands gripped around the hem of his shirt, shoving it all into the waist of his slacks, Osamu turned and checked the time.

10:09.

“Goddamnit!” Osamu shouted, pulling a belt from the ground.

“How long does it take to get there?” Suna asked.

“Five minutes,” said Osamu, “which means we have a chance.”

They were damn lucky that the competition was so close by. Any further and they’d be—

Osamu couldn’t even think about it.

Thus, in avoidance of his own worst-case scenario, he snatched his backpack from the rolling desk chair and prayed that everything he needed was inside before dashing out the door. Whether Suna was in tow or not didn’t really matter to him.

“Let’s take my car,” Suna said, “it’s right outside.”

Osamu wasn’t going to protest. He was, however, going to run as quickly as he could down the stairs of the building and towards the parking lot where he could hear Suna’s car unlocking with a beep.

It was a pretty old thing, a white Chevy beater with scratches all down the sides and an antenna that was snapped entirely in half and hanging on by a thread. But it wasn’t like Osamu got that close of a look at it as he flung open the door, tossing his backpack in first, then his body.

Suna nearly dropped the key as he tried to stick it into the ignition. Osamu watched his cheeks tint pink and his lips part with heavy, panting breaths. His hair was sticking out in all directions and his eyes were wide with horror. Osamu didn’t think he could get this way.

Could it be that he cared about this as much as Osamu did?

“C’mon,” he hummed to his car as the engine whirred to life with a couple of concerning pops and sputters.

Music came on the radio, something loud and thrashy that fit right in with Suna’s likeness. But he’d turned the thing off with a blithe finger only a second after it had begun. It was just as well—this was a drive that should probably be made in silence. Osamu pulled his lips between his teeth and held his backpack tighter to his chest as Suna pulled out of the parking lot.

Now, Osamu certainly wouldn’t look at Suna Rintarou and assign him the title of ‘good driver’ just by looks alone, but he didn’t expect him to be this bad.

If there was a curb, he ran over it. If there was a stop sign, he ignored it completely. Q      Every turn made Osamu feel like he was on a rollercoaster that was about to go off track and every time he slammed on the brakes, Osamu could almost feel his nose tap the dashboard in front of him. Perhaps it was the rush they were in—

or maybe Suna really was just that bad of a driver.

At their first red light, Osamu checked his watch.

10:11.

“Shit,” he whispered breathlessly.

He was hyper-aware of every sensation in his body: his breathing, his heartbeat, his blood rushing through his ears. Everything out the windshield of the car looked larger than life, pulsing with its own worries. Osamu tried to swallow, but there were too many pins and needles in his throat to allow it. He fiddled with the zipper tab on his backpack, but even that couldn’t calm him down enough.

It was hot that morning—and dry. Osamu couldn’t stop licking his lips. He thought about his hair and his breath, both victims to his morning routine cut short. His shirt felt strangely rough against the soft skin of his stomach and the ends of the sleeves which had once fit perfectly now tugged and pinched at the meat of his arms. His eyes felt too big for his face; his mouth felt as though it was folding in on itself.

Osamu watched the world whizz by as Suna sped down the road. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched Suna drum his finger anxiously against the driver’s side door, the sound only audible when the car came to a stop at another red light.

10:13.

“No,” Osamu whispered to himself.

He had never been to this venue. He’d passed it, but he hadn’t committed the thing to memory, so he couldn’t even be sure if they were close or not.

But there was something dark and swirling opening up inside of him, something that spoke in shuddering whispers and threatened to swallow him whole if he didn’t think intently about keeping his feet on the ground. And as time seemed to pass unrelenting in the suffocating air of the car, Osamu knew the inevitable was staring him in the face.

Unceremonious.

Unapologetic.

He couldn’t even swallow anymore. The swirling pit had stolen all the moisture from his body and left only his hands to act as pools wiping up and down the expanse of his slacks. Even as the light turned green, Osamu’s despair didn’t cease. In fact, it only got worse.

10:14.

“C’mon,” Osamu heard Suna hiss to himself as he turned another corner.

The venue was off in the distance, so close Osamu could nearly taste the blood of his vigor in the gaps of his teeth; he suckled on the living bones and let the notion of hope taint what had once seemed so dark. But as another light blinked yellow, Osamu could only let out the breath he’d been holding all morning and accept what he knew to be true.

He looked at the time.

10:16.

Suna barreled into the parking lot, obviously still full of the fire Osamu had only achieved a taste of, but as he dashed into a spot and nearly hopped out of his own moving car, Osamu found himself without much resolve to move. He had to force himself out the door and towards the front of the auditorium where two attendants were carrying in a large table and a stack of papers.

Osamu ran a bit, hoping that his eagerness might convince the guards of Paradise to let him cross, but the flat and sorrowful looks on their faces told him in little words what he already knew to be true.

“I’m sorry, you two,” the woman said, “registration is closed.”

“What? No,” Suna protested breathlessly.

There was sweat spotting his back, soaking through the white button-down in a graying constellation. His hair was sticking up in all directions and there was a whitish-pinkish sheen to his entire face that Osamu had never seen him sport before. Yet, even at his protestations, the attendant’s face didn’t change.

“You’ve gotta show up on time, it’s the rules,” she insisted, adjusting her grip on the folded table.

“But—”

Suna was cut off by the woman’s expression finally changing, but not in the way they’d hoped. She was more insistent, her face set in stone like a statue carved once and destined to remain forever. She didn’t even bother to respond, instead hauling the table inside and letting the door fall closed behind her with a click of the lock echoing like a premonition.

For a moment, Osamu simply felt empty. He could sense his own mono-syllabic thoughts bouncing from one dark corner to another, seeking companionship in the void of his mind. Then, the pit swallowed him whole—

no piece of him left behind.

“Samu, I—” Suna eked out, turning towards him, “I’m so sorry.”

Osamu was staring at the floor, hesitant to let Suna’s words travel inside his body lest the lonely thoughts of his latch onto it as truth. Everything was dark no matter where he looked. His skin buzzed at a low enough frequency to make even the wind disappear in his senses. Suna sounded small and faraway. An echo in the chain of caves within Miya Osamu.

“I really—” Suna slicked his hair back, eyes misting with desperation.

Osamu’s breath turned to a brick in his lungs, one he had to haul up and drop each second, his aching muscles making the action increasingly more strenuous with each maneuver. He wanted to scream. He wanted to cry. He wanted to throw himself on the ground and let the earth have its way with him. He wanted to wield a sword and cut someone’s head clean off just to prove he could.

“You—”

His voice was low, light—

menacing.

Suna’s lips formed a straight line. His eyes turned down at the sight of Osamu’s expression.

“You ruin everything,” Osamu hissed.

As though it were a candle, Suna’s features began to melt against the hot, licking flames of Osamu’s words.

“Samu,” he muttered.

“You ruin—everything,” Osamu repeated, louder.

Suna took a half-step forward. Osamu didn’t know what it meant.

“You—” Osamu took in a shuddering breath, hearing his own words knock against his skull, “it’s all your fault.”

“Wait,” Suna reached his hand out towards Osamu’s arm.

Diseased. His hand was bearing something contagious that Osamu couldn’t touch. Thus, he wrenched his body away as if the mere closeness would seal his fate. He felt his face morph into a sort of furious disgust in tandem with the motion, leading Suna to take an astonished half-step backwards.

“Everything I worked for, all these years,” Osamu said dryly, “you’ve ruined it all.”

Suna’s once worried expression began to harden. Osamu couldn’t bring himself to care.

“That’s not true,” he said lowly.

Osamu just shook his head.

“I wish your mom had never died,” he hissed.

“Hey,” Suna retorted.

Osamu continued, “I wish your dad wasn’t such a fuck-up because then you would’ve never watched C-SPAN at your stupid grandmother’s house.”

Anger was stacking up in Osamu’s body like a towering building: slow, intentional, calculated. Yet there was a nature to the way it came out of his mouth that felt entirely different: unregulated, animalistic, unfeeling.

“Because then you never would’ve done Speech and Debate and we never would’ve met,” his voice rose, “and I would be in there competing right now!”

He accented his final shouts with a vicious point towards the front doors of the auditorium, something about the moment freezing in time. Suna’s brow had only curled lower, a similar anger rising in him, as well. He was gritting his teeth, chewing on the inside of his cheek, letting his chest cave in with every hot exhale.

Osamu moved his finger so it was pointed right at Suna’s heart now, the towering anger within him now threatening to fall beneath its own weight.

“I hate you,” he hissed.

Suna’s face softened only slightly.

“No, you don’t,” he replied in a matching whisper.

“I hate you!” Osamu shouted.

“No, you don’t.”

“I hate you!”

“You hate yourself.”

Suna’s once stoic face had gone mad, a crazed fury overtaking what Osamu had once thought to be an impenetrable coolness. He was hunched over, breath’s fast and shuddering within his chest. He’d slapped Osamu’s pointing finger out of the way, leaving a patch of stinging skin in his wake. As desperately as he tried to keep his next words sealed behind his lips, they were too forceful.

“You hate yourself so much that you can’t keep it inside,” Suna shouted, “it leaks onto everyone else.”

It was like a big bucket of ice water had been poured over Osamu’s head. He nearly shivered, ice dribbling down his back in invisible paths.

No, he thought.

He’s wrong.

He’s wrong.

He’s—

“You’re not mad that I got us into this mess, you’re mad at yourself for not being able to find a way out of it,” Suna kept shouting.

No.

No, no, no.

“You don’t hate your stupid brother, you hate yourself because you’re not him,” he cried.

A fleck of spit landed on Osamu’s cheek, jolting him momentarily from his daze. For that moment, he saw Suna’s red-tinted face and furrowed brow pointed right at him, there because of him.

“No,” Osamu shook his head.

“Don’t shut me out because I’m telling you the truth!” Suna shouted.

Swiftly, Osamu’s hands came up to cover his ears and he plugged out all the noise surrounding him, leaving only the rushing blood in his head to accompany him. He screwed his eyes shut and bowed his head towards the pavement beneath his feet.

“I hate you!” He cried, “I hate you! I hate you!”

If Suna was responding, it was all garbled and messy, barely words. Every repetition felt like a bout of molten lava slipping from Osamu’s lips. It left black burn marks along the soft edges and stung like all hell.

“I hate you!” He shouted again, his voice beginning to lose its integrity.

He couldn’t hear anything other than his own cries and the rapidly rushing blood in his own body. The darkness had enveloped him completely now, making it hard to determine whether Suna was still standing there or not.

“I hate you,” Osamu’s voice crackled and broke.

He could feel his eyes welling with tears. He could sense the presence around him disappearing, piece-by-piece.

“I—”

He couldn’t even finish his sentence.

Tears streamed down his face like fallen soldiers, remnants of the emotions that had once seemed reasonable.

You hate yourself.

Osamu whimpered. He choked on his own breath.

You hate yourself more than anyone else.

“I hate—”

It was a whisper now, barely there.

“I hate m—”

I don’t want to be alone.

Please, don’t let me be alone.

He opened a teary eye, half-dreading and half-anticipating what he might find. He’d hate to know that Suna had been watching him cry, but he’d hate even more to open his eyes and see that—

Suna was gone.

All that laid before Miya Osamu was a barren stretch of parking lot,

and the locked auditorium door.

The rest of that day and the one that followed passed by like murky water around Osamu’s ankles as he stood in the brook of the morning’s memory.

As much as he peered into the water, he couldn’t see his own feet nor anything on the surface, he could only feel it, map out its shape with the nerves in his sole. Blankets pooled around his head to muffle his own screaming thoughts. On two different occasions, he’d considered getting up and eating something, but the thought of any food he had in the dorm made his stomach churn. Because when he thought about food, he thought about onigiri, and when he thought about onigiri, he thought about Suna;

and when he thought about Suna—

Osamu didn’t even look at his phone, he couldn’t muster the courage to do so. Four had probably already left a scathing message kicking him off the team. Or perhaps Atsumu was inquiring about the competition he’d just had and wanted to know how their scores matched up. The thought of his twin brother made Osamu’s mouth fill with sour bile. He couldn’t face him, not like this, not with tears streaking down his face and an inability to stand too quickly due to his impossibly low iron count.

Osamu dreaded Monday’s arrival. It was one of those inevitable things, the passage of time, but he’d always hoped that if he thought and moved slowly enough, the day would match his tempo. But four PM turned swiftly into four AM, and Osamu’s thoughts had turned into some chunky soup in his mind, sloshing and steaming with every movement.

He couldn’t think of Suna. He couldn’t imagine his face as they stood screaming at one another in that parking lot. He wondered how long Suna stood there before he gave up on Osamu and left. He wondered how long Suna had watched him cry.

In many ways, it was his fault.

If he hadn’t begged Osamu to go to that party, then they never would’ve gotten drunk and Osamu would’ve woken up on time and been able to compete. It was Suna’s fault for bringing up the party in the first place.

But Osamu agreed. Osamu went to said party without much struggle or consideration. Was he at just as much fault as Suna?

No, he told himself.

I don’t make mistakes.

There were more index cards on his wall now. Sometime in the prior night at a rather ungodly hour Osamu had been struck with the unbearable urge to leap out of bed and do something. So, he snatched his index cards from the desk and started writing to himself, once more.

Don’t drink. It makes you a failure.

Don’t oversleep. Atsumu never misses his alarm. Neither should you.

I need to work out more. I’m getting fat.

They were reminders—commands, almost. Guidelines by which Osamu had to live if there was any hope of him beating his brother in debate. Yet, the cards that had recently been hung up on the wall were beginning to feel a little too personal, pertaining to things that had nothing to do with debate.

Osamu nearly passed out in his midnight frenzy while tacking up cards and tearing down others to rewrite them. At one point, he was slumped on the floor staring up at the massive collage, wondering if there would be any space left by the end of the semester. Yet, through the mass, he could still see one card clearly, untouched.

I hate Suna Rintarou.

He didn’t go to the meeting on Monday night. There was no need to, he knew he was already off the team. He wondered briefly if Suna showed up, but it seemed unlikely. He was even less dedicated to Speech and Debate, so a blow-up of such a grand proportion with his partner would give him enough of a reason to bail.

And it wasn’t like Osamu could get out of bed all that easily. He didn’t go to his classes either. God forbid he even knew what was being taught in said classes, he never paid attention anymore.

Tuesday brought a new ache, one in the upper left side of his stomach.

He had hauled a pack of bagels to his bed Sunday night and had been nibbling on one for over thirty hours, but that was all the food he’d consumed in the past few days. Thus, when he awoke around ten in the morning on Tuesday, his entire body pulsed and ached with the need for sustenance. Osamu ignored it for a while and watched the clock on the wall tick, but the feeling soon became unbearable.

He needed to get out of his dorm for a moment anyhow.

Perhaps if he went to the library, took out his laptop, and stared at the screen for a long while, he’d find that old motivation again. It took all his strength to shed the old, ratty t-shirt he’d been living in and the sweatpants that kept him warm but were a little tight on his thighs. He slipped on another t-shirt and prayed that he wouldn’t see anyone that day that he needed to impress. The khakis simply felt like routine, he couldn’t bring himself to wear anything else.

Osamu didn’t dare look in the mirror, either, conceding instead to the door to slip on his shoes and grab his backpack. Even so, he messed with his hair as he walked down the hallway towards the stairwell, flattening any rustled pieces and working his fingers through the little knots that had been forming all weekend.

It was overcast that day, it had been since Saturday evening. Yet, the air felt brisk, whispers of fall brushing through the leaves on the oak trees. Campus bustled at its normal rhythm for a Tuesday evening; the sidewalks glowed a dull orange beneath the rays of the setting sun which peeked through the gray patches of sky. Momentarily, Osamu felt revived by the air alone and the feeling of being outside those towering four walls of his room.

The walk to the library was familiar and comforting, just like always. A certain fear, however, pricked at his chest as he traveled there, every brown-haired boy was Suna and every tall person was Four. Osamu felt silly checking over his shoulder like his paranoid mother. The library felt like refuge, even though the chances he’d be recognized were higher in a building than outside of one. Osamu sighed as he swiped his card and slipped through the revolving doors, the heat of the lobby rushing over the chilled tips of his fingers.

Everyone on each floor was so engulfed in their own studies that they didn’t even notice Osamu pass by. Osamu liked it that way, he always preferred to be invisible. But even the familiar walk to the third floor was bringing him a bit of peace. His bones began to stack in their proper places as he swung open the double doors into the main room and set his eyes on his usual seat—vacant, as always.

