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Tokyo was different.
When he had made his first big move had been when he had gone from a small town in the countryside to a slightly-bigger small town. And from that slightly-bigger small town, it had been to Osaka, which wasn’t quite a town. (Unless you considered the nation’s third most populous city a town.) There was noise, there was food (god, there was so much food), and there was Atsumu.
But once he had a good thing going with Onigiri Miya, he looked for the next step. More than once customers had asked him: “Have you considered opening a Tokyo branch?” to which he would laugh and brush it off with a “We’ve been considering it!”
For somebody with only one location for Onigiri Miya firmly rooted in Osaka, it’d be pretty ballsy to try his hand at opening his second shop in Tokyo, of all places.
So of course he went ahead and did it. Sure, it was a pain in the ass to go through all the paperwork to open a new store in the city. Sure, he knew a total of like five people in the entire city. Sure, he had only been to Tokyo like four times in his life and all of those events had been for volleyball.
Sure, there was no Atsumu.
It took a month to set up everything he needed. He needed tables and chairs for customers, he needed a functioning kitchen, he needed a reliable supplier, he needed to advertise, and most importantly, he needed employees. He moved in to the floor above the shop and it was a mess of boxes he didn’t have the time to unpack and an overflowing bin full of takeout containers he hadn’t thrown out yet.
Tokyo had noise, it had food, it was everything Osaka was and more. Just more without Atsumu.
And out of the millions of residents in the city, a total of nobody was responding to his fucking ads.
He held a grand opening by himself on the first of June and a couple dozen people showed up throughout the day. It was manageable for one person, but he found himself a bit run down from taking orders, serving food, and cleaning tables.
The next few days passed similarly. And the days turned to weeks. He found himself workers in that time, two high schoolers that worked after school and on weekends and one college student that was free most mornings, and paid his bills, dismayed to see the glowering number that came with living in the city. But it was kind of fun. Sure, he had pretty much zero free time with his meager staff to run the store, and also very little sleep, but it was fine! It was totally fine!
It was one in the morning, and things were totally fine.
“Oh GOD FUCKING DAMN IT!” Osamu yelled as the kitchen sink suddenly started overflowing when the faucet practically exploded. Bubbles dribbled over the side of the sink and if his apron wasn’t already wet from doing dishes, he was practically drenched now. He yanked at the faucet handles which did nothing to stop the flowing water and he threw a few more loud expletives at it. Osamu yanked open the cabinet beneath the sink with a scowl as soapy water dripped onto his head.
Rusty pipes greeted him and with all the knowledge of a not-handyman Osamu knelt on the ground and began adjusting whatever knobs he could find as more water began spilling out of the fucking sink.
“Are you still open?”
Osamu jumped at the sudden voice and his head banged against the top of the cabinet harshly.
“FUCK!” He extracted himself from the cabinet. His forehead stung along the hairline from where he bumped against the sink but he ignored it in favor of desperately pulling at the faucet handles again. The water did not stop. Osamu felt like screaming.
“...I’m assuming now is not a good time.”
He turned to the front of the shop. A man stood clutching his bag, staring at the puddle of water on the ground slowly inching towards his loafers. Osamu looked down. He was standing in nearly an inch of water. He looked to the back of the kitchen. It was flooding.
“Shit.”
“Trouble with your pipes?”
Osamu cast a disparaging look towards his sink. His dishes still weren’t washed, but they looked to be drowning at the bottom of the basin.
“May I..?”
He sloshed out of the way and cast an inviting hand. The man set his bag down on one of the tables and took off his jacket, pushing up the sleeves of his button up. He looked to be fresh out of work—odd, considering it was past one in the morning—and was far too tired to be dealing with shit like this.
The man grimaced as he knelt down, getting his slacks wet, and reached into the cabinet. Osamu leaned against the counter and watched him work. He looked vaguely familiar in a way Osamu couldn’t pinpoint (a past customer?) with his dark hair and broad back. His crisp white dress shirt was slowly turning grey from the overflowing water and Osamu grimaced.
He quietly retreated and ran up the stairs, leaving a trail of wet footsteps in his wake and threw open a few boxes until he found his unopened Onigiri Miya shirts.
When he returned, the man was standing up, adjusting his glasses. He turned towards Osamu and he had the most alluring dark sea-green colored eyes Osamu had ever seen. He gave a slight smile and gestured towards the sink. Osamu reached over and like magic the faucet turned off.
“Holy shit you’re a godsend.”
“You should get a plumber to get everything checked out. I just adjusted some of the pipes and tightened a few things.”
“How’d ya even know what to do?”
“I’ve had a few plumbing mishaps before.”
