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“That looks fuckin’ disgusting.”
Osamu doesn’t look up from the bowl he’s folding kewpie into. He doesn’t have to; the shop is empty, since it’s just an hour or so before opening, except for himself and…
“You don’t know the first thing about cooking, Atsumu.”
“But I know everything there is about eating,” Atsumu retorts around the mouthful of rice that’s not large enough to shut him up, “and I wouldn’t eat that.”
You don’t have to, Osamu grumbles in his head. Somewhere along the line, years ago, he gave up trying to prove his point to Atsumu. The blonde twin is too stubborn, anyway, his ego-inflated skull too thick to hear anything other than volleyballs rattling around where his brain should be.
And that’s why Osamu loves his brother.
He turns, grabs a spoon, and scoops a perfect little circle of egg salad right on top of a thick handful of onigiri rice. He watches Atsumu’s face while he does, and chortles in satisfaction when his twin scrunches his nose.
“Disgusting,” he hears, before Atsumu drowns his complaints with a mouthful of tuna.
Egg salad onigiri isn’t even that unconventional, as far as things are concerned. It’s not like he’s doing something truly disgusting like… Pickles and mayonnaise, maybe. He wrinkles his own nose at the thought; yeah, that’s a pretty bad one. The egg salad idea started out as a weekly special because Kita’s chickens laid way too many eggs one month (how does that even happen?). Osamu’s a businessman; he knows he shouldn’t turn down dirt-cheap fresh ingredients.
And then she came in for lunch. He was struck by the pale blonde ponytail, windswept from the early spring breeze, and wide, wonder-filled eyes that read through the whiteboard of daily offerings. She lit up when she saw egg salad onigiri, and he might admit that he put a little extra care into the first meal he ever made for her.
Then he just… Kept it on the menu permanently, once he figured out that she’d keep coming back to him, no, the store if he had it.
So what if he’s down bad? So what if he’s doing a stupid romantic thing for a girl whose name he doesn’t even know? So what? It makes her happy. It makes him happy. And that’s all there is to it.
The handsome man behind the onigiri counter turns and reaches for something the moment Hitoka walks into the shop. It’s cool, but not cold; clean, but not sterile. It’s gray and white, maybe a little Instagram-industrial, with pops of dark red here and there. Half the space is taken up by tables set close together.
By the time she gets to the counter, the man is leaning on his forearm with a neatly wrapped order in front of him. The thick wax paper is white, too, with little red cartoon onigiri on it, and taped with a neat piece of black tape.
When she smiles at him, he smiles back. Her heart stutters in her chest, and she thinks to herself that he’s one of the prettiest people she’s ever seen. Long eyelashes. A swoop of gray-brown hair spilling from the front of his cap. Dark, thoughtful eyes.
Which blink at her, expectantly. Right. She has to pay him, not ogle him. She is on a timed lunch break, after all, and as much of a snack as this man looks like—
No, Hitoka. Just no.
She grabs her credit card from her wallet and hands it to him, but he just shakes his head at her. He doesn’t move more than that, doesn’t lean away from her, doesn’t get up from resting on his arm. His lips twitch, though, and he gives her a soft smile.
“Don’t worry about it this time,” he says. “It’s… A loyalty thing.”
She looks between him and the onigiri, not trusting his words because even he sounds unsure, and it’s his shop. But he nods at the little package, gesturing toward her with his chin, and his smile broadens when she takes it.
“I guess I have been coming in here often, huh?”
“Every day for the last five weeks.”
She lets out a breathy laugh. His eyes widen a centimeter, then return to their usual size with a few nervous blinks.
“Are you counting, Miya-san?”
He presses his tongue to the inside of his cheek, looking like he’s thinking something over while he stares at her. It’s not uncomfortable; she doesn’t dislike having his gaze on her. She feels her cheeks warm, but it’s a good warmth, one that wraps around her like a blanket. A hug, maybe.
“Yeah,” he says, suddenly bold. She fiddles with the tape on the package of onigiri, sticking and unsticking its edge against the side of her thumb. She swallows and glances around the shop; people don’t usually stick around for lunch, preferring instead to bring their meal back to their offices or to a park or something.