But the seat across from it was not vacant.

In fact, a too familiar face was seated in it.

“No,” the word fell from his lips like a sigh.

Suna Rintarou was curled up in said chair, his legs pulled up to his chest and his thumb once again between his teeth. He had his free hand on the keys of his laptop, but they weren’t moving like his frantic, searching eyes. Even from a distance, Osamu could see the splotches of red and lines of gray beneath his brow. He looked tired, perhaps even more so than Osamu if that was even possible.

That old sick feeling bubbled up within Osamu. He tightened his fingers around the strap of his backpack as he remembered his ratty outfit and his knotted hair and his rubbed-red eyes. He couldn’t be seen like this. He couldn’t let—

Suna’s eyes shifted only slightly, but it was enough for him to see Osamu in the entrance. Osamu’s breath hitched in his throat as he waited for Suna to pack up and leave or spit some nasty expletive his way; Osamu deserved all those things. Yet, they remained frozen, eyes caught in a stalemate and fists balling around what little dignity they had left.

Slowly, Suna’s eyes began to melt. His expression was confusing, Osamu couldn’t decipher it. It was sad but flat, remorseful but equally vengeful. Osamu wondered if Suna ached inside as much as he did, if he felt sick to his stomach with every moment that passed. He wondered if walking over to sit with him was a mistake or the only choice he had.

As he slid into the firm chair, Osamu kept his eyes fixed dutifully on his own shoes.

The Reeboks, of course.

He set his backpack gently against the leg of the chair and unzipped it, the sound rippling through his fingers and into his chilled body. He could feel Suna watching him from above, but he didn’t dare look. Instead, he held his breath and hovered his fingers over his things, begging his brain to re-engage with the task at hand.

With his laptop now perched on the desk and his hair swooped back, Osamu sat properly in his seat and focused heavily on typing in his password.

“They’re giving us one more chance.”

Osamu’s eyes were beckoned up by the muttering noises of Suna’s broken voice; he was hoarse like he’d been sick or something. Yet, even as he spoke to Osamu, he didn’t look up from whatever was happening on his screen nor remove his thumbnail from between his teeth.

“Four,” he continued, “they said if we place at the regional competition, they won’t kick us off of the team.”

Suna winced at the sound of his own voice and probably the feeling of it scraping along the edges of his throat. Osamu let the words trickle into his mind like a leaky faucet, one after the other in a slow and solid rhythm. The darkness within him was split for a moment to reveal a patch of sunlight, of hope. He’d thought since Saturday afternoon that he’d been doomed, kicked from the debate team forever and never permitted to return.

But he had one more chance.

Just one.

Despite a million other phrases in the shape of apologies hanging on the tip of his tongue, Osamu could only reply with one word.

“Okay.”

Silence stretched between them. Osamu waited for Suna’s head to duck back down into his screen before glancing at his appearance. He was wearing a rattier pair of sweatpants than usual and a t-shirt that looked a size too small. He had his glasses on, but his hair was stuck up in all these strange directions and uncharacteristically untamed. Osamu watched Suna blink over and over, the bright screen illuminating in the dark brown irises of his eyes.

There was a large part of him that wanted to apologize for everything that had happened four days ago. It only seemed right to do so, perhaps clear up the tension and help them work as a team again. But every apology Osamu concocted in his head didn’t sound good enough to cover what he’d done. He’d screamed at Suna, he’d told Suna that he hated him. How was this guy still sitting across from him?

Osamu’s palms began to sweat. His throat choked with a harsh swallow.

He needed to distract himself.

With a sigh, he placed his hands over the keys and logged into a website he always had open but rarely used; it was his university login where he could access his class schedule, grades, payments, and all that sort of thing.

He hadn’t checked his grades in a long time, he thought the anxiety of school would distract him too much from his competition preparation. And he’d have plenty of time to make stuff up before the end of the semester.

There was a calendar feature, too. Osamu had never looked at it, but it seemed pretty organized with the due dates of every assignment and quiz. Osamu’s eyes began to glaze over as he accounted for every missed assignment and late turn-in, nothing surprising him too much. It was still early in the semester, right?

Right?

“Wait,” Osamu muttered under his breath.

It was November. The end of November. When did the semester end again?

Osamu had to trail the calendar with his finger when he finally remembered the date—today was November 25th.

Tomorrow was November 26th.

FINAL EXAM @8AM

Osamu let his finger dash between today’s date and tomorrow’s date, over and over.

No. It had to be wrong. It was only October. It was October and he had an entire month to study. It was October and he did not have a final exam the next day.

“No,” he muttered under his breath.

Tapping his phone screen with a dull thud, Osamu checked the date.

Sure enough, it was November.

November 25th, to be exact.

“Fuck,” his voice rose in volume, “fuck, fuck, fuck.”

A knot began to tangle in the center of Osamu’s throat. All the fatigue from his sleepless weekend began to unravel like a sopping blanket over his head. The room spun beneath him, even the chair on which he sat. He pinched the front of his shirt and pulled it away from his chest to try and expose his newly sweaty chest to the library’s air conditioning. Had it been hot in here the whole time?

“Goddamnit,” Osamu groaned lowly, reaching for a notebook in his backpack with his free hand.

He could feel Suna peering up at him, but he hadn’t said a word yet. It probably seemed like Osamu was vying for attention with some fake crisis, but Osamu was too caught up in the actual crisis to pay attention to what others thought.

He scrambled for the notebook, trembling and clammy fingers flipping open the cover on which he’d written the name of the course in black marker.

There was a full page of notes at the front. Albeit, poorly-written notes, but notes nonetheless. For a moment, Osamu felt his chest begin to loosen and the air flow against his skin once more. But as he flipped to the next page, all those haunting sensations returned with a vengeance.

“There’s no way,” his voice cracked.

Blank page.

Flip.

Another blank page.

Flip, flip, flip.

Blank, blank—all of them!

“What’s up with you?” Suna asked in a cold tone.

Osamu glanced up at him with whatever expression he was sporting in that moment, one of terror and visceral fear. And Suna must’ve seen his widened eyes and sheet-white complexion and come to some peace within himself about what had happened on Saturday.

“What’s going on?” He asked, his voice gentler.

Osamu’s lips parted, each dry as a desert. He felt like he was gagging the words up from the pit of his stomach.

“I have a final tomorrow.”

Suna’s brows pinched.

“Y’been studying?” He mumbled.

Osamu pursed his lips and let a pained look melt over his face. Suna’s brows knitted further as he moved his hands from his keyboard.

“You have notes, right? Stuff to study?” His voice began to waver as if it was him who had the test.

Osamu’s head felt like it was about to explode. His bottom lip trembled subtly. Suna’s eyes began to widen in a mimicry of the harrowed man sitting across from him.

“But your grade is good enough that you can bomb it, right?” He tried to shrug it all off.

Stomach falling to the floor with a resounding thump, Osamu curled his fingers around the empty notebook pages in front of him.

“Ah,” Suna grunted when he registered Osamu’s wordless response, “so you’re—”

“Fucked,” Osamu finished his thought for him.

Suna’s eyes which had once been peering at Osamu moved to the clock on the wall behind Osamu’s head. He pulled the side of his bottom lip between his teeth.

“What time is the exam?”

Osamu sighed and glanced at his screen.

“Eight in the morning.”

Suna’s eyes narrowed in a moment of thought.

“Then that gives us eleven hours,” he said plainly.

Eleven hours.

The number did not sound very promising to Osamu.

Wait—

us?

“Rin,” Osamu hummed quizzically as he watched his debate partner begin to pull a stack of blank notebook sheets and half-used pens out of his backpack.

He seemed determined, even moreso than Osamu. Was he planning on—staying?

“You—you don’t—,” Osamu began to protest.

Suna interrupted him with a matter-of-fact look and a quirked lip.

“Well,” he said, “find the class online and get a study guide or something.”

Osamu froze for a moment with his fingers still stuck around the notebook pages which were slowly disintegrating in his own sweat.

“Are you—”

“I’m helping you get your shit together,” Suna spat, “now come on!”

The command was forceful enough to send Osamu’s hands directly to the keys on his computer, fingers typing furiously and quickly. Behind his laptop screen, he watched Suna scribble something on the top of a notebook page then stick said pen in his mouth while he tore the page into six separate pieces.

“What class is this for?” He asked.

“Japanese-American Relations,” Osamu stammered.

“Okay,” Suna pulled the pen from his teeth and glared intently at Osamu.

“unit one?”

10:16pm

“Uh—the—um,” Osamu stammered, eyes squeezed shut.

“Theodore Roosevelt,” Suna rambled off from the makeshift flashcard.

Copies of said torn flashcard were strewn all over the table now, each bearing a different scribbling of something Osamu had chucked at him from the study guide. The thing was massive, a three-page list of every term known to man. Everytime Suna said something, Osamu could access an inkling of a memory from hearing it in class, but his mind had always been elsewhere, too far away to actually retain the lessons.

Suna didn’t exactly seem frustrated with Osamu as much as he seemed determined to get through the stack of flashcards at least once. Even so, Osamu found himself flinching whenever Suna leaned closer with that intense gaze as he waited for an answer to a question Osamu hadn’t even understood.

“The Co-Prosperity Sphere,” Suna scratched at his hair as he asked for yet another definition.

Every time Osamu closed his eyes to pretend like he was just thinking really hard, he was actually imagining the look on his parents’ face when they saw he not only got kicked from the debate team but also flunked out of his first semester in college. Tears would prick at his eyes when he imagined it, and the relentless knot in his throat would only grow.

“Hey, Samu.”

Suna’s low yet strained voice chipped away at the elaborate fantasy Osamu had found himself in and pulled him back to reality for a moment. His brows were curled with worry.

“I can tell you’re thinking about a million other things, but you don’t have time to do that,” he insisted, “if you can focus on this for the next ten hours, you’ll do fine.”

“Ten hours?” Osamu groaned.

“You have one page of notes,” Suna countered, “this is all-nighter worthy, trust me.”

Osamu sighed and slumped in his seat.

“So, The Co-Prosperity Sphere?” Suna’s brow quirked.

12:13am

“You forgot a unit?!”

“And it’s a big one,” Osamu replied sheepishly.

Most of the library patrons had shuffled out when the clock struck twelve like some massive Cinderella collective, leaving Suna and Osamu behind as two lonely glass shoes screaming at each other.

Osamu kept stifling yawns, the weight of the weekend hitting him all at once. Suna was losing steam, too, but he was being considerably less obvious about it. The mess on the table was worse now, full sheets of paper covering the old flashcards because they’d run out of time for tearing paper and feigning preparation.

“Wait, I need a pen,” Osamu muttered.

But finding one would prove difficult considering the sheer amount of paper and backpacks and laptops and nonsense on the desk. Osamu found himself peering beneath blankets of Pearl Harbor print-outs and some napkin with “Stimson Doctrine” scrawled across the front. Where had that napkin even come from?

“No time!” Suna declared.

“Well, make time because I can’t write anything!” Osamu shouted back.

Their argument in the parking lot had felt more visceral than the one they were having now, full of ice and distrust. But everything felt so absurd now as the night waned that shouting at each other seemed to be the only way to communicate. Suna had clipped his hair back with some black barrettes while they worked to get his bangs out of his face, and he’d nearly slapped Osamu in the face when he stared instead of answered the essay prompt to the best of his ability.

“Fine,” Suna stood up from the table.

For a moment, Osamu expected him to gather all his things in a swoop and abandon Osamu in the library in his nest of flashcards. His stomach dropped at the thought and a sour taste coated his tongue as he watched each of Suna’s movements closely.

“I’m getting coffee,” he hissed with narrowed eyes, “and if I come back and you’re doing something other than reading a flashcard, I’m choking you out.”

He’d paired it all with a pointed finger at Osamu’s chest. It sounded like a threat, but Osamu was too relieved that Suna wasn’t leaving to process how serious he probably was about it.

Thus, he stared down at a scrawled phrase on the back of a strip of paper for a while as his mind imagined what it would be like to be choked out by Suna Rintarou.

But he didn’t have to know that.

1:03am

“My eyes feel like they’re gonna pop out of my head,” Osamu groaned, digging his fingers into the loose sockets, “what the hell was in that coffee?”

“Double shot,” Suna muttered, still keyed up from the caffeine.

Osamu groaned loudly into his hands as he felt his entire body beat to the rhythm of his racing heart. His mind was swimming with words and terms and doctrines and treaties to the point where if he heard another word of any of it, his brain would probably explode and splatter all over the library walls.

The building had finally emptied out for good, the last stragglers having shuffled out in a series of yawns a half hour ago, but the library was technically open for twenty-four hours, so there was nothing wrong with Osamu and Suna being there. Even so, Osamu was afraid everyone would come back the next morning only to find Osamu’s brain chunks on the wall and Suna bouncing around, still wired from the double shot.

Stretching the skin of his face between the palms of his hands, Osamu glared at the screen before him, ignoring the screaming in his mind and the burn of his retinas.

“What does this even say?” He hissed, the words dancing and swimming all over the screen.

He heard Suna’s chair scrape along the floor and felt the man’s presence move to his side, then behind him. A soft hand landed gently on his shoulder, next, followed by the impossible closeness of Suna’s face.

Osamu felt all his muscles tense, pure adrenaline shooting through his sleeping body. He could sense each of Suna’s fingers brushing along the top of his shoulder and could hear wisps of his breath by his left ear. Suna leaned in towards the screen and peered at it for a long enough moment that Osamu could smell the leftover deodorant wafting from his shirt and the subtle hints of coffee on his breath. Osamu swallowed thickly and wished that he was a little more awake for it all.

“Oh, this is Unit Three again,” he muttered, “Nine-Power Treaty, and all that.”

Osamu nodded deftly while he felt Suna’s hand slide down the expanse of his shoulder slowly. He paused at the meeting of the sleeve’s hem and Osamu’s bare arm, only his pinky grazing over the sensitive skin. Gently, he pressed all his fingers into the plush of the limb and turned a half-inch towards Osamu’s face.

“Y’know, my friend might’ve been right,” he whispered, “you’ve got weightlifting arms.”

Osamu nearly vomited when Suna’s hand abandoned his arm. He couldn’t tell if it was from relief or disappointment or something squarely in the middle.

All he knew was that there was a tingling on his skin that lingered far longer than it should’ve.

2:32am

Osamu rubbed at his eyes again only to expose them to the same blaring white screen. With all the information fresh in his mind, he’d thought that night to be the best time to catch up on a few assignments and hopefully boost his grade a bit and cushion whatever he got on the final. He’d been at it for an hour when he glanced over the edge of the laptop screen and saw Suna slumped over the table, his head buried in his arms and his back moving up and down with slow, sleepy breaths.

Osamu felt his cheeks flush at the sight of Suna’s parted lips through which breath was quickly escaping and his tousled head of hair which stuck up in all different directions. He still had a pen in his hand, too. Osamu glanced at the clock. He hadn’t expected Suna to stay so long, maybe until midnight or one, but as the clock clicked away from the half-hour mark, he wondered if Suna would stay all night.

Why would he stay all night for someone he’d fought with not days before?

It all felt really stupid, their fight Saturday morning and Osamu skipping the meeting Monday night. He felt small and stupid and awful for all of it. And Suna was sitting in front of him still helping after all of it. It didn’t make sense. If Osamu was in his position—

His hand itched to reach out. He wanted to touch Suna’s hair—his hand—maybe his face. His skin looked so soft despite the sharp features of his face. He tried to remember the touch from earlier on his arm, but the sensation had faded along with the memory, all of it fuzzy shapes and muffled sounds in the brew of his exhaustion.

The only thing that felt tangible was the feeling he’d had Saturday morning when he woke up, the same one he was feeling now.

Suna’s hand was so accessible, splayed out palm-up against the table. It would be so easy to just—

Osamu shook the idea from his head. It was stupid, anyhow.

Stupid.

Yeah.

4:49am

“The—,” Suna yawned, “date of the Pearl Harbor—” he yawned again, “attack.”

When Suna had awoken, he’d tried to pretend like he was never asleep in the first place and Osamu was the one slacking. It was very Atsumu of him to do, but the faint resemblance made Osamu feel all warm inside, the kind of warmth that could put him right to sleep in that moment.

But Suna had advised against it.

“You’ve gotten this far, so might as well stay up until the exam so it doesn’t fall out of your brain while you sleep,” he’d mumbled.

