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“Happy Valentine’s Day!”
Osamu has officially lost track of how many times he’s heard that today. Every store he’s walked into it’s been his greeting and his goodbye. It’s strange, because when he stepped into a coffee shop to get himself a chai earlier that morning, no one had said anything to him besides “Can I please take your order?” and “Have a nice day!”
What is going on?
“Where to next?” Suna asks him as they leave the clothing store empty handed.
“I’m thinkin’ we check one last place and then lunch. ‘M starvin’.”
He leads the way, pushing the door open with his shoulder, and Suna reaches above his head to open it all the way. As they leave, he hears the cashier whisper “They were so cute! ” to her coworker.
Huh. That was weird.
Osamu shakes his head. No. There’s no way. She was probably just complimenting their looks. He and Suna don’t even look like they could be a couple. Do they?
He squints at Suna, who is scrolling on his phone as they walk, somehow managing to pay attention to the alarming amount of people on the sidewalk at the same time. Green eyes shift to the side and Suna raises an eyebrow at him.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Nothin’,” Osamu mumbles.
“Hmm. You’re lying, but okay. Let’s check here?”
They walk into the last clothing store, Suna once again holding the door open for him, and Osamu immediately heads to the pants section, eager to avoid any sort of store clerk now that he’s aware of this weird…phenomenon? Can it be called that? Is it a coincidence? A situation? It’s definitely a nuisance, whatever it is.
Suna is wandering somewhere behind him, occasionally grabbing ugly resort shirts and holding them up in the mirror.
“Hey,” he calls out. “Think I should buy this?”
It’s a neon green resort shirt with pockets on both sides, and little pink flamingos balancing on surfboards decorating the fabric. It’s ugly. And way too small for Suna, who has broad shoulders and a long torso.
“Looks hot,” Osamu calls back.
“So that’s a yes?”
“It’s a no,” he laughs. “Yer a menace, y’know that?”
Suna smiles back. “Of course. I think I’ll buy this for Sakusa. And get Komori one to match.” He thinks for a moment. “I wonder if Kita-san would actually wear one of these.”
Osamu shakes his head and continues searching for pants, absently feeling the fabric of each article of clothing and scanning the size. He isn’t a fan of shopping for this exact reason; he has very little patience. Searching for clothes needs patience, waiting on line needs patience, and Osamu doesn’t have enough to spare.
“How about these?”
Suna shows off a pair of dark sweats, bringing them up to Osamu’s waist and holding them up with his hand, fingers gripping Osamu’s hip. He eyes him up and down, imagining what they might look like on him. Osamu tries to not let his face flush and grabs the pants.
“They’re perfect, let’s go,” he forces out. Suna doesn’t notice his struggle and readjusts the three shirts on his arm.
“Don’t tell me you're actually buying one of those for yourself?”
“I can pull it off,” Suna pouts. “You said it was hot.”
“I was kiddin’, Sunarin,” he laughs as they step up to the register to pay. “I mean- ya could probably pull it off but- why ?”
“I like a challenge,” he shrugs in response.
A challenge in the form of a pale orange and bright green resort shirt. Osamu shakes his head and pulls out his wallet, eager to stop shopping and start eating.
They’re walking away, bags in hand, when he hears:
“Oh, Happy Valentine’s Day you two! Have a good one!”
What the fuck.
“Thanks!” Suna calls back. “You too!”
Osamu whips his head towards Suna.
“Did you just… say you too? Did you thank them?”
“Uh yeah?” Suna peers at Osamu’s face, tugging his dark hair lightly. “Are you doing okay there? Did the shopping break your brain?”
“N-No, but. Suna. They wished us Happy Valentine’s Day !”
“Yeah. Because it’s Valentine’s Day. Osamu, normally I’m on your wavelength, full speed, but I have to say you lost me this time.”
Is Osamu overreacting? Maybe. Is he going to stop? He could. It would be so easy. He could laugh it off, even blame the shopping like Suna had given him the chance to do. But something in his brain tells him that he would be losing if he does that. Losing what, he had no clue. But he’s not a loser.