In the empty shop, any seat would be hers for the taking. So, she takes the counter, shimmying up onto the barstool closest to where Miya-san works.
He looks stunned, but recovers quickly, masking any nerves with an easy smile. He doesn’t look at her, though, and something whispers in her head that eye contact would undo him (she may need to try that).
She lets the tape stick to her thumb, grabs the other side with her forefinger, and unwraps a pair of egg salad onigiri.
Finally, he lifts from his bent position (she wonders if his waist hurts at this point) and moves for the sink. Running water and the air conditioning are the only sounds as she takes her first bite of lunch, watching him take three-and-a-half steps toward her, toward his prep counter. Rice fills his hands, and she thinks it’s a little funny that he’s making more onigiri when the to-go case by the register is already full.
Another day, another afternoon in the first opening hours of Onigiri Miya, and Osamu’s already dealing with a pounding headache. He channels the pain into his chopping hand, effectively pulverizing hard boiled eggs into a yolk-y pulp. He’s been trying to ignore Atsumu for almost forty-five minutes, but even he has his limits.
“Will ya shut up?” he barks, accent cutting into his words. The sharpness of his tone makes Atsumu quiet down for all of ten seconds before he starts in again.
“But Omi-Omi wouldn’t even talk to me after practice yesterday; I know it’s not that my sets were garbage, and I even set to him more than Bo-kun, who’s also mad at me now, I think—”
“Atsumu,” Osamu bites, using his twin’s full name, “you’re bothering my customers.”
Said customer, blonde ponytail undone, now falling like a veil around her shoulders, quickly shakes her head. “I like volleyball stories.”
Osamu sighs, but the sound is drowned out by Atsumu’s holler. “See, Hitoka-chan thinks I’m great!”
Still, he doesn’t regret introducing Atsumu to his new friend, who ends up speedily adopted by the pro volleyball player. Hitoka is both the twins’ friend now, but Osamu still feels protective of her—she was his friend first, that’s all.
“Don’t put words in her mouth.”
“I think he’s fine!”
“Fine?!”
Onigiri long finished, Hitoka still sits at the restaurant’s counter—it’s her day off, but she just can’t break the habit of visiting him for lunch. It’s been months, so it’s a tradition now, and she finds comfort in traditions, things you do because they have meaning to you.
But, while she talks about work for the nth time, while she goes on about her latest project that he’s so proud of her for taking on (not that he’ll ever admit it), he keeps zoning in and out. He doesn’t mean to, and it isn’t even that he’s more focused on making onigiri than he is on what she’s saying.
Usually, it’s the opposite.
But this time, he just keeps… Looking at her. Getting lost in the way her eyes glitter while she theorizes through a problem. Her hair falls so softly down the sides of her face when it’s tied back like this, even in the fall. He even thinks she’s prettier in the fall, with red leaves reflecting off of golden hair, looking almost as bright as her lips, which…
Make him lose total and complete control over himself. In the most shameful way possible.
Osamu leans over the counter and presses a kiss against those apple-red lips. It ends as soon as it started; he pulls away in an instant as if her mouth just burned him. When he draws back, he stares at her with wide eyes, stupefied that he just did that.
She looks at him as if he’s just insulted her, her entire family, all of her ancestors, and the neighbor’s cat. Her hand flies up to her mouth, fingers ghosting along her bottom lip.
“I can’t believe you just did that.”
He steps backwards until his back hits the tile wall behind him; he slumps, just a little, but he doesn’t run, doesn’t look away from her. He wasn’t raised as a coward, and he thought he was raised to be respectful and have courage until, well, right now.
“I am so sorry,” he says after swallowing a mouthful of bile. It comes right back up, collecting as a lump in his throat that makes breathing difficult. His hands go clammy, and he has to flex his fingers to keep them from going numb altogether. He knows he messed up. He knows he probably just scared the ever-loving-hell out of his friend. He knows that she probably won’t ever visit the shop again, let alone call him a friend, because that was just way too creepy; what the fuck, ‘Samu?
