Archive of Our Own ^beta

The first time it happens is during their third and final year of high school.

It’s on a Thursday in December, when the weather is cold enough to make the tips of Osamu’s fingers numb despite being shoved into the pockets of his coat. It’s when a layer of snow coats the outside, hiding the ground that might be frosted beneath, and when the sky is constantly full with grey clouds heavy with snow and rain.

Thick silence created by the powdered white is broken by the crunch of Osamu’s shoes flattening it underneath them, the glitter of it made brighter by the rays of the sun still hanging high on the horizon despite the fact that practice already ended.

It’s bright, but not bright enough that Osamu feels like squeezing his eyes shut.

The sound of a camera going off is another thing that breaks the comfortable silence, and it’s something that has Osamu ripping his gaze away from the fascinating play of colors winter has to offer and makes him look at something, at someone, that might be even more fascinating.

Not only today, or in the current season, but always.

Suna, who is standing next to Osamu, is glancing down at the screen of his phone with his long fingers, gone red from the frigid air all the way down to the back of his hand, curled around it.

His hair is turning up at the tips, from his shower earlier or the wetness clinging to the air, Osamu doesn’t know. His cheeks, splashes of red high on them, rise when Suna looks up, eyes like liquid gold, and catches Osamu’s gaze with a smile.

With a smile that makes Osamu feel warm despite the current weather.

“Didn’t ya take enough pictures of our surroundings already?” Osamu asks.

That, Suna walking slower than usual to capture the scenery around them, is one of the reasons they’re alone now. Atsumu had ditched them (or had they successfully ditched Atsumu without really meaning to?) five minutes into the walk, saying something about the math exam he had to study for.

Osamu hadn’t put up much of a fight. He doesn’t think he ever will when it means that he can spend more time with Suna. “It ain’t that interesting, Sunarin.”

The fact that it’s only a little hypocritical of him to say this, when he’d been the one to stare off at the snow and the icicles that hang down from rooftops and the front of cars, is something neither of them mentions.

“Oh, Osamu, I think I’m going to have to disagree.” Suna looks down at his phone again for a moment before he flips it around to show Osamu the display, and what he captured only a second ago. “This is very interesting.”

Osamu’s next words, a comment about their surroundings really not being worth catching hypothermia for (is he overreacting? maybe a little), all but die on the tip of his tongue when he glances at Suna’s phone and sees that Suna didn’t snap another picture of the snow, but of him.

He’s looking up in the picture that fills the screen, his hands buried in the pockets of his dark coat with one of the straps of his bag slipping down his right arm. The scarf Suna had given Osamu (offhandedly tossed at Osamu would be more accurate to say) is bright red around his throat and against his skin, but, honestly, that isn’t what Osamu focuses on.

It’s his own face that draws Osamu’s attention to the miniature version of himself, captured in a moment of distraction and immortalized on Suna’s phone.

His eyes are wide, wider than they usually are when Osamu catches his own gaze in the reflective surface of the mirror, and his head is tilted back, bangs parted in a way that shows off more skin of his forehead. The breath Osamu lets out in the picture is visible as a faint cloud and his shoulders are relaxed.

It’s weird, Osamu thinks as he takes another second to look at himself, a splash of color against the backdrop that’s monotone even with the glitter of the snow. He spends a lot of time looking at Atsumu and at his own face, and yet he still looks like a completely different person there.

He looks like Atsumu when he plays volleyball, a little, with joy apparent on his face and setting him alight.

Seeing himself in a light like that, seeing a side of himself that Osamu hasn’t seen before, isn’t something that he finds he dislikes. Or, at least not when Suna is the only one who sees it.

“Huh,” Osamu says eventually, the only thing coming to his mind other than vocalizing his thoughts. Which is something he’s not going to do in the middle of the street.

“‘Huh’ indeed.” Suna locks his phone and puts it away, into his pocket and out of sight, before rubbing his hands together. “Seeing the childlike wonder on your face is definitely a lot more than just interesting. It’s adorable.”

Osamu is (sue him) completely smitten with everything that makes up Suna Rintarou — sharp eyes, even sharper tongue, messy hair in the color of dark chocolate, words dripping with sarcasm and honesty in ways that strip Osamu’s soul to its very core — which is something he’s not only more than aware of himself (he doubts that Suna hasn’t caught on to it by now, hard as it is to hide anything from Suna, and Osamu is very okay with him knowing), but also something that makes him, and his body, act way younger than he actually is at times.

And this means that Osamu, despite the cold nipping at every exposed speck of his skin, can feel the top of his cheekbones and ears heat up at Suna’s comment.

“Are you blushing?” Suna notices, of course he does, and the corners of his mouth twitch up as if he’s fighting a smile and Osamu’s ears get even hotter when he catches himself staring at Suna’s mouth. He’s just doing that. “Cute, Osamu.”

Osamu can’t figure out if Suna is teasing him now or not (the amusement on his face says yes but the look in his eyes, and oh god his eyes, says no) and does the only reasonable thing in this situation: he kicks snow at Suna, snow that’s cold enough to have him curl his toes in his shows, and says, “Shut yer trap, Sunarin.”

“Rude,” Suna says and kicks snow back at him. It somehow ends up hitting the back of Osamu’s knees and he shivers. “Am I not allowed to call you cute now? Because you are. You’re cute, Osamu.”

“Fuck off,” Osamu says and then feels a different kind of cold when he kicks another small mountain of snow at Suna. It’s different because this time it’s definitely coming from inside of his shoe, and isn’t that just great. “My socks’re all wet now.”

“And whose fault is that?”

“Yers,” Osamu says. He’s aware of the fact that this doesn’t even make any sense at all and living with Atsumu has made him petty enough to add, “obviously.”

“How is it my fault when you kicked snow at me first?”

“Ya started with that crap.”

This is another thing living with Atsumu as twin brother has taught Osamu: deflect, but only if it genuinely makes sense (the second part is something he’s taught himself, since his brother likes to blame just about anything on him), and it does make sense. Osamu did start kicking snow first — sure, of course he did, he’s not going to deny this — but Suna is the one who initially started it with his comment.

“Oh,” Suna says and now he is grinning, lips pulling back to show off teeth that have no business being as straight as they are, “so it’s crap now.”

“I don’t even know what the hell yer talkin’ about now,” Osamu says, lies, and the tips of his ears burn a little hotter. “But it’s still yer fault.”

“Are we five years old again?”

Osamu steps to the side to avoid the wall of snow that is way too big for the light kick Suna delivered to the pile near the road and frowns as a car drives by them, slow and careful enough to make it clear that the driver isn’t sure if the streets have been secured against frost on the asphalt. “Why’re ya sayin’ that as if ya knew me at five years old?” he asks, blinking when a lonely snowflake comes close enough to his eyes to be caught in his lashes. “I can’t even remember when I was five years old.”

For all that Osamu has lied a second ago, that is definitely the truth and nothing but. He remembers specks here and there, of things he and Atsumu had done over the years — to each other and to other people, together and as a team, but there’s nothing concrete that stands out especially (apart from meeting Aran in middle school because it’s Aran).

Much less anything from when he was five, which was forever ago.

Suna bumps his shoulder into Osamu’s, softly. “Maybe we knew each other when we were kids and you just happened to forget?” he says, tone filled with so much amusement that Osamu is just waiting for it to spill over. “Ever thought about that?”

“Nah, ain’t possible. I wouldn’t’ve forgotten ya, trust me.”

Osamu tries to imagine it, for a second, being five years old again and meeting five year old Suna Rintarou. He hasn’t seen any pictures of his friends from before high school, and definitely not any that show him that young, but Osamu thinks that Suna must’ve been on the taller side with how often he likes to remind anyone (read: Osamu) of how tall he is when he isn’t slouching.

Maybe back then Suna didn’t slouch as much as he does now, and made even more people crazy with comments about his height. Maybe Suna’s hair was already shaped like a weird triangle that still happens to work for him. Maybe Suna’s eyes have always been this bright and this is why it only took Osamu about a week to notice.

“I do trust you,” Suna says and then he blinks. Osamu can practically see the gears turning in his head and that’s a sign for him to leave before Suna decides that spilling everything — not amusement, but Osamu’s feelings — all over the frozen ground right now is appropriate. “Wait. What does that mean?”

It means that Osamu would’ve figured out that he’s into boys way earlier than he did in this lifetime. It means that Osamu would’ve fallen in love with Suna at the age of five and been ruined for the rest of his life in the best way possible.

“Figure it out yerself, I’m leavin’,” Osamu says and turns on his heel in the direction of his house to do just that. He’s taking slow steps, careful ones, to avoid stepping on ice he can’t see from above the snow. “Either come with me or stay here but I gotta take a bath and make Tsumu stop hoggin’ all the hot water.”

“Wait, Osamu.”

Osamu does not wait. “I can’t hear ya, I’m walkin’.”

“Oh my god, we are five years old again,” he can hear Suna say to himself, quiet but not quiet enough for him to miss it. “Will you just wait?”

The sound of snow crunching under boots gets louder behind him and Osamu knows that it’s Suna and that he’s catching up (he knows this like he knows how to breathe, he would still know this without the sounds of winter making it obvious), and Osamu takes a deep breath to compose himself and to chase away the warmth that still lingers on his face.

Only to let out a screech that would be more than a little embarrassing if there wasn’t something freezing cold being slapped directly onto the bare skin of his back.

Due to some higher being watching Osamu and taking pity on him, he manages to leap off the ground like some kind of human frog and turns around when he feels fingers wiggle on his skin and make the cold spread.

“Sunarin,” he says, his shirt and jacket both slipping down to cover his back again and his bag slapping against his bicep from how fast he turned. “What the hell.”

“You’re warm, I’m not,” Suna says and then shrugs, he just shrugs as if he didn’t just almost give Osamu a heart attack. “Sharing is caring, did you know that?” Suna lifts his hands then, eyes twinkling and mouth curling up and somehow Osamu is still able to smack them away before they can touch his face.