Suna is still looking at him like he’s lost his mind, and that kind of hurts his feelings, so Osamu decides to make a tactical retreat for now. Suna may not get his point now, but he’s sure someone else will tell them Happy Valentine’s Day before they go home and part ways. And then Suna will have no choice but to see what Osamu means.
Lunch is at this colorful, greasy looking place. On the table, next to the salt and condiments holder, is a little box of cards with trivia on it. Osamu runs his finger along the ridge of the paper cards, grimacing when it comes away sticky. He grabs a napkin and wipes it on the side of his glass of water, using the condensation to dampen the tissue and wipe his hand clean.
After they’ve ordered their food, Suna reaches for one of the trivia cards, careful to not touch the edges, and reads it out.
“What is the name for a group of toads?”
“Uh. I dunno, a trip? Toadstool?” Suna shakes his head no. “Toadette? Mario Party!”
“Osamu,” he snorts, “that’s not even close. This is trivia, not word association.”
“Yeah, my bad,” Osamu rubs the back of his neck, “so what’s the answer?”
“A knot.”
“Nothing about a group of toads screams knot,” he scowls, ready to go on a rant, but the waitress comes by with their food, which easily sets his mind on the path of eat now, think later. Suna, probably already used to his ways, digs into his own food and they eat in a comfortable silence. As they’re gathering their bags and cleaning up any mess on the table, the waitress comes back with the check, which they agree to split. It’s such an easy, normal interaction that Osamu forgets. For a moment, it’s a regular Tuesday and he’s just hanging out with his friend. But then the waitress comes by to see them off and he remembers .
“Happy Valentine’s Day! I hope y’all enjoy the rest of your day,” she says with a bright smile and a wink. A smile! And a wink of all things!
Osamu gapes, eyes wide, and ignores the strange look Suna gives him as he pushes him forward and out the door, thanking the waitress on their way out.
“Osamu?”
“It happened again!” He yells, once again ignoring any strange looks he receives from the people around him. He’s past the point of caring.
“And what would this ‘it’ be?” Suna asks patiently.
“She said ‘Happy Valentine’s Day’ to us.”
“Is it not February 14th? I don’t see what your deal with people saying Happy Valentine’s Day is.”
“It’s not an issue,” because it’s not. It’s just weird. Valentine’s Day is a couple’s thing, isn’t it? And he and Suna aren’t a couple. Not that Osamu doesn’t want to be a couple, it’s just that they aren’t. A couple, that is.
“So? What is it?” Suna presses.
“All those people were wishing us a good holiday because they thought we’re a couple. And, well, we aren’t,” he glances over and is met with an unreadable look. “We aren’t,” he says more firmly, “so it’s just a little. Weird. I guess.”
“Weird,” Suna drawls.
“Not weird to be dating you! I didn’t mean that,” he rushes to correct, because that’s not at all what he meant. “Weird that other people look at us and just assume we’re a couple.”
Suna’s face hasn’t changed much, but he looks more contemplative than anything. So he’s not upset or offended. That’s good. But he’s definitely bothered, given the three minutes of silence that’s filled the space between them since Osamu opened his stupid mouth. He’s in the middle of debating whether he should speak up to tell Suna to forget the whole thing when finally the other man says something.
“So would you be less weirded out if we were a couple?”
What. What?
“Um.”
“You just said that’s what’s bothering you about this whole thing, right?”
“I mean, yeah,” he coughs, “but. Ya can’t just suggest we…date out of nowhere like that!”
“Is it really out of nowhere?” Suna wonders quietly to himself. Osamu hears him though, and he wants to scream. Whether it’s out of joy or frustration, he doesn’t know. It can’t be that easy.
It cannot.
There’s no way.
If it’s that easy, then what were all of those years of pining for? The secretive glances? The fleeting touches? The days like today where they went on dates that weren’t really dates because they were just friends?
“Ah, I lost you again. Come on.” Suna grabs his arm and pulls him towards the street corner, crossing the street as soon as the light turns red. Osamu lets himself be tugged until they reach the other side, absentmindedly sliding out of the other man’s grip, but not his space.
Is it really that easy?!