Osamu chuckled gently at the image of words slipping out of his ears, every date and notable figure and whatever else he’d been staring at for the past few hours—gone. Honestly, Osamu didn’t think he’d care that much if he woke up having forgotten everything they’d studied. What would disturb him would be waking up to find that he’d forgotten everything else—Suna’s gentle expression as he slept, the intensity of his studying practices, and the faint brush of pink that had cast over his face after his impromptu nap.

Osamu was finding it hard to speak, but that didn’t seem to faze Suna in the slightest.

“The sun is gonna rise soon,” Suna peered sleepily at his watch, “wanna watch it? I know a good place.”

Osamu’s lips parted slowly, prepared to give an immediate response of ‘no’. It felt foolish to walk away from all their index cards and frantically-constructed pages of notes for something as meaningless as a sunrise. There was going to be one tomorrow, right?

But how was Osamu supposed to decline an invitation given so softly, so gently? He felt invisible fingers wrapping around his wrists pulling him closer and closer, begging for just another moment with the body across from him. His body had never been so intuitive, so sure; Osamu was a man of his mind.

Why? His brain whined to his body.

Why? Why? Why?

Osamu didn’t need to answer himself in order to start packing up his things in the silence of the library and accompanying a slouchy Rintarou out the front door.

There was no one. The air was clean and cool, reminiscent of a winter afternoon that had not yet come, but eventually would. November breezes nipped at Osamu’s cheeks from the moment they stepped out of the library and continued its trail of kisses as they padded down the cobblestone walk, breath heavy with fatigue and hands wrapped around thick backpack straps.

Even in the silence, something echoed subtly beneath the sound of the soles of their shoes against the stone. Whispers rang from the walls of the surrounding buildings, Osamu could almost sense gentle eyes peering at them from the dewy windows. They watched as if there was something interesting happening between them, something he couldn’t quite see. Osamu glanced tentatively to the man beside him, just long enough to register the clean, dark lines beneath his half-lidded eyes and the slightest grin gracing his thin lips.

Osamu wondered how soft they were, those thin lips.

Why?

Why?

“Up here,” Suna commanded gently once they reached the precipice of a parking garage.

Osamu had passed the building before but had never had any reason to go inside. It was just as exciting as he’d anticipated, cars shoved in little spots surrounded by concrete posts and walls. The stairwell was a tad spooky in the remaining dark patches of night, but Osamu knew he could always look up at the step before him to see Suna illuminated only slightly by the moonlight, his outline visible against the drab landscape. It made Osamu feel warm inside, just like before.

And he was huffing and puffing by the time Suna actually decided to stop as desperately as he wanted to mask his incapability. Yet the man in question didn’t turn back to say something snide nor give a look of disappointment like Osamu expected, he simply held the door open and allowed Osamu to pass first onto the roof of the parking garage.

Again, there was no one, not even the semblance of someone in the form of a car or a bike. What laid before them was a multitude of open parking spots surrounded by a concrete railing to prevent any tragic falls. The air felt even stronger up there; the hem of Osamu’s shirt was whipping around in a flurry and his hair was engaging in a similar action.

Even so, he followed Suna to the edge of the roof where he’d chosen a spot of railing upon which to lean after disposing his backpack onto the ground. Osamu followed, just like he always did, and found his elbows digging into the rough concrete as he leaned further over the edge.

The sun was, in fact, rising. It had not yet peered over the horizon in a blaze of orange, but there was the beginnings of color in the sky, spotting around like watercolor strokes. It was going to be a clear, cloudless day judging by the lack of clouds and the biting breeze. Osamu closed his eyes for just a moment and allowed the wind to move through him, imagining himself as something entirely inanimate responsible only for allowing other things to move through him. It was a delusion, but it made him feel better for a moment.

Osamu wasn’t someone who entertained delusions.

Hence why he curled his fingers against his fist so he wouldn’t be tempted to imagine holding Suna’s hand.

Because his hand was resting far too close to Osamu’s, open and vulnerable. It was the greatest temptation that fogged Osamu’s mind, so much so that he almost forgot why they were there watching the sunset in the first place.

“Thanks,” Osamu muttered, any other form of the word feeling inadequate.

Suna glanced over at him. A breeze passed between them.

“No problem,” he mumbled in response.

Osamu frowned a bit. There were so many things he knew needed to be said, so many apologies from the prior weekend building up within him. But he nearly shook with the fear of actually making any of it known to Rintarou.

He wanted to be impressive.

He wanted to seem strong.

He wanted Suna to like him.

“A-about last weekend—” Osamu began.

“I’m not mad at you.”

Suna interrupted him rather gently. Osamu felt the half-apology choke up his throat.

“You’re not?”

Suna shrugged, “No. You’re my friend.”

Osamu dug his fingernails further into his palm. The sky was slowly growing brighter, the warning of the incoming sun lining the distant horizon.

“But I—” he stammered.

“Y’know, I used to watch you and your brother compete.”

Suna’s voice echoed through the silence.

“I’d look for your names on the program at competitions and always watch your doubles,” he continued, “you were impressive debaters.”

Osamu felt his face scrunch slightly with confusion. It seemed like a strange time for Suna to talk about this, at least according to what it meant at face-value. Did it mean something more, then? Was Osamu missing something between the lines?

“I mean, I was—” Suna hesitated, “I was a really lonely kid.”

He was gazing out into the horizon with a blank expression, one of faint remembrance but strong feeling. His finger twitched against the concrete half-wall.

“And I always thought twins were cool,” he shrugged, “it’s like a built-in best friend, y’know?”

Osamu couldn’t tear his eyes from Suna’s vague look nor the way the incoming morning light was shimmering off of the edges of his hair. Osamu thought about Atsumu often, but never in the sole fact that they were just twins before anything else—

built-in best friends.

Because there were times before the age of debate that the two of them would run down the road to the creek to catch junebugs and lizards. There were Saturdays where the two of them would pull pickles from the giant barrel at the convenience store and sit in the blazing sun on the side of the road with their mouths full of cucumber and giggles. There were mornings where Osamu would wake up first, see the snow, and shake Atsumu awake to see it, as well; there were other mornings where Atsumu would be the first to awaken, and he would return the favor.

Atsumu was, in many ways, the only friend he never had to work for.

Everything else had been labor, struggling to talk and connect and feel safe around anyone but the one with whom he’d shared a womb.

But he hadn’t worked at all for Suna’s forgiveness. He hadn’t done a damn thing.

Why?

Why?

Why?

He wanted Suna to like him.

No, that wasn’t enough.

He wanted Suna to—

no.

The word wasn’t correct yet, it didn’t quite fit the space in Osamu’s life. It was malformed and jumbled to the point of incoherence. It didn’t make any sense outside of the confines of his buzzing head and rapidly beating heart.

He wanted Suna—

yes.

“I’m glad we’re friends,” he said in an act of catharsis.

Suna turned and grinned just as the sun made its appearance at the edge of the sky.

“Me, too,” he said.

Why?

Because—

“Fuck,” Osamu whispered to himself in an act of stark, instant realization.

Chapter Text

There came another Tuesday night where the pair found themselves back in the library. It felt like a sort of second-home now that they’d spent an entire night on the third floor cramming for Osamu’s final, so they didn’t mind making themselves comfortable with snacks and drinks for as long as it took to take every note they felt was necessary. Both Osamu and Suna had received a not-so-subtly threatening email from Four which, in many words, stated that if they didn’t show their stuff at the next competition, they’d need to grovel extensively for any more chances. They’d coincidentally been in the library together when the email came through, so they could laugh at the verbiage of it after the initial shock had passed through their bodies. Osamu watched as Suna’s face scrunched up in amusement, tears brimming in his lower lid as he read the email over and over.

They’d even talked about their first botched debate, mostly as a constructive conversation to help them be better. But Suna had inserted a joke that was too well-timed for Osamu to even be mad, thus their constructive interaction devolving into a session of sharing every Speech and Debate blunder they’d ever had.

“God, it was the worst!” Suna grumbled into his hands.

“Why didn’t you just eat before?” Osamu chuckled.

“I was nervous!” Suna leaned back in his seat, “And nothing sounded good.”

“So your stomach just—”

“Growled, like a deafening growl,” Suna’s voice went low.

Osamu pulled his lips between his teeth to try and stifle his laughter, but the image in his head was too funny to disregard.

“Hey, you’ve definitely had your fuck ups, right?” He retorted, waving off Osamu’s obvious restraint.

“I forgot to pee before a debate once,” Osamu said sheepishly, already ducking his head in an attempt to hide.

“Oh no,” Suna groaned, knowing exactly how Osamu felt.

“It was the worst,” Osamu planted his chin in his hands, “I was squirming for my life up there.”

Suna hid his face in his hands once again and let out a breathy laugh, his shoulders shaking with the sound. Osamu felt his cheeks run a little hot as he watched Suna’s fluffy hair fall over his thin, brown eyes which were scrunched up with laughter. He took notice, once more, of the situation and tried to straighten his posture and wipe the unbelievable dumb grin from his face.

“Now I usually pee, like, twice before I have to go up,” Osamu ended his story.

“God,” Suna took a sip from his coffee, “one time, I debated this guy that kept adjusting his balls. Like, I started counting and I think he did it five times just in the first section.”

Osamu really laughed that time, his hands not even making it to his mouth before it escaped.

“I mean, at that point, you might as well go to the bathroom and set those things straight,” Suna shook his head.

Osamu laughed even harder, tears welling in his own eyes. Out of the corner of his vision, he watched Suna flash a small smile of achievement while attending to his coffee, once more.

Now, a week or so later, they were anticipating their last chance: the regional championships. It was pure luck that another team was disqualified and their performance at the first two debates were enough to qualify them. It was a fact Four was never going to let them forget. Yet, at the same time, it meant more work for them to do to even dream of catching up to the regional competition.

From this Tuesday night, they probably had three or four meetings left before it was time to compete. However, Osamu had not yet entered his week of panic despite the end being so close. The semester was also coming to a close, evident by the splotches of snow that dotted the campus on alternating mornings and the fact that he’d switched out his busted old Reeboks for a pair of heartier brown leather boots. He had bought a few new sweaters, too, at the request of his mother. Thus, he had stared proudly in the mirror that morning in his oatmeal cashmere pullover and long brown coat that brushed the backs of his knees.

He hadn’t cared about his appearance this much in a long time. Yet, every time he looked in the mirror while he got ready to leave, he felt butterflies in his stomach. It was stupid, he was only going to see Suna at the library.

Or, maybe, that was the reason for all of it.

Osamu glanced over the edge of his laptop to see Suna’s expressionless face, eyes focused intensely on the screen behind him and the sharp corners of his features illuminated by the bright blue light. He was chewing on his thumbnail and his gold-rimmed glasses were slipping down his nose. Osamu didn’t even remember that he was staring until Suna’s eyes flicked up quickly and caught onto his own. Osamu’s stomach dropped as he and Suna stared at each other for a fleeting moment before the latter flashed a quick smile and returned to whatever he was doing.

Osamu didn’t know what was going on. He didn’t know why he woke up feeling like he needed to barf or why he couldn’t feel his own feet whenever he and Suna were walking together. He’d considered calling Aran or his brother or even his mom to try and solve the mystery, but there wasn’t much more to be investigated because Osamu already knew the answer.

I like him.

He’d realized it first on the rooftop that early morning. Then he’d thought about it all through the exam. Then he thought about it walking back to his dorm. Then he thought about it as he fell asleep and never seemed to stop. It seemed to energize him, inspire him to get out of bed and actually go to class but, at the same time, it ate away at him from the inside. Osamu hadn’t liked anyone since that boy in his class in high school. Why now? Why so close to the competition that will define whether or not he competes against Atsumu?

“Okay, my brain’s gonna explode,” Suna muttered while shutting his laptop.

Osamu was rattled from his daydream by the click of the screen and the eventual shuffle of Suna’s things. He was putting his folders and papers back into his backpack. Osamu’s stomach burned for a quick moment as he watched Suna prepare to leave. Usually, they stayed for a little while and talked, but Suna didn’t seem to be in the mood that day. Osamu tried to not look outwardly disappointed as Suna zipped up his backpack and turned in his chair.

“Well?” He asked with a raised brow, “Are you comin’ with me?”

Osamu was puzzled.

“Coming with you?” He asked, “Where?”

“To eat, it’s dinner time,” he shrugged.

Osamu’s chest fluttered for a moment. Dinner? Like, as in a—?

“Are you sure?” He asked dumbly, staring at all the unfinished work before him.

Suna scoffed, “We’ve got the rest of the week, we need to fuel.”

Osamu felt stupid when he was around Suna, now. His brain just wouldn’t work properly when he was smiling with those stupid, uneven teeth or letting those strands of dark brown hair tickle his eyelashes. Osamu had never felt stupid a single moment in his entire life until he had to look Suna Rintarou in the eye.

“Y-yeah,” he murmured.

Hence why he was now climbing into Suna’s junker car in his nice new oatmeal sweater and brown leather boots after a long walk from the library where he couldn’t feel his feet. It was the same car that they’d taken to the competition they never competed in, down to the last bit of trash on the ground and old, sticky cup in the cupholder. Yet, this time, it felt less suffocating and more cozy. Osamu had to get a little closer than he’d liked to Suna when he buckled his seatbelt. He’d played it off with an exaggerated sniffle and a noise that sounded close enough to him clearing his throat, but Suna simply returned to his seated position and placed his hands on the wheel, one leaning casually on the very top while he only held the bottom with a few fingers from the other hand, gently guiding the car out of the parking lot.

There was music playing out of the speakers, something vibey and slow that Osamu had never heard before. But when Suna put down the windows and they finally began to drive towards the setting sun, Osamu finally understood the appeal of such a style. With the fingers of the wind coursing through his hair, he could finally lean his head back and breathe for a moment, every instance of worry and wear from the prior week falling off of him to the beat of the music which shook his seat. Suna drove fast enough for Osamu to feel as though he were going somewhere, but not so fast that he couldn’t prepare himself for it.

He didn’t have the heart to look over at Suna. God forbid he have his legs spread, lounged in that position that made Osamu’s joints turn to jelly. Perhaps the sunset would be glinting off of his rings or creating a halo around his perfect, fluffy hair. Osamu wanted to touch it—his hair. He wanted to touch it, just once, just to make sure it was as soft as he imagined.

“Where are you taking me?” Osamu asked eventually as they turned into unfamiliar territory.

It wasn’t like Osamu left campus all that much, anyhow.

“My favorite drive-thru,” Suna replied insistently, “you’ll love it.”

Osamu glanced over with a narrowed, suspicious look.

“I don’t know if I trust your judgement,” he said.

Suna scoffed in shock, turning to Osamu with an exaggerated expression.

“God, just stomp on my feelings, why don’t you!” He exclaimed.

Osamu chuckled breathily. Suna returned the sentiment with a small smile and pulled his eyes back to the road, albeit, slowly.

The sun was setting quicker than Osamu was expecting. Soon, they were enveloped in twilight, watching the street lights flicker on one-by-one as night arrived. The butterflies in Osamu’s stomach only seemed to gain strength as shapes outside became shrouded in darkness. There was less for him to focus on other than the hundred feet of road in front of them illuminated by the headlights and the contours of Suna’s face that were glowing in the dull moonlight.

“The Holy Grail,” Suna muttered with a smile as they pulled into what Osamu assumed to be the drive-thru.

It was nothing impressive. Actually, it was decidedly unimpressive, a white box illuminated from the inside with fluorescent bulbs and surrounded by a barren parking lot spare two cars shoved in the corner. Osamu’s first instinct was to run, the entire place giving the vibes of somewhere his parents would tell him to stay away from. But Suna was driving so casually up to the window that he must be familiar with the place.

“Welcome to the Burger Hut,” a voice crackled nearly unintelligibly out of the speaker they’d pulled up to, “what can I get you?”

The worker sounded sixteen-years old, at best, and definitely did not want to be there any more than Osamu did. Even so, Suna disregarded it all and continued on with his order.

“Yes, oh my god, I’m gonna get a double-decker with pepper jack and no mayo, please no mayo,” Suna rattled off with practiced ease, “then a side of onion rings instead of fries and a large Diet Coke.”

A moment of silence followed the order.

“Is that it?” The worker asked.