He stared at the sink.
“We closed an hour ago.”
“Oh sorry, I just saw the lights on and assumed… I should go.”
“No! No, ‘m sorry about the mess. Er, oh yeah, you’re soaked. Here, it’s a clean shirt. If ya want you can take a shower upstairs, if you follow the hall it’s the door on the end on the right. It’s a bit of a mess so sorry about that… if ya want to take a shower, of course…”
The man seemed to contemplate the offer for a moment before sloshing through the water and accepting the shirt. “I wouldn’t object to getting cleaned up. I would advise you to do a bit of… tidying yourself.” He gave a pointed look towards the flooded kitchen. Osamu chuckled.
Once his guest/savior/customer had disappeared, Osamu heaved a sigh and loaded the rice cooker, moving it towards an outlet at the front of the shop so that the water wouldn’t disturb it. He began to mop up the mess and finally finished washing those damned dishes that started it all.
He wedged his phone between his ear and his shoulder as he started to take stock of what ingredients that were left over from the day.
“No ‘Tsumu you don’t understand it fuckin’ exploded like that shit would not stop, ” he said, opening the fridge to see if he could cook up anything. “Water all over the place, shit I’m so cold.”
“It’s fuckin’ summer stop complainin’ bout the cold. How’d it get fixed then? Yer incompetent ass definitely didn’t stop that shit.”
“Some guy showed up thinkin’ the shop wasn’t closed yet. He was a godsend honestly, fixing it just like that.”
“So what, you just sent him off after?”
“Fuck no! I’ve got manners unlike you, I sent him upstairs to shower.”
“Hmmm?”
Osamu didn’t not like that tone of voice. He scowled as he inspected a jar of unknown garnish before sticking it back in the refrigerator. He pulled open the freezer and started moving things around. “Shut up. He got all wet fixing those stupid fuckin’ pipes.”
“He got wet, did he?”
“Shut up. I don’t even know his name. ‘Sides, it’s nearly two, ain’t it? Don’tcha have practice tomorrow?”
“I mean yeah, but like it’s not ‘till the afternoon so-”
“Excuse me?”
“FUCK!” he jolted and his phone unlodged itself from his shoulder as he smacked his head against the fridge in an effort to look up. “God, I’ve got to stop doing that. Sorry, give me a moment.”
Osamu reached for his phone and fished it out, pressing it back to his ear.
“Hello?”
“Ah so yer alive! You fucker! Who was that? The guy in yer shower?”
“Bye. ”
Just as the rice finished cooking, the man appeared again, now wearing an Onigiri Miya shirt, slightly damp slacks, and adequately ruined loafers. His glasses were hanging off the front of his shirt, his eyes shifting from a dark blue to a green as he stepped into the kitchen lighting and his hair was adequately fluffy from the shower.
He turned, rubbing his forehead, which he had knocked in the same place as before.
“Oh!”
“What?”
“You’re bleeding.”
“Huh?” He retracted his hand and found it wet with blood. He swore again. The man rushed forwards and pulled back his wrist and Osamu went to touch his forehead again.
“Don’t prod at it,” he scolded, pushing Osamu's hair out of his face. Up close, Osamu could count every one of his eyelashes. His green eyes were squinted at his forehead before he put on his glasses and continued squinting. “It’s not too bad, you just broke the skin and it’s bleeding a lot. Go wash it off at the sink. Careful, you still have a lot of soap in your hair.”
Osamu nodded mutely and awkwardly bent over, sticking his head under the faucet. Behind him he could hear the man tsk and sigh. He ran water until the water ran clear and then he straightened.
“There’s a bit of blood in your freezer.”
“That’s such a health hazard,” he groaned. “I’ll clean it up in a moment.”
“Do you have any bandages?”
“Uh, prob’ly in the cabinet above the fridge. Can you reach?”
“Yes.” He easily stretched and opened the cabinet, finding the shitty med kit he had stuffed in there some weeks before. Osamu squinted and imagined that the man was stretching towards a ball above his head. It clicked.
“Fukurodani setter?”
“Hm? Oh, it’s Akaashi, actually. Akaashi Keiji.”
It took embarrassingly long to realize who the man that had been in his restaurant for the last hour was. Vaguely, Osamu could recall that Akaashi had been one of the many to inquire about a Tokyo Onigiri Miya. And here they were. In Tokyo.
“Ah,” he cleared his throat, “nice to meetcha. I’m Miya Osamu.”
“I know,” Akaashi said simply. He took out a bandaid and put the rest of the kit back in the cabinet. Osamu reached for the bandaid and was pushed away. He leaned back against the counter and stared at the ground as Akaashi peeled away the cover and applied it to his forehead.