“Get yer corpse hands away from me.”

“Oh c’mon, Osamu. Don’t be greedy.”

“I wouldn’t be greedy if ya hadn’t tried to murder me with yer frozen limbs.”

Suna snorts, the corners of his mouth hitching up just a little. “That’s a tad dramatic, don’t you think?” He blinks at Osamu, and then adds, “at least I know where you get it from.”

And Osamu knows that he’s being dramatic, at least a little, but he thinks he absolutely has every right to be because he can still feel the outline of Suna’s hands on his back as if they’ve been branded into his skin. “I ain’t dramatic, yer hands feel dead.”

“Yes, I’m aware.” Suna narrows his eyes and lifts his hands again. “So, please?”

“Yer insane,” Osamu says and takes a step back. Usually, he wouldn’t say no to holding hands with Suna but considering the fact that Suna just scared the shit out of him and that there’s A Look on his face — one that screams of mischief — Osamu would rather walk home barefoot. “Ya’ve actually gone crazy from the cold.”

Instead of saying anything to that, Suna’s smile grows once again but this time the softness bleeds out of it and gets replaced by something sharp enough to cut the air if Suna just desired to do so.

He makes another lighthearted grab for Osamu’s face, something Osamu easily avoids by stumbling back rather clumsily. A snort reaches Osamu’s ears and Osamu shoots a glare at Suna, because really, and sees Suna’s hands lift up once again.

And Osamu just stops for a moment to consider the pros and cons of possibly holding hands with Suna Rintarou (pro: holding hands with Suna; con: Osamu will most likely spontaneously pass away after Suna makes a comment about Osamu’s face being red again), when Suna takes another step only to shoot Osamu a look that is filled with surprise and a faint layer of shock when he slips on ice that has most likely built underneath the snow covering the ground.

Ya hafta be fuckin’ kiddin’ me, Osamu thinks because of course that would happen now, in the middle of winter, and to them no less, and then he thinks it again when Suna catches hold of Osamu’s arm. It’s probably meant to catch his fall and to avoid him falling onto his ass but then, for some unimaginable reason, Osamu loses his balance as well and tumbles into the snow with Suna.

Years of playing volleyball mean that his instincts have been sharpened to something that makes it possible for Osamu to catch himself on his hands and knees above Suna, with his face a few inches away from Suna’s.

Osamu looks at Suna’s wide eyed gaze and the soundless “oh” his mouth is shaped into and Osamu has a moment of insanity that he spends thinking about smacking his hands on Suna’s neck because now they’re both freezing from the fall.

But then a noise breaks through the silence filled with nothing but they’re breathing and it has Osamu’s thoughts coming to a sudden stop when he realizes that the sound is coming from Suna. It takes him another second before he understands that Suna is laughing.

Osamu is left speechless at the sound that escapes Suna, a sound that speaks of absolute joy and a sound that makes Osamu feel like someone put their hand into his chest to squeeze his heart, and he can’t help but be still and stare at Suna.

Because here’s the thing: Suna is gorgeous; he has long limbs, skin that rivals the glow of the snow with its own, soft looking lips, shiny hair and eyes that seem to shine like a mixture of the sun and molten gold no matter what time of the day it happens to be.

It’s something that Osamu has always known, he’s known this from the moment he first set eyes on Suna standing at the front of the class with his shoulders drawn up to his ears and his back hunched. And he thinks it again now.

Suna’s shoulders are shaking, molding and shaping the snow to make space for them, and one of his hands is half raised in what seems to be an attempt to cover his mouth.

There’s warmth building up inside of Osamu, spreading all over his body like fire after letting a lit match fall into a pool of gasoline. It starts from the inside of his chest, where his heart beats and beats away to the sound of Suna’s laughter like the rhythm to a song and he knows that there’s no way this isn’t showing on his face, but he doesn’t care enough to try to hide it.

Not even when Suna stops laughing, still with a grin on his face, and meets his gaze.

Because this is Suna, and Suna makes Osamu feel real like nothing and no one else does, so why would he hide this part instead of showing it, instead of spreading his arms and letting himself free fall with the knowledge that he will not crash but fly?

And Osamu feels so warm, he has so many words inside of his head that he wants to tell Suna but this isn’t the right time or place for most of them, so the ones he actually decides to let escape are those: “Yer beautiful, Sunarin.”

What he decides to say is this: the truth.

And what happens next is interesting.

Osamu has seen Suna make a lot of expressions; he has seen Suna amused after showing Atsumu a picture of Atsumu making a face that made Osamu feel embarrassed for his brother, he has seen Suna annoyed, concentrated, even a little sad, but he’s never seen this.

This being Suna’s eyes widening, mouth dropping open a little more to release a breath that’s painted grey in the space between them, and a flush that looks nothing but absolutely lovely spreading over the top half of his face to dye it a faint red.

Suna blinks at Osamu, obviously speechless and isn’t that something to accomplish, and Osamu takes a second to think that if he were anyone else, if he was bolder than he is, if it were another day and another time, that maybe he would’ve leaned down to kiss him.

He doesn’t, however, and instead cocks his head to the side and says, “are ya blushing? that’s cute.”

Osamu absolutely doesn’t see it coming when a palm filled with powdery snow connects with the side of his face a moment later to not only chase away the warmth that had still been holding on to him but also make him feel like he just dipped his head into a frozen lake.

But he supposes, as he wipes it away and looks back down to see Suna still looking at him with a blush on his face, that he doesn’t mind it too much.

Osamu knows one thing, and it’s that his brother wants to play one last time against Karasuno and their freak duo during Nationals before they graduate. However, when Inarizaki makes it through their game and the news spreads that they’ll be playing Itachiyama in the semi finals instead, the grin taking over Atsumu’s face is anything but disappointed.

Osamu can guess why, but he figures that actually saying anything to Atsumu and seeing him throw a temper tantrum in the middle of the court before they’ve even shook their opponents hands is something he doesn’t want to deal with right now.

The evening before the actual game, Osamu finds himself laying on one of the futons the whole team had been given with Suna to his left, Atsumu to his right and unable to sleep.

He knows that it’s not because of nerves or anything similar to that; he might not be into volleyball as much as Atsumu and Suna, but this doesn’t mean that he’s not confident in their team and in their success or that he doesn’t love the sport regardless of that.

But somehow, when he closes his eyes and shuts out the faint lights from outside that stream in through the slits of the dark curtains in front of the window, it’s impossible for Osamu to let himself be pulled into the dreamless nothing when he can hear himself breathe, when his own relaxed heartbeat is loud in his ears.

After rolling back and forth on his futon in a last try to make himself comfortable enough to fall asleep and failing, Osamu quietly gets up and decides to get some fresh air in an attempt that maybe that’ll exhaust his body and mind enough.

Osamu dodges Atsumu’s limbs when he makes his way to the balcony door and can’t help taking a glance at his brother and the way he’s wrapped around his blanket like some kind of human octopus with one of his legs occasionally kicking out and hitting the bottom corner of Osamu’s futon.

He’s jealous of Atsumu and his ability to fall asleep literally everywhere for a second, but then throws the thought away and continues tip-toeing around everyone else as quietly as possible to avoid making noise — just because he can’t sleep doesn’t mean that someone else has to be awake, too.

One Osamu slides open the door separating the room from the outside, cold air brushes over the exposed skin of his arms and shins. It makes him shiver a little, especially when it slips under his shirt, but Osamu finds that he doesn’t mind it too much when it makes his thoughts clearer than they already were.

There’s not much to see on the balcony, there’s just the railing that’s cool under his palm when he wraps his fingers around it and two chairs near the wall to the right, but when Osamu looks up at the sky, at a place where you can always see more than a lot, he’s rendered speechless for a moment.

The stars sit there like the universe’s twinkling freckles and make Osamu remember how beautiful their planet can be. He’s able to make out some constellations from where he’s standing, like Betelgeuse, even with the clouds covering a big portion of the horizon.

It immediately distracts him, the view of the glowing stars and the sounds of the occasional car passing by on the streets below, but he’s not too distracted that he doesn’t hear the door sliding open and closing again behind himself.

“Stargazing, Osamu?” He can hear Suna say, in a voice that’s quiet and layered with enough exhaustion to make it appear deeper than it usually is. Slippers shuffle over the ground until Osamu can feel the brush of Suna’s team jacket against his bare arm. “You’re supposed to be asleep.”

“Ya ain’t really in a position to throw stones, Sunarin.” Osamu crosses his arms on the railing, lets the cool metal wash away the warmth that seems to cling to him every time Suna is as close to him as he is now. “Couldn’t sleep, what’s yer excuse?”

“Your constant tossing and turning kept me awake. No,” Suna says in the same moment Osamu opens his mouth, the apology that’s laying on the tip of his tongue instantly dying, “don’t. Atsumu would’ve woken me up by trying to kick my soul out of my body anyway.”

“Fair enough.”

Silence falls over them.

It’s a comfortable one that doesn’t have Osamu standing here, wishing for Suna to say something to fill the quiet to make it feel less suffocating. This one is like a light blanket, soft around his shoulders and makes it possible for him to breathe.

It’s natural, and normal.

It’s how Osamu feels every single time he’s around Suna.

“Are you nervous?” Suna asks, and Osamu can’t help but turn his head to look at Suna. Osamu takes in his side profile as his friend seems to take in the sight of the universe spread out above them; the slope of his nose, his slightly parted lips and the long shadows his eyelashes throw on his cheekbones even now, in the half dark. A few moments pass before Suna adds, “About tomorrow, I mean. Is that why you couldn’t sleep?”

“Nah,” Osamu says, and it’s the truth. “Ain’t nothin’ to be nervous about, I trust y’all.”

“I’m disappointed that I didn’t take my phone with me to tape that. That was awfully cheesy coming from you.”

“Fuck off, will ya?”