“I’ll take your silence as a ‘no’. Which is cool, by the way. No hard feelings. Well, not too hard, anyways. It would have been nice if you said yes, but hey. Who am I to argue?”
Suna’s rambling jolts Osamu out of his state of shock, effectively cutting off the stinking mass of overthinking clouding his brain.
“No!”
“So it really is a no.”
“No!”
Suna raises an eyebrow.
“It’s not! I mean sure, I got questions, but of course I wanna date ya, Suna. Who wouldn’t?”
“Up until two seconds ago, it seemed like you wouldn’t.”
“Stop being snarky,” Osamu groans. “Would ya have asked me if it weren’t for…my behavior today?”
“It’s okay, Osamu, just call it what it is. You’ve been having a meltdown all day over a holiday greeting.”
Osamu leans over and pinches him in his side for the teasing, huffing in annoyance. Suna rubs his side with a pout.
“Honestly, I probably wouldn’t have asked you. But that’s only because I liked what we already had going on. Although, it is nice to make things official so maybe I would have forced you to ask.”
“It’s just…I don’t know, I didn’t realize I could have asked. I’ve been pining like a loser all these years.”
“You’re such a Miya,” Suna laughs. “In my head, we’ve been unofficially dating since at least second year.”
“Second year?! And ya didn’t think to tell me,” Osamu frowns.
“You seemed like you were on board!” Suna defends. “Plus I said unofficially. I know a fake date from a real date, okay.”
He rubs at his forehead, wrinkling the skin and probably leaving a red mark, but he doesn’t care much for appearences right now. He’s stressed. Osamu can’t tell if it’s a good stress or a bad stress yet, but he would really appreciate not being stressed out right now.
“Suna.” Osamu puts his hands on his face and aggressively presses down, squishing his nose and blocking everything around him out. Once more, for good measure. Then a slap or two to the cheeks to really ground himself. “ Rin . Wouldn’t ya rather go on a real date than a bunch of fake dates? Why settle for unofficially dating when we could just y'know. Officially date?”
“And miss the chance to see you suffer? Never,” Suna snickers, although his smug expression changes very quickly once Osamu swings one of the shopping bags towards him and nails him in the gut.
“Now it’s my turn to watch you suffer. Since you’re so satisfied with these fake dates, keep goin’ on ‘em!”
“I mean I’m going on them with you,” he shrugs, “so I’m still happy. You’re the one who had a breakdown over-"
“Stop!” Osamu motions to swing at him again, and Suna gets the signal to stop talking. “Cheesy bastard.”
“Yup,” Suna pops the ‘p’. “Sooo. Today is Valentine’s Day. Wanna watch couples and see how many break up?”
“You're so weird.” Osamu reaches to grab Suna’s wrist, pulling him forward. "I got my bet on four." Suna shifts away to interlock their arms instead, their shoulders pressed close together and he feels sly fingers sneaking into his coat pocket.
“Have a little more faith, ‘Samu. I’m betting on at least seven breakups.”
As they settle on one of the public benches in front of one of the fancy apartment buildings, Osamu takes a minute to reflect, mianly to distract himself from how cold his ass is. This Valentine's Day was absolutely atrocious. He spent the majority of it losing his mind, in front of the one person he could have lived without embarassing himself in front of. But that meltdown also got him a boyfriend, so that speaks to just how good of a catch Osamu really is. Or, more realistically, it says a lot about Suna's tastes in men. Not that Osamu's complaining. A woman storms out of the apartment builidng, her heels clacking on the sidewalk, and a man struggles with the door in an effort to chase after her. He trips as he runs past their bench, stumbling as she continues to ignore his calls. Osamu winces.
"I'm winning the bet, by the way," Suna says, still staring after the couple, who have begun to yell at each other loud enough that Osamu could make out what they're saying despite them being near the end of the block.
"That's the first couple," Osamu mumbles, smiling at the back of his boyfriend's head. "Plus we don't know if they're breaking up."
"Okay, but I'm still winning."
"Okay, Rin. Whatever you say. Happy Valentine's Day, by the way."
"You finally said it." Suna turns to him with a bright grin on his face, all teeth and eye wrinkles. Happy Valentine's Day, loser."