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On October 5th, 1995, two souls were born of the same star.
“We’re goin’ to Takai’s birthday party today.”
It’s a rainy afternoon in July. Osamu woke up that morning with a crimp in his neck and an invitation in the back of his mind that extended to only one half of a pair. His skin stings with an apprehension not unfamiliar, but unfavorable. He hopes he can get away with the little mental game of poker he's playing.
Atsumu catches the volleyball he’d been bouncing off the wall. “Oh. I didn’t know about that.”
“Hurry and get yer shoes on, it starts in a few minutes,” says Osamu, tapping his foot impatiently with his arms crossed. Maintaining the act to be done with it.
Atsumu, unfortunately, isn’t playing into his hand. Instead, his eyes narrow with the nerve of a skeptic. “Was I invited?”
Osamu attempts to hide his cards as discreetly as he can. He huffs and rolls his eyes for effect. “That doesn’t matter, just get yer shoes, ‘Tsumu.”
“Osamu.” Atsumu tucks the volleyball underneath his arm and levels his brother with a look of pure silver. It burns the sides of his eyes and neck like a brand. “Did Takai-kun say I was invited?”
“I mean,” Osamu starts, not wanting to lie but not wanting to tell a hard-to-swallow truth. (He’s always hated pills.) Knowing that only half of them two is accepted by the people and the world ties his stomach in a complicated knot. He sighs and it sounds a little like defeat. “Not really, no, but—”
“Then I’m not going, ‘Samu.”
“But ya have to,” he keeps pushing, “everyone’s gonna be there—”
“I ain’t going to a party I wasn’t invited to,” Atsumu hisses because he’s right and he knows he’s right. Osamu hates it. “I don’t care, okay? You go, they invited ya,” he says.
He hates how Atsumu stands there with the only thing important to him held in his hands and simply watches as the universe cuts them in half. He wants Atsumu to go. He needs him, and he hates it. He doesn't quite know why.
“‘Tsumu,” Osamu tries again.
“Go,” Atsumu insists.
There’s no winning here, so Osamu goes. Neck sore and stomach knotted to a party with a bunch of kind-of-friends, alone as a half of a whole.
If Osamu had his way, he wouldn’t leave Atsumu’s side for more than five minutes.
The twins are a package. They came in two and live as two, only separated by outer forces. Like a pair of chopsticks to be split in two. Osamu, made of thread where Atsumu is made of stone, will try to the best of his ability to combat these influences that try to break him away from his brother. He ties their wrists together when they step out onto the streets. He tangles up when Atsumu gets just a little ahead of him in their races. He unravels when they must divide into different classrooms at school.
His tear-streaked face poses as a reminder to the universe of what happens when you split them in half.
Osamu needed training wheels two weeks longer than Atsumu.
Frustration was inevitable as his brother wouldn’t leave him alone about it, chanting on and on about how Osamu was still just a baby who couldn’t balance on his own.
Their mother was their hand on the seat as they practiced. One day, she let go and Atsumu kept going. Osamu fell every time.
The grass in their yard was yanked in aggravation, sifted in between scratched fingers and scraped palms, until Atsumu came up to him one day with his bike in his hands and a weird look on his face.
“C’mon, scrub. Gonna show ya how to balance.”
Instead of his mother’s steady hand behind him, there was Atsumu’s 11-year-old fingers light on his back, guiding him forward down the sidewalk. Osamu could see the horizon a little bit clearer. The air felt just a little bit lighter. They were a little bit more whole again.
When Atsumu’s fingers fell away, Osamu remained upright. He kept moving forward and almost touched the sky.
Atsumu’s cheers from behind him still rock him away to sleep.
The place Osamu feels closest to his brother is on an eighteen-by-nine-meter court where they send spheres of synthetic leather over an off-white net.
This will be the last official match they play during their second year in high school. Osamu has gotten better at letting go, but low tides eventually make way for higher tides that sweep through a city built on sand, and Osamu may sometimes find himself on the floor of their shared bedroom grasping onto the last slivers of his other half that he can.
Here, he is fine. Here, he watches Atsumu make serves that send a breeze through their opponents hair. Here, he sends his anxieties flying free.
He sees Atsumu make eye contact with the orange-haired middle blocker and look away with a vague smile of satisfaction. A little weird, but Osamu gets what's going on.
"I think I've got their libero worn out!" Atsumu says, too loud and too haughty. He swings his neck back and forth and rolls his shoulders as they prepare for the next rally.
Osamu stretches his arms behind his back. "Yer gonna keep gettin' distracted by their short number 10 is what I think," he replies, a little bored in his delivery. Atsumu blushes and squawks at him indignantly. He mutters something along the lines of 'you dunno what yer talkin' about', much to Osamu's amusement, and things feel okay. They're okay.
Today is the day he plans to tell Atsumu about their difference in love for this little ball game.
They were raised in soil of sports and grew up as sprouts intertwined. They play together. They face the world together. One day, Osamu would have thought that was a forever thing. Maybe it could have been.
But his heart lies somewhere outside of volleyball, and though frightening at first, he finds that it's alright. Where he couldn't leave Atsumu's side as a child, he can now step a few feet away and still feel with him. The knot in his stomach has unraveled, and he remains upright.
When they step out onto the stairs of the gym that afternoon, Osamu breathes and tells him, "I think you love volleyball a smidge more than I do, 'Tsumu."
The sky is a wispy cerulean blue. Osamu feels like touching it.
"Okay," is all Atsumu says.
And they're a little bit more whole.