“Nah,” Suna says, lowering his voice in a way that has nothing to do with being exhausted and everything to do with him imitating Osamu. “You’re not getting rid of me that easily.”

Osamu snorts, glancing down at the street before he looks back to Suna, his smile lingering. “I know. I ain’t complainin.”

“Is that so?”

“Got a problem with that, Sunarin?”

“Never, Osamu.” Suna meets his eyes for all but a second, the gold color of his eyes almost glowing as if they’re being lit by something that comes from Suna’s very core. The corner of his mouth twitches, making Osamu feel like he’s being burned from the inside out. “It’s still cheesy, though.”

Osamu detaches one of his hands from the railing, hoping that Suna can feel the cold keeping hold of it in the same way Osamu can feel the warmth of Suna’s body through his sleeve when he shoves Suna’s shoulder. “Yer such a dick, oh my God.”

A snort reaches Osamu’s ears, the last sound between them before they fall into silence again.

It should be a little odd, maybe, that Osamu can’t help but watch Suna as Suna watches the stars instead of turning his head as well and following the fascinating sight of the universe around them, but it’s completely normal to Osamu. It’s always been like that, Suna ripping Osamu’s attention away from something he’s been focused on and turning it on himself without trying.

It’s not something that Osamu complains about; it’s not like he isn’t completely turned to Suna’s every move like a moon orbiting its star, which is also something that is normal. Something that has always been like this.

“Enjoying the view?” Suna asks Osamu, eyes still focused on the sky above them, voice almost quiet enough to be a whisper.

“Yeah,” Osamu answers.

But what Suna doesn’t know, or maybe he does since Suna always seems to know everything and since Osamu doesn’t really try to hide this thing that has been growing inside of him from the moment he met Suna, is that Osamu hasn’t looked back at the stars once after Suna came outside.

Inarizaki manages to pull through against Itachiyama, and with them one of the three top aces in the country and his more than freakishly bendy wrists, the following day, and even if it leaves all of them panting and with sweat dripping down their faces as their muscles and joints ache, they come out as the succeeding team.

They managed to win, Osamu thinks as he’s bent over with his hands on his knees and throws a glance through his sweaty bangs to search the audience for two figures, and they did it with Atsumu leading them as their captain while their former captain and ace were watching.

A sense of pride fills Osamu, it crashes into his being like a wave hitting the shore, when he can see Kita’s chin dip in a faint nod and he thinks, loud and clearly, that he really does love volleyball.

The last five minutes of the game flashes before his eyes, he can clearly see the last serve that Atsumu had made and how beautifully it had soared through the air before putting them one point ahead before Suna had brought the last point home with a spike to make Inarizaki the victor.

There’s a look on Suna’s face now, when Osamu gives in to the urge to look at his friend and turns his head. It’s one Osamu has been able to see before, though not as often as he’d like to, and Suna’s eyes, wider than usual, scream of wonder. The slight curl of his mouth screams of pride, raw and unfiltered.

It makes Osamu feel warm, a different kind of warm than the one volleyball covered him with — this is one that starts from his chest, is as familiar to Osamu as his own face looking back from a reflective surface, and it grows, shines bright enough to rival the sun, when Suna turns to Osamu and the expression on his face doesn’t vanish.

Osamu makes the mistake of looking over Suna’s shoulder just then, catching sight of something that also happens to be as familiar as his own face: it’s Atsumu, who is currently saying god-knows-what to Itachiyami’s ace, who, in return, looks one second away from socking Atsumu in the throat.

Or ripping out Atsumu’s arm to strangle him with it.

Either one could be true.

“So, what do you say?” Suna asks, falling into step with Osamu when Osamu decides that pretending not to know Atsumu is the best thing to do. It’s natural, their steps matching each other in speed and length without a thought wasted on it. “Do we save the poor ace from our dear captain?”

It’s weird, a little, to hear Suna call Atsumu their captain.

Atsumu is their captain, of course, and it still makes Osamu’s chest swell with pride every time he thinks about it and of how much Atsumu had cried upon receiving his current jersey, but regardless of that, it’s odd. A tiny bit.

Osamu throws a glance to his right just in time to see Sakusa Kiyoomi’s eyes shift around before he swiftly delivers a solid chop to Atsumu’s kidneys. He shakes his head. “Eh, if anyone needs savin’, it’s Tsumu.”

Suna snorts. “I guess you’re right.”

They both watch, their steps slowing more and more until they’re barely moving, as Atsumu tilts his head to the side.

And then throws a smirk, wide and dripping of arrogance in a way that has Osamu’s left eyelid twitching, and Osamu narrows his eyes. Because he’s seen that expression on his brother’s face before; one time when Atsumu had tried to woo Kita, and then another time approximately five seconds after Atsumu had met Oikawa Tooru months prior.

Which can only mean one thing.

“He’s really flirting with Sakusa in the middle of the court, isn’t he?”

He sure as hell is.

“He’s embarrassin’ me, that’s what he’s doin’,” Osamu says and then decidedly looks away as he starts walking again. He barely resists the urge to start whistling. “If anyone asks me, I’m gonna pretend that I dunno who he is.”

“Will you now?” Suna asks.

“Wouldn’t ya do the same if ya were me?”

Suna lifts a hand. “Please don’t ever make me think about a hypothetical scenario in which I’m Atsumu’s hypothetical brother ever again. That’s weird, and gross. But if I were you, I’d know that it would be dumb.”

“Can’t be dumber than pointin’ at myself to say I’m related to that dumbass.” Osamu gestures to his right as if Suna can look through the wall of the gym to see Atsumu, his hand brushing Suna’s as he drops it again.

“Osamu.” Suna catches Osamu’s wrist, fingers hot on his skin, to make him spin around as if Osamu’s the protagonist of some romance story and he has all but a second to think that maybe this is his romance moment before Suna says, “You’re a dumbass too.”

“What the hell, Sunarin? Fuck off.”

“It’s not like I’m wrong.”

“Yer rude for no reason, that’s what ya are.”

“Yeah, yeah, love you too,” Suna says when they reach the locker room that has been reserved for the Inarizaki team and Osamu almost manages to trip over absolutely nothing because what. What? “You guys literally have the same face.”

Osamu can’t help but frown at the bags thrown across the floor at Suna’s comment, glancing into the mirror on his way by as he locates his own bag hanging off the edge of the bench in the last row to the right.

“Nah, yer a liar and ya know it,” Osamu says and spends exactly one second wrestling with the strap of the bag to untangle it before he’s able to open it and pull out two of his towels. “We really don’t look all that much alike, Sunarin.”

And that is the truth.

They might be twins, and identical ones at that, but if someone spends enough time with them, they’ll be able to find this out for themselves. Whereas Atsumu’s natural hair color is a dark shade of brown, Osamu’s is two shades darker and almost appears grey in the right lighting. Atsumu’s eyes are brown and Osamu’s are grey, which made picking their hair dye and colored contacts back then an easy thing.

When they were younger, there had been more differences, like the fact that Osamu’s face used to be a little longer and Atsumu’s cheeks used to be fuller, but by now, as they are in their third and final year of high school, they’ve grown into themselves and out of the minor differences.

Suna smiles at Osamu over his shoulder, one foot already on the tiled floor of the bathroom connected to the locker room, and just goes, “I know.”

By the time Suna makes it back out of the bathroom, everyone else has already finished getting dressed and left in the direction of their team bus. Even Atsumu has escaped the room already to do, again, God knows what, and Osamu feels something bubble up inside of him (warm and bright) when he finds that his and Suna’s roles are reserved and has him looking up from his phone.

Suna’s bag lands on Osamu’s legs that are stretched out over the bench, and Osamu doesn’t waste a second to pull Suna’s phone out of his pocket to hold it out before he wiggles his legs to throw off the sudden weight on them as Suna walks to the mirrors.

A glance at the time on his phone shows that it’s almost time for them to leave and a sign that they should most likely hurry up and be on their way, but all Osamu feels like doing is blink once.

The exhaustion from their game sets in, making his muscles ache and his bones heavy enough that he wouldn’t be surprised if he suddenly started to sink to their planet’s core.

“How do I look?” Suna asks as he turns around.

It prompts Osamu to lock his phone and put it away before he raises his head, only to feel his heart stop in his chest, just for the smallest of seconds.

Suna doesn’t look different from how he looks every day; wearing a dark shirt covered by their red team jacket, pants in the same color, his hair in it’s familiar messy shape.

Even the eyeliner that Suna must’ve applied now isn’t anything new, it’s nothing Osamu hasn’t seen before, but something about the way it enhances Suna’s eyes more under the harsh lighting above. It makes them more vibrant. It almost makes it impossible for Osamu to look away again.

And so he stops trying to.

Osamu holds Suna’s gaze, the knowledge of the fact that his question was more sarcastic than anything else clear to his tired being but the truth weighs down the tip of his tongue before it tumbles from his mouth in the form of a quiet, a more than raspy, “good.”

Suna blinks at him.

It frees Osamu from the spell he must’ve been under, makes it able for him to scratch the back of his neck as embarrassment makes itself known from how warm the tips of his ears grow. A faint splash of red becomes visible on Suna’s cheekbones, surprise bleeding into his gaze before he’s able to hide it.

“Ya always look good, Sunarin,” Osamu says, his voice sounding too loud to his own ears in the otherwise quiet room. “Don’t tell me that ya don’t know that yer beautiful.”

“No, I do.. I just.” Suna blinks again, then looks away. The color on his face becomes more visible like this, and it looks nothing short of fascinating. “I wasn’t expecting that, thank you.”

Osamu takes notice of Suna’s teeth biting down on his bottom lip, something that he knows isn’t quite a nervous habit but something close enough that Osamu chooses that today is not the he’ll tell Suna just how beautiful he is. It wouldn’t be the right place for a talk like this anyway.