“I mean, we haven’t even— You— I don’t even know if you can make anything other than onigiri!”
Wait. Pause. Hold on.
“What?”
Osamu gapes at her. Suddenly, his blood feels electric, and he pushes himself off the wall to plant his shaking hands firmly on the counter. “You’re mad that I kissed you because— Because I’ve never made you anything other than onigiri?”
She reels back like a wave returning to sea. Behind her hand, her mouth turns into a frown, and he notices a little tremble to her lips that makes him remind himself to calm down; this isn’t about him.
“I didn’t say I was mad you kissed me,” she murmurs, looking away. “I just think that, maybe, we should go on some real dates. Ones that aren’t in the restaurant that you own.”
He blinks. Twice, three times. He feels gears turning in his head until everything clicks and his head begins to nod. Dates. Yeah, he can do dates. Dates with Yachi Hitoka. The really pretty advertising agency worker who he’s been making lunch for every day for the last six months. Yes. Of course.
His heart beats so hard in his chest that he thinks he’s going to die.
Somewhere in the thick of things, she acquires a MSBY jersey with the number 13 on it. Osamu tells her that he’s happy when it’s just them, but as soon as Atsumu sees it from the court during an actual game, well…
“My jersey? ‘Samu’s girlfriend is in my jersey?” The setter, he-who-somehow-went-pro, the lesser Miya—all but tackles Hitoka when he sees her with Osamu after their home game against Raijin.
“It’s because you look like me, Scrub,” he huffs, peeling his clingy beast of a brother off of his (has she always been this tiny?) girlfriend.
“It’s because we’re family,” she corrects, breathless from having all the air squeezed out of her by a (thankfully) freshly showered Atsumu.
Who is now staring at her with tears in his eyes, one hand on her shoulder, and the other on Osamu’s.
“You guys are the best. Really, really the best.”
Osamu doesn’t have the energy to bicker anymore, not when his chest feels so warm and full. He still wears his begrudging scowl, still lets his eyebrows knit together; but a hand sneaks behind Hitoka and settles on her waist while Atsumu wails about family in the fluorescent-lit halls within the Jackals’ home stadium.
They’re family, he thinks. His throat closes up and it feels like there are butterflies in his chest; he sniffles a deep breath that makes Hitoka look up at him instead of Atsumu, who’s already babbling nonsense. When she smiles at his own teary eyes, he drags her and his brother into his arms for a long, long hug.
Hitoka’s kitchen counter isn’t exactly a restaurant prep counter, and she doesn’t have every ingredient under the sun, but this’ll do. She has eggs, rice, all the right condiments (though they’re just the cheap brands; he’ll have to get a set of good sauces for her the next time he places an order). Bowls of the right sizes, even a few different types of knives.
Thank the gods omurice is easy to make.
“Osamu?”
He turns down the heat, looks over his shoulder, and smiles at the sight of her: plush yellow pajamas (a matching set, because of course it is) cling to her hips, her shoulders in ways he’s started to cling to her. She still looks tired, blinking sleep from her eyes while she pads toward the cabinet with the coffee cups.
He reaches an arm out to her (and realizes the kitchen is only slightly wider than his wingspan), catches her in the crook of his elbow, and pulls her against his side. His nose finds the top of her head, burying itself in the smell of peaches and vanilla and her.
“Mornin’ darlin’,” he murmurs. She giggles; he feels it in his fingertips, his bicep, his chest. He kisses her hairline, then reaches for her chin to tilt her head up and kiss her lips.
“You’re shirtless,” she points out, wriggling out of his grasp and over to the coffee maker.
He turns the heat back up, gently flips the eggs over. There’s a smile on his lips. It’s easy, lazy, as if it’s always been there and always will be.
“Have been since last night, remember?” He teases, laughing until he feels an elbow dig into his side.
Hitoka makes him take off the blazer when he goes all the way up to Sendai with her to meet her mother. This whole thing feels strange to him, from the uncomfortable bubble in his stomach to the way that she flits around the hotel room in search of something to occupy herself with. He thinks he’s doing something wrong, feels how big of a deal this is, but he’s so dumbfounded that he just watches her.