Suna turned sharply to Osamu who was sitting dumbfounded in the passenger seat. There was a grand menu beside the speaker which Osamu could barely read in the rapidly changing light. His lips parted in a moment of panic, silent words escaping through the opening.

“Y’know what,” Suna turned back to the speaker, “just take that whole order and double it. Then that’ll be it.”

“Oh, wait!”

Osamu’s voice was small. He reached instinctively for Suna’s arm where he rested his hand gently to get his attention before the moment had passed. When Suna did turn, Osamu was struck with how close they really were and also with the fact that his hand was still on Suna Rintarou’s arm.

“Can I get a vanilla shake?” He asked quietly.

“Okay, your total is—”

“Wait!” Suna cut off the poor, underpaid sixteen-year old, “Can you also add a large vanilla shake to the order?”

The worker sighed.

“Yeah.”

“Thanks!”

Suna turned with a gentle expression. Osamu’s hand was still on his arm.

Detach! Osamu commanded himself.

Take your damn hand away!

“Want anything else?” Suna asked softly.

Osamu froze for a moment but had just enough sense to shake his head. Thus, Suna returned to the speaker and Osamu finally took his stupid hand off of his stupid arm. The palm burned with fire, the flames licking through the creases and lines. He held the thing face-up on his leg in case the feeling went away when he touched his own body with it.

The worker rattled off the new total.

“1253 yen? That’s it?” Osamu asked in amazement.

Suna wiggled his brow.

“Best kept secret, baby.”

Osamu waited patiently in the passenger seat as Suna paid and waited for the food which was being prepared by just as pimply and dorky of a teenager as Osamu expected. Once the food was in the car, Osamu revelled in the smell that filled the space: pure grease and salt and sugar. He could bathe in the stuff.

Suna pulled expertly into a barren parking spot and put the car in park. He leaned his seat back a tad and started to root through the bag as though it were filled with solid gold. As eager as he was, he made sure to hand Osamu each bit of food first: the burger, onion rings, Coke, and shake. It only seemed polite for Osamu to wait until Suna had all his own food in his hands and had tossed the bag carelessly into the backseat.

Osamu was just about to unwrap his burger when he felt the cold of the milkshake begin to sting his hand. He stared at the thing for a moment before a sick feeling started to threaten his appetite.

“You don’t mind that I got this?” He asked Suna.

Suna turned with a puzzled expression.

“Whaddya mean? Why would I mind?” He asked.

“Just—” Osamu stumbled over his words, “it’s more than what you got.”

Suna’s brow fell even further.

“So?”

Osamu opened his mouth to speak, but nothing would come out. He stared down warily at his own spread, the burger and the onion rings and the stupid milkshake.

“Nothing,” he eventually said.

Suna was silent for only a split second.

“Doesn’t sound like nothing,” he mused, mouth already full of beef.

Osamu began to unwrap the silver packaging rather carefully as if he wanted it whole, at the end. His mind whirred with all the excuses he could give as to why he asked such a strange question, but it didn’t feel right to lie to Suna. Not when he’d bought him dinner.

“Kids used to make fun of me for—”

Osamu stumbled once more over his own words, his own memories. Suna didn’t cut in, he was silent in an attentive sort of way.

“They used to say that my brother and I couldn’t be twins because I was fat and he wasn’t.”

The words tumbled out far too easily, like they’d been hanging on the tip of his tongue for years just waiting to be spoken. He’d pushed the memory to the back of his mind rather skillfully but bringing it up so bluntly was resurfacing feelings Osamu would rather forget. He felt sick looking at the food on his lap.

“Kids say so much messed-up shit,” Suna said matter-of-factly.

Osamu glanced up to see Suna sporting a serious expression even though his mouth was stuffed with burger.

“Yeah,” Osamu agreed quietly.

“There were so many rumors going around when my mom died and my dad left,” Suna said before swallowing, “some people said he killed her—or they’d say I killed her.”

Osamu’s chest suddenly felt heavy with a memory he didn’t feel worthy of being clued in on. Glancing over at Suna’s face, he couldn’t imagine someone saying such awful things about someone who was so kind. Suna didn’t deserve to be spoken about that way.

Maybe—

maybe Osamu didn’t deserve it, either.

“Definitely worse than being called fat,” Osamu conceded with a chuckle.

“I like the way you look.”

Suna’s voice was insistent. His trained gaze on Miya Osamu was even more so. Osamu felt his face flush instantly; he was glad for the darkness of night that was shielding him from even more embarrassment. Suna hadn’t told him that he ‘wasn’t fat’ or simply left him to wonder where he stood, he’d just been honest. There was nothing empty in his words like there usually were when other people spoke. Osamu was tempted to say something joking in return, but Suna looked so serious.

Perhaps—

Osamu shook the thought from his head. He decided to dissociate from the situation and from his own thoughts by finally diving into his burger. It wasn’t very good. Osamu didn’t really care.

For a while, they sat in mutual, contented silence, chewing away at their greasy fast food and listening to more lo-fi nonsense. Night had truly come and shrouded everything in total darkness. Osamu wondered if there was someone waiting in the parking lot to jump them or something. Yet, he couldn’t bring himself to feel worried. He was too at peace.

“Gah, I need a napkin,” Osamu whispered to himself as he watched a bead of oil trail down the back of his hand.

His first instinct was the glovebox, that was where Atsumu always kept napkins in the car.

“Hey, woah!”

Suna reached over to try and stop Osamu’s action, but he’d already opened the glovebox by the time Suna’s hand arrived onto the scene.

“Ya got firearms in here or somethin’?” Osamu chuckled.

Osamu peered around Suna’s hand jokingly to see the entire thing stuffed with albums and CDs.

“C’mon!” Suna protested as Osamu moved his hand and reached for the first disc he could find.

It was bubble pink and populated with Korean women.

He stared at all the other albums and found their commonality rather quickly.

“KPop girl groups?” He asked in an exaggerated voice.

Suna had set his food back in his lap so he could plant his face in his hands in shame and rest it all atop the steering wheel. The sight nearly made Osamu laugh out loud.

“Don’t tell anyone,” his voice was muffled by his palms.

“I—” Osamu chuckled as he picked through the albums to get a good look at a couple more.

“Get your oily fingers off of TWICE,” Suna hissed, ripping the album from Osamu’s hand.

He checked quickly for any remnants of Osamu’s existence on the surface of the album before peering back into the glovebox.

“Some of those are limited edition, so don’t go messing them all up,” he berated very seriously.

Osamu chuckled again as Suna gingerly placed the album back in the glovebox and closed the apparatus with the greatest of care. He caught a glimpse of Suna’s burning cheeks and wavering brow. It was nice, in part—it felt like a proper moment of vulnerability, to Osamu. He’d been plenty vulnerable in the past to warrant it.

Thus, the night waned further and soon, their dinner was reduced to wrappers and empty cups, all that was left being the dregs of Osamu’s milkshake.

“You nervous?” Suna asked.

“Bout what?”

“Regionals,” he replied.

Osamu scoffed, “Of course.”

Suna glanced over with a small smile.

“You don’t seem like it.”

Osamu furrowed his brow.

“Liar.”

“Really,” Suna affirmed, “you’re chilling out.”

Osamu pulled his lips between his teeth to try and suppress a smile. He had been resting his arm on the console in the center for a while but didn’t notice how close his arm was to Suna’s until he moved it a half inch and found himself pressed up against a part of a body that wasn’t his own. His breath hitched in his throat for a moment as he waited for Suna to move away, but he never did. Thus, they stayed like that, forearms pressed against each other on the console of Suna’s junky old car.

“Y’think so?” Osamu asked softly.

“I know so,” Suna replied confidently.

Osamu stole a glance over at Suna, revelling in the way the moonlight made his features seem even sharper than usual. Yet, his expressions were still soft and gentle.

“Whaddya think happened?” Suna asked, his eyes blinking over to the passenger seat.

Osamu could only shrug.

“Don’t know.”

They stared at each other for a long moment, the song of crickets filling the silence they’d left in their wake. Suna subtly pulled his bottom lip between his teeth, such a small action that Osamu barely noticed it while he was staring at Suna’s dark eyes. Osamu could feel Suna’s gaze on his mouth, then his eyes; he couldn’t help but mirror his actions and dart his tongue out to wet just the insides of his lips and blink up and down the man’s face.

“I think—” Suna whispered.

Osamu could feel his breath on his face. His heart began to thrum against the front of his chest. Could Suna hear it? Were they as close as Osamu felt?

“I think you’re really great,” Suna finally finished his thought, accenting it with a decided lean towards Osamu.

They kept getting closer without even trying. Osamu felt himself mimicking everything Suna was doing with ease, leaning his torso slowly and slightly forward without much thought. Inside his head, he was screaming. Inside his stomach, the butterflies were caught in a hurricane. His breathing was getting unsteady, especially since he could smell Suna’s deodorant. It was piney.

Soon, they were practically exchanging breaths, lips just centimeters from one another. Osamu gripped the console with his clammy left hand as everything came hurtling towards him. He tried to keep his eyes focused on Suna’s nose, but the only way he could remember everything he’d ever been taught about kissing was if he closed his eyes. Thus, he let the things flutter closed and focused only on the sensation of Suna’s breath against his mouth and the proximity of his nose.

They were getting closer.

They had to be nearly there by now.

Suna’s words echoed like a prayer in Osamu’s head: I think you’re really great.

I want to kiss him.

I want to—

Bzzzz.

Osamu’s phone buzzed loud and clear in his back pocket.

Instantly, the tension of the moment shattered into a million pieces which now layed scattered along the floor of the car. Osamu sighed, resting in his original position for just a moment before leaning back slowly into his seat, watching closely as Suna did the same thing. Suna had pulled his lips between his teeth and, in many ways, looked disappointed. Osamu sighed again as he fished his phone out of his pocket.

“Sorry,” he muttered quietly.

Adrenaline was still coursing through his body as he fumbled for his phone. He thought of how sick he’d feel if he’d actually done it, kissed Suna and all. He’d probably be losing his shit right now. But, instead, he was about to look at some pointless text on his stupid phone.

“Wait,” he hummed when he saw the message.

It was a notification from the school.

Final grades had been posted.

“Oh my god,” Osamu whispered, another rush of adrenaline shooting through his limbs.

“What?” Suna asked.

“Final grades.”

Osamu’s fingers trembled as he typed in his passcode and waited for the damn page to load. He clicked on his class while swallowing dryly. He scrolled through the endless barrage of assignments, some of which he’d turned in and most of which he hadn’t, while trying to even his breathing. At last, he reached the final.

And his grade.

His failing grade.

“No.”

His utterance was nearly silent.

A forty-seven percent.

Every noise around him descended into a buzz, every image turned to an opaque soup. Everything felt fake yet, at the same time, it all felt too real. Osamu felt his breathing shudder for a moment just as his mind revved back up.

A long night of studying had been awarded with a failing grade. Which mean he’d failed the class. Which meant that, along with all his other classes, he would have to retake everything and spend another long semester in school while everyone else graduated.

Atsumu was going to graduate before him.

Atsumu was going to go to Nationals and beat him.

He’d failed.

Osamu could envision the index card in his head, the one that read in plain language:

I am going to be better than him.

He’d failed.

He’d—

“Samu?” Suna asked in a small voice.

“Take me home,” Osamu commanded dryly.

“Wait, Samu,” Suna placed his hand on Osamu’s forearm.

Osamu lurched his arm from Suna’s touch. Everything inside of him was on fire, all his organs were quitting their usual functioning and slumping towards the floor, and all the adrenaline in his body was making him feel sick to his stomach.

“Take me home!” He insisted in a meaner voice.

Suna froze for a moment, visibly confused by the stark change in attitude. Even so, he obeyed, turning the ignition and starting off down the road.

The entire drive passed by Osamu in a blur, every shape disregarded in the tunnel vision of his anger. His mind, however, was just slow and repetitive enough for him to follow, every word pinching at his tender insides with insistency.

I failed.

I failed.

I failed.

Everything he’d worked for started to slip away—Speech and Debate, his new life at a fancy new school, his hopes of ever transferring to where he really wanted to be. It was shedding off of his body right before his eyes. It rushed by like a river; no matter how many times he tried to hold it in his hands, keep it for one moment more, the chance would flow away and become lost in the coursing waters.

The only way he could hold it all together in the passenger seat of Suna’s car was by sitting completely still and keeping his eyes trained on his feet. Where were his Reeboks? Why wasn’t he wearing his blue Reeboks?

Osamu should’ve said a prayer of thanks when the car finally pulled into the parking lot of his dormitory, but he was too busy screaming at himself in his mind.

You’re a failure.

You never stood a chance.

You’re a disgrace.

Osamu stumbled out of the car, pulling on the handle like the thing was quickly filling with water. His ears were rushing with blood. He couldn’t hear anything but his own deranged thoughts. It wasn’t until a hand was pulling him back slightly that he realized Suna was following him into his building.

“Hey, it’s just a bad grade, it happens,” Suna pleaded.

“Stop following me!” Osamu screamed at him.

He picked up his pace towards the outside stairs, praying that Suna would obey and go back to his car and pretend he never met Osamu in the first place. Instead, he could hear the insistent stomp of Suna’s shoes against the same metal stairs up which Osamu was racing.

“You’re gonna hurt yourself!” Suna called out to him.

Osamu didnt’ care. He didn’t care that his boots were untied and that his eyes were so full of tears that he couldn’t even see straight anymore. He was just desperate to get into his hallway, into his room. He nearly dropped his key card while fumbling for it to open the building. Suna followed.

“Leave me alone!” He shouted again.

Suna wouldn’t budge. Instead, he chased after Osamu who was now at the front door of his single room scanning the same ID to go inside.

It was dark in the room, the only light streaming in through the window thanks to the full moon. Thus, Osamu could only make out the contours of his prison of a room. Through his bleary vision, he could see the shelf he’d stuck up months ago upon which he paraded his trophies. Fire seethed within him, licking at his bones and making his entire body shake.

Osamu stormed over to the shelf. The trophies sat there, mocking him, taunting him. Second place, runner-up, participant—he hated it. He wanted to be the winner. He wanted to be better than his stupid brother.

Thus, with a swift wipe of his hand, Osamu watched the first glass trophy crash to the ground and shatter into a million tiny pieces which shot in all directions.

“Osamu!” Suna shouted from the doorway.

Osamu wasn’t listening. Osamu didn’t want to stop. He needed the rest to break. He needed the rest to fall to their death.

He wanted them to stop mocking him.

Thus, with another forceful swipe, Osamu watched another glass trophy meet its doom atop the linoleum floor, the glass shattering with a crash and spreading around the room in a series of clinks.

“Stop, you’re gonna hurt yourself!”

Osamu didn’t want to stop. He couldn’t. Tears were streaming down his cheeks now. A dark, empty pit was opening up in his stomach like a mouth, threatening to swallow him whole. He had to fill the whole, he had to be better.

“No!”

As he shouted, Osamu became impatient with the slow death of his trophies. So he grabbed the wooden shelf with two hands and pulled it from the wall, nails and all. Then, he could very easily toss the whole thing to the ground, all of the awards and achievements turning to bits at his own feet.

But it wasn’t enough. The fire inside of his body was still raging and he was still teetering on the edge of the gaping pit.

It wasn’t enough.

It would never be enough.

He turned with a teary yet crazed expression to the index cards on his wall. The thing was covered by now, his own handwriting making a mockery of him in the form of unkept promises and lies. He hated it. He hated all this evidence of his existence. He hated how he’d sworn to get better and couldn’t even do that.

One by one, he pulled the index cards from the wall and tore them into bits, hoping they would match their companions on the ground.

“Osamu,” he heard Suna’s stern voice appear beside him.

“I failed!” Osamu cried, his fists full of index cards.

“No, you didn’t,” Suna insisted.

“I failed,” Osamu wept, “I’m a failure, I can’t do it—”

“Hey,” Suna reached for his arms.

Osamu lurched himself away again, resisting any touch lest Suna be burned or swallowed by his existence. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair that everyone else got to be happy and do things right while all Osamu could do was write what he wanted on a stupid index card and wish for it to happen. With every step he took, he could hear the crushed bits of glass and plastic beneath his boots. He was walking in the graveyard of his own achievements.

It’s all my fault.

It’s all my fault.

My life is my own fault.

“It’s all my fault!” Osamu cried.

The last time he’d felt this way, broken things and felt like he was being consumed from the inside, he’d been alone. It was sometime during his last year of high school that he couldn’t handle it anymore, so he waited until he was home alone and wreaked havoc on all his belongings, tearing all his journals and medals to shreds. He’d been completely alone the whole time.