He chooses to say something to lighten the mood instead and snorts. “Didja think i was gonna call ya ugly? Yer not Tsumu, but if ya really want me to—”

“Thanks but no thanks,” Suna says, finally looking back at him. His eyes are sharp again, the shock having disappeared and been replaced with something Osamu is more used to seeing. “I’m taking the compliment. Or, actually, I’m taking both of them since not being Atsumu seems like an accomplishment in itself.”

Osamu snorts, again, and opens his mouth to reply when Atsumu, as if summoned by the mention of his name like some sort of demon, bursts through the door. “Can ya stupid lovebirds hurry the fuck up already?” he asks, his voice almost carrying the words as if he’s singing. “Some of us wanna leave, y’know?”

Osamu takes a split second to notice that someone seems way too happy, even with the fact that they’ve won taken into consideration. He kind of wishes that Sakusa Kiyoomi had ripped off one of Atsumu’s arms to strangle him with it, just a little.

“That so?” Suna asks. He takes his time picking up his bag and hands Osamu his own, taking back his phone as he does. His hand brushing Osamu’s has sparks dancing down Osamu’s skin as if Suna is charged with electricity. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but weren’t you too preoccupied with hitting on Itachiyama’s ace to lead us off the court?”

“Shut yer rude mouth, Sunarin, whaddaya even know? Ya don’t know shit!” Atsumu turns around again, throwing his hands into the air. “Ya know what, fine! Take yer time and get left behind, see if I care.”

“Yer just gonna start cryin’ again if we actually get left behind.”

“And what do ya even know, Samu? Always talkin’ shit and sayin’ stuff that ain’t true.”

“I think you’re confusing your brother with yourself. Seeing someone with your face must confuse you a little.”

Atsumu looks over his shoulder and gasps as they walk out of the gym and into the cold evening air, not caring about the people that have to step out of his way as he keeps his eyes anywhere but the front. “Oh, so now yer teamin’ up on me?”

“Why’re ya actin’ as if that’s somethin’ new, dumbass?” Osamu asks.

Their team bus is standing a small distance away, its red and dark dye job barely visible from the distance. The parking lot is clearing out quickly, people walking into the direction of the nearest train station quickly in small groups and small, quiet conversations about today’s games are filling the air.

“Yer the dumbass!” Atsumu says and points at Osamu with a finger, as if to make clear whom he’s talking to. Osamu half wishes that his brother will stumble over his own feet and fall onto his ass. “Just watch me!”

Osamu isn’t sure what he’s supposed to watch Atsumu do, since his brother does nothing more but cross his arms behind his head and turn around again, but he shrugs it off for now as they continue to approach the bus.

A finger brushes his pinky when they’re only a couple of steps away from their destination, making Osamu feel as if someone had taken the sun and placed it inside of his chest when it wraps around his own. Suna removes his hand again a moment later, leaving only the heat of the faint touch behind, but Osamu doesn’t mind.

He tilts his head upwards to watch the sky, noticing that it has gone dark enough to make way for some of the stars to be visible, and he thinks that while they might be gorgeous, they will still never be quite as breathtaking as Suna’s eyes are.

Or, at least to Osamu.

When the doorbell rings early in the morning of the last Sunday they spend as high schoolers, Osamu immediately knows that there’s something going on.

The frown that appears on his face only grows in size as he chucks the dish towel in his hands (on the counter) and makes his way towards the door. As soon as he’s close enough to touch the doorknob, hears someone say, “Knock knock.”

Osamu’s eyebrows pinch as he spares another glance at the door before he opens it. “Sunarin?”

Seeing Suna isn’t a weird thing on it’s own and much less on a Sunday since Suna comes and goes how he pleases — neither Osamu or his mother (he conveniently forgets that Atsumu exists for a second) have anything against it because it’s a thing that just—happens, and Osamu will be the last person to complain about it.

Especially not when it’s a day like today. It means that Suna is here at the perfect time to try some of the new onigiri combinations Osamu has been experimenting with from the moment he opened his eyes a few hours ago.

Suna is perfect for this, and not only because he doesn’t scarf down his food like Atsumu does and only flips up his thumb as a review but also because Suna doesn’t shy away from the truth. And if there’s one thing that Osamu needs then it’s the cold, hard truth.

And to get some food into Suna, perhaps, because his stomach is rumbling loud enough that Osamu doesn’t have any problems locating the stomach the noise is coming from.

He also needs to find out what Suna’s even here for this early in the morning, when all he’s been doing is come around in time for lunch since they’ve gotten to know each other due to Suna sleeping very long, but one thing after another, right?

“No,” Suna says.

“Whaddaja mean no? Yer Sunarin, are ya not?”

“You’re literally supposed to ask who’s there.”

“I ain’t stupid,” Osamu says and then crosses his arms. He moves to lean against the doorframe but immediately decides against it when a ray of sun burns his retinas. “Who’s there?”

“Before you open the door.” Suna shakes his head, sending his messy hair flying around his face as disappointment (disappointment that’s so clearly fake that Osamu feels the urge to laugh) clouds his eyes. “Don’t ever say you’re not related to Atsumu ever again, you’re both awful at this.” He snorts. “So, can I come on?”

Osamu looks at Suna for a second, narrowing his eyes as he can’t find anything too obvious that screams a reason for Suna being here at him. Maybe, he thinks as he decides to say ‘fuck it’ to the sun and leans against the doorframe regardless of the sun or not, Suna just came here to spend time together.

And that—that is a thought that comes dangerously close to escalating like a small ball of snow rolling down a hill before suddenly tipping over a domino stone and setting an avalanche of reactions free.

All of them include Osamu’s face burning, as it always seems to do around Suna Rintarou, but he’s stopped caring about this, or hiding it from Suna, a long time ago.

“Dunno,” he says then and cocks his head to the side, a move that he’s seen Atsumu pull off often enough to be able to replicate it perfectly. “What if I close the door on yer face so ya can do yer joke again.”

Suna stuffs his hand into his jacket and takes a small step closer. “You wouldn’t do that.”

“I’m related to Tsumu.” Osamu grins. “Course I would, Sunarin.”

“So impolite, they grow up so fast.”

“Yer younger than me.”

“And taller,” Suna says as walks by Osamu a second after Osamu moves to the side.

Sparks dance along Osamu’s skin, making him feel like electricity’s been stuffed under his skin and flows along with the blood through his veins when Suna’s shoulder brushes his, faintly. “It ain’t even an inch.”

Suna kicks off his shoes in the genkan, shedding his jacket and putting it on the hanger right over Osamu’s. He’s apparently not able to see the hanger next to that one that’s completely empty, just like every time he comes over. It only takes a few seconds for Suna to locate the slippers he’s claimed as his own a long time ago, and only when he’s wearing them does he answer. “That inch can be important for volleyball.”

“Yeah, and the only people going pro here are ya and Tsumu. Ain’t no one’s gonna comment on my height when I got my own shop.”

“Are you sure about that?” Suna looks back over his shoulder, lids lowered and mouth curled up. “What if I’m in town?” He turns around to fully walk into the kitchen. “Oh, those look nice. Smell even better.”

Osamu follows him, always just a few steps behind him if ever, and takes a look at the kitchen. Plates are spread all over every flat surface, from the counters to the table connecting kitchen to dining room, and freshly made onigiri are placed on most of them. In the middle of the counter Suna is approaching now, a plate with three of the new ones Osamu’s been trying out waits for him. “Flattery ain’t getting ya anywhere, Sunarin.”

“It’s just the truth?” Osamu leans against the counter as Suna pouts. “Wait, really? That’s disappointing, really, Osamu. No feeding your guest? Not even when I’m an athlete and need to be fed properly?”

It takes more for Osamu to rip his eyes away from Suna’s pushed out bottom lip than he’d like to admit. He pretends that the tip of his ears aren’t slightly heating up and slides the plate for Suna closer to his friend. “Stop bein’ dramatic. When have I ever not given ya somethin’ to eat?”

“Oh, thank God. I thought I had to text your mom.”

Suna bites into the first onigiri then, chewing slowly, and Osamu watches him closely. It’s something he always does, especially with something he’s made himself without following an online recipe, to be able to catch Suna’s different expressions like someone would attempt to do with water between their cupped hands.

And Suna is always honest about what he’s thinking, there’s no walking around on eggshells with him and just the truth without it being nicely wrapped, and sometimes, though not always, Osamu is able to guess what is going on behind those sharp, golden eyes and—

Hold on.

Since when does Suna have the number of Osamu’s mother? And who’s responsible for that? Both of them are more than a little addicted to gossip, and Osamu’s already worried for his own health when he thinks about all of the things they could be talking about. Including him.

He’s about to ask Suna about it when Suna stops chewing and his eyes widen. An expression creeps on his face, something that Osamu hasn’t ever seen before but doesn’t mind looking at, before he swallows.

“Holy fuck, Osamu.” Suna takes another bite, looks down at the onigiri he’s holding and then at Osamu. “I’m never going to eat anything else ever again, this tastes so fucking good?”

“Yeah?” Osamu crosses his arms, picking up on the satisfaction and wonder on Suna’s face. It makes pride swell in his chest, to be the one that put that look on Suna’s face. “I know.”

Suna quickly eats the rest of his first onigiri and then grins. And it’s the kind of grin that’s weighed down by mischief and the kind of grin Suna usually sends Osamu before he pulls on Atsumu’s nerves — this means that Osamu tries to prepare for whatever is about to come out of Suna’s mouth and he absolutely isn’t, but is completely floored instead, when Suna says, “That’s a good look on you, you know.”

Osamu’s heart stops for a second. Then it starts beating again, this time faster than it had been before. A quiet “what?” falls from Osamu’s mouth, because, really, what.

“Confidence.” Suna wipes away a bit of rice from the corner of his mouth slowly enough that Osamu, who can’t help but watch Suna’s every move, feels that he’s dying. And that Suna is doing this on purpose. “Is this what you’ve been doing all morning?”