He cleared his throat. “Thanks for patchin’ me up, Akaashi-san, I really ‘ppreciate you stayin’ behind an’ helpin’ me. Hah, if you never stopped by I prob’ly woulda drowned by now. Yer hungry, right? I’ll…” Osamu’s words died in his throat. Mid-sentence, Akaashi leaned forward and kissed the top of his head. His eyebrows raised and his mouth fell open.
Akaashi practically jumped away with a similar expression.
“Uh…”
“Oh fuck I am so sorry !” he exclaimed, “I just- you know my old team captain Bokuto-san? The MSBY hitter? Well he used to be really reckless and get hurt all the time and then pout for hours, you know and- and so Konoha-san started doing a stupid thing where he’d ‘kiss the boo-boo better’ and then Bokuto-san started making everybody do it and I’m so so sorry that was so rude of me-”
“It’s! It’s fine! Just, ah, caught me a bit off guard is all,” Osamu let out a strangled chuckle. His face felt hot. Both of them were probably blushing like mortified idiots. The last time somebody had kissed the top of his head he had been 12, when his mother could actually still reach the top of his head.
“I should… go.”
“Wait! No, I’ve got- I’ve got some rice cookin’, yer hungry, right? Well actually the rice finished like 10 minutes ago, but- well, I uh. I could make ya some food?”
Akaashi made some gestures with his hands, mouth forming silent words, before simply nodding and sitting at a table. Osamu watched as he took off his glasses and hid his bright-red face.
He quietly seasoned the rice and started pulling out the containers of leftovers. Through years of practice his hands started filling the rice and molding the rice balls into triangles as his mind wandered. He’s got a man sitting at a table who walked in on him cursing at a sink, of all things, fixed his broken sink, took a shower in his bathroom, watched him curse at a fridge, play doctor to his injured forehead, and then kiss him on said forehead. And now that same man was sitting at a table with his head in his hands in mortification.
He wrapped the last onigiri in nori and set it with the others in a neat line. He lifted the platter and brought it over to the table, setting it down with a quiet thud. The chair screeched unattractively as he pulled it out with his foot.
“Myaa-sam-” there was that nickname that Bokuto had given him, “Again, I’m so so sorry about all of that, it-”
“Nah, it’s all good,” Osamu tried for a smile, cheeks warming again as Akaashi’s tried valiantly to look anywhere but at him. “‘Sides, you practically saved me. Just eat.” He nudged the food towards the other.
Akaashi had an impressive appetite, Osamu discovered. He tried not to stare as he put down rice ball after rice ball but it seemed like if he blinked one would already be gone and Akaashi would already be reaching for another. It only took a few minutes for Akaashi to eat four of them as Osamu slowly nibbled on one, not particularly hungry after everything that had happened.
He glanced towards the clock. It was a bit past two and well past both of their bedtimes. Akaashi seemed to pick up on this too.
“I should get going,” he reached for his bag, “How much do I owe you?”
“Nothin’ at all, on the house since you fixed the sink for me an’ all.”
“Really? No, I insist on paying something, you still need to call a plumber to get your pipes checked out. You have your tetanus shots, right? I don’t trust the rust under there, and you got injured… sorry I’m rambling again.” He looked away and his fingers started twisting together.
“Yeah, I do, but still you don’ have to pay.”
Akaashi ignored him and pulled out his wallet, “I insist.”
“Well, if ya insist then pay with another kiss, hey?”
They stared at each other.
“...I’m sorry.” He cursed his almost non-existent filter. He blamed it entirely on Atsumu, who said anything and everything that came to mind. He blamed Atsumu for letting him move to Tokyo. He blamed Atsumu for everything; it was all his fault. Atsumu should’ve eaten him in the womb.
“...I’ll just go.”
As soon as Akaashi left, Osamu turned and banged his head against the counter.
“Ow shit!” His hand flew to the bandage on his forehead. “Why the fuck did I say that? He’s prob’ly never coming back again.”
He cleaned up the kitchen, snatched his phone from the counter, and ran up the stairs.
It was three in the morning and things were totally fine.
Osamu took a quick shower, finally washing his dish-soapy hair and cursing himself out all the while. He replaced the bandaid on his forehead (though no kiss followed this time). Stepping out of the bathroom, his eyes fell on the white dress shirt sitting in his hamper that he had glanced over when he entered.
Osamu picked up his phone, finding a long string of texts from Atsumu and two from an unknown number.
I asked for your number from Bokuto-san, I hope that’s alright with you
I seem to have left my shirt in your apartment, do you mind if I come back some time?
It was three in the morning and things were totally fine.