This time, he wasn’t.

He was made sure of this by the feeling of a strong hand on both of his shoulders. Even though the force was steadying, he was too focused on tearing the cards down and watching them fall to the ground.

“Let me go!” He shouted at Suna.

“You need to calm down,” he said in a deep, commanding voice.

“I can’t!” Osamu sobbed, “I have to—I have to get better!”

He had to get better. He had to stop being a failure.

Because if Miya Osamu wasn’t better than his brother—

what was he?

He writhed and thrashed against Suna’s strong grip, tears streaming hot down his face and the pit within him only growing bigger and bigger. Even when he opened his eyes, his vision was all dark and obscured by the low light in the room and his own blinding anger.

“Hey, c’mon,” Suna’s voice lowered a bit as he started to wrap his arms around Osamu’s body.

His timing was impeccable as Osamu’s limbs began to grow tired. All of his energy started to siphon into his tears and the storm of sadness that had overtaken every part of his body. Eventually, he couldn’t even fight anymore, all he could do was cry.

“I should’ve—” he sobbed, feeling Suna’s arms start to envelop him in a tight grip, “I could’ve—”

Eventually, he was even too tired to hold up his own head. Thus, in a symbol of defeat, Osamu bowed his face and let his body fall limp into Suna’s reassuring grip. The moment his nose hit his clothed shoulder, Osamu cried even harder. His hands reached up to the back of Suna’s jacket where he grasped the fabric with wet, rubbed-red hands.

“I—” he wept, “I just wanted—to be better than him.”

Suna’s mouth was right beside his ear, his voice calm and clear through the storm and rush of blood.

“I know,” he affirmed.

“I—I never wanted—” Osamu tried to speak.

“I know.”

Osamu felt his tears begin to wet the thick fabric of Suna’s jacket. He wished he wasn’t there sobbing into the shoulder of the man he’d had a crush on for nearly an entire semester. But he had no other choice. There was glass crunching beneath his shoes and torn-up index cards strewn overtop the carnage.

All he could do was cry.

All he could do was mourn the life he was never going to have in the first place.

Because you always think you’re going to have it better tomorrow, that’s why you have to be miserable today. But what if being miserable today means you’ll be miserable tomorrow? What if the life you always wanted never comes? Is it your fault, then? Is it anyone’s? Do we even have any say?

“I’m so sorry,” Osamu sobbed.

Suna’s strong hand moved from Osamu’s back to his neck, fingers weaving through the little brown hairs that decorated the area. It felt good to have Suna’s skin touching his. It felt even better to be able to rest his bones against someone else’s. Osamu hadn’t realized how tiring it was to always hold up his own body until that moment.

“Hey,” Suna said gently, pulling one of Osamu’s arms around.

He glanced worriedly at the palm.

“You’re bleeding.”

It was true. There was a long gash that started at the pad below Osamu’s pinky and ended at the base of his thumb that was gushing blood. There were little pieces of glass stuck in it, too. He suddenly felt lightheaded at the sight, like he might vomit.

“D’you have bandaids here? Anything to wrap it with?” Suna asked worriedly.

Osamu shook his head.

“Then we’ll go back to my place,” Suna said whilst shedding his jacket, “here.”

He wrapped the hand tightly and tied it off with the sleeves of the jacket. Osamu could instantly feel the color draining from his face and his stomach floating up to the level of his mouth. He glanced down to see drops of blood spotting the glass-smattered floor, other soaking into the corners of index cards that laid in the gaps.

Walking outside was actually helpful for the storm in his head. Slowly, the biting winter air was cooling the fire inside of his body and the gaping pit was submitting to the feeling of being taken somewhere else—the feeling, perhaps, of having a destination. Osamu’s vision, however, swam as they raced down the pathways of campus toward a different building entirely. Osamu had never been to Suna’s room. It was less than ideal conditions, but he was grateful that someone was around to care for his careless wound. He imagined what might’ve happened if Suna hadn’t followed him inside.

“Here,” Suna said, unlocking the door to his own room.

Again, Osamu’s poor vision didn’t allow him to take in much more from the room than the obvious existence of clutter all piled up in different places. Suna led him to sit on his unmade bed before dashing off to his bathroom to look for a first-aid kit.

“Hold your hand above your head!” He commanded from the other room.

Osamu obeyed, still dangerously lightheaded. He let his bloody, jacket-bound hand rest atop his head while Suna rooted frantically through his things in the bathroom.

“God!” He exclaimed, “I gotta organize all this shit, someday.”

Osamu chuckled weakly. Suna eventually returned like an angel with a roll of white wrapping, another roll of sticky bandages, a disinfectant spray, and a pair of tweezers.

“Okay, you’re going to the hospital tomorrow,” Suna explained as he untied and removed the jacket carefully, “but I should be able to wrap it up well enough for tonight.”

Suna sucked in a breath through his teeth when he revealed the wound, once more. Osamu decided not to look for his own wellbeing, but he could feel it throbbing slightly, wet blood still trickling down his palm and arm. With a grimace, he turned his head away and waited for Suna’s touch to arrive. It came first as a cold set of fingers gingerly placed along his wrist. The contrast of the temperatures sent a shiver down Osamu’s spine. It was still dark in the room, Suna must’ve forgotten to turn on the light when they came in, but the moonlight was helping Osamu keep a general sense of what was around him.

He winced and let out a weak hiss when he felt the disinfectant spray seep into his wound after a soft towel had wiped away the excess blood. It stung and burned for a moment, but Suna was quick with the wrapping that dulled the sensation. Suna was rather efficient with the whole ordeal, obviously well-practiced in securing the sticky part of the bandage in a way that made Osamu feel like he could move his hand without worry.

“Drink some water,” Suna commanded as he rescued a bottle from the minifridge beside his bed.

Osamu slowly opened his eyes to look first at the stark-white wrappings on his injured hand, then at the water being offered to him. He took it with his uninjured hand and let Suna screw off the cap for him. Even as he sat with his back propped up against a pillow, he felt just seconds away from passing out. His mouth was still sticky with the aftermath of his tears which had all dried in trails on his cheeks, and the lack of blood was making everything in his head go fuzzy. The water helped a little with both of those things, but really all Osamu wanted to do was take a long nap.

Suna was too busy packing up his giant first-aid kit to pay any mind to the limp man propped up on his twin bed. Osamu didn’t mind, though, because he got to watch Suna’s tongue dart out between his teeth which was a telltale sign that he was not only focusing, but that he was worried. Osamu almost smiled.

But he remembered, suddenly, why he was there in the first place.

The images flicked by his eyes: the failing grade, the trophies littering his bedroom floor in pieces, the letters from every card on his wall flying around in a frenzy. And he’d felt so good that morning that it didn’t make sense. Suna had been right, he was chilling out—

then why did he let all those old feelings resurface?

“Do you feel any better?” Suna asked, appearing rather suddenly at Osamu’s side with a harrowed expression.

Osamu nodded. He watched Suna’s chest fall in momentary relief. Suna’s hand returned to Osamu’s skin, this time trailing from his elbow, down his forearm, and to his wrist where the tight wrapping began. Any place that Suna’s fingers touched turned to electricity, coursing wildly through Osamu’s weary veins. He couldn’t help but trail the slender things with his eyes and wonder if Suna would weave those same fingers through his hair, again. It was all illuminated by deep moonlight, the kinds that created pools in the smallest of caverns in someone’s face. Suna glanced up once, but it was just long enough for Osamu’s heart to stutter.

“It’s not that deep, so the bleeding should be done by now,” Suna muttered, his fingers still trailing over his bandaging masterpiece.

Osamu nodded along as if he understood what was going on just as well as Suna did.

“Sleep here,” he commanded gently, “I don’t want you passing out in the middle of campus.”

Osamu let out a breathy chuckle. Suna quickly reached behind his body to grab one of the two pillows on his bed. He tossed it to the floor before helping Osamu lean back until his head was lying on the plush pillow that was still on the bed. Osamu sighed while he kicked off his boots and listened to them thump against the floor. The darkness in the room was already helping him feel sleepy. Suna’s hand on his back was reassuring, he almost mourned the lack of it seconds later. Even so, the comforter was soft and the pillow was at the perfect angle for his neck and Suna was pulling a blanket over him.

Yet, at the same time, Suna was tugging another blanket from under his bed and tossing it towards the pillow he’d disposed of onto the floor. Osamu’s stomach dropped a bit when he realized what was happening.

“Wait!”

Before Osamu could consider his actions, he was reaching for Suna’s wrist with his uninjured hand and tugging the man back towards where he was lying on the bed. Suna turned, a tad surprised, and waited for Osamu to get over the initial shock of what he’d done and say something worthwhile.

“St—” Osamu stammered, “stay here.”

Suna’s face morphed into a strange expression, one of gentle confusion. Perhaps he hadn’t heard Osamu correctly.

“Don’t sleep on the floor,” Osamu whispered, “stay here.”

Another gentle tug on Suna’s wrist sent the message a little more clearly. His eyes darted around with uncertainty, at first. He glanced at the small, twin-sized bed and the single pillow that remained on it. Yet, he was slipping off his Converse and letting his wrist stay in Osamu’s weak grip. Osamu’s heart began to flutter at the base of his throat as he watched Suna shed his jacket.

“You sure?” He whispered.

Osamu hesitated for a moment, his stomach in absolute knots, but he eventually found the sense within himself to nod.

“Yeah,” he replied wearily.

Suna didn’t have to ask another time.

He climbed gingerly into the bed while Osamu shuffled himself closer to the wall which bordered the opposite side. They were both tall, too tall for whatever beds were provided by their university, and Osamu had never been more aware of his size than right now. But Suna didn’t seem to mind. In fact, he cozied in without a single hesitation, pulling the blanket over his own legs.

Slowly, he lowered the side of his head onto the pillow so he was facing Osamu, his right hand tucked under his cheek.

“You’re sure this is okay?” He asked in a small, uncertain voice.

Osamu chuckled a bit and set his injured, wrapped-up hand in front of his chest.

“I’m sure,” he replied with certainty.

There must’ve been no more than three inches between their faces. Osamu could feel Suna’s breath brushing against his cheeks again. He could smell that stupid piney deodorant. His stomach flipped all over itself. His heart wasn’t even beating anymore, as far as he could tell. Moonlight bounced off of Suna’s eyelashes, it was mesmerizing.

Slowly, the tension and adrenaline of the hour before began to melt away in Osamu’s body. There were still trails of dried tears on his cheeks and he knew his face had swollen from the anxiety, but he couldn’t really be bothered by it, not when Suna was so close.

The pit was still awaiting him, gaping and dark and menacing. But Osamu wasn’t so much teetering on the edge anymore as he was watching it exist, wondering what was at the bottom. Because he couldn’t fall now—

Suna’s hand was on his arm.

It was a rather friendly sort of touch, a reaffirmation that he was still there even as Osamu phased in and out of sleep.

“Do you think I’m a failure?” Osamu asked in a broken whisper.

Suna’s brow pinched.

“Why would I think that?”

“I—” Osamu paused, “nevermind.”

“I don’t think you’re a failure,” Suna replied, “I do think you’re too hard on yourself.”

Osamu’s eyes trailed down to his own body, his own torn-up hand.

“You wanna be like your brother so bad that you never see all the things that are already great about you,” Suna whispered.

Osamu released a quiet, shuddering exhale. Wasn’t that all he was? A reflection of his brother? A botched copy of perfection? And if he really put his all into it, he knew he could make himself better—right?

“I just—” Osamu sniffled, “I feel like all I do is take up space.”

“You’re supposed to,” Suna insisted, “that’s what being human is about.”

“I dunno—”

“You don’t have to earn your right to exist,” said Suna, “you earned it the moment you were born.”

Osamu had to purse his lips to keep the knot in his throat at bay. Suna’s hand was still resting on his arm, but his thumb was rubbing gently up and down in a soothing motion. Osamu almost couldn’t bring himself to look him in the eye, he was embarrassed. He was ashamed of his childish tantrum over something that really didn’t matter at all. Yet, Suna was gazing at him with such sincerity as though he hadn’t minded a moment of it.

Osamu was growing more and more weary as the night darkened and the blanket swallowed him in warmth. Even though Suna was quiet, Osamu could hear his voice echoing in his own mind.

I think you’re really great.

It was the last full thought Osamu remembered having before he drifted off with a small smile on his face.

Chapter Text

burden of rejoinder
noun

1. the obligation to refute or respond to opposing arguments applying to both the affirmative and the negative insofar as it challenges an argument of the other.
2. the reasons for accepting a certain proposition or trusting that a source is true

Osamu awoke to a quiet noise.

Typing.

He felt his hand first, though, particularly the little spurts of pain that coursed through it when he flexed the muscles. He squinted his eyes open and let them first adjust to the gaudy white bandage that had turned said hand into one big mitten, then to the room that surrounded him.

Blankets had been kicked to his feet. A heavy brown coat sprawled along the sheets of the twin-sized bed and suffocated him slightly at his neck. He could feel the folds of his jeans rubbing along the places where it had dug all night and the discomfort in his neck from sleeping in some strange position. Even so, there was something about the soft sunlight that peeked through the opened window and the way the birds chirped despite it all that wrapped Osamu in a warm, invisible hug.

The typing continued.

It made Osamu curious enough to rub his eyes slowly and hoist himself up on his elbow. Piece by piece, his mind began to solve the puzzle of the night prior and all the events that had landed him in such a strange room early in the morning. His chest felt a little empty with the memory, and his throat ached from his cries and sobs. There was no one beside him in bed now, but when he remembered his request from the night before, Osamu’s stomach plummeted to his feet and his cheeks burned from embarrassment.

How could he have asked Suna to do that? To lay in the same bed as him?

Had something gotten in the cut on his hand that had made Osamu go temporarily insane? Was he even more insane for sleeping there all night?

Osamu’s mind wanted to spin and re-enter its flurry from the prior evening, but there was a presence in the room that seemed to dull it all, a softness to the haphazard positioning of every item strewn along any flat surface and the strange mish-mash of personalities that invaded the corners. Hanging from the hooks on his door were climbing shoes, a variety of multi-colored chalk bags, and a few harnesses that were well-worn. Yet, sitting against the frame of the door was an electric guitar that seemed a bit abandoned, considering there was an entire string missing and the face of it was coated in a thin layer of dust.

Poking out from beneath the dresser was an array of art supplies, paintbrushes and paint rollers and crumpled up papers and torn-up canvases. Nearly empty pots of paint sat opened on either side, and the colors matched that which had crusted along the bristles of the surrounding brushes. On the nightstand was a half-carved block of wood. On the windowsill was a mess of beads and strings and clasps. The desk was almost unidentifiable beneath the array of computer screens, video-game consoles, and tabletop games stacked nearly to the ceiling.

Nothing about Suna’s room made sense. If Osamu were to walk in with the task of pinning down his personality or his interests, he would never be able to come up with an answer. In fact, he’d think five different people lived in one dormitory. Did Suna really have all these hobbies? Was he that skilled?

Or were they simply things he tried?

Osamu didn’t try things. He only liked to do what he was good at and as far as he knew, that thing was Speech and Debate.

He’d never considered, not even for a moment, that he could like to do something he was no good at. Was Suna good at all these things? Or did they just make him happy?

“Hey,” a soft voice nearly made Osamu jump out of his skin.

Suna had turned, his round glasses glinting with the sunlight that streamed through the window. His oversized shit hung low against his right shoulder, the end tucked halfway into a loose pair of sweatpants. His hair was mussed and unruly, but it looked all too natural that way. His smile was soft, a simple line that left nothing up to interpretation. Osamu could only stare at him for a moment and take in his firm presence. He didn’t seem sorry for the space he took up in his own bedroom like Osamu always did.

It seemed wherever Suna was, he looked like he belonged.

That was what Osamu always wanted--

to belong.

Thus, he felt clunky and large in Suna’s bed while sitting up, wondering how long he should prolong the silence until he excuses himself. But Suna didn’t seem to be in any rush to return to his lazy typing. In fact, he was still looking and smiling at Osamu as if he was keeping some silly secret. Osamu’s brow furrowed as he let the birds outside fill the momentary silence.

“I went back to your apartment earlier this morning and cleaned up a bit,” he said.

Osamu wanted to smile, but he felt his features become even more puzzled.