“Yeah,” Osamu says, clearing his throat when the word comes out raspy. “Gotta make use of the time Tsumu ain’t here to be productive.”

Because Atsumu would’ve descended upon those onigiri like a harp on its prey before they would’ve even been completely done.

“What about yer day, Sunarin?”

“I did the laundry and the dishes, cleaned the apartment, officially signed a contract with EJP Raijin and looked after my mother’s flowers since she’s coming into town next weekend.” Suna waves one of his hands around, the other one reaching for another onigiri. “The usual, you know?”

“Yeah, I know.” Osamu grabs a wet towel from the sink to remove the faint stain on the counter that’s been annoying him since he started cooking. “Got confused when ya turned up that early but if yer—”

The words die on his tongue as Suna’s own repeat in his head. And then again. And then again before their meaning and the weight of it slam into him like an eighteen wheeler, making him drop the towel again.

“Wait, what?”

“What?”

“What didja just say?”

Suna raises an eyebrow. “Forgetting things already, Osamu? I know you like to point out that you’re older than me, but come on.”

“I ain’t forgettin’ shit,” Osamu immediately argues back, though his voice comes out a little weaker than he’d usually argue back and his eyes haven’t left Suna even once.

Suna snorts, and then a smile grows on his face. The corners of his mouth turn up slowly, almost as if he’s shy, and it’s soft and nothing short of stunning. “I think you heard me correctly.”

“Oh my God,” Osamu says and then thinks it, once and then twice and again and again. He immediately rounds the counter, rushes to where Suna is standing to wrap his arms around Suna’s waist and squeeze him. There’s a noise near his ear, Suna snorting, and Osamu doesn’t even care about it because Suna wraps his arms around his shoulder and oh my God, his brother and his best friend are both going to be professional volleyball players and kick asses all over Japan.

Osamu remembers Suna saying that he wants to do this for as long as he can, playing volleyball, and about how much it means to him. It had been on a rainy Wednesday, the date burned into Osamu’s mind because Suna had fallen asleep with his cheek pressed against Osamu’s shoulder, and Osamu is filled with joy.

He absolutely can’t wait until he can point at Suna and Atsumu, if on the television or with him standing in the audience, to declare that he knows those guys. Yeah, it will be more than a little obvious with Atsumu but still.

“I’m so proud of ya, Sunarin.” Osamu squeezes Suna a little tighter, feels Suna squeeze back. “Ya got no idea.”

It’s then that he scoots back to look at Suna, even if Osamu wants to do nothing else than squeeze Suna again and to hold on to him a little longer. But then he sees the smile on his friends face, gone even softer than earlier, and how relaxed he seems and his eyes—

His eyes are shining, bright enough to rival the sun, and they look like something even more precious than molten gold and it’s then that Osamu notices that Suna’s whole person seems to shine.

And Osamu also notices that he’s so fucking gone for him and that he’ll probably ever will be.

He doesn’t mind this, however.

“Yer happy, ain’t ya?”

“Eh,” Suna says and then snorts and Osamu feels like his heart is going to melt right out of his body. “Yes, Osamu, I’m happy. I’m really happy.”

“Then I’m happy, too.” Osamu slides another plate of onigiri over the counter, watching as Suna delicately picks up the one he’s been holding before Osamu hugged him. “Ya know, confidence ain’t the only thing that looks great.”

“Oh?”

“Happiness does, too.”

Osamu sees the blush that dusts Suna’s cheeks and smiles at him, and he can hear his mother say, in the back of his mind as if it had been yesterday and not several years ago, that he should hold on to someone if they make him feel alive.

Hey, kaasan, he quietly says in his head, I think I will, for a long time.

The thought makes his own face heat up, and it stirs Osamu back into motion. He walks back around the counter to attack the stain again that refuses to leave and is okay with the silence that settles over them as Suna keeps trying onigiri and Osamu tries to sort out his head.

His phone dings after some minutes have passed, Atsumu’s name flashes over the screen with a new message and Osamu lets go of the dish towel again as he thinks. Atsumu isn’t at home, which means that there is absolutely no way to have heard what just happened and that, in return, means that he’s still absolutely clueless.

Right?

“Hey, Sunarin.”

“Yeah?”

“Tsumu doesn’t know yet?”

“No,” Suna says, lowering his onigiri. “You’re the first person I told, why?”

Osamu can feel the corner of his mouth twitch as he remembers how overjoyed Atsumu had been when he was the first and “only” one of the current third years on the Inarizaki team to be sighed right away after their last high school season.

Atsumu had also thrown that fact into other people’s faces, not to mean but because he was so proud of himself (Osamu would be lying if he said that he wasn’t proud of his brother), and had said something along the lines of, “suck it, ya losers!”

“He’s going to be furious,” Suna says then, as always able to put one and one together quickly and without a problem.

“Absolutely.” Osamu opens Atsumu’s message, which happens to be a selfie of him and someone that has to be Bokuto Koutarou with their cheeks mushed together and their faces pulled into grimaces, and shows it to Suna. “Especially if we wait for him to find out himself.”

“He’ll throw a temper tantrum.”

“Like some kinda five year old.”

“Then he’ll threaten to move out.”

“And then he’ll threaten to throw me outta the house and get scolded by kaasan.”

“He’s embarrassing us,” Suna says with a sigh, but it’s not something he says with malicious intent or just to be mean because he and Atsumu are good friends as well. He tilts his head to the side, eyes shining but for a different reason now. “You really want to keep this a secret for a little?”

Osamu crosses his arms and leans against the counter, the corner of it digging into his side. “Do ya not wanna do that?” Because, Osamu thinks, if Suna doesn’t want to do it, then Osamu won’t do it. It’s not his career, after all.

“No, I do. I’m just surprised you’re on board this quickly.”

“Payback for Tsumu grabbing me by the ankle to pull me outta the bed only to tell me that he and Sakusa Kiyoomi kissed.” Osamu rubs his lower back, where the point of impact still kind of hurts and definitely will turn blue. “Someone’s gotta tell him that it’s don’t kiss and tell and not kiss and tell everyone who ain’t asking.”

Suna lets out a snort, one that apparently makes him choke on a piece of rice because it transforms into a cough and then a laugh. It’s weirdly endearing to watch. “Oh, Osamu, you should just marry me instead of going to school again.”

And Osamu, sue him, can’t help the way his pulse starts racing again and the heat that rushes to his face. He’s sure that one of these days the constant blushing here and there will make him feel dizzy. “The hell are ya on about now?”

“What am I going to do without someone to shit talk Atsumu with? I’ll get lonely, terribly so. Do you know what happens when I’m lonely? And then get bored?”

Osamu does, actually, and it’s something he absolutely doesn’t want to think about more than he has to. A bored Suna is the reason why Atsumu poured dish soap over their mother’s roses in the garden two years ago, which ended with not only Atsumu but also Osamu grounded. Why he was the one who got punished for his brother’s actions, he still doesn’t know.

A bored Suna also managed to domesticate at least ten of the stray cats that had been living on the street Suna’s apartment is located in, and then he claimed that it happened by complete accident. Ten cats. Who are all living with him now.

“That ain’t gonna happen,” Osamu says. “Yer gonna find someone who talks as much shit and make friends like a good adult.” He leans closer, the counter digging more into his stomach, and taps the dark screen of Suna’s phone. “And if ya really get lonely, call me. Ain’t like I’m leavin’ the universe.”

“What if it’s in the middle of one of your classes?”

“I’ll walk out.”

“Or a date?”

“Funny, Sunarin.”

“What about three in the morning?”

“I’ll probably be up doin’ somethin’ boring like studyin’ anyway.”

“But what if—”

“Suna, don’t be a fuckin’ moron,” Osamu says and Suna shuts his mouth again. Osamu waits until Suna looks at him before he continues, with a lower voice now since he didn’t lean back again. “I don’ give a shit if I hafta walk out of a meeting with someone who wants to hire me. I’ll be there if ya need somethin’, ya hear me?”

Suna nods then, once, and Osamu only notices then just how close he leaned. Not because the counter digging into his body is slowly becoming painful (don’t get him wrong here, it is painful), but because one of Suna’s bangs brushes over his forehead.

His face burns a little more as he leans back again and blinks.

“So you don’t want to marry me?”

“Can’t,” Osamu says and nods at the rice that’s standing near the sink, still uncooked and waiting for him to open it. “Gotta make some more onigiri.”

“What about after?”

“Eat yer damn food, Sunarin.”

The first thing Osamu notices upon pulling himself out of the clasps of sleep is that he’s warm — that he’s, like, really warm and that especially the bottom half of his face seems to radiate heat. Heat that has nothing to do with the cold he has, which is something he realizes when there’s something soft brushing the skin of his chin.

The second thing he notices is that something bright, something that makes every inch of his exposed skin feel as if it’s wrapped up, is making the insides of his eyelids appear different shades of orange and red.

The third and final thing he notices is that there’s something under his arm. Under his right arm, to be specific, which Osamu must’ve thrown away from himself and over the hard.. something some time in his sleep. The said thing is harder than the mattress he lays on, and connected to whatever Osamu buried his face into.

It’s then when he feels it.

Something (and there seem to be a lot of those going on at this very moment) brushes through his hair, pushing it away from his forehead, and it feels good but Osamu is so fucking hot that he can’t help the noise, that sounds more than a little grumpy to his own ears, that escapes him.

“Good morning to you, too, sleepyhead,” a voice above him says, quiet enough that it doesn’t make the pounding that seems to have made itself a home inside of Osamu’s head worse. But it’s not quiet enough to hide the faint amusement it carries.

That’s a nice voice, Osamu thinks, and it truly is; it’s deep and smooth, like a hot knife cutting through butter in the middle of winter and it makes the back of Osamu’s neck tingle. It’s a thought that’s immediately followed by a sobering realization. What the fuck, I know this fucking voice.