She does her hair. Does her makeup. Touches up both. Steams her dress. Puts it on. Tries four different pairs of earrings with it. She fiddles with his jacket. Tells him to take it off. Currently, she’s stuck on if he should be wearing a tie which, mind you, he didn’t even bring with him.
She didn’t need his coaching when she came to his grandmother’s house and met all the Miyas at once.
Naturally, they love her. Everyone with eyes loves her, but Osamu feels the need to prove himself to Yachi Madoka more than he’s ever felt that need before. This is exactly why he can’t work for anyone but himself, he thinks; this whole ordeal feels like a job interview from hell.
He remembers when his mother said “there’s always room for more Miyas” and shot him the when are you getting married? look that used to make his skin crawl. Lately, that look’s been making him blush and cling tighter to Hitoka’s hand.
“It’s going to be fine,” she whispers to him, hands smoothing over his twice-steamed dress shirt. They have an hour before dinner with her mom, and she’s been fiddling with his shirt’s buttons for the last few minutes—longer than anyone would, even if they actually cared about buttons.
He catches one of her hands in his. Her fingers tremble in between his.
“What’s going on?”
She looks down, suddenly more interested in the red hotel carpet than she is in buttons.
“My mom and I,” she starts, “we’re not like your family.”
He doesn’t say anything. He knows that when she’s being vague, she needs space to organize her thoughts, choose her words, and convince herself to let them out. At this point, he’s learned not to smother her—she’ll come to him. So he waits, watches, rubs the back of her hand with his thumb.
“Close.”
So that’s why she put off a trip to Sendai over and over again—why she never offered to let him meet her family until they were closer to their upcoming two-year anniversary than they are to their long-past one year. He wonders if a part of him should have known.
Osamu backs up in slow, small steps, hand still locked with hers, until his calves hit the bed. He sits, pulls her with him, and seats her in his lap; his other hand finds her hair and brushes it away from her face. He’s careful not to mess anything up after she spent so long in the bathroom and sprayed so much stuff in it.
He noses her jaw and places a kiss on her neck. She whines, complaining, so he stops, but then she loops her arms around his shoulders and pulls him close. He’s a lifeline, a tether. He gives her waist a squeeze.
“Dinner’s a controlled environment, you know? She can’t say anything too mean or weird in public, and once the bill’s paid, we can all go home.”
She mentioned the lonely upbringing before, after he caught her staring at him and Atsumu wistfully while they were bickering. All the mentions of family, all the love she has for his mother, his grandmother, all of it makes perfect sense when he realizes that she’s been comparing her family to his.
“Then it’s a good thing you have a pack of Miyas that love you back home.”
Her mouth falters, quivering at their edges. A whimper builds in her throat, but she drowns the sound with a sudden kiss to his lips.
“Osamu, do you want children?”
The question makes him drop the pan he’s washing into the sink with a clatter. Hitoka’s behind him, sitting cross-legged in his desk chair while she churns out a project for work.
Or, well, that’s what he thought she was doing.
He clears his throat while his hands dive into the soapy water for the pan. His scrubbing is less purposeful because, now, his thoughts are elsewhere.
“Someone’s got to take over the restaurant when I’m senile.”
Hitoka tuts behind him. The typing stops, and he moves the sponge slowly, waiting. His lips form a thin line; it feels like they’re circling each other, both waiting for the other to make the next move.
“I’m serious,” she says.
“So am I,” he counters.
He looks over his shoulder and meets a stern look he’s only seen her wear when she’s huffing at Atsumu. When she’s nagging him about doing laundry on time. When she’s really, honest-to-goodness determined about something.
Fuck, he thinks; she’s unbearably hot like this.
His jaw clenches.
“Osamu.”
“Hitoka,” he echoes.
“Do you want children—”
He opens his mouth to reply, I already answered that question, woman, is that not good enough for you, when she keeps going.
“—with me?”
His ears fill with fuzz. His tongue feels swollen in his mouth. The pan drops into the sink again. Hitoka looks at him expectantly (oh gods), and his mind snaps to numbers.