Suna mirrored him in his own way, hands finally resting atop the keys.

“What’re you thinking about?” He asked gently.

Osamu let his face fall further, a horde of thoughts entering his mind in that moment. He glanced down at his injured hand, then out the window briefly. He felt so tired yet, at the same time, he felt as though he’d awoken to a brand new world, one where he could let his paint crust on the brush bristles and watch his electric guitar collect dust in the corner.

It felt strange, like all his bones were shifting out of their proper places to make space for something—but what?

“I wanna go rock climbing.”

The words fell out of his mouth without his permission. What the hell did they even mean?

Suna chuckled and eyed Osamu’s hand.

“You fucked up your hand last night,” he said, “I’m not sure you’re in the best state to climb.”

What was Osamu doing? What was he implying? He swallowed hard.

“It’s fine,” he blurted out, “I really wanna—”

“Climb?” Suna cut him off with a serious expression.

Osamu’s chest fell in a sort of concession.

“Yeah,” he replied.

“Don’t know why, though.”

Thus how the two of them ended up at the old rock climbing gym all alone, considering it was a Friday morning close to the winter vacation. Suna had opened the entire place up with his hefty ring of keys while Osamu watched on in a pair of shorts and t-shirt he’d borrowed from the man’s dresser. Everything fit him a little better than it fit Suna. Maybe they should exchange clothes more often.

But the eerie emptiness of the gym was quickly overtaken by all that was revealed in the flickering fluorescent lights. Osamu didn’t feel so alone when surrounded by all the tall rock walls. They were menacing, in their own way, towering over his form like they were preparing to swallow him whole. The rocks were all colorful and varied like the post-it’s on the wall in his room.

Walls—

swallowing me whole.

Impossible, but Osamu couldn’t help but entertain the notion within him that he felt must be boxed in before all else. He thanked the heavens for the empty gym while he lumbered towards the wall he remembered faintly climbing however many weeks ago. He’d never gotten to the top. In fact, he’d barely gotten himself up off the ground. But that moment had stuck in his head like an unscratchable itch, one he could never bring himself to ignore.

He was slipping off his shoes and wedging himself into some tighter velcro ones without another thought, fully aware of Suna’s ministrations behind the empty counter at the east side of the gym. His hands were trembling, closing and opening in on themselves to try and stimulate the sensation of holding onto one of those slick plastic rocks. But the only thing he could hold onto in that moment were his thoughts, manifesting the smallest shiftings and inner workings of his body. He couldn’t tell if he was nervous or excited or empty or all of those in one cruel mixture, but he knew his eyes couldn’t focus on anything else but the wall in front of him. He didn’t even steal a glance at Suna when he sensed the man creep up beside him.

“Really, Samu, you don’t have to climb if you don’t want to,” Suna insisted.

Osamu’s injury had been less serious than observed in the flurry of emotions from the prior night. There was just more blood to the thing than there was depth. But even new wrappings and a spritz of numbing spray couldn’t make it disappear entirely.

It wasn’t fair, in fact.

It wasn’t fair that Osamu had to climb with only one working hand to get to the top of the stupid wall.

And it wasn’t fair that he was the one who brought himself to the damn thing in the first place.

Why did everyone else get two working hands? Why did everyone else have it easier? Why was it so impossible for Osamu to climb the wall and reach where his brother had seemed to have been born?

He shouldn’t have to work twice as hard, it didn’t seem right. Osamu wanted to be like everyone else, he wanted two working hands. He wanted the bandage off and the cut gone—he wanted his brother to fall from his tall pedestal—he wanted everyone who had ever spoken a single word to him to shut up.

Shut up, he screamed at the faint memories of voices in his head.

Shut up.

Shut up!

He glanced up at the wall with shaking breaths. His throat knotted up for a moment as he observed its height in comparison to his own. The top was looming over him, almost mocking him in his smallness. Everything disappeared around him for a moment, even Suna himself, as his eyes fixed on the summit, a measly six feet above his head.

“Samu,” a voice called softly from behind.

Osamu shook his head and swallowed thickly. Nothing mattered but the wall, nothing mattered but the summit.

His foot first, planted on the solid ground of a particularly large rock, the one he remembered best from his first attempt.

Then, his fingers found their own footing in the crevice of a rock right at the height of his sternum, his soul doing something similar within him.

I can’t let the wall win.

But when his second foot wobbled to the platform, Osamu felt the chances of his success start to chip away slowly but surely. His fingers were already getting sweaty and the moment he flexed the fingers of his injured hand around the hooked hold, he felt the familiar burn of his healing skin tearing apart. He pulled his lips between his teeth to hold in a hiss of pain.

“Don’t hurt yourself,” Suna warned from the back.

Osamu wasn’t listening. He had to get to the summit, he couldn’t let the wall win.

“No!”

His little shout accompanied the slipping of his fingers from the surface and the stumbling of his body back onto the mats below. The fire that had previously concentrated itself into his hand now burned throughout his entire form, more an emotion than a physical ailment. He was still on his feet, but he felt the same defeat as if he was lying on his back, forced to observe the stars above as they laughed at him.

He screwed his eyes shut and advanced once more on the wall.

“Hey, wait,” Suna pleaded just as Osamu felt a fingertip graze the back of his arm.

“No,” Osamu muttered, “I have to.”

I have to, Osamu thought as he placed his fingers in that same hold and didn’t waste another moment before reaching for the rock he’d chosen the first time he made it up off the ground.

He exhaled in half-relief when he got a good hold around it, but quickly felt the integrity of his legs slipping out through his feet.

His hand hurt. God did his hand hurt. But he couldn’t stop.

The wall couldn’t win.

“Fuck!” He shouted again as he reached for another rock only to find himself an inch short of the mark, a blunder which sent him tumbling back down to the ground.

The pain had dissolved a bit under the influence of his adrenaline which was now coursing strong through his veins. He felt sick to his stomach, enough to be too dizzy to even stand again, but he was still staring at the same damn wall wondering if the world had ever been fair in the first place.

“Why’s it so easy for everyone else?” he whispered to himself, “I did everything right and—”

Osamu shook his head.

“I’m still at the bottom.”

Even with a third attempt, Osamu couldn’t reach far enough. Because the moment his hands left the comfort of their familiar little shelf, he had to overcome everything all at once. He had to silence the voice of his mother:

“Maybe you should let Atsumu do it instead, sweetie.”

He had to shake the image of every award and recognition he’d missed out on from his mind’s eye.

He had to forget even his own brother to even think of reaching for the unknown.

But he knew he couldn’t do it.

What convinced him he could?

Suna?

What business did he have associating with someone so perfect, anyhow? He should’ve done what he’d sworn to do at the beginning of the semester and forgotten Suna Rintarou even existed beyond the purposes of winning at Nationals.

Because then he never would’ve been convinced that he could do something like this, something so impossible.

Another fall,

another shuddering exhale.

“I can’t,” he finally conceded in a whisper, eyes pressed shut and weathered, red-rubbed hands wrapping around the front of his knees.

The confession washed over him in a slow, warm wave. All the adrenaline and fatigue finally settled to the bottoms of his feet and left Osamu with a pervasive sense of nothingness.

He couldn’t do it.

He just couldn’t.

His parents knew it, Atsumu knew it, the sticky notes on his wall knew it—

it was about time he admitted it, too.

“No.”

Suna’s voice was firm. Osamu turned to see him looming above just like one of the walls. But his presence was inviting rather than menacing; there was something about his expression that Osamu couldn’t quite yet place.

“No?” Osamu asked in a small voice.

“You’re not giving up, not like this,” Suna insisted, pairing his words with a firm tug on Osamu’s shoulders, guiding him back up.

Osamu followed with pliance, still taking in the serious and stony expression on Suna’s face.

“Go,” Suna motioned to the wall, “try again.”

Osamu stared at him dumbfounded for a moment.

“And don’t think so much, this time,” he added.

Osamu turned back to the wall with the same stricken expression, his hands somehow itching to return to the familiar places. The wall was too tall, Osamu was too incapable—what other reason would Suna have for pushing him back towards the challenge other than to watch him fail again?

“Go!” Suna commanded.

Osamu obeyed, hoisting himself up to that same comfortable space and spending a split second too long there eyeing the rock up above. All the same voices filled his head and begged him to not even try.

“Mind over matter, Samu!” Suna called out from below, “you don’t think you can do it, so you don’t.”

Osamu felt his throat knot up again. His body was a secondary consideration to his mind, he seemed to be stuck in the thing. Was he supposed to stop thinking? Was that all it took?

He reached out his hand towards the same rock only to find that inch of space taunting him again. His breathing started to go ragged as he tried to reach even further.

“C’mon!” Suna shouted through the barrage of thoughts in Osamu’s mind, “Your hand is already on the rock!”

My hand is already on the rock.

My hand is already on the rock.

My hand is—

Osamu sucked in a breath when it became a reality. His fingers were on the rock.

His hand was on the rock.

Then, his hand was gripping the rock.

He stared up in amazement to see the top just one inch closer, and he was the one who’d brought himself there.

Your hand is already on the rock.

You don’t think you can, so you don’t.

“Oh my god,” he whispered to himself.

For as long as he could remember, Osamu had been fighting. He’d been waking up in the morning to don his heavy armor and watch carefully for anyone who was trying to destroy him. He’d evaded friendship and failure and everything in between. For all this time, he’d been fighting his supposed rivals tooth and nail hoping that, one day, they’d simply leave him alone. But he’d been fighting all this time only to discover now the most formidable foe of them all:

Himself.

Thus, Osamu fell.

Not because he was incapable, but because he wanted to.

Osamu wanted to fall to the ground and let the earth kiss his weary back. And, with a small smile, he let it happen.

The ground greeted him with a searing thump, but he couldn’t care. He stared up into the ceiling with a pleasant grin, a knowing one. Even as Suna raced towards him with a cheer, he kept smiling up into the sky.

Because he knew it now, the truth that had resided within him all along.

There was no winning or losing.

There was no war or fighting.

In fact, it was likely that everything he needed to be perfectly happy like this with his back resting against rock bottom was already within him.

“You did it!” Suna hovered over him and held Osamu’s sweaty cheeks between his hands.

Osamu chuckled, “No, I fell.”

“Yeah!” Suna replied, “You fell!”

Osamu’s smile grew a bit bigger.

“I fell,” he repeated.

Suna laughed more heartily and let his thumbs graze along Osamu’s soft cheekbones. The sensation was electric in whatever sense was left in Osamu’s body, their eye contact intense and their closeness more apparent now than ever before.

Suna leaned in an inch, his hands pressed against the sides of Osamu’s face. He flushed a bit pink. His lips twitched up into a delicate smile, his tousled brown hair making an unruly crown all around his head.

Because how could he have failed if Suna was right here?

He didn’t need the top,

not when everything he ever wanted was right here after the fall.

Miya Osamu was throwing up in the bathroom again.

He’d arrived at the venue of their regional qualifiers an hour and a half earlier than required because there was no way he was even going to tempt repeating past mistakes. Suna had showed up only a half-hour later than him and they shared a sheepish chuckle in the parking lot.

Osamu had returned late the night prior to his room after a long day of drive-thru food and chatting on the floor of the empty rock climbing gym. His entire body felt like it was floating as he strutted back into his room, but he was greeted with the carnage of that fateful night. His face fell as he heard the glass crunching beneath his shoes even though Suna had scooped up most of the garbage and shoved it into bags that now laid tied beside his door. The trophies were in pieces big enough for Osamu to pick from the bag, mostly the identifying bits that were somehow resilient enough to survive the storm: marble bases with his name carved in the front or more plasticky shards of whatever logo had topped the award.

He pinched the laurel decorations between his pointer and thumb, memories floating slowly back into his consciousness. He felt heavy for the first time that entire day and wondered if it was really this easy to slip back into his old self. His throat knotted up once more as he dropped the broken piece and turned to the wall which sported whatever notes had been spared in his rampage.

The wall was largely empty, the old drywall finally making its reappearance. What remained was maybe three or four, all still in his wriggly handwriting. But there was something in the center that did not belong to him, a note he knew he had never written in his life.

Glass crunched beneath his feet as he neared closer to it.

They were very plain, those large, somewhat familiar letters.

And it read:

I like you just the way you are.

Yet, Osamu was back in the bathroom at the regional qualifiers puking his guts out and letting his head loll to the side of the stall when he needed a break. He swiped at the corners of his mouth with a tissue and sighed.

“Better?” Suna asked from outside the stall door.

Osamu huffed, “Kinda.”

Osamu hoisted himself up off the dirty bathroom floor and unlatched the stall door to see Suna standing just outside with his hands shoved in the pockets of his slacks. He smirked at Osamu as he trudged towards the sinks to wash his hands and face. When Osamu curled back up from his hunched position over the counter, he saw Suna watching him in the reflection of the window.

Osamu was decidedly tired. The only think that was making the morning bearable was the fact that Suna was there with him. He’d been silent for the most part since he awoke, particularly when he took a few extra minutes to stare at the mysterious note on the wall:

I like you just the way you are.

He’d even taken the thing down from the wall and folded it into his pocket, just in case. He could even feel its weight as he dried his hands and let Suna escort him out of the bathroom.

“No reason to be nervous,” Suna shrugged, “We’re more prepared than we’ve ever been before.”

Osamu scoffed, “You’re such a liar.”

Suna chuckled in response and planted a firm hand on Osamu’s shoulder, one that remained as they walked the length of the empty hallway. Most of the other competitors had gathered in the entryway, evident by the hum of chatter that was flowing from that direction. But Suna and Osamu walked slowly beside each other, no sense of hurry prodding them forward.

“Oh!” Suna perked up.

He removed his hand from Osamu’s shoulder and dug around in the inside pocket of his suit jacket for a moment to retrieve what looked like a folded up piece of notebook paper. He unraveled it and handed it swiftly to Osamu.

“I was thinking last night about some good openers for the rebuttal so I wrote out some structure changes in case we’re not happy with what we’ve got planned,” Suna rattled off.

Osamu took the paper between his fingers and pulled it closer to his face, but he wasn’t reading any of the actual words written there.

“I’m gonna check in with Four really quick,” he added quickly, “meet at the entryway in ten?”

Osamu nodded but more as an afterthought than anything. As Suna’s footsteps dissolved into the chatter at the end of the hall, Osamu found himself more and more engrossed in the pencil scribblings on the paper in his hand.

Because he knew them.

He’d seen them.

With trembling fingers, Osamu reached into his pocket and pulled out the folded up index card that had once been on his wall. He opened it and placed it beside the paper Suna had just handed him.

A perfect match.

I like you just the way you are.

“Wait,” Osamu whispered to himself.

But when he looked up, Suna had disappeared down the hall. Osamu could only stand, thus, with a dumbstruck expression, his heart thrumming at the edge of his chest.

Just the way you are.

Suna liked him—

just the way he was.

He didn’t need to win Nationals or lose weight or be better to be liked.

He was okay just the way he was.

Osamu’s eyes flickered endlessly between the empty hallway and the papers in his hands as though he were in disbelief, convinced that this was all just a dream and he would soon awaken in his stupid room surrounded by shards of glass.

But the dream continued. It felt so real against the tips of his fingers, the feelings inside of him too potent for him to have created all on his own.

I like you just the way you are.

And with one simple thought, the illusion shattered.

And Miya Osamu knew the truth.

With a sharp inhale, he shoved both of the papers into his pocket with one hand and fumbled for his phone with the other which was still bandaged and aching. He raced down to the opposite end of the corridor which led to the outside. He shoved himself out of the door while his trembling fingers shook over the names on his screen.

Pure life was flooding through him, illuminating long-dead corners of his existence. He was watching the walls around him closely as he pulled the phone to his ear and listened to it ring. Blood rushed through his ears. Breath slipped in and out of his body in a practiced dance. And he almost felt like smiling.

He listened to the phone ring twice.

Then another time.

He shook, the moment befalling him in a tidal wave.

I like you just the way you are.

“Hello?” A groggy voice crackled over the receiver.

“I hate Speech and Debate!”

Osamu’s shout echoed through the empty perimeter of the building’s exterior.

A moment of silence.

“Huh?” Atsumu’s voice appeared again.

“I hate it, I always have!” Osamu’s voice seemed to get even louder.

“Uhh,” Atsumu groaned, “what? There’s no way.”

Osamu couldn’t help it, the laughter that was bubbling up within him. It was hearty and it tore mercilessly through the silence that surrounded him. Osamu took up all the space he could with his wide smile and jovial laugh.

