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“If you don’t pay a visit to your ancestor’s shrine, their ghosts will bring terrible luck on you,” their grandmother had scolded them once, and so he and Osamu grudgingly followed her to the family grave, paying ingenuine respects to dead relatives they never met. A cold wind rippled through his shirt, and Atsumu hurriedly placed the tangerine in his hands down on the plate of offerings, convinced that the spirits were real after all and perhaps condemning his ignorance at this very moment.
“If you don’t finish your rice, the gods of the harvest will curse you for the rest of your lives,” their mother had berated them once, and so Atsumu and Osamu scraped the last grains of rice into their mouths, stomachs bursting from overconsuming snacks earlier.
“Stay up too late and the gods will curse you with insomnia.” “The deities are always watching you.” “Be nice to others, or a wart will grow on your face.”
With such repetitive and unoriginal words, only a fool would be unable to identify them as lies. But the reason why adults attach the gods to such threats is because children are afraid of omnipotent powers more so than the immediate consequences.
And Atsumu, now completely disregarding the existence of fabled spirits, fails to care much about the implications of his actions. He has volleyball, and while volleyball is a team sport, it doesn’t matter as long as his sets are perfect every time. Yet—
“Everyone hates you,” Osamu informed him once, mouth full of rice and a bitten onigiri in his hands.
Atsumu does have some self awareness to know that much.
“So?” He has volleyball. He has Osamu—who as his twin, is obligated to stick by his side and take all his bullshit.
Atsumu is not a likable person by all means. He insults his fans, he insults his spikers more, he’s full of himself, and he looks down on others without the same passion as him. For instance—
“‘Tsumu you piece of shit, stop scaring the first years off the team!” Osamu kicks him in the school locker room after practice, and Atsumu winces from the pain.
“If they’re not gonna practice their hardest, then they don’t deserve to be on the team!” Atsumu yells back. “Why do they get to slack off an’ write some pretty words on their resume—”
“Atsumu,” Kita says from the door. Kita, who is everything Atsumu isn’t—responsible, mature, respectful—
“Everybody starts off somewhere,” Kita is saying. “I wouldn't believe you if you said you had your current drive for volleyball the moment you saw a volleyball net. Passion is something built upon memories, wins and losses, accumulated practice.”
Atsumu stays silent, and he focuses more on the frustration of invoking Kita’s disapproval more than his words.
“It’s unfair to dismiss someone as unworthy when they’ve just mustered up the courage to try something new.”
Atsumu apologizes to the first year, who returns to practice again and ultimately quits after finding himself unable to handle Atsumu’s intensity in every set. Which showed that he was never meant to stay on the team anyways, Atsumu thinks. They keep winning their games in the Inter-High, without the no-name first year, and Atsumu fully cements Inarizaki as a powerhouse school.
But none of that matters now. Who needs memories? Atsumu thinks, setting the ball to Osamu as they replicate Karasuno’s first years’ quick attack. Clinging on to yesterday’s losses will do them no good, and it’s not like wins from a year ago are guaranteed again.
“The world is constantly changing,” his grandmother had told him once, forming the mochi dough into firm, round balls in preparation for the new year’s festival. Atsumu snuck one off the plate and split it with Osamu underneath the table.
“You two should always look forward. The past is a time when we didn’t know better. The future is a brighter place, yet still far out of reach.
“When you’re upset or frustrated at the world, ask yourself this,” their grandmother said, turning to look at them. “What can I do right now?”
Atsumu sets a quick to Osamu, who cleanly spikes it over the net deep into the opponent’s court.
Who needs memories of the past? Atsumu thinks, eyes gleaming, as Karasuno watches the ball richot off the floor. He is learning something new everyday.
They lose, in the first game of Atsumu’s second Spring High. It was Kita’s first and only Spring tournament as a regular, and when he graduates, Atsumu becomes the captain. The world goes on, yet—
“The hell yer mean yer not continuing volleyball!” Atsumu shouts, grabbing the collar of his twin.
“Aw hell, ‘Tsumu, give it a rest!” Osamu flings his hands off and shoots back a glare. “I said what I said! I’m quittin’ volleyball after high school, and if yer have a problem, it ain’t mine!”
“The fuck, ‘Samu!”
“Yer acting like I’ve shattered yer dreams! I’m not telling you to quit volleyball am I?” And Atsumu wants to keep shouting because it wasn’t supposed to be like this, they were supposed to conquer the world together, and so he deals with it the only way he knows how.
“Fuck you, ‘Samu! When we’re old men, I’ll be the happier one! I’ll be the one to say I led a better life, and when yer on your deathbed, you’ll cry to me about how miserable and pathetic you are!”
“So it’s a competition now, huh?! Bring it on!”
Like hell Atsumu was going to lose to Osamu. And this is what spurs him as he becomes the Black Jackals’ starting setter, this is what spurs him as he goes to practice everyday with a team without his brother.
It’s not like Osamu ever promised Atsumu to never leave his side. That was too cringey to say, even between twin brothers. But as twins, Atsumu had thought it was a given that wherever they went, it would be the same path.