And that is what prompts Osamu to open his eyes, his eyes that feel as if Atsumu had taken superglue to seal them shut like he’d once done with his fingers like the idiot he is, and then immediately has to close them again.

Holy fuck, his room is way too bright for what time it is.

The fact that Osamu doesn’t even know what time it actually is doesn’t matter much to him now; it feels like this kind of retina torture is wrong no matter if morning, noon, afternoon or evening.

An amused snort sounds from above Osamu as he buries the rest of his face into the thing that he now identifies as his blanket. “Fuck, I’d make fun of you for being so adorable but I don’t think I could do that without feeling bad about it.”

Osamu tries to say something along the lines of “shut yer mouth”, something that comes to him instinctual from living as long with Atsumu as he did during the first eighteen years of their lives, but he gets a mouthful of blanket when he does.

So he pulls his head back out of the blanket, and that is exactly when the realization that this is Suna who’s most likely speaking to him hits. He remembers Suna appearing some time last time when Osamu had felt like he was actively dying, but it had felt more like a dream than reality — like a fever induced hallucination, maybe, but apparently not.

“Rin,” Osamu manages to say, and thinks that if it happens to be someone else that they just have to deal with it, “turn that shit off.”

“I don’t have the kind of abilities I would need to turn off the sun, and I’m afraid that wouldn’t be a good thing either, Osamu.” There’s something brushing through Osamu’s hair again, most likely Suna’s fingers. “I’d shut the blinds but you kind of attached yourself to me after I came out of the bathroom. You’re kind of Koala gripping me. It’s very cute.” Another snort, and then Suna adds, “Would be cuter if I could actually feel blood rush through the lower half of my body.”

Those are a lot of words, way too many words for Osamu’s sick mind this early in the morning — and, yes, if he decides that it’s morning because he just woke up then that’s how it is — and so he just groans and presses his face into.. into what he now, with the help of Suna’s words, identifies as Suna’s side. And his arm is positively thrown over Suna’s long legs.

“It’s really impressive that you’re that strong, even while sick.” Suna puts his hand on Osamu’s forehead, his palm cool enough that it makes Osamu sigh. “What kind of stuff are they feeding you at the restaurant?”

“Nothin’,” Osamu says. “Minato-san’s much older than I am, he don’t got the kind of bones or strength to lift anythin’ and someone’s gotta carry in all those rice deliveries.”

“Rice, huh? I’ll keep that one in mind.”

For what exactly Suna’s going to keep that in mind when he’s a famous athlete, Osamu doesn’t know and doesn’t feel like asking. There’s a very small chance that Suna is just saying whatever comes to his mind, and a bigger one that he’s saying this for some kind of reason but Osamu is fine with not knowing for now.

Suna’s hand lifts from his forehead, the tips of his fingers running along Osamu’s temples light enough to resemble a feather brushing his skin. “Your fever broke during the night,” Suna says, his fingers moving into Osamu’s hair again. “You had me worried there for a second, you know? I was very close to calling Atsumu.”

“The horror,” Osamu says and then snorts. And that—that doesn’t even sound right to his own ears because he’s still congested and that’s just disgusting on a whole different level. “Tsumu would’ve straight up flown outta here. I don’t got the kinda nerves to deal with him when I’m sick.”

“I don’t have the kind of nerves to deal with him ever.”

Osamu makes a noise of agreement and then tries to open his eyes again, this time more successful than the last. He quints a little against his current view; his blanket, his arm thrown over Suna’s legs, the windows lining the wall opposite of him and the view of the world outside that’s dipped in golden light from the sun.

He blinks, his eyes getting more used to being open, and something tugs at his hair and Osamu looks up. And there he is, Osamu’s very own boyfriend.

Suna is sitting there, back leaning against the headrest with one hand holding his phone to do whatever Suna does when he’s not blackmailing others and with the other one playing with Osamu’s hair.

His dark hair is held back by a headband, brushing it out of his face to keep it from falling into his face and sticking to his skin that’s covered with a dark green substance. It kind of makes Suna look as if he’s trying to audition for the live action role for Shrek, but Osamu doesn’t even care about that.

Because Suna is looking at him, one side of his face thrown into shadows from the tilt of his head and his eyes bright and his mouth curled up into a smile soft enough to make Osamu feel like he’s melting.

God, he’s so very much in love.

“Yer beautiful.”

“And you’re sick.”

“Are ya implyin’ that I’m only sayin’ that cause I’m sick?” Osamu frowns for a second. He’s certain, even in his still clouded mind, that he’s called Suna that before. Multiple times, even, but maybe that too is one of the things that the cold has made him believe happened when it didn’t.

“No,” Suna says. His finger connects with Osamu’s forehead in the softest of flicks. “I thought we were stating the obvious.”

“Oh my God.” Osamu closes his eyes, feeling the subtle shake of Suna’s body when he chuckles. “Yer the worst, didja know that?”

“I thought I was beautiful?”

“Multitasking.”

“Oh?” Suna is raising one of his eyebrows at Osamu as soon as Osamu decides that he has to look at Suna again. “Impressive, aren’t I?”

He is. Always has been, really, or at least to Osamu; from the moment he met Suna Rintarou at the age of fifteen up until now Osamu has really done nothing but think that the other one is impressive. Apart from falling in love, slowly and then all at once. “Ya got no idea, Rin.”

“I think I do.” Suna smiles at Osamu then, quiet and small and with a heartbreaking softness that’s reflected in his eyes. “Thank you. You’re beautiful, too.”

“Okay, now I know yer just lyin’ to me. I look disgustin’.”

“Disgustingly beautiful.”

“I can’t stand ya, actually. Dunno why I put up with ya and yer bullshit.”

“Well, now that’s a lie.”

“Yeah, yeah, ya know it is.” Osamu’s arm lifts from Suna’s legs to blindly smack the mattress behind him when something that has to be his phone starts vibrating with an intensity that has Osamu thinking that the whole building is shuddering for a moment. He sees Atsumu’s name flash over the screen and snorts when he opens the incoming messages. “Ya indirectly called Tsumu beautiful, ya know that?”

me but ugly 9:32 AM

samu i think i’m dyin

like

actively passin away

tell kaasan i love her and give my stuff to bokkun

see ya in hell

 

me 9:33 AM

stop being dramatic, it’s just a cold

ya ain’t dyin’ from that

but ya will pass if ya keep whining and sakusa-san finally snaps

 

me but ugly 9:35 AM

nah, omi’s actually playin my carin and loving nurse and givin me kisses and stuff

ya wish ya were me, dontcha

hold on. wait a minute

how didja know it was a cold

 

me 9:35 AM

:)

 

me but ugly 9:35 AM

WHAT THE HELL SAMU YA FUCKIN DEMON

YA GSVE ME ACOLD TO RUIN MY LIFR THROUGH TWIN TELEPATHY

WJATS WRNG WITH YA

“I’m taking it back,” Suna says as Osamu locks his phone again and decides to ignore anything else that Atsumu might send after that. When he looks up, Suna is staring at the wall near the door with wide eyes before he glances down at Osamu. “You’re right, you do look disgusting.”

“Told ya.” Osamu closes his eyes, exhaustion suddenly making him feel like he’s about to sink through the mattress and as Earth’s gravitational pull has been multiplied by.. a lot. “I ain’t takin’ mine back, though. Yer, like, really gorgeous.”

The fact that Suna is currently wearing a face mask in the color of Shrek if one were to mash the ogre into goo doesn’t change the fact. It also doesn’t soften the blow of Suna’s breathtaking appearance, not that anything ever could.

Suna leans down then and Osamu can feel him brush away the hair from his forehead before lips connect with the patch of skin between Osamu’s eyebrows. His lips brush over Osamu’s forehead when he says, “I adore you, did you know that?”

“Hell yeah,” Osamu says, and his words start to slur despite his best efforts to stay awake a little longer to make it possible for him to enjoy Suna’s company a little longer. To make it possible for him to bathe in Suna’s attention for just another few minutes. “But ya gotta say it all the time now, what if I start missin’ ya and get lonely?”

It’s a throwback to something Suna had asked him once in a joking manner, standing in the kitchen of the Miya household on a Sunday morning. And even though it had been about something slightly different, Osamu knows that Suna remembers.

“I don’t mind saying it as much as you want to hear it.”

Osamu doesn’t have the chance to voice his thoughts, about how Suna is going to regret saying that when Osamu gets too greedy and asks all the time, before he loses his fight and feels himself getting pulled back into the darkness of sleep. He manages to throw his arm back over Suna’s thighs and press his face against the soft material of the shirt Suna is wearing just in time before he falls asleep.

When he wakes back up again, the sunlight is dimmed. A glass filled with fresh water is positioned on his bedside table with painkillers laying next to it. Osamu’s forehead, and the spot Suna had pressed a kiss against hours ago, is still burning faintly.

One thing about Osamu that not everyone knows is that he loves space.

He always has, really. It never stopped to fascinate him, the knowledge of other planets with their own individual and at times strange traits to make them nothing but unique. It’s unlimited beauty just plays into his love, even if space is nothing but deadly and dangerous — and when people say that danger is interesting and exciting, they’re right.

His mother had bought both him and Atsumu a telescope when they had been younger (because, fun fact: the love of the universes beyond theirs and the unlimited and unexplored worlds out there is something Osamu and his brother share), and Osamu remembers how much time they’ve spent looking through it and pointing out stuff to each other.

The first time Osamu had been able to see Saturn through it is something he doesn’t think he’ll ever forget.

He spends a moment thinking about the messages Atsumu sends him when something mildly interesting in space happens, and about the telescope that Atsumu took with him to the MSBY dorms. Osamu doesn’t mind that Atsumu is the one who has it now, he’s glad that at least one of them will be able to look after it.

“What do you want to show me again?”

“Betelgeuse,” Osamu says, the word falling from his mouth instantly when he gets pulled out of his thoughts. He squints a little at the setting sun, at the vibrant colors it throws on the horizon before it’ll eventually turn dark enough and allow them to view the stars. “A red supergiant. One of the most luminous stars in the sky.”