First of all, can his income support a pregnant wife?
Second of all, can he afford to pay for college?
Third of all, “What if it’s twins?”
Hitoka ends up, officially, with the family she’s always dreamed of in December, two years (almost three) after meeting Osamu.
They’re married in a quiet, all-respects-paid-to-our-religious elders ceremony. The event at the family shrine precedes a reception that’s just the opposite: Atsumu (her brother-in-law!) ends up dancing on a table, tie around his forehead. Sakusa, who finally agreed to date him, ends up fireman-carrying him back to their hotel room, and Suna gets the whole thing on a cellphone video that she’s going to ask for later.
She can’t stop admiring the new ring on her finger, a simple white band inlaid with tiny diamonds that she’s certain Mrs. Miya helped pay for (because of course your favorite child is your daughter-in-law when all you have for biological children are Atsumu and Osamu). She also can’t stop admiring the man who gave it to her, who doesn’t stop holding her hand all night long.
He catches her eye every so often. Smiles at her when he notices that she’s staring at him.
They’re as hopelessly in love today as they were on the day they met. The only difference is that they’re both aware of it now.
The newly wedded Miya Osamu and Miya Hitoka escape their own party the moment when neither alcohol nor coffee can get her out of her chair and onto the dance floor. She’s tired, exhausted, never wants to see or attend a party ever again after hosting the party of the century.
“I love you,” she murmurs, back against the elevator wall, chest rising and falling while adrenaline leaves her system.
When they reach their floor, Osamu scoops her into his arms—bridal style, because she deserves the best, unlike his animal of a brother—and sweeps her through the hall, not setting her down until he reaches their hotel room. He kisses her feverishly, like a starving man, mumbling about “giving her a set of twins” while precise, strong fingers undo each button along her spine.
They do not have a honeymoon baby.
But, two (and a half!) years later, a new pair of Miya twins finally enters the world. They’re pink, and screaming, and healthy; it’s the reward for a difficult pregnancy involving nausea and bed rest and only being able to stomach food that’s “bland and sad.”
Hitoka feels whole in a way she never thought possible, and though she blames the hormones, she knows that this is simply a part of her now. She never thought she would be this way, never thought this would be a part of her story, but life has a funny way of turning little things, like moments between strangers, into something that defines you.
She is Mom. Mother to two beautiful, perfect, identical little girls that she’s going to love in ways her own mother didn’t love her. They’ll have a father, for starters; parents who lead by example when it comes to how to give and receive love.
And uncles, by blood, by marriage, and by the bonds of friendship. And grandparents. Even a great-grandmother, since Osamu’s grandmother swore the day she found out Hitoka was pregnant that she will be there to meet that baby so help her.
Atsumu is the first one that gets to meet the girls. He visits their little home the moment Hitoka says she can handle guests. The place is admittedly a mess, but Osamu and Hitoka are dealing with two newborns at once, so Atsumu doesn’t bat an eye. He’s a good uncle, the best uncle, and he brings two arms full of gifts that are just going to add to the chaos anyway.
There are flowers for her, a double bouquet of pink carnations. There are bags of toys and clothes for the babies, all of them wrapped in gold, but the gifts that make Hitoka cry on her husband’s shoulder are the baby-size MSBY onesies: Miya #13, and Miya #15.
Just like Hitoka, Kiyoomi never found purpose in a family name until he married into the Miya clan.
She, with a sleeping infant in each arm, settles on the sofa, legs sore and eyes tired. She rests her head on its back and closes her eyes, smiling upwards at nothing at all.
Atsumu and Osamu hover in the kitchen. They’re bickering, as they always do, but Osamu speaks in whispered snaps, while Atsumu quietly babbles in between literal sobs. Hitoka hears things like “outnumbered” and “perfect little angels” and “I can’t believe you made her give birth twice in one day; worst husband ever, am I right?”
Then, the cushion beside her dips, and she opens an eye. Kiyoomi.
He’s masked and shies away from touching the girls, but Hitoka doesn’t mind. She knows all of his intricacies by now; he’s felt like family to her long before he and Atsumu traded their own rings.