“I hate it so much,” he giggled, “and I’m never doing it again.”

“Samu, ya drunk or somethin’?” Atsumu asked.

Osamu just tilted his head back and let the sun’s rays kiss his soft face. It was a cloudless day, the perfect conditions for believing the future ahead is far better than anything you’ve ever anticipated.

“Thank you!” Osamu cried into the speaker.

“Huh?!” Atsumu grunted, even more puzzled than before.

There were many reasons for which he was thanking Atsumu: getting into his dream school, being on the individual team, never letting Osamu truly become him in all those years they grew up together.

Because any of these little differences would’ve cheapened the revelation Osamu was having and the feeling in his body that accompanied it. Any small difference, and he wouldn’t have met Rintarou.

And so was life. There were so many things Osamu wished he could go back and change, moments that made him feel eternally inadequate and unworthy of any attention from the universe. There were people in his life he wished he’d never met and words he wished he’d never taken to heart. Yet, here he was. There was nothing that had happened that he could change. All he really could do was look towards his future with the conviction that it could only get better. And even if it didn’t, that was alright.

Because he was never stuck.

He could always reach for the next rock with every permission to fall.

Miya Osamu was liked for nothing other than who he already was.

“Gotta go!” Osamu rattled off through a laugh.

“Wha—?” Atsumu began.

“I hate it!” Osamu added quickly before ending the call.

He let his body slump onto the brick wall as relief washed over it, the heavy burden now lifted permanently from his shoulders.

He hated Speech and Debate.

He hated it so much that even saying he hated it was making him feel freer than ever before. He could feel his hair dislodging from its clean, gel style and he had half a brain to unbutton his shirt or untuck it or do something to loosen himself up a bit.

The door swished open from a few feet down the wall. Suna poked his head out with a rather harrowed expression.

“Hey, orientation starts in ten minutes,” he said frantically.

Osamu’s smile never faded even as he turned towards Suna whose face quickly curled in confusion.

“I’m not going,” said Osamu softly while shaking his head.

Suna’s eyes went wide.

“Uh,” he inched out the door and let the thing close behind him, “can I ask why?”

“Because I hate this,” Osamu chuckled.

Suna took a wary step towards him as though Osamu were on fire.

“Hate—what?” He asked.

“Speech and Debate,” Osamu gestured wildly with his hands, “I hate it.”

Suna’s jaw hung slack for a moment.

“I hate Speech and Debate!”

Osamu was shouting like he wanted everyone in a mile radius to know. He couldn’t stop saying it because each time he did, he felt another bit of weight fall from his shoulders. He simply kept his eyes fixed on Suna even through his fits of laughter.

And slowly but surely, Suna came to. His face unraveled from puzzlement and turned quickly in exuberance as he fed off of Osamu’s excitement. A small smile began to crack onto his face as he took another few steps towards Osamu.

“You mean it?” He asked, “You hate Speech and Debate?”

Osamu nodded while he felt Suna place one hand on either of his arms, trapping him in a comforting in-between.

With a heavy sigh, Osamu nodded. Suna mimicked his sigh and tilted his head back in relief.

“Thank god,” he groaned with a smile, “so do I!”

It was Osamu’s turn to look puzzled.

“Then—why did you stick with it for so long?” He asked in disbelief.

Suna took one more sure step towards Osamu until their toes were touching and their faces were not even an inch apart. He moved his hands up Osamu’s arms until they were teasing the soft line of his jaw.

“Because I hate Speech and Debate,” he said, “but I really like you.”

Osamu didn’t even have time to formulate another thought before he was tumbling into a burning kiss, his lips crashing unceremoniously into Suna’s. But there was a sort of ordered chaos to the way they fit against each other, a pure dash of adrenaline punctuating the rapid drumming of his heart and the magnetic pull of his hands to Suna’s waist.

He was more aware than ever of the space his body took up, the distance of Suna’s hands from one another and the way their clothing pressed together. But it became clear, in the same moment, how badly he wanted all the space he took up to be Rintarou’s. He wanted to crawl inside every moment and hold him close like this.

Suna’s lips were pillow soft and he smelled of pine in the best way Osamu could ever imagine from so close. Suna’s fingers tangled themselves into the close-cropped hairs behind Osamu’s ears and he pulled him closer, tilting his head for a whole new angle that made Osamu feel like his heart was going to fall right out of his body.

Through little breaks in their kiss, Suna hummed lazily:

“I’ve wanted to do this—” he dove back in, “since I—met you.”

Me too, Osamu thought but couldn’t find the breath to vocalize.

God, if he’d known kissing felt this good, he probably would’ve done less sitting in his room and preparing for debates and more of whatever the fuck Suna was up to.

But he couldn’t imagine it being with anyone else, so perhaps the wait was well worth it.

They inched towards the wall with the insistency of their own sequential kisses, one after the other until Osamu’s back was flush with the brick. His fingers were still hesitant, but he’d grown comfortable enough to slide his palms up from Suna’s waist and run them along his rib cage, a motion that made Suna suck in a breath that Osamu needed for his own sanity.

They parted reluctantly. Suna’s cheeks were shaded a deep pink and his lips were rubbed red, but he smiled with reckless abandon. They could only stare at each other for a brief moment before the desire became too strong and they had to dive back in.

Osamu was no good at kissing. In fact, he knew Suna was doing most of the heavy lifting because of how bad he truly was. But it felt so good, and Osamu was so happy, there was nothing that could take him down from such a height.

He felt his own face flush even deeper as Suna moved his hands from Osamu’s shoulders to his waist and let his lips fall further down, nipping first at the edge of his jaw. Osamu shuddered and pulled him closer (if such a thing was even possible).

He grinned as those same lips trailed down to his neck and laid insistent kisses all over the soft, pliant skin.

The only thing that could break him from such a trance was the sound of the door beside them out of which an unsuspecting competitor had poked his head, a stack of papers full of his own anxious scribblings clutched in his sweaty hand. He seemed frazzled walking out there, but the moment he caught sight of the pair on the wall, his stress turned into palpable fear. His eyes went wide and his jaw slack, lips twitching around words he would never be able to find.

Osamu shot him a quick, haphazard grin, fully aware that Suna’s lips were still on his neck.

Nearly dropping his papers to the ground, the competitor scurried back into the hallway all whilst trying to bow in apology, a series of bumbling ‘sorrys’ following him. Osamu knew how he felt, a little, especially considering how similar it all felt to an old memory of his own. Thus, he could only chuckle a bit when the door clicked closed and he imagined the university boy rushing down the hallway with that sheet-white face.

He felt a cold spot where Suna’s lips had once been as the man glanced up at him with glassy eyes. Their faces were close enough to feel each other’s breaths and mirror each other’s smiles.

“So are we—uh—” Suna whispered, “competing or what?”

Osamu scoffed.

“Fuck no,” he replied.

Besides, he hated Speech and Debate,

but he loved Suna Rintarou.

Chapter Text

Osamu fiddled with the navy-blue fabric of his robe as the voice boomed over the loudspeakers in the grand hall. His eyes twitched all along the massive crowd in the stands. He knew that he was there, but he just wanted to be sure before he was called up to the stage. He was standing now, a line of people in front of him and another behind him. The speaker had suddenly begun the ‘M’s which tore Osamu from his first hour of searching.

He’s here, he reassured himself.

But where?

It was a miracle that Osamu wasn’t drenched in sweat, yet. He had a full suit on beneath his heavy silk robe and the cap on his head certainly wasn’t helping him. Perhaps that clinical-strength anti-perspirant was really doing what it advertised it was going to do. Osamu did one last check of his soft gray hair as the line moved a few feet and another batch of students walked across the stage. He gulped gently as he glanced up, noticing how close he really was.

He’s here, he chanted again in his head.

But the assuredness started to wane as Osamu neared the stage, squinting up into the brilliant lights that illuminated it.

I mean, his boyfriend of three years wouldn’t just miss his graduation, would he? It didn’t seem likely. Yet, if Osamu was anything, he was a worrier. And he couldn’t find a single familiar face in the crowd. Well—other than his parents. And his brother.

Guess he made time in his busy schedule, Osamu teased in his head with a soft scowl.

But the moment he found Suna would make him forget about all the undesirable others. Because they had plans that he couldn’t stop thinking about. Every time he did, his stomach would do a full flip.

“Mitsuzaka Arai!”

Osamu sucked in a hot breath and his heart began to thrum incessantly as he found himself at the precipice of the stage, the toes of his fancy leather loafers pushed against the edge of the first step. He steadied himself on the handrail and took one final look out into the crowd.

Nothing.

Osamu’s lips fell into a pout while the rest of his features sunk. Although he knew that Suna was sitting, watching, he wished he’d been able to see him before walking on stage.

“Miya Osamu!”

Osamu’s entire body arrested in a series of panic responses when his name was called. He felt vulnerable with all the different pairs of eyes staring at him. He prepared his feet to start walking when he heard it.

Now, it was customary for the family of the graduate who was walking across the stage to acknowledge by standing and clapping, perhaps cheering if they wanted to. But what Osamu heard had to be from more than just his small family.

It was a near battle cry that sounded out for him.

There were voices—shouts and hollers. And whistles that peeled through the air with a sharp crack. And there were various other noisemakers, a few that made a constant clicking noise as it was whirred through the air while another mimicked the sound of an airhorn. But the shouts were the strongest.

And it was all for him.

Osamu kept his eyes on his shoes as he walked, desperate not to trip and fall in front of his entire graduating class. Everything felt thrown off balance by the sudden appearance of clamoring noise. Osamu’s body was nearly buzzing with the anticipation once he reached the man at the center of the stage who was to hand him his diploma.

As his hand wrapped around the other side of the leather-bound certificate, Osamu looked up.

His eyes fell first to his parents and his brother. There was some guy he’d never met before standing beside Atsumu. He was tall and pale and had this striking black curly hair that stuck out even amidst so many people. They were all standing, hands meeting in a respectful clap.

Then, Osamu looked to the right.

There was another group standing for him, but they weren’t nearly as composed as the first. It was all of Osamu’s teammates from weightlifting (they were the ones with the noisemakers) led by Riku. Osamu’s mouth stretched into a small smile when he remembered that night three long years ago when he and Riku met. He’d really been on to something when he mentioned weightlifting.

On the latter side of the group were many of Suna’s friends that Osamu had met over the years. They were all sporting outfits of varying appropriateness for the event, but they were the ones hooting and hollering the loudest, the one on the furthest end sticking his fingers between his teeth to whistle again.

But standing in the middle of them all was Suna.

Suna Rintarou.

He wasn’t hooting nor hollering nor shaking some noisemaker.

Instead, he was standing with his hands caught in the pockets of his slim-cut, gray slacks. His hair was pushed back out of his face and the necklace that Osamu had gotten him for their second anniversary glittered around his neck.

And he was smiling.

His smile would stretch all around his head if it was possible.

Even from a distance, Osamu could tell that he was holding back tears; he had this unmistakable mist in his eye and his throat kept bobbing with thick swallows. Osamu’s entire body felt as though it were doused in warm, soothing bathwater. The world came to a stop just for them, the honey-slow moment sweet and trickling. All the sounds and the faces melted into a blur leaving only the two of them in the entire stadium.

Clear as day, he could see Suna mouth:

“I’m proud of you.”

He knew he had said it because it was what he said every day. Osamu had memorized the curve and twitch in his lips when he uttered it, always asking him to say it again in case he wasn’t looking hard enough. Osamu’s chest swelled as he watched Suna’s eyes crinkle against the growing of his already wide smile.

Osamu wished that he was up there in the stands with his arms around Suna’s neck, his lips kissing all over those crinkled eyes and apple-round cheeks.

But he was still on the stage and his hand was instead wrapped around his newly awarded diploma.

He stared back down at his feet as the attendants ushered him off stage—partly to make sure he doesn’t trip on his way out and partly to hide the deep blush in his face. He descended down the steps and made his way back to his seat, a folding chair in the middle of a sea of matching ones.

Osamu’s body was still rushing with pure adrenaline as he sat, the shock of seeing all his friends and Suna smiling so proudly coursing through him like pure energy concentrate. And now that he knew where his boyfriend was sitting, he could turn his head and glance at him again.

They had all taken their seats too as the rest of the ceremony droned on. Osamu watched Suna type something into his phone, then glance up to nudge his nose at Osamu, indicating him to take out his own.

With a furrowed brow and an amused smile, Osamu fished for his phone in the back pocket of his slacks just in time to feel it buzz against his fingers.

Rin<3: did they spell your name right in the diploma?

Osamu scoffed and rolled his eyes.

Osamu: the diploma isn’t in here, numbskull, it’s getting mailed to me

Rin<3: you sure? did you check?

Osamu: you’re messing with me, aren’t you?

Rin<3: when am I not?

Osamu: I can’t believe you got everyone here

Rin<3: aw come on, they love you

Rin<3: but remember that I love you WAY more than they do

Osamu: noted

Rin<3: you’re not saying it back?

Osamu: it’s rude to text during ceremonies

Rin<3: say it back

With a chuckle, Osamu tucked his phone back into his pocket and ignored any buzzing that followed, choosing instead to glance back up at Suna with a smug grin. Suna’s fingers were poised over the screen, his eyes wide in fake shock. He waved with his head as though to coax it out of Osamu.

And it worked.

It always did.

“I love you,” Osamu mouthed up at the stands.

And Suna knew that that was what he’d said, because he said it every day. And he always demanded that Osamu look at him when he did.

Osamu made sure that he was the first one out of the hall when the Dean finally gave his closing remarks. His heart drummed to the beat of his steps as he edged through the thick crowd to reach the exit. The moment he stepped into the warm, late-spring air, he felt a wave of calm fall over him.

He unzipped his graduation robe once the heat finally hit him thanks to the blazing sun in the sky and removed his hat for the same reason. He checked his suit was a quick glance down. He’d had it tailored a week or so before, so all the seams on the black sports jacket and the waist on his slacks were fitted to a tee. And by some miracle, the baby blue button-down he was wearing underneath was sweat-free.

He fiddled with the gold chain necklace around his neck (a gift from Suna for their first anniversary) as he scoured the growing crowd. There were thousands of families meeting up with their graduate, posing themselves in front of the massive trees on campus to take a photo or babbling on about how long the ceremony was.

Osamu only had to search around for another second or so before he saw his friends, a wide smile growing on his face.

They met halfway, Riku insisting on rushing towards Osamu to wrap him in a bone-crushing hug that lifted his feet off the ground. It was impressive that he could still do it considering how much Osamu had bulked up over the past three years.

“Congrats, dude!” He shouted, nearly shattering Osamu’s eardrums.

“Yeah, man, you looked great up there,” another one of his teammates said, “very hench in comparison to the Dean.”

Osamu let out a sharp laugh at the thought. Of course he was bigger than the Dean, he was the champion weightlifter in that pairing.

“Alright, losers, my turn.”

Osamu knew that crooning voice. He’d know it anywhere.

He had enough confidence in his assumption to surge forward, wrapping his arms around the advancing figure.

Their hugs were so familiar now, the slotting of two bodies that were formed in each other’s image. Osamu stuffed his nose in the crook of Suna’s neck and let his happy, huffing breaths graze along the porcelain skin. Suna’s face was also buried in the space where Osamu’s shoulder and neck joined, Osamu could tell by the way his hair was tickling his cheek.

But they couldn’t seem to hold each other tight enough. Osamu let one hand bunch up the fabric on the back of Suna’s button-down while the other carded through his hair. Suna pulled away only to grab the sides of Osamu’s jaw with his hands and plant a million, successive kisses all over his face.

Osamu’s face went tomato-red, he could feel it. There was something vulnerable about all of his friends watching the display, but he didn’t care enough to tell Suna to stop.

Instead, he relished in the attention and made sure to take note of how red his boyfriend’s face also was once he decided to pull away.

“I’m really proud of you,” he said softly.

“I know,” Osamu replied in a near whisper.

“And I love you,” Suna said.

“I love you too, Rin,” Osamu replied.

Suna’s mouth fell into a straight line.

“Oh now you say it back?”

Osamu scoffed playfully, “I can’t believe you!”

Suna held his hands up in a feigned yet dramatic surrender.

“I’m just sayin—”

Osamu shoved on Suna’s shoulder before pulling him back in by interlocking their fingers and tugging until he was close.