“You’re lucky to have each other,” their father had told them. “Whatever challenges you face, the other will always be there to help you overcome it.” And Atsumu had oooh’ed because that seemed like a pretty sweet hand fate had dealt him—having a permanent ally for life. The world goes on anyway.
On a professional volleyball team where everyone was bound to be good, people were less forgiving of each other, less passive, less of a pushover, and suddenly Atsumu had to maintain things like boundaries and had to be aware of limits of provocation.
Even Atsumu was self-conscious enough to restrain himself from being a straight up asshole to the foreigner senpais on MSBY, and to Meian, the captain who was half a decade his senior.
“Hey hey hey, ‘Tsum ‘Tsum, I’m glad we’re on the same team!” Bokuto tells him with a slap on the back after he does a setter dump in a game.
“Ah thanks,” Atsumu replies, and the whistle blows.
Somewhere along the way, Atsumu had lost the bite in his plays. Somewhere along the way, he had started to hold back on a team that didn’t have Osamu to give him wake-up slaps every so often.
Somewhere along the way, he’d lost his intensity with volleyball.
“The fuck are you doing,” Sakusa says once, after he’d apologized for a bad set.
“What—”
“You don’t mess up your sets and you apologize even less,” Sakusa continues. “Are you off your game today?”
And Atsumu winces at the memory of him bitching to his twin for having an off-day once. “I’m flattered yer think I’m perfect, Omi Omi-kun, but some days I’m gonna be off my game and that’s all there is to it.”
It was what Osamu told him long ago.
“Miya, are you ill?” Sakusa snarks later still, as they slurp up their ramen at a joint, having both decided to forgo the team dinner. “The fuck was that earlier? You admitting you’re anything less than perfect?”
Atsumu finishes the broth and slams his bowl down. “Omi-kun,” he begins, annoyed. “I did not come here for you to bitch about me to my face.”
“Anyone who has come within a meter of you in high school can tell you’re playing nice,” Sakusa says, ignoring him. “What, are you feeling lost without your brother? Is volleyball not fun anymore? Scared the new team can’t deal with your shitty personality?”
And Atsumu is offended that the first time he’s heard Sakusa talk so much, it is to diss him.
“Get over it soon, Miya. I’m not hitting your weak-ass toss.” Sakusa calls for the bill, leaving Atsumu to stare at his bowl mulishly.
“Hey, ‘Samu,” Atsumu says one day, waiting for Osamu to finish making his tuna onigiri. “Why’d you quit volleyball?”
“Fuck’s sake, ‘Sumu we’ve been over this,” Osamu says, patting the rice down. “Sometimes, things come to you in the middle of the night and you’re like, damn, I want to spend the rest of my life doin’ this. And you chose volleyball, didn’t you?”
Atsumu chews on his tuna onigiri and supposes yes, he did choose volleyball. Was it the wrong choice? He feels no closer to his teammates than he did three months ago at tryouts.
“Weren’t yer the one who said you’d be leading the happier life?” Osamu says. “At the rate you keep comin’ in my store all mopey and depressed, I think this will be an easy win.”
“Shut up,” Atsumu says around a mouthful of tuna. “I haven’t even started.”
It started three months ago when Atsumu tried out for the Black Jackals, and Osamu got his license to sell onigiri.
“Remember our school’s banner, ‘Tsumu? The past is over, and all you’ve got to look forward to now is our bet.”
Who needs memories, Atsumu thinks, stepping into the court for Monday practice. What’s the use of clinging to memories of playing in Inarizaki with his brother?
“Bokkun, your pretty setter isn’t here to console you anymore,” Atsumu says during their water break. “If you get depressed like that again during a real match, I’ll stop tossing to you. Have fun playing defense.”
Setters aren’t meant to be goody two shoes. They’re meant to lead and to call out their spikers’ mistakes, to hone them into weapons. Atsumu is bossy and has a mean edge and a sharper set.
“Omi omi-kun, you’re faster than that,” Atsumu says, and he has a brighter glint in his eyes.
Sakusa swipes his towel from Atsumu’s hand. “You’ve gotten even more annoying, Miya.”
“Man, Atsumu really isn’t cutting back on his critique,” Inuaki says. “I’m sure glad as hell I’m not a spiker, especially ever since he lost his filter.”
Meian slaps the libero on the back, and Inuaki winces from the impact. “Your mindset’s all wrong—you should be saying, ‘I’m so glad Atsumu’s no longer holding back!’ If you were on a really good team back in highschool, you’d know that a team only gets stronger by butting heads and being open!”
Before players are teammates in a match, they are each other’s rivals in practice.
Inuaki lets out a laugh. “But of course.”
“Gotten over yourself?” Osamu asks him with a smug look the next time Atsumu comes over after practice. Atsumu bites into his tuna onigiri with fervor in lieu of a response.
There are no gods to strike lightning on Atsumu when he messes up, and Osamu is not constantly by his side every waking hour of the day, yet the world goes on just the same.
Atsumu gets up, plays volleyball, gets into a slump, talks to Osamu, makes the national team, plays in the Olympics, gets into a slump, talks to Osamu, and the world goes on.
And there are no gods to strike him with lightning when he messes up.