“Are you tired?” he murmurs, watching her with a mix of fascination and empathy.
She chuckles, “I think I’ll be tired for the rest of my life.”
“If you need anything, will you call us?” Hitoka smiles at him, and his eyes crinkle so she knows he’s smiling back. Kiyoomi does that, smiles with his eyes instead of his lips, because he’s learned the little ways he’s most comfortable showing emotions.
Miyas have that effect on people: opening them right up to the world, showing them how to love, et cetera.
“We’re the closest out of everyone who’d help out,” he continues, always tethered to logic in his thinking. But, Hitoka knows in her newly minted mother’s heart that there’s something else; that Kiyoomi wants to be around his nieces, too.
“Omi,” comes a whine from afar. It sounds drenched in tears, much like her poor husband’s shirt. “Don’t you want one?”
Beside her, Kiyoomi blinks. It’s slow, as if he’s processing every word.
“Unfortunately, we can’t keep our adorable nieces. Your brother and sister-in-law would be mad at us—”
“Don’t be dense!”
Miya Osamu is a doting husband and a dutiful father. He loves with his entire heart, and bakes that love into everything he does. 4 A.M. feedings; a complete, healthy breakfast for his wife at 6 A.M.; regularly calling his mother and grandmother to keep them updated.
He has one daughter over his shoulder somewhere in the day’s earliest hours, before sunrise. Hitoka woke up at the same time he did, both of them over-sensitive to any noise from the fancy baby monitor he set up, but he lulled her back to sleep with a kiss on the forehead and a “I’ll handle it.”
She does—did—so much that he feels it’s only right for him to shoulder whatever he can. And, as a matter of fact, he adores alone time with his daughters.
His daughters.
He wonders when that’ll finally sink in. Probably when he gets a pair of college tuition bills.
His lips find the crown of his daughter’s head, and he closes his eyes. He feels whole, complete, at peace; one with the world in a way he never imagined possible.
From a place deep in his memory, a song comes to his lips. As the words flow from his mind to the air, he remembers: his mother used to sing this to him and Atsumu. Eventually, only he would listen; there was a point, early in their childhood, when Atsumu and Osamu were more different than they are now. Years and years ago, Atsumu, the ringleader, used to toddle off into the backyard, and Osamu, the gentler twin, would cry because his brother didn’t want to play with him.
And then, his mother would comfort him with a song. This song.
“You’re crying.”
He stops, looks at the girls’ bedroom door and sees another mother, another source of comfort and home that he can’t imagine himself without.
“You should be asleep, darlin’.”
Hitoka smiles at him with a knowing look in spite of the dark circles around her eyes. She reaches out, and when he moves to hand her their daughter, she swoops under his arms to hug him around the waist instead. They both sigh and sway together, counting the seconds until their daughter’s squirming settles into peaceful sleep.
Once she’s back in her crib, Hitoka places a hand on Osamu’s face, strokes a thumb underneath his eye and along his cheekbone. He didn’t realize that he was crying, truth be told; it just happened, but he knows that the tears have stopped now. They stick to his face, salty and hard, but not painful.
Osamu hasn’t cried a sad tear in years.
“Let me make you something to eat,” he murmurs while peeling Hitoka off of him. She nods; hunger is a constant companion while she’s breastfeeding two babies at once, but the gods gave her a spectacular cook for a husband. Her hand in his, she lets him lead her to their kitchen, seat her at the counter, and grab a few hard boiled eggs from the fridge.
“I think I remember you liking egg salad onigiri,” he chuckles, looking bashfully at her through his eyelashes. “Is that right?”
She smiles. Sleep pulls at the corners of her eyes, and she’s still the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen. She always, always will be.
“That’s right.”
So, that’s what he makes: a pair of plump, triangular onigiri full of a mixture someone once called disgusting before it led Osamu—and Hitoka—to the love they deserve.
A plate, a kiss, a whispered “I love you” and its echo, “I love you, too.” In a moment, this meal is gone, but it’s one of thousands, or maybe millions, that Osamu finds his life’s purpose in making.