There’s also a meteorshower that’s supposed to happen, one they’ll be able to follow from where they are perfectly and one that’ll look magical enough that Osamu will be left doubting if he’s actually alive for a second. But that one is still a surprise.

“Don’t we need a telescope for that?”

“Nah, it’s easy to make out with yer naked eye if ya know what yer lookin’ for.” Osamu closes his eyes for a second, lets the rays of the sun dye the inside of his eyelids. “Ya can see Venus, Mars and Fomalhaut, too, if ya know where they’re supposed to be.”

“Just my luck that you’re a little space nerd, huh?” Suna says and then presses his arm into Osamu’s, sending shivers down Osamu’s back and making warmth spread through his chest. “I don’t mean this in a bad way, you know. The fact that you know so much about this when your work has nothing to do with space is impressive. It’s cute. I like it.”

That’s, well, that’s surely something to hear. Something that makes Osamu’s insides feel like mush and like his chest has been carved out enough for Suna to place the entire mass of the sun inside of it.

It’s something good to hear, undoubtedly, and Osamu doesn’t think he will ever be able to find the words to verbalize how this makes him feel. How much more he adores Suna with every day that passes, as if the sky isn’t the limit because there doesn’t seem to be one.

“Thanks,” Osamu says and rubs the back of his neck with his hand when his ears get hot — a move that Osamu hasn’t grown out of and one that he knows he most likely never will, not with Suna around. He catches Suna’s hand when Suna raises it, probably to flick Osamu’s hot ear, and squeezes it once before letting go again. “I was thinkin’ about workin’ as an astrologist, didja know that?”

“I did not.” Suna leans his back against the railing of the roof, his eyes staring into Osamu’s soul and Osamu can’t do anything else but look and look and look. “You never told me.”

“Didn’t think it was that important.”

“It is, though,” Suna says, tilting his head. “Of course it is, Osamu. Why didn’t you?”

“Eh.” Osamu shrugs, lowers his eyelids and doesn’t resist it when the corners of his mouth inch upwards. “Too much work.”

“And they call me lazy. Wait until I tell the world that my boyfriend is even worse.”

“And the secrecy.” Osamu tips his foot forward to bump the front of his shoe against Suna’s, lifting his foot when Suna tries to straight up kick him into oblivion. “Could’ve found alien planets and not been allowed to tell anyone. Imagine that.”

“Would you have told me?”

“And got ya into danger? Don’t be silly, Rin.”

Suna looks up from where he’s been staring at Osamu’s shoe, with no doubt quietly planning how to get back at Osamu for the lightest of kicks he received a second earlier, and his eyes are bright and filled with amusement and something that reminds Osamu of the childish excitement he has seen on the faces of some of his former teammates. “Do you think aliens are real?”

Osamu raises his eyebrow before he looks up. The sun isn’t completely gone yet, but a small part of the sky is already starting to bleed from reddish orange into dark blue and it’s dark enough that some stars, and the moon especially, become visible already. “Pretty sure that’s a question for three in the morning. Course they are, I ain’t selfish enough to think they don’t exist and aren’t smart enough to stay the hell away from us.”

“They probably gossip about how stupid we are all the time.”

“For sure, just gotta wait until they’ve had enough and come for us.”

“I wouldn’t be worried about that,” Suna says and then snorts when Osamu just looks at him because what the fuck does that even mean, why wouldn’t people be worried about that? “Have you seen how many people are into Venom? Like, into Venom? Just let them at the aliens to produce human-alien offspring and let them bond with the aliens. And then boom! Aliens might feel bad.”

What, Osamu thinks and blinks. Because, really, what the actual fuck Suna. He’s rendered completely speechless for a second, a long second that he spends looking at Suna and drinking in his appearance. His pulse races, loud enough that he doesn’t have a problem hearing it.

His chest flutters, as if someone had put a hummingbird inside of it and Osamu is in love. He’s so fucking in love that he feels an electric touch all the way down to the tips of his fingers and as if he could straight up grow his own wings and fly away.

“So,” Suna says, voice quiet and soft. He raises his hand, this time not to flick Osamu’s ear but to point at the sky above them. “Do you know what those three stars are?”

“Orion’s Belt.” Osamu puts his own hand up, finger stretched out to point at the same line of stars. “Like I said, some of them are easy to find and ya can actually use them to locate other constellations or planets.” He moves his finger down a bit, sees Suna follow his movement with his eyes, and continues, “that’s Orion’s Sword, and the one in the middle is Orion’s Nebula.”

“Tell me about Nebulas?”

“They’re where stars are born, ya know,” Osamu says. “And stars shine for a few billion years and then eventually snuff out and die.”

“Well, that’s kind of depressing.” Suna lets out a huff that isn’t quite a laugh but a sound of amusement nonetheless when Osamu snorts. With the finger that’s still raised, he moves from star to star and it takes Osamu longer than he’d like to admit to stop staring at it before he knows what Suna is doing. “Hey, what’s that square?”

“Those are Rigel, Bellatrix, Saiph and Betelgeuse, the one I wanted ya to see in the first place.” Osamu looks at it, at how much brighter than some of the other stars in the sky that are already visible it is, at how it twinkles through the effect of their planet’s atmosphere. “It’ll actually die soon and explode in a supernova that’ll be visible for everyone to see. It’s gonna look like we got two suns instead of one.”

“It’ll die soon?” Suna repeats, taking a step closer to Osamu to press his entire side against Osamu’s. “You brought me here to look at a dying star. That’s very romantic.”

“Shut yer trap, soon can mean tomorrow or in a million years. Just because it’s dyin’ doesn’t mean that it ain’t pretty to look at.”

“I know, I appreciate it a lot. I mean it,” Suna says, and then finally looks away from the sky, his eyes finding Osamu’s instantly because Osamu has done barely anything else than look at Suna. “I probably shouldn’t hold my breath, then.”

“Ya probably shouldn’t.”

Suna snorts, lets some of his weight fall against Osamu in a move totally unexpected. It makes Osamu stumble to the side for the second it takes him to find his balance again after that, and then Suna walks to the railing again, putting his hands on it to look at the streets below.

God, Osamu thinks again and maybe it’s a little blasphemous to think it, again and again, when he doesn’t believe in God but there’s nothing else he can think in this moment because—

Osamu is so absolutely in love with Suna Rintarou that it’s ridiculous.

And he can’t—he can’t stop fucking looking at Suna as Suna tilts his head back to watch the sky again and Osamu is soaring through the air, falling closer to the ground without being worried for the impact because then he’s flying and Suna is the wind under his wings.

“Yer beautiful.”

The words are out of Osamu’s mouth before he decides to say them out loud, cutting through the silence that has begun to settle around them gently, like fingers gliding through still water. He didn’t mean to say them now, didn’t mean to let that be what gets Suna’s attention again other than his staring, but it doesn’t mean that Osamu minds or that it makes his words any less true.

Suna is beautiful, always and anywhere but especially now when the rays of the setting sun still reach and hit him. He’s beautiful from the tips of his chocolate colored hair over to his face that has gone soft, the gentle curve of his mouth, his lashes that throw long, dark shadows over his sharp cheekbones all the way to his eyes, glowing like diamonds made out of gold when they focus on Osamu.

He’s beautiful in the same way the sky is right now as the light of the sky vanishes and the last, radiant colors disappear from the canvas that makes up the horizon.

“Oh?” The corners of Suna’s mouth — another thing about Suna that makes him look like nothing but a piece of art crafted by divine hands — curl up, amusement hidden in the small dimples on his cheeks. “Flattery will get you nowhere, Osamu.”

“That’s okay.” Osamu shrugs, lets his eyes stay on Suna’s as he walks a few steps to be next to him and just breathes in his presence like air. “I ain’t tryin’ to go anywhere. I’d rather stay here and enjoy the view for a little longer.”

“That so?” It’s a murmur, a question not loud enough to be aimed at Osamu, and so he just keeps standing where he is, looking at Suna and seeing him while Suna looks back and sees him in return.

And when there are fingers pushing between Osamu’s after only a couple of seconds have passed, fitting in the space like a puzzle piece finding another one, then that’s perhaps just how it’s meant to be.

Here’s something that no one would guess from sparing nothing more than a short glance at Suna Rintarou: he likes to cook, and he’s actually quite skilled at it.

Growing up with a mother that single handedly raised two children in different age groups and managed to work full time simultaneously meant that Rintarou not only learned how to do everything around the house and around it from a young age on, but it also meant that he had to look after his younger sister every now and then (not that he minded babysitting her), which, of course, included cooking for Aiko.

And when Rintarou moved away from his mother and sister to visit Inarizaki and join their volleyball team, with his mother visiting at every single chance that she got to make sure he was alright, his then amateur cooking got even better.

The fact that he gradually grew into enjoying it along the way, enough that it affected his cooking and meals in a way that made them taste even better than before, had been nothing but a blessing.

So, yes, Rintarou would say that he’s a good cook, maybe even better than average and definitely better than Atsumu, but this doesn’t mean that there’s no one in the world who’s better than him. Well, he honestly considers himself to be way more skilled than about ninety percent of the people he knows, kitchen wise, but there’s one person Rintarou could never compete against.

And, honestly, Rintarou thinks with his cheek pillowed on one of his palms as his eyes move around the kitchen to follow the person walking from one spot to the next, why would he want to? It’d mean he would miss the way the muscles on Osamu’s back moving with the rest of his body, visible through the tight shirt he’s wearing, and that’d be more than a shame.

It doesn’t even matter that Rintarou has a whole folder on his phone, tucked away in the smallest corner of his gallery where not even the snooping noses of Atsumu or Motoya could ever find it, dedicated to his boyfriend — he doesn’t think that anything will ever compare to seeing all of his in real life.