“I can’t believe I’m losing my best clean and jerk competitor,” Riku groaned from the opposite end of the little circle they’d formed.

“Sorry,” Osamu replied, “gotta find a new insecure freshman to train up.”

“They’ll never be as solid as you,” Riku said through a fake teary voice.

“That’s not true,” Osamu tried to reassure him.

Riku replied instantly, “But you were a natural! You were born to lift weights!”

Osamu felt Suna’s hand tug against his own, detangling himself from the grasp. When Osamu glanced over, he saw Suna pulling his ringing phone outta his pocket.

“Gotta take this,” Suna muttered with a quick peck to Osamu’s cheek, “I’ll be right back.”

He sped off with the phone pressed to his ear. Osamu only caught snippets of his greeting and his affirmation that he really was the Suna Rintarou they were calling for.

“I didn’t expect you guys to be so loud at the ceremony,” Osamu teased once Suna was out of earshot.

“Rin insisted,” said one of Suna’s friends.

“Yeah,” said another, “we’ve made a fuss at all our friends’ graduations.”

“Except Rin’s,” the first chimed back in.

Suna had graduated a semester earlier than Osamu. Thanks to failing a class in his first semester and a major change during the semester that followed, Osamu had to spend some extra time in school. But he didn’t mind it at all because he knew it was exactly what he wanted to be doing.

And Suna had shown no interest in attending his ceremony. His grandma wouldn’t be able to go because she lived so far away and Osamu had an exam that morning, anyhow. Thus, Osamu surprised him with a weekend away. After he’d finished his exam, he packed up the trunk of the car with their things and picked Suna up from the gym, telling him that they were going out to lunch. But when he got onto the highway and Suna got suspicious, he decided to break the news.

His memories of the weekend were fond, but he had expressed to Suna on that trip how badly he wanted to go to his own ceremony. Thus, Suna brought all his friends and even reserved a table for dinner at a fancy restaurant for the two of them and his family that night.

He wasn’t exactly looking forward to having dinner with his parents and his brother,

but he was really looking forward having dinner with Rin.

“When do you guys move?” Riku asked.

Osamu sucked in a breath through his teeth, “Not sure, we’re still waiting to hear from some places.”

“When do you start school?” A teammate of his asked.

“Not until September,” Osamu grinned.

“Hey!”

Suna had whispered to him from a few feet away where he’d taken the call. He was coaxing him over with a welcoming gesture and an anticipatory smile.

“I’ll see you guys tonight, yeah?” Osamu said to his friends.

“For sure,” Riku replied, “let us know when you’re done with dinner and we’ll meet you at the bar!”

Osamu smiled and sped off, his heart beginning to thrum again with how excited Suna seemed to be. What had that phone call been all about?

At least Osamu didn’t have to wonder for too long.

“We got the place!” Suna told him, trapping him with two hands clutching his arms.

Osamu’s eyes went wide.

“The Tokyo place?” He asked breathlessly.

Suna nodded. Osamu tried to blink away his disbelief.

“But they said—”

“They just called me,” Suna cut in, “other renter dropped out, and we’re in!”

“Oh my god!”

Osamu wrapped Suna in another tight hug, one where they couldn’t seem to get close enough. Osamu’s chest swelled like it had on the stage, an ‘I love you’ hanging on the end of his tongue.

He remembered touring the place the weekend they’d gone out to Tokyo. It was perfect, east-facing windows and tall ceilings, space for a real dining table and a cozy kitchen that Osamu felt right at home in. He remembered his disappointment, as well, when they went to apply and found that someone else had already claimed the apartment.

“I’d live anywhere with you,” he’d whispered to Suna that night with a soft smile.

“Even on the surface of the sun?” Suna had asked him.

Osamu chuckled, “Even on the surface of the sun.”

But now the apartment was theirs.

“She said we could move in as early as next week!”

Suna and Osamu parted as he gave the good news, his cheeks shining with excitement.

“Did you hear back from the office out there?” Osamu asked.

“No,” Suna sighed, “but the climbing gym called me and said they needed a full-time instructor, so I’d have a job anyhow.”

“That sounds much more exciting than being an accountant,” said Osamu, resting his arm on Suna’s shoulder and letting his hand flop at the end.

Suna’s hand found Osamu’s waist expertly as his eyes lidded.

“I dunno,” he shrugged, “you could come visit me during my lunch break and I could put my desk to good use.”

Osamu scoffed, “Oh my god.”

“Bend you over it—” he crooned.

“Stop!” Osamu chuckled and pushed against Suna’s shoulder with his free hand.

“Do some correspondence,” he teased.

“Dude, my family is right over there,” Osamu hissed, cocking his head to the left.

“Fine,” Suna whined while rolling his eyes.

Osamu shuffled closer to him so their faces were nearly touching.

“And what makes you think I’m gonna have all this free time?” He teased, “I am gonna be a law student.”

Suna’s eyes swept up to the sky and his lips pursed in a moment of thought.

“Nah,” he shook his head, “I think that’s actually hotter.”

“What?” Osamu cried.

“Oh, come on,” Suna groaned, “late nights, empty study rooms—”

Suna was tilting his head, his lips hovering over Osamu’s quickening pulse. Osamu shuddered beneath the warmth of his breath tickling the sensitive skin.

“private deliberations.” he said in a barely audible whisper against Osamu’s ear, sending a bolt of lightning right down his spine.

Three years—

three years and he still couldn’t keep himself together when Rin was around.

Yet, he somehow found the resolve to brush his persistent boyfriend off with a chuckle and a shake of his head.

“You’re insufferable,” he muttered through a growing smile.

Suna grabbed the lapel of his jacket with his strong yet slender fingers.

“I think it’s pronounced ‘irresistible’, actually,” Suna teased.

“Woah,” a voice called from close behind, “how’d you get even bigger since Christmas?”

Osamu turned to see Atsumu advancing on him, his hands lazily stuffed into his pockets and the curly-haired boy accompanying him. His face was set in this very serious and cold expression. How did he know his twin brother? And what was he doing here? He certainly didn’t seem like the type to be Atsumu’s friend.

“I changed weight classes in April, I think,” Osamu replied.

“That’s insane—” Atsumu tched, “oh, hey!”

He turned a bit towards where the towering man was standing beside him, his hands folded politely in front of his body.

“This is my—” Atsumu hesitated only momentarily, “boyfriend, Kiyoomi.”

Osamu reeled back a bit in shock.

Boyfriend?

“Boyfriend?” He accidentally said out loud.

Atsumu rolled his eyes.

“Yeah, I know,” he said, “not in line with past events.”

‘Past events’ being Atsumu’s player status his first three years of college. He never brought anyone home for the holidays, but he always had someone blowing up his phone wondering when he was going to come over next.

And this guy? He wasn’t Atsumu’s type at all. Something about his appearance made him seem stuck up—Osamu couldn’t quite pin it down, but it probably had something to do with the unchanging nature of his pointed face.

“How did you guys meet?” Suna asked, sparing Osamu the chore of asking it himself.

In an act of gratitude, Osamu threaded his arm through the space between Suna’s elbow and his body. Suna stuffed his hand in his pocket but allowed ample space for Osamu’s gentle grasp.

Atsumu, however, didn’t answer so rapidly. Instead, he took in a long, slow breath and glanced nervously over at his boyfriend whose expression had finally changed.

“It’s—a long story,” Atsumu said.

Kiyoomi nodded in agreement.

“Just know that it involves a Halloween party and many, many shots of Jose Cuervo.”

At the mention of what Osamu assumed to be a harrowing night for the both of them, Kiyoomi shuddered, his eyes cast down at the floor. Atsumu looked equally as sheepish but took the moment to press his fingers against the tight grip Kiyoomi had on his own hand and invite it closer to himself. Their hands fit together seamlessly.

Osamu caught Atsumu’s eyes with his own and prayed that their twin telepathy was still as good as it used to be. He glanced at him in a very particular way, the way that asked:

You’re serious about this?

Because Osamu had sat in his old childhood bedroom with Atsumu countless times over those three years, talking through the nightmare that was high school and hearing about countless escapades with all these people he didn’t really care about. Even though he wouldn’t admit it, Osamu knew that whenever Atsumu saw him and Suna together, he’d wish that he had the same thing.

But as he asked the question with his eyes, he almost knew the answer before Atsumu gave it. Because he took the split second afterwards to glance at his new boyfriend whose face had evened out into something soft.

Yeah, his eyes said, I’m serious.

A smile broke out onto Osamu’s face. Atsumu mirrored it, his hand squeezing Kiyoomi’s.

“So, dinner?” Suna broke the thick silence.

“Yes!” Osamu countered him, “Chez Paul?”

“Ooo!” Kiyoomi suddenly brightened up, “I love that place.”

“That’s high praise,” Atsumu motioned up at his boyfriend, “Kiyoomi’s a culinary student.”

“Oh, seriously?!” Suna asked and leaned in.

Then, Kiyoomi broke the smallest of smiles and nodded. Suna engaged him instantly in conversation, speaking across the twins that were somehow caught in the middle as the two couples walked side-by-side.

But it gave Osamu a chance to turn to Atsumu and ask something that had been eating away at him for weeks.

“So, when did you drop out?”

Atsumu glanced over with a flat expression, but soon relented to his brother’s perceptive gaze. He sighed.

“Three months ago,” he replied plainly.

“They don’t know?”

‘They’, of course, being their overbearing parents.

Atsumu scoffed, “God, no.”

“What’s your plan?” Osamu asked gently.

Atsumu grinned subtly, his eyes once again blinking up to his boyfriend who was now chattering away about the proper way to prepare fried rice.

“We’re gonna go to the States,” he said.

“Woah,” Osamu replied.

“I know,” Atsumu replied, “we’ve been talking about it for ages though. Kiyo got this awesome offer at a restaurant in San Diego and I—”

Osamu watched as his brother’s eyes swam with thoughts of the future.

“I have to be wherever he is,” he shrugged and grinned, “I can’t live without him.”

I can’t live without him.

“Huh,” Osamu hummed to himself, his eyes flickering up to Suna beside him.

I can’t live without him.

Dinner had become bearable with Kiyoomi there. And now that Osamu and Atsumu had a little secret they were keeping from their parents, they were much more amicable with one another. Osamu announced that he and Suna had gotten the nice Tokyo apartment, and Kiyoomi said that he’d successfully graduated from culinary school.

But whenever Atsumu would start teasing Osamu for something, all Osamu had to do was lean across the table and say:

“Hey, Mom, guess what?”

To which Atsumu would kick his leg hard under the table and shoot him a near-lethal stare. Osamu would just chuckle evilly in response, but in that special brother way where his parents would never suspect it.

“Nothing,” he’d say next, shimmying back into his seat and grinning at a seething, red-faced Atsumu.

“Holy shit,” Suna had hummed later that night as the two of them sat in the car on their way to the first bar of the night.

“I know, right?” Osamu replied.

Night had fallen upon them, the darkness illuminated by streetlights and the businesses which lined the busy city road. Though he was stuffed from dinner, he was grateful to finally be away from his parents and on his way to meet his good friends.

And Suna was sat beside him, his elbow resting on the center console while his hand had taken purchase on Osamu’s thigh. It was quiet between them, soon after, the comfortable sort of silence that they fell asleep to each night.

It was the same old car that Osamu had rode in his first year of school when they’d gone to that burger place (still a favorite of Suna’s). The Twice albums were still stacked in the glovebox and there was still a thin layer of garbage that decorated it all. But Osamu loved it. He never wanted it to change.

And even if it did, he wouldn’t mind all that much—

as long as Rintarou was there, too.

I can’t live without him.

Atsumu’s words echoed in his head as they turned down another street. Osamu knew exactly where they were headed by the route Suna had taken, thus he knew that they had a good ten minutes left before reaching their destination.

All Osamu could do was revel in that comfortable silence and turn every so often to get another good look at his boyfriend. His hair had started to fall out of its pushed-back style from earlier, but Osamu thought it made Suna look more like himself, more like when they met. He’d pulled his usual necklace out from under his shirt the moment they’d left dinner; it was the one with the old Monster tabs hooked onto the chain. Now it and the necklace from Osamu hung in a layered effect like they’d always been meant to be together.

They’d passed by campus a little while ago and had not reached a rather familiar stretch of land.

“Hey,” Suna nudged Osamu’s leg then pointed out the window, “remember when you screamed at me and said you hated me in that parking lot?”

Osamu was grateful to the darkness for hiding the deep blush in his cheeks.

“Shut the fuck up,” he replied playfully.

“Do you hate me?” Suna asked.

“No,” Osamu replied instantly, resting his hand atop Rintarou’s, “I love you.”

Suna sucked in a long, dramatic breath through his teeth. Osamu glanced over to see him pulling an uncertain expression. He rolled his eyes—he knew it was all fake.

“I dunno,” Suna teased, “that’s a lot. I’m not sure I feel the same.”

“You’re just not leaving me be tonight, are you?” Osamu shook his head.

Suna’s theatrical expression melted into a content smile. Osamu sighed and stared back out the window, grateful that the wretched spot was finally behind him.

It was all behind him, in fact.

There wasn’t much he remembered from that first year besides the moments with Suna. Though he remembered the shouting in the parking lot, it all seemed clearer when he thought of Suna’s words. And he couldn’t shake the memory of all his trophies crashing to the floor, but the only moment that wasn’t hidden behind a haze was that night when he slept in Suna’s arms.

Sometimes, he wished he could kiss him for the first time, again. It had been the very best day of his life.

I can’t live without him.

That time, it was Osamu’s voice that said it in his head. And it was true, Osamu couldn’t live without Suna Rintarou. When he imagined the rest of his life, he imagined the two of them together. He wanted to come back from law school each day to see Suna lying all lazily on his couch. He wanted to bring him lunch at his boring accountant job. He loved when Suna was at all his weightlifting meets cheering him on. And he didn’t mind helping out at the climbing gym every so often if it meant a make-out session in the locker rooms right after.

He wanted it all to continue forever.

“Marry me.”

The words fell without another thought from Osamu’s lips. But the moment he heard them, his body buckled in upon itself. His face drained of all its color as the echoes bounced around in his head.

He’d meant it. He’d never meant anything so much in his life. But in the split-second that followed, Osamu was wrought with panic.

“Okay.”

The reply was almost instant. Osamu’s panicking thoughts didn’t even have a moment to formulate.

“What?” He asked in disbelief.

Suna glanced over.

“You meant it, right?” He asked.

“Y-yes,” Osamu replied, his heart already picking up speed.

There was pure heat and life flowing through his veins at the prospect.

Okay.

Okay.

“Then yeah,” Suna said, “I want to get married.”

Osamu felt his throat begin to tighten and his eyes mist.

“Really?”

Just then, Suna pulled into the parking lot of the bar, scoring a pretty sweet spot near the entrance.

He put the car into park and turned with insistency toward Osamu, his expression sure.

“Of course,” he said, “I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”

Osamu let out a huff of air that had been trapped too long in his lungs. Had they just gotten engaged? There was no grand gesture, there wasn’t even a ring—but Suna had just said yes.

“You mean it?” Osamu asked, just to be sure.

Suna didn’t reply instantly, that time. Instead, he looked at Osamu for one moment more with glittering eyes before trapping his face between his calloused, warm palms.

“Let’s get married,” he insisted with a smile, “right now.”

“Right now?!” Osamu giggled within his grip.

“Right now,” Suna teased.

Next, he leaned in, confidently and assuredly as though kissing Miya Osamu were the only thing on his mind. It was all familiar, the faint taste of Monster on Suna’s lips and the feeling of his hair between Osamu’s fingers, but it had all taken on a new glow in their promise to one another.

It was a promise of forever.

Suna leaned in closer and intensified the kiss. With a free hand, he unbuckled his seatbelt then reached over to do the same for Osamu. His kiss never broke, however, and seemed to push Osamu further and further against the passenger-side door.

“Hey,” Osamu muttered against Suna’s mouth, “what time did you say we’d be there?”

He felt Suna’s breath huff against his lips as he chuckled.

“Nine-thirty,” he hummed, entrapping Osamu’s mouth once more.

As Osamu was pushed further into the door, the kiss sending a wave of heat down his body, he got a chance to glance at the clock in the car.

9:03.

Perfect, he thought.

But, really, it didn’t matter either way because they had all the time in the world.

They had forever.

While Osamu liked his new career path and weightlifting and his friends and even his stupid brother—

he loved Suna Rintarou.