Pictures can only capture that much, even with technology as far as it is now, and the tight fit of Osamu’s shirt around his biceps and waist just look so much better now and Rintarou would be in so much trouble if pictures could look like this and—

Wait a second, Osamu’s chest?

Rintarou lets his eyes travel up, over the black fabric of Osamu’s shirt that is way closer than it had been a second ago with Osamu and quickly tips his head back to look directly into his boyfriend's face. Well, either Osamu just teleported through the entire kitchen or Rintarou zoned out while ogling him.

The frown on Osamu’s face melts into a grin, which tells him that it's definitely not the first one. Which is something Rintarou could’ve guessed on his own, he thinks he would’ve noticed if Osamu had the ability to disappear from one point and appear somewhere different.

Right?

Right, he would’ve.

Definitely.

“Hello,” Rintarou says, and his voice comes out way too loud in the otherwise quiet kitchen. It would make him cringe if Rintarou wasn’t the absolute best in keeping his face straight. Or, well, maybe blank is the better choice of words here. “Can I help you?”

“Hello.” Osamu snorts, the front of his hat throwing a shadow on the top half on his face that does nothing to hide how bright his grey eyes are. “That’s what I wanna know, Rin.”

“What?”

“I asked ya if ya could hand me the salt,” Osamu says, his arm shooting out to grab said ingredient. He holds it up then, shakes it a little bit, as if this is the first time Rintarou has ever seen salt. “But ya didn’t seem to hear me.”

“I did hear you,” Rintarou says, which is an absolute lie since he didn’t even notice Osamu coming closer until the very last second and probably only snapped out of his, admittedly, very gay trance when Osamu just.. stood there.

“Didja now?”

“Yeah, you were asking me about the salt.”

“And ya didn’t answer why?”

“Maybe I wanted you to come here?” Rintarou blinks at Osamu before he narrows his eyes, throwing his own smile back at his boyfriend. “Ever thought about that?”

“Ya could’ve just asked me to come here,” Osamu says and then looks down at his shirt, smoothing nonexistent wrinkles out of it before he pats the onigiri sign on it. “Ya were lookin’ at my shirt, yeah? Nothin’ wrong with it, right? I thought it looked good. Tsumu even said it looks good.” Osamu’s eyes widen. “Fuck, that’s it. I shouldn’t’ve listened to Tsumu, he got no idea what looks good and what doesn’t, he walked around with hair the color of p—”

Rintarou reaches out to cover Osamu’s mouth before Osamu can talk himself into being more stressed than he already is. Osamu’s lips are soft and warm underneath Rintarou’s palm, momentarily distracting him from what he wants to say.

“Osamu, stop. Look at me.” He uses his other hand to flick the underside of Osamu’s chin. “Your shirt is just fine, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with it. It looks good, and I was thinking about how much I’d like to have it. That’s why I was staring, okay?”

Osamu takes a breath and nods. Then he takes another one and Rintarou narrows his eyes when he feels Osamu purse his lips, as if he’s kissing Rintarou’s palm. It’s disgustingly cute, and Rintarou loves it.

“Ya want one of those shirts?” Osamu tugs at it, enough to make it stretch away from his stomach. “I got some more upstairs, ya can have as many as ya wanna.”

“Would be good advertisement, to have ya walk around with them,” Osamu adds before Rintarou has a chance to reply anything and Rintarou wants to bang his head against the counter he’s sitting by — which he absolutely can’t since Osamu had cleaned it three times already.

“Mhm,” Rintarou hums, lifting his hand to flick the underside of Osamu’s hat. “What if I want your shirt, though?”

“Well, ya can’t have that.” Osamu frowns and Rintarou would think that he was seriously disappointed in something, but Rintarou has known and studied Osamu’s body language enough to immediately know he isn’t being genuine. “We’re in the middle of a kitchen, that’d be unsanitary, Rin.”

A wave of affection for Osamu crashes over Rintarou, unfiltered and raw with the intensity of a massive wave hitting the bottom of a cliff hard enough to make the earth shudder with it.

“Stop hitting on me,” Rintarou says, letting his eyes wander over the sparkling counter tops of the kitchen and the clean surface of the stove that shines under the harsh light they’re objected to. “I have a boyfriend, you know?”

“That so?”

“Yeah, maybe you’ve heard of him. He cooks a lot, nerds out over space, constantly fights with his brother, had dyed hair and feels obligated to pet every cat and dog he sees on the streets.”

“Yer boyfriend sounds like a fuckin’ loser.”

“He is,” Rintarou says and then laughs when Osamu pulls his eyebrows together in another frown, this time accompanied by a pout that’s just.. terribly endearing. “But he’s the coolest loser I know. I love him dearly.”

Osamu covers his face with one hand, his palm making the sigh he lets out sound as if he’s trying to blow a raspberry on himself. “God, Rin, yer such a fuckin’ dork.”

“Yeah, and you’re dating that dork.”

“Sure am.” Osamu frees his face again, using his palm to turn around his hat — and, well, that is certainly a look that makes Rintarou’s heart race as if it’s trying to escape his chest — before he puts his hands on the counter, successfully caging in Rintarou. He leans closer then, close enough that his breath fans over Rintarou’s face when he says, “I ain’t complainin’, though.”

And Rintarou—God, Rintarou is weak for this man, has been for the longest time, and he does want to kiss Osamu, he wants to kiss him so badly that it makes his lips tingle with anticipation, but he knows that one kiss will leave him wanting another one and then another one. And that’d be a problem, especially today.

So Rintarou does the responsible thing and covers Osamu’s mouth with his hand, for the second time. “We’re in the kitchen, Osamu,” he says, throwing Osamu’s own words back at him and not holding back the smirk that wants to grow on his face. “That’s unsanitary.”

Osamu groans and puts his forehead on Rintarou’s shoulder. Then he lifts it again, his fingers finding Rintarou’s side without a problem to pinch him.Infuriatingly, he evades the kick Rintarou levels at him effortlessly. “I hate ya,” he says, walking back to the other side of the kitchen. “Should start wearin’ my Kiss The Cook apron everywhere.”

“Absolutely not,” Rintarou says, going back to leaning on the counter. “You’ll forget that you’re wearing it and walk outside with it, and I can’t have just everyone kissing you, now can I?”

“Perhaps not.” Osamu walks to the doors separating the kitchen from the front of the store and puts one hand on it. His hat is still on backwards, and it probably makes it all the easier for him to lean forward a little to peek outside. Osamu’s voice isn’t louder than a whisper when he says, “Holy shit.”

It only takes two long strides for Rintarou to be at Osamu’s side, and it doesn’t take more than a gentle nudge for him to make Osamu move over. He copies Osamu’s moves, putting his hand on the door and pushing the tiniest bit to make it open, and takes a look at the front.

He glances past the tables and chairs that have been cleaned earlier, past the onigiri that are sitting near the front counter and the other ingredients that line it and all the way to the big mirrors that allow him to look outside without a problem.

And that’s when Rintarou’s breath hitches, despite his best effort to be quiet it’s still something Osamu definitely hears, and his heart stops, for just a moment, before it begins to pound.

Something that Osamu had been worried about in the weeks and then days leading up to the official opening of Onigiri Miya was that not a lot of people, maybe only a handful, or no one at all would show up. Rintarou had done his best to hush those thoughts, because Osamu was an excellent cook and if people were too dumb to come and try his food, then it was their loss.

But it’s only now that he realizes that this is the only thing that can completely snuff out those negative thoughts.

The place in front of the restaurant isn’t empty and it isn’t filled with only a handful of people. No, instead there’s a whole line of people waiting outside, peeking inside with excitement and interest on their faces. Some of them look hungry, and as if they’ve been hungry for a longer time, but instead of walking away, they stay in line and wait.

Rintarou can make out four figures at the very beginning of the line and despite their best efforts to look normal and hide any features that reveal their identities (wool hats pulled over their heads, big sunglasses that cover the top half of their faces on their noses with dark jackets thrown over their shoulders), he has no problem to easily know who they are.

Happiness fills him, happiness accompanied by pride and something else, something quieter and more vulnerable.

Well, who would’ve thought that Atsumu would show up here and bring Sakusa Kiyoomi, Bokuto Koutarou and Hinata Shouyou with him? And much less that all three of them agreed to wear.. that.

Rintarou pulls back from the door again, unlocking his phone and looking at the time. There’s only about a minute left until Onigiri Miya officially opens and when he looks up, the nervous energy that had surrounded Osamu all morning is gone and it’s as if it had never been there.

Maybe Rintarou owes Atsumu something, because he’s sure that this can be perfectly traced back to the twins’ telepathic connection that both of them claim doesn’t exist.

There’s a smile on Osamu’s face when he turns his hat back around and takes a breath, and his eyes are bright enough to rival the glow of the stars Osamu adores so much. If someone were to ask Rintarou, he’d say that the stars never had anything on Osamu. Nobody does, though, and so he keeps this little thought to himself.

But what he doesn’t keep to himself is this: “Holy fuck, Osamu, you’re gorgeous.”

What he doesn’t keep to himself is this: the truth.

It makes Osamu turn to him, the smile growing in size and blinding Rintarou but Rintarou doesn’t mind — if looking at the sun burns his retinas, looking at Osamu right now burns Rintarou from the inside out in the best way possible.

“Rin,” Osamu says, the name rushing out of him with an exhale and he looks at the closed doors again. “I’m—I think—it’s—”

“I love you. I know,” Rintarou says and puts his hand on Osamu’s shoulder to squeeze it, curling his fingers into the material for a second before he pushes Osamu a step forward. “Go, open up.”

And then Osamu throws him another glance over his shoulder before he pushes the door open, excited murmurs of the crowd and a cheer that sounds like Atsumu washing in from the outside and Rintarou is—he’s so proud of Osamu that he can barely think about it without feeling like his eyes will start filling with tears.

A moment later, Rintarou takes his own deep breath and then follows Osamu, like he’d always done and will keep doing, for as long as he can.